Author Archives: Vanessa King

About Vanessa King

Vanessa is a co-founder and the in-house artist of ThingsAreGood.com. She is a fundraising administrator working on behalf of various charities and dreams of being the sole person who, through synchronistic and somewhat accidental circumstance, ends up saving the World. After her 13 year stint as a professional actress in film and television, Vanessa is now pursuing her musical ambitions as a singer as she also hopes to save the World through music.

Students Breach Great Firewall of China!

The great firewall of China is an internet firewall which blocks people living in China from viewing certain websites and content on the internet. For example, if you type in Falun Gong in a search engine (a religious group banned in China) it will not show any content. This is very obviously censorship and completely unfair to peoples human rights and freedom of education and lifestyle. So this is what led students from Caimbridge University to try and crack it. And they have! Not only that but they have managed to then use the firewall to launch denial-of-service attacks against specific IP adresses in China. This means that they can even deny access to sites by the Chinese government!

This furthers my own belief that rules of any kind are essentially made to be broken. Especially ones that inhibit people from living free thinking, and fulfilling lives. And on that note, this day being the 4th of July “freedom and independance” celebration in the United States, it seems suiting to end with a quote.

“Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves.” ~Abraham Lincoln

The Rebbe on Intolerance

Intolerance lies at the core of evil.
Not the intolerance that results
from any threat or danger.
But intolerance of another being who dares to exist.
Intolerance without cause. It is so deep within us,
because every human being secretly desires
the entire universe to himself.
Our only way out is to learn
compassion without cause. To care for each other
simple because that ‘other’ exists.

– Rabbi Menachem Mendle, the Lubavitcher Rebbe

In honour of his memorial (yahrzeit)

Greener Chip Manufacturing Process

In a story that is making it’s way around the web, researchers at the University College London have devised a new way to produce computer chips.

computer chip

The production of computer chips currently takes a vast amount of energy to heat furnaces to 1000 degrees Celsius. The heat transforms silicon to silicon dioxide, a key ingredient of computer chips. The new process encourages this reaction using cool ultraviolet light instead of intense heat.

Computer manufacture is one of the most polluting industries out there. This is one step towards reversing that trend.

Belgian Orchestra for Sale on E-Bay


When the Belgian Chamber Orchestra discovered they would not be recieving their government grant for 2007 they did what any organization would do. Yip! They put themselves up for bid on E-Bay! Suprisingly in just one week the bid rose from 1 euro to 8000! The group usually works with a budget of just over one million euros, so they still have a ways to go. But hopefully someone with a love of Beethoven and a few million euros will get up on E-Bay and save the day for the innovative musicians, who are not going out without exploring every option they can. Someone also put the Flemish Ministry of Culture and a list of all it’s members on E-Bay. It’s gotten no bids.