A Better Lottery

The current pot for Lotto 749 in Canada is $40M.  Earlier this week, The Wiz and I were discussing how to make lotteries better - and the overwhelming agreement was that the jackpot was too big. If the OLG (Ontario Lottery and Gaming) split the pot once it reached a certain size, it would allow for multiple winners… and really - no one needs $40M - EVER.

The folks who win huge lotteries are ill-prepared to handle that sort of bounty - 70% of US lottery winners wind up broke. 

I know it’d cause me some heartburn.

If the pot split when it hit $20M, then there would be 2 x $10M jackpots. And then those pots would split again when they reached $20M each….. If people had more than 1 chance to win - imagine how many MORE people would participate? Pots would double and split all over the place. :-) People would win manageable amounts of money, and would be just as happy, if not happier. They might not end up penniless.

Winning the lottery isn’t all its cracked up to be - check out Catherine Annau’s film, Winning, which manages to follow up on past lottery winners, and the dismal ways their lives have ended up. People apparently need to be protected from themselves…

If you were the winner of a $10M jackpot, and ONLY invested it at a modest interest rate of 4%, you would have an annual income of $400,000. Say you bought the house of your dreams ($1M) and 2 new fancy cars ($150K), and gave away some of your booty to friends and family ($2M), you’d have very little in the way of living expenses or debt, and could still invest the remaining $6,850,000 at 4% and have an income of $274,000 — and you’d have very little expenses. I could MORE than kive happily on $274,000 a year. Wouldn’t need a job - but would probably have some sort of fun part-time gig, and you’d have al the time in the world to explore, travel and relax….

I’m curious to know what happens to the lives of the lottery winners. Someone should have written a book. $40M could totally screw up a person :-)

Tamil Protests in Toronto

One can only imagine the fear, frustration and utter helplessness felt by the Canadian Tamil community as warfare rages inside Sri Lanka. The Sri Lankan government is prohibiting most journalistic efforts to report on the violence. The folks in Canada wait on pins and needsles to see if their families are safe back home.
For the past few months, Canadian Tamils have been peacefully protesting, trying to draw attention to the violence and atrocities happening in their *old* country. Protesting and raising awareness for friends and family who don't have a global voice. Peaceful protests have accomplished little, no one has really been paying attention --- and at some point, the fear and frustration has led them to stepping up their actions. Despite the wickedness happening inside the Sri Lankan borders, the Tamils caught within that country at least have a voice outside the country, calling for help and assistance. Somalia didn't have that. Darfur didn't have that.  Bosnia didn't have that. Global awareness is something we take for granted, and need to continue to foster.

Yes, closing a highway is a bit of an inconvenience - I'd much rather deal with finding an alternate route to Home Depot than have to deal with the utter helplessness of having my family attacked or killed and have no one listen.

Technorati Tags: Sri Lanka, Tamil, Toronto

Awesome Cogeco Advertisement...

You got me - I love this ad. I stumbled across it on an IT Canada page while reading about Dragonwave (which, by the way, is going to become a huge success in Canada, I just know it)...
Cogeco has another add that plays: "when you're paying for 100 mbps, getting anything less is fraud..... and really bad karma". Snappy marketing, and funny to boot.
:-)


Technorati Tags: Cogeco, Dragonwave, IT World Canada

Unfriendly Fetishes

On my trek to eco-friendliness, I've realized there are more than a few things that I'm still doing that I should STOP doing.
The hard part is in finding good replacements to bad habits.

• Ziplock baggie waster. I hate them, I love them, I can't live without them. Well, maybe I can - with organic sandwich bags.
• Drugstore shampoo and conditioners - I'm one of *those types*. The kind of girl who wants to try every shampoo and conditioner to find that *perfect one*. I'm not paying attention to the possible bad chemicals in these products. And I should. So now I'm more particular. Bert's Bees is ok - but my hair isn't convinced. LUSH has good products - some even without the plastic bottles, but they're pricey. Well.ca has a great line of organic products (plus they're an awesome Canadian on-line enterprise) Inspired Living also has what looks to be a good line-up - and it extends beyond just hair care.
• Chemical laden laundry detergent and fabric softeners: Yup - if it smells amazing, I usually buy it, ignoring the fact that it's likely a bucketful of chemicals that make my towels smell good days after a washing. Sigh. This one is trickier to get over. I need an organic smell replacement. Something that won't leave the Wiz with a strage rash.
• Plastic cling rap: the only thing I use pastic rap for is to keep things from heating up and spattering the inside of my microwave. I KNOW. Not only am i wasting plastic, who the heck knows what terrible things are leaching into my foods. Still - what's the replacement option? Maybe just paper towel :-(

What's your un-friendly fetish? I could go on and on right now, but I'm feeling a but guilty - it's time to share the guilt. Don't even get me started on my dishwasher detergent.

Hey!!! You got your internet in my TV!

The other night, the Wiz and i were watching some such nonsense on the telly, and I popped up to grab my macbook to query the IMDB database to see the particulars on a specific actor. Walking back to the living room, (laptop in hand) I wondered out loud how long it would be until TVs had built in wi-fi and a wee web browser so people could do internet things without having to run and grab a laptop. Geeze, if my Wii can have wi-fi and a browser, why doesn't my TV already have it?

Lo and behold - a recent survey suggests I'm not alone in my musings. Lots of consumers want their internet in their TV.

76 percent of US consumers who are in the market for a new HDTV would value having access to Internet widgets on their television.

Hmmm.... the survey analysis also suggests that folks want to customize their weather, have specific tickers and be able to query show information.

The first thing the Wiz said when I asked about wanting internet in my tv was... as long as i don't have to type with a stupid pointer interface. :-) What a geek. I'll get him a wireless silicone keyboard he can roll up and put next to the remote ;-)


Technorati Tags: internet widgets on tv

Low Hanging Fruit: Hosted App in the Canadian Banking Industry

For a few months now, I've been mulling over the concept of hosted banking applications, provided by Canadian banks, in support of Canadian small business. Recently TD added an option to pay your income taxes through their on-line banking application, but that's not a terribly interesting idea. They've also added the ability for small biz to pay GST and payroll deductions - but there's no integration between payroll deductions and the actual payroll......


Small businesses are usually ignored by the banking industry, heck - they're ignored by the telecom, automotive and retail industries as well.
Imagine an application that would allow you to input employee wages, and the application would take care of all the deductions, and then complete the process by direct depositing the employee wages into their bank account. It's not rocket science - large corporations have software that does this all the time. Small businesses generally don't have the access to the kind of payroll software solutions that large corporations do - and don't have the in-house technical expertise to be able to take the initiative to roll out an application like this.

But what if a Canadian bank did this? And did it in a hosted application model --- all web based. It would be a PERFECT niche market, especially for those small biz owners who had 25 and fewer employees. They'd log into the bank portal, add the wages, click a button that automatically calculates the taxes and deductions (transfers those deductions to the government), and transfers the remainder wages to the employee. It's linked to the small biz bank account - voila.  At the end of the year, there's an option to create T4 slips that automatically get sent to the employee.... shazam!

The monthly fees for a service like this could be palatable for the small biz owner, and they're able to save time, be more productive and improve efficiencies. Wanna take it one step further? Banks should also integrate the best income tax rebate software.... imagine software that would coach you through how to get the best rebate possible....now that would be efficient :-)


Technorati Tags: canadian banking, small business, payroll software

Smells Like Spring

It’s one of those gorgeous spring mornings. The over-night rains have left leaves dripping gently. Somewhere near me, poplar trees are drying in the morning haze and leaving behind the most amazing smell.

I’ve already made a patrol of the back yard to check on the *crops*. Everything that was transplanted last weekend (shasta daisys and black eyed sysans) are all happy in their new homes. Tonight I’ll move the purple coneflower. It will just be a matter of time before the Jack and the Beanstalks peek through the soil.

I love spring.

In the front yard, the brave lillies are starting to green up, and this year, I think I’ve found a solution to the red, Asiatic beetles that eat them. Method all purpose cleaner seems to do the trick. It’s organic, not evil chemical - and it seems to knock those bugs on their butts. Maybe this year my lillies will survive!

Ahh. It’s a good day! :-)

To top it off - I get to meet an AT&T fellow I’ve worked with for the past 2 years. He’s in the UK, and I’m here. And now he’s here! :-)

The Growing Importance of Technology - Avoiding Pandemics

View H1N1 Swine Flu in a larger map

The past two days has seen a flurry of media reports on the growing concerns of a global pandemic of *swine flu* (I know, terrible name, but North American Influenza just doesn't have the same ring to it).

Travel warnings abound.
Folks either are ignoring them, and planning el cheapo trips to Mexico (if they can still get flights, which are being cancelled every day), or they are looking at what impacts a virus such as this could have on their daily lives, and planning appropriately.

You can now map the incidence of the outbreak with google maps.
You can get a checklist of the supplies you may want to have on hand if the virus impacts your ability to get *out and about* to restock.
Now that Swine Flu has hit Ontario - it's beginning to become more important to pay attention to what's going on.

But my favourite, knowing that I can continue, undisturbed, working remotely - and avoiding the brunt of human contact. :-)
Teleworking, remote working, telecommuting - what ever you want to call it is one of the single best ways to avoid either sharing or being exposed to anything nasty.

swine flu, google maps, teleworking

Death By Meetings - Leveraging IT to Save Time

I stumbled across an interesting Seth Godin post on the problem with meetings. He offers up 9 suggestions on making meetings better.

The larger problem with corporate culture is the insidious issue of people not doing their job. So meetings are required to direct people in real time on what they need to do, what they need to be thinking about and what the end game should be. Gone are the days of self-initiative. Goodbye to the self starter.
Meetings are now to make sure people do what they are supposed to do. Then you meet again to make sure they've done what they said they would do.
Gaahhh!

Sure, it's good to talk about projects in real time, it's nice to be in sync. There are a plethora of IT tools that manage both of these activities much better than what can be accomplished in an hour meeting. Unfortunately there's still an underlying fear of collaboration tools, and some folks are just plain too lazy to learn and experiment with them. Hey - I'm in the lazy boat too on some activities.

My Outlook Personal folder is 2.8 GB. It's how I store stuff and stay organized. It's an admitted critical flaw of mine. I'd love to port my work and projects over to an interface that is shareable and collaborative. My company provides some fairly reasonable tools to achieve this --- but I'm spending too many hours in meetings to find any free time to embrace some of these IT initiatives ;-) We've got wikis, we've got a sharepoint server. Heck - we've even reached out and embraced blogging! Still. In the grand scheme of things, it's just easier to have a meeting ;-)


Technorati Tags: IT, Seth Godin, Outlook, Wiki, Sharepoint

itWorldCanada - Community Greening Through IT

I found this fascinating quote today:

The past few years has seen an explosion in grassroots community movements using IT to organize, grow and thrive in a world that’s now more global than grassroots. The recent economic crisis has only stressed the importance of re-localization, and community movements have never been more important. The problem: people have become too globally focused and have lost the social tools to connect locally. IT initiatives and tools are needed more than ever to rediscover local connections and community.Community Greening Through IT | Blogging Idol, Apr 2009

You should read the whole article.