Tag: duane storey Posts

I’ve been spending a bit of time talking to Dale recently about life, careers, and where we both want to end up in the next few years. During one of our recent iChats, I was reminded of this Mexican Fisherman Story I heard a few years ago and managed to track it down. After I showed it to Dale he suggested I post it up here, because it has a fairly important message in it. An American tourist was at the pier of a small coastal Mexican village when a small boat with just one fisherman docked. Inside the small boat were several large yellowfin tuna. The tourist complimented the Mexican on the quality of his fish and asked how long it took to catch them. The Mexican replied, “Only a little while.” The tourist then asked, “Why didn’t you stay out longer and catch more fish?” The Mexican said, […]

I had a bit of time yesterday (really, I didn’t, but the creative juices were flowing and I wanted to start dabbling), so I started tinkering with some ideas for a new theme for this site. While I routinely update the theme on this site (I average about every four months or so), I really want the next one to be up here for quite some time, so I’m not going to rush development on it. I have a few basic goals for the new theme: The theme should put more focus on aspects of my life such as photography, and less on my other content The theme will focus more on my life, and some of my passions (such as blogging and WordPress development), and less on random blog entries about nothing The theme will basically update itself from third party services I’m debating deleting a really large chunk […]

** I wrote this article last year on another site, but given recent events I wanted to repost it on my site. I’ll talk about it more in a future entry ** I came across this article the other day, and found it particularly distressing given the prevalence of online social websites such as Facebook and MySpace these days: Megan Meier thought she had made a new friend in cyberspace when a cute teenage boy named Josh contacted her on MySpace and began exchanging messages with her. Megan, a 13-year-old who suffered from depression and attention deficit disorder, corresponded with Josh for more than a month before he abruptly ended their friendship, telling her he had heard she was cruel. The next day Megan committed suicide. Her family learned later that Josh never actually existed; he was created by members of a neighborhood family that included a former friend of […]

You know, I remember back in the good old days when you could cross the US/Canada border relatively easily. The worse thing that would typically happen was for you to have your car searched, or get asked a pile of questions from a border guard. That changed a few years ago when the border agents were given the ability to search your laptop for child pornography. And while I think the end goal (cracking down on pedophiles) is a good one, I have to say that I’m against the current method of blindly searching through digital content. Luckily I’ve never been searched at the border, which is rather strange given that I actually do a fair bit of traveling with my current job. My friend Jason however got searched in the Ottawa airport last time he landed there, and was forced to sit in a chair and watch as a […]

A few months ago I talked about Megan Meier, a young girl who encountered abuse from a classmate’s mother via MySpace. That abuse eventually led to Megan committing suicide, and sparked a whole series of internet debates about where the fault for something like that lies and how accountable social networks should be for the actions of their users. Today Facebook announced that they will be implementing over 40 safeguards to help protect its users from sexual predators and online cyberbullying: Facebook, the world’s second-largest social networking Web site, will add more than 40 safeguards to protect young users from sexual predators and cyberbullies, attorneys general from several states said Thursday. Facebook and officials in 49 states and the District of Columbia agree to safeguards to protect young users. The changes include banning convicted sex offenders from the site, limiting older users’ ability to search online for subscribers under 18 […]

I just saw a fairly recent (February 2008) film showing a slide-show that Al Gore recently gave on climate change. Here’s a version of the video from Ted.com. It’s inline with the material presented in his film, An Inconvenient Truth, but includes recent data and observations. I watched that video once earlier today, and once again the moment this posting went live. To be honest, while I think he makes amazing points, I have a hard time watching it, mostly because the frustration is so evident in his speech. As far as he is concerned (along with most of the scientists out there), everything he is stating in so amazingly obvious it’s hard to fathom how there hasn’t been a huge movement to correct these issues. And I completely agree. Real change takes passion. It times time, energy, and sacrifice. But that does not automatically imply that real, meaningful change […]

Yes, they are rare. I’m usually the guy with the camera. But looks like someone managed to snap a photo of me the last time I crawled away from the computer and into the light. There are lots of people in the photo, and I’m sure I’ll miss some names. But from left to right are Alexa Booth, Scott Hadfield, Rebecca Holt, Ariane, Boris Mann, Matt Mullenweg, (up top now) Phillip Jeffrey, Jessica Mah and me. This was the day after Northern Voice down at Havana on the Drive. Photo By Phillip’s camera.

I love stories like this. Starbucks has just been ordered to pay $100 million worth of cash that was taken out of their employees’ tip jars and given to managers and shift supervisors. It always boggles my mind how establishments like that routinely try and screw their employees, many of which are making minimum wage. My teen years were pretty much filled with an endless string of shitty jobs. First, there was Bonanza, an interesting establishment that tried to cross fast-food with grilled steak, the result of which probably kept the local hospital busy with food poisoning cases. Like Starbucks, we were all instructed to take whatever tips we had and put them in a big glass jar, conveniently located in the manager’s office. Once a year, in December, management would count the money in that jar and give it to us employees. That is, whatever was left after paying […]

I’m a big believer in corporate responsibility. That is, I think big corporations should reach out and do more for people in their communities, or use whatever means they have to contribute positively towards society. Surprisingly, the Vancouver technology scene is fairly active in this area, and I’ve witnessed many technology-driven events in this city geared towards feeding people in the Lower East Side, helping acquire clothing, etc. So today, I was rather pleased to see an announcement from one of the largest technology companies around. Google has just announced that they are going to give every homeless person in San Francisco their own phone number with permanent voicemail. For those people that are trying to obtain jobs, or waiting to receive health-care, having a valid callback number where someone can reach you can be a huge deal. I sent the article to David and asked for his take on […]

While many of you may be out tonight doing something for Valentine’s day, just hope that you don’t hurt yourself and end up in an emergency room in New Westminster. Apparently the fire marshal was called in yesterday and was forced to clear part of the ER due to overcrowding: The fire marshal has ordered an area of the emergency room at Royal Columbian Hospital in New Westminster to be cleared because of overcrowding. Fraser Health Authority spokesman Michael Bernard said the fire department was called to the hospital after receiving a complaint about crowding. “He took a look around the emergency room and found it was unacceptable crowding in one particular area where he wanted to have free access and egress in the event of a fire or a problem,” he said. [..] Eleven people were waiting to be assessed in the ER and 27 more were in the […]