Lewis on Tiny Big Action

 

“The smallest good act today is the capture of a strategic point from which, a few months later, you may be able to go on to victories you never dreamed of.”

– C.S. Lewis (1898–1963)
Irish writer and scholar

How many of us have wished we’d given something (or someone) a little extra effort or attention earlier in the quarter/ year rather than later?

Lewis’s thought encourages us to care about what/ who is in front of us now… to fully use today (this salesday) and enjoy what it brings us in the future.

Strange structures in the Chinese desert

 

As reported by a handful of readers, a popular story about “strange lines in China” is making its way around the internet. There are a variety of odd-looking items in the area of the Kumtag desert, but this one is the most striking:

 

lines.jpg 

You can view that location in Google Earth by using this KML file.

The big question is: what is it? Some theories I’ve seen floating around online:

• Calibrating grid for a Chinese spy satellite.

• Lines drawn with white material.

• Dust dug by machinery.

• Street map of Washington, DC.

There’s certainly other possibilities as well. What do you think it is?

(via Gizmodo)

Google Maps – Ads EVERYWHERE

As the jokes were flying about how distasteful Google’s new Map’s info ad venue was, I became curious as to exactly how unseemly it really was. So I looked.

As Glen Gabe pointed out it may very well be necessary for SMB’s to take out ads defensively. Greg Sterling suggested that Google think about a Pandora like subscription so you could search ad free. For me, Google’s ads on the Map info bubble reminds me of ads on “park benches” that sit amid the fumes on street corners.

Here is a slide show that I assembled in 5 minutes to explore the possibilities. Bing is advertising on Zuccotti Park, Bank of America of course advertising on themselves, Chase is advertising on the Lexington Ave  women’s shelter and CPRProfessor advertising on the American Red Cross…. wow. You can click to see a slide show of some of these ads: