Idiots!

This has got to be a joke, but sadly, it looks to be true. Australia has plans to establish a nation-wide content filter on the internet in Australia, looking to filter out content inappropriate for children. This is not an opt-in service. It is mandatory.

Look, I'm all for protecting innocent minds, but content filtering is the lazy person's way of babysitting internet users. It doesn't work. Too many false positives, very little relevant material blocked.

Content filtering is about as effective as security screening at airports - it doesn't improve safety one iota, it makes the dumb people feel better and it's a complete pain in the ass.

Never mind the civil liberties implications............

Canada's Army

Best picture accidentally found online this year.

Disclaimer: Our Army is in reality much better equipped than this. We have tanks!

That work!


With live rounds.

What proportional voting would do for Canada

I was fairly sure I made mention of this before, but my good friend Jeff reminded me of its existence, so I figured I'd mention it again. The site is called Fair Vote Canada and it tries to promote the idea of voting system reform in this country. I took a look at a press release from the day after our election and it offers some very interesting statistics:

• 940,000 voters supporting the Green Party sent no one to Parliament, setting a new record for the most votes cast for any party that gained no parliamentary representation. By comparison, 813,000 Conservative voters in Alberta alone were able to elect 27 MPs.
• In the prairie provinces, Conservatives received roughly twice the vote of the Liberals and NDP, but took seven times as many seats.
• Similar to the last election, a quarter-million Conservative voters in Toronto elected no one and neither did Conservative voters in Montreal.
• The NDP attracted 1.1 million more votes than the Bloc, but the voting system gave the Bloc 50 seats, the NDP 37.

Had votes this election been cast under a proportional system, Fair Vote Canada projected the following changes:
Conservatives - 38% of the popular vote: 117 seats (not 143)
Liberals - 26% of the popular vote: 81 seats (not 76)
NDP - 18% of the popular vote: 57 seats (not 37)
Bloc - 10% of the popular vote: 28 seats (not 50)
Greens - 7% of the popular vote: 23 seats (not 0)

Imagine what hankerchiefs would look like...

Here's something for you to ponder. Imagine if cold and flu viruses were visible and coloured fluorescent green. Think how different we'd be treating people who were sick.

Like every time a person with a cold or the flu sneezed or coughed, you could see the stuff in the air, or being wiped from their nose. Everything they touched would have glowing green stuff on it. When a sick person showed up for work, you'd be able to tell they were sick from a long way off.

I could see sick people being told to stay home more often. And if they didn't, I could see them suffering a fair amount of discrimination based on the fact we could see their illness.

Walking the dog without walking

Just up the hill from where we live is a decent sized park which is an off-leash area for dogs. Quite often as we're driving by the park, we'll notice a particular dog owning couple walking their dog in the park.

What's so remarkable about that is that they're not actually with the dog. They're riding alongside the park... on the road....... in their van. It's the funniest thing, really. The van's cruising alongside the park at a slow pace and the dog is walking beside the van, or occasionally running off into the depths of the park, only to run back to the van. As if to say, "Come on guys! Get out and come run with me!"

If you're going to sue God....

.... make sure you have his address.

"A judge has thrown out a Nebraska legislator's lawsuit against God, saying the Almighty wasn't properly served due to his unlisted home address."

Thanks to Ernest for the find.

You're a criminal either way

Leave it to my favourite online web comic (xkcd) to create a great brief on the catch-22 of DRM.

TSA - Thugs Stealing (from) Airports

A TSA agent stole more than $200,000 of passengers' electronic items and was selling them on eBay.

These are the people paid to protect you America.........

John Cleese on Sarah Palin

"I used to think Michael Palin was the funniest Palin on earth......."

John Cleese of Monty Python fame shares his thoughts on Sarah Palin. In 2 words - trained parrot.

Another election is over in Canada and nothing changed

So many people to thank after yesterday's election. Here's a huge freaking thank you to the many Canadians who abstained from voting. Don't let me catch you bitching about the state of the country in the next many months. This was the lowest turnout in Canadian voting history.

Thank you to Stephen Harper (still Prime Minister and leader of the still minority Conservative government) for calling an election one year ahead of your own promised schedule. How'd you make out dude? Not much better than what you had in the first place. Thank you to Stephane Dion for making me almost embarrassed to be a Liberal. You stole half of the Green platform and still couldn't win more seats. The Liberals only have one hope for the future you know, and he won in the riding of Papineau in Montreal, Quebec - Justin Trudeau (see my prediction below).

Thank you to everyone who helped re-elect Jim Prentice in Calgary, the architect of the most ridiculous bill ever devised - Bill C-61. May your iPods cease to function on the day immediately following the passage of that 'guaranteed-to-be-re-introduced' Bill.

Thank you to the people in my riding that voted Green. They came in 3rd with 11% of the vote in my riding, not bad for a party in oil and gas country that represents the original green shift.

If you want to know what's messed up about our electoral system, here's an example. The Green Party got 6.8% of the nationwide vote share and were elected in 0 (zero) ridings. The Bloc Quebecois got 9.97% of the nationwide vote share and were elected in 50 ridings.

But I'm not bitter...........

Oh yeah - my prediction. I give it 7 years maximum to come true. Justin Trudeau will be the leader of the Liberal Party of Canada. He will then also be the next Prime Minister of Canada.

The incredible shrinking economy

If you needed any proof of the dark beast which goes by the name of the global economy, just check out the shit-kicking the economy of Iceland has taken as a result of the crisis precipitated by the sub-prime mortgage debacle in the US. Their stock market is almost 80% down. That's not a typo....

What really shocks me is that nobody is coming to their rescue with anything significant. Not a single country. Except maybe Russia. Like WTF!?

Shiny nickel!

Apple unveiled a new series of Macbooks today. What's new? Gone are the white and black shells and in their place - a unibody aluminum chassis. They've beefed up the video a bit. The battery meter is on the side now. The matte finish screen is gone. But the big story as I see it is the new button-less glass multi-touch track pad.

Anyone want to buy my barely used white Macbook?

Best description of the financial bailout.... ever

"To stimulate lending, the bailout plan will attempt to recapitalize banks. The method of recapitalization is best described as robbing Taxpayer Pete to pay Wall Street Paul. In essence, money is taken from the poor (via taxes, printing, and weakening of the dollar) and given to the wealthy so the wealthy supposedly will have enough money to lend back (at interest) to those who have just been robbed."

Found on BoingBoing.

The killer you can empathize with

Darlene and I are watching season 2 of Dexter now. What an awesome show that is. But I've already mentioned that before.

Did I mention how awesome Dexter is? Yeah...........

The best things in life are free

I managed to convince 5 students from the Intro to Acting course I'm helping with to go check out Loose Moose Theatre on Friday night. I think they had a great time. I'm almost certain they'll be returning.

The best part of ushering there - I get to see these shows (that I'm ushering) gratis. What a great way to learn improv.

Photo by urban mixer.

You may have to watch it a few times

50 impressions (consisting of one word) in 50 seconds.

Impressive.

This is the kind of entrepreneurism we need today

I bought the September 2008 edition of Wired magazine simply because of what was on the cover - the title "The Future of the Electric Car". Good marketing on their part. But I'm glad I bought the magazine, because otherwise, I wouldn't have found out about Shai Agassis. This guy wants to get all fossil fuel burning cars off the road and replace them with pure electric cars. He has a plan, which includes not only having a charging station at home and at work, but stations where you can quickly exchange your dying battery for a fully charged one. But this guy isn't a dreamer, he's actually putting this plan to the road, in Israel and Denmark. For starters........

It's quite the story.

"Analog?"

Great video on the impending US conversion of all TV broadcasts from analog to digital this coming February.

"I used to do drugs. I still do, but I used to, too."

New in the playlist..... no music! Yeah, I decided to share a little comedy with you. In the form of Mitch Hedberg.

Enjoy...

Happy Thanksgiving Canada!

To all of my Canadian readers, here's hoping you're enjoying a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend. We're making our turkey dinner today. In fact, I'm just about to get started on my home-made stuffing. [drool]

Darlene's making home-made pumpkin pie too (not the prepared pie filling - using real pure pumpkin). [more drool]

"This sort of thing happens all the time"

Here's a fantastic article by Lawrence Lessig about fair use of copyrighted material (fair dealing in Canada).

This article should be required reading for every entertainment industry CEO, IP lawyer and digital age consumer.

Knowledge transfer united....

If you're a teacher / instructor / mentor / tutor like me, you're going to love a site I found lately. It's called School of Everything and it's designed to bring people who can teach stuff together with people who want to learn that stuff. The training can be arranged for payment, trade for other types of knowledge / skill or just for the good of helping others.

I think it's a great resource with a lot of potential.

Olive Oyl

Our grand-daughter Olivia at almost 5 months.

Darlene thinks she's dressed like Olive Oyl.

We're not surprised....

Entertainment industry's claim (in US) of 750,000 jobs and $250 billion lost due to piracy?

Made up.........

Animated notebook

Very clever animation by Evelien Lohbeck - The Noteboek.

More of her stuff here.

Pursue Baconlightenment

For people who worship bacon - the Holy Church of Bacon.

Election puzzler

What really puzzles me about the way people vote, at least in Canada, is their undying devotion to one political party. This devotion seems based less on actual platform content and more on ideology. Everyone truly has a right to vote for who they want, but I find this approach absurd. Although I am a Liberal by ideology and have traditionally voted this way in many elections, I have been known to vote otherwise when the Liberals either aren't inspiring me, or I am leaning toward the platform of another party (as is the case now). But I have met many people who are either voting a certain way because it's the lesser of two evils - as if there are only two political parties in our country (there are 5+ if you count the Bloc Quebecois), or worse, they're not voting at all because they don't believe their vote will mean anything or because it's their way of protesting the current situation.

OK, the worst thing you can do in an election is abstain from voting. Your so called protest means nothing if your vote wasn't registered for something or someone. Also, just because you won't vote for the party most likely to get elected (based on polls), doesn't mean the best thing to do is abstain because your vote doesn't matter. That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard. Even if the polls are right and your worst fear is realized, the undesired (to you) party winning with 35% of the vote paints quite a different picture and sends quite a different message than the same party winning with 60% of the vote thanks in part to the abstainers.

But I've also heard people proclaim that even though they don't like either of the two leading political parties, they will vote for one of them because they're unsure of what would happen if one of the fringe parties got elected. Seriously, what's the worst that can happen? Four years of foul-ups, followed by another election. If a party screws up badly enough, they'll suffer the ramifications for many elections to come. So in my mind, there is no permanent damage that could come from voting for someone other than the Liberals or Conservatives. In fact, as the other parties get more support, their ideas are slowly embraced by some of the major parties. Don't take my word for it - the Liberals stole the carbon tax idea right from the Green's play book without so much as a thank you note.

Do these people actually believe what they're saying?

I'm certain that if you looked hard enough, you could find Obama supporters who might say things to make themselves look ridiculous. But you have to admit that these video clips don't paint the McCain-Palin mob in a very good light.

First example. Second example.

If these people actually believe what they're saying, America should be afraid. Let's be fair though, in Canada, we're not immune to this kind of thing. We have people going around suggesting that a vote for the Liberals is a vote for economic disaster, that Harper's Conservatives are heartless bastards who only care about big business, that the New Democratic Party are just Communists in disguise and the Greens are a bunch of pot-smoking tree huggers.

Walt is surely turning in his grave

The Disney corporation has a thing for EULAs (End User License Agreements). Most content providers do. But this is an example of obsession. Read the BoingBoing post. The poster recounted something that really had me shaking my head:

"I once had to cancel a speech at Imagineering because the legal department wanted me to sign something saying that I'd never use the word "Disney" in print again without permission."

What kind of warped mind thinks this shit up?

Even New Zealand isn't immune to insane over-reaction to the perceived threat of online copyright infringement. They have created a law to kick people off the internet (permanently) on the basis of three unsubstantiated accusations of copyright infringement.

"Of all the unreasonable and awful proposals to come out of the entertainment industry, none is so bad as the three-strikes rule, a rule that would leave everyday people vulnerable to having the connection that brings them freedom of speech, of assembly and the press, the link that connects them to family, school, work and government, terminated because someone, somewhere made three accusations of copyright infringement, without having to offer a shred of evidence."