Vegetarian month

October is Vegetarian Awareness Month, which starts with worldvegetarianday.org on October 1st.
The coupon site RetailMeNot.com published in honor of that occasion. I found it elsewhere, but I reposting it here.

The horrible conditions of factory breed meat in the USA should really make people consider going Vegetarian at least a few days a week.

Remember there was a point where Sunday dinner was special in days gone-by because good meat is expensive, it still is. Grass fed, open pasture cattle are so better for the animal, society and the consumer than the grain fed, factory farmed cattle that provides so much of the beef in the USA. Chicken should always be full-range, cage free as the chicken.

Olympics after effects...

Although the Athens Olympic Park build for 2000 Olympics is now a shambles as shown on this
architizer.com article, even there other side benefits like a new subway, airport came with the Olympic. While many ex-Olympic cities are still using the Olympic facilities, ones I have seen include...

    Helsinki, Finland XV     1952

    Stockholm, Sweden        1912 & 1956

    Munich, West Germany XX  1972

Have you seen Atlanta's MARTA system? It's great. So, leave off the Olympics.

Federal Assault Weapons Ban

It is daft and dumb that the US Federal Assault Weapons Ban was so weak and it was let expire after 10years in 2004, without a law replacing it.

Abagond's recent article on James Holmes is a great read.

I think most people in the USA, know potential mass murders, most of white male between teens and forties. Why does white America continue to allow it's most unstable get automatic weapons?
The list of unsavory characters is too long already and do not need more attention, particularly this sad phenomenon being exported to peaceful countries like Norway. Remember that nutball.

See more Micheal Moore's Bowling for columbine or at least this short youtube from the movie "A brief history of United States of America".

It is crazy that people seem proud that the USA is the world's largest weapons exporter, even to Mexican drug gangs, while it's USA increasingly difficult to purchase any customer electronics  manufactured in the USA. The Mexico was closest location I could find a recent LCD TV purchase.

For alternative ideas to Gun Control, there is Chris Rock's $5,000 for a bullet method

People really need to get the guts to stand up on the paranoia and fear that allows automatic, go on sign this pettion...http://signon.org/sign/ban-assault-weapons

Offical and Unoffical National Anthems

During the Isles of Wonder: 2012 Olympics opening ceremony four songs were sung to represent the 4 "home" countries that make up the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland those being..

* England:  Jerusalem, the BBC lists this 3rd English rugby song after God Save the Queen (official national anthem) and Swing low, sweet chariot. But any of these songs make most Irish people cringe, We hear enough of this songs at matches against the "Old enemy".


* Scotland: Flower of Scotland, although Scotland has no official national anthem, this song is very popular and a potential anthem. It gives me goosebumps every time I hear it, as it's a tale of the Scottish victories against English Army of Edward II, as loosely depicted in the movie Braveheart.

* Northern Ireland:  Danny Boy, to the tune of "A Derry air" is popular and maybe less controversial the other songs such as The Sash and The Town I Loved So Well.

* Wales:  Bread Of Heaven, personally I thought the official welsh anthem: Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau (sometimes called in English: Land of My Fathers) is great song and would have shown the importance of the welsh language to the Welsh people) Of course, they could have one of the many other great welsh tunes, like the Stereo-phonics "As long as we beat the English" :-)

So Danny Boyle managed a fair representation of people of the U.K. without using a single official national anthem, so continue of theme of unofficial versus official national anthems...

Ireland 

There was complains from fans other nations at Euro2012 football finals, that the Irish fans only were one song The Fields of Athenry, but it really one of the few songs everyone can agree on. Amhrán na bhFiann, the Irish National anthem is problematic never heard A cappella, as gaeilge (in the Irish language) and the lyrics of this Soldier's Song is quite bloodthirsty.  

Other options like "Wild Rover", "Whiskey in the jar" are alcohol themed and probably heard outside Ireland. Maybe we should try The Fairytale of New York

Rugby when Ireland plays an Island of Ireland team, rather the Republic of Ireland (26counties of the south and west) and Northern Ireland (6counties of the north-east), the recently composed "Ireland's call" is used alongside or instead of Amhrán na bhFiann as the anthem. Because of this comprise solution are prize for most rousing 6nations rugby anthem has go Flower of Scotland, followed by France's La Marseillaise and the Wales' Wlad Fy Nhadau.

Australia: The story of how Advance Australia Fair beat Waltzing Matilda in a 1984 vote to become the Australia's national anthem is at www.dfat.gov.au/facts/nat_anthem.html


United States of America: The Star Spangled Banner based a 1814 poem written by a battle of the War of 1812 in Baltimore harbor, it was only made the official anthem in 1931. The tune "God Bless America" seems to places where it should not be replace the official anthem, because there separation of Church and State, no mention of "god" should be made at publicly funded events, like a recent 4th of July festival I attended.

New York, New York, so good they named it twice

New York, New York is so good they named it twice. But Homer Simpson hates New York City and many Americans would never want to live there, Why?  I think, it's a high density and public transport friendly city. New York is not car (and particularly not SUV) friendly and parking is expensive. But NYC is only major city in United States of America that can claim over 50% of commuted is done using public transit.

London Underground System Map

Cars and Parking are also discouraged and expensive in London, Paris, Tokyo, Denmark, Amsterdam, Stockholm, all cities great public transport networks.

Commuting by general use public transport is not really common in the United States of America. Most children grow up getting on a big yellow bus for school and that's the only public transport they use. Maybe that causes a bias against public transport, an association with schooling before legal driving age.

Or maybe that public transport is great leveler, there is a brilliant mixture of people on New York Subway (or other cites Metro or Underground, Overground transit system) which people find scary in the increasingly divided society in the USA.

I like New York City's  urban melting pot a great deal. It is a bigger version of what I lived with in Stockholm, Sweden. Although Stockholm's SL integrated Metro,Bus,Tram and Ferry system is absolutely the best I have experienced. London and Paris are probably on a par with New York being cities of similar size.

At around 35% of commuting is the efficient and clean Washington D.C.'s metro system. But I suspect this is largely due to so large federal support due to being political capital with major sites of polical, military and tourist interest being located such a small area.
Next around 30 comes San Francisco's Muni and BART systems (which I have yet to try) and Boston's Metro (which seemed good from my one brief trip there).

At roughly 25% commuter usage come Chicago and Philadelphia. Chicago Transit's downtown loop is iconic, how the natives felt about it's with only 75% of commuters not using public transit. (I used the system once going from O'Hare Airport to Union Station.
While the region Philadelphia's area combination of SEPTA, PATCO and NJ transit is not great, the single line PATCO speedline is the best in Public Transit in the region. Really the token system on SEPTA's subway needs to be replaced and improved integration between systems in the area is also needed.

Comparing Houses across the Atlantic.

Some Suburban homes in USA.

It is commonly said "Everything is bigger in America", referring to the United States of America. While the timer frame construction common in North America, is cheaper and quicker to build than concrete block and brick construction common in Ireland and the UK, I not really sure whether the timer frame houses are bigger on average.

Comparing the overhead Google maps photos of the 9house I know well...

•  3 houses owed by myself,my brother and my father-in-law in USA.
• 3 houses owed by my parents in the past in Cork City and Crosshaven outside the city. 
• 3 houses, that I did house-sharing in Dublin. 

3 USA Homes

Suburban homes in Cork, Ireland

All 3 houses are timer frame. One has a full finished basement with one floor above that with a garage/office on separate building with 3bedrooms and one bathroom.
The other two have 2 floors on top of a concrete slab both floors with a garage built into the main structure, since neither these house have a basement the garage becomes important for storage, both have 4bedrooms All 3 houses are in Suburbs in Philadelphia in area where that very car dependent, since they have no public transport access and nearest major services are not accessible by foot. (I mean via footpath/sidewalks)

3 Cork Homes

Some homes in Dublin, Ireland

All 3 houses are concrete block construction. The one is the middle is only house on a single or with a garage, it was also concerned large with 4bedrooms. The area had is walled off the car in the picture, was part of our garden, it was big enough for game of soccer. In Celtic tiger madness someone got the bright of trying to build a house on the garden, this overhead shot was taken before construction began.
The one on the left was also concerned large (4bedroom) it was split-level with a separate garage and a lovely garden. The house of the right is Victorian semi-detected with 2 floors and 3bedrooms. None of the houses have an basement or a sizable attic but was never a problem. It seemed there was not a much need for tonnes of possessions as there people in the USA. The garden had a wide variety of fruit and flowers - such as strawberries, an cooking apple tree, black currants, gooseberries and a peach tree.

3 Dublin homes
All 3 houses are concrete block construction. The house of the left is the largest but it was also the furthest from Dublin City Center, the first time out there farmland near the house. A few years there was Dundrum Town Center, the M50 and a large number of apartment nearby. It had 3 bedrooms and a garage. The middle house was a small townhouse with 3bedrooms. The place on the right was only tiny corner with 3bedrooms in a row of apartment that were originally stables. Yes, for horses. Since this place was 10minutes walk from St Stephen's Green in a nice area with Tennis Courts and Pubs within a minute walk, it was considered okay to converted stables into single floor apartments that were "not big enough to swing a cat in".

Conclusion: From this selection I think Cork has the right combination.

Privacy settings

Computer programs printing out "Hello world" is most common first example student programmers are directed to try. But most people don't actually want to say to Hello to the whole world, yet most people connected to INTERNET allow public profile like facebook, myspace, linkedin, your company, your university and Google+ of yourself give much information.

Most Google user, just have a Google advertising profile, built from the cookies Google uses to track my and your web searches, page-views and ad-clicks. So you can what age and gender, Google thinks are based on your Internet habits at https://www.google.com/settings/ads/onweb/

Most companies don't share the information they are gathering about you with you. So, be very careful with your privacy settings. Yes, I find it ironic I am using a public blog to warn about privacy.