The lazy Jedi

This really made my day.

My favourite part is the toothbrush bit.

Funny.

Technologies that the US Congress tried to kill

VCR

Who Wanted it Killed: The movie studios. The MPAA's Jack Valenti famously testified before Congress that "The VCR is to the American film producer and the American public as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone."

How it Worked Out: No fewer than six bills were introduced in Congress to control the VCR. The MPAA finally dropped its demands that VCRs be outlawed, instead supporting bills that would require licensing of VCRs, royalties on the sale of blank videocassettes, and a copyright owner's permission before renting out video tapes. In the end, Congress decided to wait and see what the Supreme Court decided in the famous Sony Vs. Universal case. In 2002, the DMCA required all VCRs to include "automatic gain control," thus making Macrovision copy protection an integral part of all VCRs.
 

Phonograph

Who Wanted it Killed: John Philip Sousa, the guy who wrote "Stars and Stripes Forever." He testified before Congress that both the gramophone and the player piano would put musicians out of business. And that they would stifle composers from writing new music by removing "all incentive to further creative work." In marathon hearings, Sousa and the American Copyright League argued in favor of a bill which would have given copyright owners control over all sales (including resale) of their work.

How it Worked Out: In the end, Congress passed a milder bill, which simply assured musicicans and composers royalties from recordings. Sousa was satisfied, and in 1923, he told Thomas Edison, "You have made the art of the musician immortal, Mr. Edison."

Mp3 players

Who Wanted it Killed: Congress had tried to pass a few laws to protect copyright owners in the past, which were so broadly written that they would have banned a wide range of technologies, including mp3 players. There was the Induce Act, which would have banned any technology that induces people to violate copyright. Earlier, there was the Consumer Broadband and Digital Television Promotion Act, which banned any devices that could be used to read digital content that didn't have Digital Rights Management (DRM) built in.

How it Worked Out: So far, none of these bills has passed, so your iPod is safe.


Update:  What started out as stand-alone players are now part of every new phone, most cars, and tablets. The music industry should be thankful, as the ability to take music with you anywhere has made it an even more valuable commodity than ever.

DAT (Digital Audio Tape) recorders

Who Wanted it Killed: The music industry. Congress held hearings throughout the late 1980s over whether to stop this digital technology from coming to consumers. Music industry lobbyists demanded that DAT players be fitted with technology that would degrade the sound quality of any music copied on them, or that sales of DAT tapes include a royalty payment to the music industry. The recorders were in limbo, waiting on the court's decision and were not for sale even after production started.

How it Worked Out: Digital audio tapes became subject to a compulsory licensing scheme. The technology flopped once it was released under control of the content industry, partly because the sales delay led to disinterest in consumers.

Update: Little did the music industry anticipate, but the DAT recorder, which came in a portable version perfect for recording live music in high digital quality, would eventually be made obsolete by the modern high quality digital recorder (pictured), which uses flash memory to store the music. Modern technology has evolved so rapidly, the government and the entertainment industry can't keep up.

The learning continues

Things I learned this week:

If your visible sex doesn't match your indicated sex (on travel documents), you can't fly in Canada.
Calgary councillors don't like being called 'dysfunctional'.
It is definitely not safe to take Ecstacy in Calgary.
Newt Gingrich doesn't quite understand copyright either, used Eye of the Tiger without permission.
House prices are still dropping in the US.
When you're 3, watching Alvin & the Chipmunks several dozen times is not excessive.

Vulcan ears to keep your human ears warm

Ladies, increase your geek cred instantly with these crocheted Vulcan ears.

Some things I miss, some not so much

Things I don't miss

• Ketchup on eggs (Mom used to try and make me eat them)
• Being a skinny, pimply-faced kid in high school
• Standing out on military sentry at 3am in -15C weather
• Vomiting for any reason
• Being alone
• My old Vic-20 computer
• The threat of boarding school (it was a close one)

Things I miss

• Living near my family (mom, sis,bro)
• Walks in the woods in my home town (which no longer exist)
• Summer as a kid and hanging out with the Smart sisters
• Firing a Carl Gustav anti-tank weapon and blowing up tanks
• My 750cc Magna
• Disc jockey-ing
• Montreal

Things I learned this week

• Ben Folds 5 is getting back together
• You can put a Lego man in space really cheap
• Some people thought I was gay
• Passing a law about distracted driving in Alberta doesn't change much
• Seniors don't like the idea of Old Age Security benefits being cut (and there's a lot of them)
• The French plan to build a theme park to honour Napoleon

Socialist thinking or just common sense?

Maybe I'm oversimplifying, but I wonder how different the world would be if we weren't trying to earn more profits for stockholders, who do nothing to help a company get better, but instead we were trying to earn more profits for the people employed by the company. All of them, not just the senior executives and management.

I suspect it would be a better world. Well..... except for the investors.

Why stop at 2 cat-houses?

Dennis Hof, the owner of two of Nevada's brothels and star of the HBO documentary Cathouse, recently bought a rundown bordello northwest of Las Vegas. He plans to renovate and reopen it as the Alien Cat-house, promising "girls from another world." He turned to an old friend to plan the costumes and decor: Heidi Fleiss.

This gives the phrase 'alien probe' a whole different meaning....

More deviant art

If Dr Seuss did a cartoon version of The A-Team.

KeePass! You rule!

It's amazing the things you learn about the software you use when you take the time to read.... THE MANUAL.

OK, so I use this password management utility called KeePass. What you do is create an entry for every web site you need login credentials for, and KeePass will store them for you and protect access to it all with one master password (which you can make as long as you like). It's brilliant for one main reason - long, complex passwords, while being very secure are also impossible to remember. KeePass solves that problem because you no longer need to remember any but the master password. Best still, the database that KeePass uses to store the URL, username and password for each site is portable. I even use it at work, as do many of my IT colleagues.

What I had been doing is when I get to a web site that needs my username and password, I drag and drop them, one at a time, from KeePass right into the appropriate fields on the web page. What I didn't know is that KeePass will actually type that stuff into the fields for you - it's called Auto-Type. You just place your cursor in the username field on the web page and go back to KeePass and select the entry for that site and do a Ctrl + V. That copies and pastes the username and password into the correct fields on the web page and even does the equivalent of pressing Enter. No more dragging and dropping. It's just a quick click, click Ctrl + V, and you're logged in.

Brilliant!

Meltdown

If you would like to see what is wrong with our economy, or more specifically - the current state of capitalism, this superb CBC (Canada) documentary "Meltdown", in 4 parts, is a must-see. If you don't happen to have the 3+ hours to watch the whole thing, you could skip to the 4th part, "After the Fall", to see the aftermath of the financial crisis in 2008.

Here are some extraordinary financial and social facts about the state of the economy and the people that participate in it.

Star Wars Uncut

What do you get when you take the Star Wars Episode IV movie, divide it up into 15 second pieces (472 of them), then let fans recreate each one?

A whole lotta awesome!

Zooey & Joseph

I think Zooey Deschanel is dreamy and although I still can't get used to her singing in her duo group She & Him, I absolutely adore her duet with Joseph Gordon-Levitt. The song topic is a little late, but I digress.

Warning - smart person ahead!

One of the things that's really cool about the internet is access to the things people say on every subject. Some things are mediocre and some things are just downright amazing.

Such as this brief TED talk given by Clay Shirky on SOPA and all that Copyright nonsense.

Interesting times ahead

I found a very intelligent article about the SOPA failure and the Megaupload arrests and want to share parts of it here with you. The 'What's Next?' section is the most interesting part, because it raises important, valid questions about the future of the internet and those who depend on it for their livelihood.

Enjoy. [Edited for brevity]

Last week Megaupload, the most popular file sharing site on the Internet, was shut down, and the owners arrested, in raids across many countries, seizing computers, etc. Megaupload itself was already involved in several lawsuits with Hollywood companies. The people behind the site taunted the authorities. A lot of Anonymous members took this as their own personal battle, but in the end this battle won’t end up mattering much.

Back story: Megaupload was established in 2005, in Hong Kong, and had grown to become the biggest file sharing site on the web, with over 50 million daily visitors, and 180 million registered users. Of perhaps more interest, they charged a monthly fee for premium use. The owner, Kim Dotcom and other employees, made millions. They were living in luxury, thanks to the Megaupload success and this matters.

According to lawsuits filed by the US Justice Department, among other agencies, Megaupload’s main purpose was to conduct illegal activities, promoted the fact that they were hosting a lot of pirated content and rewarded users who uploaded lots of content. There were emails between employees showing that they knew full well that their servers were filled with illegal content. There were logs that indicate the users who were rewarded on the sites were picked because of the large amount of ripped movies they would upload. Getting behind this battle might be a lost cause.

Picking your battles

The government isn’t going after innocent websites as part of a misguided seizure. That would be gross misconduct. They aren’t going after some random business owner who was mistakenly targeted. They’re going after people who allegedly built an empire on crime, knew what they were doing, and profited financially. Money laundering is why raids were conducted by many countries and why arrests were made.

What followed was a mass retaliation from Anonymous. Sites were brought down, including the FBI, the RIAA, MPAA, and more, in protest to the arrests and the closure of Megaupload. This will not likely have any political effect. The raid on Megaupload was not because of the failure of SOPA. A case involving International actions around the world doesn’t get planned in less than a few months, sometimes years.

What’s next?

The US Feds do have way too much power and discretion as to how they apply the law on websites, especially foreign ones. SOPA and PIPA may be dead, but similar laws will emerge in the coming years. In the meantime, interesting developments evolve: Following the Megaupload closure, Uploaded.to which is another file sharing site based in Europe, decided to block all US internet addresses from using its service. This sends a much more powerful message.

Just think what would happen if suddenly the US internet user community found itself blocked from thousands of sites around the world. Blocked because the US passed laws that are so ridiculous, no one outside the country is interested in taking any risk dealing with it anymore. What if small business owners inside the US decided to start their new online projects using servers, email systems, online office suites, and so on, all based in other countries, because they don’t want to risk having biased agencies spying on them or controlling them? What if suddenly, the US cyber landscape starts emptying itself, with large chunks of data moving to other countries? When actual jobs start disappearing, and innovation moves offshore, because a few Hollywood monopolies always get their way in Washington, politicians will notice. This is what will make things move, not having the MPAA or the CIA site being down for a day or two.

iPad apps for (young) kids

iPad apps for kids that I (and Olivia) can heartily recommend to parents.

In no particular order:

• Toca Boca Tea Party (or anything by Toca Boca)
• Cat in the Hat
• Goldilocks and the 3 Bears
• Monkey Preschool Lunchbox
• Monkey Math School Sunshine
• Stella and Sam - Backyard at Twilight (or anything by Stella and Sam)
• Sesame Street Playground
• Adding Apples

I never thought about purse bottoms....

Things with more germs than a toilet seat

Hotel Bedspread
Purse Bottom
ATM Keypad
Office telephone
Restaurant menu
Condiment container
Grocery shopping cart
Steering wheel
Faucet handle
Gym equipment
Playground equipment

Follow the link above for the low-down.

SOPA primer

In case you've been wondering what all the hoopla is about, let me sum it up for you with an analogy. Imagine you're a kid and your brother stole a dollar from mom's purse. Mom claims that there's $100 missing and tells anyone who will listen that her kids are thieves and that one or all of you has stolen $100 from her purse - even though she has no proof. Mom even goes so far as to say "Everyone agrees, kids stealing from their mothers is a serious problem." So dad tries to pass a house rule that says anyone caught with money in their pockets is going to boarding school, which is not only a stupid rule, it could also come back to bite them both in the ass.

Luckily, Uncle Bob shows your parents how insanely stupid and impractical that rule would be and begrudgingly, they back down. Then you're accused of loving Uncle Bob more than your mother.

That just about sums it up.

Waste not

The Eco Clock solves a battery waste problem in a smart way. There are many instances where devices that use AA batteries stop working long before the battery or batteries have run our of juice. The Eco Clock allows you to place an almost dead battery in each slot where the hour indicators would be. You can fill as many slots as you like and the clock will use the batteries in tandem. Plus, as each battery goes completely dead, it can indicate that as well.

What a great way to get every last ounce of electricity out of your AA batteries. Prepare for some major Engrish at the link.

The history of TV

"Mario, go get your Rod Serling outfit..."

The Practical Lexicon - episode 7 - part two

In this lengthy episode, Bernie and I finish up the topic of improv in the workplace. I really wanted to chop this up into 2 episodes, but I just couldn't find a natural break to do the cut. So sit back and enjoy a nice beverage while we try to 'advance the story'.

MP pension = great, military pension = meh

Canadians are beginning to learn more details regarding MP pensions. We kind of already knew that an MP only needed to serve 6 years as a Member of Parliament to qualify for a pension. What we didn't know was just how great their plan was. The Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF) says MPs have the best pension fund "on the planet". They also suggest that it's time for the government to set a good example and shut it down.

The CTF claims that while officially, for every $1 that MPs pay into their own pension fund, taxpayers contribute $5, in reality, taxpayers pay more like $23. That's because the pension fund is guaranteed a 10.4% interest rate - by law. To put this into perspective, during the economic collapse of 2008, the Canada Pension Plan lost 18.6% of its value, the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan lost 18%, the Quebec Pension Plan lost 25% and the S&P/TSX total return index lost 33%. Meanwhile, the MP pension plan returned 10.4%. Same as it ever was.

As well, MPs can start collecting at age 55. During the 6 years and MP serves to qualify for a pension, they need only contribute $10,900 a year to get the minimum pension. In comparison, it would take the average Canadian almost 30 years to save as much as what a backbench MP would get in their eventual pension payout after 6 years of service. The CTF thinks an optional dollar-for-dollar matching defined contribution plan is a fairer way to go.

According to the CTF's calculations:

• Prime Minister Stephen Harper can collect a pension of at least $223,500 per year by 2015.
• Interim Liberal Leader Bob Rae, if he stays on as leader, can collect a pension of at least $71,400 per year by 2015.
• NDP MP Pierre-Luc Dusseault, elected last year at age 19, can collect a pension of $40,000 per year if he retires at 27.
• 20 MPs will be able to collect more than $100,000 a year if they retire or lose after the next election in 2015.

Maybe this would be a good time to re-introduce the private member's bill asking for the removal of the Old Age Security clawback for military pensioners......

EU doesn't like SOPA either

Neelie Kroes, the EU's Commissioner for the Digital Agenda, tweeted Friday "Glad tide is turning on SOPA: don't need bad legislation when should be safeguarding benefits of open net." Outrage over SOPA earlier this week triggered a one-day blackout by Wikipedia's English-language service and sparked growing protest.
The EU is struggling to tackle online piracy - but without restricting Internet freedom. Kroes favours a less invasive approach, tweeting "Speeding is illegal too: but you don't put speed bumps on the motorway."

Confessions of a kijiji husband

[Darlene and I were joking around about the trials I go through to accommodate her kijiji habits. She suggested that I write a tongue-in-cheek blog entry about kijiji husbands, who we're both sure must exist in significant numbers (we met one last night). All kidding aside, we love kijiji. We've been able to get some amazing deals.]


My wife discovered kijiji about 3 years ago. Our lives haven't been the same since. I'll wake up at 1am and find her staring at the computer screen, browsing the local kijiji ads for stuff we don't even need. I'll be on my way home from work and get a phone call from her asking if I wouldn't mind making a detour to pick something up that she bought. Sometimes I get home and I sense that something isn't right. It takes a few minutes, but eventually I notice that maybe the furniture in the spare bedroom has been swapped out for something new. Our grand-daughter will ask me from time to time where one of her toys is and I just don't have the heart to tell her that her Nan might have sold it on kijiji. Our schedules become irrevocably altered from waiting around for kijiji buyers who promise to come to buy something at our house, but never show up. I'll be talking to my wife on the phone and be informed that she needs to hang up because she's expecting a kijiji buyer or seller to call any time. We'll be driving around and I'll get a cryptic question like "Do you happen to have $300 cash on you?". This is code for "We're about to spend $300 on a kijiji purchase that I didn't tell you about". If I press, Darlene might even deflect, but it becomes obvious what's going on when your cell phone rings and the other party asks if you'll be coming by soon to look at "the coffee table we are selling" and "do we need directions?". Some days I wonder if at some point someone will come to our house and ask "are you Karl?" as they look me over thoroughly, then turn to Darlene and say, "Would you take $500? Yes?! OK, it's a deal."

Damn you kijiji! [wink]

Blackout

Today, the White Noise blog stands in solidarity with wikipedia and many other websites around the world, by going into a blackout for the duration of 18 January 2012, in protest against SOPA and PIPA. Especially if you are an American, you need to find out what this is and tell your Senator and your Congress-person what you think.

Use caution!

Use Google Maps to get walking directions from The Shire to Mordor.

Those people at Google have a sense of humour, no?

Hey America... in 2012, vote for Canada!

The Canada Party.

A little less scary than the current offerings.

Also, we have donuts.

Would you like a sump pump with that?

To accommodate the introduction of a new 24 ounce sized beverage cup, Tim Hortons is shifting their existing cup sizes as of a week from today. They're going to call this new behemoth an 'extra large'.

Unfortunately, this means that as of next week, if you order a small, what you'll really be getting is the old medium. If you order a medium, you'll be getting the old large. And so on. Am I the only one that sees a problem here? Instead of renaming all of the original cup sizes, I suggest just calling the new 24 ounce cup size 'stupid large', or 'bladder torture'. Maybe 'the bucket', or 'the gargantu-one'. No word on whether the insulation sleeve will sport a handle to help hold this monster 700ml pail of caffeine solution.

The old small will be renamed 'extra-small'. Tim Hortons claims that part of the reason they're doing this is to bring their sizes more in line with Starbucks, Second Cup and McDonalds.

'The coffee tower'? How about 'The two-four'?

The Practical Lexicon Podcast Episode 7

What happened to episode 5 and 6 you ask? Lost episodes. Hard to explain. 5 is coming and is in post-production. 6 may be missing in action. We await news from the front lines

Anyway, here is the first part of a two-part episode where Bernie and I discuss improv techniques in the workplace.

Password security

If you' ever wondered how secure the password you're using is, just plug it in here and the site will calculate how long it would take for a typical PC to try to crack your code.

If nothing else, it's a good way to indicate how adding variety and especially length to a password can make it very difficult to break.