Toxic recycling
Just a random thought this, but why was there only one designated recycling venue in Auckland for last week’s e-waste? Mt Wellington might do for Auckland city, but there’s a whole city north of the Harbour Bridge. And while it’s true that annual chuck-out day is coming up soon — and maybe that’s why North Shore Council failed yet again to do anything about e-waste — putting old computers kerb-side results in their being ripped apart for bits of gold etcetera by uncaring villains, who then allow the exposed toxic chemicals to leach into the ground.
Our e-taler knows this, having previously left an old machine out, in the naïve hope someone deserving might pick it up and benefit, only to see just this happen.
So much for green, sustainable New Zealand.
Get thee to a monastery
If you thought the Wall Street meltdown and attendant mayhem was becoming all too much, you’re not the only one. Ananova reports that one Nasdaq broker has jumped ship… for a Bulgarian monastery, swapping the New York sharemarket bull-pit for a dawn-chorus of mooing buffalo, at the 12th century Tsurnogorski monastery, near Sofia.
Bulgarian Hristo Mishkov has returned to his homeland, saying Wall Street’s greedy denizens deserve to be financially shattered, so they can learn to behave more reasonably.
“If someone consumes more than they have earned, it means someone else is starving,” says Mishkov, who thinks brokers don’t benefit the world very much.
Right now, a lot of people probably agree with him.
Head in the clouds
“The interesting thing about cloud computing is that we’ve redefined cloud computing to include everything that we already do. I can’t think of anything that isn’t cloud computing with all of these announcements. The computer industry is the only industry that is more fashion-driven than women’s fashion. Maybe I’m an idiot, but I have no idea what anyone is talking about. What is it? It’s complete gibberish. It’s insane. When is this idiocy going to stop?
“We’ll make cloud computing announcements. I’m not going to fight this thing. But I don’t understand what we would do differently in the light of cloud computing other than change the wording of some of our ads. That’s my view.”
So says Oracle boss Larry Ellison. Nice to see someone questioning what’s going on with this fashionable new term.
RuTube freeze-out
It used to be said in the old days of the Soviet Union that you should be careful what you said or you’d be shipped off to Siberia. Well, Ananova reports that this is just what has happened to one poor young soldier who dared to complain about filthy barracks, broken showers, poor pay etcetera. The trouble is he did it on RuTube, the Russian version of YouTube, in the form of a rap video.
We’re used to stories of people losing their jobs for bad-mouthing their company in blogs — and not getting jobs on account of posting boozed-up photos of themselves online — but getting shipped off to the frozen Artic wastes? That’s way harsh.
Nerds get more sex — potentially
And now for something more fun. Techies tend to think of themselves as brainy and it’s (sometimes) true. But, then some of the same smart guys undo all that genetic good by, how shall we say, dressing down. Well, New Scientist reports that girls really do like a smart guy — good genes and all that. Of course in a woman’s perfect world she’d get both — looks and brains.
E-tales’ feminine take on this? Smart lads already have a head-start but some need to smarten up the packaging a bit — and then potential might become reality more often.
‘User’ — beware
Wanna check out of your new friend is as great as he or she makes out? Then take a closer look at the person’s Facebook profile advises psychologist Laura Buffardi, of America’s Georgia University.
Narcissists love to use Facebook to promote themselves, but inadvertently reveal the dark side of their personality at the same time. Tell-tale signs include glamorous pictures of themselves — no casual snapshots thank you very much — and loads of friends, which, just like in their real lives, reveal them to be the master or mistress of the casual relationship.
The danger here is that, because Facebook narcissists have so many “friends”, you’re more likely to have an online narcissist “friend” — otherwise known as a user — than you would in real life. The trouble comes when the two worlds collide.