Google Press Center: Zeitgeist

Google Press Center: Zeitgeist

Just for your entertainment, the top most searched terms on Google over the past year.

Apparently pizza was the most searched popular cuisines. Apparently the ability to order pizza online is catching on. Perhaps I can order a pizza for when I return from work accross town online.

Further, Britney Spears was also at the top of the most searched terms. To think I thought she was losing popularity. Apparently she is still number one in the computer world.

Well, to everyone have a happy new year!

SEE YOU NEXT YEAR!

Thought of the day...

"Time is unlimited, days are not." -- my sister's MSN Messenger tag line.

Hmmmm....makes sense *Homer Simpson moment*

I always seem to know how to procrastinate. Take the marking I was going to do this week. I have some of it done but not as much as I originally thought I would. Why is when I come home for a holiday that I never seem to get as much as I thought I would?

Thus "Time is unlimited" would seem to mean I can waste time and procrastinate on the important things. While "Days are not" is the self imposed deadline for most of the marking seems to get closer and closer.

Hmmm...Makes sense.

New Years Resolutions

The only New Year's resolutions I promise to make:

Not to make any more New Year's Resolutions.

I guess I have already broken the New Year's resolution by making a resolution not to make New Years Resolution. And to think it is not even the new year yet! DOH!

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year!

Got this funky little e-mail card sent to me (Yup it felt like a Hallmark moment except less expensive!) and thought I would share it with everyone. It is pretty exciting after you pop all the balloons over top of the seemingly poor little bear you expect to fall and go splat. Does he? Pop all the balloons and find out!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

INN from the Cold Newmarket Ontario Canada

INN from the Cold Newmarket Ontario Canada

Inn From the cold program in Newmarket is a program that just opened its doors in order to help out the homeless. I have been following this program's development through the local newspaper's website for quite sometime. I just wanted to scream when they were having problems finding a space in Newmarket to hold their homeless programs. First, the programs. The programs are designed to allow the homeless a warm place to sleep and eat when the temperature gets cold outside.

Now they finally have a home in a Newmarket church. However, before the program found a home at the church, every place that offered up a home was rejected either by the region's board of health or the town's fire department over various problems. Why my screaming? Well my church in Aurora (not far from Newmarket) had an Inn from the Cold program a couple of years ago supported by the region and the city of Toronto. Then the city of Toronto pulled the funding because the program was geographically located outside the city of Toronto's borders. This funding was pulled, even though, many of the homeless were were bussed up from Toronto.

So now I was seeing that the program in Newmarket was having problems getting off the ground. So I wanted to just scream that my church had already passed the fire inspections and health reports required before and still probably would pass considering there is a YMCA Nursery school in there as well as many other non-profit organizations use the facility on a constant basis. However, the nights that the homeless program was going to be run would have been fine since the church had no problem holding the programs on a Saturday night. Adding the Friday nights wouldn't have been a problem either. Volunteers from Newmarket could easily make the short trip to Aurora as well as adding more volunteers from the church and other churches in Aurora.

The fact that the program did not have any people to serve the first weekend is perhaps not surprising. According to the newspaper article in the local paper, the last weekend nobody showed up to use the Inn from the Cold's services. Perhaps this there are two issues that needed to be sorted out. The first is that the program had just found a spot to house the homeless before opening and thereby not allowing enough time for the word to get out to the homeless that this service was being offered at a certain time and place. The other problem might have been the group focussed on the homeless of the Newmarket and immediate area. When my church ran their program, they had drivers and bus tickets available at Finch Subway station to bring people up to the Aurora in order to take part in the program. This program had more people show up than there were beds and quite often had to turn people away due to the numbers allowed.

Thus I propose in the interest of spending the money raised wisely and to ensure the volunteers time is also used wisely that the Newmarket program open their shelter up to homeless from all of York Region to start and then to Toronto in order to generate the numbers.

All in all though, it is a good idea to provide support for the homeless of the area. Therefore I wish them the best of luck.

Google Language Tools

Language Tools

Did you know you can get Google's main webpage in Elmer Fudd language? Or how about Klingon?

Seems to me the guys and gals at Google.com have a little too much time on their hands in order to make their website Elmer Fudd and Klingon freindly.

I hope since the release of their stocks the computer programmers at Google have used their time a little more wisely than translating language into Fuddian and Klingoian. But non the less the entertainment value is priceless.

Democrat & Chronicle: Business

Democrat & Chronicle: Business

On demand publishing is a very interesting concept. I could write an entire novel today and instead of trying to get the major publishers to even look at it, I could go to lulu.com and have the entire manuscript uploaded and for sale in less than a day. This article gives an overall great description on how the industry works. Not only that they interview my uncle (part of the reason I read the article but not necessarily the reason for this blog entry).

It seems the digital world, which has already cost the music industry billions of dollars, is now eyeing the publishing industry.

Could Bob Young help create the next J.K. Rowling in the book business? Perhaps.

But this new industry may also increase the number of authors out there as well. Therefore, the amount of money each author is likely to make will probably decrease. Why is that? You increase the number of anything without increasing the market share the less each author is going to get. The non increase in the market share is highly likely to happen since there are so many reading choices now for people to take interest in (e.g. internet articles, newspapers, books of various shapes and sizes, etc.) that the traditional reading purchases may decrease over time.

Anyway, lulu.com and other such websites merely help to expand the reading choices we have out there as well as providing a way for people to publish their material without having to go to the major publicshers or after being rejected by the major publishers.

Rejection yet possible success you say? Just ask J.K. Rowling whose Harry Potter series was rejected time and time again until she found a publisher that was willing to take a chance. Question: Between Rowling and the publishers that rejected her, who is laughing now?