I have just got back from the physio with a national geographic in my bag. The magazine in question is the February 2009 edition if you were wondering, and I was there for yet more acupuncture and treatment for both of my calves - but that is a whole other story.......

Anyway, I arrived a little early as I like to be, so I can get a chance to quickly flick through at least one National Geographic magazine. It is really my only chance to do this these days so I take the opportunity.

Today I stumbled across an article that left me with a moment of profound confusion. The article was about Darwin and his 1831-36 voyage on The Beagle. Long and complicated but nevertheless very interesting - but what blew my mind was a portion of a diagram kind of unrelated.

It was a little picture of the skeleton of Lucy (as shown with the actual bones recovered shown darker in the illustration) - the now famous 3.2 million year old partial skeleton found in 1974 in Ethiopia that became the base of the human evolutionary lineage. What was shocking was the image - and the fact that the only found 40% of the skeleton. What!!!!!! 40%!!!!!!!!

And we are basing an entire subsection of science on this kind of result!!! 40% of just 1 skeleton creates the basis of human lineage. I am confused. I had a picture of Lucy's skeleton being almost complete, giving a clear picture of what she was actually like......... not just a jumble of random bones pieced back together.......

Jen McCreight is a liberal, geeky, nerdy, scientific, perverted, atheist feminist trapped in Indiana (her words - thanks Jen). She writes a blog < http://www.blaghag.com > and has just become an internet star in a little over a week.

What she has done is create a massive amount of traffic to her blogsite and brought attention to a situation she felt needed to be commented on, and in turn created an event (Boobquake Day) of epic proportions - this is the power of one person on the internet right now. We can all learn from this and think outside the square when it comes to promoting ourselves, our websites or our business online.

"Many women who do not dress modestly ... lead young men astray, corrupt their chastity and spread adultery in society, which (consequently) increases earthquakes," Hojatoleslam Kazem Sedighi was quoted as saying by Iranian media. Sedighi is Tehran's acting Friday prayer leader.

Jen's response was to post a blog about this on her site and suggest that everyone dress immodestly and see if an earthquake happened as a result. Very tongue in cheek, and done in abit of a rush as she wanted to watch the start of a show on TV. Just a blog, just one person's thoughts.

It is what she did next that shows the true power of social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, and brought her to the forefront of the world's traditional media for her 15 minutes of fame.

The other morning I was shocked to hear an interview with "funnyman" Chopper Reid on The Edge radio station. It was all about promoting his appearance in an upcoming comedy festival, and his own upcoming shows around New Zealand. The dj's sounded in awe of this guy, his catch phrase of "harden the f*ck up", and his creative sense of humour and wit, along with his uncompromising attitude

Why is this shocking? Just ask yourself the question, why is he famous in the first place? Have we collectively forgotten about why he is where he is right now, or is that part of his personal story inconvenient for the media and promoters?

Chopper Reid is a former Melbourne hardman, a professional hitman who spend only 13 mths outside of prison between the ages of 20 and 38. At age 48 he had spent 23 years in jail.
He was convicted of armed robbery, assault and kidnapping, but admits to killing 19 people and the attempted murder of a further 11. He has made a career off the back of a movie made about him in 2000 called Chopper, that was a box office hit. He was famous in the underworld for the sadistic way he used to extort money out of other underworld figures - one of his signature moves was cutting off fingers and toes with bolt cutters in order to increase the money extorted.

And this guy is now a media darling and doing the rounds as a comedian? What is funny about sadistic torture? Sure everyone has the right to a second chance, a second roll of the dice, but to hold him up as celebrity is a whole other thing.

Reports are abound that AOL is about to pull the pin on once popular social networking site Bebo.

According to the more reputable internet news sites such as the BBC, Huffington Post and the Telegraph, Bebo owners AOL are seriously considering abandoning the site altogether rather than attempt to go through the process of selling it. The 40 remaining worldwide staff have all been given notice.

This has ramifications for not just Bebo users, but all users of social networking sites. Those of us that use them often use them heavily, and they become an extension of real life.

"Bebo, unfortunately, is a business that has been declining and, as a result, would require significant investment in order to compete in the competitive social networking space," Jon Brod of AOL Ventures told employees in an e-mail.

"AOL is committed to working quickly to determine if there are any interested parties for Bebo."

This is huge news. San Fransciso based Bebo was once one of the leaders in social networking, and only 2 years ago it was sold by the startup developers, British-born Michael Birch and his partner Xochi, to AOL for a whopping US$850 million. That is a serious amount of cash to invest into a project to then abandon it a short time later. There have been all sorts of accusations flying around as to why this is. Who would want the site now anyway now that it is on such a serious decline, with remaining members panicing to retrieve their stored information?

This brings me to a crucial point - how much time do you invest into your social networking, and what happens if the site gets superseded by the next best thing. What happens to all of those hours spent building networks and uploading????
This is always inevitable, the superseding, first it was bebo, then myspace, then facebook and now twitter. What to do.......

Been having a few issues the last couple of months with our hot water system. It is a real bugger with an 8 week old baby. Today the Power Company sent their man around.

We got into a great discussion regarding the solar flares video I had just seen on the site I tweeted about a couple of days ago. < www.terravivos.com > (copy and paste people).

The video which is embedded in the article below discusses the solar storm cycle of 11 years, due to reach the peak of it's cycle in 2012. The video is an interview with an astro-physicist / scientist. Very intriguing, and well worth a watch for anyone that intends to be around on the planet around the peak of the next cycle. There is talk of the sun sending out massive solar flares, with the potential to fry our power grids, and by fry that is a literal use of the word. Time to get prepared for a great suntan??

Last year Nasa send out a probe to study the sun. Perhaps this probe is in response to the solar flare threat. Perhaps not. Hard to know. I will find out though........ Anyway, we got talking about the solar flares, and low and behold, on the news tonight is an article about the "latest pictures from the sun"........ very interested in seeing what the mainstream media has to say about all of this........

Footnote: All the TV had to say was that Nasa's probe is called the Solar Dynamics Observatory and is sending back images 10 times the quality of HD TV, and it went live today with the first set of pictures being released to the media. They showed some pretty pictures but that was that.

Today it appears that the situation in Iceland is infact worsening with the Eyjafjallajökull Volcanic eruption.

The people in charge of airspace in the UK have issued a fresh statement suggesting that the grounding of flights may have to continue, rather than be lifted as was expected today. Heathrow was expected to start flights again from 7pm Tuesday (their time) but this is now being reviewed as another wave of ash floats it's way across Europe. The airlines are reported to be losing 200 million euro a day, and now alot of people are stranded with little choice to come or go from Europe except via the long way. Haven't we all become so reliant on the modern conveniances!

Bummer. Really does start to put everything in perspect a little with all of these massive earthquakes and now volcanoes. Our collective human efforts to control everything become quite insignificant in the face of Mother Nature at a canter. Imagine her at a run........... I have been reading some very interesting things over the last couple of days that I will hopefully have time to share shortly.

Found this article yesterday about Britney Spears. It stated that she had released unaltered photos from a product shoot. This is a little weird as I am pretty sure that copyright restrictions would prevent her from getting her hands on raw images straight off the camera at the shoot.

A clever publicity stunt designed to enhance both her image as a real, sympathetic person that we can all relate better too, and promote the product at the same time with empathy?
The article states:

"The 29-year-old singer made the extraordinary move in order to highlight the pressure exerted on women to look perfect."

This kind of publicity has been doing the rounds the last 6 months as the media reacts to a backlash to the established practice of digitally enhancing almost every image that gets published.

Sad fact of life folks - if the technology exists then it will be used. This is the world we live in.
Everything is altered to make the world, and the products being promoted, a rosier and more perfect reality. Maybe the intention is not there to actively set out to place unrealistic expectations on woman but this is the end result.

Hit the read more link to see the rest of the article and the before and after photos.

This is a significant report for anyone who is promoting their business on the internet, or using the internet to sell goods and services. Statistics New Zealand has just released a report stating that last year more than a million New Zealand homes used broadband to connect to the internet. Does this include businesses as well?

While rural homes were less likely to have a broadband connection than those in urban areas, the gap was closing.

In 2009, half of rural homes had broadband, compared with 1 in 5 in 2006, according to the three-yearly Household Use of Information and Communication Technology Survey.

There has been quite abit of talk over the last couple of days about a new 3 story building that has just gone up in Taiwan as an exhibition hall.
The interest stems from the fact that it is made from 1.5 million recycled plastic bottles taken from the Taiwanese waste system.

The pavilion, dubbed the EcoARK, includes an amphitheatre, museum space and a screen of falling water collected during rainy periods for air conditioning. The clear plastic containers in the wall allow natural light to flood the cavernous interior.

This is great news for recycling and sustainability but scratch the surface of the story a little more it it gets even more interesting.

For those that have been keeping up with this blog you will know that we have just had our second child, Maia, who is now 6 weeks old.
In New Zealand this is about the time that the National Vaccine Programme begins, with the series of vaccines traditionally given.

Being quite proactive people, we tend to look into things in depth, rather than just blindly accepting directives from the powers that be as gospel. This research on the whole usually throws up some really interesting information. It takes abit of time, but is so worth it. This ultimately gives us direction based on our thorough, independant research rather than relying on the media / marketing spin machines attached to the corporate interests usually at play behind most of what we are told what to do. Cynical, yes......

For all of those parents out there that have, or are about to give, their children the combined MMR Vaccine (Measles Mumps and Ruebella) this series of you tube clips is a must. I have been reading for years about this supposed connection between the MMR Vaccine and Autism but this is the first easy access interview I have come across. And just in time as we near another set of intense conversations with various people about vaccinating our children.
This research has since been discredited by the powers that be, but this series of interviews talks in depth about this process and delves into the murky waters of why this is, and sheds some light on the topic of who's research do you chose to believe and the reasons behind the research in the first place. A very polarising topic.

The interview is the first that Dr Wakefield has given to address the controversy and puts forward his version of events behind British Medical Journal Lancet's decision to retract his original 1998 Research paper into this hotly debated topic.

Footnote. Since posting this article we have had some intense feedback already. All I can suggest is that if you are interested it is vital to watch most, if not all, of the interview as it gets into the crux of the matter about 30 - 40 minutes into the video. For those with the interest, the time and the patience this lengthy interview is very rewarding.

Just stumbled across this wee gem of an article from Reuters regarding a poll that they have just conducted over a group of 23,000 people in 22 countries.
It appears that over this polling group 20% believe that Aliens exist and live amongst as disguised as humans.

Does make you think how many aliens are they talking about, and am I considered one by others?????

Click on the READ MORE link to read the article

This is a much nicer blog entry courtesy of Al. Thanks buddy!

I think he remembers when I chopped the end of my finger off with the table saw and thought that I could use one of these great machines.

I am inclined to agree. Where can I get one????

Just got send a disturbing link from some onbaord footage from a US-Gunship taken in Iraq-in 2007.

It is a 17 minute video of the engagement of what the pilots consider to be a hostile threat, but is actually a couple of Reuters reporters and a bunch of Iraqi_civilians. The website that has released this got their hands on a leaked copy of the video, decyrpted it and have released it for the world to see.

Just saw a really interesting article on the network news about the link between cycling and an improvement in fine motor skills for suffers of Parkinsons disease.

The research comes from Anke H. Snijders, M.D. & Bastiaan R. Bloem, M.D in a published paper in the New England Journal of Medicine that has been picked up by global news media as there is video attached to their paper. See the paper by copying and pasting the following link  http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/362/13/e46 .

The story involves the research around a 58 year old man's 10 year old battle with Parkinsons Disease. He was unable to walk properly if at all due to a condition known as "freezing gait", but interestingly was able to ride a bicycle quite normally - for up to 10 kilometers a day!

Since this paper has attracted worldwide media attention more of these such stories have come out. A triumph of the human spirit over trying conditions!!!!!

I have just been reading an article about well known iconic NZ Beer Brand Steinlager and their new Pure campaign.
Lion Nathan are currently filming a new commercial in the "famous tough guy actors series" that has previously featured Harvey Keitel and Willem DaFoe. This time they have chosen to use a non-household name actor called Vincent Gallo.

There has been a media reaction to this as Mr Gallo is not widely recognised on the same social level as the previous two actors. Most people would not have even seen any of the more obscure movies that he has either starred or starred and directed in.
He is a bit of a renaissance man and has been a successful artist, athlete, actor and director.

Lion Nathan spokesman Neil Hinton said Gallo was perfect for the campaign and would be recognised by New Zealanders. "He is exactly what we want as our leading man. He is very uncompromising in some of his views and he is not the kind of guy you can buy for his opinion. He has a reputation for saying what he believes"

A bit of quick research goes a long way. If you chose to believe what you read on the internet then this is funny but also very Vincent Gallo-esk!!!!