One World

Just saw this video on YouTube. It's apparently the most responded to video of all time

A shed that taught me a lesson

DSC02150
Originally uploaded by peterfletcher38

The shed in the background is a monster, but it taught me much.

It taught me how important it is to feel good about myself. By feeling OK and comfortable and relaxed there's a lot that can be absorbed and let go.

After building that shed I now feel like a shiny stone at the bottom of the river, with the water rushing frantically by while I am just a stone. A beautiful, shiny, stone.

Why I'm fed up with the yanks

Amazon is undoubtedly a clever company. Their e-commerce platform sets a standard to which others will only ever aspire. I tip my hat to their technical skills and business acumen. But sometimes this acumen doesn't extend to being culturally sensitive.

I recently received an email from Amazon, and this is what they had to say:

As someone who has purchased books related to supporting a business enterprise, we thought you might be interested in an exciting new product from Amazon Services: WebStore by Amazon.

WebStore by Amazon gives you a branded e-commerce site backed by the support, selection and expertise of Amazon. You can be confident that your WebStore is going to be up when your customers come clicking. Better yet, WebStore is easy to set up and comes with a number of great marketing features so you can start selling in minutes!

Need help migrating? WebStore is offering promotional packages to help you quickly design and migrate your store. Sign up for WebStore today and check out our promotional offers.

What an exciting offer. My wife owns a retail business that could benefit from this exciting piece of technology so I decided to sign up.

Now keep in mind here that Amazon know where I live. They've shipped books to me previously as they noted in their email. So it came as something of a surprise when, during the sign-up process that the telephone verification of my account didn't work. Unlike my experience with Google, after clicking "call me now" the telephone didn't ring. I waited, and pressed the button several more times, waited a bit more, then decided to send an email. I simply asked them if there was something that needed to be done at my end so they could dial an international phone number.

To their credit they did respond to the email. But this is what they said:

In order to complete your registration on our web site, you would need
to provide a U.S. phone number where you could be immediately reached.
We require this as part of our account verification system; you would
need to enter a PIN over the phone in order to complete registration.

If you are unable to provide a U.S. phone number where you can be
immediately reached for PIN verification, you will not be able to
register on our web site at this time.

At this time, only sellers with a U.S. checking account, a U.S.
billing address, and a U.S. phone number are eligible to apply for
Amazon Payments.  Unfortunately, the lack of an international standard
for identity verification has made it impossible thus far for us to
offer this service to our international sellers.

Since Amazon Payments is required in order to sell on our third-party
selling platforms, we realize that this may hinder your ability to
sell on our site.  I would encourage you to explore the
options available to you in order to establish these requirements.  We
do have international sellers who have established U.S. checking
accounts and U.S. billing addresses, enabling them to receive payment
via Amazon Payments, and who are currently enjoying the benefits of
this service.

For a starter, if they have no intention of allowing me to set up an online store because I live in Australia, why send me the email in the first place? Secondly, don't be so arrogant to tell me where I should start a bank account. I want my bank accounts to remain in Australia thanks very much.

It's these, and lots of other, clumsy efforts at globalism that, in my view, disenfranchise the non-US world. Whilst no-one can excuse terrorism, we can understand the anger, frusrtation, and resentment that the American hubris tends to create.

I'm all for technology and global opportunity, but I'm also all for cultural diversity and respect for other traditions.

Come on Amazon, you can do better than that!

My favourite song of all time

This song is just brilliant.

On showing gratitude

I wrote yesterday about how lucky I am to have the life I have. After all I have in abundance what many only dream about. Fresh food, clean water, a comfortable home are all parts of my life that I often take for granted.

I found this post, written by David Pollay, about gratitude and how important it is as a way of improving our lives and making our world a better place. He suggests investing time identifying the people and things we value and then take the time to learn more about them. What do these people do, how, and why?

Once we commit these important people to memory we can begin to express our appreciation to them in whatever way we choose.

Finally, we can link our gratitude chains together. This is a perfect way of helping us see how that which we enjoy in life is connected in more ways than we can possibly imagine.

I wonder what the garbage guy's story is?

How lucky am I?

Today was a hot day, the hottest December day in Perth since records began. I'm writing this post in the comfort of airconditioning. Comfortable against the blazing heat thanks to the modern comfort of an energy guzzling machine. It costs money to run, just like the car.

If I lived in many other countries I wouldn't need to worry about the expense of running an airconditioner. It simply wouldn't be an option. If I lived in Indonesia or Sri Lanka there's a good chance I'd have much more fundamental things to worry about. Feeding my family, clean drinking water and a roof over my head that didn't leak would be high on the priority list.

There are so many people in this world who live through unbearable poverty and unimaginable misery. If I could just help one of them live a more comfortable life and be happier then my life would be complete.

Marty Robbins - El Paso

When I was in my teens my favourite singer was Marty Robbins. I just love this song. It's such a great tale of love and tragedy.