…There is only one sin, only one. And that is theft. Every other sin is a variation of theft… When you kill a man, you steal a life. You steal his wife’s right to a husband, rob his children of a father. When you tell a lie, you steal someone’s right to the truth. When you cheat, you steal the right to fairness.— From The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
Month: September 2007
Britain Aims to Abolish Gasoline and Diesel Cars by 2040
Good to see some people are thinking of moving beyond petroleum…
As part of an admirable but highly optimistic plan for a “Zero-Carbon Britain” by the year 2050, British Liberal Democrats announced plans to completely abolish gasoline- and diesel-powered cars by 2040. To aid them in their quest, the politicians proposed increasing Britain’s car tax by
10 Ways to Achieve Work-Life Balance
One of the problems a lot of people face, especially those who freelance, work from home and have their own businesses, is that the line between their professional and personal lives becomes so blurred, and almost non-existent.
This affects both their lives, how much they’re able to enjoy them and even how much they’re able to give in them.
An interesting post that I found on Web Worker Daily gives a list of 10 ways to achieve a better work-life balance, that I think applies to everyone.
1. Don’t always be connected.
2. Limit work; Set working hours.
3. Make life a priority. What do you want to do besides work?
4. Batch small tasks together and do them all at once.
5. Define what you want to do today.
6. Limit meetings & communication.
7. Do the hard stuff first.
8. Slow down. Do less, but focus on the important stuff.
9. Schedule your day in blocks.
10. Be firm. Set clear boundaries.
Read the full post here: 10 Ways for a Web Worker to Achieve Work-Life Balance.
Google Introduces Presentations To Its Online Office Suite
After a long time coming (long in terms of our internet era time) Google has finally launched the third piece in their online office suite: Google Presentations (or Presently as some people are calling it), a presentation product that targets the needs of the audience using Microsoft’s PowerPoint.
Presentations can be imported from existing files or created using the new slide editor. They can be edited, shared, and published using the familiar Google Docs interface, with several collaborators working on a slide deck simultaneously, in real time.
When presenting the slides, participants can simply click a link to follow along as the presenter takes the audience through the slideshow. Participants are also connected through Google Talk and can chat about the presentation as they’re watching, which I found to be a really cool feature.
Personally, I really like its simplicity. It is a stripped down version of a presentations product with only the essential features needed to put together a number of slides, organize your content and then present it; and that’s exactly what I need for my presentations.
All the additional bells and whistles that PowerPoint has, I rarely ever use.
Will this take the place of Microsoft PowerPoint? I don’t know really, maybe not right now, and maybe never for power users, but for people who are connected most of the time they’re at a computer and who need simple basic essential features, I think this is a great option.
Check it out at Google Docs.
Indian Doctor Develops HIV Destroying Enzyme
Great health news from India…
Dr Indrani Sarkar has has every reason to be excited. Her PhD thesis, which started in 2002 at the Max Planck Institute in Dresden, Germany, has thrown open the doors for developing enzymes that can destroy the dreaded Human Immuno-deficiency Virus or HIV within infected cells permanently.
Indrani and a team of scientists have developed an enzyme called Tre. Tre is a custom enzyme capable of detecting, recognising and destroying HIV, much like a pair of molecular scissors.
[Source: IBN]
This is really great news…
It’s a shame though that it might take from 5 to even 20 years for this cure to make it to the clinics and actually be used to cure people suffering from HIV.
Hopefully, things will move on faster than that and rid humanity of HIV/AIDS for good.
Seras-Tu Là ? (Guillaume Musso)
This morning, before going to work, I finished reading “Seras-tu là ?” (Will You Be There?) by French novelist Guillaume Musso.
The idea of the book revolves around an essential question that almost everybody must have asked themselves at some point in their lives: If you had the opportunity to, what would you change in your life? If you had to do it again, what remorse, what regret would you choose to obliterate?
The story follows Elliott, a successful 60 year old surgeon, who lives in San Francisco and whose life is illuminated by his daughter Angie. He would be perfectly happy if only Ilena, the woman he was passionately in love with, hadn’t died thirty years before.
One day, by a strange combination of circumstances, he is brought back to his own past and meets the young ambitious doctor and man he used to be thirty years earlier. Since then, the two Elliotts weirdly face off in a struggle on whether they should mingle with past events and change destiny or not.
The idea of the book is a very interesting one, and I really liked the way the whole story and approach was handled, and how the concept of time travel was integrated into it all.
Thanks to my friend Bilel, who recommended and lent me this book. I too recommend it, it’s a light quick enjoyable read that tells you a nice story but also makes you think about what you’d do if you had the ability to go back in time and change something in your life.
[Amazon.fr: Seras-Tu Là ? (Guillaume Musso) (FR)]
[Amazon.com: Will You Be There? (Guillaume Musso) (EN)]
Making Money…
Making money isn’t hard in itself, what’s hard is to earn it doing something worth devoting your life to.— From the book The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zaf
Fifth Wedding Anniversary
On a day like today, exactly five years ago, I got married to the one girl I ever fell in love with and who actually made me feel like settling down; my one and only Eman.
Before meeting her, I never even thought about marriage; I was very happy on my own, having all the fun in the world; And then, we met, and it just hit me: I want to spend the rest of my life with her.
Now, five great years after our wedding day, I’m even more sure of it; we’ve come a long way, we’ve gone through many events, we’ve accomplished many things, and we now have a handsome one-year old baby boy who, even though naughty, makes this life even more worth living.
To my sweet and lovely wife: “Love” is but a fraction of the feelings I have for you. Thank you for making my life as beautiful and complete as it is today.
Google Offers $10M To Boost Green Transportation Technology
Google.org, Google’s philanthropic arm, has announced that it will offer $10M to start-ups offering the best ideas for advancing “sustainable transportation.”
The company has issued a request for proposals (RFP) from entrepreneurs and for-profit companies for ideas to support the technologies, products and services needed to accelerate plug-in hybrid electric vehicle commercialization while promoting societal and environmental change.
“The severity of global warming requires solutions from NGOs, governments, individuals and (very importantly) the private sector,” the company said in a statement. “While $10 million is a fraction of the total investment needed to transform our transportation sector, we hope this RFP will help catalyze a broader response.”
Google.org has already given away $1 million in grants to a number of nonprofit organizations and now wants to expand its reach into the private sector.
This round of grants is part of Google.org’s RechargeIT initiative, launched in June, to help stop global warming.
[More: RechargeIT RFP, RechargeIT]
[Source: ComputerWorld]
Green Ifriqiya 2007: The First International Environmental Investment Forum
The first International Environmental Investment Forum also dubbed “Green Ifriqiya 2007”, will be held in Tunisia from November 9 to 11, 2007 at the El Kram Exhibition Hall.
The event which is jointly organized by the Tunisian Ministry of the environment and sustainable development, as well as the German Technical Cooperation Agency (GTZ) with the help other regional and international organizations, will be attended by 300 Tunisian and foreign enterprises.
“Green Ifriqiya” aims to stimulate new economic opportunities through green investments, as well as developing technological innovation and cooperation for environmental protection and explore new business opportunities on the African continent based on environmental protection and sustainable development.
It also aims at promoting partnership between European firms and African countries in the field of environmental technologies and natural resources preservation.
Among the targeted areas of activity the forum purports to explore are: natural resources protection and conservation, water management and saving, solid waste management and recycling, renewable energies, bio- agriculture and bio-products, green tourism, environmental information, communication and education application of ICTs in environmental protection.
[More: Tunisian Green Pages (FR)]
[Source: Tunisia Online News]