So there’s those movies like “Independence Day” where the world unites and fights off evil aliens to help save mankind. It’s when all else fails people realize - “hey, we’d better do something about this or we’re all screwed…”

That’s the situation in the Gulf of Mexico right now. It’s not the time to be formulating special committees, drafting new bills in congress, imposing fines, threats or levies or pointing fingers.

Now is the time we need to get the biggest brains on earth together no matter where they’re from to help stop this oil leak. The U.S. Government needs to suck it up and admit they need help on this. BP needs to reach out to anyone and everyone with experience in deep-sea engineering.

With 240,000 barrels of oil a day leaking into one of the largest wildlife centers of North America (both on-land and under-sea), the impact on wildlife will be unrecoverable. Yes I said it….I’ll be telling my grand-children 30 years from now there used to be things in the ocean called fish…and things that flew in the air called birds. It’ll be as surreal for them as us trying to imagine Dinosaurs roaming the earth.

Forget space-missions, Hadron-colliders and all that other useless shit going on in Science and Engineering right now. Any type of Engineer worth their salt needs to figure out how to stop a 7-inch hole at the bottom of the ocean from leaking enough oil to wipe out sea-life as we know it.

Like a friend of mine said: “We can put a man on the fricken moon, but we can’t plug a damn hole?”

From a forum on Sitepoint.com

Question: hey folks, wanted to know how to sketch/wireframe while your sitting in conference and a client/boss is telling u how’s what and what goes where. its very scary for me coz i might miss something or misplace something which wasn’t there. so what’s the smart way?

Reply: The smart way is to say “due to these working conditions, I resign”.

An excerpt from a company email by J. Allard of Microsoft on leaving the company and moving forward.

Please, put my headcount and that cardkey “invitation” to good use. Find a college student that claims we don’t get it and blogs tirelessly about our lack of agility. Track down an EE that has been focusing on fuel cells and has radical thoughts about power management. Or a social networking whiz who is tired of building little islands that go hot and cold and can’t break the mainstream. Hire a designer who’s given shape to 2 decades of beautiful automobiles and thinks we can sculpt technology to better connect to users. Infuse them with our purpose. Give them the tools. Give them lots of rope. Learn from them. Support where they take you. Invite them to redefine The Tribe.

Decide. Change. Reinvent.

B.C. Beers I thoroughly enjoyed this weekend:

• Tree Serendipity No.1 Whisky Barrel Aged Ale
• Phillips Blue Buck Amber Ale
• Phillips Skookum Cascadian Brown Ale
• Phillips Springbock (Maibock)
• Driftwood Belle Royale Dark Cherry Ale
• Vancouver Island Brewery Pipers Pale Ale
• Okanagan Spring Brewmaster’s Black Lager
• Lighthouse Brewing Company Race Rocks Amber Ale
• Turning Point Brewery Stanley Park 1897 Amber Ale

I’ll be reviewing some of the newer ones on here namely the Turning Point and Tree Serendipity when I get back to Calgary. Just needed to put this list up somewhere so I can remember!!

Cheers.

When I lived in Victoria, I used to spend (a lot of) time brewing beer at a place called Bedford Brewing. This was after I got the “bug” for micro-brewed beer after having a tour of Vancouver Island Brewery’s new facility. After brewing some of Dave Harvey’s beers at Bedford such as the IPA and the Scottish Peated Ale (which I hope he gives me his mash recipe for…) I knew it was a hobby I loved to do.

Now, 17 years later, I’m getting set up to do some serious home-brewing and saving my pennies to take the online WBA-certification brewing course through Siebel Institute in Chicago.

I love my job - don’t get me wrong. Working for Critical Mass was a dream come true after 2 years of getting as much online programming experience as possible. I work with some of the best people in the business and have no plans to leave as of yet.

With any luck - next year I’ll be entering some brews in home-brew competitions and getting my name out there to breweries/brewers as a certified brewmaster.

Until then, I’ll keep my head down and learn as much as I can about the brewing process, business and…. keep drinking great craft brewed beer.

The iPhone Killer:

The iPhonekiller is a statement about current tech products and personalities status , worshiped by the media and public, along with my possibilities to react and criticize that in a humorous way, with an Open Design. Price upon request.