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.