Peg Kerr's Journal

My nephew, David Hedding, to my delight and at my urging, has signed up with Patreon, an innovative site which connects artists with people who support their work. David is a musician, music producer and visual artist who will be creating videos as well as other artistic offerings. He's just put his page up, so please check it out and support him, as well as the many other talented creators (musicians, writers, visual artist and more) who are using the crowd sourcing of Patreon to build a stable base of income, as well as a community of people who support their artistry. You can pledge a sum which you choose (nominal or generous; you choose) which is given to the artist (I use PayPal) everytime they upload their work. Really a cool idea.

Check out David's page here.

Here's a video of David singing 'Blackbird,' accompanied by his brother, Mike.

Get yours at the Facebook application here.

People get up to all sorts of things on the Internet. Heard about this from rivka:

A guy in Norway is collecting giraffes. He's trying to get people to send him a million giraffe images by Jan 1, 2011. Which sounds ridiculous, right, except that he's been at it for about a year and has already collected 850,000. He might actually make it.

It's really neat to see the diversity of images people have sent in. A stunning and subtle watercolor painting is a few clicks away from a crude giraffe sculpture constructed from office supplies. I am particularly struck by this one, which may be the most artistic thing ever constructed from an old banana peel. I love this adorable knitted one too. But there are quilted giraffes and giraffes made from guitars and giraffes made from sports equipment and mosaic giraffes and scultped giraffes and edible giraffes and drawing after drawing, from people all over the world. I love the internet.

The statistics page is also kind of fun to look at. Why so many giraffes from Lithuania? What on earth happened the day he got 30,000 giraffes?

He's also on Twitter: @1000000giraffes.

See this site which shows the shifting European borders every century from 1 A.D. to 2000 A.D.

Hat tip to aome.

Found this on Twitter. Original link is here:

David Sturtz has created a car tool that you use on car repairmen. It's the kind of a wrench you throw into the plans of any unscrupulous mechanic who intends to overcharge you.

Mr. Sturtz is a founder and the chief executive of RepairPal, a Web site (and an iPhone app) that culls several databases to estimate how much a specific car repair should cost where you live. (For body work, there is the Web site DentBetty, which the Bits blog wrote about on Monday.)

( Read more here )

Bookmark this. It should prove useful.

Starting with www.coolpeoplecare.org, I went looking for websites that would have suggestions for things people could do, every day, to reduce worldsuck, and I found a bunch. An article there led me to the Case Foundation, which led in turn to this list of other organizations. Bookmarks galore!

I still need to think about how I'm going to do this, but I think for now, if I report Decrease Worldsuck stuff, I'll put it behind a cut tag.

( What I did today to make the world a better place )

Okay, I'm doing a favor and passing on some information I got from dlandon. The second one I knew about and had already implemented, and the first one I had looked at earlier but mistakenly thought I didn't qualify. dlandon's post made me look at it again, and hey! What a cool program.

First, there's UPromise: www.upromise.com. It's a website that gives you money for spending money. They have several ways this works:

1) You can get their own credit card, the Citi Upromise card. If you do, you get 10% extra college savings on thousands of grocery and drug store items, 10% extra college savings at 8000+ restaurants, and 1% college savings everywhere you shop. This was what I saw when I glanced at this program in a cursory fashion a year ago. I thought, geez, I don't want another credit card; we're trying to reduce our debt, and so I didn't look any further. My mistake. You see, there are OTHER ways you can use the program, even without signing up for their credit card:

2) You can register your own credit or debit card that you are already using (up to ten of them). If you use it at a restaurant that has an arrangement with Upromise, you get anywhere from 1 - 25% of the cost of your order deposited into your college savings account. I discovered that my local coffee shop, Tillie's Bean, is signed up: everytime I buy a cup of coffee there, 4% would go to my Upromise account.

3) there are other merchants that have Upromise arrangements. Get 1 cent a gallon every time you fill up at an Exxon or Mobile, using a credit card you've registered. Every time you rent a Budget truck. Every time you book through travelocity. Every time you use shutterfly.

4) you can get a percentage of the money you spend at participating grocery stores and drug stores. If you already have a CVS pharmacy card, for example, just register it with Upromise--and then every time you swipe it at the drug store, you're also putting money into your Upromise account. You can also check for ecoupons on the Upromise site. No need to even print them out: just click on them on the website, and then when you swipe your card at the grocery store, it'll save you money AND put money into your college savings.

6) you can click through their site to shop online with a long list of very familiar retailers: Barnes and Noble, Target, Gap, JoAnn Fabrics, Macy's, Banana Republic, LL Bean, etc. A percentage of your order will go to your Upromise account. It's legit, their member partners donate the money (I'm sure they've done studies on how much extra revenue it drives) and, of course, upromise tries to sell you a 529 account. But, seriously, why not? it's a really long list, and during special promotional periods you can get back up to 6%! It's free money deposited into an account you create.

So you tell me, great idea Peg, but I don't even have a kid. You can still participate! Designate the money to go to a nephew or a friends' kid (heck, you could designate the money to go to Fiona and Delia if you want---and if anyone is interested in doing so, let me know, and I'll send you an invite.) You could also designate that the money go to a school that you choose. How about supporting your local community school?

Secondly, 529 accounts. They are special accounts that allow you to save for your kid's college education, and the interest earned/growth is all tax free. You control over when the kid withdraws it/what they use it for, because it's up to your discretion - not the kid's. Some states (not MN, unfortunately) even let you deduct it on your state taxes. But most importantly? Many states offer matching grants if the parents meet income requirements (ie, don't make too much). In Minnesota they will give you up to $400/year as a matching grant. Frankly, if you qualify in the low income bracket, it's a no-brainer. Even if scraping together $400 is tough (and I know for some of you it might be), $400 over 18 years is $7,200. And you *know* your kid's unlikely to get that much when they hit eighteen and start trying to find scholarships/grants.

So, anyway, worth checking out. Different states have different options (though you can invest in any state's plan you want, the benefits vary widely), different fees, and different tax policies, but take a look at www.savingforcollege.com for more information.

I'd posted links to the previous videos that Matt did. This new one makes me smile even more; it just makes me hopeful and happy about the human race, and this beautiful world in which we live. The clip from Gurgaon, India, in particular, just slays me every time:




There was an article about this video in the Star Tribune recently, because the vocalist on this video (a Bengali immigrant by the name of Palbasha Siddique) goes to Fiona's high school!

Here is Nobel Prize-winning Rabindranath Tagore's English version of the lyrics to this song, titled "Praan" (you can buy it both at iTunes and at Amazon):

The same stream of life that runs through my veins night and day runs through the world and dances in rhythmic measures.

It is the same life that shoots in joy through the dust of the earth in numberless blades of grass and breaks into tumultuous waves of leaves and flowers.

It is the same life that is rocked in the ocean-cradle of birth and of death, in ebb and in flow.

I feel my limbs are made glorious by the touch of this world of life. And my pride is from the life-throb of ages dancing in my blood this moment.

Lyrics adapted from the poem "Stream of Life" Gitanjali by Rabindranath Tagore. He also has written the national anthem of India.

You can follow Matt's blog by friending whereismatt.

This is cool. Via Lifehacker. [lifehacker_rss:

Google Maps mashup Mezzoman finds the perfect meet-up point for two addresses by establishing the midpoint and suggesting restaurants by cuisine nearby. Finding a good meet-up spot can be a bit difficult, and at one point or another you've probably felt you're getting the short end of the stick by driving the lion's share of the distance to the meet-up point. Mezzoman aims to rid you of that headache, and suggests places you could meet and eat (or bowl) near that midpoint. The only feature missing is pins marking the two addresses you're starting from, but in all it's a simple webapp that does just what it says.