Friends Forever – An orangutan was in a rescue and not doing well. This old hound wandered in absolutely emaciated and the orangutan snapped to like his buddy had arrived. He stayed with the hound night and day until he was well and in the whole scenario found a reason to live. Suryla and Roscoe are now inseparable.
I came across this and had to laugh because just yesterday I was talking about finding a way to hide our department’s printer. Now obviously hiding a refrigerator full of beer and a printer are for two completely different purposes and I don’t condone drinking at work, but hiding a refrigerator and a printer are still related in their own bizarre way. Our company is taking all of the printers away from each department and is installing one networked copy machine per floor. I think that is a great idea if the goal is to reduce the number of printers, reduce the cost of maintaining those printers, decrease toner cost, and last but not least the cost of a depreciating asset. However, the decision also means employees now need to basically walk across the building to get their print job (never mind the fact that it may be confidential). This means you pass lots of co-workers who you usually catch up with (you get distracted). By the time you actually get to the printer, you then find someone has likely walked off with it. I joked yesterday we should hollow out a file cabinet and hide our 150 pound monster printer in it. I had a toaster in my office to cook my wonderful sugary goodness morning treats (Pop-Tarts) until Scott sent a picture of my violation to HR (OK, it was a funny joke).
My point is, why do offices have to be setup to be as unproductive as humanly possible? Want good coffee (stuff that won’t burn a hole in your stomach)? You have to walk to another building to get it. I actually asked Facilities if we could put a coffee maker in and was told no because it is a fire violation. OK, yes it probably is, and I don’t want to be blamed for endangering fellow co-workers lives, but can’t we think of something? Oh, and by the way, I am the resident Emergency Response Coordinator for our floor, so if I set the building on fire I at least know what to do now that I have been through 2 hours of training. I even got a fancy orange vest that makes me look all official. We put a man on the moon, and we can’t find a way to make getting good coffee to an employee without it involving a marathon? Want a fork, knife, or spoon? Yeah, you have to walk to another building to get that too. Want to microwave your food at work? Yeah, we used to have two microwaves and one broke, so now you have to wait 15 minutes to nuke your 4-minute lunch.
People want things near them for a reason…to save time…and listen up companies…this ultimately saves you time. Say what you want about Jason Calacanis, but the man has moments of brilliance. I once heard him say on a podcast that he buys his employees lunch because it keeps them at work, keeps him “up” on what is going on in the office, and keeps them productive. Southwest Airlines founder Herbert D. Keller also knows this because he is famous for saying “you have to treat your employees like customers“. I work for a great company, and it does care for its employees and no company is perfect but when you make a change that affects your employees the thing I am reminded of most is you have to poll your employees before making a decision, so you make sure your decision doesn’t ultimately affect morale and the company’s bottom line. If you poll your employees, and you still don’t listen, then that is an entirely different story.
My site went from a daily average of 60 visits to a sudden spike of over 8,000 yesterday. At one point 385 people were on the site, so I am happy my web server was able to keep up with the demand (thank you, WordPress and WP Super Cache). The 400 pound snake story caused tons of people to visit yesterday from bing.com. I was ranked third on Bing and as of today I am now first (if you don’t count the Bing news article served up before it). Even though I was thrilled to see so many people visiting, it looks like most came to the site and left after 30 seconds. The good news is some of you stayed and some even subscribed to my RSS feed. I say anyone who knows how to subscribe to an RSS feed is a friend of mine and most likely someone who will enjoy the articles on this site. Thanks to everyone who visited and a big thanks to those of you who have come back or subscribed to my site.
A former co-worker posted the above video about healthcare on Facebook, which brought up some discussions I have been having with people. Many people have been saying Canada’s healthcare is lacking, and according to the video above that seems to be the case. I think we instantly look to Canada’s healthcare because it is the closest socialized medicine nation to what we could compare ourselves with (besides, they are our friendly neighbors to the north). Any time someone has talked about Canada’s healthcare, I point them to the list of life expectancy by country on Wikipedia. The US is #50 and Canada is #8 (see below). Obviously, healthcare can’t be the only contributing factor, but what other factors can you think of?
| Rank by entity |
Entity | Overall life expectancy at birth |
|---|---|---|
| 1 |  Macau ( China) |
84.36 |
| 2 |  Andorra |
82.51 |
| 3 |  Japan |
82.12 |
| 4 |  Singapore |
81.98 |
| 5 |  San Marino |
81.97 |
| 6 |  Hong Kong ( China) |
81.86 |
| 7 |  Australia |
81.63 |
| 8 |  Canada |
81.23 |
| 9 |  France (metropolitan) |
80.98 |
| 10 |  Sweden |
80.86 |
| 11 |  Switzerland |
80.85 |
| 12 |  Guernsey |
80.77 |
| 13 |  Israel |
80.73 |
| 14 |  Iceland |
80.67 |
| 15 |  Anguilla |
80.65 |
| 16 |  Cayman Islands |
80.43 |
| 17 |  Bermuda |
80.65 |
| 18 |  New Zealand |
80.36 |
| 19 |  Italy |
80.2 |
| 20 |  Gibraltar |
80.19 |
| 21 |  Monaco |
80.09 |
| 22 |  Liechtenstein |
80.06 |
| 23 |  Spain |
80.05 |
| 24 |  Norway |
79.95 |
| 25 |  Jersey |
79.75 |
| 26 |  Greece |
79.66 |
| 27 |  Austria |
79.5 |
| 28 |  Faroe Islands |
79.44 |
| 29 |  Malta |
79.44 |
| 30 |  Netherlands |
79.4 |
| 31 |  Luxembourg |
79.33 |
| 32 |  Germany |
79.26 |
| 33 |  Belgium |
79.22 |
| 34 | Saint Pierre and Miquelon |
79.07 |
| 35 |  U.S. Virgin Islands |
79.05 |
| 36 | United Kingdom | 79.01 |
| 37 |  Finland |
78.97 |
| 38 |  Jordan |
78.87 |
| 39 |  Isle of Man |
78.82 |
| 40 |  South Korea |
78.72 |
| 41 |  European Union |
78.67 |
| 42 |  Puerto Rico ( US) |
78.53 |
| 43 |  Bosnia and Herzegovina |
78.5 |
| 44 |  Saint Helena |
78.44 |
| 45 |  Cyprus |
78.33 |
| 46 |  Denmark |
78.3 |
| 47 |  Ireland |
78.24 |
| 48 |  Portugal |
78.21 |
| 49 | Wallis and Futuna |
78.2 |
| 50 | United States |
78.11 |
She (my former co-worker) pointed to health statistics on BMI which was smart, I never would have thought to do that. As you will see below, America is an overweight nation. The US is #1 and Canada is #11, but I don’t think there is too much of a correlation to show that correlation equals causation (my sociology professor would be so proud) here, which is exactly my point. If our healthcare is so great, and our BMI levels not that far off from other nations with much better life expectancy, why are we #50?
I’m sending this to a Canadian counterpart to get his take on healthcare as well. I mean, after all, “Canadians strongly support the health system’s public rather than for-profit private basis, and a 2009 poll by Nanos Research found 86.2% of Canadians surveyed supported or strongly supported “public solutions to make our public health care stronger.”[4][5]
A 2009 Harris/Decima poll found 82% of Canadians preferred their healthcare system to the one in the United States, more than ten times as many as the 8% stating a preference for a US-style health care system for Canada[6] while a Strategic Counsel survey in 2008 found 91% of Canadians preferring their healthcare system to that of the U.S.[7][8]. In the same poll, when asked “overall the Canadian health care system was performing very well, fairly well, not very well or not at all?” 70% of Canadians rated their system as working either “well” or “very well” [9] A 2003 Gallup poll found only 25% of Americans are either “very” or “somewhat” satisfied with “the availability of affordable healthcare in the nation,” versus 50% of those in the UK and 57% of Canadians. Those “very dissatisfied” made up 44% of Americans, 25% of respondents of Britons, and 17% of Canadians[10]
In November 2004, Canadians voted Tommy Douglas, Canada’s ‘father of Medicare'”) the Greatest Canadian of all time following a nationwide contest.[11][12]
I want to open the conversation up to you. What other data can we look at to show why the US would have a lower life expectancy than our neighbors to the north if not obesity, or healthcare? If you send data, please site your sources for everyone to benefit from. Thank you!
Hi everyone, it looks like this post is getting a ton of interest which is great. I’m getting some good comments on the post and don’t forget to check out the rest of my posts while visiting (come back and visit me at jeremyperson.com). I was looking at all of my snake postings and found I have quite a few so if you enjoy this one check these out. @WilliamsJoseph tweeted this out and I thought it was pretty awesome. Can you imagine running into this thing?
“A massive python named Deliah was moved by Florida wildlife officials to a temporary home after her chain-link cage near Apopka, Fla., was deemed unsuitable on Friday. The 16-year-old python measures 18 feet long and weighs 400 pounds.” Source: http://news.aol.com/article/400-pound-python-delilah-seized-from
OK your not going to stop hearing about my new camera for a little while, I just love it! On my walk this evening I took these shots to give it a test run and I think they turned out pretty well.
Tyler, Wilbur, and I went for our regular walk this evening. The nice thing about where I live is you can walk out in what some may call a “semi-country” area. I usually try and bring my camera with me and today I was really happy I did, not to mention it was my new camera. Usually I see some cows or some birds but today I was walking back by some vineyards and there were three foxes that crossed our path maybe 30-40 yards away. They aren’t great shots but thanks to the great new zoom on my new camera I was able to zoom in pretty close where before you would have barely been able to see much. On Wednesday night I saw what I thought was a raccoon in the church parking lot but it ended up being a fox and ironically on my walk this evening I was thinking I wish I had my camera with me that night and 10 minutes later I saw three foxes which was awesome. I never realized how small foxes are, they aren’t much bigger than a chihuahua.
I am leading a technical communications discussion at CMMA’s Fall Conference in Park City, UT next month to kick-off the Monday session which I am very excited about. I was asked to participate on a panel about YouTube in the enterprise at the Scottsdale, AZ conference last year and I think I was controversial (or opinionated) enough to keep things interesting so I’m hoping to generate some good discussion at the next meeting as well. I thought it would be funny to show this video because it demonstrates what can go wrong when people are put in charge of communications who don’t have the right tools to “keep things afloat”. I’m hoping to post my presentation so others can benefit so stay tuned if interested. I’m also hoping to have it recorded so I can post it up on my blog but we’ll see if I have rights to do so. If nothing else I’m sure I can get someone to record it from my camera for me.
The Paraty House by Marcio Kogan Architects
“Paraty House’s two reinforced concrete boxes, sit atop each other, connected on the mountainside of one of the islands of the colonial city of Paraty and Angra dos Reis (between São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro), like two modern prisms between the large colossal stones of the Brazilian coast.
The residents arrive by boat. After stepping out onto the sand a metallic bridge positioned over a crystal-lined reflecting pool leads to a set of stairs connecting to the lower volume. This volume contains the living room, kitchen and service area. The continual internal area has a 27m span and huge glass windows to take advantage of the view of the sea.
The same entrance stairs also lead to the upper volume that houses the bedrooms. In the front part of the house, retractile panels of eucalyptus sticks protect the bedrooms from the sun. The areas that face the mountain have small internal patios with zenithal lighting, and use exposed reinforced concrete, which grants a striking texture to the walls. The entire top of the house is covered with terraces, used as observation decks for the residents, and as a garden for sculptures, medicinal plants and edible herbs.” >> See more photos here.
Source: http://www.contemporist.com/
I watch CBS News each night and part of the reason I love CBS News is they try and incorporate positive news stories. Most news channels focus so much on what is going wrong in the world instead of what is going right. If this video doesn’t move you, you probably need to look at yourself. Great story…
