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

Who IS this guy?

As an update on my recent post, apparently this Australian cleric is no stranger to contentious remarks - I found this article here as a follow up ... very strange (Oh, and forget what I said earlier about coherent arguments - this guy seems like a Muslim Fred Phelps - and he's Australia's most senior cleric ... oh my)

One more random post

Well, I figure since this has been my most prolific blogging day in a while, I may as well cap it off with one final post - I have invented a word - it is convoluted and glorious. The word is "pok" It comes from the phrase "Piece of Crap", acronymized to "POC", and phonetisized. It is a great and glorious word, and is useful in sentences like "My Aliant DSL modem is an annoying pok!" - Please remember, use, and spread the gloriousness of pok. Thank you very much, and good night.

Editors note: Oops, forgot pronunciation - pok rhymes with dock, sock, block, clock, ect. I did not put in the "c" because pok is NOT a "four letter word" and is perfectly acceptable to say in front of your grandmother (if she reads this blog and understands it :-) )

They are coming ....

The little Norwalk bugs are coming for us all - FEAR! One of our own UNB students has contracted the Norwalk virus and since recovered, and the University has sent out three health bulletins in the last week. On the one hand, it seems like an extreme response ... on the other, I really don't want Norwalk ... sounds most unpleasant.

Why "Computer Science" is a Misnomer

Ok, this is just a pet peeve of mine, but the terms "computer scientist" and "computer science" seem like misnomers ("computer scientist" especially, has struck me as odd since the first time I heard it). Computer Science implies the study of computers, as political science is the study of politics, social science is the study of society, ect. However, I would argue, that, though you do need to know about computers to study computer science, the computer itself is not the focus. If you are focusing on the computer itself it becomes computer engineering. Computer science, by contrast, is USING computers to solve problems, which are usually in other fields. The computer is merely a tool. (This position comes from my overview of CS textbook (Invitation to Computer Science: Java Version (3^rd edition) by Schneider & Gersting)). Calling the field "computer science" then becomes like calling carpentry "hammer science". So - another term for computer science ... I would suggest "computer logic" except "logic" means something different in a computer sense ... "computer analytics" perhaps ... something else? I mean, perhaps this is just personal bias, but I always thought that computer science was closer to math than science anyway, so one would expect the name to reflect this mathematical nature - the computer as a tool can be used in many different disciplines, (science, yes, but also business, the arts, the social sciences, ect.) very similar to the tool of mathematics.

No Comment ... well, maybe

Came across this online - thought it interesting enough to pass on ... Australia just seems like an atypical location for a Muslim cleric to be saying insensitive things. His (amended) argument seems coherent (I said coherent not correct), but he picked an extremely poor analogy.

Senior Muslim cleric in Australia has apologised for his comment that Muslim women who did not wear the hijab headdress looked like "uncovered meat" and were inviting sexual assault.

Sheikh Taj El-Din Hamid Hilaly said he had only intended to protect women's honour and that comments had been taken out of context in a report in The Australian newspaper.

The Australian quoted Hilali as saying: "If you take out uncovered meat and place it outside on the street, or in the garden, or in the park, or in the backyard without cover, and the cats come to eat it ... whose fault is it, the cats' or the uncovered meat's?"

"If she was in her room, in her home, in her hijab, no problem would have occurred," he said in a sermon last month to mark the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, referring to the headdress worn by some Muslim women.

However, the comment has caused an uproar in Muslim communities worldwide.

Leading Muslim women had called the comments repulsive.

Microsoft vs. Security Vendors

So, apparently Microsoft's controversial PatchGuard technology, which is to be included in the 64-bit edition of Vista, doesn't even guard the kernel against unauthorized access. One security company, Authentium, has released news that they have hacked through the system to maintain their kernel access, rather than wait for Microsoft to release its API's to security vendors. I support Microsoft on the issue of PatchGuard - anything that makes Windows more secure is a good thing, and the security vendors shouldn't be complaining if PatchGuard will work - they exist only to fill gaps in Microsoft's security - in a perfect world, extra security would be unnecessary. For one, if Microsoft has to include these extra API's to provide kernel access to the legitimate vendors, how long will it take the hackers to get their hands on it? You just can't lock that type of information up, and say "this can only be used for good". The extra attack surface to the kernel is not a good thing ... still, it appears that PatchGuard is ineffective anyway, so we'll still need external vendors to fix Windows' security features even ... brilliant ...

Nice to see this is getting attention

Hmm ... UNB made the news again, this time for not having an accessible campus - its true - I am lucky enough not to be disabled, but I wouldn't be attending UNB if I was. There is a young man in a wheelchair in one of my classes, and he's perpetually late, likely because he probably has to go halfway around campus to find a route that uses ramps, not stairs, to get up the hill. There are large numbers of rooms that simply cannot be reached without using stairs, and many other places where one would have to go far out of their way to find a path without stairs. I would agree with the writers of the CBC article that the university could, and should, be doing more to make the campus accessible.

How on earth did that get there?

Wow - piece of weird news of the day - there have been a couple recent (admittedly small scale - look here and here) instances of brand new mp3 players selling pre-loaded with, not new music, but viruses. How do you get a virus on a mp3 player straight from the factory? Is there an inside man or something in the factories loading this thing for the fun of it - how would it happen? If anyone has any ideas I'd be glad to hear them.

Glad I didn't want to use Aero Glass anyway ...

Microsoft Watch has found a rather interesting bug in test builds of Microsoft's new Vista operating system:

Among the wrinkles still to be ironed out of Microsoft's Windows Vista before the long-awaited client operating system goes gold is the tendency of Vista's shiny new "glass" UI to balk at Java-based applications.

In eWEEK Labs' Vista tests, most recently with the post-RC1 Build 5728, Aero Glass has reverted to the sans-translucence, sans-3D effects, plain old Aero interface each time we've launched a Java-based client application.

Hmm ... so does this mean if I run a command line program for my Java homework, it won't work? Or does it just apply to programs with a GUI? Very odd in any case. One would think that someone would have fixed this earlier ... they're supposed to be sending final code to enterprise customers in about two months.

45% WHAT!?!?! That's nearly half!

Wow ... I just read that some estimates say that 45% of adults in New Brunswick cannot read at an acceptable level (4th paragraph of this article) And we wonder why all the youth are leaving ... if the adults currently working the jobs in NB can't read well, literacy is obviously not a requirement for their jobs ... and if basic literacy isn't a requirement for such a significant portion of the New Brunswick job market, local youth who are more educated are over-qualified for so many of the jobs in their home province, and thus go looking elsewhere for a job suited to their qualifications. In related news, New Brunswick's death rate has surpassed its birth rate - combined with the outflow of workers West, the population is declining rather rapidly. Good luck Shawn Graham, and your next few successors as well - we need a new economy here.

Commercialism Everywhere

Intel is working on an ad format for its Viiv (rhymes with five, not leave) platform. That means that if it ever becomes popular, your expensive media PC and large screen TV can be used to ... serve you more ads! Yay! I mean, we obviously don't see enough already ... In addition, you know they'll be really annoying, because the company Intel is working with on this is the same one that gave us the McDonald's "I'm lovin' it " campaign. Yet one more reason not to watch TV.

BREAKING NEWS - Military Coup in Thailand

Though there isn't much news out yet (and may not be for a while - the press has been locked down) there has been a military coup in Thailand. Without firing, a leading army general has occupied the capital, suspended the constitution, and set up martial law. The organization forming the government is known as the "Council of Administrative Reform", and pledges alliegience to the king. They claim they intend to hand power back to the people and re-establish democracy in short order, once they have re-written the constitution to de-emphasize the executive branch, the powers of which they claim the deposed Prime Minister abused. The burning question in this situation is whether or not the PM had a true mandate to govern. His party had swept the last three elections with massive support, but the opposition parties had boycotted the last election, and no Parliament had been set up, as another election was pending. There had also been massive rioting in Bankok (the capital) leading up to the coup against his party, which is popular primarily in rural areas. This is a situation worth watching, as we have yet to see whether what just occured is the removal of an over-reaching Prime Minister, or a power grab by the King (who is personally quite popular).

Fallout from the Provincial Election

Ok, the big NB provincial election is over, and besides the fact that a different party is in power, not much seems different. The NDP are toast (remember, you heard it here first :-) ) - they did not win a single seat, and the leader, Allison Brewer, was not even in contention for her riding of Fredericton-Lincoln with 17% of the popular vote. She plans to stay on as leader, but I still expect, barring any major event, that the New Brunswick NDP will wither and fold within the next three elections.
In more main sections of the news, the results of this election are almost the reverse of the last results, in 2003. Though the Tories got slightly more of the popular vote, the Liberals won a small majority of the seats, 29 to 26. Their election campaigns were quite similar though, so it shouldn't make much difference to the average citizen. Students, however, should be happy, as Liberal leader Shawn Graham pledged quite a bit of money to education, including a $2,000 bursary to first-year university students. Other election pledges were a 3.8cent/Litre cut to the provincial gas tax, money for Saint John harbour cleanup, and a more generous support formula for nursing home residents.
The main pieces of news from the PC party is that speculation of a move to federal politics for leader Bernard Lord has been re-opened, now that he is no longer Premier. He says this will be a family decision, and also that he will consult his (slightly reduced) caucus. Also, former Speaker Tanker Malley is out. Apparently the constituents of his Miramichi-Bay du Vin riding decided that his theatrics in the last legislature were more for the benefit of the former-bus-drivers-turned-MLA's in his riding than for the good of the general population. Good for them.

The longest undefended border in the world?

I found a little piece of news today - apparently, the US House of Representatives has passed a bill calling for a security fence on their border with Mexico, and another on the northern Canadian border. If the Senate and the President ratified that bill without removing that provision, we would no longer have the longest undefended border in the world, as there'd be a fence across it. It won't likely pass, but its worth watching.

Del Spooner v. 1.0

I found a neat article on PCMag.com about a bionic arm that has been made that can sense nerve signals and convert them into the appropriate movement - it still has a way to go before we get the bionic arm of Will Smith's character from I, Robot , but its a start.

The Pope is a Wise Man

Pope Benedict XVI made a speech today on the impacts of secularization on religion. He seems to be right - the biggest threat to religion today is those who believe that all truth can be found scientifically, which rules out religion, which is, by nature, supernatural and not subject to scientific examination. I've posted some excerpts of his speech here: (from the fine folks at the International Herald Tribune)

"Put simply, we are no longer able to hear God - there are too many frequencies filling our ears," he told the crowd at a former airport on the outskirts of this city where he once served as archbishop. "What is said about God strikes us as pre-scientific, no longer suited for our age."

"People in Africa and Asia admire our scientific and technical prowess, but at the same time they are frightened by a form of rationality which totally excludes God from man's vision,"

"They do not see the real threat to their identity in the Christian faith," he said, "but in the contempt for God and the cynicism that considers mockery of the sacred to be an exercise of freedom and that holds up utility as the supreme moral criterion for the future of scientific research."

New WTC Design

They just released the new tower designs for the World Trade Center site in NYC - its good to see they are starting to fill in the skyline again - and the new designs look modern and recognizable. I'd say this is a good thing.

--[Editor's note: I tried to post a picture of this, but the computer was being uncooperative - just click the link and view the original article if you want to see]

Microsoft Playing Hardball with the EU

Ahh ... Microsoft and its legal troubles - its doing a monopolistic thing now, and getting back at the European Union for its pesky anti-trust regulations by threatening a late European release date for its upcoming Windows Vista operating system. This late release date is, of course, to make sure that their operating system doesn't include any features that would constitute an uncompetitive use of their OS monopoly. Of course, this won't help the situation any - its annoying enough to make the government mad, but not enough of a lever to change the situation. I see yet more sanctions coming.

Microsoft Market Grab

In other Microsoft news, they are selling their Xbox 360 console at a deeply discounted rate in Japan, in an attempt to increase their market share in the country, where their first Xbox was trounced by the rival SonyPlayStation 2 and Nintendo Gamecube systems. I wonder how much per system they're losing on these discounts?

Freaky Tech Fashion

Shaw Kaake, a Chinese electronics buff, has created a strange merger between electronics and fashion. The Egokast is a video screen belt buckle, designed to play random film clips and/or loops as a conversation starter. Very strange - the designer's main caution was "Some people might be a little uncomfortable with everyone looking at their belt. It's sort of an unusual place for people to be staring at."

Poll: Do Computer Geeks Hate Computers?

Hey folks - I just finished setting up my first wireless network, and the experience was frustrating enough to further convince me that my theory "All Computer Geeks Secretly Hate Computers" is true. So, seeing as I know a few more computer geeks now, I'd like to ask you guys what you think of my theory. Please weigh in in the comments. Thanks,

The NDP are Toast, Part II

As a follow up to my previous post about the state of the New Brunswick New Democratic Party's election prospects, I'd like to add another article I found today. Allison Brewer, the new leader of the party, will not participate in the French language TV debate. She is not fluent in French, and asked to be allowed to participate using simultaneous translation, but was denied. New Brunswick has a large francophone population, and this development will severely damage the NDP's chances in any francophone dominated ridings. If she cannot speak French, it limits her appeal to francophone voters, because how can she truly be expected to understand their issues if she can't understand their language? As well, if no one sees her at the debate, her already scanty press coverage (due in part to there not being much news to cover) will become even less, limiting the number of people she can reach with her platform. All in all, more bad news for the NDP.

Crikey!

In a tragic, but not completely unexpected event, Steve Irwin, "the Crocodile Hunter" is dead following a stingray's barb piercing his heart while he was shooting a documentary. He will be greatly missed in Australia, but people have seen this coming for years, as he would pick a dangerous animal (snakes, crocodiles, ect.) tell the viewers "this is the wrong way to handle this animal, it is highly dangerous" and then proceed to do it anyway ... Rest in peace, mate.

Maclean's University Survey Failing

I just started my first week at my new school, the University of New Brunswick, and I was e-mailed a message that UNB is following many other schools in pulling out of the annual Maclean's university survey. The survey is a tool that has been used to rank Canadian universities for years, and is (was?) fairly well regarded by potential students. This has changed with the large scale university pullout - the school's main beefs are that the rankings are general for the entire school, instead of focusing on faculty, and inaccuracies in statistics gathering (small sample sizes for instance). Generalizing would work better in America, but in Canada you tend to apply more to the faculty more than you apply to the school (my acceptance letters all read along the lines of "The faculty of Computer Science is pleased to welcome you to [insert school here]), leading to an inaccurate picture of the school. These schools are not just angry at being low on the lists either. The University of Toronto, one of the first to withdraw, was ranked first in its category in last year's survey. (Interestingly, Maclean's still has links to the university ranking pages on its homepage)

Roughly half of the universities included in the last survey have withdrawn, listed here with their rankings (by number of schools in their classification - eg. 3/11 for the third ranked school of eleven - there are some ties) in the last survey: University of Toronto (1/15), McMaster University (11/15), University of Ottawa (12/15), University of British Columbia (4/15), Simon Fraser University (3/11), University of Alberta (6/15), University of Calgary (14/15), University of Lethbridge (13/21), University of Manitoba (15/15), l'Universiti de Montrial (7/15), Dalhousie University (13/15), Brandon University (16/21), Brock University (14/21), Laurentian University (19/21), l'Universiti de Moncton (15/21), Trent University (8/21), Carleton University (8/11), Concordia University (8/11), Queen's University (5/15), University of Windsor (11/11), York University (10/11), University of Western Ontario (not sure), and University of New Brunswick (7/11).

Under Construction

If any of you use the "Labels" feature, I just completely overhauled it ... I have a tendancy to endlessly tweak things, but that pane (now named Sections) should stay pretty much the same from now on, because its getting really tedious to edit all the posts one by one to change the labeling scheme. If you are looking for any older posts, you can still use the archives (I haven't changed those) or the search box at the top. Thats all the changes for now though, so you can rest easy ;-)

University Funding

I was reading an article how Shawn Graham, leader of the provincial Liberals, is promising a $2,000 grant to first-year undergraduate university students, starting this month!!! I hope they win and do that - no government, at any level, does all that much for university students, so it would be a welcome change. We need it, given that tuition rates are still outpacing inflation - they rose 5.8% this year in New Brunswick, to an average of $5,328 a year for undergraduates - both those numbers, by the way, are the second-highest of all the provinces. (That article is worth reading, and has quite a few interesting statistics)

The Provincial NDP are Toast

Well, there is a provincial election going on here in New Brunswick, so I figure I should weigh in on it. It is early in the campaign yet, and not much has happened, but I can already tell, that, without Elizabeth Weir, the NDP are done. Their new leader, Allison Brewer, has had plenty of time to prepare for an election since she was raised, and yet was (and still is) behind the Liberals and the Tories in releasing her party's platform. She has spent most of her time stumping in her own riding as well, focusing on getting herself elected over her parties goals. Admittedly, she needs to get into office, but without a strong party vision, she may have trouble with that (especially because the other parties are running a very strongly leader-focused campaign). On top of this, the NDP is not even able to run candidates in all 55 ridings. I'm no political science expert, but even an armchair politics-watcher should be smelling the blood in the water. 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. They were, for all intents and purposes, a one-woman party under Ms. Weir, and her successor does not have the personality to pull off a similar feat. We shall see

Bad Advertising Idea of the Day

I was reading an article about a new portable media player soon to come out called the "Gravel In Pocket" Did no one think that the acronym for their system is now "GIP"? This is even worse than Windows Media Player, aka WMP (pronounced "wimp" if you're in a hurry).