Tiny Planets.com In a nutshell: This new site lets children ages 6 to 14 cultivate virtual worlds and learn about space, science and conservation.

Cool factor: Based on an animated TV series of the same name, TinyPlanets.com offers a mix of games, books, videos, comics, social networking and virtual worlds. Children can adopt a planet, create landscapes, grow exotic plants or explore in spaceships. Players also can earn new spaceships or accessories by completing missions, or buy them with virtual currency.

Note: To keep the site safe, the children’s identities do not appear online, no personal information is collected and parents supervise accounts. Chats with friends use pre-scripted messages.

Read more here.

Terrence McNally’s Free Forum is a great show that is worth listening to via podcast if you are not in the LA area. His archives are filled with outstanding dialogs with visionaries and mavericks. Is it possible to restore government to work for all of us rather than the few at the expense of the many? Campaign reform lies at the heart of the issue and this weeks guests take at look at both sides of the issue. How to fix the system and an example of what;s wrong with having representatives of large corporate interests in the halls of congress. Be sure to watch Terrence deliver the introduction a talk he gave to a group on the power of story at his website accessed through the hot link at the beginning of this post.

FREE FORUM with TERRENCE McNALLY
Sunday May 16th
Noon-1pm PT (3-4pm ET)

GRANT DAVIS-DENNY,
attorney, Munger, Tolles and Ols on
former Chair, CA Common Cause
advocate,
PROP 15: CA FAIR ELECTIONS ACT

ALEX GIBNEY
Oscar winner, TAXI TO THE DARK SIDE
now in theatres:
CASINO JACK
AND THE UNITED STATES OF MONEY

90.7fm in LA, 98.7fm in Santa Barbara

WBAI Thursdays at 9am
99.5fm in NY. Spread the word.

streaming globally on the web
at kpfk.org and wbai.org

Special Virtual Event!

By now, you are all aware of our EXCITING event coming up this Monday, November 16th, entitled “Immerse in the Future: Arts, Media, and Entertainment in the 21st Century”.  (For more details, see the listing under Events on our website).

We have a special invitation for those who are not in Los Angeles!

And for those of you who ARE in Los Angeles…

We are offering free admission to our members and affiliates who wish to volunteer to help us before, during, or after the event.  There are still 4 volunteer positions open.  If you are interested, please contact alexandra@consciouscreativity.org

A few ideas from The Harvard Review to help reduce infoglut.

As a Recipient

Turn off automatic notifications of incoming e-mail. Check and take action on messages at specific times.

If you won’t be able to respond to an e-mail for several days, acknowledge receipt and tell the sender when you’re likely to get to it.

As a Sender

Make messages easy to digest by writing a clear subject line and starting the body with the key point. Use boldface headings, bullet points, or numbering to highlight action items – and to note who’s responsible for each one.

For very short messages, put the entire contents in the subject line, followed by “eom” (end of message).

Whenever possible, paste the contents of an attachment into the body of the message.

Minimize e-mail back and forth by making suggestions (“Should we meet at 10?”) rather than asking open-ended questions (“When should we meet?”).

Before you choose “reply to all,” consider the time burden your choice places on each recipient and if you can’t justify it, remove the recipient from the send list.

For your own sake, send less e-mail: An outgoing message generates, on average, roughly two responses.