Ode is simple! (Simple means that you know how it works.)

Hi.

This is the project website for Ode (pronounced oh-dee), a personal publishing engine for the web. Ode is unique in that it is designed to be simple – not necessarily easy.

Simple means understandable (at least it does here).

  • Thu
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  • 17
  • May
  • 2012

If humankind were a club I'm pretty sure I'd quit: The Daily Bread Food Bank, Poor Old Women, Facebook, and apathy

Listening to my favorite radio station 102.1 in Toronto Canada. Today they're broadcasting from 'The Daily Bread Food Bank' in Toronto as part of a promotion/charity drive. Some stats the DJ just read on the air:

  • Percentage of people using the Food Bank with a university degree: 28+ percent.

    It was 28.something. I don't remember the precise number.

  • Median amount of money people using the Food Bank have left over per day after paying just housing and utilities (including transportation but not entertainment): $5.67

    Think about the demands for that $5.67 other than food - e.g. medical care, clothing, activities (unless you believe that just being poor is sufficiently rewarding to justify having to struggle through life).

  • Median monthly income of people who use the Food Bank: $925.00

  • Median hourly pay: $11.60

Looking at that $5.67 number a little more closely: (I assume that's in Canadian dollars)

  • That's $2069.55 a year

  • If you spent all of it on food you'd have $175.00 a month to spend on food with nothing left over for other groceries - e.g. toilet paper, health and hygiene products.

    And again that would leave nothing for clothing or other necessities. (For example it includes nothing for insurance - health insurance, life insurance, homeowners/renters insurance.)

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  • Wed
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  • 21
  • Mar
  • 2012

humanbirdwings.net: (Still more) evidence that we've collectively lost our common sense and critical thinking skills.

This is long. Please read it. I guarantee it took me longer to write it than it will take you to read. Thanks.

The first time I saw this story on gizmodo and the accompanying video (below), I thought that it was one of the more obvious elaborate hoaxes I had ever seen. I was at first surprised, and then dumbfounded and more than a little angry, at just how seriously the author, Jesus Diaz, was treating the story. I'll have more to say about that at the end of this post.

I'm just going to quickly address the whole 'human bird wings' thing and then turn my attention to what I believe are the most important issues underlying this debate ahem.

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  • Fri
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  • 13
  • Jan
  • 2012

China's Pollution?

The problem with this story from gizmodo, "China’s Pollution Is So Insane You Can See It From Space" is that it really doesn't make much sense to call this "China's Pollution".

For one thing, wherever you live, you're breathing the same air. I won't pretend to be an expert on global air movement or the spread and dispersion of airborne pollutants. But I do know that we share the same planet and so the same environment. Inevitably, things that we do to it in one place have repercussions everywhere else - be they environmental, political, economic, etc. We see all kinds of artificial differences and boundaries that simply do not accurately reflect the realities of what it means for 7 billion people to all share a planet together.

Secondly, they are not creating all of that pollution just meeting the needs and wants of China. To no small extent, we're encouraging literally paying them to do it.

(If I paid you to commit a murder, is that your murder or our murder?)

Picture living in a delightful little house a on hill next to a beautiful lake, or maybe overlooking the ocean. Now imagine that a factory opens up right next to your house, polluting the air and the water, and generally disrupting your life. How would you feel about that?

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