Percé Rock, Quebec, Canada

Photo of Percé Rock, Quebec, Canada, viewed from the seaward side. Percé Rock in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, just off the tip of Gaspé Peninsula in Quebec, Canada, one of the largest and most spectacular natural wonders in the world. Image from Wikipedia, under a GNU Free Documentation License.

Percé Rock, literally 'pierced rock' for the natural archway "where boats can pass through at high seas," in the words of explorer Samuel de Champlain, who christened it in 1603.

Percé Rock has left visitors awed and inspired for centuries, but this is the first summer season that tourists can approach this popular attraction only on paid tours with a park warden and would be kept at least 50 feet away from the famed rock.

In the wake of a lawsuit from a wounded tourist, Quebec parks officials are limiting access to a landmark considered one of Canada's greatest natural wonders. Quebec Parks officials are faced with a straightforward problem: The 375-million-year-old natural monument off the Gaspé Peninsula is falling to pieces. It loses 300 tonnes of rock each year to the forces of erosion, and the pace appears to be accelerating. A few years ago, 100 tonnes fell off in a single night.

It was on a summer day in 2003 that a piece of Percé Rock fell onto an Ontario tourist, leaving him with serious head injuries. The tourist sued Quebec's parks agency, best known under its acronym SEPAQ, for close to $1-million. A Superior Court judge held the park liable, and the two parties are negotiating a settlement.

The court ruling marks the end of an era for Quebec's famed rock, a muse to poets and painters and a presence to navigators for four centuries.

"There isn't a tourist destination in Quebec or Canada that wants to see its customers leave with permanent injuries," said Rémi Plourde, director of Quebec's Parc national de l'Ile-Bonaventure-et-du-Rocher-Percé. "The rock may be a Canadian icon. It cuts a striking image. But we want to wake people up to the fact it's also dangerous," he said. Mr. Plourde added, "I am the manager of the park. I'm acting like a father figure."

Canadian author James MacPherson Le Moine wrote in 1871 that the rock was "one of the most remarkable objects that meet the eye of the mariner or traveller along the entire Canadian seaboard." But the rock has long been crumbling--a second archway collapsed in 1845--and at the current rate, the attraction is destined to simply disappear. Mr. Plourde says that should take another 14,000 to 16,000 years, enough for at least a few more tourists to get a look. From a safe distance.

» Source: condensed from a report by Ingrid Peritz/The Globe and Mail.

North Pole Could Be Ice Free

North Pole Web Cam photo. Credit: NOAA/Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory. The NOAA/PMEL's North Pole web cam deployment began in April 2002 and operate during the summer warmth and daylight (April-October) and are redeployed each Spring. The images from the cameras track the North Pole snow cover, weather conditions . . . for more updated images and info, http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/gallery_np.html

A North Pole without ice? There's a 50-50 chance that the North Pole will be ice-free this summer, which would be a first in recorded history . . .

The weather and ocean conditions in the next couple of weeks will determine how much of the sea ice will melt, and early signs are not good, said Mark Serreze, senior researcher at the National Snow and Ice Data Center and research professor in geography at the University of Colorado, Boulder, Colo.

"A large area at the North Pole and surrounding the North Pole is first-year ice," Prof. Serreze said. "That's the stuff that tends to melt out in the summer because it's thin."

A more conservative ice scientist, Cecilia Bitz, at the University of Washington, put the odds of an ice-free North Pole closer to 1 in 4. Even that is far worse than climate models had predicted, which was 1 in 70 some time in the next decade, she said.

"I would guess within the next 10 years, it would happen at least once," Prof. Bitz said.


» Source: The Globe and Mail/AP

Cliff Richard at the Royal Variety Performance, 1995

My Video Pick of the Week: Cliff Richard at the Royal Variety Performance, 1995, performing two songs, 'Softly As I Leave You' and 'Misunderstood Man.' Video from 999Uschi. Enjoy!!!

Radical Shakeup of Domain Names on Internet

Yesterday, while NASA scientists believe that Mars could support life after analyzing soil samples from their Phoenix Mars Lander mission on Mars . . . . . . life on Earth became more complicated with a radical shake up of the Web . . . the Internet's main regulators voted Thursday to allow the creation of thousands of new Web addresses ending in words like .paris, .perfume, .sports, etc.

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), which presides over the system, voted unanimously in Paris on Thursday at its annual general meeting to approve new sweeping changes in the network's 25- year-old addressing system. The overhaul is expected to radically change the way users navigate the Internet and has implications for businesses and consumers.

Currently, all web addresses fall under one of some 250 top-level domain names: country or territory domains such as .ca for Canada, .it for Italy, .de for Germany, for example, and descriptions for broad generic categories such as .com for commerce, .org for organizations. Now, the new guidelines could smooth the way for broader names like .sports, and at least three groups are already vying for that name. Several cities are seeking suffixes tied to their names. It could also pave the way for the introduction of a .xxx domain name for adult sites. Backers of that idea have lobbied the ICANN board without success for years.

Under the new system, the Web's 1.3 billion users would be able from 2009 to buy an unlimited number of generic addresses based on common words, brands or company names, cities or proper names. In addition, ICANN also voted to open public comment on allowing addresses to be written in non-English characters from Asian and Arabic languages, as well as Cyrillic characters.

Under the new guidelines, any string of letters would be eligible for consideration but subject to an independent arbitration process to evaluate objections to proposed labels that could be rebuffed on the grounds of "morality or public order," ICANN said.

However, many questions remained unanswered, including the cost to win the rights to one of the new suffixes. Early estimates range from $10,000 (U.S.) to $250,000. The fees would be used to cover the cost of setting up the system. ICANN executives estimate that they have already spent $10-million on the project, a budget they said could rise by an additional $10-million.

ICANN chief executive Paul Twomey said the details would be worked out over the next three or four months, with the changes expected to take effect in the second quarter of 2009. Some participants at the ICANN annual general meeting had voiced concerns about "cybersquatting"--the risk that brand names, for example, could be usurped on the Web.

To avoid chaos, Loic Damilaville, deputy head of the French domain name body, the AFNIC, said the ICANN also adopted a motion designed to "limit the abusive registration of new domain names." ICANN is looking at ways of blocking certain domain names based on security or moral grounds, Damilaville said. Companies with trademarked names would have top claiming rights to their brands, but if there were disputes about generic names--like .sports-- conflicts could be settled by auctions with names doled out to the highest bidders.

» Source: Various news services

Part of Our Brain Makes Us Seek Adventures

Photo: Dopamine and Serotonin Pathways in the Brain.

This latest brain research may explain why we do the things we do . . .

British scientists have identified a primitive area of the brain that makes us adventurous and seeking new stuff.

Using brain scans to measure blood flow, British researchers discovered that a brain region known as the ventral striatum was more active when subjects chose unusual objects in controlled tests. The ventral striatum is involved in processing rewards in the brain through the release of neurotransmitters like dopamine.

Scientists believe the existence of this age-old reward mechanism indicates there is an evolutionary advantage in sampling the unknown.

"Seeking new and unfamiliar experiences is a fundamental behavioural tendency in humans and animals. It makes sense to try new options as they may prove advantageous in the long run," said Bianca Wittmann of the Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging at University College London.

Being daring and seeking new adventures can be good and not so. Some choices could be dangerous and selecting the ' new' may, for instance, make consumers susceptible to marketing hype. The positive feedback could also contribute to some common vices.

"In humans, increased novelty-seeking may play a role in gambling and drug addiction, both of which are mediated by malfunctions in dopamine release," said Nathaniel Daw, now at New York University, who also worked on the brain study.

The findings for this study were published online in the journal Neuron.

» Source: Reuters
Image from Wikipedia. Retrieved June 26, 2008.

Identifying Selfishness, Altruism Gene

Photo of Honey Bee on a Geraldton Wax Flower, NSW, Australia.

A biologist at the University of Western Ontario in London, Ontario, Canada, has isolated the selfish gene.

Graham Thompson, who said scientists have always suspected that honeybees possess a selfish gene, says, "This basically provides a validation for a huge body of sociobiology." "It's a big step forward in understanding the evolutionary origins of reproductive altruism, which has been a big curiosity of evolutionary biologists for many, many decades."

Thompson studied honeybee communities in which all the female worker bees are sterile, leaving only the queen to reproduce.

"In the honeybee colony you have these queens and the workers. And the workers are totally sterile and so that is a classic, textbook example of reproductive altruism. So the workers forego their own reproductive output in order to help the queen reproduce."

Graham Thompson worked with Peter Oxley from the University of Sydney to isolate the gene that controls the female bees' reproduction, spurs them to be 'selfless helpers to the queen,' and ensure the evolutionary success of the colony.

"This means that the 'selfish' gene does exist, not just in theory but in reality," he said.

"It does establish in the general sense that there is genetic basis to behaviours like altruism," Thompson said.

Image from Wikimedia Commons.

» Source: Canwest News Service

Link Between Self-Esteem & Liking Your Name

"People who have high self-esteem tend to like their name more," says Jochen Gebauer, lead author of this study and a PhD student in the school of psychology at Cardiff University in Wales.

This new research uncovered a link between liking your name and overall self-esteem. The reason is known as the "mere-ownership effect," which essentially means that if we like ourselves, we prefer things that are ours to other options. A previous study had established this years ago, Gebauer says, when people were given toasters and other household appliances to compare. No matter what they were given, they always preferred the item that was theirs. "When you own a certain object, then you put the value you have for yourself into this object," Gebauer says.

"If you have high self-esteem, everything is good," Gebauer says. "You have no social problems, you are less aggressive, you feel better about yourself, you have more friends and people like you more." According to Gebauer, the connection to name-liking provides a better way to assess self-esteem, which is one of the most heavily studied psychological concepts. ☺ ☺ ☺

The study will be published in an upcoming issue of the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology.

» Source: Canwest News Service

How to Handle Setbacks

Sometimes when life gets tough with us, we all react differently . . . it may mean resetting our compass or re-examining our goals or staying the course.

When you encounter setbacks, psychologist Nando Pelusi recommends some pointers:

Make A List: If a goal seems unachievable, first describe it to yourself, listing advantages and disadvantages.

Don't Globalize: Keep any defeat in perspective, rather than generalizing it to your entire existence.

Know Your Tendencies: For most of humanity's existence, losing a battle was damaging, perhaps costing a life, so our ancestors ceded even when they didn't want to, in order to survive for another day. Recognize this evolutionary tendency to avoid becoming helpless in adversity.

Seize The Challenge: View frustration as the way to keep getting stronger.

Take The Long View: Defeats are usually temporary and their effects short-lived. "The battle is not the war," she writes.

» Source: The Globe and Mail

Top 10 Best Family Beach Resorts

Here's a Travel Top 10 for Best Family Beach Resorts:

1. Sheraton Grand Bahama Island Our Lucaya, Bahamas.
2. Club Med Punta Cana, Dominican Republic.
3. South Seas Island Resort, Captiva Island, Fla.
4. Atlantis, Paradis Island, Bahamas.
5. Disney's Vero Beach Resort, Florida.
6. Beaches Negril Resort and Spa, Jamaica.
7. Hilton Hawaiian Village, Honolulu, Hawaii.
8. Ocean Edge Resort & Spa, Brewster, Mass.
9. Loew's Coronado Bay Beach Resort & Spa, San Diego.
10. Rio Mar Beach Golf Resort Casino & Spa, Puerto Rico.

» Source: Parents Magazine/MCT News Service

Also, check out my new 'Art of the Day' feature on the left sidebar.

Thoughts on Beauty

Beautiful thoughts from
beautiful minds:

" You cannot perceive beauty
but with a serene mind. "
~ Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862),
American author, philosopher, naturalist


" There is no excellent beauty
that hath not some strangeness
in the proportion. "
~ Sir Francis Bacon (1561-1626),
English essayist and philosopher

Photo: Two Killer Whales Leaping.
Image from Wikimedia Commons.

Buried Ice Appears To Be Found On Mars

The latest images from NASA's Phoenix Mars lander, released late Thursday, appear to confirm the presence of buried ice on Mars.

Photos taken of a trench dug earlier in the week by the lander's robotic arm showed that eight small, whitish chunks of material at the base of the trench had disappeared by Thursday. If those chunks had been some form of salt, as some scientists believed, they would not have evaporated, said Peter Smith of the University of Arizona, the lead scientist for the $420-million mission.

Link here for more info & latest images from NASA's Phoenix Mars Mission.

Copernicus' 1st edition Astronomical Price

A first edition of the book in which Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543) broached his earth-shaking theory of the cosmos has fetched more than $2.2 million (U.S.) at Christie's New York auction a couple of days ago, nearly doubling the expected price. The buyer's name was not disclosed.

The 1543 copy of Copernicus' De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres) was among more than 300 books offered at Christie's auction on Tuesday (June 17, 2008). Tuesday's sale at Christie's brought in a total of more than $11 million (U.S.).


Images from Wikimedia Commons:
Copernicus' signature from Samuel Orgelbrand's Universal Encyclopedia, 16 vol. (1898-1904).
Copernicus' Portrait (artist unknown), 1580, tempera and oil on wood, Regional Museum in Torun.

» Source: AP

High School Influences Your Career Now

What did you do in high school ? Better yet, were you popular ? Ohhh, those were ' the days' or painful ones ? I had my ups and downs . . . dreaded some days. How about you ? Does it matter any more?

According to a study by job site CareerBuilder.com, high school experiences can influence the job and career you now hold . . . yes, here are some interesting results:

» 39 percent of more than 6,000 workers said their high school days played a role in what they are doing now.

» High school cheerleaders were most likely to hold a v-p, vice-president's, title while those on student council or student government or were teacher's pets had the largest number now in director, manager or team leader positions.

» Former honour society members, athletes and geeks had the largest numbers working in professional and technical service positions. Those in administrative and clerical jobs also tended to be teacher's pets.

» As for earning power, those who'd held a student council/government position were most likely to report a salary of $100,000 (U.S.) or more, followed by honour-society members, athletes, geeks and class clowns.

» Student council/government, honour-society members and athletes ranked highest among those earning $50,000 or more, while those most likely to report earnings less than $35,000 identified themselves as teacher's pets.

» And who likes their jobs? Job satisfaction levels were highest among teacher's pets and cheerleaders, while teacher's pets and athletes reported the most contentment with career progress.

» Geeks and class clowns were most dissatisfied over all, while geeks and student government members were most dissatisfied with their career progress.

Source: The Globe and Mail

French Foreign Legion Winemakers

The French Foreign Legion is going into the wine business to raise funds for its aging veterans.

Commander-in-chief General Louis Pichot de Champfleury launched the Legion's wines at a recent grand ceremony. Called 'Esprit de Corps' to embody the Legionnaire spirit, its 2007 Côtes de Provence red and rosé vintages are produced from grapes grown on a property in southern France acquired by the outfit in 1953 to shelter its war wounded, as well as its elderly former fighters.

"This is about solidarity," the fiftyish-Gen. Champfleury told soldiers and defence-ministry personnel gathered in the premises of Paris' military governor.

Established in 1831, the crack 7,700-strong French Foreign Legion corps was set up as a unit for foreign volunteers, often misfits and miscreants who could change their identities and turn a page on their past by fighting the enemies of France.

Made up of men from about 140 nations, the mystique of the adventure-seeking corps was enshrined in such Hollywood movies as Beau Geste and March or Die.

"Solidarity is not a hollow concept for us," Gen. Champfleury said. "The men we recruit often join because they have no other choice, they arrive brutally, they may have faced death, their situation is often delicate." Integrating recruits with diverse backgrounds and languages into hardened combat units was something that the Legion knew how to do.

But dealing with their veterans long cut from family and friends was another fighting matter, "When legionnaires are forced to return to civilian life, it can be difficult and when we hear of a legionnaire in distress, we fly to their rescue," Gen. Champfleury said.

With the French govenment's cost cuts, the French Foreign Legion desperately needed funds for its veterans' homes. At any one time, some 100 to 150 elderly, homeless, landless veterans were in the Legion's care, said ex-legionnaire Guy Gerard, who spent 25 years fighting in Africa before taking over the vineyards in Puyloubier, near the town of Aubagne. The men who worked in the vineyards were generally between 50 and 70 years old.

An officer from the Puyloubier property, a Lieutenant-Colonel Xavier Lantaires, described the wines as: "Strong when attacked, solid on the onslaught, full of grapeshot on the front line."

Wines available at www.legion-boutique.com/

» Source: Agence France-Presse (C. Rosemberg report)

Vacation on Alcatraz Island

Alcatraz Island could become the next getaway vacation spot to escape to . . .

The U.S. National Park Service which operates Alcatraz or 'The Rock' are hoping to add luxury hotel accommodations for vacationers so they can enjoy a 'fuller' experience of the island. San Francisco's Alcatraz Island, home to one of the world's most notorious prisons can become the next great tourist destination.

Photo of Alcatraz Island, as viewed from San Francisco. Image from Wikimedia Commons.

Unlike the cell blocks which once housed notorious criminals as Al "Scarface" Capone, George "Machine Gun" Kelly or "Birdman of Alcatraz" Robert Stroud, overnight hotel guests would probably be housed in another part of the penitentiary, Building 64, which housed the guards and have impressive views across the San Francisco Bay.

'The Rock' is one of San Francisco's most popular draws, attracting more than 1.4 million tourists to its cellblock tours.

The U.S. National Park Service wants to offer its visitors the opportunity to explore the rest of the 12-acre island, with its unusual scenery and wildlife.

"People are constantly saying they want to see more of the island," said Rich Weideman, a park service spokesman. "A hotel would be the ultimate experience in visitor access."

Alcatraz , which was a military prison in 1861 at the start of the Civil War, became a federal prison from 1933 to 1963. Officials claimed escape was impossible because of the strong tides and cold temperatures of the surrounding waters--and there were no successful prison breakouts.

Link to the official U.S. National Park Service, Alcatraz Island, website.

» Source: The Vancouver Sun/Daily Telegraph

Top 10 Mid-sized U.S. Art Cities

Travel Top 10 List of Mid-sized cities known for its arts:

1. Buffalo
2. Scottsdale, Ariz.
3. Pittsburgh
4. Savannah, Ga.
5. New Orleans
6. Charleston, S.C.
7. Cleveland
8. Atlanta
9. Athens, Ga.
10. Minneapolis

» Source: AmericanStyle Magazine/Chicago Tribune

Green Spaces Do Not Inspire More Exercise

Living near parks and green spaces make little or no difference to how much people exercise during their leisure time, Dutch researchers reported in the journal BioMed Central Public Health, this week.

"We found that there was either no relationship or only a small one between green space and physical activity," said Jolanda Maas, lead researcher at the NIVEL Institute in Utrecht, the Netherlands.

It seems that people who live closest to green places in urban or rural areas walk and cycle LESS often and for SHORTER AMOUNTS OF TIME than other residents. People with 20 percent green space around them walked about 250 minutes each week during their leisure time, compared with 180 minutes, which is more than an hour less, for those surrounded by 80 percent of green space.

This may be because people in rural environments need their cars more to get to shops, schools and the doctor's office, Jolanda Maas said.

Living near green space also made no difference in whether people met national health recommendations to get 30 minutes of exercise daily, according to the survey of 5,000 residents across the Netherlands.

Source: Reuters

Mother Nature Relieves Stress

Nature calms the stressed . . . Mother Nature soothes the soul !

Many of you, I'm sure, already know this . . . nature walks, gardening, lying on the grass and watching the wispy clouds float by, family picnics, walking your dog, playing with your dog, stopping to smell the roses, etc. . . . keeps us alive and well.

Researchers at the University of Washington set out to look at whether nature, either the 'real' thing or whether depicted technologically, can have an effect on minor stress levels.

The U.S. study involved measuring people's heart recovery rate from minor stress when they were exposed to a natural scene through a window, the same scene shown on a high-definition plasma screen, or a view of a blank wall.

"The heart rate of people who looked at the scene through the window dropped more quickly than the others. In fact, the high-definition plasma screen had no more effect than the blank wall," the researchers said.

They also found that when people spent more time looking at the natural scene, their heart rates tended to decrease more. That was not the case with the plasma screen.

The study, involving 90 college students, was recently published in the Journal of Environmental Psychology.

"Technology is good and it can help our lives, but let's not be fooled into thinking we can live without nature," Peter Kahn, the study's research leader said in a statement.

Kahn said people are losing direct contact with nature. Instead, they are experiencing it as represented technologically through television and other media.

» Source: Reuters

Katherine Mansfield Said

Quote of the Day
by
Katherine Mansfield (1888-1923),
a New Zealand writer

" Risk! Risk anything! Care no more for the opinions
of others, for those voices. Do the hardest thing on
Earth for you. Act for yourself. "

Wise Words from J.K. Rowling

J. K. Rowling, the British author of the Harry Potter fantasy series, told Harvard's spring commencement last week:

" We do not need magic to transform our world;
we carry all the power we need inside ourselves already;
we have the power to imagine better. "

J. K. Rowling, who is now on several ' Money Rich Lists', was at one time a single mother living in poverty seven years after graduating from college, said:

" The knowledge that you have emerged wiser and stronger from setbacks
means that you are ever after secure in your ability to survive.
You will never truly know yourself,
or the strength of your relationships,
until both have been tested by adversity. "

» Source: The Globe and Mail/Associated Press

Roadrunner--World's Fastest Supercomputer

I can't even wrap my brain around some of these numbers!! Introducing the latest fastest supercomputer in the world named 'Roadrunner' . . .

Engineers from the Los Alamos National Laboratory and IBM Corp. unveiled yesterday the 'Roadrunner,' a $100-million machine that for the first time has performed 1,000 trillion calculations per second in a sustained exercise.

To put its speed in perspective (for us mere mortals), if every one of the six billion people on Earth used a hand-held computer and worked 24 hours a day, it would take 46 years to do what 'Roadrunner' can do in a single day.

Or, 'Roadrunner' has roughly the computing power of 100,000 of today's most powerful laptops stacked 2.5 kilometres high.

This technology breakthrough which took six years of work was accomplished by the IBM and Los Alamos engineers on a computer to be used primarily on nuclear weapons work, including simulating nuclear explosions.

'Roadrunner' is twice as fast as IBM's Blue Gene system at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, which itself is three times faster than any of the world's other supercomputers, according to IBM.

"The computer is a speed demon. It will allow us to solve tremendous problems," said Thomas D'Agostino, head of the National Nuclear Security Administration, which oversees nuclear weapons research and maintains the warhead stockpile.

Officials said 'Roadrunner' could also have a wide range of other applications in civilian engineering, medicine and science, from developing biofuels and designing more fuel-efficient cars to finding drug therapies and providing services to the financial industry.

Some elements of 'Roadrunner' can be traced back to popular video games, said David Turek, vice-president of IBM's supercomputing programs. In some ways, it's "a very souped-up Sony PlayStation 3," he said. "We took the basic chip design [of a PlayStation] and advanced its capability," said Mr. Turek.

But 'Roadrunner,' named after the New Mexico state bird, is NOT like a video game. Try to picture this . . .

Roadrunner's interconnecting system occupies nearly 560 square metres with 92 kilometres of fibre optics and weighs almost 227,000 kilograms.

Although 'Roadrunner' is made from commercial parts, the supercomputer consists of 6,948 dual-core computer chips and 12,960 cell engines, and it has 80 terabytes of memory housed in 288 connected refrigerator-sized racks.

» Source: The Globe and Mail/Associated Press

Help Tips for More Productivity

Have you ever complained, "I didn't get anything done today!!!" ? It's been a gruelling day and you have little to show for it. How come??

"Productivity isn't just about working more. It's about working smarter," said Ann Searles, a corporate productivity coach and president of the Canada-Caribbean arm of the Institute for Business Technology.

To be really efficient takes effort and practice. Here are a few tips from some experts to help you to get more out of each and every day:

• Make a choice. Pick what you want to be productive at. "This should be a no-brainer but it isn't, and the reason it isn't a no-brainer is because our brains are infinite," Ann Searles said.
• Focus on three goals and visualize meeting them. "A lot of people fall into a routine," said Stephen Goldberg, a business coach with Optimus Performance. "Choose three goals that you need to reach to succeed in your work and remind yourself every day of those goals."
• Get clarity. It's impossible to boost your productivity unless you're clear on what's expected of you, Goldberg said.
• Block off time. Once you've set your goal, set time aside in your agenda to work on it.
• Have a don't-do list. Your don't-do list contains all the things you will not do any more because they do not move you closer to your goals.
• Manage your toys. Technology can simplify life but it can also draw one's attention away from focusing on goals.
• Put a price on your "yes." "Most people around them don't want to hear 'no,' " Ann Searles said. "So if you're going to say 'yes,' make sure there's a price to your 'yes.'
• Curb the urge to multi-task. Productive people tackle one thing at a time.
• Measure your results. A productivity program should always be evaluated once it's under way.
• Reward yourself. Little rewards for productivity improvement will keep you on track. "This is how we motivate ourselves. Allow yourself to do something fun for 15 or 20 minutes," Stephen Goldberg said. "Watch a movie clip, listen to music or sleep in the next day."

» Sources: Canwest News Service/Montreal Gazette

Top 10 Restaurant Cities

Here's another travel top 10 list from 'Food & Wine' magazine's 2008 lists . . . great eateries in these restaurant cities:

1. Beijing
2. Mexico City
3. Istanbul
4. Toronto
5. Los Angeles
6. Athens
7. Boston
8. St. Petersburg, Russia
9. Tel Aviv
10. Santiago, Chile

» Sources: Food & Wine magazine/Chicago Tribune

A George Chapman Quote

George Chapman (1559-1634), an English scholar, dramatist and poet once said:


" Young men think old men are fools; but old men know young men are fools. "




Photo: Engraved portrait of George Chapman by W. Hole, from the frontispiece to "The Whole Works of Homer." (Courtesy of the trustees of the British Museum) Retrieved from Wikipedia.

The Secret Life of Costumes

Theatre lovers, take note:

ArtsAlive.ca, Canada's National Arts Centre's educational website launches two new features today offering a great opportunity to see and learn about two extraordinary collections that have, until now, been living in the dusty recesses of the NAC Archives.

1. The Secret Life of Costumes displays 220 costumes by 34 Canadian and international designers who have worked with the NAC since 1969, with descriptions and commentary. For more, here's the link to this web page.

2. Persuading Presence: A Performing Arts Poster Archive featuring 411 posters detailing the history of performance arts and marketing/promotion. For more, here's the link to this web page.

Enjoy!!

Finding Joy

Thoughts of the Day

" Life is like music; it must be composed by ear,
feeling and instinct, not by rule. "
~ Samuel Butler (1612-1680),
English poet


" I consider an human soul without education like
marble in the quarry, which shows none of its
inherent beauties till the skill of the polisher
fetches out the colours, makes the surface shine,
and discovers every ornamental cloud, spot, and
vein that runs through the body of it. "
~ Joseph Addison (1672-1719),
English essayist and poet

Photo: Sunrise, San Vito Lo Capo, Sicily. From Wikimedia Commons.

Western Australia's Rabbit-Proof Fence

Photo of Australia's Rabbit-Proof Fence, dated 1926-27. Photo source: Library and Information Service of Western Australia (LISWA) website. Image retrieved from Wikimedia Commons.

Western Australia's famous rabbit-proof fence built a century ago to keep out marauding rabbits out of farmland is not doing its job . . . . The famous barrier is in disrepair and wild dogs are getting through it and are attacking sheep. Farmers say the fence urgently needs upgrading.

The barrier, featured in the film 'Rabbit-Proof Fence' based on the book by aboriginal author Doris Pilkington Garimara, was built to halt a plague of rabbits across Australia.

English farmer Thomas Austin imported 24 rabbits in 1859 and freed them onto his property in Victoria. Within a few years millions of rabbits were chewing their way across the country, denuding the landscape.

Rabbits reached Western Australia in 1891, and the construction of a barrier began two years later. The No. 1 rabbit-proof fence, at 1,822 kilometres, was the longest fence in the world when it was built. No. 2 fence and No. 3 fence brought the total length to 3,236 kilometres.

Unfortunately, rabbits bypassed the southern end of the first barrier before it was completed, but the fence limited the numbers of rabbits that ravaged agricultural land and still provides protection from migrating emus.

But, the numbers of wild dogs, dingoes, hybrid dogs and feral domesticated dogs have been steadily rising in Western Australia, and farmers say the animals are breaching the fence.

"Some people are losing 10 to 20 sheep a day," said Rob Gillam, president of the Pastoralists and Graziers Association.

» Source: Guardian News Service

It's a Good Day !

To those of you ready to launch a new career, to those of you wanting to start a new adventure or life, to those of you poised to step into unknown territory, here are some encouraging words from bright minds:

" The future belongs to those who believe
in the beauty of their dreams. "
~ Eleanor Roosevelt (1844-1962),
American humanitarian and first lady

" I am always doing that which I can not do,
in order that I may learn how to do it. "
~ Pablo Picasso (1881-1973),
Spanish painter

" To exist is to change,
to change is to mature,
to mature is to go on creating oneself endlessly. "
~ Henri Bergson (1859-1941),
French philosopher

Photo: Swan Touchdown, Gloucestershire, England, from Wikimedia Commons.

NASA's Phoenix Mars Scoops Up Martian Soil

NASA's Phoenix Mars scoops up Martian soil for the first time on Sol 6, the sixth Martian day of the mission, May 31, 2008, the first step in a series of actions to bring soil and ice to the lander's experiments.

The lander's 'robatic arm' first scoop left an impression on Mars' surface that resembles a wide footprint--dubbed 'Yeti' at a place provisionally in the King of Hearts target zone, away from the area that eventually will be sampled for evaluation.

For more information and NASA's images on this historic Martian 'scoop', here's NASA's website.

Quotation of Joy by Sir Isaac Newton

What did Sir Isaac Newton say about finding joy? His words of wisdom:

" I do not know what I may appear to the world, but
to myself I seem to have been only like a boy
playing on the seashore, and diverting myself in
now and then finding a prettier shell or a smoother
pebble than ordinary whilst the great ocean of
truth lay all undiscovered about me. "

~ Sir Isaac Newton (1643-1727),
English physicist, mathematician, astronomer,
natural philosopher, theologian.

Photo: Blejsko jezero, Bled Lake, Netherlands from Wikimedia Commons.