So my grandparents are on facebook ...

Yes, that's right, my grandparents have a joint account on Facebook. Its either become mainstream and permanent, or rung its death knell. Rather shocked ...

MSN is terrible (a rant on IM tech in general)

I have come to the conclusion that the MSN Messenger protocol is terrible. This because there is not a single implementation of it that works nearly as well as any implementation of the competing protocols - even Windows Live Messenger drops the connection or fails to sign in sometimes, and that comes straight from the source. (Incidentally, meebo.com (which is pretty much text-only) is fairly good - its been a while since I tried Trillian, but I don't remember any problems with it either (though it is also limited in feature set)). I've tried aMSN - it's got the same problems, but worse. Kopete, my primary messaging program, logs into my GTalk and AIM accounts almost instantly, but usually requires two or three pushes to log into MSN (and even then, takes a few seconds). Now, considering these experiences, I put the blame for flaky MSN performance on the actual protocol - admittedly, AIM and Jabber (GTalk's base) are more open, so external developers will have an easier time implementing them, but the fact that even the official Microsoft client is flaky lends support to my theory that the fault is in the protocol.
Why does this matter, you ask? I live in Canada - the most common messaging protocol in Canada? MSN. The solution: Microsoft does one of their major updates, that forces everyone to move to the new messenger, or not be able to talk to anyone (it has happened) - this update will include a backend update to a completely new protocol. Base it off something like Jabber (which is open-source, and stable), and open-source the extensions they add to it to support all their features. This should give them a stable base to work from. Also, work with Google - make it interoperate with GTalk (also Jabber based) (IM should be like email or the phone system - any vendor's product can talk to any others - this would be a step in the right direction). (Incidentally, I haven't used it for a while, but I loved the UI on the Google Talk desktop client - if they released a Linux version that could talk to MSN, I'd ditch Kopete in a second).
Anyway, that's what I want to see in IM tech - anyone else have anything they wish Microsoft (or AOL, Yahoo, or Google) would do?

Ninety-six Percent

A quote on Vista SP1, from All About Microsoft:

Ninety-six percent of new system runing Vista have all their drivers just working out of the box.

What about the other four percent? These are new systems.

Update

Hi all - you may be wondering about the change of look - I just figured it was time for an update to the look of my blog - I know its one of the Blogger standard templates, but I think it looks pretty sharp. Ciao

Content for free

As some of you may know, Dilbert.com has done a major redesign, every day's comics in color, animations, all sorts of jazz. What you may not know is they're now giving away content for free - the days comic, the entire archive, on a site with no ads. Now, this is not the main Dilbert site - they are not advertising this (though Scott Adams mentioned it in his blog). But, if you go to www.dilbert.com/fast - you'll see a simple site with the comic, an archive, some nav links, and nothing else, not even ads - content for free, from a major syndicate no less - go quickly, before they figure it out :-).

Messages from the future

You know, if I could get a message from myself, twenty years in the future, and it told me that I never owned a car - I'd believe it, I think. (Providing the message from my future self could authenticate its sender reliably - I strongly doubt the feasibility of time travel) - But about the car - I wouldn't mind owning a car, I have my license, I like driving, and I fully expect to own one at some future date - but I wouldn't be surprised if I never owned one. Back home, I could always borrow my parents - living in a university town, foot and public transit suffice to get me around - a car just isn't worth the expenditure. I can see that not changing though - gas is only getting more expensive - unless a viable alternative to petroleum-fueled internal combustion engines emerges, owning a personal automobile will soon become infeasibly expensive. Its going to make changes - one of which will be the fall of the small automobile - better dust off your bicycle helmets.

Smells like Microsoft

News came out this week that Apple is using its iTunes software update to push their Safari web browser out to Windows users. You can, of course, opt out, but that's not the point. This is just another example of Apple trying to use its music player monopoly to leverage in on other markets. Buying an iPod basically forces you to use iTunes - that is sketchy to begin with. But using iTunes to push out unrelated software - you just shouldn't do that. The Mozilla CEO compared it to malware distribution techniques, and I'd have to agree. There's a good comment stream here.

A few political notes

So, just quickly, American presidential race - I still want Obama to win, he's got a lot of momentum, and there's rumblings about Hillary's race being in trouble. On the Republican side, McCain has it pretty much wrapped up, though Huckabee is staying in it. The Democrats are going to win the election anyway.

On the Canadian front, the election rumblings are dying down, as the Liberals and Tories have made a deal on Afghanistan pull out. It's not set in stone yet, but its looking good. What I think more interesting, is that, in a recent poll, the Greens are polling even with the NDP - I'd like to see them win some seats in the coming election, and I think they may be able to manage it. (The Conservatives are near majority-government level support - not a bad thing - Harper is competent, and has done a good job as PM)

Peace

Reaction: Microsoft's new open-source pledge

So, Microsoft is giving am bunch of stuff away for free - firstly, free development software for students - Visual Studio Pro, SQL Server Enterprise, etc. As a student myself, this is pretty shiny - not sure if I'll take them up on their offer - not much into .NET, and mySQL has got some decent DB software (I like Linux better anyway - really, for anything but .NET, Linux is a better devel environment) - but its nice to know I've got the option. The only kicker I see there is once I graduate, said multi-hundred dollar pieces of software will cease to be free, and if I end up using it, I'll be stuck with old versions.

Other news: Microsoft is making big openness pledge - its opening up API's for many of their big money products, and letting plugins into Office to use other file formats. Now, commentators are flaming Microsoft for this being a low business ploy - the Office announcement came one day before they were being evaluated for (highly lucrative) open source accreditation on their Office Open XML file formats, and the APIs are free only for non-commercial use. Now, Stephen J. Vaughan-Nichols (who, I gotta say, is a bit of a FOSS zealot) said "Microsoft isn't offering open source a new opportunity, it's offering open source a trap." I wouldn't go that far - sure, that means that any commercial open source companies will have to licence Microsoft's technology - I say that's fair - open source is all well and good, but MS has a right to make money on their work. I predict the commercial companies will license APIs for better compatibility, some of that might trickle down to non-commercial implementations. But, overall, Linux, etc. will play better with Windows, etc. but things aren't really going to change - Microsoft will still spew FUD, the FOSS ecosystem will still have flaky and/or hacked integration with the MS ecosystem, and, in general, things won't be different.

This has been long, so, later.

Movie Review - Juno

So, I went and saw Juno a couple days back. I'd categorize it as a quirky romantic comedy about an unfunny subject, teenage pregnancy. Which, I must say, they treat well - without going into specifics, a lot of how things work out in the movie seems believable and more real-world than happy-movie-world. Also, the film is really funny. The style of humor is sarcastic, and relies heavily on odd, funny words and phrases (which is a good thing) (the sequence near the beginning where The Office's Rainn Wilson plays a convenience store cashier is especially good). The entire theatre (moderately well filled for a Friday evening) laughed out loud at multiple points. So, bottom line, the characters were quirky, but believable - you could see them inhabiting your own neighbourhood. The writing was funny, but still treated its less funny subject matter with some gravity. It was funky and funny and good. 3 1/2 stars out of 4.

Election Update - Iowa

Well, as some of you may have heard, Obama and Huckabee won the Iowa caucuses by a significant margin. I haven't really heard enough about the Republican field to decide who I would rather win (but have no real impact on, as I'm not American ...). Huckabee doesn't seem any worse than any of the others (he was a Baptist minister at one time), but the Republican candidate isn't going to win anyway (and pundits more professional than myself are saying that Huckabee's Iowa win isn't all that significant - lots of Baptists there). Obama's win in Iowa is more encouraging - his message is one of unity, and co-operation - something American government sorely needs after the previous administration's polarizing election tactics. Also, relieving my earlier doubts somewhat, Iowa is primarily white, yet Obama won as a black man - perhaps race won't be as big of an issue as I feared. In any case, it was a major boost for his campaign, and a hit to Clinton's and Edwards', the strongest of the other candidates. Anyway, though an election I could actually vote in would be more interesting ... this one's not bad. Later.

Completely off message

I saw this article, titled "Google Looks to Tech that Recognizes Text in Images" and immediately thought "circumvention of CAPTCHA systems" (the wonky security text). Of course, the press release talks about reading street signs from Google Maps Street View, etc. It must be a computer science thing - seeing a system, and immediately thinking how to break/corrupt it - finding the extreme cases (useful, of course, for making software more stable). Any other computer scientists agree/disagree? (yes, I've come to terms with the term "computer scientist" - it isn't so bad as I thought it was at first ...)

Bigger News

In case you haven't heard, the RIAA is now suing people for ripping legally purchased CDs. That's right - if the RIAA has its way, you won't be able to listen to your own music on your computer, mp3 player, etc. Now, I believe in fair use - you buy a copy of some media, say a song, and you should have license and legal right to play it on any and all playback device you own. It is yours, for your personal use. If buying a CD only gives you rights to play that CD in some CD player, its way overpriced - the actual disc and packaging can't cost more than a buck or two to produce. Watch this carefully - the recording industry is just trying to suck the money out of your pockets.

Small News

If any of you use iGoogle, they've updated their theme selection - there still isn't a good selection of styles, but there are more options now (the Solar System theme looks neat). Ciao.

Presidential Prognostications '08

Well, just because I like to, I'm going to sit down in my armchair and put on my political analyst hat. What I'm thinking about is the American Presidential election of next year (a subject which I, admittedly, know not very much about, not being American - then again, I also have a more objective outside perspective ...). For starters, the Republicans are sunk. Bush and Cheney have wrecked their support, and I think it would be very hard for any Republican candidate to win. That said, I think Fred Thompson has the best shot of any of the Republican Presidential candidates - never underestimate the Schwarzenegger effect - Thompson played a very presidential figure on TV, and has actual Senate experience ... In the Democratic race, I predict Hillary will win, but would rather see Obama take it. Clinton is a polarizing figure, while Obama seems to have a more co-operative style of leadership. Of the candidates, from both parties, I'd most like to see him in the White House next year. I think that's unlikely however. We like to think we've moved beyond race as a society, but America, especially, has fought a war over it, and had all sort of historical racial stressors. That sort of thing stays in a society, and is not easily gotten over (just look at English and French in Canada - and we haven't been at open war for centuries). I don't think America will elect a black President (though they should). So, my current prediction: The Democratic candidate, likely Hillary Clinton, will be POTUS this time next year. I'll keep you posted (as we may not have a Canadian federal election to keep me occupied until 2009 ...).

Christmas Break

Today's xkcd is super neat, and really captures the experience of going home for the holidays. (if you don't read xkcd, you should, its only the greatest webcomic in the 'verse (and no, it has nothing to do with Firefly (but if the author saw it, I expect he'd be a fan (I just love nested parentheses :-) )))) Just last night, I was at a friend's family's Christmas party, helping him get some stuff running on his new Kubuntu installation - we were in the middle of trying to get DVD playback running when I heard his parents cleaning up upstairs (it was about 11 at this point) and figured I'd better leave - you forget at university, when having friends over that late or later isn't terribly abnormal, that your parents' generation tends to leave at 9 or 10. Anyway, Merry Christmas all, and a Happy New Year.

I have something in common with Bill Gates!

Its a somewhat little known fact that Bill Gates full name is William Henry Gates III. I was curious as to exactly which of his ancestors were William Gates Sr. and Jr. A short trip to Wikipedia later, and now I know. His father, William Gates Sr., was born William Gates III. When he joined the Army to fight in WW II, he changed his name to William Gates Jr., to avoid elitism. Later, when his son became really famous, he again changed his name, to William Gates Sr. (neat, eh? - he was all three). More sanely, his father and grandfather were born William Gates Jr. and Sr., respectively. Since the third William Gates had dropped his 'III', Bill Gates (of Microsoft) got the 'III' suffix instead of 'IV', and is nicknamed "Trey" (for "three") within his family. But still, Bill Gates is (unofficially) a "IV", as am I, BruceIV. Confusing, but cool.

Why is Gmail still in beta?

So, why is Gmail still in beta? Its a mature product. They've just come out with a "new version" with some substantial interface updates (these are being phased in, but fairly quickly) - for anything else, they'd call it version 2.0 - even for a web app, this whole beta thing is ridiculous. A quick check of Wikipedia reveals that it has been out since April 2004, and open to the entire public since February of this year. (which might explain the periodic "Google outages" I suffered last winter - that and YouTube must have put a strain on even Google's servers). Gmail is offered as part of a paid service (Google Apps). Anyway, the entire point of this is, it is ridiculous on multiple levels that Gmail is still in beta. Google, take the silly tag off the graphic, and have a grand unveiling. My two cents for today.

Crazy Idea of the Month

Well, the recent Daylight Savings Time change got me thinking about times. Specifically, why are they still tied to the sun? It is archaic. We have electric lights, we have globalized communications - why are our clocks still synchronized to the time that the sun rises or sets in our particular corner of the world? Why can't we just use a 24-hour time clock (because 12-hour clocks are redundant, confusing, and would likely completely disappear if TV switched to a 24-hour clock), universalized over the entire map. (UTC, known in the past as GMT or Zulu, would work). As far as the calendar goes, January is midsummer in Australia, yet midwinter here. Why is it that 6AM is morning in both locations? Just a crazy idea ... I'm sure there are (increasingly less valid) reasons for tying our clocks to the sun's rise and set ... but still - it would help with a few things (international communication and transport come to mind) (admittedly, I expect those whom it would help most - FedEx and such - are already using this sort of system). Signing off, time: 2225.

This could get interesting

Apparently the Green party is polling at around 10% of of decided voters, and the majority of people think it will keep at least those levels of support come election day. This could make the federal election interesting. (As an aside, many political watchers expect the Tories to come out with a throne speech the opposition parties won't be able to accept, and thus force an election for early this winter or late this fall). Now, it looks like the environment will be a key issue this election - the Green party has got a lot of media buzz the last few years - yet still holds no seats in Parliament. This is their year. They need to put together a coherent platform, and run a strong enough campaign to convince the general public that they should have some seats in Parliament. If they cannot win any ridings in this coming election, then I would say that their chances of ever recovering are slim to none. I'll be watching with an interest - I respect the core Green aim of environmental support, but if they want my vote, I'll have to see two things - one is a comprehensive national platform - how they'll vote on every issue, not merely the environmental ones. The other is a local candidate that seems capable of representing the local interest well - it is an unfortunate habit of some of the smaller parties to field less than impressive candidates in some ridings, especially less populous ones, and the Greens only recently managed to run candidates in every national riding. I'll keep you posted.

Public Service Notice

Hi, if anyone in this particular public happens to own an iPhone ... there's been a major security vulnerability discovered. Apparently EVERYTHING on the iPhone runs as root. For whatever reason. Basically, even the calculator is god on the phone. If one program gets cracked, lots of people end up with a wide open phone. Details here.

Linux on the Rise

So here, just for the fun of it, is me playing armchair analyst, because everyone likes to do that. Anyway, I'm seeing a lot more buzz about Linux recently. This isn't just on enthusiast sites, but working its way into the mainstream (not quite there yet, but getting there). Multiple computer makers are rolling out Linux based computers for consumer purchase, and Linux seems to be finally making a dent on the desktop - if not in market share, at least in availability. About the best example of this I've seen recently is this article about Dell working on a Linux driver framework for the last few years. This is big. Dell is pretty much the Wal-Mart of computer makers - cheap and common (in fact, Dell now sells computers at Wal-Mart, and no other North American retail outlets). If they've been working this hard on Linux, they must see a future in it. I expect this is due to two factors. (1) Linux is maturing as an operating system - its becoming easier to use, more things can be done in the GUI instead of a terminal window, and they have some really graphically advanced GUIs, that have features that Windows doesn't - basically, its becoming more possible for the average user to run Linux (2) Microsoft has been making a major mess of things - Vista has been near-universally panned - the only update it has of any consequence is some graphical chrome, and that chrome eats system resources to a ridiculous degree. Add the fact that Windows costs hundreds of American dollars, and you're alienating most of the emerging markets of the world. Basically, Microsoft has dropped the ball, and alternatives like the Mac OS and Linux have a window to make some space for themselves - which they are taking advantage of. My prediction is that unless Microsoft can make Windows 7 (expected 2010-ish) the operating system that Vista should have been (they had 6 years to work on it - it should have been better), they will never have the level of market dominance they had with Windows xp ever again. Given enough time, OS X and Linux can carve out big enough niches that Windows is forced to interoperate, at which point it will never be able to return to its former monopoly position again. People have been saying this for years, but there hasn't been this good of an opportunity for competition in a very long time, as Microsoft hasn't screwed up this badly since it instituted its OS monopoly.

Tootsie Rolls and Forests

I went shopping today, had some fun with that - went to the brand new Dollarama in town (oooh - as big as the one in Fredericton ... ). I bought a Tootsie Roll, and then decided it is obviously the superior form of chocolate bar, as you can't just scarf it down (way too chewy for that), so you get to savor the flavour. Very good - not like I needed the sugar, but I want another one now ... I bought a power outlet splitter (because the dollar store is a great place for cables and cords, and there's never enough outlets for our computers in Computer Science classes) - now I can be a good citizen, and share a limited resource. Then I went and bought my supply of printer paper for the new year (at Wal-Mart, not the Dollarama) - 2 reams (that's 1000 sheets) - given previous year's evidence, it'll all go too, plus a sizable amount of looseleaf - I wonder how many acres of forest is forested to feed the paper needs of my university yearly ... its likely an atrocious number (not being a good citizen there, but, what can you do ... paper just works better for a lot of things). Now I'm sitting home listening to my little bro's new headphones - surprisingly good bass for earbuds - still, his iPod is only a few months old - the stock headphones shouldn't have worn out that quickly (they cost like $40 to buy them separately ... they should be higher quality for that price...) - my brother, being smart, spent half that for his new phones - which have an ear clip that's actually comfortable (I had a pair once with a clip made of stiffer plastic - they pinched my ears and were very uncomfortable), and the aforementioned good bass. Anyway, that's my evening, apologies for rambling, g'bye now.

You Can't Make This Stuff Up Dept:

This was just too funny - I posted it verboten from CBC news. Enjoy

Thieves carried off 22 pigs in compact car - CBC News

RCMP have arrested a pair suspected of stealing 22 pigs from a barn near Sussex, N.B., in a getaway that police say was likely a very tight squeeze.

Thieves took the pigs earlier this month after smashing the locks on a barn in Knightville, rented by Moffett's Farms.

The two from Petitcodiac, aged 19 and 20, are suspected to have used one small car to haul the 22 pigs, weighing 23-27 kilograms each, from the farm to the house in Havelock where police tracked them.

RCMP picked up the trail after one of the men forgot his ID at the scene of a break-in.

Const. Jim Gass said the stench from the pigs was immediately apparent to investigators, who found a small car, filled with pig droppings, as well as sacks used to transport the pigs.

"This little car they transported them in once had like 22 pigs," Gass said. "Man, it wasn't a lot of room in the car. She would have been a noisy affair, I would imagine, and quite a wild ride. Something you see in the movies, I would guess."

Police couldn't recover all of the pigs, worth about $75 each. The suspects allegedly ate one the night of the theft, Gass said. Most of the others, police said, were sold to unknowing customers.

RCMP won't release names of the suspects because the men have yet to be charged.

Both suspects are to appear in court Sept. 24 on unrelated charges.

My Infinity is bigger than your infinity

Although, in hindsight, it really is intuitively obvious, it has been proven that infinity comes in different sizes. Mathematically, this is interesting, as it'll likely sprout a new branch of mathematics or something within the century. Or not, and it'll be cool anyway. In any case, I'll post a link, and the basic idea of it. Picture the set of natural numbers - it is infinitely large - now picture the reals, of which the naturals are a proper subset. The reals are also infinitely large, but a larger infinity, because the naturals are a proper subset. If you're not a mathie, the article does explain more clearly (and with the formal proof too, so its better both ways). Anyway, later.

Maybe I will be able to stay near home after graduation ...

New figures say New Brunswick is in the middle of an unprecedented job boom.

A Statistics Canada report released Friday shows the province led the country in job creation in the first half of 2007, and its current unemployment rate is the lowest ever recorded there.

Good news. Encouraging. Like to hear more of it.

Everything comes full circle

Apple has a new patent - hype says possibly for use with a new iPhone model. What interested me is that it looks a lot like a rotary phone. Retro, eh?

Good news for me

CBC has an article about a study that says firstborn children tend to be smarter. I find it encouraging ... though the article says its nothing genetic, so if my little brothers decide to call a mob hit on me, whoever's left of them will be the eldest, and thus get the benefits ... hmm, not so encouraging.

Federal Election news (only slightly out of season) [UPDATED]

The Green party in Fredericton is nominating its candidate for the next federal election tonight. This interests me in a few ways. The first is that what the Greens have revealed of their platform so far looks interesting (although the mess they're making on execution is dampening my enthusiasm somewhat). The second is, if they wait until the school year for an election, I'll get the option of voting for this candidate. And, finally, one of the candidates, Tony Myatt, was one of my professors last year, and would be a good choice for it - he has some good ideas. UPDATE: Prof. Myatt didn't get the nomination - there was a prof from STU who won by a significant margin

Trios, Triads, and Neapolitan Ice Cream

Today's blog post is brought to you by the number three, and the letters 'U', 'S', and 'B'. (Hmm ... haven't thought of Sesame Street in a while ... I wonder if they still do that ...) Anyway, my point is, there should only be three kinds of USB connectors. I mean, there are so many kinds of USB cables, it nearly completely defeats the purpose of the "universal" bus. I say that IEEE or someone should limit it to three. The first would be the standard USB connector, the one that's on the PC end of those myriad specialized cables. That one's a no-brainer. The second would be the more rounded connector that is in use on most USB printers. The flat type makes it largely redundant, but its already somewhat of a standard (my point here), and is easier to plug in when you can't see the port (as in the back of many printers). The third would be the single type of USB miniplug. There only needs to be one, and that should work in every digital camera, MP3 player, ect. It would make things easier for everyone, and there's too many types as is. Any objections?

Racism is Illogical

Well, I've been working my summer away for my hometown's Recreation Department. So far, there's been a lot of painting. Part of the painting job has been painting over graffiti, which is rather annoying, because it should be unnecessary, and I just painted that wall two weeks ago. What made me wonder though, was the message on the graffiti. The one I painted over said "Stop Atlantica" (Atlantica being a cross-border trade conference) - I saw another through its paint patch job that said "Racism is illogical". There are similar graffiti messages in other spots. So, why would our vandal put "Stop Atlantica" - this is the message of a socialist activist. There is no one in town that can do a single thing to stop Atlantica. For the racism message, well, its a small town - there are maybe 2 or 3 dozen non-white people in the entire town - racism is basically a non-issue. So, our vandal has a social conscience (or at least, his messages do), yet the messages have no audience. Why put them there then? Its the wrong forum - its fruitless, futile. So why? I can only suppose that our vandal is looking to justify his vandalism. When town workers paint over his messages, he can internally condemn them for being racist pigs, or horrible capitalists, hurting the poor (or so the socialists will say). Instead, the town workers are merely anti-graffiti. Anti-racism messages are a good thing. Just not on the pool walls. ... Anyway, this has been random, but I didn't have much better to do at work then attempt to psycho-analyze the person who was giving me more unnecessary work.

I, Avatar

So, I performed an interesting experiment this week. I set up a Facebook account ... under my standard online alias (Rule Number One of online life is "Do NOT trust the internet"). The incongruity of it made me deactivate the account the very next day. One does not use a social networking site, which is a means of relation and communication, under an assumed name. It did lead to some interesting thought waves, on how much of an identity my online avatar, Bruce IV, really has. The entity that is Bruce IV has a body of opinion, beliefs, and opinions very similar (identical, in fact) to my own. That entity is also in my year at school, and lives in my town (although neither the tax agency, nor the university registrar would acknowledge it) (come to think of it, I must find Bruce IV's landlord - Bruce manages to get out of paying rent through the dastardly trick of having no physical presence). But, does Bruce IV really exist? He (Bruce is listed as male in a few spots, for purposes of context), for all intents and purposes, has all my memories, and a mind behind him - he could definitely pass a Turing test. However, Facebook provides a breaking point for his identity. While Bruce IV has all my memories, experiences, and opinions, he does not have my friends. He, in fact, lacks any sort of real relationship, having only an academic (if that) connection to the similar entities of "Mr. Fusion", "Uncle Dave", and their ilk in various blog-based debates. So, who or what is Bruce IV? He is an expression, a face I present to the online world - in short, a mask. Masks, though they have a distinct shape and appearance, have no life apart from the one that wears them. So, the moral of the story is: make your Facebook under your own name - you can lock down your personal information from the net at large well enough to protect it from unknown eyes. And a final incongruity - this post is signed Bruce IV - giving that avatar the human quality of introspection. Life's an irony.

Dell is selling Linux! Where? [UPDATED]

So, Dell is finally selling computers with Linux preloaded (Ubuntu, to be precise). The trick is finding them. (I'll give you a hint - www.dell.com/open). If you don't have that link ... well, on the American site (not the Canadian), you can find a site map, and one of the links on that sitemap brings you to the page I just linked to. There are three computers available to be customized, and they'll give you decent coverage of the broader spectrum of computers. Its a start, but there could be so, so much more ... Why aren't there options to set up a Windows dual boot in the factory, choices of filesystem, even extending the distro options to Kubuntu, and maybe Xubuntu - the GUI you use is important ... if someone is installing Linux, they'll know about these things, and care (though they'll likely be able to reinstall things and fix it - still, what's the point of factory installation if you have to change everything up right out of the box). And why bury it so deep - at least put some links from the main page (or even better, put the Linux systems in with the Windows ones in the main computer comparison windows - in all the country sites). Its a nice gesture, placating all the raving geeks on their Ideastorm site, but will ultimately end up letting a very few determined people avoid paying for a Windows license when they don't want it.

--UPDATE--
As one guy pointed out on the Ideastorm site, Dell isn't offering any Linux systems with AMD processors. As a lot of Linux people are AMD people as well (a root for the underdog type of thing), it would seem a logical move. Personally, right now, Intel has the better chips - however, AMD makes some very capable ones, and has a bit of an edge in prices. I'd like to see Dell selling some AMD Linux systems as well.

Gmail Theater: Why Use Gmail?

Ok, maybe this is misusing my newfound YouTube posting abilities, but this is geeky-cheezy-cool, so why not. (It also says a lot of stuff about what's great about gmail)

A Fair(y) Use Tale

Just a really sweet video I found online (Dvorak Uncensored pointed me its way). Kinda neat way to talk about copyright. (Hopefully the YouTube embed works right - this is the first time I've tried this)

Snowflakes

I just remembered something weird from my childhood. I used to like cutting snowflakes out of folded paper - and then you'd unfold the paper, and it would have these lovely repeating patterns. I always wanted to understand how my cuts would affect the pattern, to be able to predict the result before I unfolded it. And also, which seems to me slightly a weird mix, I was always disappointed that I couldn't figure out how to fold the paper or cut the pattern so that my "snowflakes" would be six-sided, because all snowflakes in nature are six-sided. It just was a slightly odd contrast - the art of cutting the paper, and then trying to fit it to rigid science - they seem like two different beasts. But then again, perhaps, as Darth Vader would say, "There is no conflict". There is a certain unity to life, and to reality, and maybe what disturbed me about it was the contrast, not the attempt to reconcile it. Anyway, as I've thoroughly lost any point I may have been trying to make, I think I'll stop my rambling here. Thank you for your patience, and good day.

It shouldn't be that way ....

There's an article on IHT today about Pope Benedict visiting South America, and the challenges facing the Catholic church there. The article spends a good deal of time discussing the rising Protestant threat to Catholicism. It really shouldn't be that way. While there are some significant and important theological differences between the Protestant and Catholic views of Christianity, there's a lot that's the same too - the two groups should be natural allies, not competitors. Perhaps this is a special exempt case (as I said, there are some important divergences between Protestant and Catholic faith), but I still really don't like to see denominational infighting in the Christian church. When it comes down to it, we're aiming for the same goal, and our collective energies would be better spent in pursuit of that goal, rather than arguing among ourselves.

iGoogle

Its a ridiculous name. Period. It sounds like some lame ripoff of Apple, and the logo is ridiculous. I much prefer "Google Personalized Homepage" and that's a soulless corporate beast of a name. They could call it myGoogle, youGOOGLE, or Jimbo the Traveling Salesman, and it would still be better. I'm keeping my homepage, because I like the page, but the logo at the top of the site strikes me as ridiculous every time I see it. Which is often, seeing as its my homepage. Anyone interested in checking it out can point their browser to www.google.com/ig. Opinions?

Vanity Searches

Well, I decided to try a slightly weird type of vanity search today. Instead of searching for my real name, I went looking for other BruceIV's on the net. The results I got were pretty much all me, except for the number one result on Live Search, some other guy's mySpace page. Funky ... its weird knowing that someone else is online using the same identity that I do. Screen names tend to be fairly unique ...

Is this the right thing to do?

Some of you might have heard of the plans to sell half of the UNB woodlot off to developers. I honestly have never been there, but it seems like a bad idea. I've heard that UNB has one of the best forestry faculties in the country. I would expect the woodlot is an invaluable resource to this faculty. Developing it would have a negative impact. UNB really should celebrate and advertise its strengths, not hide them, or atrophy them. Virtually no one hears anything but the engineering faculty really advertised. Thing is, UNB Engineering, while good, is only in the middle of the pack, where faculties where we're really tops or close nationally, like Forestry (or Computer Science) don't get near the attention they deserve, and people only really find out that they're really great ... after they go to UNB. Through my own university search, and talking to people still in high school, UNB has this reputation as the place people from New Brunswick go because they can't get into anywhere better. It really is undeserved, and the university is not fixing it.

And I thought BC was all liberal and green

According to an article on CTV.ca, the highest percentages of environmentally-conscious teens are in Ontario (that's right, big, dirty industry central) and Atlantic Canada, while the lowest are in BC and Manitoba. I though BC was supposed to be all green and nature-loving and whatnot ... hmm.

Oh my ...

There was a really big college shooting at Virginia Tech today ... shocking and horrifying - not much info out yet, but here's one article.

PS - This is my 100th post. Whoo-hoo! Wish I had a better topic.

Ack! They're BOTH Crazy!

So, having established that Elizabeth May, Green Party leader for Canada, is crazy to go up against Peter MacKay, Conservative Deputy leader, in his own riding next election, I can now say that Stephane Dion, Liberal leader, is nearly as crazy. He's agreed not to run a candidate against her this election. Now, this may be some part of Dion's agenda to make the Liberals appear green, by helping get a Green candidate elected. This deal does improve Ms. May's chances of winning, which would be a major coup for the Green Party (as it has never elected a member), and a major embarrassment for the Tories (losing a high profile minister such as MacKay). However, I think a more likely scenario is that the voters just give MacKay a landslide victory, as there aren't any other strong parties running. The NDP will likely do fairly well as well. And the Liberals, for the first time in years (possibly ever, I haven't looked it up), won't be running candidates in every riding in Canada. Dion and May are both crazy.

Now, that's an IDEA

Apparently there's a poll in Ontario about banning smoking in apartments that are part of multi-unit complexes. I would love to see this in New Brunswick. My downstairs neighbors are heavy smokers, and the fumes waft up the stairs, and under our door, and make our apartment positively reek. (They even set off the smoke alarms once in a while, though I think their alarm may be wired into ours). Seriously, smoking is a nuisance and a health hazard, and the majority of the population is bothered by it. I understand you really can't tell people they can't smoke in their own homes - but an apartment isn't theirs - it belongs to the landlord, and will be someone else's home after they move out - and smoke smell is devilishly hard to remove from an apartment. Especially for multi-unit buildings - one smoker can make the whole building smell, just as one person with a loud stereo can keep everyone else awake - the noise pollution is banned, why not the air pollution? Anyway, my two cents.

Themes for Google Personalized Hompage

The Google Personalized Hompage (GPH) has implemented some themes - they just change the title areas of it, but are pretty neat anyway - they're even dynamic by time of day, season, and local weather. You can see screenshots here. I keep a GPH as my personal homepage, and the themes really add to it (I personally use the Sweet Dreams theme). I only have two requests for Google now - First, they should extend the theme to all their personalized Google services - my News page, GMail, and Calendar just don't look as good anymore by comparison (some more themes would be good too - some of the 3-D stuff they have is a little tacky IMHO), and secondly, they should implement the themes on national pages as well (if I go to my homepage on Google.ca, I can still access all the feeds and widgets, but the theme isn't there). Still, I think they have a winner.

She's Crazy

Elizabeth May, leader of the federal Green party has announced her intention to run in the riding of Central Nova next election - if the name sounds familiar, its because its Peter Mackay's riding. If she's trying to be the first Green elected to Parliament, going up against the deputy leader of the Conservative Party is a strange way to do it. Picking off a backbencher somewhere would be much easier, though still challenging enough. I have no idea what their party strategists are thinking. (Incidentally, May had 26% of the vote in her riding in the last election - the Green candidate in Central Nova had 2%)

Interesting post on the Dilbert blog

Scott Adams has an interesting post about evolutionary theory on his blog - its not one of the views you hear often, and worth a read. (He doesn't agree with me, but I agree with most of the stuff he says here.) He may just be pulling people's chains to get comments (and links), but its still worth seeing. I'm not going to explain what he said, I'll just leave it to him, the far superior blogger, and tell all you folks to follow this link here.

Cool UNB reasearch

A friend of mine found this on Slashdot - its something cool happening at my school - and majorly useful I expect - more portability for hydrogen is good:

“The challenge is to find a safer, more efficient and economical way to store hydrogen so that it can be released on demand,” explained chemist Sean McGrady, the lead researcher on the project. “The way to do this is to turn hydrogen into a compound — a solid — so you can use it when you want, safely, in the amount you want.”

Hydrogen gas is typically stored under pressure in large metal cylinders, approximately four feet high. These cylinders are heavy and expensive to transport. Since they are under pressure, they also pose a safety hazard.

“We’ve reached a milestone with our ability to condense hydrogen into a usable solid,” said Dr. McGrady. “The next step is to produce a safe, compact storage system for the compound that is both lightweight and affordable.”

The full release is worth reading, but the gist of it is here.

Are we ready for the New Liberal Party?

I've been hearing rumblings and rumors (In Maclean's, as well as this article) in the news about a rather intriguing subject - talk of a merger and/or alliance between the federal NDP and Liberals. Now, most of the sources of these rumblings are NDP MP's, not Liberal, but its still interesting. Apparently, now that the right is united, the NDP is feeling the heat, because their voters are more likely to go Liberal to fight the unified Conservative threat. Apparently the NDP is in bad shape, and considering drastic options - I wonder if they'll go the way of the provincial NDP? Anyway, worth keeping an eye on.

Now that's some legalese!

Well, just because I have no life, I was reading through the terms of use and privacy policy on Dvorak Uncensored. It has some pretty fine, funny legalese in it. An excerpt:

This website is for informational purposes only and is not intended to provide specific commercial, financial, investment, accounting, tax, or legal advice. It is provided to you solely for your own personal, non-commercial use. You may link to and refer to this website freely. You must, when linking to this website, thrust your fist into the air and yell "death to tyrants." This site is not responsible for any deaths to tyrants or any other negative activity except for the yelling which we do not condone except in this context.

Now that's some fine legalese - I've had it in mind for a while now to start a student club focused on board games like Risk and Axis & Allies at school - I only hope I could do as well on the club charter as that - I can't decide whether or not to include a clause forbidding those with actual legal training from working on the charter or not.

An interesting idea

Here's an idea I like - some European automakers are suggesting an emissions credit system for automakers. So a high emitter, say Ferrari, would have to buy credits from a low emitter, say Honda, to pay for the higher emissions of its cars. This would make higher emitting cars more expensive, and, what they didn't mention in the IHT article I heard about it in, would slightly subsidize more practical transportation. I like the idea - seems good, though the fact that emissions credits for nations didn't seem like such a good idea.

Unexpected Fruit

There's been an ad on TV recently that's been bugging me - its for fruit juice and jello or applesauce or something. Anyway, it ends with pictures of kids drinking juice, and the slogan "an unexpected burst of real fruit" Unexpected. Since when is real fruit unexpected in fruit juice? What has food come to? I should expect to find fruit in fruit juice ... Its really rather sad.

Great ....

Well, I managed to escape the great Sony battery scare last year, because my battery was a Sanyo. I felt relieved. Now, this ... they better come up with a replacement for Lithium-ion batteries soon ... that's all I can say ...

Learning Mandarin

Well, I now have openSUSE 10.2 installed on my laptop - my second stab at learning my way around Linux, but I think I'll be a little more successful this time. It'll take a few weeks to get it tweaked how I like it (my productivity will be completely shot ... oh well ...), but the install seemed to go well. The experience however, has brought an analogy to mind. Moving between versions of Windows is like going from Canada (where I live) to Great Britain - there's a few superficial differences, but underneath, things are largely the same. Switching to Linux is like moving to China. Everything is different. So now, I get to learn Mandarin, so to speak. Should be fun.

Vista UI a "Step Back" from xp

Well, there's this guy who tests computer user interfaces. He uses some pretty weird (but practical) metrics like menu lag time and mouse precision. And, new results are in - Windows Vista's new Aero interface is a step back from xp. That's right - a step BACK. Yes, menu lag and such can be changed in the registry, but what's the percentage of users who know how to do that, and what's the percentage of those users that actually would edit their registry for that kind of reason? The suggested solution then: drop Vista down to its basic or classic view ... which removes the only reason for having Vista, the shiny effects in Aero. I think the whole situation is quite funny.

Paint Crashed?!?

Well, a friend of a friend of mine has Windows Vista installed on their computer, and Windows Paint crashed the entire system. Paint program - what, since Windows 3.1, has been the program you let little kids play with so that they can't hurt anything. Paint crashed the entire computer. INSANE. I'm not getting Vista.

FREE STUFF!

Readers of Let's Call it Bob, you may never say that this blog isn't worth reading (if you live nearby and happen to like grapefruit juice) - That's right, grapefruit juice. It all started earlier this week when I was making a run to the grocery store for a few things, including orange juice. I saw grapefruit juice there, and decided to try something new. Well, I decided I don't like it so well (it is somewhat bitter*), and so now have decided to put on a contest! Yay! Fun! First person that comments on this article and asks for it can have the rest of the grapefruit juice absolutely FREE!** Anyway, this is a limited time offer, so apply now!

* By somewhat bitter, I mean extremely bitter
** Transportation/shipping to be arranged by the winner

Please tell me this is a typo ....

Please tell me this piece of an article about flash memory has a typo:

"If you look at the market, prices have dropped about 50 percent," said Niebel. "You could get an 8GB [memory chip] for $10 in December. Now you're getting it for $5.

I personally think that they left a zero off each of the dollar amounts - that would put the wholesale memory prices at a more reasonable level, considering the prices of flash-based products. If that's not a typo ... wow are we all getting ripped off.

Anglican-Catholic Merger Proposed

Interesting - I always thought the Anglican church was very Catholic anyway - now there's a proposal to merge the two (although it is admittedly unlikely that it will be accepted). Neat to see if anything comes of this - more interdenominational communication is always good.

Random

Here's just a fairly interesting (I thought) article on IHT.com about plastic deck chairs. Kinda random, but I thought it was neat.

Is he wrong?

I was reading this story on IHT.com about a young-Earth creationist getting a paleontology doctorate. Now, he wrote his doctoral thesis using a conventional geologic model, but there was still debate over whether he should get the degree, seeing as he disagrees with "conventional" paleontology. My question is, "Is he wrong?" - could it be possible that his alternate paradigm (in his terms) is the correct one - his own professors state that he was a good student, obviously knowing enough about geology to merit his degree. Now, could a sharp geology student hold beliefs that contradicted the science he was practising? Does this not suggest that a young-Earth geological model is at least plausible? I'm not saying it can be proved correct, but should it be dismissed out of hand? My bias on the matter is obvious, but I'm going to leave the question open. Peace.

Editor's Note: Looking at the labels for this post ... that's a controversial mix ...

Next Windows in '09 ... yeah ... [UPDATED]

Well, apparently the target ship date for the next version of Windows is sometime in 2009. Yeah ... right. Microsoft says they're working on something unspecified but major. My crystal ball says - a minor upgrade from Vista - at most a Windows 95 to Windows 98 type of thing - incremental improvements, nothing major, hopefully some changes to the UI - I really don't like Vista's - to much flash and too little substance.

--Editor's Note: Oops - forgot the link for the original story While I'm editing - I told you so - Microsoft is retracting its statement, coverage here.

A Quantum Computer? And from Canada - Interesting

A Canadian company, D-Wave claims to have created a working quantum computer. Interesting. Seems unlikely, but it would be cool if it was true - especially because its Canadian. If its true, then there'll be a lot of interesting work around when I finish my degree.

Two weird things

One: I was watching TV this evening, and I thought I saw something that shouldn't happen - it was the middle of the ad segment, and there was one start, then flash to a Roger's ad. I thought I heard the word StarChoice - now, just to go into tinfoil hat mode for a second, it almost seemed as if Roger's (who does our cable) had found their competitor's ad, and replaced it with one of their own ... just seemed a bit weird, and likely illegal (though highly implausible)

Two: While doing some web browsing, I set one finger on the scrolling area of my laptop touchpad, and put the other in the normal mouse movement place in the center. Funny thing is, if I held my finger in the scrolling area steady, moving the finger in the center would scroll the page - its either a bug or a weird feature, but its kind of cool either way.

Really Creepy

I just thought of something today - there are a bunch movies/TV shows/etc. based on secret US government organizations that don't actually exist. (Men in Black, Stargate, ect.) (yes, I am a science-fiction fan). The scary part is these stories have precedent - how long was the NSA operating before it was officially acknowledged to exist? The whole thing is just creepy - the government of the most powerful nation in the world employing hundreds or thousands of people on big, important projects, and no one knowing about it ... and that's about it for today - I think I'll take my tinfoil hat off now.

Cheap iPods

A new study says Canada is the cheapest place in the world to buy an iPod Nano - who'd have thought?

Just Passing it on

They have an interesting article on the International Herald Tribune about a push to outlaw Holocaust denial. I mainly just wanted to pass the article on, but I really think that banning it is the wrong way - as the article states, while the Holocaust was a horrible, depraved event, outlawing the denial of it is pointless, as it is well documented, and established historical fact, and the threat to free speech is just too much. My two cents.

Nuclear Winter

Well, since I apparently have nothing better to blog about, I'm going to continue my series on the weather. Walking home from university was really freaky today too - nothing was plowed, so the roads and sidewalks were (mostly) beat down, but still covered in snow, and there was practically no one on either - I think I saw half a dozen cars moving my entire walk home. It was completely ethereal - quiet, with no immediate sounds besides my boots (muffled by the loose snow), with only the orange glow of streetlights and people's homes interior lights to see by. The city was dead, and snowed under, with a fine powder of ice pellets blowing around, but not spectacularly cold. It seriously felt like I'd been dropped into the aftermath of a nuclear holocaust, and was just about the only one alive. I wonder what the weather will be like tomorrow ...

A warm breeze - in falling snow.

I was walking to school this morning, through the heavy snow that's been falling all day, and noticed a real oddity - the breeze felt warm. In a snowstorm. A warm breeze. It was really freaky. I figured out the reason though - yesterday it was about -30°C - today its about negative two or three degrees, and the wind is no longer attempting to kill me, so its much nicer.

Spaghetti

I have decided that the ultimate university student food is (drum roll please) ... SPAGHETTI! Its easy to cook (even I can do it), healthy, keeps well in the fridge, forms a versatile base for other foods, is cheap, and easy to cook for one person or a whole crowd - for all these reasons, spaghetti is the ultimate university food.

Comment Spam

Blech - I got my first comment spam today - as a response, I've added a word verification step to the comment process - I apologize for the inconvenience, but its more and more common on blogs these days ...

Free will for Robots ...

I was reading a pcmag.com article on the newest generation of Honda's ASIMO robot. It was fairly interesting, talking about how they've made the bot run (quite an accomplishment) - but, look at how the author finishes:

As stunning an achievement as ASIMO is, the robot still has a long way to go. It has no free will. Yes, it can make millions of computations on its own to know how to navigate a flight of stairs, but all the words it spoke and dances it did at the conference were canned interactions and responses. Still, if ASIMO can run, it may, someday, be capable of decision-making, too.

OK ... so Lance Ulanoff wants his robots to have free will ... uh huh ... no thanks. Remember I, Robot, where the robots took over the world (or tried)? If robots had free will, they would replace us. Seriously - that's human territory, and I really would prefer to remain unique in that respect. Make a robot that can understand English, perhaps, and I can talk to, and get a good answer back, but not one with free will please.

Just to keep bashing Dell ...

Disclaimer: I really have nothing against Dell - I own a Dell Inspiron laptop, and its served me quite well so far. That said, the suit in this article has merit. My father had a Dell laptop a few years back, and it did have cooling problems with the motherboard - he had to replace it once or twice. Just thought it would be possibly interesting to point out.

Microsoft doesn't like Dellware either ... hmm ...

The story is at CBC - basically, Microsoft doesn't like it when it gets dinged for crashes/poor performance that extra vendor software adds ... and the rest of us don't like the bloat - annoying to everyone ... hmm ... and I have to say "craplets" is an excellent term.

Vacation

So, I haven't posted anything for a while - give me a break, I was on vacation, and needed the time for important things like sleeping in till noon and mastering Net (only the greatest flash game ever). So, summary:

Day after I got home I wanted to check out my little brother's basketball game, which was in town, a good 12 kilometres or so away from my parents' house. I had no obvious means of transportation, so I decided to walk in - that was fun, only took me 2 1/2 hours :-)

I have decided Serenity is the greatest science fiction movie ever - I bought it for my brothers for Christmas, and now must track down the DVDs for Firefly, the series which it was based on.

In other news, CBC is premiering a new series, Little Mosque on the Prairie, this Tuesday People are comparing it to Corner Gas with Muslims, so it looks quite interesting - the creator (who is Muslim) has taken some flak over it already, but I think its an awfully small person that can't laugh at themself.

To cope with the loss of daily Foxtrot (sniff) I picked myself up a one-a-day Foxtrot calendar for the new year, so at least I'll have some geeky comic goodness in 2007.

Oh yeah, and the weather is crazy - its the 7th of January, and we haven't had snow all vacation, and there's still green grass ?!? If anyone needed evidence of global warming ...

Anyway, later ... Happy New Year

I Love This

Well, there's been some controversy lately about the decision of a Toronto Judge to move their courtroom's Christmas tree to a back corner - my favorite response to it is this one from Tarek Fatah, founder of the Muslim Canadian Congress:

"It's so stupid. I'm at a loss for words. The judge should take a trip to the rest of the world. Christmas is celebrated by Muslims in many countries -- they should ban political correctness, not Christmas trees. If people are offended (by a Christmas tree), I'm glad they're offended. I think it indicates a serious mental disorder when people want to bring down other people's happiness."

I love this - my favorite part is where he says that they should ban political correctness, not Christmas trees - I expect overdone political correctness ends up offending more people than a Christmas tree.

The Premier is giving me free money!

Well, it appears Shawn Graham's Liberals are following through on their election promises, and giving all New Brunswick students attending university full-time at a New Brunswick public university free money. $2,000 to be precise. I'm happy ...

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!

Foxtrot is going weekly ... no more daily Foxtrot, as of next year ... :'( ... I'm sad - Foxtrot is the greatest ... get it while you can at www.foxtrot.com.

Editor's note: In my grief I forgot to mention (if there are any uninitiated) that Foxtrot is only the greatest, geekiest comic strip currently published on a daily basis.

Serious coverage, serious event, somehow coverage verges on ridiculous

Perhaps its just the word "vomit" but this article ... it just seems funny in a deadpan "I wasn't trying to make it funny" sort of way ... here's an excerpt:

A northern New Brunswick fish plant has been fined $16,000 for dumping dead herring into Shippagan Harbour and for releasing smells so foul they caused people in the village to vomit.
...
The odour was so awful it made people living and working in the vicinity sick enough to vomit. They couldn't go for walks and had to keep their windows and doors closed to keep out the smell

(Of course, I'd likely be less amused if I lived there ...)

Forget Disneyworld, come to New Brunswick

Disneyworld may be the "happiest place on earth" but New Brunswick is the "happiest province in Canada", due to a recent survey. So, to those of you who want to get out and go West, why would you want to leave? It's happy here, and not so much out West. And, if you happen to have moved here from the West (or Nova Scotia, the saddest province in Canada), now you know why. So, come one, come all, to New Brunswick, the happy province :-D !!!

Good conversation day

I had good conversations today with my former English teacher, and the younger brother of one of my best friends from elementary ... who moved half a continent away ... how strange, but wonderful. Good night.

Reports of my calculator's death are greatly overstated

Well, the good news is that my calculator isn't dead - the light fixture in my room is just too dim to light it up (I hadn't noticed). I took the calculator to class today, and, lo and behold, it works fine. I did take it apart last night, just to see if there was anything wrong with it (admittedly, it would have to be blatantly obvious - I'm no electrical engineer), but it was working before then anyway. I mean, what self respecting guy can resist the urge to take apart a calculator to try and fix it? All the ones I know would definitely try it. So, good news, my calculator works - yay! Bad news - apparently I live in a cave (it's dark - before I aired my room out my housemates said it smelled like something had died in there (again, I hadn't noticed - must have been used to it)) ... ahh, the joys of university life.

Oh yes, and speaking of electrical engineers, apparently Rowan Atkinson (who played Mr. Bean) has a masters degree in Electrical Engineering - who'd a thunk it?

Oh Danny Boy ....

I had a faithful servant of 4-plus years die on me yesterday. It was a very sad day. My trusty Casio fx-260SOLAR bit the dust. The logic isn't gone, but the solar panel just isn't pushing electrons as well as it used to. Seeing as it only works within a few feet of a 100W bulb (with a completely clear line of sight) it has ceased to be of use in most settings, and I must retire it. Goodbye Mr. Big (from the scrap of a chocolate bar wrapper taped to the back), I shall miss you.

Changes to the CTV Broadband network

In case you don't know, CTV puts a lot of its shows up online for free access and viewing after they've aired them - I watch Corner Gas every week, and it is good - anyway, they updated the interface on the "CTV Broadband Network" (their name for the feature). The good news: it looks good, and appears to work well. The bad news: I couldn't get it to work on Firefox 2.0 - they apparently have an "ActiveX plugin" for Firefox (although I'm pretty sure that Firefox doesn't do ActiveX), but it wouldn't download/install for me, so I'm not sure that it works ... curses - to get my humorous Saskatchewan goodness, I have to open up Internet Explorer (in its crazily rearranged (but supposedly more secure) 7th version) ... Its an entirely different rant, but I expect power users will hate Vista, because of the new interface revisions, which have moved absolutely everything to new and unfamiliar locations (and buried our beloved advanced features) ... ok ... rant(s) over ... until next time ...

The amazing "Beast of the Field"

The "Beast of the Field" got into our garbage again last night ... my roommates and I figure its some sort of mid-sized animal - it must be a fair size to defeat all the safeguards we've put on the garbage can. The can is sealed, we have a rock the size of a large hardcover book on top, and two folding metal chairs leaned up against it on the sides that aren't covered by the corner of our deck. ... and yet, the Beast of the Field still manages to get the garbage can tilted over and open, and strews our garbage all over the deck ... if we're lucky though, the super-hot green curry my roommate tossed because he deemed it too spicy for human consumption will upset its stomach ... one can hope ...

I thought competition was supposed to help the consumer

Well, apparently Microsoft has signed a deal with Universal Studios to pay them a royalty on sales of its new Zune music player. This is in supposed compensation for the pirated content that is often loaded on mp3 players. This is NOT good for consumers - it gives all the studios licence to charge all the music players and services more money - ultimately costing consumers more money ... strangely, the Apple monopoly on internet music services and music players has been holding prices down for the consumer, because if content providers want market access, they have to go through Apple and play by their rules ... Microsoft's Zune ploy is an interesting development, and it'll be interesting to see where this goes ...

The whole Christmas/holiday thing

Well, its started again - I saw an article on CBC.ca today about Wal-Mart and a few other retailers are re-emphasizing the term "Christmas" over "holiday". In some senses, this makes sense - things like the ever present "holiday tree" are a bit ridiculous - do the other holidays use a tree? It would be analogous to calling the menorah a "holiday candlestick" I'm sure Jewish people would disagree with that, and it wouldn't even show equality/respect to members of other religions (as is the claimed motivation for "holiday trees"), because they know that the menorah is Jewish, and need no part in it. On the flip side, there is a place in using a generic term to greet customers, for instance, as some (if they are overly touchy) would be offended by being wished to enjoy a holiday that they don't celebrate. Anyway, that's enough on that - the whole issue is ridiculous anyway ...

I guess its easy to be best when you're only

One thing: I don't think Microsoft has ever made another "iPod competitor", so its easy for the Zune to be the most promising

This is the most promising iPod competitor we've ever seen from Microsoft and could be a digital music player that gives the whole industry a run for its money.

(This is PCMag.com's summary of their Zune review)

The Remembrance Day Post

Odd, I always thought the poppy was a completely Canadian thing - apparently its British too though - interesting. Just one thing I thought was strange - I just heard this year about white "peace poppies" - this idea strikes me as very strange, as they are very controversial. Odd that the peace poppy reduces peace ...

A lot of hype, rather less substance

New Brunswick is fighting the good fight for the environment - at least in a small push on the automotive front. MLA's and their deputies are no longer allowed to buy SUVs or full-sized pickup trucks, unless they are hybrid or meet stringent emissions guidelines. However, hybrid trucks and SUVs are mostly environmental hype, with little fuel economy benefit over their standard variants. They are also shifting 20% of the provincial fleet (trucks, school buses and the like) over to alternate fuels like ethanol - this seems like a better move for the environment, but will likely get less press. (Although, it may get rather expensive ... where do you get ethanol in NB?)

Who says Microsoft always copies off Apple?

I found an instance of Apple copying off Windows for once - in the new test build of Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, the biggest new feature is - drum roll please - advanced parental controls. Now, similar parental controls have been in Windows Vista since early betas ... this seems like Apple playing catch up for once. Interesting.

Editor's note: The part about the parental controls is in the third block down in the linked article

We welcome our primary-colored overlords

I was reading some highlights of an interview with Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google - apparently Google is challenging the constitutionality of the Patriot Act - here's Schmidt's take on it:

"We will do whatever it takes to follow both the law and the principles. We have a system of law and we won't win everything but we're going to try very hard and we will follow the decision of a federal judge. There is clearly going to be somebody who tests the limits of the Patriot Act and its an important constitutional issue. If we don't like it, we can replace the people that have made those laws."

Did Google just say they can replace the people that made the Patriot Act - I mean, he was likely making a comment about the democratic process, but still ... they don't have that many employees - today, the Patriot Act, tomorrow, the world!

The NDP are toast: Part III

Well, I've decided to make my "The NDP are toast" series a trilogy (here are Parts I and II). A recap of my first "NDP are toast" article (from Sept. 2):

My prediction: the NDP have one of the worst showings in their party history in terms of popular vote, do not elect a single MLA, and fold soon afterward.

During the election, the NDP had their worst ever showing in a New Brunswick provincial election, failing to elect a single MLA. Now, Allison Brewer has resigned as leader, saying she cannot afford to continue working full-time as a volunteer - the NDP now has no leader, next to no money, and will have a hard time obtaining either after their abysmal showing in the last election - sounds like, for all intents and purposes, they have folded ...

We need more moderates

I was reading this article about an American identity for Islam on the International Herald Tribune, and was quite glad to see it - we need more moderate voices from religion (all religions) - I think its a horrible shame that Christianity and Islam are too often represented in the media by their radical fringes - people like Fred Phelps or Osama bin Laden. I wish these men and women trying to make an American Muslim identity all the best of luck.

Poor Ted

The International Herald Tribune has a very good article on the Ted Haggard issue - here is a quote from Haggard himself from that article

"The accusations that have been leveled against me are not all true, but enough of them are true that I have been appropriately and lovingly removed from ministry. I am so embarrassed and ashamed. I caused this and I have no excuse. I am a sinner. I have fallen."

Thank you Ted - hopefully now he'll be given a chance to get on with his life.

Really good web Sudoku game

I just noticed - CBC has a really good web-based Sudoku game - best I've seen - if you're an addict, you can play it here (but don't tell your boss/significant other/ect. you found it here - I sure don't want them mad at me that you never get off the computer anymore ...)

For all my Gamer friends

The French government is recognizing video games as cultural products ... well some may say this is motivated by mere financial considerations (like the ability to get around EU anti-subsidy laws), gamers everywhere will surely be glad to know that their obsession is finally recognized as cultural. I can just see it now "But Mom, my Nintendo is cultural education - isn't that more valuable than multiplication homework?"

I Pity the Man

So, the whole Ted Haggard thing ... I pity him - anyone, even a pastor can succumb to sin, and since he had such a high profile, everyone knows now. I commend him for finally coming out with the truth (albeit ambiguously) apologizing, and distancing his own fall from the larger Church. All this is what needed to happen. That said, I wish he'd started with the truth - it would look so much better on him than the flip-flopping he did, and I wish he'd make a full confession and get it over with ... his reputation is already completely destroyed, and if he would take personal responsibility for his actions (all of them, so he can't be smeared later with more allegations), and apologize, the show of (painful) honesty would garner him some respect, something he desparately needs, and a chance to finally get out of the public eye and spend some quality private time rebuilding his life. As public as his life has been, he is ultimately just one man, who has fallen spectacularly, failing his own beliefs and standards - he needs forgiveness, and an opportunity to sort his life out, not a media circus.

Ridiculous Money-Grubbing Trademark Lawsuit of the Day

The Universal Tube and Rollform Equipment Corporation, who own the domain www.utube.com, are suing YouTube for inadvertently directing extra internet traffic their way, so much that their servers crash. This is completely ridiculous, as they would have sued earlier if YouTube was really making a difference - I heard about this on the Google Watch blog, and the third commenter, Russ, seems to have the most reasonable view on the matter.

This sounds just a bit like "internet tubes"

I must know, why is it the US Air Force that becomes the country's defender in cyberspace? Is it because it has the word "space" in it, and someone who didn't know any better figured the air force should be there? The press coming out of the USAF sounds like they almost think they can use the bomber unit on the base where cyberspace command is being placed to defend their cyber-assets ...

Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne, speaking at a military communications and intelligence conference, said U.S. vulnerabilities in cyberspace included financial networks, satellite communications, and radar and navigational jamming.

"The capital cost of entry to the cyberspace domain is low," Wynne said. "The threat is that a foe can mass forces that weaken the network that supports our operations."

Found on www.pcmag.com