February 2008

Poor Ginkgo Bilboa. This rather innocent tree first came to my attention when I was still a child and the media “rediscovered” this living fossil growing in the living rooms of some monks in China. It doesn’t appear to have been very lost (both the monks and a slew of scientists knew where to find it ) but, whatever. I’m sure the tree recovered, once the paparazzi cleared out. (The monks were thankful, too)

Lost or not, the tree is quite remarkable.

It comes in two sexes; the male trees produce mobile sperm, making it both a rarity in the plant world, and the target of the media baby bump watch. Ginkgo trees were around long before the Jurassic period, where no doubt dinosaur cousins of Geraldo fed on its leaves. Very long lived (A Chinese example is said to be 3,500 years old), they’ve not only survived Geraldo, but the atomic blast in Hiroshima - and only a kilometer or so away from the blast crater. Off topic for MindTweaks, I know, and yet interesting.

But The Media’s most recent obsession over Ginkgo is, actually, on topic. It has to do with the subject of memory-loss. [click to continue...]

For future reference (and your amusement):

When spending hours searching for the cause of Ugliness when your blog is viewed in Internet Explorer, a good place to start would be any bit of code marked something like “MONSTEROUS IE HACK”.

Ahem.

Problem solved. IE Ugliness banished.

Thank you for your indulgence.

You knew it had to happen eventually.

Sooner or later, every blogger grovels to the Google gods, and writes a traffic-bait title with those ever popular keywords, “Make Money Online”. For me, it was later rather than sooner… but I have, indeed, succumbed to the temptation.

But this is different, promise! It’s different because *this* online-marketing thingy has ME excited, which is rare in this world-of-online-marketing-pitch-overload.

Here’s the deal:

Unless you’ve been living under a blogging-rock, you’ve heard about Brian Clark’s new brainchild, TeachingSells. (You know Brian, right? The ever awesome writing/advertising guru at Copyblogger?) Since some of you may, in fact, live under rocks, a brief description is in order.

(Mind you, I don’t object to living under rocks. I can often be found there myself, lounging beneath a moss covered bit of pink granite. )

[click to continue...]

In an attempt to tug-drag-push-force-SHOVE this blog back on topic, I’m introducing a new feature: Weekly Tweaks. Each week will bring a simple exercise intended to shake up your mental routines and engage your brain in a bright and shiny new way.

Each person’s neural circuits are as unique as the toes on their feet - so each persons experience will vary with their particular brain-talents.You’ll find some exercises absurdly simple, and others seemingly impossible. But the more difficult a task seems, the more benefit you’ll receive from sticking with it.

So without further ado, let’s sound the trumpets and raise the curtain on This Week’s Tweak!

Speaking of toes…

Each night this week, count your toes in English. [click to continue...]

So I’m sitting here, minding my own business, staring blankly at this blog, doing nothing (like a good feverish patient should) when (for reasons unknown) I click the little magic button on my Firefox window that says “Switch to IE view”.Suddenly, my beautiful blue Wordpress template goes all WONKEY.

There’s an odd blank space to the left of the template. And my inpost images, lovingly crafted and aligned, NO LONGER ALIGN.

What evil ugly is this?? Some.. THING…. some heinous code slashing beast… has invaded my domain, and IT MESSED UP MY CODE.

This.. will not do! Back, BACK you evil-code-munching beast from hell. BACK to the domains of poorly parsed php from whence you came. BACK to the FIRES of Cascading Style Sheets!

My apologies to all you Internet Explorer users out there.

Things are supposed to be much, much prettier than they have been lately. [click to continue...]