Linktastic

Rick’s Web cam of the Japan Quake

My friend Rick, who lives in Tokyo, switched on his Web cam when things started to shake in Japan two days ago. Here’s the resultant video. There are quite a few videos floating around that show much more stunning imagery than Rick’s apartment wall and chair moving around, but for me at least it really …

March 13, 2011
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Jane McGonigal’s +20 Crazy Idea

The counter-balance to yesterday’s insane video, this is game developer Jane McGonigal’s TEDTALK. It’s absolutely brilliant. Key take-aways: Gamers have spent 5.93 million years (collectively) playing WoW and solving its problems. By 21, the average kid in a country with a strong gaming culture will have spent 10,000 hours playing games (read Outliers for why …

July 11, 2010
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WoW WTF…

Though I consider myself a gamer (I’ve got an afternoon of Neverwinter Nights planned for today) and have played most all of Blizzard’s early stuff, I never got into WoW. It appears I’ve been missing out. I have no idea what a “guild” is, but this is the most amusing thing I’ve seen in a …

July 10, 2010
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Act For Mums – a request for signatures

I’ve been getting e-mails from ONE.org for several years now, and whereas many of their actions tend to be too US-centric to allow me much participation, their most recent campaign to hit my inbox touched home on a couple of levels. Subject: The perfect Mother’s Day present If you’re anything like me, you’re thinking about …

April 20, 2010
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Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster

Last year in a post entitled “I am an atheist“, I concretely outed myself as an atheist in an effort to put to (digital) paper feelings I’ve had for a long time about religion. It sparked a bit of discussion, and led to a few mentions of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. I always meant to …

February 21, 2010
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Having a baby in China – some links

I’ve heard from a number of people that when you have a baby, you suddenly realize that everyone else is also having a baby. This has certainly been the case with me. From friends and family back home, to friends here in Suzhou, to friends out there in the blogsphere, everyone seems to be popping …

February 18, 2010
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Playing For Change: One Love

My mom sends me LOTS of e-mail forwards. Some are hilarious, some are retarded, and some are just super fantastic. This is the latter. Here’s the song that kicked it all off: Be sure to check out Playing For Change‘s Web site. They’ve got a bunch more episodes.

October 29, 2009
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My ChinaTravel.net Feature on Suzhou

A while back I was approached by the fine folks at ChinaTravel.net, an English-language travel site about China that is “editorially independent” but strongly affiliated with Ctrip.com — one of China’s largest online travel booking Web sites. The site’s editors wanted me to put together a summary article on “my Suzhou”, and as of last …

May 4, 2009
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Big-time Button

Just got a message via Flickr that a photo I took a couple weeks back of Button made it to Purina’s Pet Charts – a collection of pet stories, pictures and videos. She’s currently ranked #2 – help me get her to No. #1! Vote for the photo here: http://petcharts.purina.com/Default.aspx?day=2009-4-13 UPDATE 04/14: Button’s picture hit …

April 13, 2009
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