I lost my job on Sept 11, 2001 of all days... After almost a year of unemployment, in which I couldn't find a bloody thing, I decided to cut my losses and return to school. I have an electronics diploma (I'm an Electronic Technologist - which is inbetween a technician and an engineer). I'm now doing my comp sci degree.
What I quickly discovered was that, as a normal unemployed person I was of little interest to companies. Once I became a student I was in high demand! It didn't take me long to find work (regardless of the season though there are distinct hiring times) and I could choose from really good jobs! The reasons why I found work so easily were: 1) I was much more skilled then the average student (I've got almost 5 years of solid SW development experience). 2) More importantly: as a student under 25 (I think the max age was raised to 28 now), I could fall under the federal government programs here in Canada where the government would subsidize my salary (it's an incentive for companies to hire students). I don't have to apply for it; my employer handles that. 3) The Canadian Federal government has a good website to connect students with jobs in the government. Anyone that applies for funding gets their job posted on their website (real jobs! holy @#%$#!). They also have a special program called FSWEP that helps students find jobs in the federal government. What's really cool about it is that they don't want to know what level of experience you have, only the basic skills. When a hiring manager wants to find somebody the program randomly pulls 4-6 names of people that have the basic skills require (i.e. knows MS office, speaks French, knows C++, etc) and they have to hire one of those people. With that program I got 4 calls - many of them for web development. Looking back I should have taken one of those jobs, a part time job, as the websites in question were really big and complex - it would have been interesting (I'm a C/C++ hacker at heart). 4) I was available for part time working during the school year. Lots of part time jobs during the year! The disadvantage is that it severly effects the time I have to study; I take the minimum amount of courses to be full time. As such, it'll take me 4 years to get my (honours) degree (if I took a full course load I could be done in 2.5-3 years, even less if I took summer courses).
The work has always been interesting and in my general field. The first place I worked at, a charity, I was writing custom video conferencing software using this nice SDK and accompanying hardware (it was very interesting work). I now work in an IT team in the Federal government, on a project to migrate from Win98 to XP.
As for pay, there are definite advantages to being a student. First off, since I fall under those government programs, there are guaranteed minimum levels of salary. At the moment I make $15.61 CND per hour ($10.71 US). Next year I can expect to make around $18/hour if I continue in the federal government. The other advantage is that by being in these organizations, I have the proverbial foot in the door (i.e. where I work now I can apply for any internal job postings).
I think that the biggest advantage of being a student, aside from that fact that I will get the degree I've been desiring for many years (actually I care more about the education then the degree), is that I pay virtually no tax. What I do pay, I will get (virtually) all of it back at tax time!
I know this isn't an option for everyone but in my case I really wanted to get my degree - everything worked out well. Life is good at the moment.
BTW, slightly offtopic but one of the HUGE advantages of being unemployed here in Canada is healthcare: it doesn't cost a cent (well, you do pay for drugs but generics are common & cheap). My wife made extensive use of the healthcase system here (got quickly treated by uber-experts for what, at first, appeared to be cancer). If we had to pay anything at all for the treatment she recieved for 3 months (i.e. even 10%), we'd be completely broke and living with my parents. The parking at the hospital, by itself, burnt a significant hole in my pocket!
Whenever I see those reports about video games/D&D/gangsta rap, etc making teens violent, etc, I often wonder why it is that the people that say this (i.e. my parents, grandparents, etc) are not so messed up & violent.
Let's go back one generation (relative to me - I'm 24 years old, my father is 53). Many of the people my father knew were in the military fighting in Vietnam (he joined later and was posted in Germany). A good part of society thus experienced and were exposed to REAL violence. Not only that, they were also TRAINED to effectively kill & destroy as well as to blindly follow orders. Hmm... my father and his friends are not going around killing people or blowing up bridges.
Same thing goes with the generation previous to my father - my grandparents. They were part of a much bigger, worldwide war (WW2) that not only focused entire countries to supporting the war effort, but also sent massive numbers of people to fight. Most of these people managed to reintegrate into society and lead normal, non-violent lives.
Today, my father reads war/military books and watches war movies. This is his virtual world that he finds interesting; it's just an escape from reality. He might even dream, in his mind, of being in those situations and it might involve very violent actions. But, like any sane person, he can distinguish between reality and the imaginary and, as such, it's harmless. Living out parts of the imaginary is also perfectly fine since he, like everyone else, is aware of what is acceptable in society and law.
Same goes with computer games. Whenever we play a computer game, we are experiencing the imaginary world created by the game developer. What we do in this imaginary world may be of some use in the real world but, for the most part, it remains in the imaginary (Rainbow 6 does not make me an anti-terrorist specialist - nor would I ever concede myself to being one!). If we choose to live out part of the imaginary, virtually all people will do so in a way that is acceptable.
The very rare cases involving people that don't have this moral compass or cannot distinguish between reality - they are the people that give the rest of us a poor image. Specifically, it's the fault of the media for grossly oversimplifying the subset of society that we make up (i.e. all computer game users are violent).
The good news? As we get older, we will be the ones that control society. Computer games and their ilk are not going away either - infact they are getting more common & widespread (it's not just the domain of geeks). As such the nutcases today can say whatever they want today because in the future people will (hopefully) disregard their message since we know it's a load of crap.
If you have Mozilla, I highly recommend you installBannerblind. I've been using it for many months and it does a great job of removing adverts!
The way it works is that, when you finish downloading a web page, it goes through the downloaded page and removes images of a specific height & width (for both GIF and Flash ads). It works well since all ads are of a specific size.
In my experience, it rarely remove a non-advert and if it's a nuisance for a specific page, you can easily turn it off.
The actual removal of the image can either force your page to reformat or to leave it as it is, with the image space blank (I prefer the former).
Also, you can add/remove image sizes so it's easy to keep up with new formats.
In Ancient Greece, the theatre was a main form of entertainment. What's particularily interesting about it is that there was very little live action on stage and much of the story was told by a narrator or the chorus. And yet people attended.
The most surprising aspect was that people attended despite knowing the play by heart (and there weren't many plays that were performed - most were variations of some classic play). If anything, people attended to experience a new rendition or telling a story and to enjoy the experience of the theatre.
What does this have to do with LOTR? Simple: people will still pay to see the movie because the story is good (many people already know this since they have read the books), the movie appears to be of high quality (as was the first one) and the experience of attending the theatre is still somewhat enjoyable. Or, if you rent or buy, you will get your money's worth with a DVD (especially if you have a home theatre).
Personally, I think Hollywood has done an Ok job of keeping the cost of DVDs low and quick to market for sale/rent. In the many CD stores I've visited lately, the cost of a CD can be as much as a DVD (the only albums that are cheap are the latest pop albums).
IMO, the only time online 'piracy' or VCD-camcorder recordings will affect a movie is when it sucks or is marginal. These methods act more like a preview system - I won't pay for a movie that sucks but I'll definetly pay for a movie that I discover I love but never heard of. It's also worth noting that this is free viral marketing for Hollywood so, as long as the movies are good, the price is reasonable, they sell a high quality product and the experience is stil enjoyable (i.e. NO stupid DRM to prevent me from watching on PC), then they have little to worry about.
Oftentimes with a new version/generation of a product is being introduced (i.e. with a new OS, features, form factor, etc) you can usually get the previous version/generation at a really good price.
This is why I prefer to wait and buy older PC games and hardware (usually stuff that is a 1 generation behind the latest stuff). The added advantage of doing so is that the product tends to be more refined/less buggy.
With specific regards to Apple, right now is a good time to buy a system that DOES NOT have Jaguar on it. I recently picked up an iMac with OS X (for my wife) and, compaired with to the plain-jane iMac, we got it for $200 cheaper (Canadian $) plus ours came with a CD burner and an extra 128 MB or RAM.
Obviously, they were trying to get rid of their non-Jaguar inventory at my local BMac store. We also got a coupon so that we can buy Jaguar for $30 CND (it should arrive any day now).
I just started a university degree and I have to take an extra math course. The profs at my university suggested taking the extra math I need (geometry & algebra) at a high school. I was going to but they couldn't find a teacher to teach it during the summer (hmm... wonder why?).
Anyway, adult high schools are usually quite cheap, the courses are at night (good thing for most people), they're available right now and you'll almost surely find courses on the easier subjects (algebra, geometry, basic calculus, etc). It's also very cheap.
Another option are the community colleges. They too tend to be cheap but they offer higher level courses and the profs are IMO just as good as the university profs. Also, the profs tend to be more accessible for extra help.
As the name suggests, it hides any banners on a website you're viewing. It works by telling Mozilla to not display/remove images of a certain size (most ads are of a specific size). You can also add different banner sizes as time goes by (I've eliminated 99% of ads - Slashdot is completely ad free for me).
Maybe he should go back to making music for commercials? That's where he made most of his $ on previous albums (before he hit mainstream).
Ironically, he recently stated that he would never do it again with '18' or any album in the future.
Yes, the album does suck. I've heard clips of the entire album (from his website). It consists almost entirely of old songs with a wee bit of techno sound in it, much like 'Natural Blues' in 'Play' (which I own & love).
I doubt they need this for the G8 summit. The jamming of cell phone frequencies seems a little overkill because:
(1) the G8 meeting is held in a park called Kananaskis. It's in the foothills and Canadian Rockies, located in the province of Alberta. Anyway, the place the summit is located (the Rocky Mountain Lodge) is fairly isolated. Cell phone coverage is good in the area (so says my wife who has been there recently) but I'm guessing it's only available in populated areas or along the major roads.
(2) The place is being secured mostly by the Canadian military, with the RCMP in town or along the roads. The military presence is huge (the soldiers are fully armed), their primary role is to secure the outlying areas and they have permission to use deadly force. The air space will be closely monitored (they have mobile radar stations up) and jets can be called up or will be patrolling the area (I think there's a no-fly-zone in effect).
While there is a possibility of terrorists, protestors are probably an equal target of cell phone jamming. Protesters (good & bad) use cell phones as a means of organizing groups of people.
Let's just hope the RCMP doesn't fuck up and, say, jam emergency frequencies or that used by commercial aviation.
Re:Yeah, we think highly of foreigners here.
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Actually, paying by colour is how it works for many 'foreigners' like myself. For example, you pull out your wallet and just by seeing a hint of colour on each note, you can easily figure out how much money you have & what type of bills without rifling through each note and counting (as I do with US $). It makes life easier and the colour make the notes more aesthetically pleasing.
Despite the colour, I doubt it would affect people (like myself) that use debit or other electronic means to pay for almost everything. Cash is such a bother, cheques are virtually obsolete and anyone that sells anything accepts debit/credit, etc nowadays. For businesses, requiring correct change can be a huge pain in the ass and many are afraid of counterfeit bills (in my area, virtually every store refuses to accept anything over a $50 note).
I remember when I worked for a company that provided trial-version DRM. We had a customer who said "I want this technology to allow me to track down the little @#$#er so I can take him out back and shoot him!"
I believe he was from Texas...
Best Buy coming to Canada
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Somewhat off topic but I thought I'd share with US/.ers
I was really excited when I heard that Best Buy was coming to Canada - finally, someone that could compete with the likes of Future Shop! (Canadian equivalent of Best Buy)
Unfortunately, Future Shop was quite scared of Best Buy and let themselves be bought out. They did have good reason to be afraid: Best Buy has huge buying power and influence over the companies they deal with (or so I've heard).
The point is: I was really hoping that the introduction of Best Buy would mean lower prices, better customer service and better post-sale service. I bet what will happen is continuation of the status quo (barely decent cust service, etc).
With regards to this fiasco, I just really hope this doesn't happen here and that the people working for Best Buy are at least half ways intelligent.
Great start! I live in Ottawa so I plan to formally object, which means I plan to attend the meetings. The amusing thing about my intentions is that I used to be on the dark side... I worked for a DRM company (for the games industry).
I have only started to draft my points I want to make (I need to research data to back them up) but here's what I would add to yours: -I would point out that the recording industry is not like the publishing industry. The recording industry is making lots of money still and, if they complain about how they made a little less this year, it could fairly easily be backed up by pointing out the crap albums released this year (i.e. the millions of "best of X").
-To me, this tariff is like an inversed ticket or fine: you are getting fined immediately because it is assumed you're going to do something illegal or wrong. As such, we should be allowed to copy or 'pirate' our media without any government of technological (DRM) interference, since we've already paid our fine. This is just a reworked version of your point 3.
-What exactly is this levy meant to compensate the record companies for? Could this also be tied directly to digital downloads, Napster, etc? I.e. we need to charge this levy because instead of 5 people buy a CD, only one does and everyone else pirates copies, with the end result being burned or stored on a storage medium? Once again, if we have levies there shouldn't be any DRM.
We should get together and try to write a common letter to send to our MPs (Members of Parliament). I'm going to have a crack at one myself this morning and I to post it here once it's done. If anyone else has one already written out, please post theirs!
Hmmm... if I were to attach a small piece of string or cover the car in the fake fur (found on cheap toy mice) I'd have a very easy way to keep my cats entertained and in shape!
I believe March Networks is exactly in this business. They offer digital video and security solutions to all sorts of companies.
I heard many banks are now using their technology to record you every time you do a transaction at an ATM.
You can read more about that specific technology here
I too have a Handera; all the points above are very true.
What is particularily interesting about the Handera is the fact that it has the CompactFlash and SD ports, thereby making it available for use with all the pheripherals that are currently available or that will come out soon. It's terribly useful for when you have a memory card for data and a pheripheral (you can use them both at the same time).
Also, the Handera has kept with the Palm III form factor so a lot of add-ons (especially older ones, like old hard cases) fit perfectly.
These two main features of the Handera make it perfect for a work environment; companies can buy add-ons for this device without having to buy more specialized devices (i.e. some of the Palm OS powered devices from Symbol). It ends up being cheap and very powerful.
An example: my father owns a septic & toilet rental business. With a Handera I've connected to his database of customers & work orders (keeping all his clients on the memory card), I can add a GPS unit to keep track of the location of his toilets (especially useful when they are way out in the woods), a bar-code scanner can be used to keep track of inventory and quickly identify toilets when he's servicing them. He can also use one of the many Palm III keyboards to enter data on the road.
I've heard that one of the more popular uses of Handera devices are in warehouses with 802.11 networks & barcode scanners to manage inventory.
Sony PDAs are great but they are consumer oriented. BTW, the Handera has a 240x320 resolution (very crisp).
I agree that themes found in the bible are by no means original.
For those that might not be aware, Tolkien was a Prof of english and he was well known for his interpretation of the classic english poem Beowolf (written around the first century in England).
It's fair to say that Tolkein probably got a huge amount of inspiration (for LOTR and, more specifically, The Hobbit) from this poem. For example, in the 2nd half of the poem Beowolf confronts a dragon that is terrorizing his kingdom. This dragon, having rested on a pile of ancient treasure for hundreds of years, was awakened and throne into a rage when a thief made off with a single goblet from his huge horde (sound familiar?).
I can see it now: "it's not an eclipse - it is tea-time mate".
1945: Bomber crashed into Empire State Building
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When I heard about the first plane that crashed into the WTC, I thought back to 1945 when an Army Corp B-25 bomber crashed into the Empire State Building. You can read more about it here
For a while, Canada has been fighting Brazil over subsidies in their aviation industry. From what I understand, the government gives big subsidies and extremely low or no interest loans to buyers of Brazilian aircraft.
Canada brought them to the WTO and won (it was hurting Bombardier, which BTW the government controls part of because it saved it's ass many years ago). Regardless, the Brazilans have refused to comply or fully comply and there's been a little on again, off again trade war (a while ago it's with beef).
All this seems so childish but, when it comes to doing AIDs drugs, the people they are really hurting are those in the western countries who will probably end up paying more to offset any type of loss.
On a related note, India is doing the same thing with AIDs drugs: ignoring International IP to make cheap versions. The difference was the Indian government & pharmaceuticals planned on selling them mostly in Africa (sorry, I don't have a link to the story).
Yes, breaking and entering is a crime. Unfortunately, it also far easier for the government and Adobe to after the maker of lock picks instead of the individual 'theives'.
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I lost my job on Sept 11, 2001 of all days... After almost a year of unemployment, in which I couldn't find a bloody thing, I decided to cut my losses and return to school. I have an electronics diploma (I'm an Electronic Technologist - which is inbetween a technician and an engineer). I'm now doing my comp sci degree.
:
What I quickly discovered was that, as a normal unemployed person I was of little interest to companies. Once I became a student I was in high demand! It didn't take me long to find work (regardless of the season though there are distinct hiring times) and I could choose from really good jobs! The reasons why I found work so easily were
1) I was much more skilled then the average student (I've got almost 5 years of solid SW development experience).
2) More importantly: as a student under 25 (I think the max age was raised to 28 now), I could fall under the federal government programs here in Canada where the government would subsidize my salary (it's an incentive for companies to hire students). I don't have to apply for it; my employer handles that.
3) The Canadian Federal government has a good website to connect students with jobs in the government. Anyone that applies for funding gets their job posted on their website (real jobs! holy @#%$#!). They also have a special program called FSWEP that helps students find jobs in the federal government. What's really cool about it is that they don't want to know what level of experience you have, only the basic skills. When a hiring manager wants to find somebody the program randomly pulls 4-6 names of people that have the basic skills require (i.e. knows MS office, speaks French, knows C++, etc) and they have to hire one of those people. With that program I got 4 calls - many of them for web development. Looking back I should have taken one of those jobs, a part time job, as the websites in question were really big and complex - it would have been interesting (I'm a C/C++ hacker at heart).
4) I was available for part time working during the school year. Lots of part time jobs during the year! The disadvantage is that it severly effects the time I have to study; I take the minimum amount of courses to be full time. As such, it'll take me 4 years to get my (honours) degree (if I took a full course load I could be done in 2.5-3 years, even less if I took summer courses).
The work has always been interesting and in my general field. The first place I worked at, a charity, I was writing custom video conferencing software using this nice SDK and accompanying hardware (it was very interesting work). I now work in an IT team in the Federal government, on a project to migrate from Win98 to XP.
As for pay, there are definite advantages to being a student. First off, since I fall under those government programs, there are guaranteed minimum levels of salary. At the moment I make $15.61 CND per hour ($10.71 US). Next year I can expect to make around $18/hour if I continue in the federal government. The other advantage is that by being in these organizations, I have the proverbial foot in the door (i.e. where I work now I can apply for any internal job postings).
I think that the biggest advantage of being a student, aside from that fact that I will get the degree I've been desiring for many years (actually I care more about the education then the degree), is that I pay virtually no tax. What I do pay, I will get (virtually) all of it back at tax time!
I know this isn't an option for everyone but in my case I really wanted to get my degree - everything worked out well. Life is good at the moment.
BTW, slightly offtopic but one of the HUGE advantages of being unemployed here in Canada is healthcare: it doesn't cost a cent (well, you do pay for drugs but generics are common & cheap). My wife made extensive use of the healthcase system here (got quickly treated by uber-experts for what, at first, appeared to be cancer). If we had to pay anything at all for the treatment she recieved for 3 months (i.e. even 10%), we'd be completely broke and living with my parents. The parking at the hospital, by itself, burnt a significant hole in my pocket!
Whenever I see those reports about video games/D&D/gangsta rap, etc making teens violent, etc, I often wonder why it is that the people that say this (i.e. my parents, grandparents, etc) are not so messed up & violent.
Let's go back one generation (relative to me - I'm 24 years old, my father is 53). Many of the people my father knew were in the military fighting in Vietnam (he joined later and was posted in Germany). A good part of society thus experienced and were exposed to REAL violence. Not only that, they were also TRAINED to effectively kill & destroy as well as to blindly follow orders. Hmm... my father and his friends are not going around killing people or blowing up bridges.
Same thing goes with the generation previous to my father - my grandparents. They were part of a much bigger, worldwide war (WW2) that not only focused entire countries to supporting the war effort, but also sent massive numbers of people to fight. Most of these people managed to reintegrate into society and lead normal, non-violent lives.
Today, my father reads war/military books and watches war movies. This is his virtual world that he finds interesting; it's just an escape from reality. He might even dream, in his mind, of being in those situations and it might involve very violent actions. But, like any sane person, he can distinguish between reality and the imaginary and, as such, it's harmless. Living out parts of the imaginary is also perfectly fine since he, like everyone else, is aware of what is acceptable in society and law.
Same goes with computer games. Whenever we play a computer game, we are experiencing the imaginary world created by the game developer. What we do in this imaginary world may be of some use in the real world but, for the most part, it remains in the imaginary (Rainbow 6 does not make me an anti-terrorist specialist - nor would I ever concede myself to being one!). If we choose to live out part of the imaginary, virtually all people will do so in a way that is acceptable.
The very rare cases involving people that don't have this moral compass or cannot distinguish between reality - they are the people that give the rest of us a poor image. Specifically, it's the fault of the media for grossly oversimplifying the subset of society that we make up (i.e. all computer game users are violent).
The good news? As we get older, we will be the ones that control society. Computer games and their ilk are not going away either - infact they are getting more common & widespread (it's not just the domain of geeks). As such the nutcases today can say whatever they want today because in the future people will (hopefully) disregard their message since we know it's a load of crap.
Fin.
If you have Mozilla, I highly recommend you install Bannerblind. I've been using it for many months and it does a great job of removing adverts!
The way it works is that, when you finish downloading a web page, it goes through the downloaded page and removes images of a specific height & width (for both GIF and Flash ads). It works well since all ads are of a specific size.
In my experience, it rarely remove a non-advert and if it's a nuisance for a specific page, you can easily turn it off.
The actual removal of the image can either force your page to reformat or to leave it as it is, with the image space blank (I prefer the former).
Also, you can add/remove image sizes so it's easy to keep up with new formats.
(this actually pertains to LoTR...)
In Ancient Greece, the theatre was a main form of entertainment. What's particularily interesting about it is that there was very little live action on stage and much of the story was told by a narrator or the chorus. And yet people attended.
The most surprising aspect was that people attended despite knowing the play by heart (and there weren't many plays that were performed - most were variations of some classic play). If anything, people attended to experience a new rendition or telling a story and to enjoy the experience of the theatre.
What does this have to do with LOTR? Simple: people will still pay to see the movie because the story is good (many people already know this since they have read the books), the movie appears to be of high quality (as was the first one) and the experience of attending the theatre is still somewhat enjoyable. Or, if you rent or buy, you will get your money's worth with a DVD (especially if you have a home theatre).
Personally, I think Hollywood has done an Ok job of keeping the cost of DVDs low and quick to market for sale/rent. In the many CD stores I've visited lately, the cost of a CD can be as much as a DVD (the only albums that are cheap are the latest pop albums).
IMO, the only time online 'piracy' or VCD-camcorder recordings will affect a movie is when it sucks or is marginal. These methods act more like a preview system - I won't pay for a movie that sucks but I'll definetly pay for a movie that I discover I love but never heard of. It's also worth noting that this is free viral marketing for Hollywood so, as long as the movies are good, the price is reasonable, they sell a high quality product and the experience is stil enjoyable (i.e. NO stupid DRM to prevent me from watching on PC), then they have little to worry about.
That site went down awefully quickly, so here is the cache on Google
Oftentimes with a new version/generation of a product is being introduced (i.e. with a new OS, features, form factor, etc) you can usually get the previous version/generation at a really good price.
This is why I prefer to wait and buy older PC games and hardware (usually stuff that is a 1 generation behind the latest stuff). The added advantage of doing so is that the product tends to be more refined/less buggy.
With specific regards to Apple, right now is a good time to buy a system that DOES NOT have Jaguar on it. I recently picked up an iMac with OS X (for my wife) and, compaired with to the plain-jane iMac, we got it for $200 cheaper (Canadian $) plus ours came with a CD burner and an extra 128 MB or RAM.
Obviously, they were trying to get rid of their non-Jaguar inventory at my local BMac store. We also got a coupon so that we can buy Jaguar for $30 CND (it should arrive any day now).
Actually, Canada is the US's #1 trading partner since almost forever. Over 1 billion dollars a day in trade crosses the US/Canada border.
I just started a university degree and I have to take an extra math course. The profs at my university suggested taking the extra math I need (geometry & algebra) at a high school. I was going to but they couldn't find a teacher to teach it during the summer (hmm... wonder why?).
Anyway, adult high schools are usually quite cheap, the courses are at night (good thing for most people), they're available right now and you'll almost surely find courses on the easier subjects (algebra, geometry, basic calculus, etc). It's also very cheap.
Another option are the community colleges. They too tend to be cheap but they offer higher level courses and the profs are IMO just as good as the university profs. Also, the profs tend to be more accessible for extra help.
If you use Mozilla, make sure to install Bannerblind.
As the name suggests, it hides any banners on a website you're viewing. It works by telling Mozilla to not display/remove images of a certain size (most ads are of a specific size). You can also add different banner sizes as time goes by (I've eliminated 99% of ads - Slashdot is completely ad free for me).
Maybe he should go back to making music for commercials? That's where he made most of his $ on previous albums (before he hit mainstream).
Ironically, he recently stated that he would never do it again with '18' or any album in the future.
Yes, the album does suck. I've heard clips of the entire album (from his website). It consists almost entirely of old songs with a wee bit of techno sound in it, much like 'Natural Blues' in 'Play' (which I own & love).
As other have mentioned: go back to techno!
I doubt they need this for the G8 summit. The jamming of cell phone frequencies seems a little overkill because:
(1) the G8 meeting is held in a park called Kananaskis. It's in the foothills and Canadian Rockies, located in the province of Alberta. Anyway, the place the summit is located (the Rocky Mountain Lodge) is fairly isolated. Cell phone coverage is good in the area (so says my wife who has been there recently) but I'm guessing it's only available in populated areas or along the major roads.
(2) The place is being secured mostly by the Canadian military, with the RCMP in town or along the roads. The military presence is huge (the soldiers are fully armed), their primary role is to secure the outlying areas and they have permission to use deadly force. The air space will be closely monitored (they have mobile radar stations up) and jets can be called up or will be patrolling the area (I think there's a no-fly-zone in effect).
While there is a possibility of terrorists, protestors are probably an equal target of cell phone jamming. Protesters (good & bad) use cell phones as a means of organizing groups of people.
Let's just hope the RCMP doesn't fuck up and, say, jam emergency frequencies or that used by commercial aviation.
Actually, paying by colour is how it works for many 'foreigners' like myself. For example, you pull out your wallet and just by seeing a hint of colour on each note, you can easily figure out how much money you have & what type of bills without rifling through each note and counting (as I do with US $). It makes life easier and the colour make the notes more aesthetically pleasing.
Despite the colour, I doubt it would affect people (like myself) that use debit or other electronic means to pay for almost everything. Cash is such a bother, cheques are virtually obsolete and anyone that sells anything accepts debit/credit, etc nowadays. For businesses, requiring correct change can be a huge pain in the ass and many are afraid of counterfeit bills (in my area, virtually every store refuses to accept anything over a $50 note).
I remember when I worked for a company that provided trial-version DRM. We had a customer who said "I want this technology to allow me to track down the little @#$#er so I can take him out back and shoot him!"
I believe he was from Texas...
Somewhat off topic but I thought I'd share with US /.ers
I was really excited when I heard that Best Buy was coming to Canada - finally, someone that could compete with the likes of Future Shop! (Canadian equivalent of Best Buy)
Unfortunately, Future Shop was quite scared of Best Buy and let themselves be bought out. They did have good reason to be afraid: Best Buy has huge buying power and influence over the companies they deal with (or so I've heard).
The point is: I was really hoping that the introduction of Best Buy would mean lower prices, better customer service and better post-sale service. I bet what will happen is continuation of the status quo (barely decent cust service, etc).
With regards to this fiasco, I just really hope this doesn't happen here and that the people working for Best Buy are at least half ways intelligent.
I'm bet you they have my hahaha_IDontThinkSo@IHateSpam.com email address!
Great start! I live in Ottawa so I plan to formally object, which means I plan to attend the meetings. The amusing thing about my intentions is that I used to be on the dark side... I worked for a DRM company (for the games industry).
I have only started to draft my points I want to make (I need to research data to back them up) but here's what I would add to yours:
-I would point out that the recording industry is not like the publishing industry. The recording industry is making lots of money still and, if they complain about how they made a little less this year, it could fairly easily be backed up by pointing out the crap albums released this year (i.e. the millions of "best of X").
-To me, this tariff is like an inversed ticket or fine: you are getting fined immediately because it is assumed you're going to do something illegal or wrong. As such, we should be allowed to copy or 'pirate' our media without any government of technological (DRM) interference, since we've already paid our fine. This is just a reworked version of your point 3.
-What exactly is this levy meant to compensate the record companies for? Could this also be tied directly to digital downloads, Napster, etc? I.e. we need to charge this levy because instead of 5 people buy a CD, only one does and everyone else pirates copies, with the end result being burned or stored on a storage medium? Once again, if we have levies there shouldn't be any DRM.
We should get together and try to write a common letter to send to our MPs (Members of Parliament). I'm going to have a crack at one myself this morning and I to post it here once it's done. If anyone else has one already written out, please post theirs!
Hmmm... if I were to attach a small piece of string or cover the car in the fake fur (found on cheap toy mice) I'd have a very easy way to keep my cats entertained and in shape!
I believe March Networks is exactly in this business. They offer digital video and security solutions to all sorts of companies. I heard many banks are now using their technology to record you every time you do a transaction at an ATM. You can read more about that specific technology here
I too have a Handera; all the points above are very true.
What is particularily interesting about the Handera is the fact that it has the CompactFlash and SD ports, thereby making it available for use with all the pheripherals that are currently available or that will come out soon. It's terribly useful for when you have a memory card for data and a pheripheral (you can use them both at the same time).
Also, the Handera has kept with the Palm III form factor so a lot of add-ons (especially older ones, like old hard cases) fit perfectly.
These two main features of the Handera make it perfect for a work environment; companies can buy add-ons for this device without having to buy more specialized devices (i.e. some of the Palm OS powered devices from Symbol). It ends up being cheap and very powerful.
An example: my father owns a septic & toilet rental business. With a Handera I've connected to his database of customers & work orders (keeping all his clients on the memory card), I can add a GPS unit to keep track of the location of his toilets (especially useful when they are way out in the woods), a bar-code scanner can be used to keep track of inventory and quickly identify toilets when he's servicing them. He can also use one of the many Palm III keyboards to enter data on the road.
I've heard that one of the more popular uses of Handera devices are in warehouses with 802.11 networks & barcode scanners to manage inventory.
Sony PDAs are great but they are consumer oriented. BTW, the Handera has a 240x320 resolution (very crisp).
I agree that themes found in the bible are by no means original.
For those that might not be aware, Tolkien was a Prof of english and he was well known for his interpretation of the classic english poem Beowolf (written around the first century in England).
It's fair to say that Tolkein probably got a huge amount of inspiration (for LOTR and, more specifically, The Hobbit) from this poem. For example, in the 2nd half of the poem Beowolf confronts a dragon that is terrorizing his kingdom. This dragon, having rested on a pile of ancient treasure for hundreds of years, was awakened and throne into a rage when a thief made off with a single goblet from his huge horde (sound familiar?).
Wouldn't this create the world's largest sundial?
I can see it now: "it's not an eclipse - it is tea-time mate".
When I heard about the first plane that crashed into the WTC, I thought back to 1945 when an Army Corp B-25 bomber crashed into the Empire State Building. You can read more about it here
This appears to be a trend with Brazil.
For a while, Canada has been fighting Brazil over subsidies in their aviation industry. From what I understand, the government gives big subsidies and extremely low or no interest loans to buyers of Brazilian aircraft.
Canada brought them to the WTO and won (it was hurting Bombardier, which BTW the government controls part of because it saved it's ass many years ago). Regardless, the Brazilans have refused to comply or fully comply and there's been a little on again, off again trade war (a while ago it's with beef).
All this seems so childish but, when it comes to doing AIDs drugs, the people they are really hurting are those in the western countries who will probably end up paying more to offset any type of loss.
On a related note, India is doing the same thing with AIDs drugs: ignoring International IP to make cheap versions. The difference was the Indian government & pharmaceuticals planned on selling them mostly in Africa (sorry, I don't have a link to the story).
Yes, breaking and entering is a crime. Unfortunately, it also far easier for the government and Adobe to after the maker of lock picks instead of the individual 'theives'.