Publications
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
Religious views of the body & soul after death
For all of us thinking about death and grieving, the Body Worlds exhibit is holding an interesting event this weekend:
Religious Views of the Human Body and Soul After Death
In conjunction with the InterSpiritual Centre of Vancouver (www.interspiritualcentre.org)
Saturday, November 4, 2006
7:00pm — 7:50pm
Science Theatre (seating is limited)
CBC Radio host Priya Ramu will host a discussion among representatives of Vancouver’s Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, Muslim, Jewish and Sikh religious communities regarding their perspectives on death and dying, the body and soul, funeral practices and the public display of human bodies for educational purposes. The remainder of the program will provide an opportunity for the audience to address questions to our panel.
This event is FREE with purchase of a BODY WORLDS 3 ticket for that evening. Seating is limited and is available on a ‘first come/first served’ basis.
Featuring:
Orai Fujikawa Sensei: Bishop of the Hongwanji Buddhist Temples in Canada
Pandit Prameya Chaitanya: Priest of the Shree Mahalakshmi Hindu Temple
Giani Jasbir Singh Ji: Priest of the Akali Singh Gurdwara Sahib
Dr. Amr Hafez: Islamic Society of BC
Tara Bentall King: Vancouver School of Theology
Rabbi David Mivasair: Ahavat Olam Synagogue
Woohoo! Tivo! Over here!
I wanted to send people a direct link to Tivo in my post about our home media server, but Tivo's refer-a-friend tools don't include a web badge! If I had a little snippet of code that let me put a trackable link to Tivo into a blog post, I'd be motivated to blog more...
Tales of a Mac media server
Earlier this year we purchased a 32", HD-ready Philips LCD TV. So when our DVD player died a few months ago, we found ourselves staring at the PC input on the back of the TV and wondering whether our next DVD player should in fact be a computer. About eight weeks ago...
Does Big Brother use a Treo?
I just had an inquiry from a new Treo owner who is looking his gift horse in the mouth: My employer recently gave each of the salespeople a new Treo 650. None of us requested it, in fact, a year ago we told management we didn't want them. Now we have them and...
Play up the economic advantages of equal marriage
I'm amazed we don't hear more about the economic arguments in favour of equal marriage rights. It's a huge source of competitive advantage that Canada offers gay couples the same legal rights as straight couples — just think about how much easier it makes it for Canadian companies to recruit and retain talented gay employees.
Shambhala centre classes?
Some friends have recommended classes at the Shambhala Centre, which apparently offers both religious and secular versions of an intro to Buddhism program. Has anyone else taken them? What's the review?
MacBook with tag cloud
This week's tagging project: a MacBook cover that displays my del.icio.us tag cloud, thanks to the folks at Pimp My Laptop.

Here's how I did it:
- I used the del.icio.us tagroll feature to customize the look of my tag cloud and make sure it included all my tags ("size" controls how many tags display; max/min font controls the size of the individual tags).
- I hooked my laptop up to a huge external monitor so I could make the tagroll display big enough to create a screen capture that was high enough resolution to print out clearly.
- We took screen captures in chunks (Rob figured out the necessary size to display by working backwards from the Pimp My Laptop specs) so that they'd be even higher res.
- We stitched it back together in PhotoShop until we had an image of the size specified by Pimp My Laptop.
Ta da! I'm now wearing my tag cloud on my (laptop) sleeve.
ChangeEverything is TechCrunched
We're delighted that Change Everything has been noted on TechCrunch as "a nice alternative to the user generated advertising model".
Marshall Kirkpatrick writes:
I think this is a great example of a company making use of Web 2.0 tools to promote themselves in a way that places the ballance of the impact on providing value to users and incurs promotional benefits for themselves as a consequence of that. Though this model may seem less immediately lucrative, it’s also much less likely to face the kind of anti-corporate backlash bubbling up in MySpace and YouTube.
Marshall had a couple of tips for us, too:
Unlike at 43Things, there’s not the option at ChangeEverything to mark a goal as something you have done already or the question of whether a goal is worth persuing or not – perhaps leftists are too Quixotic for such features.
These are both options we hope to introduce on the site soon – so no, lefties aren't too Quixotic (in this respect, anyhow!)
Tagging for world domination
Tags can help you drive traffic to your website and build engagement in your online community. Here are my secrets to tagging success.
Learning about warranties from London Drugs
London Drugs wins my customer service prize of the month for its speedy resolution of my camera dilemma. I heard right away from their warranty department. It turns out they were about as happy with VAC's warranty progam as I was: they've since brought their warranty...
The Harvard Business Review
Religious views of the body & soul after death
For all of us thinking about death and grieving, the Body Worlds exhibit is holding an interesting event this weekend:
Religious Views of the Human Body and Soul After Death
In conjunction with the InterSpiritual Centre of Vancouver (www.interspiritualcentre.org)
Saturday, November 4, 2006
7:00pm — 7:50pm
Science Theatre (seating is limited)
CBC Radio host Priya Ramu will host a discussion among representatives of Vancouver’s Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, Muslim, Jewish and Sikh religious communities regarding their perspectives on death and dying, the body and soul, funeral practices and the public display of human bodies for educational purposes. The remainder of the program will provide an opportunity for the audience to address questions to our panel.
This event is FREE with purchase of a BODY WORLDS 3 ticket for that evening. Seating is limited and is available on a ‘first come/first served’ basis.
Featuring:
Orai Fujikawa Sensei: Bishop of the Hongwanji Buddhist Temples in Canada
Pandit Prameya Chaitanya: Priest of the Shree Mahalakshmi Hindu Temple
Giani Jasbir Singh Ji: Priest of the Akali Singh Gurdwara Sahib
Dr. Amr Hafez: Islamic Society of BC
Tara Bentall King: Vancouver School of Theology
Rabbi David Mivasair: Ahavat Olam Synagogue
Woohoo! Tivo! Over here!
I wanted to send people a direct link to Tivo in my post about our home media server, but Tivo's refer-a-friend tools don't include a web badge! If I had a little snippet of code that let me put a trackable link to Tivo into a blog post, I'd be motivated to blog more...
Tales of a Mac media server
Earlier this year we purchased a 32", HD-ready Philips LCD TV. So when our DVD player died a few months ago, we found ourselves staring at the PC input on the back of the TV and wondering whether our next DVD player should in fact be a computer. About eight weeks ago...
Does Big Brother use a Treo?
I just had an inquiry from a new Treo owner who is looking his gift horse in the mouth: My employer recently gave each of the salespeople a new Treo 650. None of us requested it, in fact, a year ago we told management we didn't want them. Now we have them and...
Play up the economic advantages of equal marriage
I'm amazed we don't hear more about the economic arguments in favour of equal marriage rights. It's a huge source of competitive advantage that Canada offers gay couples the same legal rights as straight couples — just think about how much easier it makes it for Canadian companies to recruit and retain talented gay employees.
Shambhala centre classes?
Some friends have recommended classes at the Shambhala Centre, which apparently offers both religious and secular versions of an intro to Buddhism program. Has anyone else taken them? What's the review?
MacBook with tag cloud
This week's tagging project: a MacBook cover that displays my del.icio.us tag cloud, thanks to the folks at Pimp My Laptop.

Here's how I did it:
- I used the del.icio.us tagroll feature to customize the look of my tag cloud and make sure it included all my tags ("size" controls how many tags display; max/min font controls the size of the individual tags).
- I hooked my laptop up to a huge external monitor so I could make the tagroll display big enough to create a screen capture that was high enough resolution to print out clearly.
- We took screen captures in chunks (Rob figured out the necessary size to display by working backwards from the Pimp My Laptop specs) so that they'd be even higher res.
- We stitched it back together in PhotoShop until we had an image of the size specified by Pimp My Laptop.
Ta da! I'm now wearing my tag cloud on my (laptop) sleeve.
ChangeEverything is TechCrunched
We're delighted that Change Everything has been noted on TechCrunch as "a nice alternative to the user generated advertising model".
Marshall Kirkpatrick writes:
I think this is a great example of a company making use of Web 2.0 tools to promote themselves in a way that places the ballance of the impact on providing value to users and incurs promotional benefits for themselves as a consequence of that. Though this model may seem less immediately lucrative, it’s also much less likely to face the kind of anti-corporate backlash bubbling up in MySpace and YouTube.
Marshall had a couple of tips for us, too:
Unlike at 43Things, there’s not the option at ChangeEverything to mark a goal as something you have done already or the question of whether a goal is worth persuing or not – perhaps leftists are too Quixotic for such features.
These are both options we hope to introduce on the site soon – so no, lefties aren't too Quixotic (in this respect, anyhow!)
Tagging for world domination
Tags can help you drive traffic to your website and build engagement in your online community. Here are my secrets to tagging success.
Learning about warranties from London Drugs
London Drugs wins my customer service prize of the month for its speedy resolution of my camera dilemma. I heard right away from their warranty department. It turns out they were about as happy with VAC's warranty progam as I was: they've since brought their warranty...
OneZero
Part 5: How to decide if you should install the Mac OS on a PC netbook
Evaluating the trade-offs involved in a hacktintosh: it’s not all about saving a few bucks on the cost of a Mac.
Remembering Michael Griesdorf
What I learned from my dear friend Michael: about love, about the world, and about having a damn good time.
Part 4: My $400 MacBook Air Light
Living with a hacktintosh: the pros and cons of my newly Macified HP Mini 1000.
Making a Mac netbook, Part 3: How to migrate your current Mac setup to your new Mac netbook
You can get up and running with your hacktintosh a lot more quickly if you make smart use of Apple’s migration manager to copy data, applications and settings from your existing Mac.
Making a Mac netbook, part 2: How to install the Mac OS on a Windows or Unix netbook
A summary of the steps I followed to install Mac OS Snow Leopard on an HP Mini 1000.
Making a Mac netbook, part 1: Why I Mac-ified
Why I turned my HP Mini 1000 netbook into a Mac — after months running it in Ubuntu and Windows.
7 innovations that make travel easier
After seven years in which out-of-town travel was a relatively infrequent (and rushed) experience, I’m struck by how much easier air travel is now compared to my pre-parent days. Here are a few of the non-social-media innovations that make travel much better than it was in 2002.
Social media and the health sector: an introduction with case studies
Social capital, understood as the density of relationships and trust within a community, is a key determinant of health. Individuals are happier and healthier in communities with high levels of social capital, and high social capital communities have stronger economies and more stable political systems. This post provides an introduction to the role of social media in building social capital, illustrated with examples of how health care organizations are using social media for storytelling, connecting and knowledge management.
JSTOR DAILY
Part 5: How to decide if you should install the Mac OS on a PC netbook
Evaluating the trade-offs involved in a hacktintosh: it’s not all about saving a few bucks on the cost of a Mac.
Remembering Michael Griesdorf
What I learned from my dear friend Michael: about love, about the world, and about having a damn good time.
Part 4: My $400 MacBook Air Light
Living with a hacktintosh: the pros and cons of my newly Macified HP Mini 1000.
Making a Mac netbook, Part 3: How to migrate your current Mac setup to your new Mac netbook
You can get up and running with your hacktintosh a lot more quickly if you make smart use of Apple’s migration manager to copy data, applications and settings from your existing Mac.
Making a Mac netbook, part 2: How to install the Mac OS on a Windows or Unix netbook
A summary of the steps I followed to install Mac OS Snow Leopard on an HP Mini 1000.
Making a Mac netbook, part 1: Why I Mac-ified
Why I turned my HP Mini 1000 netbook into a Mac — after months running it in Ubuntu and Windows.
7 innovations that make travel easier
After seven years in which out-of-town travel was a relatively infrequent (and rushed) experience, I’m struck by how much easier air travel is now compared to my pre-parent days. Here are a few of the non-social-media innovations that make travel much better than it was in 2002.
Social media and the health sector: an introduction with case studies
Social capital, understood as the density of relationships and trust within a community, is a key determinant of health. Individuals are happier and healthier in communities with high levels of social capital, and high social capital communities have stronger economies and more stable political systems. This post provides an introduction to the role of social media in building social capital, illustrated with examples of how health care organizations are using social media for storytelling, connecting and knowledge management.
THE VERGE
10 ways to save on hotels using your smartphone or tablet
Facebook dating: 8 tips for pickup artists (or how to avoid them)
The slender brunette in the airport lounge had just ended a cell phone call when a young man with heavily gelled blonde hair sat down next to her. "Do you have Internet on your phone?" he asked. "I'm trying to find out the weather." "Sorry, I can't get a connection,"...
Creating a visitor’s guide to your home tech setup
One of the joys of living in a multicultural society is the experience of welcoming someone from a different heritage into your home, and introducing them to the various artifacts, practices and beliefs of your own culture. It is in this spirit that we sometimes...