Giant Robot Store and GR2 News
Some of you may have already seen this. If you’ve got a spare couple of hours, you should check it out. You may believe it, you may not but it will make you think differently about the world. It may open your eyes, it may even motivate you do something but no matter what it will definitely affect you. If you are moved by it check out the addendum here.
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Last week me and a few boys from my company,Revolution Talent Management, headed up to Sichuan last week to build houses for the quake victims. This was something I’ve wanted to do since the earthquake and I finally got my chance. Habitat for Humanity is an organization started back in 1976 with an aim of helping build homes for the impoverished around the world. As we all know more than 70,000 lost their lives in the quake and millions became homeless. Habitat aims to build over 700 homes for families who lost their homes to the quake. We went to the area known as Xiao Yu Dong two hours outside of Chengdu.Our first stop was to see the Xiao Yu Dong bridge. This bridge was the only way out of the Xiao Yu Dong area. When the quake hit, this bridge went down. Luckily no one was on it but it’s collapse also closed off the only route into Xiao Yu Dong by car making it impossible to drive in ambulances. So the injured had to be carried one by one throught the fast running waist high river to get them to the other side and off to hospitals in Chengdu. That’s real heroism.We then went to visit the temporary housing shelters where most of the homeless have been put up by the government. Although conditions are good and clean. Each family only gets a 20sqm(200sqft) room. So many are eager to rebuild and move out.An outdoor dining room. Although these temporary structures are probably not the best to live in, I found them architecturally interesting and beautiful.Some have even built their own temporary houses out of scrap wood and materials just so they have a place to store their belongings. It’s interesting to note that although conditions are simple, eveyone has a tv and sattelite dishes. These were provided by the govenrment so they could watch the Olympics.We then went to a farmers house to have lunch. HIs new Habitat house was being built just next door but in the meantime he built his own temporary house because the govenrment provided ones just couldn’t hold all his stuff! His wife prepared an amazing feast for us made up of food fresh from their farm. In fact I actually saw the veggies being picked and brought straight to the kitchen and the chicken pens were right next to our table. Probably the best and healthiest meal I’ve had in a long time. Organic’s got nothing on this. After lunch we headed over to our building site to get to work. The houses are actually quite simple. They were designed for Habitat by the Sichuan University Architecture department. They are timber framed houses made of light but sturdy materials. The advantage of a wood frame is that it is much more resiliant to the typical concrete slab construction that was used before. In concrete construction, all the structural connections are fixed making it a rigid structure so when the earthquake hit...
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I’m not sure if this is right or wrong but it’s definitely pretty funny. This kid came from the dentist and the drugs obviously hadn’t worn off yet. He’s high as a kite! I don’t remember trips to the dentist being that fun. Reminds me of kids in highschool getting drunk for the first time.
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I have no idea what the Narcissus Pageant is but my friend sent me this the other day and all I have to say is if it’s got Bruce…it’s amazing.
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Calls from telemarketers has got to be the most annoying calls you can get. I usually get them when I’m in a meeting, sleeping in late or away for work. What’s worse are the ones from your own cell phone provider. I got suckered into a call the other day from my cell phone provider. He hooked me by starting the conversation with, “You’re paying too much for you current plan.” He then convinced me to change to a cheaper plan with more minutes…cheaper by how much? 12hkd a month! Not much of a difference to make me jump for joy but since I had already been talking to him for a few minutes, I figured why not? Big mistake. He arranged to change my plan and even sent a customer service rep over to my office to sign the new contract and get the new sim card the next day. After signing the contract I was told to switch sim cards within a few days and the new plan would start.I switched cards that day but then realized I could only make calls. Somehow the sms function and the email functions on my Blackberry weren’t working any more. I couldn’t make long distance calls either and I assume my roaming function wasn’t activated either. After countless calls and tinkering back and forth turns out the guy that changed my plan, didn’t bother to reactivate all the features I had before. When I changed everything back to what it was before…it all ended up being MORE than what I was paying before. WTF? Wouldn’t you be boiling in your own skin if that happened to you? Nevermind that I was without Blackberry functions for 5 days(that’s a long time for a Crackberry addict like me) and wasted all that time calling back and forth, being put on hold a million times only to have the same plan I started with but more expensive! Seriously WTF? I kick myself now for even talking to the guy.Right after this happened an old friend coincidentally sent me the following email. It’s from Andy Rooney, that old guy who wraps up every episode of 60 Minutes. I wish I had received this sooner… Andy Rooney Tips for Handling Telemarketers Three Little Words That Work !!(1)The three little words are: ‘Hold On, Please…’ Saying this, while putting down your phone and walking off (instead of hanging-up immediately) would make each telemarketing call so much more time-consuming that boiler room sales would grind to a halt. Then when you eventually hear the phone company’s ‘beep-beep-beep’ tone, you know it’s time to go back and hang up your handset, which has efficiently completed its task.These three little words will help eliminate telephone soliciting. (2) Do you ever get those annoying phone calls with no one on the other end? This is a telemarketing technique where a machine makes phone calls and records the time of day when a person answers the phone. This technique is used to...
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