OPC to Google....... "You go Google!"

The Ontario Privacy Commissioner wrote a letter to Google asking them to challenge the ruling (to turn over user records to Viacom) and states:

“business should not, in my opinion, rely on the surveillance of consumers to protect their copyright interests. It is not acceptable to allow copyright enforcement to come at the expense of users’ privacy.”

Original blog post is here, including link to pdf of letter.

iPhone..... I hardly knew ye

Being the technology slut that I am, one can only imagine what's been going through my mind about the second generation 3G iPhone by Apple. I fully intended to buy a first generation iPhone back while I was in the US in June, bring it home, unlock it and use it on my Fido cell phone account. But when I heard the 3G model was coming to Canada on 11 July, I held off and watched for announcements.

By the end of June, Rogers and Fido announced their data plans for the phone. Rogers and Fido are the only GSM network players in Canada - and both part of the same company - Rogers owns Fido. The cheapest plan first announced by these companies costs $60 per month, includes Visual Voicemail, unlimited night and weekend minutes (Rogers nights begin at 9pm), and free access to Rogers and Fido WiFi hotspots. The $60 plan offers only 150 daytime minutes, 75 text SMS messages, and 400MB of data. Rogers calculates that using 400 MB of data is the equivalent of 200,000 text e-mails or 3,100 web pages or 1,360 photo attachments. Pundits argue that 400MB can be used up quite fast if using web pages like Facebook and Google Maps or services like GPS. The most expensive plan costs $115 per month and includes 800 minutes of talk time and 2GB of data. Do you want call display? $15 extra. You must sign a 3 year contract. The phone (8GB model) will cost $199.

Let's do some math. $60.00 for the plan; $0.50 for the 911 Access fee; $6.95 for the System Access fee; $15.00 for Caller ID; $4.13 - GST = $86.57 per month. For 3 years = $3116.52. Plus the cost of buying the phone = $3326.50. No unlimited data plan. You cannot (until sources prove me otherwise) buy your phone outright and avoid a data plan. I have no interest in a data plan if I have to be watching my usage every minute - and data overages on these networks are brutal - $30 if you went 60MB over your limit, $1.80 for every 60MB over that. So you could be looking at $120 cell phone bills if you're not careful. The high end user will pay $144.32 per month (or $5195.61 over 3 years + cost of phone), but that's only a 2GB data cap - easily surpassed in some peoples' opinion.

Meanwhile, in the US, you can get an iPhone with AT&T for $70 per month. That includes 450 daytime minutes NATIONWIDE - that's right, no long distance (even to Canada)! The system access fee is only $1.25, there is no 911 access fee. Any unused minutes can be rolled over to the next month. Calls within the network (AT&T to AT&T) are unlimited. Call display and visual voicemail are included and the best part - unlimited data. Sorry - no free SMS text messages. So $71.25 plus tax per month is pretty sweet for all you get there. Another bonus - the contract is only 2 years.

Why do we as Canadians suffer these brutal, in-your-face rip-offs? Because we don't have any choices. To get an iPhone legally, you're stuck with one company disguised as 2, data plans that seem draconian compared to most other parts of the world, and a government that ensures no competition by disallowing foreign bids on any spare cell frequency bandwidth unless they partner with an existing Canadian company. The CRTC (which regulates all telecommunications in Canada) doesn't seem to have a problem with any of this. It won't take you very long to search the internet and find countless numbers of people frustrated, insulted and gob smacked at the cost of owning an iPhone in Canada. There's even a petition, which as of this writing reached over 63,000 petitioners. The backlash seems to have Rogers doing some backpedaling. Their counter-offer of $30 for 6GB (unconfirmed) of data added to any voice plan is ..... better. Oh, but wait - it's only a limited time offer until September. Even under the new pricing, customers will still be on the hook for a minimum of $2,360 after paying the phone's initial $199 cost and 36 months of service.

Meanwhile, Bell have announced their own data plan for the smart phone they will offer (the Samsung Instinct) at a much more reasonable fare - $10 adds data to your existing plan offering unlimited internet access.

On launch day (11 July 2008), things were even more embarrassing for Rogers. After many people lined up for hours at Rogers outlets, some discovered that the iPhone sold out in a very short while, the higher volume stores having 100 or less of the phones. Some stores were stocked with as few as 40 phones. Worse, some loyal customers were shocked to find out that the first batch of iPhones were only for sale to new customers.

I will not be buying an iPhone. At least not legally. The best I can hope for is that I acquire one from a private sale so that I do not require a plan, unlock the phone and use WiFi when I can instead of our dreadfully expensive data network.

Calgary cabs can bl.... umm blame themselves

Back in April, I mentioned the taxi issue here in Calgary. Essentially, when you call a cab company, what you get mots often is a busy signal. I guess there's a story (unconfirmed) behind it.

If the story is even remotely true, I'm disgusted. I say let the city fast-track a C-Train (LRT) line to the airport. Then we'll see how the cab companies like their business arrangement.

Don't seize me bro'

The New Times published an article about numerous reports of the searching and seizing laptops, BlackBerrys, iPhones and other electronic gadgets at airports.

There's only one thing that will stop these unreasonable searches and seizures. A highly placed government official or judge needs to get their stuff seized.

Fun with sand

If you've got an artistic itch, let this site scratch it. It's basically virtual sand, in colours you can select, that you drop from the top of the screen to draw / build art.

Quickly click on the screen for a little drop of sand. Click and hold for a shower of sand. If you click on the little square at the top left corner, you'll see instructions on how to change colour, create colour gradients and erase the screen to start over.

Fun.

Yeah, that creation was mine....... just goofing around....

Fine......... here's a hint

Seems my latest edition of Where Is It? has my fellow geo-hounds stumped. I have received at least 2 requests for a hint. I'll give you 2....

There is a puzzle with this city's name in it. Beijing is a sister city.

[update] The city was found. See original post comments.

I refuse to com-'ply'......... ply!!!! Get it?

It's official! Under is good, over is bad.

OK......... I admit it.... I cheated and switched them. Guffaw!

Here's an article (with pictures!) explaining why over is supposedly better than under. Say what you want, I still prefer under.

Call me a rebel............. I refuse to comply.

I foresee a new TV channel - Extreme Weather

Certain politicians and organizations responsible for resisting the reduction of CO2 emissions claim that only crackpot scientists agree on the global warming phenomenon. It seems that this group is growing, consolidating and agree that the shit will soon hit the proverbial fan.

Computer simulations indicate that we can expect to enjoy lengthier heat waves; more extremely warm nights; Canada, Europe and the northern US will have more rain; droughts will last much longer. On the plus side, the growing season will lengthen. In essence, extreme weather will become more common, with more and stronger hurricanes, tornadoes, severe thunderstorms, more floods, more intense and longer heat waves (which leads to more forest fires) ...... you get the picture.

It's OK though....... our proactive governments just recently agreed that something should be done about it by 2050. So I'm not worried.

That's sarcasm..... in case you didn't quite sense it.

Gas price fiasco

Here's a post for my American friends. A map that shows gas prices by county. Green is cheaper, red is more expensive. It's pretty clear what parts of the US are getting a deal and which parts are getting hosed, pardon the pun.

Click the picture for the original source and a bigger view.

You know what they say.... warm lighting, warm heart...

Wanting to do my part to reduce my carbon footprint on the world, our household has been making the switch to compact fluorescent bulb lighting, replacing incandescent bulbs where possible.

The latest room to get the efficiency treatment was the den. The problem is, Darlene has never been cool (no pun intended) with compact fluorescent lights' cool white light colour. So when we got home from the hardware store with a pack of 'Daylight' bulbs, which operate at a colour temperature of about 6500K, she hated them. The light is very white and very harsh. So we trekked back to the store and got a different model of bulb (Marathon by Philip's) which produces a warmer 3500K colour temperature light. Much better. This means we're clear to get more as bulbs burn out in other ceiling fixtures. The problem is finding colour temperature data on the packaging. Sometimes it's there.... sometimes not.

So if you're starting to switch to compact fluorescent bulbs, consider the kind of light the bulbs produce. If you get the wrong kind..... you could be stuck with them for 7 years!

Text this!

Bell and Telus cellphone customers will be seeing a new fee on incoming text messages. The cost to customers is 15 cents per incoming text message as of August. Receiving text messages used to be free.

The new charge has sparked outrage, with customers saying they can't control who sends them messages, especially when spammers obtain their cell number or retailers send them unsolicited messages. Company spokespersons claim that customers would not be charged for 'spam' messages. Which brings up an interesting point. If the cell phone provider is able to tell which messages are spam........... then we should be able to OPT OUT OF RECEIVING THEM!

Compared to the rest of the world, Canada has lagged behind in adopting the use of text messaging on a per capita basis. Messaging fees have typically been blamed for the lack of adoption of the service. These new fees likely won't help.

Rogers says it has no plans to institute such a fee. But Bell and Telus charge a penalty if customers break their contracts, which works out to $20 for every month remaining on the contract up to $400 - so good luck switching providers.

“Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present”

I often go around trying to get people close to me to just chill and go with the flow when I see them getting too wrapped up in their day to day situations. But I catch myself getting wrapped up in stuff, ignoring my own advice from time to time. Hey - we're all human and need reminders sometimes that some stuff just doesn't matter that much. There are some aspects of our lives that 'worrying', 'freaking out', etc. add no value to.

So I smiled when I stumbled onto zenhabits.net's 9 Steps to Achieving Flow (and Happiness) in Your Work. I know what they mean when they refer to 'flow'. It's a very productive state of being.

As basic as you can get

Since I have been a trainer for more than 15 years of my life, I'm always interested in new ways of presenting training to people. So my interest was a bit piqued by the discovery of In Pictures, which presents computer tutorials in black and white static screenshot pictures. The idea is that dispensing with colour, animation, text bubbles and narration makes things easier to follow. The site also concentrates on tasks, versus features, arguing that tasks are more meaningful.

I cannot argue that. They don't have a ton of tutorials on tap, but are taking suggestions. Oh yeah... they're free.

"I find your lack of timbre disturbing..."

My friend Bernie and I were briefly talking about flash mobs today. He mentioned the continuing shenanigans Improv Everywhere pull off. Their latest stunt had them loading a New York subway car with identical twins, seated across from each other. Priceless.

We decided that if we were to organize a flash mob, it would be playing the Imperial March from Star Wars on kazoo......

.... dressed in Darth Vader outfits.

My stab at Wally World...

WalMart has a new logo.

Imagine if they spent that money on better quality products.

Or reasonable wages for their employees.

Copyright fever

You may not have heard about this, since it's happening in Europe. But in case you thought the copyright situation was getting crazy here - wait for it.

The European Parliament are introducing a "three strikes" rule in a new telecoms bill. The rule would force ISPs to kick people off the Internet who've been accused of (unsubstantiated) copyright infringement three times.

I'm not making this up.......

Who are you?

I know we've played this game before, but what the heck, right? Here is a list of music artists' real names. See if you can guess their 'artistic' name. (solution in the comments)

David Robert Hayward Stenton Jones
Eric Patrick Clapp
Vincent Damon Furnier
Florian Cloud de Bounevialle Armstrong
Robert Alan Zimmerman
Jewel Kilcher
Ellen Naomi Cohen
Brian Warner
Marvin Lee Aday
Yorgos Panayiotou
Carnell Haynes, Jr.
Louis Firbank
Trevor Tahiem Smith
Harry Webb
Helen Folasade Adu
Henry Olusegun Olumide Samuel
Chaim Witz
Steve Georgiou
Sylvester Stewart
Tracy Marrow
Randy Bruce Traywick
Eileen Regina Edwards
Frank Castelluccio
Edward Louis Severson

Sunny ways

Did you know that in Israel, 90% of homes have solar water heaters?

OK.... how about.... did you know that Hawaii just made it the law that all new homes by 2010 must have solar water heaters?

Give it away... give it away.. give it away now.....

Have you heard of Freecycle? It started in the US and has worked its way into Canada (and over 75 other countries). The premise of Freecycle is that anything you no longer want or need should be kept out of the landfill by offering it up for free to anyone who needs / wants it. But it isn't about taking other people's stuff so you can re-sell it. It's about prolonging the life of something which is no longer useful to another.

The posts are on Yahoo Groups, which you have to join to participate in. The groups are heavy moderated to prevent abuse. The Calgary group won't even let you see the posts without joining - I can't speak for other locations' groups. I quickly had a chance to browse the most recent listings and saw everything from books, fans, toys, an organ (no - not a human one), and more.

My white noise is just a pun

A couple people have asked me if this blog name has anything to do with real 'white noise'. The answer is no.

In case you don't know what white noise is - check it out for yourself.

Effizienten!

Those sneaky Germans.

While gas prices were beginning to soar, they were secretly building a car at Volkswagen whose goal was to burn a miserly 1 litre of gas per 100 kilometres travelled (235mpg). Yeah.

Using carbon fibre in the body, they didn't expect it to even be feasible until 2012. Seems that's changed. The car has a one cylinder SDI (diesel) engine is 0.3l. It weighs 1/3 that of a Toyota Echo. It could be ready in 2010 for limited sales.

Here's the Wired article and here's the Canadian Driver article with lots of pictures!

I forgot your card...... sorry

Happy Birthday America!

Did you get what you wanted for your birthday?

Note the captured flag from our latest overt Operation

YouTube is the future.... why can't big media get that?

Unless you've been living under the internet equivalent of a rock (and I don't mean that in a judgemental way), you know that big media outfit Viacom is trying to sue Google for all the copyrighted material they host, courtesy of their large user base. It's also no secret that Viacom has been busy issuing take-down notices to Google for any copyrighted material it claims as its own. What you may not know is that Viacom convinced a judge to force Google to hand over every YouTube user's details (user names, IP addresses and videos watched). This is because Viacom wants to prove that on YouTube, infringing material is more prevalent and popular than user-created videos, which shores up their argument that Google is guilty of contributory infringement.

EFF doesn't think turning over this information is a good idea as it's a complete trampling over privacy rights. OK......... here we go.

Big media is absolutely right. Their material IS more popular than user-created content - but not for the reason they think. The thing that I wish big media realized is that the internet isn't the enemy - it's a view into the future. Think about it. Napster had the right idea. They just didn't have the approval of big media because big media wasn't getting their cut. Big media also didn't appreciate the value of a new business model of distributing media online (for a nominal fee) until someone else showed it to them. Because big media is stuck in the past, trying to wring out every last dollar out of an antiquated model that has been superseded by innovative technology that they themselves admit to not understanding. YouTube et al also have the right idea. Because when someone wants to see material they like, they don't want to wait for re-broadcasts (that rarely occur) or physical media to be sold. Because the internet makes it possible to watch what you want..... now. It offers a service that big media (and the folks who distribute it old-school) has the ability to do, but not the willpower. There is no technological reason why every movie and TV program ever made can't be made electronically available on any device on demand. Yeah sure, you've got pay-per-view on demand, but come on - what's on tap is but a drop in the bucket and you can only get it on TV.

The only place you can get access to media on demand is on the internet. Ironically, this access - often low quality or incomplete for the most part, is the only method many folks have to get access to some material at all. I've lost count of the number of times I've fallen in love with a program only to see it disappear from big media forever. Especially if it's produced outside the country. Big media has begun to get it - offering some content online at their own sites, but they ruin the experience by not letting folks in other countries get access. This is counter-productive - how do you build buzz about programming if you only let locals watch it? The best thing big media could do about the overwhelming popularity of their content hosted online by unrestrictive hosts is to learn from it and start to build the business model necessary to do the same thing - themselves - with their own advertising revenue stream.

Don't hate the view of the future the YouTubes of the world have given you. Embrace it. You'll be glad you did.

[update] Helen Popkin echos some of the things I said here and more in her article on the YouTube vs. Viacom debacle.

Catalogically exorbitant

Our household typically does a lot of catalogue shopping through Sears. Darlene recently told me that Sears now charges a fee to place a catalogue order over and above the price of the item. I found this kind of odd, but to my great surprise, I also discovered that if you pick up a catalogue order and return it for any reason, you don't get your fee back. In our last order (Darlene swears she will order from Sears no more), the reason the item was returned is due to incorrect size - which is their fault because the size was quite inaccurate. No matter.

So, I'm thinking..... in an economy that is faltering, is it a good idea to start nickel and diming your customers with bogus fees? Feel free to discuss...............

Dancing all over the globe

Matt dances while visiting 42 countries over a period of 14 months. Follow the link below the video's description (or just click here) to get the back story.

I love the spirit of this little gem. Well done Matt. I would've danced with you bud.

Should be good.....

Looks like some enterprising folks have the opportunity to speak with Jim Prentice all planned out.

Good luck everyone.

Geo-geeky!

Google Maps may be fun, especially when you get into Satellite or StreetView (where available), but they're not the only game in town.

I recently discovered Live Search Maps by Microsoft. While most of their offering is nothing especially new, they have a cool feature called Bird's Eye View, which gives a more 3D perspective. While Bird's Eye isn't available everywhere, I did manage to find my mom's (pictured) and brother's house in the outskirts of Montreal. I will use this to get a better look at future destinations, like hotels, etc.

The red 'x' marks the spot where I spent much of my childhood. Check out that huge tree in the back yard (now cut down - it was about to eat the house). We used to have trees in the front yard too, but a microburst (I think - it wasn't a tornado) tore them up.

When the going gets tough........ hang up

CBC Radio's 'Search Engine' podcast broadcasts an interview with Jim Prentice, the Minister who introduced the new Copyright Bill for Canada. You only need listen to the first 11 minutes of the podcast. You'll see why when you listen.

The interview was constructed using questions from Search Engine Blog readers, about how this Bill would affect their lives in everyday scenarios. It is a telling interview. First, Mr. Prentice tries to paint a reality where there are few if any digital locks on music CDs - not true - much of Sony's catalogue is digitally locked. Then he tries to suggest that the damages suggested by the Bill are unlikely to be enforced by minor infractions by consumers - to which I would like to know - then why bother putting it in law? He states that the kind of random lawsuits filed by labels against consumers such as have been occurring in the US are made 'extremely difficult' by the Bill - but he doesn't say it can't happen, nor does he state with any guarantee that damages awarded will go to the artist. When asked if breaking the lock on a cell phone to use it in another country is considered illegal according to the Bill, he labels the question as 'arcane' and insists that if a digital lock is broken only to make something 'functional', it's perfectly alright.

By the way, arcane is defined as: known or understood by very few; mysterious; secret; obscure; esoteric. So he's suggesting that the scenarios are not typical - indicating his true lack of understanding of consumers' needs.

But when pressed about the conclusion that unlocking a cell phone is OK, he backtracks and says only if it's done in another country - you can't do it legally in Canada. Then he's asked how digital locks over-ride peoples' ability to legally time shift TV programming. He starts out by suggesting that market forces are more relevant to decide that sort of thing, then, seemingly realizing that he's in over his head, hurriedly makes an excuse to leave, then hangs up. His office later made it clear that any future discussion or questions won't be happening.

Nice huh?

Seen on a bumper today in Calgary

(hand painted presumably because such a bumper sticker couldn't be found)

"Born again Pagan"

I thought it was clever......

I know someone who might appreciate it too....

Happy Canada Day!

Happy birthday Canada! I hope I look this good when I'm 141.

Canadian music trivia: Here are some songs that were made (even more) famous covered by other artists, where the original artist was Canadian:

• Hallelujah by Jeff Buckley (originally by Leonard Cohen)
• American Woman by Lenny Kravitz (originally by The Guess Who)
• This Flight Tonight by Nazareth (originally by Joni Mitchell)
• I Go Blind by Hootie and the Blowfish (originally by 5440)
• Born to be Wild by Steppenwolf (quasi-Canadian) (originally by Mars Bonfire)
• Hold On by Santana (originally by Ian Thomas)

Little known facts about Canada:

• The word Canada is an anglicized version of a Huron-Iroquois word Kanata, which means "village" or "settlement". There is a city in Ontario named Kanata.
• The official national sport of Canada isn't hockey - it's lacrosse.
• Jim Carrey sent a resume to the Carol Burnett show when he was 10.
• Canada is the only foreign country permitted to have an embassy on Pennsylvania Ave. in the US.
  
• Quebec City turned 400 this year.
• Little Manitou Lake, in Saskatchewan, is a saltwater lake that is impossible to sink in.