Meter Down

http://blog.wired.com/cars/2008/07/blowing-up-a-60.html

Ryan Mickle seems like a sane guy. He’s well spoken, intelligent and pretty successful. He’s also environmentally conscious, to the point that he realized he didn’t need his two-year-old Range Rover Sport when his job relocated him to San Francisco.

But that wasn’t enough for Ryan. Tired with what he calls an “incremental approach to addressing climate change,” he wants to make sure nobody else makes the same mistake he did: buying an inefficient car totally unsuited to his needs. A self-professed “believer in the wisdom of the crowd,” he launched onefewer.org to let online voters decide the fate of his car.  Mickle promises his gas-guzzler will be taken off the road, never to emit another hydrocarbon.

Unless, of course, the voters decide to set it on fire.

Mickle says his idea is based on crowdsourcing, a term coined by Wired’s own Jeff Howe. Crowdsourcing relies on individual contributions from an undefined group that collectively helps an individual or organization reach a decision or accomplish a task.

In onefewer.com’s approach, online contributors come up with feasible means of permanently disabling the Rover’s internal combustion activities, vote on a best solution and see it happen. The goal, says Mickle, is to take the Rover “off the road forever however the world wants to, and to engage a conversation about the fate of the Range Rover itself and the ass-kicking changes we can make in our lives beyond travel mugs and canvas grocery bags.”

Yes, Mickle realizes the crowd could be full of morons who collectively decide to do something more environmentally destructive with the car than drive it. Driving a pile of chemically-impregnated foam and non-biodegradable plastics off a cliff and into a pristine wildlife habitat certainly doesn’t have a positive short-term environmental impact, and burning the thing would release more carcinogens into the air than any clean turbodiesel.

However, Mickle says his approach “might have greater environmental returns as a result of the changes it inspires in the greater number of onlookers, outweighing any additional environmental consequences.” In other words, the publicity generated by the destruction of the car would lead to a “conversation about the fate of the SUV itself” that might make people think about the environmental impact of their actions, or at least appreciate the proper use of the word “fewer.” Of course, it also might make a lot of people angry and turn fifteen minutes of fame into a night in jail.

It seems almost sinful to destroy such a gorgeous piece of machinery, especially one that remains so useful even with its unnecessary opulence. The Range Rover is no ordinary kludge of an SUV. It’s refined, gorgeous and extremely capable of handling itself in some of the harshest environments even if it is occasionally incapable of getting owners to work without a stop at the dealer.

Though the ’06 Sport is a world away from a trusty Defender in terms of refinement, most of those pictures of the wildlife we’re all trying so desperately to save would never have been taken without the help of the gents in Solihull. Land Rover BMW Ford Tata says their SUVs are “built for purpose,” a premise that Mickle hopes the crowd will take into account. He’s “hoping that the winning idea will be more environmentally conscious but totally out there.”

Let’s hope Mickle’s trust in the free market is well-placed. After all, it was the crowd that decided to use these purpose-built trucks for hauling groceries in the first place.

Mickle plans to consign his Ranger to its fate within a few months. We’ll be there when it happens and let you know how it goes.

Let’s talk, talk talk and talk. Take the remote control in hands and switch the channels. Yeah that’s what I was doing tonight. I changed one channel after another until I reached the last one and I had to press that same button 44 times in search of a “Tension-free” program…

Now here is what I found out, channel one to about channel 27(except HBO, Star Movies and Star World) all the channels were discussing THE MOST IMPORTANT ISSUE OF PAKISTAN… you must know that … then came ARY or may be INDUS, that was sweet, a very nice cute little girl dancing in front of the whole nation, her parents appreciating; lucky parents; people chanting slogans, clapping and whistling. Then came another young boy, dancing and being appreciating by the “International Level” judges’ .Thanks God we are competing with India at least in any way. All our parents must be so happy that now their boys and girls are getting the real chance to show their talent in front of the world. They were dying for that! Now I am sure we will produce world class dancers who may get a chance to show their talent in boogie woogie. That’s what our ultimate goal should be. Let them think, we will copy later on.

Back to channel 27, thanks God I found out National Geographic. But my dad said ‘Oh yaar kaheen aur laga kya her waqt kutay billay dhakta rahta ha tu…’ perhaps he too is anxious to know about THE MOST IMPORTANT ISSUES OF PAKISTAN.

Now let’s talk about the MOST IMPORTANT ISSUES OF PAKISTAN. Off course none other than our beloved, Just, Fair and The most innocent “The Judiciary”. Once all the judges are reinstated every thing will be OK. Oh don’t forget get my favourate chap his highness Mr. justice Iftikhar Chaudry back. Because he has this (shhhh don’t tell any one, it’s a secret) secret magical stick with which he can solve every problem including atta issue , not only that he can light up your homes, bring back investment, flood the dams with water, make smooth roads with no bumps. Oh yeah the magical stick has the power to wipe out extremism from its roots. Off course we have voted for a change and only ifti uncle can bring that.

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Hussain, who was injured and taken prisoner by the Indian Army in the 1965 war, spent 40 years in Indian jails. He was released as a civilian prisoner in 2005. During his imprisonment, Hussain was subjected to terrible human rights abuses.

Hussain, bearing army No 335139, hit by enemy fire on the Line of Control at the start of the 1965 war. Subsequently, he is taken prisoner by the Indian army, who deny him Prisoner of War status. Trained in the traditions of the Pakistan Army, Hussain faces all the suffering and refuses to share any information about his country with his captors — so much so that when they cut out his tongue, he writes ‘Pakistan Zindabad’ (long live Pakistan) in his own blood. Hussain also becomes mentally ill during his four decades of incarceration.

The Great Sipahi Maqbool Hussian fought till the last gasp. Now is the time to pay all our respects and salute his bravery.

This is bit difficult but one should try to control the 10% instead of going for 90%.

Have you read this before? Discover the 90/10 Principle. It will change your life (at least the way you react to situations). What is this principle? 10% of life is made up of what happens to you. 90% of life is decided by how you react. What does this mean? We really have no control over 10% of what happens to us. We cannot stop the car from breaking down.

The plane will be late arriving, which throws our whole schedule off. A driver may cut us off in traffic. We have no control over this 10%. The other 90% is different. You determine the other 90%.

How?

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I found this slide show very informative… It may prove helpful to all of us if we follow the instructions properly…

source:http://news.yahoo.com/s/macworld/20080327/tc_macworld/studyseesmicrosoftbrandinsharpdecline;_ylt=A0WTcXYUUuxHKXsBXQQjtBAF

Microsoft’s brand power has been in sharp decline over the past four years, an indication the company is losing credibility and mindshare with U.S. business users, according to a recent study by market research firm CoreBrand.

According to the CoreBrand Power 100 2007 study, which polled about 12,000 U.S. business decision-makers, Microsoft dropped from number 12 in the ranking of the most powerful U.S. company brands in 2004 to number 59 last year. In 1996, the company ranked number 1 in brand power among 1,200 top companies in about 50 industries, said James Gregory, CEO of CoreBrand.

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