This is absolutely hilarious — the Geocities-izer. Hilarious because I was there designing pages like this back then. Go to this website and enter the URL for your own website (or any). When you click submit, you’ll see (and hear!) your site “like something created by a 13 year old in 1996” (as the WinXP newsletter describes it; thanks for the link guys).
Don’t worry, it’s not a permanent change to the site. But if you link from the 1996-ized site, the next site will be 1996ized too. You have to close the window/tab to cancel the process. What’s even more fun is that if you then open a new window and go and do it again, you get a different 1996 design entirely.
Bees fascinate me. I’d like to have my own bee farm, but alas condo living doesn’t allow for it.
Here’s a fascinating video about the bee waggle dance, in which forager bees tell their buddies back at the hive about EXACTLY where to find some great nectar.
I got the above from a very interesting article about Complexity and Swarm Intelligence, in which the author uses bee and ant behaviors to illustrate his thoughts. Bee behavior demonstrates systems, network theory, the power of working with a quorum, the significance of novelty within swarm intelligence, self-organization, and the process of group-decision making where there’s no leader to snuff out dissent.The article illustrates “how something approaching intelligence arises in a complex system comprising of non-intelligent individuals” and “how honeybees in a beehive, and ants in an ant colony, operate as a single, intelligent, super-organism.“
The 2 points in the article I found most fascinating are:
#13: The evolutionary (internal rules) part of the behaviour of the bees can also be explained in terms of emergent behaviour. The networked swarm is adaptable and resilient, and it nurtures small failures so that large failures do not happen frequently. This helps not only survival and propagation, but also favours NOVELTY. The large number of combinations and permutations possible among the interacting agents has the potential for new possibilities. And if heritability is brought in, individual behaviour and experimentation leads to PERPETUAL NOVELTY, the hallmark of evolution.
#14: The beehive can teach us a thing or two about decision making by groups of individuals, particularly the compromise between good decisions and swift decisions. Swift decisions may be necessary at times, even at the risk of some mistakes.
And then:
How to understand human intelligence as a kind of swarm intelligence. Human intelligence emerges from the interactions among neurons, in spite of the fact that any particular neuron is as dumb as can be.
My rhododendron usually starts blooming in time for my birthday, mid-May. This year it’s already fully in bloom — started flowering a whole month ahead of schedule!
My rhododendron usually starts blooming in time for my birthday, mid-May. This year it’s already fully in bloom — started flowering a whole month ahead of schedule!
April 30th is No Phone Zone day, but that’s just an awareness raiser and reminder. Let’s all make EVERY day a No Phone Zone day. Please take the pledge and save a life — it could be your own.
Can your children correctly identify vegetables in a grocery store? Millions in the USA cannot! because their parents and schools don’t buy or cook them from fresh! I know, it’s hard to believe.
Jamie Oliver’s 6-program TV series will be winding up this week on Friday. An amazing and shocking documentary series that keeps you completely captured during every show. Find a way to watch this series, if you haven’t yet.
Jamie wants to show how many people around the world really care about tackling obesity. Sign his online Food Revolution petition and show your support. It will only take 30 seconds.
“After three successful series of The Naked Chef, Jamie Oliver could have easily retired from television and publishing, bought a little pub/restaurant in the Essex countryside and spent the rest of his life cooking and taking it easy. But there’s a part of Jamie that wants to make the world a better place, wants everyone to have the knowledge and the opportunity to enjoy good food, and wants to help people who perhaps haven’t had anyone there to help them before.”
Watch Jamie Oliver’s TED award speech. (I hope it appears below; if not, click that link.) In it, Jamie expresses his wish to teach every child about food and fight obesity.
“But the adult is not the highest stage of development. The end of the cycle is that of the independent, clear-minded, all-seeing Child. That is the level known as wisdom. When the Tao te Ching and other wise books say things like, ‘Return to the beginning; become a child again’ that’s what they are referring to. Why do the enlightened seem filled with light and happiness like children? Why do they sometimes even look and talk like children? Because they are. The wise are Children Who Know. Their minds have been emptied of the countless minute somethings of small learning and filled with the great wisdom of the Great Nothing, the Way of the Universe.”
“You can’t help respecting anybody who can spell TUESDAY, even if he doesn’t spell it right; but spelling isn’t everything. There are days when spelling Tuesday simply doesn’t count.”
Receiving this reminder on what I’m calling day 2 of the rest of my life, I’m going to dig that book out and re-read again. (No, that’s not redundant; I’ve re-read it many times).
“When you wake up in the morning, Pooh,” said Piglet at last, “what’s the first thing you say to yourself?” “What’s for breakfast? said Pooh. “What do you say, Piglet?” “I say, I wonder what’s going to happen exciting today?” said Piglet. Pooh nodded thoughtfully. “It’s the same thing,” he said.
Again, that is. I’ve had 8 careers and loved every one of them. I’m retiring from my freelance copy editing business, which I’ve had on the go since 1987.
You know you should retire when you’re driving along in your convertible, sunny day, top down, and find yourself hoping there’s no new work waiting in your in-box when you get back to the home office. I’ve always loved my editing work. Until now, I’ve never had the thought: Please, let there be no work waiting for me.
So here I am, newly retired. Starting my life of zero work (well, I mean zero paid work, LOL), increased pursuits in creativity, and continued learning endeavours.
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