February, 2011:

Backyard Astronauts

We said farewell to the ISS last night … for a while. It won’t be passing us for several days but it will be back.

I’m talking about the International Space Station. I get notifications on Twitter, thanks to Twisst ISS Alerts, telling me when the ISS will be orbiting across our skies and what direction to look to see it. The last few nights there’ve been some quite bright passes.

I was checking out some details of the space station last night. There are six crew members on board at the moment and the crew will change over next month. The entire structure is about the size of an American football field. No wonder we can still see it without a telescope from three hundred and fifty kilometres below.

I’m not sure that I’d like to be in space, orbiting the earth for weeks on end. I think I’m a lot happier standing in my backyard with the famiy watching the ISS passing by.

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Facebook Makes Changes to ‘Pages’

Feb 11th, 2011

by Rodney Olsen.

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Great to see that Facebook has made some changes to their ‘pages’.

They regularly upgrade the standard profiles, causing cheering from some and jeering from others, but they’ve now added some extra functions to what they call ‘fan pages’. (I still have issues about calling them fan pages but more of that in a moment.)

What have they added?

Notifications when other Facebook users interact with your page or posts.
A place to showcase photos along the top of your page.
A news feed for your page.
The ability to Like and post on other pages as your page.

Great news for those of us who have such pages as it allows us to interact more naturally with those who’ve ‘liked’ our pages.

I still feel a little odd having something titled as a ‘fan page’. When you set up your own Facebook ‘fan page’ it does seem somewhat cheesey and self serving. I get that, but that’s not what it’s about. I’m not looking for fans. I’m simply wanting to stay connected with a wider group of friends.

So why would an ordinary bloke ask people to click the link that says they ‘like’ him? Overinflated ego? Umm … no. A deep cry for acceptance? No again.

The truth is that I jumped on board with Facebook some time ago and have built up quite a number of Facebook friends. Some are family, some are close friends, some acquaintances, some are old school friends, while others are those I’ve ‘met’ online.

I’ve been torn between wanting to accept every friend request I receive and keeping Facebook for those I know personally. Having a wider group of friends means I sometimes can’t share as much as I like, while keeping a very closed Facebook page means I can’t share stuff with as many people as I’d like.

While it’s not a perfect solution I decided to set up a new Facebook page that’s completely open to everyone. You don’t even have to make a friendship request, just click the button and add yourself as a friend.

If you’re already a Facebook friend and you feel you’d fit better with the new page, feel free to ‘unfriend’ me and join the new page. You’re also welcome to stay connected through both pages.

I post a lot of the same content on both pages but the ability to share things a little differently allows me to protect my privacy and especially my family’s privacy a little better.

I hope to see you at my new Facebook page soon.

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In My Veins

Feb 9th, 2011

by Rodney Olsen.

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In April 2008 I escaped Port-au-Prince, the capital of Haiti, as rioting escalated and smoke from burning barricades filled the air. I was part of a media team travelling with Compassion Australia, there to see their aid work in one of the world’s very poorest nations. We were meant to be there for about a week but were evacuated within 48 hours of arriving due to the rapidly changing situation. Some Haitians had died and many more had been injured. We had been far too close to some of the rioting for comfort.

We had a very difficult journey to the airport and at times we were in very real danger. We finally hooked up with some armed police who escorted us to the airport. We were to fly to Dominican Republic but the flight was cancelled. The airline was not prepared to fly into Haiti. Later that day we finally made it out with another airline.

One of the other media representatives on that amazing trip was Aaron Hamilton who left his work in radio after returning to Australia to become Compassion Australia’s National Youth Coordinator. ‘Az’ now travels around Australia talking in schools, churches and youth groups about the changes that young people can make in our world. He passionately believes that the battle against poverty can be won if we only have the will to act.

In My Veins is a youth initiative of Compassion which is making an impact in equipping young people to create a fairer future for those in developing nations. You’ll see a lot more of what Az is doing at the website.

He’s currently in Perth and as part of his visit to Western Australia he dropped in to the studio during my radio programme on 98.5 Sonshine FM. You can hear our conversation and get inspired by the stories of our younger generations by clicking the play button on the audio player below.

(By the way, the photo in this post is Az and myself in Dominican Republic as part of the trip in 2008)

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