Posts Tagged ‘home’
Friday, October 15th, 2010
This year’s Blog Action Day topic is water. So I thought I’d take the opportunity to share how grateful I am to have access to some of the world’s best drinking water.
But first, I want to talk about phones. Have you noticed the disappearance of public telephones? And how the remaining ones are falling into serious disrepair? This is a direct result of the migration to cel phones for those who can afford it. The fact that more and more of us don’t use public telephones allows them to vanish and fall into disrepair. As we use them less, the phone companies uninstall them to save money, while our lowered awareness of the remaining phones leads to less maintenance.
The ones who lose out are the economically disadvantaged. If you can’t afford a cel phone then you get to use the public phone a mile away if it wasn’t destroyed or barfed on by the last user. Complaining won’t do much good either as the phone company doesn’t see them as much of a profit opportunity anymore. Economic disadvantage leads to communication disadvantage while the wealthy move on to greener pastures.
What, you may wonder, does this have to do with water? It’s simple, the best way to protect the water supply is to drink from it. (more…)
Tags:activism, blog action day, blogging, canada, cel phones, consumerism, economics, environment, ethics, health, home, recycling, travel, vancouver, water
Posted in general | 2 Comments »
Thursday, July 15th, 2010
I’ve been wanting to do a follow-up for some time to my posts on the Vancouver Olympics. I realised that I came off sounding pretty radical and I want to share some of what I saw and felt during and after the event.
Prior to the games I was quite cynical about what they were about and what they would do. Overall, I think I lost a great deal of that cynicism but I can’t exactly say it was replaced with optimism. Except for the conspicuous commercialisation I enjoyed what I saw happening in Vancouver. People were out taking over their streets, celebrating their homes and their heroes. To the average Canadian, the Olympic games were just plain wonderful and I had the privilege of walking amongst those good vibes on my downtown streets.
That’s not to say that everyone was happy and joining in. Just down the road a homeless awareness demonstration worked to shine a light on the problems being ignored and pushed aside so the games could take place. What do you do? I know I’d rather live in a society where both of these things can happen than one that stifles dissent with force. (more…)
Tags:activism, canada, consumerism, event, home, olympics, vancouver 2010
Posted in general | No Comments »
Monday, October 15th, 2007
Today is blog action day and I thought I should join in with the last hours of the day waning.
The subject for mass action is the environment. As I’ve mentioned previously , I’ve been involved in getting the Vancouver chapter of Free Geek off the ground. This innovative venture has been “helping the needy get nerdy” by taking in old computer hardware and either making it useful or recycling it responsibly. It’s an organisation that celebrates the power of the collection of individual actions toward a greater goal.
And it’s been taking off!
(more…)
Tags:blog action day, blogging, e-waste, environment, free geek, home, recycling, technology, volunteer
Posted in environment, technology | No Comments »
Saturday, September 8th, 2007
It’s common for people to spend a lot of effort planning a trip away. Even the shortest excursion can be smoother and safer given good foresight. But few give much thought, if any, to the difficulties they might encounter upon their return.
I recently came back from 2½ months away on a meditation retreat. There were little breaks here and there but I was mostly shrouded within a very focused and protective environment, letting the rest of the world whirl and change without me. These retreats are not new to me, but I usually go for only 10 days. While I knew coming home would include an adjustment period, there’s never really any way to know what you’ll get until you arrive.
(more…)
Tags:environment, focus, home, integration, meditation, philosophy, travel, vipassana
Posted in meditation, travel | 7 Comments »
Thursday, December 7th, 2006
This is a long one!
I’ve always liked computers. I liked that they could play games and produce documents. I liked that you could use them to draw and even make music. I liked them even more when the internet landed and you could use them to communicate. But it’s long been apparent to me that without software a computer is just a fancy electricity sucker. And in the past few years I’ve become more and more aware of how the quality of and intention behind the software can affect the usefulness and even usability of the computer. Bad software and poorly motivated software development can seriously affect the social empowerment of the end user.
(more…)
Tags:amiga, environment, free geek, free software, home, internet, langara, linux, open source, philosophy, school, technology, travel, ubuntu
Posted in philosophy, technology | No Comments »
Saturday, September 30th, 2006
I used to be a terrible procrastinator. Any excuse to not do something today was good enough, though the excuse was usually TV or some variant of screen watching. I would push aside most things that weren’t an immediate need until the last minute.
Anything with a deadline resulted in a flurry of rushed work. Essays that were started in the evening were finished just before I walked out the door to school in the morning. Personal projects were left undone. Cleaning simply wasn’t done (because who likes cleaning?).
(more…)
Tags:home, philosophy, procrastination, school, sleep
Posted in philosophy | 2 Comments »
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