Earthday: Thumb Up for Trees

Invite Your Friends to Help - Thumb Up for Trees

I guess it is the day after Earth Day, but it is still Earth Week, I think. Anyway I looked at my "StumbleUpon" tool bar and they have this special deal for Earth Day: Thumb Up for Trees

With every "Thumbs Up" they get, StumbleUpon will plant a tree with help from the National Forest Foundation*. This runs through May 2nd. There are three steps:

1. Register - Register with StumbleUpon and add the tool bar. (If you already have the tool bar you can skip this.)
2. Thumbs-up - "Thumbs-Up" the Thumbs Up for Trees page with the StumbleUpon toolbar
3. Share - Share this page with friends to plant some more. (If you reload the page you can watch the number of trees grow.)

Quoting from the Thumbs Up for Trees page:

Every
day millions of StumbleUpon users discover great web sites and give them a "Thumbs-up". Starting this Earth Day, we want to harness the power of our community and the "Thumbs-up" to plant trees for the National Forest Foundation.

Simply use the StumbleUpon toolbar to thumbs-up this page and, from now through May 2, with every thumbs-up StumbleUpon will plant a tree with help from the National Forest Foundation*. Your thumbs-up means more trees for America's National Forests and more visibility for this cause. Give a "Thumbs-Up for Trees" and spread the word!

* Sponsorship Agreement: During the campaign period StumbleUpon agrees
to donate funds to the National Forest Foundation to plant trees for
each "Thumbs-Up", up to a maximum donation of $25,000. The Campaign is
being conducted by the National Forest Foundation for the following
charitable purpose: to benefit the overall operation of The National
Forest Foundation.

Anyway they have 10.279 Thumbs-Up so far!

Later!

~ Darrell

Surfin' - BibleMap.Org

Flying Over the Bible

Surfing the Web today I came across a site that interested me. I am interested in maps and satellite imagery as well as history and religion.

BibleMap.org (beta) is a page where you can enter a Bible Verse - Book and Chapter - and it will place on a window with a map using Google Maps markers for the locations mentioned in that chapter of the Bible. The markers are linked to the name and specific reference in that chapter as well as other places the place is mentioned.

I looked up a few chapters - there wasn't anything before Genesis 10... funny thing that... Many chapters of course do not have any geographical references while others have a number. Some of the references have a lot of information.

I found the page to be nice and clean with a large space for the Google map window and the interface to be fairly straight forward. They do have a blog, though it is a bit out of date. It took me a few moments to realize that if you navigate away from the window with the search in it to the blog or other windows on the top menu - that you get back by clicking on the main logo or title.

I gave it a thumbs up on "StumbleUpon" though I know it would be more interesting and useful if I had specific chapters I was interested in instead of doing a hit-or-miss stumbling search through the Bible. I recommend it for anyone interested in the Bible and seeing where those Biblical places lie.

http://www.biblemap.org/

Here is what BibleMap.org writes about itself:

BibleMap.org is developed by the duo at He Lives Ministries (HeLives.com). The motivation for developing the site was simple, create a free Bible atlas which harnesses Google maps. We hope this site will be a blessing to you and possibly help make the living book of the Bible more alive in your life. Any questions or comments may be sent to:

contact@biblemap.org

Many people have helped to make this site possible. Thank you David (BibleMapper.com) for so much GPS help. Thank you to the ESV Bible translation (ESV) team for allowing us to use your translation. Thank you Todd (BiblePlaces.com) for your excellent photos. Thank you Donna and Jackie for entering so much useful information. Thank you Joey (joeyandchristy.com) for the logo.

Later!
~ Darrell

Pigeon Soft Cooing Summer Sky

Pigeon Soft Cooing Summer Sky
I see pretty cloud in the sky
They are grey, mauve, cream, and peach.
No not a shimmery sunset in the sky.
It is a clouded afternoon

Not a sunset with bright sky
But subtle with colours of a pigeon
Wind barely stirs broad waves in the sky
Barely a breath on the ground

Pigeon soft cooing summer sky
No rains today though I wonder why
Gentle day with a gentle sky
Not clear, but not storm

Everyone sees a grey summer sky
Worry about the beach or picnic
Gentle calm from this sky
Gentle in the afternoon calm

Calming grey summer sky
Like a blanket far up high
Higher than mountains this sky
Watching us today

DWPenner
© 2007 by Darrell W Penner

Creative Commons License
Some rights reserved. This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.

<><><><><><><><><>

Author's Comments
I wrote this poem looking at a cloud covered sky on a summer's afternoon. I've also placed this on a picture I took of this sky.

Can you be 13 again?

Up To The Pictophone!

Back in 1970 I entered the Calgary Science Fair with a project called "Up to the Pictophone". I wanted to do something to do with electronics and the future. I also wanted to learn more about television and electronics. I am not 100% sure now why I chose the video telephone, but that was my choice.

I never expected to make one, but I researched telephones and how they worked and how televisions worked and had pictures of what they thought the "Pictophone" would look like. All of our phones in the house still had dials and were owned by the telephone company at the time - you weren't even allowed to plug your own equipment into the line. I am mentioning these things just to give an idea of what things were like not so long ago. At that time, we considered long distance calls an expensive extravagance which we only rarely made or received. Very different from today.

I mention this because there are times I realize that I am living in the future I saw when I was 13. It struck me last night as I was sitting in this very same rocking chair with my MacBook on my lap chatting with my friend in the UK. We didn't have our webcams on at the time, but easily could have. But I looked at the screen of my notebook computer and realized that it was doing exactly what that "Pictophone" was supposed to be doing. It also was in a form not too much different in size from that envisioned for the videophone way back in 1970.

Of course, this computer can do much much more than the envisioned Pictophone. This little notebook computer can do much of what the computers of science fiction of the time could do... and it is only the size of a notebook. Mind you I am considering my computer connected to the Internet. Still, the brains are in the box. This computer can understand rudimentary spoken commands as-is. I believe it can understand much more with just a modest bit of added software. It can recite any document it displays at my command. I have had it read to me whole chapters of the novel I am writing - it can really point out weaknesses in the writing style when you hear it read aloud. If I wanted to know about left handed poodle trimmers, I could search for that information.

There are many other ways in which we are living in a Science Fiction style future as seen from 1970. I think it is interesting to try go back and think of what we would think if we could see where we are now with eyes from then. True there are troubles and problems, but there are wonders too.

It can be good to look at things with fresh eyes.

Can you be 13 again?

Darrell Wade Penner / BelGnorman the Gnome

Technorati Tags: future, technology, nostolgia

Down to Earth - Spam Rant

Keep Spam on the Dinner Plate and off the Internet!

What is the difference between Commercials, Billboards, Junk mail, and SPAM?

Well there is a very fundamental difference between SPAM and the others - Commercials, Billboards, and Junk mail - the users of SPAM don't pay for its distribution. With the others, the advertisers pay for the right to advertise:

• If you wish to send flyers and other Junk mail you have to pay the post office.
• If you wish to put up an ad on a Billboard, you have to pay the company that owns the billboard and they in turn pay for the rights to have a billboard there.
• If you want to put an ad on the TV you have to pay the station or network.

With SPAM, all you need is a list of addresses. It is true you can pay for them, but once you have the list, there is virtually no cost. You can also virtually steal a list of addresses or harvest them. The ads you then send out go across the Internet lines which others pay to maintain. Those are paid for by many people in many ways including the money the users pay to their Internet Service Provider.

All that SPAM, even if everyone had near perfect SPAM filters, does take up bandwidth that could be used for productive and entertaining data. There is a lot of storage space on hard drives in this world just holding ads for products that would make my Grandma blush. Now at one time people said you got certain sorts of ads if you went onto "certain" sorts of sites and signed up or created accounts. They also said that you would get onto lists by signing up for some "groups" forums or lists. But much of my SPAM comes to addresses that have never been used other than as contact addresses on my own websites so people had to have simply copied them from the pages.

So that really makes me wonder... of course if I had a young person using my computer I would have to put some sort of filters and restrictions... but what keeps them from getting this offensive SPAM? Even if the SPAM is not "R" rated it might not be age appropriate.

The question of course is how to deal with SPAM. Personally I wish there was some legal recourse. Spam has even gotten to the point where I am feeling that telephone solicitation is in truth another sort of SPAM.

My Space is being Invaded!

• My Physical Space - with intrusions onto my computer and telephone answering service.
• My Chronological Space - with intrusions into my time with phone interruptions and having to set up filters and delete SPAM while making sure important messages do not get discarded or missed.
• My Mental Space - with intrusions into my thought processes including writing time, conversations with loved ones, business correspondence and all sorts of other thought processes.

But I haven't a clue how to stop it other than have someone figure out some sort of financial reigns they could put on the situation, and it has to be something international.

Well at least my Spam Filters work moderately well and I only get a half dozen or so pieces on my primary email. I do tend to use a slightly temporary email address for public stuff and a private one for more important stuff, The temporary one I can theoretically change to another having closed that first one causing spam to bounce.

So that is getting a bit off my chest about SPAM. I do think that being careful about where you list your primary email is in order. Have a secondary address for more public use that you wouldn't feel bad closing for a while to use a different one.

See you later!

Darrell Wade Penner / BelGnorman the Gnome

Technorati Tags: antiSPAM, grumbles

A Flight of Fantasy

A Flight of Fantasy

I was talking with a friend earlier in the day and one thing led to another and they said something like "nobody better bring up 'Area 51' when discussing it with me" - and that got the humorous side of my mind going. I was going to remark something along the lines of "'Area 51' is nothing, you should see 'Area 52'!" The number "52" got me thinking... I pondered a moment - that "52" was special.... and I realized it was how many weeks there were in a year.

I have a mind that when it wanders, it really packs up a backpack and heads for the back country. So I started considering there might be significance in the number beyond the fact that the "area" numbered before it was "50" and the one behind it was "52".

They say that Area 51 is where the US hides fallen UFO's and alien technology in addition to using it to test cutting edge home grown aeronautical technology like the Lockheed Skunk works bred. Keeping that in mind, I considered this: What is at the end of the 51st week of the year?

CHRISTMAS!

So at the area associated with Christmas is where the US is keeping its toys - trying to unwrap the technology within. That is Area 51 - from an odd viewpoint.

From that same odd viewpoint - though I have never heard of it and do not know if it is marked on any chart, what about "Area 52"? If perhaps in "Flight of Fantasy" I conjecture it exists somewhere, consider for a moment: What is at the end of the 52nd week of the year?

NEW YEARS!

This is the marking of the end of the old year and the beginning of a fresh new page. Perhaps Area 52 would be where the US is reverse engineering the alien technology and getting it to work.

Perhaps craft are taken from Area 51 and taken to Area 52 where the secrets in them are not just revealed, that for the most part happens at Area 51, but in Area 52 they are making it work for themselves?

Now I am not talking any chronological calendar here - no countdown to an end of days or when we can expect a mother ship. Just a designation thing. Oh and "Area 01"? Area 01 is where they have actual home grown craft and equipment using alien technology that is working and being used. After all: Week 01 is in the New Year!

Technorati Tags: Area 51, Area 52, UFO, Fantasy, Alien Technology

Starting something new

Stuck My Foot in it This Time

Well, I'm really sticking my foot into it now. I am planning on writing an article of some sort a day in this blog or making some sort of an entry whether it gets published onto the blog or not that day. IE if I don't have access to the web, then I'll upload what I have at the next opportunity - ditto if I don't have computer access.This is mostly to get my creative writing juices going.

Some of the entries may simply feature a poem I have written though I hope I can take a day-to-day observation and make it interesting enough to read. It would be nice if I could get people other than myself reading this though.

So let's see what happens.

Darrell Wade Penner / Belgnorman the Gnome