Author: Jason Dunn

Food for Thought on The Issue of Global Warming

An interesting discussion popped up today on a private mailing list I’m a part of, and the topic was global warming. I don’t pretend to know much about this issue other than the commonly-used talking points the media feeds us, but I’m old enough to remember several of these “dire predictions” over the past couple of decades. Does anyone remember textbooks in school during the ’80s telling us we’d run out of oil by the year 2000? Or that the would couldn’t possibly support more than 5 billion people because we’d all starve to death? Or that we were going to run out of space for our garbage by the mid-90s? The past 30 years are chock-full of predictions by experts who were sure certain things were going to happen…and they didn’t. Ten years from now, are we going to look back at the hysteria over Global Warming and wonder what we were all thinking? I can’t say for sure, but it’s always important to remember history to keep things on context.

I don’t believe we’re treating the planet and the resources we have as well as we should – I believe that mankind is a rather short-sighted, selfish steward of the planet we rule…but I also know that just because 99% of people say something is true doesn’t necessarily make it so. Most people don’t want to admit that.

Matt Miller pointed out an interesting article written by John Coleman that raises some points worth pondering:

“You may want to give credit where credit is due to Al Gore and his global warming campaign the next time you fill your car with gasoline, because there is a direct connection between Global Warming and four dollar a gallon gas. It is shocking, but true, to learn that the entire Global Warming frenzy is based on the environmentalist’s attack on fossil fuels, particularly gasoline. All this big time science, international meetings, thick research papers, dire threats for the future; all of it, comes down to their claim that the carbon dioxide in the exhaust from your car and in the smoke stacks from our power plants is destroying the climate of planet Earth. What an amazing fraud; what a scam.”

It’s also worth noting the damage that thoughtless environmentalism can cause. The move toward ethanol-based fuels really gets me because it’s the worst kind of environmentalism: knee-jerk, “do it ’cause it sounds good” choices rather than looking at the big picture. It’s idiotic to take a limited resources (food) and use it to replace another limited resource (fuel). That’s like cutting off your legs to save money on buying pants. Converting everything to electrical power and going nuclear is the best option we have in North America (and most developed countries for that matter), but that’s going to take a supreme act of will on the part of the people and their government, and I can’t see it happening for another two decades – and things getting much worse.

Swiss Army Knives: 111 Years Old Today

“June 12th, 1897: Karl Elsener legally registers his “soldiers’ knife” for use by the Swiss army. In an age when nationalism was fashionable, Elsener, a Swiss manufacturer of surgical instruments and cutlery, was a very fashionable man indeed. So he was less than thrilled to learn that the Swiss army was importing Solingen blades from neighboring Germany. Elsener set out to develop a homegrown multifunctional tool worthy of being carried by his local Alpine troops. His prototype of what became known as the Swiss army knife appeared in 1891. The original — made with a wooden handle — included a blade, a screwdriver and a can opener. But Elsener was not happy with it and tinkered endlessly, adding a second blade using a revolutionary spring mechanism, and strengthening the housing. The addition of a second blade necessitated extra space for the spring, which also opened up more room for other tools.” – Source: Wired.com

Ahh, Swiss Army knives – old school geek. Myself, I carry their 2 GB USB Flash drive + combo tool in my pocket every day. It’s amazing how often it comes in handy!

Sites That Resize My Browser Window: You Suck!

I wish the makers of Firefox would give me, the user, control over what Web sites do to the size and position of my browser window. I was checking out HP’s new notebooks and clicking on a link suddenly made my browser window move to the centre of my screen and become 20% in size. I hate that! Why should Firefox honour code that resizes the whole window? There should be a user override function.

Ultima and Autoduel: Revive These Franchises!

Some of the earliest memories I have of computer gaming look like this:

ultima4.gif

On the top, we have Ultima IV, and on the bottom we have Autoduel (based on the Steve Jackson pencil and paper RPG “Car Wars”). Both were games I played for an amazing number of hours, and both games had such rich and vibrant story lines, I wish someone would bring them back to life. I think both types of games would be perfect for Xbox Live arcade titles…

Japan 2008: Day Seven

Our seventh day in Japan was also our last day in Kyoto, so we took the opportunity to see some last sights before packing up and leaving for Hiroshima – and the gallery is now online. We didn’t do much on our first day in Hiroshima, but we did have an “exciting” dining experience – be sure to check out the video. 😉

The Worst Movie Ever Made: Southland Tales

I’m so angry at wasting my time watching this movie, it’s hard for me to put into words how pathetic I think it is. I watched it purely based on the cast involved – I figured with an ensemble cast, it must be decent, even if I’d never heard of it before. And I happen to like sci-fi movies, even the not-so-great ones.

What a huge mistake I made. To call this movie “bad” is an insult to every “bad” movie ever made (and that includes the worst, cheesy sci-fi and fantasy “B” movies I’ve ever seen). This movie is horrible. If I could think of a word worse than horrible I’d use it.

It’s like everyone in the cast thought “Hey, it’s that Donnie Darko guy, let’s not even read the script, let’s just say yes and go for it!”. Each actor involved with this project should immediately fire their manager for not slapping some sense into them. I don’t think this movie was released in theatres – it probably caused riots in testing. It’s not worth the plastic it’s pressed upon. I want to find each of the actors involved and ask them what kind of crack they were on when they signed up for this project.

*Maybe*, just *maybe* if you watched this movie while high on acid you might be able to make some sense of it. Not being the acid-dropping type, I can only report that that watching this movie sober only made my head hurt.

I want to find the “visionary” writer/director, Richard Kelley, and demand that he give me back the 2 hours and 20 minutes of my life that I wasted on his self-fellating opus of idiocy.

I’ll leave you with a quote I found online that sums up my feelings quite nicely:

“For anyone to associate any possible positivity to this absolute colon blow of a movie is insane. This is the worst movie of all time and will be forever disappointed with anyone associated with its making. I would have preferred to have stuck a red hot needle in my pupil and slammed my face repeatedly into a slab of concrete, then to have seen this movie. All movie making is a form of artistic design and expression but some stuff is best kept to ones self.”

Do not rent this movie if you value your time or sanity. This movie, all by itself, has made me re-think my policy of always watching a movie to the very end, to give it a chance. I should have stopped this movie after the first 15 minutes.

Planet Data Center Explosion, Our Server Goes Down

Wondering why all my sites were down for most of the weekend? Just when I thought our significant down-time days were behind us, something crazy happens:

“An explosion Saturday evening at a Texas-based, privately held server hosting provider has caused server outages effecting 9,000 servers and 7,500 customers. According to The Planet’s website, at about 5 p.m. Saturday electrical gear shorted, creating an explosion and fire that knocked down three walls surrounding their electrical equipment room. No injuries were reported and no servers were damaged or lost. The Houston company, which provides servers for small and medium sized companies, said it has its entire support team working around the clock to get the servers back on line. They estimate they will be up and running by Sunday afternoon.”

I spent most of my weekend checking this forum thread hourly, trying to determine when my server would be brought back online. It didn’t happen Sunday afternoon – late Sunday night everything was still down, but this morning when I woke up I was happy to see things were loading again. Big thanks to our server admin volunteer Jorj Bauer for keeping a close watch on all of this and getting us back to live status while I was just waking up. Back to our regularly scheduled programming…

Working on Being Less of a Procrastinator

Raise you’re hand if you’re a procrastinator. What’s that? You’ll do it later? Yeah, exactly. I used to think that I wasn’t a serious procrastinator, but at the end of a given day when I can’t shut down Firefox on two computers because I have six different site posts started by not finished…I can’t argue with that. One look at my overflowing desk of review items also confirms that I say yes to things but have a hard time meeting my obligation to review them in a timely fashion. Those two particular problems are things I’m constantly working on, but I also have a different type of procrastination issue: not wanting to do tasks that are particularly onerous, whether for reasons of time-consumption or reasons of pain-in-the-butt-ness. Yesterday morning I decided to tackle a couple of the issues that had been sticking in my side for many months…

Selling my time-share in Mont Tremblant, Quebec, to my company: Thoughts Media Inc. is going to use it for a one-week giveaway prize in an upcoming Pocket PC Thoughts contest. Selling it involves paperwork, and I hate paperwork, but yesterday I bit the bullet and started the process. And, in a stunning move, I had the paperwork faxed back to the timeshare company on the same day I received it (thanks to my wife). So, scratch one task I’ve been putting off for, oh, 14 months.

Getting a new microphone clip: this one was more me being stubborn than anything else, because I felt like “the system” beat me and I hate that. I bought a NeXXtech tie clip microphone (not exactly the version I have, but close) that connects to my Canon GL2 camera for use in doing video reviews. When I bought it, the first day I tried to insert the microphone into the clip, the one side of the clamp on the clip snapped off. I was really gentle inserting the microphone, so I was completely baffled. A few weeks later I went back to The Source (formerly known as Radio Shack) and exchanged it – the guy popped open the other package they had in the store and gave me the clip from that one. I went home, gently inserted the microphone into the clip again…and it snapped. I was so incredibly angry that I shoved the whole thing into a corner and ignored it for a few months. I then decided to call NeXXtech support, and they informed me that a new clip would cost $23 CAD including shipping. WHAT?!? Keep in mind the whole microphone is only worth $60, and the part in question probably cost them 10 cents to make.

I declined being ripped off and they told me that the local Source stores provided warranty support so I should go back there. I went back to The Source store I bought it from to see if I could find some sort of satisfaction – I was convinced NeXXtech had released defective clips. The sales drone listened to me explain the problem, went and got a new package from the shelf, and guess what? It had my broken clip in it from months ago. He said he could order one in, but it would take about a month. I declined and went to another Source store, and they didn’t have the product in stock either. The manager on duty listened to me explain my problem, and he said he’d order in the part for me – and was vague on whether or not I’d be charged. I agreed, at this point willing to pay whatever it cost to get the stupid situation resolved, and he said he’d call me when the clip came in. That was back in February. So yesterday, after three months of waiting for the store to call me, I decided to call NeXXtech support and pay the $23. The money isn’t the issue, it’s the fact that I felt like the system beat me. But you know what I’m doing to do? I’m going to take that fresh clip into the Source store, and ask one of the employees (hopefully the manager) to insert the microphone into it for me. That way, if they break it, I’ll hopefully have some recourse. This goes without saying, but the NeXXtech tie clip microphone is a product best avoided.

Replaced a Headlight in my Car: Relatively minor, but it’s awkward and frustrating replacing the headlights on my Mazda Protege 5. I have a long history of headline problems with this car, so again I felt a high level of frustration that I was having to replace it at all (I lose a headlight every 4-6 months). But I gritted my teeth popped the hood, and spent a good 20 minutes fighting with the clamp trying to get it inserted and secured. Turned on the power, tested it – it worked! But my other headlight, which was working perfectly an hour earlier, wasn’t working. @*#&@#&(@*#&(@#(@. I’m convinced there’s an electrical problem with my car, but the only way Mazda will fix it is if I go back to them, let them install two factory headlights, and then I can’t touch it, and we see what happens. This morning I’m booking an appointment with them to get that done – I’m sick of being Mr. One Headlight.

Editing Japan Photos: Getting back from Japan meant returning with over 2000 photos in RAW format, and coming back to thousands of email messages and a pile of work. I got photos from days zero through five processed while I was in Japan, then I hit a wall with over 800 photos from Himeji Castle and couldn’t get through them while on vacation. Then the thought of having to deal with so many photos really put me off dealing with it – Captain Procrastination flies again – so I ignored it for more than a month. Earlier this week I finally blasted my way through them, publishing our day six photos earlier this week. Yesterday, on a roll, I finished our day seven photos as well (I just need to add the comments, then I can publish them). Chaaarge!!!

Now if only I could get through that big pile of technology…I’m going to try and do a couple of unboxing videos today. Here I go!

Now Here’s Some Serious Speed…Downloading

That’s the speed I saw yesterday morning when I did a speed test – 29.3 Mbps? That’s some fast downloading – too bad I never see anything close to that from any source, though when I see 1.5 to 2 MB/s downloads I certainly don’t complain. But look at that pathetic upload speed – not even 1 Mbps! That’s the thing I complain about to Shaw once every few months: I want more upstream bandwidth. When I’m uploading photos and videos, 1 Mbps just isn’t fast enough. And what’s ironic is that I’ve felt like my Internet connection has been a bit sluggish this week… 😉

Japan 2008: Day Six

That’s right, here I am posting photos from a trip I’ve been back from for over well over a month (pushing two). I fell into the same trap as Hawaii 2006: I took so many photos that editing them is a major undertaking, something I have trouble making time for when I’m not on vacation. I’d be lying if I said there wasn’t a psychological element to it as well – I psyche myself out every time I sit down to edit them because it’s such a big undertaking. Having them grouped by day certainly helps though – if they were in one giant blob it would be much harder to tackle. At any rate, day six photos are now published on my photo site.