movie wars : report from the front

Went to block busters today to buy a new movie.

All the new movies are in one of those two new formats , the blue ray format and what not. Even worse, Block Buster had promised it was backing only one of the two formats , but today I walked in and there was a shelf dedicated to each format, right side by side.

All the new , good movies were in the new formats.
all the crap movies were in the old DVD format.

Time to buckle your belt and kick the movie habit for a year or two, because your only alternative is to buy both players, at at least three hundred bucks a pop. And then any movies you buy ? The ones for the losing format you will be tossing in the trash. So thats going to be several more hundred dollars there.

Lots of risk for the consumer , not much benefit.

Someone must think movies are like drugs and they can do anything they want and the general public will put up with it.

Hello, my name is John Q. Public, and I'm not happy you're ripping me off. I think I'll get deeper into online gaming for a while. Good luck with that movie thing you're doing. Let me know how it turns out.

Hackers claim to untie Apple's iPhone from AT&T


A group called iPhoneSIMfree.com said it had developed a piece of software that, when installed on an iPhone, allows the use of rival mobile services such as T-Mobile, according to widely followed technology blog Engadget.com.


You can't do that ! Thats OUR phone ! We own ... oh oh ... did we really make you pay full price for that phone , in advance ?

LOL !!!

Sorry , I now work in the cell phone industry instead of the cable modem industry , and I happen to know they're not giving you any discounts at all for those phones and demanding full price up front for them.

oopsie !


AT&T spokesman Mark Siegel declined to comment on the Engadget report and an Apple spokesman could not be immediately reached. An e-mail sent to iPhoneSIMfree.com was not immediately answered.


They're probably wondering "what do we do now ????". Can't sue people for messing with their own equipment , now can you ?

I predict the next great fad in phones they'll only sell for 95% of the price, and use their 5% ownership to sue people who try this. Too late for the iphones though.

Plugging the depths of the Pacific into the Internet

Article

Let me get this straight.

You want to lay some sensors on the ocean floor to track fish , and put the results on the internet ? So a bunch of scientists can track fish migrations ?

A noble cause but ...



Come on Charlie ! A huge school of fish just passed the northern sensors we gotta get there first and lay down some nets before everyone else beats us too it and they're all gone !


lol !

You put the location of fish on any kind of real time or near real time map and every fisherman in the world will be sitting there poaching them. Your harmless "sensors" will kill off what few fish stocks canada has left.

Why War ?

Article

Why are we at war in Afghanistan.

Oh I hear reasons all the time. The Americans want oil and it's a money (oil) grab, or the Taliban want to conquer the world and make everyone a muslim.


Afghanistan produced record levels of opium in 2007 for the second straight year, led by a staggering 45 percent increase in the Taliban stronghold of Helmand Province, according to a new United Nations survey to be released Monday


But my instincts tell me these are just extremist views , that the truth lies elsewhere somewhere.

I mean lets face it , what kind of idots face the elite american troops, and then lose battle after battle after battle and keep on fighting. Is their religion really that precious to them ?


While the report found that opium production dropped in northern Afghanistan, Western officials briefed on the assessment said, cultivation rose in the south, where Taliban insurgents urge farmers to grow poppies.


I mean , these people must be the most dedicated fanatics around , and likely the most dangerous. They routinely violate their own religious rules , for example. Islam is supposed to be a religion of peace , but they're running around kidnapping and killing people like crazy. What could possibly motivate people to such an extent ?


In Taliban-controlled areas, traffickers have opened more labs that process raw opium into heroin, vastly increasing its value. The number of drug labs in Helmand rose to roughly 50 from 30 the year before, and about 16 metric tons of chemicals used in heroin production have been confiscated this year.


I suppose we'll just have to soldier on against these fanatics and their self corrupted religion. It's obvious they will never give up their holy war, and this is going to be a long , long battle.


Here in Helmand, the breadth of the poppy trade is staggering. A sparsely populated desert province twice the size of Maryland, Helmand produces more narcotics than any country on earth, including Myanmar, Morocco and Colombia. Rampant poverty, corruption among local officials, a Taliban resurgence and spreading lawlessness have turned the province into a narcotics juggernaut.

Duceppe to Harper: Withdraw by 2009

Duceppe to Harper: Withdraw by 2009

I have a wonderful idea !
I'm a member of a minority party , like the bloc quebecois or the NDP.
I'm never going to get in power.

And there's some political issue , like Afghanistan , that the government is
really forced to do for our own good, even though it might be unpopular (like
keeping troops in the middle east)

Heck taxes are unpopular and everyone wants them cut , but it never happens, ha ha ha.

We will fight and scream to get our troops out of the middle east, and pointing out how horrible the government is for even thinking about going there, and thus get to bring them down over and over and over, or at least threaten it and get a few things we want done.

It's not like we'll ever be in power, it's not like we'll ever be the ones having to send in the troops , or explain why we didn't send them in earlier before the terrorist blew something up on canadian soil.

Gotta love it. Bring the troops home , the terrorists will blow something up and we'll scream at them, or don't bring them home and we'll scream anyways.

Gotta love these foriegn wars.

Is stealing wireless wrong?

Is stealing wireless wrong?

Yes. Getting on the internet on the nextdoor neibours wireless router without him knowing is wrong.

The argument that the wireless signil is a "lightbulb" and any light it radiates that the neibour doesn't use is wasted , is wrong.

The signil is actually metered out. Like oil or gas. So much data up or down per minute or per hour, you jack into his signil, he slows down , he's not too happy about it.

The argument that you were just checking email he'll barely notice, is in fact the argument of "I'm only going to steal just a little. They'll never notice. " and I'm sure that everyone agree's that "stealing just a little" is wrong. Maybe not as wrong as "steal anything I can" , but still , it's wrong.

I'm not sure who the author of the above article is, but with a mix of ignorance and self interest, he has managed to talk himself in to thinking theft is an ok thing. And that we shouldn't be so materially possessive, thats a bad thing.

I totally disagree with him.

Why people don't switch operating systems

Why people don't switch operating systems

Let me give you my reasons why I think people are hesitent to switch to Linux.

Seven reformats of the computer, completely reinstalling from scratch.

Installation screens that constantly hide the bottom part of what they show below the bottom of the screen so you have to guess what is there.

One upgrade from ubuntu 6 to ubuntu 7

two more reformats after that.

*sigh* !!!!

And finally , it works.

Wow , I can't imagine why people hesitate. Boggles my mind that they don't just jump right in !

lol !



Would I do it again ? Yes , I'm a techie I love solving problems.

Would I recommend Ubuntu for Grandma ?
...only if someone else was setting it up !!!!

Big Companies Always Self Destruct

Once there was a company called Wiget Incorported. And it made the finest wigits in the land. And then , a manager came along.
And the manager said "how can we improve our company's bottom line ? "
And so he decided to charge just a tiny little bit more for the Wigets they made, and make the Wigets just a little bit cheaper.
And then , another manager came along a year later , and wanted to show he was better than the first manager , and so he made the wigets , again , a little bit higher in price , and ever so slightly more cheaper in materials and construction.
And then another manager ... and another manager , and another ...
Until the Wigets were the cheapest, most minimally useable but very pricy wigets there could be.

And when asked about this, the managers said "You see, you have to understand the way the business work..."

And then , across down , a new engineer had a new idea, and made something called Double Wigets, which were vastly superior to regular wigets. And so the Wiget company promptly decided to make their wigets as good as the double wigets. But it was too late, and so the Wiget company went bankrupt.

And Double Wigets became a very powerful company.
And it needed managers.
And then a manager decided to raise the price , just a little bit , and lower the quality ... just a little bit ....

A look at Iraqi Fatalities

Article


Of the U.S. deaths, 3,047 came in hostile circumstances and 655 in non-combat situations. Forty-four troops have died this month. Britain, which has command of coalition troops in southern Iraq, has suffered 168 deaths, 132 of them in hostile circumstances.

The United States has about 162,000 troops in Iraq; 11,500 are from other countries, the State Department says.


3000 fatalities out of 162 000 troops. Over 6 years.
Tour of service is 6 months.
That works out to 250 deaths per tour.
or ... %0.154 fatality rate

I've seen traffic fatality numbers that were higher than this.

What are you nuts ? Ow ! I cut my finger ! Lets go home and let the bag guys conquer the world and then chase us home and conquer us too ! %0.154 is just too high a casualty rate for me to stand ! dang it hurts !

Why can't these people find something real to complain about , like the "reconstruction" money that keeps going astray and accomplishing nothing, or the fact you're hiring any joe off the street to be an iraqi cop and so they're all just as corrupt as get out and making your problem worse, not better ?

The terrorists want to conquer the world , people, and set up shop right in your living room and recruit your children as suicide bombers. This is not something open to debate, this is something they openly boast about to anyone who will listen.

Grow up people, there's no such thing as a war with no friendly casualties.

Internet Phone, like it or not !

I have a phone from Samsung. An Sph m610 , plays nice tunes. Surfs the internet , even have some kind of online radio station thingy.

Surfing the internet costs me 7$ per month. And guess what ? Surfing on a phone with a 9 key keypad is a painful process. And the online radio is pay per use.

So I called up Bell , my phone provider here in Ottawa , and have them remove my 7$ / month internet fee and block the internet from my phone.

Can't do it. The browser opens with a single wrong click and then you're on the hook for the charges. And without the 7$ / month plan , they can rack up really high. Bell totally refuses to remove internet access. They'll remove the plan and put me on pay per use , which will kill me , but they won't block the internet.

Phoning the manufacturer of the phone itself was no help. The provider (in this case bell) must block the internet , the handset itself cannot do so without locking the keyboard or simply turning the phone off.

I have an internet phone ! Like it or not .
It's a scam. I don't dare remove the 7$ a month charge or next month I'll probably find a couple of hundred dollars on my bill just from accidently hitting the browser button.

The radio station is also a scam , because no where does it say it's pay per use. Though it take several selections to start listening to the radio so that's not so bad. It's not a one-key-now-you're-toast situation like the browser is.

And cancelling the service is a couple of hundred bucks. (It's a 349$ phone , I only paid $99 for it because I signed a 3 year contract, I gotta pay the rest of the price of the phone if I cancel early).

It's a scam. And I'm trapped. I'm gonna make dang sure I tell EVERYONE I meet about this rip off.

As for my useless phone internet ?

Pointed the phone at http://m.gmail.com , a mobile version of gmail , and I can now check my gmail online with the phone. Not exactly a priority , I'm a private individual I don't run a biziness .. but I'm getting at least some use out of it.

(edit)
Oh , and there's no chess game for this phone.
I bought it thinking I'd download a chess game , be happy to pay the 5$ or whatever it is ... no such thing for this model of phone. Lots of chess games for other models ... but not this one.

It' plays music. (bought a 1 gig expanded memory card, about 400 megs of songs in it)
It now checks my gmail.
It makes calls. (free evenings and weekends is the plan I signed up for).

Don't play chess.
Can't safely cancel the internet.

yeah , I feel robbed just a little bit. I'll put up with it because I like my tunes, but I still feel ripped just a little.

Human chips

this article is about implanting radio chips inside a human to easily identify them.

Microchips in humans: High-tech helpers or Big Brother surveillance?

The rational is that the "chipped" humans are permitted into various high security places like a police lock up , nuclear plant , etc ,etc.


Darks, the CityWatcher.com executive, said his employees volunteered to be chipped. "You would think that we were going around putting chips in people by force," he told a reporter, "and that's not the case at all."


Ah yes, we have a position open for employment that suits you perfectly. But you have to submit to having a radio chip placed in your arm. No ? I'm afraid you must seek employment elsewhere then.

Currently the chips have their own problems. They just transmit an unchanging 16 bit number for example. Some theif points a detector at you , gets the number and then tapes a transmitter on his arm transmitting the same number, thats all she wrote, he's now in like flynn to your nuclear reactor.

But even assuming this problem is fixed somehow, you still have the problem displayed first in the movie "The Demolitions Man" , where the criminal simply ripped the eye ball out of the prison warden and used it to get past those retina scanners and get out. You got a chip in your hand ? Someone's going to cut that arm off and use it to pass the security , guarenteed. Been in at least three movies that I can recall , so it's going to be the first thing every criminal thinks of when confronted with it.

Then there's the cigarette problem. Restaurants cater to crowds. In every crowd of three or more there's almost certain to be a smoker. And so that crowd will only go to a smoking permitted restaurant. The restaurants can be smoking or non smoking as they like , but if they're non smoking they usually go bankrupt ... ergo... every restaurant and bar in Ottawa was a smoking place , 100% of them. So if you were a non-smoker , you couldn't actually go anywhere. No one wanted your business. You were the minority that it wasn't profitable to cater to. So the only place in all of Ottawa you could go to to escape the cigarette smoke was your own home. Unless your wife smoked too. Until Ottawa introduced a no smoking ban on all public places.

If the chip (unjustly) gets a reputation of heightenned security, everyone will demand you use it , and you won't be able to opt out because that means you won't be able to work in this country ...

And if everyone is using it , every criminal will quickly figure out how to circumvent it (scanner or knife), and so you've actually put your employee's in danger without actually increasing security any.

The chip is medically intrusive and provides only the most questionable of security enhancements. This particular version with it's static unchanging number is too easily defeated to be worth anything , and any version with it's "just cut the guys hand off and stick it on the scanner" solution remains both questionable, and a hazard to the health of the bearer.

Blow torches and ice

Canadian weather station heads to Mars





There's going to be a parachute to slow it down and retro-rockets will be firing off," Duck told CBC Newsworld on Saturday.


Oh oh oh! I saw this one before !

The USA did it. They put a lander on mars , it came down on a nice rocket flame , then stuck an arm in the soil looking for life. You know what it found ?

Rocket fuel. From it's own rocket.
Dang thing had blow torched the area it was landing on , of course, killing anything within a several yard radius. Then it stuck the arm in the blow torched mess and found nothing , of course !

So ...the lander is going to go looking for ice after blow torching it's landing area eh ? Good luck with that one.

(edit)
Found a pic of the phoenix lander ... hmmm.. no wheels on that baby , so much for the theory that it will simply roll off the landing spot a hundred yards or so.

Microsoft up to it's old tricks

Microsoft delays Office release for Mac


...as did Microsoft's move to a new file format with the release of Office 2007 for Windows-based computers.


I remember this. Every new operating system gets a new upgrade to office whatever , that only runs on that operating system and nothing less. And the files it produces cannot be read by earlier versions of the office product.

I was working as a programmer at the time, we had just made the jump from windows 3.1 to win95 , which was brand new at the time. Our client had upgraded to the latest microsoft office , and sent us emails , from word , in word format ! on what they wanted next with our product.

Of course we couldn't read the emails and it took a while for us to figure out what had happened. When we did , well , our client was a federal government department , and they'd all upgraded and thrown away their old microsoft offices , and they had no intention of going back. So we were forced, against our better judgement , to upgrade too. Which cost a couple of hundred dollars for one copy. Which left my boss ranting and ticked off for a couple of days. (it was a small 3 man office at the time)

It's a scam.

There was nothing the new version of office did that the old couldn't do. Just a straight matter of the new version was incompatable with the old.

It's an old scam , still going on , I see.

Big Men with guns and little girls

Militants seize shrine in Pakistan


Pro-Taliban fighters seized an Islamic shrine in restive northwestern Pakistan and renamed it after the Red Mosque ...
.
.
.
In Mohmand, the militants vowed to set up a girls' seminary at the site...




I don't know about you , but I wouldn't send my daughter / sister whatever to a school full of gunmen !

Of course, the gunmen will solve this problem as they always do , by essentially kidnapping anyone they like and forcing the little girls into the school at gun point. And then doing what they like to them there.

Hey , you need four male witnesses to prosecute rape ,right ? So some soldier just drags a little girl off to the side at gun point , does what he wants , maybe gets a friend to help out and also enjoy her, even their own religious law finds them innocent. And if the girl complains ? She just admitted to adultry , which is a death penalty. (or sex outside a marriage , same deal).

I predict the place will be little more than a brothel.

Success for the /ignore

So I met that bible thumper at the bus top as per usual, and kept my head phones on. And kept the music cranked up.

He waited for a moment , and then pulled out his own portible radio , it looked like ,and put on some head phones.

And we did a good job of ignoring each other.

success ! No more bible thumping !!!