Great Solar System Comparative Pic

 

A giant image of 88 objects in our solar system, including 11 planets and 21 moons -- all the known objects bigger than 200 miles in diameter.

http://kokogiak.com/solarsystembodieslargerthan200miles.html

Six Million Dollar Man: The Death Probe

Awesome -- this freaked me out for weeks when I was a kid, back when I was 8 or 9 I guess. Had nightmares for weeks.

It's about an indestructible Russian Venus probe that accidentally lands in the US. Of course, Steve Austin has to deal with it.

Here's part 1.1:

And here's part 1.2:

Part 1.3:

Part 1.4:

Part 2.1:

part 2.2:

Part 2.3:

... and part 2.4:

The final section:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_The_Six_Million_Dollar_Man_Episodes

Project Gutenberg's Sci-Fi Section

 

 

 

Free sci-fi books for download, including Burrogh's entire Barsoom series... very cool!

http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Science_Fiction_%28Bookshelf%29

Thar She Blows!

 

A dead 60 ton whale exploded while being transported through a major Asian city. Seems like whales blow up during decomposition as gasses release. Must've been a fun clean up... reminds me of SCTV's "Farm Film Report" -- he blowed up real good! 

What's even funnier is that this animal was being transported from a local aquarium where it died. It was a star exhibit because of it's 5 foot penis. "May the Good Lord take a likin' to ya' and blow ya' up real soon!" indeed.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4096586

Who Needs A CIO?

Interesting dichotomy, and one that shows up readily at my level. The doers want to innovate but are constantly stifled by upper leadership, who want to cut costs and reduce change. So, who needs a CIO?

CIOs, it turns out, are mostly business people who have been given the thankless job of keeping the lights on, IT wise. And the best way to ensure that they stay on is to change as little as possible.

That puts many CIOs in the position of not being the technology innovator in their company, but rather the dead weight keeping the real technology innovators--employees who want to use the tools increasingly available on the wide-open Web to help them do their jobs better--from taking matters into their own hands...

The consequence of this is that many CIOs are now just one step above Building Maintenance. They have the unpleasant job of mopping up data spills when they happen, along with enforcing draconian data retention policies sent down from the legal department. They respond to trouble tickets and disable user permissions. They practice saying "No", not "What if..." And they block the ports used by the most popular services, from Skype to Second Life, which always reminds me of the old joke about the English shopkeeper who, when asked what happened to a certain product, answered "We don't stock it anymore. It kept selling out."

And this great quote about the CIOs of Universities:

The most dramatic example of this is on college campuses, where a generation raised on Google and MySpace meets its first IT department. Needless to say, the kids want nothing to do with "disk storage allocations" and "acceptable use policies". The life of a university CIO is like the life of a telco CEO, fast forwarded by about five years. The users want a dumb pipe, preferably at gigabit speed. They neither need or want the university to administer their email, wikis, blogs, video storage or discussion groups. They want it to simply get out of their way.

No kiddin'! The software is getting smart enough and is typically free -- just get out of our way!

http://www.longtail.com/the_long_tail/2007/02/who_needs_a_cio.html

How To Finish A Meeting Well

• Clearly state what you plan on doing next with the information you’ve just been given, and if you expect or wish to have that employee participate and remain involved in some way.
• State what your next action will be, and ask for or suggest a next action for them, thereby creating collaboration for resolution between you.
• Ask if they agree, or if they have a better idea (they often will! They’re closer to the problem!)
• Last, set a time when you’ll have a follow-up conversation to update each other; set a date for another D5M.
• Before it arrives, take the action you agreed to take.
• When you have your follow-up conversation, speak of another agreement on the next step in the process until the issue has been taken care of.

http://www.lifehack.org/articles/communication/learn-to-finish-conversations-well.html

The Daily 5 Minutes

I intend to take this up at work. Basically, the idea is that every day you spend 5 minutes with one of your team. Some good suggestions are provided.
http://www.managingwithaloha.com/2007/02/the_daily_5_min.html