Buddy Susan sent this interesting calculator my way.  It’s from the folks at the Wyoming Department of Workforce Services and it calculates the cost of employee turnover.  It’s rather startling.   As Susan puts it,

Really makes ya think (or at least made me think) about ALL the costs associated with turnover, not just the obvious ones. I mean, we all know turnover costs, but when you start splitting it out…yeesh….kinda makes you want to hang onto the employees ya got.

Take a look.  You may just decide to coach that employee, rather than look for a replacement.

Political folks have increasingly been using the internet and various social networking tools to reach voters. This never-ending campaign season, especially, has seen candidates embracing social networks and attempting to reach young voters, especially.

This morning I had a friend request from a candidate. While I know this is going on, I was still surprised. (I’ve removed the candidate’s name, since it’s not germane to the conversation.)

Dear Olmsted County Caucus Goer,

You are invited to join FaceBook if you aren’t already a member. This will provide greater opportunity for updates beyond email distribution.

Thanks for your support!

Sincerely,

[Name Here] for Congress.

I’ve added him as a “friend.” It will be interesting to see what sorts of communication I’ll get.

I don’t tend to wander into political issues here, but after reading this article, I couldn’t resist.

Obesity Contributes to Global Warming.

Oh, for crying out loud. Frankly, I’m not all that sure that global warming is a real phenomenon. (Folks who suffered through our recent winter here in the upper midwest can attest that a bit of global warming would have been welcome, thank you.) And I absolutely believe that we should make every effort to stem the flow of pollutants and toxic junk that destroy our ecology. (Don’t even get me started on the carbon footprint thing, however.)

The article says,

Obese and overweight people require more fuel to transport them and the food they eat, and the problem will worsen as the population literally swells in size, a team at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine says.

This adds to food shortages and higher energy prices, the school’s researchers Phil Edwards and Ian Roberts wrote in the journal Lancet on Friday.

“We are all becoming heavier and it is a global responsibility,” Edwards said in a telephone interview. “Obesity is a key part of the big picture.”

So now I’m being told that not driving an SUV and reducing my “carbon footprint” aren’t enough. I need to lose the weight I’ve been struggling with all my life in order to save the planet.

You know, if these folks want to be taken seriously, they really need to stop with this kind of…..nonsense. (Another, less polite word comes to mind, but you get the idea.)

They go on:

Because thinner people eat less and are more likely to walk than rely on cars, a slimmer population would lower demand for fuel for transportation and for agriculture, Edwards said.

This is also important because 20 percent of greenhouse gas emissions stem from agriculture, he added.

The next step is quantifying how much a heavier population is contributing to climate change, higher fuel prices and food shortages, he added.

“Promotion of a normal distribution of BMI would reduce the global demand for, and thus the price of, food,” Edwards and Roberts wrote.

Unfreakingbelievable. How far is this sort of thinking going to go before it becomes truly dangerous?

Thanks to the magic of the Internet, you can now see Santa at his workshop via webcam.  The folks at Neatorama alerted me to this, well, neat thing.

Santa Claus keeps his office in Santa Claus Village near Rovaniemi, Finland (a part of Lapland, inside the Arctic Circle). He welcomes visitors year round, but if you can’t go, you can watch via webcam! There are two office webcams, inside and outside. Santa doesn’t work 24 hours a day, so mind the time difference in Finland. You cannot judge when it’s night by the outside webcam, since the sun will not rise in the Arctic Circle for weeks.

Go ahead and take a look!

I was wandering about the Web the other day, researching a new people search site I learned about on Lifehacker. I used my maiden name to search, since it’s unusual enough that the results are usually manageable.

The first item that came up was Amazon.com and profiles. I couldn’t imagine what Amazon was doing with my profile, and why anyone could see it. I checked it out. It’s now a social networking site. You can add friends. You can add “interesting people.” It will tell you when one of your friends or interesting people do something.

I’m not sure if I like this or not, but it’s an intriguing development. One of the weird things is, I’m not sure how the “interesting people” came to be on my list. I know who they are, and I do find them interesting…..but I didn’t make that designation. At least, not consciously. In any case, I can see how this could be useful - especially at gift-giving time.

Certainly, the concept of social networking is becoming more ubiquitous. Perhaps it’s time for libraries to determine how we might offer this sort of functionality. We’ve traditionally been the guardians of personal information, but our users seem to be getting less and less concerned with their privacy and more and more willing to share. Why couldn’t we make this an option? If you want to keep your information private, fine. But if you want to share it with other library users, why not? It’s your record, after all. If you want to allow others to see what you’re reading and compare notes, why are we working so hard to stop that exchange?

Every now and then something comes along that brings the “wow!” factor back to the Internet.  This time, it’s a website dedicated to Beethoven’s Third Symphony, Eroica.  The always interesting blog Neatorama gives the details:

The San Francisco Symphony with Michael Tilson Thomas has created a fabulous website devoted to Beethoven’s 3rd Symphony, the Eroica.  The section called Explore the Score is especially valuable. The music plays as you follow the score, with the option of highlighting themes, keys, and markups, offering an excellent insight into the details of the composition.

That is just too cool.  I was a music major my freshman year in college, and one of the symphonies we studied was Beethoven’s 3rd.  Where was this when I was in school? There’s even a little screen that shows Tilson Thomas conducting the piece.

This makes me wonder how collections might be synchronized.  Many libraries will have a copy of Beethoven’s 3rd.  Some may even have a score.  Most will have a biography of Beethoven.  Or a copy of the movie “Immortal Beloved.”  So how about a link to these sorts of incredible web resources?

I’ve never been a particular fan of Dickens, as I find most of his work to be….well….Dickensian.  I prefer my literary retreats to be a bit less dark.

The Brits, however, are embracing their inner Dickens, and have felt compelled to create the Charles Dickens Theme Park.

In Dickens World, rat catchers hunt vermin on London’s cobbled streets, pickpockets roam the alleys — and visitors line up for a fun-tastic water ride.

Lovely.  The story continues….

The indoor attraction includes a central square of cobbled streets and crooked buildings, where staff dressed as pickpockets and wenches will mingle with the crowds. Visitors who pay the $25 admission charge — $15 for children — will have the chance to see the Ghost of Christmas Past in Ebeneezer Scrooge’s haunted house, be hectored by a schoolmaster at Dotheboys Hall — the dismal school from “Nicholas Nickleby” — and peer into the fetid cells of notorious Newgate Prison.

Wow.  I don’t even know where to go with this one.  Somehow, I doubt that Dickens was intending to make “wenches” and pickpockets glamorous.  Or entertaining in this sense.

Is it just me, or is this really creepy?

If you’re Catholic, Heaven or Hell are not the only options once you die.  You can also go to Purgatory.  (You were once able to go to Limbo, but that’s another story.)  For those of you not familiar with Catholic dogma, Purgatory is Heaven’s Waiting Room.  If you’re not bad enough to go to Hell, but not quite good enough to go to Heaven, you go to Purgatory and think about your sins for a while.  Once you’re deemed worthy, you’re welcomed into Heaven.

Some enterprising medieval Church guy came up with a brilliant (if unethical) solution to Purgatory - Indulgences.  You can purchase an Indulgence and get out of some or all of your stay in Purgatory.  The Church was doing big business in Indulgences for a while, until the Reformation caught up with them.

The Church hasn’t sold Indulgences since the 16th Century…..but the concept is alive and well and living in Hollywood.

The presenters at the Oscars this year received the 21st Century equivalent of the Indulgence: a pass worth 100,000  lbs of carbon reduction from TerraPass.

TerraPass is a leading retailer of carbon offsets, which are a way of funding clean energy projects that reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Our mission is to put simple tools for fighting climate change in the hands of as many citizens as possible.

So…you can still fly the personal jet, but by purchasing these credits, you can still feel smug about your eco-responsibility.

Coming soon: The Inquisition.  Not a believer?  We can fix that.

Co-worker Barb has a wonderful piece this afternoon about the scrotum kerfuffle.

Minnesota Media Specialist Tom Ross wrote a thoughtful and thought-provoking letter to the MEMO (Minnesota Educational Media Organization) list, revealing what is truly important to him…..and worrying about a word like this isn’t even close.  Barb got Tom’s permission to share the letter.  It’s stunning.

Please take a look.

Buddy Charlie pointed towards this amazing piece this morning.  Well worth the viewing.

No wonder we’re so frazzled.