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  1. Shaking in Ottawa on 5.5 Earthquake Hits Canada; Felt in US Midwest, New England · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I was in a boardroom on the 6th (top) floor of our building for a 1:30 pm meeting and just as we're getting underway the table and chairs were shaking. Was pretty heavy for about 20 seconds and then faded off over the next minute. We're a lot of government buildings so the policy is to evacuate. We actually tried to continue our meeting but then they finally got to our floor to check it out they found us and told us to leave. As you can guess, no more work is really being done today. It's pretty exciting for us as we don't get this here.
    One interesting note, when I did go outside most everyone was on their cell phone and several were stating that they couldn't get service. I would guess because of the increase in volume at that time.

  2. Re:National ID Register on Canadians Wary of 'Enhanced Drivers Licenses' · · Score: 1

    A centralised gov't database? There is no centralised database in the gov't. Every department has their own and to get them to share data is a challenge.

    Then think of the amount of data that would be collected. How many TerraBytes would be collected in just one week. How are you going to structure it and then try and do any kind of data mining. Currently just between Canada & the US there are millions of commercial crossings and tens of thousands of traveler crossings per day. The border agencies (CBSA & CBP) need to validate and screen these passages. Already a tonne of data to process. I can't imagine adding every other type of movement and transaction to that. Thinking of the scale and volume of data I just don't think the current infrastructure of government agencies can do this.

    And as for the benefit of EDL, it's a volunteer (you have to want to sign up for it) program where extra screening is performed to validate citizenship. This involves the collection of extra data beyond that of the regular driver's license. Now suppose you want to keep that data only in Canada, how do you propose to perform real time (when the car is at the booth) secure lookup into the Canadian database? The CBSA doesn't have this data from what I read, it is the province. Are the US CBP going to be willing to hit each province's database to retrieve info (probably a photo & basic tombstone data). Expensive and complex (different protocols, databases, etc.) and I can't see a transaction like that happening in fewer then 10 seconds. That's increasing the border wait times which are already slow. This is a pilot program (when you read a select group of 500) so at least give it a try and see if it works. The privacy commission is there to make sure our rights are protected, put a little faith / trust that they may get it right.

  3. Job skills can wait on What Skills Should Undergrads Have? · · Score: 1

    You're in school. You will get a job and you will learn on the job. A degree from a University is gonna help a lot in getting your foot in the door, not the number of computer languages you know and how well you know them. I'd love the chance to be back in the situation you're in. Enjoy your time. Don't feel you even need computer related (summer) jobs to gain experience, you'll be doing those jobs for the next 40 years. With good enough people skills and a willingness to learn quickly you should be able to land a job soon enough without spending your free time now learning even more.

    Do the things you want, party and have fun. Real life will come along quicker then you think and you'll be kicking yourself for not doing the fun stuff when you had the chance. I haven't had that kind of life for nearly 15 years now and although I don't regret the path I'm on, there are things I know I'm not going to get the chance to do but I had the chance back when I was finishing school...

  4. Expanding Nexus on RFID Tags To Track Foreigners, Identify Dead · · Score: 1

    I contract to the Canadian Border Services Agency (CBSA) and I was the primary developer of the Canadian side of the Nexus program. The US developed there own version.
    The thing shared in common is an issued card with an RFID chip. The chip is assoicated with the traveller, not the car. So for those people at the border who want to avoid the lineups, they have signed up, been through the security checks and are being 'tracked' when crossing the border with the RFID chip given to them. It probably doesn't bother them because they can avoid 10 minutes to an hour of waiting time at the border.
    From the article it sounds like the US may be trying to expand this to become an 'on-demand' program for those that they feel might be a higher risk. If the technology is similar to what is being used in Nexus then I don't see a big issue. Maybe the people being 'forced' into the program don't like it, but if you want to travel across the border and the government considers you a risk, that is the price you're going to have to pay. As for the government tacking your every move with this RFID, not likely. The range is quite small and you have to pass by the sensors quite close and present the chip or it won't get read.
    The ideas of associating the chip with the car doesn't make much sense as has been pointed out by other replys (changing cars, numerous people in the cars and different persons crossing through each time). I guess it depends on how they're going to apply the technology. Maybe they know something about the patterns of vehicle crossings that would signal them to suspicious activity?

  5. Homer's Take on "Buffalo Spammer" Gets 3.5 to 7 Years · · Score: 1

    Homer Simpson reads the article and goes "Mmmmm, Buffalo Spam!"

  6. Quitting for your health on Best Way To Beat A Caffeine Addiction? · · Score: 1

    I'm a developer. I drink 7-10 cups a day, only now it's decaf. I'm not exactly how much lower the caffeine amount is but from what I've read it's low enough to make a significant difference.
    Ya see a couple of years ago I applied for life insurance and part of the drill was a physical. The doctor noticed something about my heart so I was sent to a specialist and had several test done (all day monitor, etc.). The results came back showing 17% of the time my heart would either skip or give a double beat. It was determined that the amount of caffeine (I also added pop in my daily intake) had a great deal to do with it.
    So that day I went out and purchased Decaf coffee and I've been drinking it since. Sure, once in a while I'll have a high-test in the afternoon if I'm really sluggish, but I'm 98% decaf. I really don't remember if the swithch was tough but I have no problem getting by on the stuff and I know I'm better for it (and I didn't have to give up coffee)!

  7. Super Bowl Commercials of the past on Super Bowl Commercial Skewer-a-thon · · Score: 2, Informative

    CBS is showing on Friday evening @ 8:00pm "Super Bowl's Greatest Commercials 2" which should give those who enjoy them a look at some of the good ones from the past. As they say "check your local listings as date/times may vary in different regions!"

  8. Definition of Software? on MS FrontPage Restricts Free Speech II (It's True!) · · Score: 1

    I read this and then went back to re-read something in the previous story. According to this post, if you read the section from the beginning the term Software means only the web components and the like. We will probably need clarification because I don't believe this means the FrontPage product, but the use of some available components which could be included on a site which falls under the described categories.
    I've found a lot of things can be misinterpreted if the full picture/meaning/wording is not examined and taken into consideration. I don't know if this is one of those cases, but I'm going to see if I can find someone who uses the product and take a look for myself.

  9. good for PHB? on Open Source License Comparison · · Score: 3, Funny

    You know, I've been playing Dungeons & Dragons for over 15 years and I can tell you the Player's Hand Book is confusing enough will all it's charts and tables. Added this chart will just frustrate DMs like myself when the players say "Look, that Dragon falls under the GNU GPL so it must share it's source of wealth!!"

  10. I understand better now on Caltech Team Raises 6900-Pound Obelisk, By Kite · · Score: 1

    from the article: "..., and I remembered my history clear back to the eighth grade that the Egyptians drank beer breakfast, lunch and dinner"

    Gee, I didn't know it but I must be part Egyptian!!

  11. New Poll Idea on Sally Struthers Asks You to Save the Dot-Coms · · Score: 1

    Having worked at 3 .coms that have fail so far (I think it is said that 1 in 10 works so I have a bit more of investor's money to burn through), it might be interesting to see how many others have worked at ones that have failed. Groupings could be:

    > one
    > two
    > three - five
    > more than five
    > I'm in hiding from investors

    BTW, technically all 3 could have been a success. It's been the business model that brought them down.

  12. I use AfterStep, and a whole lot more on Xfce: Alternative to GNOME/KDE · · Score: 1

    Thanks for bringing this up. I've used AfterStep for years now. When I started looking at kde/gnome, they just offered me more choices. I use gnome-terminal as my Xterm and other gnome apps. kpackage as my rpm manager and other kde apps. But I use NEdit as my editor and various other packages from other open source efforts. The beauty of this is that I can combine the best of whatever is out there and build my own work/desktop environment.!!

  13. Java JBuilder? on Borland to build JBuilder 3 for Linux · · Score: 1

    That's good news, our server is Solaris(x86). I hope that it works for this platform because we have had problems in the past of software for Solaris working on the Sparc edition but not x86.

    Thanks!

  14. All-Java version for Solaris??? on Borland to build JBuilder 3 for Linux · · Score: 2

    I read through the article and tried to get this information ("all-java version" in the posting) out of it but I could not. Is this comment trying to say that JBuilder will be written in Java? If so then it should be cross platform and available to run on any platform, no?
    If someone could help clear this up for me I would appricate it because I've been working in Java for almost 3 years now and I am still using NEdit & make because nothing out there is worth the effort (and/or available in Linux). Any comments on JBuilders of the past would also be helpful.