Archive for the 'Geek Miscellany' Category

more funny pictures
Good night

I have l a problem with social networking sites. Services like Facebook, Twitter, and so on all encourage me to trust them with all of the data regarding myself and my friends/associates. In return, they provide a service to me for “free”.

I don’t like letting *my* data out of my hands. Some of the most important pieces of information in my life are my emails, my email address books, my blog, and my online photos. If I upload that data to Facebook, GMail, or Flikr I enter into some sort of contract with that provider. The “free” service they offer me is actually paid for by the data I upload: read the fine print in your usage agreement, and you’ll see that they claim more rights to your data than you think they do. I’ve often been told I’m not “with it” or “cool” for choosing to distance myself from these services, and I can’t really argue that- I’ve never been one of the “cool kids”. But to me, the data Facebook, GMail and others want me to give them access to in order to use their services is just too precious to me to mess around with. That’s why I pay for email services, run my own blog, and store my network based photo album on my own servers. Free sounds really good until you realize you are trading your data for that low cost.

Earlier this week, Robert Scoble encountered the “dark” side of the social networking phenomena. Robert was running a script to extract his list of “friends” from Facebook so he could use that information for his own purposes. One might think that this would be quite acceptable: the data belongs to Robert, right? Wrong. It belongs to Facebook. They choose how and if he can access his own data because, quite frankly, it isn’t his any more. It now belongs to them. His friends and acquaintances are a commodity they sell, and as such the data is a valuable resource that they don’t want to make easily accessible to competitors. To be honest, the data you hand over to Facebook and GMail is the only thing they have to sell/leverage to make money, and believe me that these companies are not running their service out of the goodness of their heart. Monetizing your personal data is Job #1 for these social networking services, and we are only beginning to see how this will be accomplished.

Facebook has reinstated Scoble’s account, but that doesn’t change the reality: the data is *theirs*. If you think the emails you send via Google Mail, or the friends you invite via Facebook or MySpace are “yours”… you are fooling only yourself. I don’t think this kind of occurrence will actually change the way people use these services, but I do feel increasingly concerned regarding where this is leading. Will everything I do, say, or store online via a social networking site eventually be used to sell things to me and everyone I know? That certainly seems to be the dream of many of these services. I’m not completely comfortable with data I think of as “personal” and valuable becoming fodder for a massive marketing effort to all my friends and acquaintances.

But then I’m not one of the “cool” kids

The element of surprise…it is critical for special forces military operatives. So a gun that can shoot around corners makes perfect sense. But a gun barrel poking around the corner still looks like a gun barrel…unless you camouflage it.

Meet Kitty Corner Shot…

Future Weapons Kitty Cornershot
Uploaded by nofrag

Remind me not to let our cats see this And if you want more information on the actual weapon in the cat suit, you can take a look at this website about the Corner Shot itself.

The Conservatives appear to have delayed introducing the new DMCA-like copyright bill I mentioned in a previous post. Some people are saying that this delay is a result of the vocal reactions from various quarters, particularly on the Internet.

I suppose that the delay could be related to the outcry: in fact, it seems likely. But the delay doesn’t in any way suggest to me that we’ve heard the last of this. The usual government strategy when some desired legislation receives a negative response is to back off, then bury the legislation in some other, far more complex and confusing bill that gets introduced later under a completely different title. “Desired” in this case means that any legislation where millions of dollars in lobbyist ‘donations’ are at stake. And to be clear, this same strategy is used regardless of party affiliation, and on both sides of the border.

Until I see a clear statement from the government saying “Whoa, that was a stupid bill, we’ll scrap that and make darn sure we respect the fair use rights of our citizens before we even think of changing the law again”, I’ll assume that the ball is still in play. The bill will be back with different words but the same intent: to strip Canadians of the right to watch or listen to the videos and music we pay for on our devices of choice…without purchasing the same damn thing over and over again.

If you want to learn more about the bill, Canadian Copyright, or what you can do to make yourself heard, check out Michael Geist’s blog.

I am a small “c” conservative. I believe in less rather than more government. In the past, I have tended to support the Canadian Conservative party rather than the Liberals.

Lately, though, I’ve been feeling less and less inclined to think of the Conservatives as worthy of support. And in the last forty eight hours, I’ve really started to think they need a swift kick in the pants, just like the Liberals.

What has happened in the last couple of days? Well, for one thing, I watched Sicko by Michael Moore. I started thinking maybe our universal health care, despite its flaws, needs more protection than the Conservatives seem inclined to give it. I’ve never wanted American-style health care, but I could sort of see the point of some Conservative politicians that some level of for-fee medical services for “extraordinary” services makes sense. But I think any such adjustments to the health care policy probably need more care to insure our existing system remains solid and truly universal.

But what really bugs me, and I’m somewhat embarrassed to admit this side by side with the medicare comment, is the strong support the Conservatives seem to be giving to American style copyright reform. Here in Canada, “fair use” has been pretty well a given: if I pay for a CD or DVD in Canada, I am entitled to copy it for my own use on whatever personal playback device I choose. I can use whatever technical methods I need in order to exercise this right: the copyright holder can not take this away from me using digital rights management or copy protection. Of course, I’m still subject to prosecution if I subsequently resell my copies or even mass-distribute them: but for my own use, my rights are well protected.

Until now. The Liberals were the first to propose “copyright reform” in the American style, taking away our right to fair use…but they never got the legislation passed. The Conservatives are apparently intent on stripping even more of our rights away from us than the liberals, implementing a “DMCA North” that will make the American legislation look generous.

My recommendation to Jim Prentice, the Conservative introducing the new bill: start polishing up your resume. The folks who pay your salary, that would be us, the voters…we won’t take kindly to having our rights sold to music copyright groups like the CRIA. Interestingly, even the musicians are lining up against this bill. And the American music industry is starting to wake up to the fact that suing your customers is a stupid business practice, and perhaps trying to sell product the way people want to buy it would be a bit smarter.

I’m obviously totally out of it…I’ve missed the train, the ship has sailed and I’m not on it, and whatever other cliches you might wish to add that describe someone who is oblivious to popular trends.

I just read about a new movie coming out that I had had never heard of before. That isn’t surprising: there are a great number of movies that come and go that I never hear about either before or after they hit the theaters. But this is a *fantasy* movie, for Pete’s sake. And what is even more shocking: it is a fantasy movie based on a very popular trilogy of fantasy books…that I’ve *also* never heard of.

I’m taking about The Golden Compass, which is based on the novels by Philip Pullman. It is a story that sounds promising: an alternate world, where people have souls that visibly manifest as companion animals. The main conflict apparently involves a young girl who must face the machinations of an oppressive theocracy. Apparently the story is a somewhat thinly disguised commentary on the evils wrought by religions that gain political power. Computer graphics are heavily used to portray the companion animals and main characters in the story (which include an anthropomorphic polar bear-like creature).

It sounds exactly like my kind of story. It also apparently opens in theaters on December 7th…that is this upcoming Friday.

I just changed out of my pajamas and put on my normal day wear. As I looked at myself in the mirror, I realized that there really wasn’t a significant difference between these two modes of dress.

I was a reasonably well-dressed man less than a decade ago. No, never really stylish, but I was at least a step or so above “slob”. I had three modes of dress:

• Work: I had three or four good suits: tailored, from a reputable suit store. A decent collection of tailored cotton shirts. Some nice ties: when I went to the office, I was typically wearing over $1,000 worth of clothing, and I bought at least one new suit each year
• Home/casual: Cargo pants, cotton tourist slacks, a pair or two of jeans and golf shirts; I even had a couple of pairs of Tilley pants
• Rough/yard: a few pairs of sweat pants and T-shirts for working in the yard, washing the car, what have you

I the last seven years I’ve significantly simplified my life. I have my “work/social” clothing, which is basically the “home/casual” category above, and everything else is in the “rough/yard” category. I’ve gone from budgeting $2,000 a year for new clothes at my peak of sartorial excellence to probably spending $150 a year. My suit trousers are so far from fitting that I really have no idea why I keep them any longer. So if I’m relaxing at home, going to the store, going to the park, or generally doing anything other than going to dinner or visiting with the family, I wear sweat pants and a T-shirt. If you drop in unexpectedly or come to stay in my house for a few days, that’s the way you’ll see me: sweat pants and a T-shirt.

But what I do is one thing- trying to figure out why is another matter entirely…

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I realize that the American legislative and judicial system is flawed. Money drives both systems: lobbyist groups can “encourage” legislators to re-write laws to suit them, and wealthy individuals or companies can sue the innocent and wronged into oblivion before their case is even heard in a court.

But this is just too much. Basically, what the new legislation would do is shut off funding to colleges and universities that didn’t implement draconian rules and controls to prevent file sharing/file piracy. These rules would threaten up to $100 billion a year in educational funding.

The RIAA and MPAA, organizations that claim to be defending the “rights” of copyright holders, make outrageous claims regarding the cost of piracy…numbers on the order of $5 or $8 billion a year. Everyone with more than half a wit knows that these numbers are downright fundamentally wrong, inflated beyond all reasonable margins. But let’s say they are right: somehow, legislators have been “convinced” that this $5 billion dollar a year loss in sales of music by such luminaries as Brittany Spears and movies like “Snakes on a Plane” are worth shutting down $100 billion a year in funding for schools and students.

To quote the incredibly irritating slogan of mouth-breathing evangelists everywhere…”THINK OF THE CHILDREN!”

I am a geek, or optionally a nerd if you prefer that term. I know there are some things I am good at: solving complex problems involving computers is probably my forte. There are some things I am pretty terrible at: socializing in general, small talk in a “party-like” environment in particular.

Every once in a while I stumble across something that implies that other people understand me better than I do. An example: The Nerd Handbook , which I suppose could be titled “So you got stuck having a nerd as a companion? You poor bugger…”

An extract from the article:

At some point, you, the nerd’s companion, were the project. You were showered with the fire hose of attention because you were the bright and shiny new development in your nerd’s life. There is also a chance that you’re lucky and you are currently your nerd’s project. Congrats. Don’t get too comfortable because he’ll move on, and, when that happens, you’ll be wondering what happened to all the attention. This handbook might help.

There is also a section on the extremely selective relevancy filter nerds have that sounds incredibly familiar. I tune out things all the time, at home, at work…I hate distractions when I’m focussed. I’ll either simply switch off the distraction or, if it is particularly annoying, growl at it.

I don’t always like some of these aspects of my personality, but I can’t shake them: they are part of who I am. The Nerd Handbook is surprisingly accurate, although nothing is perfect: in particular, I am *not* funny, so that whole section of the article is obviously based on flawed research. But the Handbook is an optimistic piece of writing: it suggests that perhaps some people might care enough for their nerd to want to understand them better.

I like to think that the people who care enough about me will see past my many flaws and perhaps even come to understand that some of those irritating behaviors of mine aren’t bugs…they are features

Every year we buy more halloween candy than we give out. That’s great: I like the little snacks.

And every year I grab a handful (or two, or three…) of the stuff every time I sit down in front of the TV. So, there I am, feeling overweight and lazy, eating hundreds of totally empty calories. I feel this strange compulsion to eat the stuff as fast as possible, so it is gone and no longer a temptation. But wait a sec- whether I eat it in one week, or eat it in six months, I’m still ingesting the same calories.

The secret to losing weight and increasing physical well being starts with moderating calorie intake and increasing the rate of calorie consumption. That is, eat less and exercise more. Yes, there is obviously more to it: things like distributing your eating over the day in smaller meals rather than one or two really big meals, and engaging in certain types of exercise more attuned to burning fat. But at the root of the thing, health and weight is really simple mathematics.

I generally consider myself a reasonably smart guy. But when it comes to my own thinking, what drives me to do patently dumb things, I’m…well, I’m really, really dumb. Want a tiny crispy crunch? Or maybe a little Wunderbar…they are small, have two…or five.