But your blind spot is pretty small, so you can still use the high-density portions of your eye near the center without a problem.
A trick I like to find the blind spot is when you are riding a train, you go in the last car, and stare at the horizon where the track "vanishes". The rails suddenly disappear from the track near where the train is...:):):):):)
Within the next few weeks, Bell will ask the CRTC to allow it to have any other company to use it's facilities throughout it's territory (which never has been the whole Canada).
In essence, Bell will wholesell it's facilities to any Dick, Tom and Harry that wants to provide any service Bell currently offers, including ADSL.
The rationale is "why bother with collecting from a zillion private accounts, when you can sell wholesale service to, say, 50 retailers who then will be stuck with collecting those zillion consumer accounts and doing the customer service?". Much better to deal with 50 wholesalers than a zillion consumers... And at least, this way, it can keep a piece of the action; when it'll lose a consumer, it'll still get the wholesale fee...
(This information comes directly from a small telecom CEO who won't need anymore to install his own equipment in Bell's COs to offer good service).
I dont know how things work in Canada but do Canadian telco regulations (and Bell rules) allow 3rd party ISPs to install their own DSLAMs in the Bell exchanges?
Yes they do. Some other companies now have their own equipment in Bell COs. In fact, many of Bell's COs buildings have been modified to allow independant physical access to part of their buildings without having to go through the areas where Bell keep their switches.
You ain't seen nothing yet. I'm in contact with the administrator of some small co-op telecom, and he told me wildly unsettling stuff.
Within the next 18 months, the CRTC will hold audiences regarding the regulation of the Internet, it's rationale being that since the Internet is being used to bypass the airwaves regulation the CRTC was originally setup for, it will have to lay down rules to establish what content gets sent over the wire, and how producers are compensated for it.
Of course, this reeks of the legendary cluelessness of broadcast/traditionnal media types regarding the Internet; if you truly want the Internet as it is to survive, at least in Canada, you better be prepared for this upcoming battle.
* * *
Oh, and you know, those "unlimited" DSL ISPs reselling Bell's "connectivity"? Starting January 2009, they gonna run like chickens with their heads chopped-off since Bell is going to meter every single fucking DSL connection on it's network...
I had a pager for a while for when I was developping some remote-sensing application that reported to a pager, and I needed it for testing.
When I was through with testing it, I kept the pager for a few weeks. I was in the process of moving at that time, and my boss asked for the pager back. I did not remembered where I put it, but I assured my boss that I would find it, that it was not lost.
But since it was on vibrate, I would not hear it when I dialed it. However, it was the kind that would keep on beeping/vibrating every 5 minutes until you acknowledge the page by pressing a button on it.
A few days later, I needed something I remembered putting at the bottom of a suitcase, so I only crack it open and insert my arm all the way to the bottom, feeling for what I needed.
At this precise moment, the beeper decides to go for it's little vibration... So I found the pager totally by chance...:)
I read many of the arguments "against" and they all fall under the same tired "why should I pay for someone else's healthcare" totally false argument.
The thing is, this is not about paying for someone else's healthcare, but for universal insurance. A totally different thing.
We don't hear those bitching against "paying for someone else's healthcare" when they pay (an arm and a leg though the nose) for "their" private insurance (or paying for other people's car accidents for car insurance, or other people's fires for fire insurance).
The idea of universal insurance is for it to be, well, universal (duh?). To spread the risk amongst the whole population. And with this comes tremenduous economies of scale: since everyone has the same coverage (that's the meaning of "universal"), there is no time wasted by doctors dealing with private insurance red-tape, nor the need for zillions of insurance company worker bees to sift through contracts to figure if such-and-such procedure is covered or not.
Everyone got the same treatment, so administrative overhead is at minimum.
In Canada, the government health insurance overhead is less than 5%. Compare this to the "ultra-efficient, competition-driven, frea-mahkit, don't-thread-on-me" 35% overhead of the US private health insurers!
* * *
In the US, the right is vehemently opposed to universal public insurance (like every OTHER industrialized country has) because it actually **WORKS**, and it would convey to the sheeple the heretic notion that the Government can do something that works well and is efficient (hint: who did send men to the moon and safely brought them back to earth, 40 years ago? It wasn't a conglomerate of private companies and/or foundations...), so the people would be more enticed to vote for politicians that actually look after their own interests, which would mean more taxes for the filthy-rich.
In Kentucky, hillbillies are voting en masse for the very same (spit) republicans who deny them the most basic health-care; they have had the wool pulled over their eyes by useless "wedge issues" (abortion, gay marriage) that have absolutely no impact whatsoever on their own lifes (no one is forcing them to abort nor to marry their own sex), all this in the name of maximum wealth for the maximally rich.
Finland is not the prototypical nanny-state scandinavian country. Despite having some of the trimmings of those, it is a hardline right-wing country, which sprinkles just enough goodies to keep the rabble in line. Otherwise, it is a hardass tough right-wing business-friendly country. Remember that this little country was able to keep the soviet union off it's territory, and it was glad to help the nazis during world-war II.
So it's not surprising that they would use tamperable voting technology, which is favoured by right-wing regimes because it can stealthily steal elections.
What your boss is trying to do is not unethical, just cheap. And to be honest, doing something at a lower cost and achieving the same results is actually good business.
Actually, in $COMMONWEALTH_COUTRY, it is even possible to get tax credits for writing a solution! I know, I've done it...
A generation ago, they used to be the vanguard of freedom and liberties! Now, they seem to be degrading into a spiral of power-hungry stupid obtuseness!!!
Is it something in the water, or the anglo-saxon culture has run it's course and is now totally decadent???
Since you don't want to be make to think, I won't tell you that
-- in case you haven't noticed, we decided to go with the legal and democratic route to "separation". We did not ignore the last referendum result which we lost by a mere 50,000 vote, despite the widespread fraud (300,000 people who voted could not be retraced in the health insurance records).
-- the army is commited to legality. There is no question amongst "separatist" officers that any "separatist" uprising within the army is totally unacceptable.
-- the bloc is also lauded from outside of Québec; the Bloc has been asked countless times to have candidates outside of Québec.
My greatest concern is that 16.8% of the votes were cast for parties that shouldn't even be on a federal ballot. Could you imagine the commander-in-chief of any country's armed forces being a declared tree-hugger or separatist? What foreign military, ally or foe, would respect them?
You start on a bad footing... At least 20% of the canadian forces officers are "separatists". I know: my father became "separatist" more than 50 years ago in the army, and I have several cousins serving as officers in the army. As of me, well, I will **NEVER** swear allegiance to the queen of England, so I can't very well be in the army...
In addition, the chiefs of staff have made it plain that they would respect a democratic UDI from Québec.
So you can't really declare "separatists" as traitors, you'd get a part of the army rising against Canada...
What is the upshot of this? Yes, the BQ distort Canadian politics -- but I think Quebec in general would lean more toward a strong Liberal party than a strong Conservative party.
It did, until Trudeau screwed Québec big time when he repatriated the Constitution while ignoring Québec's requests. Ever since then Québec has dumped the liberals, and when the tories failed to fix Trudeau's blunders, it has dumped the tories.
Consider also that the Liberals are at a historic low, and the Conservatives still couldn't pull of a majority government.
That this shows is that federal parties ignore Québec at their own peril. Before Trudeau screwed Québec when he unilaterally rapatriated the Constitution in 1982, Québec voted liberal en masse.
Then, (conservative) Mulroney got elected on a platform that respected Québec, and he genuinely tried to have Québec sign the constitution. He failed twice because what little he did was seen as "too much" by the english.
Following the second failure, the bloc was born when Québec MPs split. In the next election, the conservative caucus shrank down from 222 to 2 (yes, two) and the liberals managed to get elected without the fiftyish Bloc members, who since then, have solidly occupied the Québec seats in the Commons. Shockingly enough, thanks to the division of the right, the opposition was formed by the Bloc itself!!! The fact that two left of centre parties were holding most of the power could have insured a lot of social progress, except that the liberals were tasked with the unenviable task of mopping up the unprecedented debt and deficits left by their tories predecessor. However, their efforts left us as the only G-8 country with a budgetary surplus and the soundest banking system of the world (this is not thanks to the conservatives, though).
The liberals were able to stay in power until 2006 mostly because the right was divided, but without a significant portion of Québec AND of Ontario, no party can hope to attain supremacy in Canada.
It is only very late in the past campaign that federal leaders have suddenly awoke to this very fact.
As long as Canada will ignore Québec's different needs, it can count on not having a "functionnal" parliament.
Please elaborate on why aboriginals need guaranteed seats. Maybe we should give guaranteed seats to jews, muslims, indians, haitians, homosexual, woman, clowns, dentists, and nurses, too.
That's a typical western cowboy jackass "argument". The aboriginals need guaranteed seats because they were there before you moved in with your slimy cowboy boots full of cowshit. What is baffling, though, is that you did not include "french" in your little list.
You forget the Bloc's 50 seats, which yields a comfy majority. They're easy to rally as long as you have progressive legislation. But as soon as you want something that can be construed to be against Québec's interest, though, you lose them in a jiffy.
The left is weak and ineffective and want to destroy confederation by alienating the west.
Hear! Hear! This is the typical unwashed western redneck bullshit we hear all the time.
The west is "alienated" simply because it is nothing but chickenshit.
The bulk of population and industry is in Ontario and Québec (half the population of Canada), and the prairies and mountains are a huge wasteland used to grow grain, cattle and mine oil.
The west simply does not have the political weight. It is as simple as that.
I'm 31, married, and the father of three but when I was a teenager I sure did my share of practice for driving. Sure I must have had five accidents in two years or so, but they were harmless in beaters.
I am sure that the owners of the property you smashed into did not think so.
Slashdot Mirror
A trick I like to find the blind spot is when you are riding a train, you go in the last car, and stare at the horizon where the track "vanishes". The rails suddenly disappear from the track near where the train is... :) :) :) :) :)
Et, hate to do a little nitpick here, but no US law has any jurisdiction in Canada whatsoever.
Newsflash:
Within the next few weeks, Bell will ask the CRTC to allow it to have any other company to use it's facilities throughout it's territory (which never has been the whole Canada).
In essence, Bell will wholesell it's facilities to any Dick, Tom and Harry that wants to provide any service Bell currently offers, including ADSL.
The rationale is "why bother with collecting from a zillion private accounts, when you can sell wholesale service to, say, 50 retailers who then will be stuck with collecting those zillion consumer accounts and doing the customer service?". Much better to deal with 50 wholesalers than a zillion consumers... And at least, this way, it can keep a piece of the action; when it'll lose a consumer, it'll still get the wholesale fee...
(This information comes directly from a small telecom CEO who won't need anymore to install his own equipment in Bell's COs to offer good service).
Yes they do. Some other companies now have their own equipment in Bell COs. In fact, many of Bell's COs buildings have been modified to allow independant physical access to part of their buildings without having to go through the areas where Bell keep their switches.
You ain't seen nothing yet. I'm in contact with the administrator of some small co-op telecom, and he told me wildly unsettling stuff.
Within the next 18 months, the CRTC will hold audiences regarding the regulation of the Internet, it's rationale being that since the Internet is being used to bypass the airwaves regulation the CRTC was originally setup for, it will have to lay down rules to establish what content gets sent over the wire, and how producers are compensated for it.
Of course, this reeks of the legendary cluelessness of broadcast/traditionnal media types regarding the Internet; if you truly want the Internet as it is to survive, at least in Canada, you better be prepared for this upcoming battle.
* * *
Oh, and you know, those "unlimited" DSL ISPs reselling Bell's "connectivity"? Starting January 2009, they gonna run like chickens with their heads chopped-off since Bell is going to meter every single fucking DSL connection on it's network...
I remember waking up from (then fashionable) tonsil surgery to be given a pull-string gyroscope, over which I went batshit.
I had a pager for a while for when I was developping some remote-sensing application that reported to a pager, and I needed it for testing.
When I was through with testing it, I kept the pager for a few weeks. I was in the process of moving at that time, and my boss asked for the pager back. I did not remembered where I put it, but I assured my boss that I would find it, that it was not lost.
But since it was on vibrate, I would not hear it when I dialed it. However, it was the kind that would keep on beeping/vibrating every 5 minutes until you acknowledge the page by pressing a button on it.
A few days later, I needed something I remembered putting at the bottom of a suitcase, so I only crack it open and insert my arm all the way to the bottom, feeling for what I needed.
At this precise moment, the beeper decides to go for it's little vibration... So I found the pager totally by chance... :)
Best queue jumping story so far.
Fortunaly, gays are getting off easily there, because no one would be able to patent the asshole: there is plenty of prior art!!!
Interesting. Thanks.
Better yet, just do " sudo su - ".
I read many of the arguments "against" and they all fall under the same tired "why should I pay for someone else's healthcare" totally false argument.
The thing is, this is not about paying for someone else's healthcare, but for universal insurance. A totally different thing.
We don't hear those bitching against "paying for someone else's healthcare" when they pay (an arm and a leg though the nose) for "their" private insurance (or paying for other people's car accidents for car insurance, or other people's fires for fire insurance).
The idea of universal insurance is for it to be, well, universal (duh?). To spread the risk amongst the whole population. And with this comes tremenduous economies of scale: since everyone has the same coverage (that's the meaning of "universal"), there is no time wasted by doctors dealing with private insurance red-tape, nor the need for zillions of insurance company worker bees to sift through contracts to figure if such-and-such procedure is covered or not.
Everyone got the same treatment, so administrative overhead is at minimum.
In Canada, the government health insurance overhead is less than 5%. Compare this to the "ultra-efficient, competition-driven, frea-mahkit, don't-thread-on-me" 35% overhead of the US private health insurers!
* * *
In the US, the right is vehemently opposed to universal public insurance (like every OTHER industrialized country has) because it actually **WORKS**, and it would convey to the sheeple the heretic notion that the Government can do something that works well and is efficient (hint: who did send men to the moon and safely brought them back to earth, 40 years ago? It wasn't a conglomerate of private companies and/or foundations...), so the people would be more enticed to vote for politicians that actually look after their own interests, which would mean more taxes for the filthy-rich.
In Kentucky, hillbillies are voting en masse for the very same (spit) republicans who deny them the most basic health-care; they have had the wool pulled over their eyes by useless "wedge issues" (abortion, gay marriage) that have absolutely no impact whatsoever on their own lifes (no one is forcing them to abort nor to marry their own sex), all this in the name of maximum wealth for the maximally rich.
Not always. You only went there for certain very specific colours, like blue, yellow or green, but not for red or brown.
Let's not be fooled.
Finland is not the prototypical nanny-state scandinavian country. Despite having some of the trimmings of those, it is a hardline right-wing country, which sprinkles just enough goodies to keep the rabble in line. Otherwise, it is a hardass tough right-wing business-friendly country. Remember that this little country was able to keep the soviet union off it's territory, and it was glad to help the nazis during world-war II.
So it's not surprising that they would use tamperable voting technology, which is favoured by right-wing regimes because it can stealthily steal elections.
Actually, in $COMMONWEALTH_COUTRY, it is even possible to get tax credits for writing a solution! I know, I've done it...
A generation ago, they used to be the vanguard of freedom and liberties! Now, they seem to be degrading into a spiral of power-hungry stupid obtuseness!!!
Is it something in the water, or the anglo-saxon culture has run it's course and is now totally decadent???
What is going on with anglo-saxon governments?
They used to be the vanguard of freedom and liberties! Now, they seem to be degrading into a spiral of power-hungry stupid obtuseness!!!
Is it something in the water, or the anglo-saxon culture has run it's course and is now totally decadent???
Since you don't want to be make to think, I won't tell you that
-- in case you haven't noticed, we decided to go with the legal and democratic route to "separation". We did not ignore the last referendum result which we lost by a mere 50,000 vote, despite the widespread fraud (300,000 people who voted could not be retraced in the health insurance records).
-- the army is commited to legality. There is no question amongst "separatist" officers that any "separatist" uprising within the army is totally unacceptable.
-- the bloc is also lauded from outside of Québec; the Bloc has been asked countless times to have candidates outside of Québec.
You start on a bad footing... At least 20% of the canadian forces officers are "separatists". I know: my father became "separatist" more than 50 years ago in the army, and I have several cousins serving as officers in the army. As of me, well, I will **NEVER** swear allegiance to the queen of England, so I can't very well be in the army...
In addition, the chiefs of staff have made it plain that they would respect a democratic UDI from Québec.
So you can't really declare "separatists" as traitors, you'd get a part of the army rising against Canada...
It did, until Trudeau screwed Québec big time when he repatriated the Constitution while ignoring Québec's requests. Ever since then Québec has dumped the liberals, and when the tories failed to fix Trudeau's blunders, it has dumped the tories.
Since then, one cannot govern Canada without Québec.
That this shows is that federal parties ignore Québec at their own peril. Before Trudeau screwed Québec when he unilaterally rapatriated the Constitution in 1982, Québec voted liberal en masse.
Then, (conservative) Mulroney got elected on a platform that respected Québec, and he genuinely tried to have Québec sign the constitution. He failed twice because what little he did was seen as "too much" by the english.
Following the second failure, the bloc was born when Québec MPs split. In the next election, the conservative caucus shrank down from 222 to 2 (yes, two) and the liberals managed to get elected without the fiftyish Bloc members, who since then, have solidly occupied the Québec seats in the Commons. Shockingly enough, thanks to the division of the right, the opposition was formed by the Bloc itself!!! The fact that two left of centre parties were holding most of the power could have insured a lot of social progress, except that the liberals were tasked with the unenviable task of mopping up the unprecedented debt and deficits left by their tories predecessor. However, their efforts left us as the only G-8 country with a budgetary surplus and the soundest banking system of the world (this is not thanks to the conservatives, though).
The liberals were able to stay in power until 2006 mostly because the right was divided, but without a significant portion of Québec AND of Ontario, no party can hope to attain supremacy in Canada.
It is only very late in the past campaign that federal leaders have suddenly awoke to this very fact.
As long as Canada will ignore Québec's different needs, it can count on not having a "functionnal" parliament.
That's a typical western cowboy jackass "argument". The aboriginals need guaranteed seats because they were there before you moved in with your slimy cowboy boots full of cowshit. What is baffling, though, is that you did not include "french" in your little list.
You forget the Bloc's 50 seats, which yields a comfy majority. They're easy to rally as long as you have progressive legislation. But as soon as you want something that can be construed to be against Québec's interest, though, you lose them in a jiffy.
Hear! Hear! This is the typical unwashed western redneck bullshit we hear all the time.
The west is "alienated" simply because it is nothing but chickenshit.
The bulk of population and industry is in Ontario and Québec (half the population of Canada), and the prairies and mountains are a huge wasteland used to grow grain, cattle and mine oil.
The west simply does not have the political weight. It is as simple as that.
I am sure that the owners of the property you smashed into did not think so.