What if you’d already not only finished college, but had graduated from medical school and even completed an internship at the Mayo Clinic, then finally admitted to yourself that your passion was not the medicine and surgery you’d spent all that time and effort and money training for, but art instead? I think many of us would think we had no choice but to stick with our original path, even though it might not the best path for us after all. Turns out there’s one guy who had the courage to not only admit to himself that he had found his true niche in life, but to totally leave medicine to pursue being a full-time artist. That guy is Donald B. Stewart, M.D., and his studio, DS Art, is MiscBytes niche of the month!
It wasn’t that Dr. Stewart hadn’t really wanted to be a doctor. He had wanted to be a physician since he was 5 years old, and he never stopped loving science and making people happy, but by the time he completed his internship he had already seen that he met very few surgeons who were having any fun. He saw how the excellent doctors he trained with had already had the fun and spontaneity beaten out of them by the time (more…)
This is a guest post by Stefan Nilsson, the blogger at Ducedo, where he blogs about The Art of Making Money Online.
I have been making money online for a few years now with different methods, including blogging, but it was not until this summer I decided to begin writing in English and it has been great to being able to develop my English writing. My blog Ducedo is now three months old and I thought it would be a great idea to take the next step by writing a guest post. I contacted Christie who kindly approved the idea and here I am. Many thanks, Christie.
I will take this opportunity to talk about my background and draw parallels to what I love to do today. This post ended up a bit longer then I had expected, but bare with me, when you are done reading it you will have the material to find your inner passion.
Our passion comes from our childhood
In high school I began studying psychology and learned more about the famous psychologist Sigmund Freud. If I remember correctly Freud insisted that almost any feeling could be traced back to our childhood. Even though I would love to be able to blame a few things on my parents instead of myself I understand that their influence shaped me into who I am today.
Think about your best friend who loves football. In my case one of my friends started to cheer for Liverpool FC since his brother cheered for them. And to go further his brother (more…)
This book is not fluff or platitudes. Steve is an extremely intelligent man who started programming computers at age 10 and is a very analytical thinker, and he examines personal development as a field that must obey universal laws just like physics does!
This month’s niche of the month is 9 mm SFX , a custom contact lens company which specializes in theatrical and special effects contact lenses. Their contact lenses are responsible for a lot of the cool ocular special effects we see in many, many movies, commercials and music videos, and in fact 9 mm Special Effects is the worldwide leader in custom theatrical contact lenses. Enough of this boring talk! I know you want to see some pictures. Here are just a few of the lenses which I think we could use in our everyday lives.
Imagine it’s Friday and you want to leave the office early. Extra early. How about wearing the Ebola or Virus B or perhaps Jaundice lenses? I know if I’m your boss I’ll insist you go home immediately if you look like one of these!
Ebola
Jaundice
Virus B
Jaws
Granite
Desert Reaper
Zoltan
Mirrored
Glow in the Dark
You’re going to the prom and want to have something extra fancy for the evening. I’m sure your date would really be impressed if your eyes look like one of these! Or maybe you have a blind date you really want to impress. I’m sure if you show up wearing Jaws lenses he/she will never forget you!
A contact lens prescription is required if you’d like to order lenses from 9mm SFX. The prescription will give your base curve and diameter, so a contact lens prescription is needed for that purpose whether or not there is a vision correction prescription associated with the lenses. A few of the lenses are totally opaque, but those are noted as “No Vision” on the web page. These lenses currently range from about $150-450, and with proper care they can last for years. Why not grab some before that next class reunion?
I saw FLATLAND: THE MOVIE a few weeks ago, and as a math lover I found it very geeky cool and wanted to share. Apparently I am not supposed to buy the personal copy of the movie then display it for the rest of the world here, go figure. So I’m going to embed the trailer from YouTube.
In the full length movie, our main folks are in a two-dimensional world, Flatland, and as far as they know, that is the ultimate all-there-is world. They can’t conceive of three dimensions, but then comes the Sphere… We also see a guy whose world is only a single point, and he thinks his world is all there is. How would he know otherwise? Then there are the ones who live in a one-dimensional world, a line, and they get “freaked out” when they hear someone speaking from outside the line. Of course as a math/science girl, I couldn’t care less about any political or social crap to do with this movie. I simply loved enjoying the fun with the shapes and thinking about dimensions and how amazing and cool it would be to start to perceive a dimension that is not present in one’s current world. My favorite line in the movie, which soon became my tag line for instant messenger for the following month: “Configuration makes the man!” So true, don’t you think?
Once again, I’m sorry this trailer is all I have. I’d love to grab my favorite mind-altering beverage, Mountain Dew, and see the whole movie again on a nice big screen.
Google has granted me access to the Google Wave Sandbox now, and I started exploring it late last night. I’ll be doing more posts on Google Wave as I learn about it.
I just wanted to share with you the little I’ve done so far so you could see the screen shots for yourself! By the way, don’t try getting into Google Wave with Internet Explorer; it will tell you immediately to head for Firefox, Safari, or Chrome!
Creating a Test Wave
I don’t have any real contacts on there to talk to yet, so when I was playing with it I added a contact just for testing and called him Klaus, since Klaus @ Techpatio is my #1 commentator right now. I created a new wave and typed a little message. Then I added Klaus and typed a little more, which he would have been able to see if he had an account. If he had wanted to see what happened before I added him, he could have clicked the Playback button. Here’s the wave after I have done all that:
Google Wave Playback feature
In the following screenshots, I’ll show you what happens when I click Playback now, and click the Play button each time after that.
Embedding Waves
Below I have embedded a public Welcome Wave from the Sandbox into this post using the Wavr WordPress plugin. Unfortunately you have to have a login at Google Wave Sandbox in order to see it. So what are you waiting for!?
[wave id="wavesandbox.com!w+sQGsppxC%B"]
OK, to satisfy your curiosity if you don’t yet have a login, below is a picture of the Wave that is embedded here. It is a scrolling window though, so this is just a peek. If this were a Wave we were actually participating in, it would be our conversation. This particular Wave is a wiki of instructions for new Wave users.
I’ve already told you I really love to see and hear about peoples’ niches, whether an occupation or hobby, and sometimes a niche is so unusual it makes me want to tell others about it. I’m not one who likes to commit to stuff too far in advance but I’m going to go on and commit to starting a monthly post on niches. Each month I’ll bring you a niche that is unusual (to me). It will usually be a human niche, but sometimes it may be another creature of land, sea, or sky. Anyway, here is August’s MiscBytes unusual niche of the month!
Have you ever wondered what you would do if your next door neighbor and his wife actually did kill each other in one of those raging arguments and did it on your property? Or what if you run over your ex-wife on the way home from a party – maybe run her over more than once just for good measure? Well there is a niche to help get your house or car or street back into tip top shape after an incident like that. It’s the crime scene cleanup niche! There are some crime scene cleanup companies with websites that actually have lurid pictures, but I found a tasteful one to share with you. See – you’d just click on Contact Us, use the dropdown to select the type of incident you’d just caused/witnessed, and you’re ready to rock and roll!
The above is the contact form from BioSolutionsArizona.com. (Actually they have 24 hour phone number for you to use, but I had to show you the contact form).
I understand that anyone really in need of these services would not find this at all amusing, and the niche is certainly needed, but I do wonder why all the websites exist. I don’t know much about it, of course, but I would have thought this would be more of a discreet thing where law enforcement or even homeowners insurance would know and recommend a company but you wouldn’t be Googling for it at 3 in the morning. Anyway, that’s our unusual niche for August!
Note: One guy has already asked me – I’m sure these crime scene cleanup companies will only come and do the work after the area has been processed by police. They will not help you to sanitize your house to avoid the CSI guys detection after you lose your temper with your mother-in-law .
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory has a new web site that will provide a central resource where we can see information on near-Earth objects - asteroids and comets that may approach Earth. The Asteroid Watch site also contains links where we can subscribe to the asteroid RSS feed, sign up for an email newsletter for select asteroids, and even track flybys with the Asteroid Watch Widget! The widget is available for Mac OS X Dashboard and Yahoo! Widgets. There’s plenty of audio and video on the site plus information about missions, so if you’re interested in asteroids, be sure to check it out!
My sister and I got our mother a Tivo for her birthday, because every time she tries to watch one of her favorite shows, one of her friends is sure to call on the phone and talk and talk and talk. We told her a Tivo will change your life! This video apparently
The wonderful convenience we find on the interwebs can also turn around and bite us, so be aware of what fragments of your life are finding their way out there! My youngest son is in his high school’s marching band, and during the holiday season they had the opportunity to march in a parade that was widely televised. Apparently
I simply loved enjoying the fun with the shapes and thinking about dimensions and how amazing and cool it would be to start to perceive a dimension that is not present in one’s current world. My favorite line in the movie, which soon became my tag line for instant messenger for the following month: “Configuration makes the man!” So true, don’t you think? 
