Next Time You Consider Writing a Nasty Post

And, speaking of Seth Godin, I just got this one off his blog post on raising money for charity, which I thought particularly nice:

If you send a nasty email, there’s a real human being on the other end who gets it.
If you flame in a forum, you’re wasting real people’s time.
If you spam someone, you’re really only making yourself look bad.
If you write IN ALL CAPITAL LETTERS it sounds like shouting.
If you want something to happen your way, try asking instead of demanding.
If you give, you’ll probably wind up getting, too.
If you blog just to pick fights, don’t be surprised when people don’t trust you.
If you collaborate, say thanks.
If you’re independent, say no thanks.
If you like someone, tell them.
If you don’t, walk away from the computer.
If you’re giving feedback, lead with just one good thing.
If you’re getting feedback, realize that the person must care a lot to have sent it.
If you goof, apologize.
If you apologize, mean it.
If you smile, mean that too.
If you don’t like something, don’t do it.
If you do like something, spread it.

But far far more important:

Give people a break.
The break you probably deserve yourself.
People are out to do good, 99% of the time.
You probably are too.
Say thanks out loud and a lot.
Try making someone’s day.
Chances are they’ll make yours in return.

Nice Browser, poor compatibility

Church of Scientology Johannesburg: Grand Opening, Mr. David Miscavige, Chairman of the Board Religious Technology Center

Okay – so I’m definitely liking the Flock thing for Blogging.  Works great with my WordPress blog.  However, part of what I wanted to do with this was basically replace the functionality I have with Stumbleupon with a blog-based setup like this. 

However, the only thing I have been able to get to work so far in Flock has been my WordPress blog.  A brand-new blogger blog I set up expressly to use for this won’t work.  Another existing blog from long ago won’t work.  API stuff didn’t work.  Hm.  Well, I guess I’m sticking with WordPress then.  

I was going to use that Blogger blog to blog about Johannesburg – which I love dearly, and wished I could be at for the Grand Opening of their new space.  However, once again, it lands here on WordPress.

technorati tags:scientology, david miscavige, africa, flock, social, bookmarking

Blogged with Flock

Hospital from “One Flew Over the Cukoo’s Nest” Being Investigated

As per a recent CNN.com article, the hospital featured in the 1975 film “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest“, is now being investigated by the state. The article states:

“Federal investigators are looking into patient care at the hospital made famous in the movie “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” where there have been reports of abuse, short staffing and overcrowding.

The Oregon State Hospital is one of the oldest and most dilapidated state mental institutions in the nation. The movie was filmed there in 1975.

Justice Department officials are expected to visit the hospital next week. The department alerted Gov. Ted Kulongoski in June that it would investigate whether patients’ constitutional rights were violated.

The facility is at the center of discussions about reforming mental health care in Oregon. Reports of abuse and other problems led lawmakers to reassess the hospital’s future.

Lawmakers have proposed replacing it with two separate hospitals and two residential facilities at an estimated cost of at least $324 million. It’s unclear how long the investigation could take. Justice Department spokeswoman Cynthia Magnuson said she could not discuss the timeline or details of the investigation.”

I used to drive by this place regularly when I worked in Oregon, and it is one of those places where you feel like you need to take a shower after you drive by. It’s creepy and gives one the chills.

The investigation itself isn’t totally surprising, seeing as though hundreds of such psychiatric hospitals have been similarly investigated, and shut down. You honestly can’t operate a business whereby you pretend to be official and cure people, and then do nothing but shock, drug, and torture them. It doesn’t really work.
If you want a visual walk through of the horrors of your everyday psychiatric institution, check out http://www.cchr.org/.

Catastrophic Thermonuclear Meltdown at Shadows.com?

As many of you know from my other posts, I’m a fan of Social Bookmarking services a nifty way to share links, promote sites, and generally use these new media as a means of better categorizing items on the Internet and making things easier to find.

However, one of my favourite services, Shadows.com, seems to have suffered from CSMS (catastrophic server meltdown syndrome), which has GCRED (gigantic confusing random exception disorder) as one of its first symptoms.

Over the past 2 days, going to the home page or any sub-page of Shadows.com has resulted in only a big, gnarly exception all over my screen, and not too much useful content.  It’s not my user account (as from my Fedora Core 6 box and my Windows box it’s all the same) so I’m guessing there are some machines there with flames blasting out the back of the power supplies.

Unfortunate, because I really like Shadows.  I find it’s a neat place to post things and organize things.  I put all of my favourite news stories there, with little notes on what I liked in them, cross linked to other various topics.  Hopefully somebody else also finds this useful, as that’s the whole purpose of human-indexed content — that someone has typed in some keywords that have to do with a page, and as a result you search for something and get relevant results as opposed to some other crazy thing that doesn’t have to do with what you’re searching.

I guess I’ll use something else like my Kaboodle page on Scientology or something of the sort in the interim.  Anyone else have any light they can shed on the matter?

Scientology London Photo Gallery

The Church of Scientology of London just put up a photo gallery of their grand opening, which was held earlier this week on the 22nd of October. Speakers included Mr. Kevin Hurley, Divisional Commander of London’s Snow Hill Police Station, Alderman Ian Luder, representing the Lord Mayor of the City, United Nations Peace Envoy, Dr. Iftikhar Ahmed Ayaz, and guest of honor Mr. David Miscavige, leader of the Scientology religion.

The Technology of Survival: Taiwan

I wrote an article a few days ago on India, as that is a country that just plain intrigues me with the number of able people interspersed with extreme poverty and disorganization.  It’s something that honestly does seem like an ideal candidate for Mr. Hubbard’s management technology, as detailed by Mr. David Miscavige in his This is Scientology presentation.    It’s something that with a little application of basic organizational technology, and a few ideal Churches of Scientology in the area, an immense change in the scene could be effected.

However, change gears to a location like Kaohsiung in Taiwan, and you get a fully different scene than that in India.  Taiwan is the product of a strong-willed, exceptionally productive people not wanting to live under communist rule, and as such living under constant suppression from threats of military action or the simple suppression that comes about through countries not even willing to recognize you as a sovereign state.

Despite this, however, you have a place like Kaohsiung, which is now the 3rd-largest seaport in the world, and has some of the tallest buildings and beautiful downtown areas of anywhere in Asia.  So, what are they missing in terms of technology?  In this case, I would be hard-pressed to say it has anything to do with their ability to build tall buildings or printed circuit boards.

I would submit that it’s instead things like the technology of overcoming suppression – which individuals in that country need just as much as the country as a whole.  It’s things like the technology of dealing with a seemingly dangerous environment, and how to stay sane and causative in a world that the media makes seem dangerous.  It’s also what inspired me to write this on Taiwan — the technology of how to stop drug abuse before it starts — education.

With items like that to help the individual, I would have to say Taiwan could be made a better place to live.

The Technology and Anatomy of an Argument

Some people tend to enjoy getting into arguments. They’re just that way. They’re the sort that are always itching for a reason to argue with you, just for the sake of arguing.

Well, I guess that’s okay sometimes.

However, in the realm of business, arguments, negative comments and banter, disagreements and upsets — all of them end up in wasted production time for employees and executives, and commonly just end up with either an impasse or key production targets not getting done.

So, it definitely becomes something that is out of the realm of “nice” and into the realm of “neccesary” for a business to know the anatomy of disputes and arguments and how to actually, effectively, resolve conflicts.

This technology is something that has been known by Scientologists for some time, but finds extreme relevance to the business world.

Thus the announcement below, which was made by WISE (the World Institute of Scientology Enterprises):

World Institute of Scientology Enterprises Providing Vital Know-How for the Businesses Community Anyone contemplating starting a business of his or her own could be daunted by the statistics: according to the US Department of Trade and Industry, as of two years ago, nearly 50% of small businesses in America fail within their first three years in operation…

(full story >>

This booklet announced by WISE gives one the whole technology on upsets, arguments and disputes, and how one can use this technology to resolve them, and thus increase productivity.

Contact WISE for more info.

Sweet Feature on Kaboodle: Automatic Flash Slideshows of Bookmarks

Just found out about a sweet feature on Kaboodle.com, whereby one can bookmark a whole bunch of pages – each of which pulls in a image from the page. It then automagically makes one a flash movie with a slideshow of all of the various images on the page, each one linking to the bookmark that you bookmarked. It’s a sweet addition to an already slick setup for managing bookmarks. Example of this follows, various Human Rights-related bookmarks that I put together on Kaboodle.

< INSERT EFFORT TO TRY TO PUT FLASH THING IN>

Okay, now I’ve found that you can’t insert this into a WordPress blog, because WordPress rewrites your HTML after you put in an <embed> type tag. Well, fine. You can go right to it on my Kaboodle page. I welcome any comments!

New Scientology News Site Reengineered

There is a lot happening in Scientology these days.

So, the Church of Scientology International has just put up a new site to pull in news from around the world and put it up in one location so people can be briefed on it. It’s called Scientology Today, and has the latest Scientology goings on regularly updated. It has sections for local news, Volunteer Minister news, news about Scientology Missions, and other International news.

The site also has other sections, including frequently-asked questions by the media:

• BASIC FACTS ABOUT SCIENTOLOGY
• THE ORGANIZATION AND ADMINISTRATION OF SCIENTOLOGY
• SCIENTOLOGY IN SOCIETY
• MISCONCEPTIONS ABOUT SCIENTOLOGY
• L. RON HUBBARD

I’d encourage anyone to check it out.

Feedback on Social Bookmarking Services

I’m sort of curious what other people are thinking on Social Bookmarking services. I know that there’s a devoted following to Digg and Netscape, as those have a pretty serious readership. I know there’s a zillion people who use del.icio.us, but I find that UI a bit uninviting sometimes. So, that’s where I’m wondering what people think on other services.

I wrote a bit on Kaboodle, ClipClip, Otavo, Notefish, etc — but I’m wondering what other people think. I’ve always been a total gadget guy (one of those nerdy types that has a flash drive in his watch, etc), so I’m not the best person to survey. Anyone have anything to share? Comments open.