Google Sari

It's sexy, even if it's still in beta.

Posted at 09:54 AM

The Website is Down

Posted at 12:21 PM

My Campbell cash arrived in the mail today. That was a lot quicker than I expected.

These two AIDS awareness ads are simultaneously very beautiful and very creepy. [NSFW]

Have a Nautilus-shaped bathroom sink.

Speaking of sinks, I risked violating my tenancy agreement by replacing the near-antique faucets in our bathroom with a much newer one leftover from my parents' recent renovation. It took a lot of under-sink wrestling and some pulled muscles, but it works perfectly: no leaks. It's so much nicer. I never really did get the hang of using two separate knobs for hot and cold.

Angela, Martha and I have watched the first two movies of the Jason Bourne trilogy. I was always intrigued by the advertisements and trailers but never really followed up. It wasn't until later that I realized these books were movies based on novels by Robert Ludlum. They really are quite good. I mean, you might, like me, be one of those people who usually doesn't expect much from action-espionage movies (Casino Royale has helped change that opinion). And, as usual, Rotten Tomatoes speaks volumes about the films. There's even a fourth one planned for 2010. If you haven't seen them yet, I'd recommend them.

Posted at 05:20 PM | Comments (3)

I've had a hell of a time, digitally speaking, the past few days. It was Thursday evening that I was working on my computer when I heard that dreaded sound, "CLACK" from the left side of my laptop. It was followed by other periodic CLACKs several seconds apart. The computer froze instantly. It would not longer boot up. For those wondering what I'm talking about, the "CLACK" is one of those awful noises that a hard drive makes when it has mechanically bitten the dust.

Really, the most technologically antiquated part of our computer is the hard drive. I will consent that its really positively amazing that manufacturers have managed to get hundreds of gigabytes of space onto the spinning-platter-&-read/write-head model of data storage, but its still the technological equivalent of a steam-powered locomotive. The hard disk's time is long past. For our modern standards, its slow, fragile, and fault-prone. The day the last hard drive goes off line and we're all running on flash drives will be a glorious day indeed.

In any case, here I was, for the first time in my life: my primary computer damaged by a broken drive. Let me now thank the Gods that I have been harangued by the tech industry into backing up. Apple's Time Machine made sure of that; even annoying me if I went 10 days without backing up. Luckily, I had made a backup on Wednesday. It could have been worse. Much worse.

Let me spell this out for you. I have been using Macs since our very first family computer. I have, on my main machine, files that I made when I was 14 years old. I have every e-mail that I have sent or received in that time. I have my collection of purchased or transferred music & video. I have all the lyrics I have written, all the music I have ever composed. All my photos. The list goes on.

In short: This data is my life.

I have often thought that if I came home one day and found that my house had burned down (God forbid) that I would be okay as long as my friends/family were okay and my laptop were safely in my grasp. On the other hand, if I ever lost all that data, all my music, I'd be devastated.

So I'm pretty much an idiot for only starting to do backups a year and a half ago. I owned laptops before that, and could have lost my data very, very easily.

And even the restore process wasn't perfect. I couldn't do an automatic system restore through Time Machine unless I had a complete, bootable system on the drive, which I didn't (just my files). So I had to restore manually, which entailed quite a few hiccups (there were problems with file permissions, and I almost screwed up all my e-mail).

Do you have important data? Are you backing it up? If the answer is no, you are an IDIOT! Back up! I am going to have TWO backups now! One at home, and one at the office! Still not convinced? Read this article on hard drive failure rates by Google. Nobody has more hard drives than Google. They KNOW.

BACK UP!

Posted at 10:41 AM | Comments (0)

CBC podcaster Jesse Brown got a chance to talk to Industry Minister Jim Prentice about Bill C-61 on CBC's Search Engine. Jim Prentice promised a 10 minute interview and gave exactly that, with barely seconds to spare. You can listen to the interview on the CBC website.

Jesse Brown decided to compose the interview questions by asking visitors to his website to submit concerns about common scenarios they fear would be illegal if the new bill passed as law. When posed, the minister seemed frustrated by the questions, commenting, "you're getting into some pretty technical scenarios here." The questions were in regards to (a) copying a DRM-protected audio CD to an iPod, and (b) unlocking a carrier-locked cell phone so that it could be used more easily overseas.

In fact, when asked about unlocking a cell phone, Jim Prentice said that he didn't think there was any problem with the practice under the proposed law, as long as the phone wasn't being used to illegally copy music.

Well Mr. Prentice...

41.1 (1) No person shall

(a) circumvent a technological measure within the meaning of paragraph (a) of the definition “technological measure” in section 41;

...

“circumvent” means,

(a) in respect of a technological measure within the meaning of paragraph (a) of the definition “technological measure”, to descramble a scrambled work or decrypt an encrypted work or to otherwise avoid, bypass, remove, deactivate or impair the technological measure, unless done with the authority of the copyright owner; and

(b) in respect of a technological measure within the meaning of paragraph (b) of the definition “technological measure”, to avoid, bypass, remove, deactivate or impair the technological measure.

“technological measure” means any effective technology, device or component that, in the ordinary course of its operation,

(a) controls access to a work, to a performer’s performance fixed in a sound recording or to a sound recording and whose use is authorized by the copyright owner; ...

That is the wording the act: Bill C-61. This verbiage says that you cannot circumvent encryption or DRM. There is no restriction on the type of encryption or DRM. This language stands alone in the section. It is not connected to any specific intent, such as illegally copying music or video. And it is worth mentioning that the software on a phone is as much a "copyrighted work" as music, video, or a book.

Therefore, unlocking a SIM-locked phone would be "circumvention" and indeed be illegal under Bill C-61.

Therefore, it begs the question does Mr. Prentice not understand the very bill that he has written? Or, has he just misrepresented its content on national radio?

As for the rest of the interview, Jim Prentice is evasive and when pressed on the issues that companies' DRM effectively strips Canadians of the rights guaranteed in the bill, he onerously answers that, "The market will take care of it."

The minister has declined requests for any further interviews.

Posted at 02:49 PM | Comments (4)

I'm going to take a break from Bill C-61 (very briefly, I assure you) to talk about another political issue.

As you know, this year the B.C. government decided to steal our money in a feigned attempt to help the environment, under the guise of the B.C. Carbon Tax. This tax adds a surcharge to gasoline and home heating: costs which we have very little control over because certain recent business-friendly governments haven't bothered to pressure industry into creating more fuel alternatives. The B.C. government is going to take this money and do absolutely nothing with it. Some will go into the general revenue pool, and some will be mailed back to B.C. citizens in the form of a $100 Carbon Tax Rebate.

So while this idiotic bureaucratic hokey-pokey does plenty to waste taxpayer money on needless paperwork, the B.C. Carbon Tax does very little to actually help the environment. In a world where the price of fuel is rising at an unprecedented rate, and the effects of climate change are becoming more tangible, it is clear that we can't rely on our ineffectual governments to save our sorry asses. Impending economic collapse on a global scale is what awaits a society so heavily dependent on fossil fuels to operate every level of its infrastructure.

We, as citizens, have to roll up our sleeves and take matters into our own hands. With that in mind, I'm challenging you again (yes, again) to take your impending $100 B.C. Carbon Tax rebate and donate it to an environmentally conscious cause. For example, you could:

- Donate the money to an environmentalist non-profit organization, such as the David Suzuki Foundation.
- Join the Vancouver Biodiesel Cooperative for an environmentally-obtained fuel alternative
- Invest in an alternative-fuel promoting public company
- Pick another cause from the Tyee's Green Your Campbell Cash website

Yes, I know there are other things you'd rather spend that cash on: hookers, blow, Everclear. But when you regain consciousness and the girls head home, will you really feel better about yourself?

All joking aside, these are the kind of places where the money should really be going, and it's how I intend to spend my rebate. I hope you'll join me.

Captaaaaain Planeeeeeeeet!!!

Posted at 01:15 PM | Comments (0)

Still here.

Let's look at a list of things that will be made illegal if we allow Bill C-61 to be passed:

- Ripping a legally-purchased DVD for backup, or for use on a portable or set-top media player
- Unlocking a phone at your local mall for use with another cellular provider
- Transcoding legally-purchased DRM-protected music for use on different portable media players
- Transcoding legally-purchased DRM-protected media whose format is no longer supported by the vendor
- Uploading a video to YouTube which contains copyrighted background music
- Uploading a short clip from a new show that you like to YouTube so that your friends might watch it
- Load a legally purchased copy of Mac OS X onto non-Apple hardware
- Hack a set-top media player (like the AppleTV or TiVo) to expand its capabilities
- Bypassing the DRM/encryption of a digital broadcast to record it for later viewing.

By adding the anti-circumvention provisions to Bill C-61, our Conservative government aims to make hordes of ordinary Canadians into criminals. By making it a crime to break DRM and/or encryption, the government will give media companies total control over music, video, software, and even digital books that we have legally purchased.

My fellow Canadians, I believe in the common sense view that buying something means that I own it. And once I own something, I can do what I like with it. If you agree with this simple principle, then I challenge you to stand up for your views and immediately write your member of parliament to express your concerns. You can do it via e-mail, and it takes very little of your time. Here is a list of several of our local MPs and their e-mail addresses for your convenience:

James Moore (moorej0@parl.gc.ca) - MP for Port Coquitlam & Tri-Cities (Conservative)
Peter Julian (juliap@parl.gc.ca) - MP for Burnaby - New Westminster (NDP)
Libby Davies (daviel@parl.gc.ca) - a wonderful lady who is MP for Vancouver East (NDP)
Mark Warawa (warawm@parl.gc.ca ) - MP for Langley (Conservative)
Bill Siksay (Siksay.B@parl.gc.ca) - MP for Burnaby-Douglas (NDP)
Randy Kamp (randy@randykamp.com) - MP for Maple Ridge - Pitt Meadows - Mission (Conservative)
Denise Savoie (savoie.d@parl.gc.ca) - MP for Victoria (NDP)
Blair Wilson (blair@blairwilson.ca) - MP for West Vancouver - Sunshine Coast (Liberal)

Alternatively, if you find e-mails too ethereal for your tastes, you can mail a paper letter for your MP at their office in Ottawa. No postage is required to mail your MP.

If you do not feel especially eloquent, you are welcome to use some of my verbiage below. Thanks for being a democratically-involved Canadian!

Dear Honourable __________,

I am writing to you today because I have concerns about the recently introduced Bill C-61, which deals with copyright reform in Canada.

Under the proposed new law, many harmless practices Canadians commonly partake in would become felonies. It would be a crime to unlock a carrier-locked cell phone, to rip a DVD for use on a portable video player, or to convert digitally-purchased music into another format so it can be played on different vendor's device.

With the anti-circumvention provisions in Bill C-61, media vendors could use encryption or DRM (digital rights management) software to decide when, where, and how we enjoy movies, music, software, and other media.

As a consumer, I believe that once I have purchased something, it belongs to me. I can therefore decide myself how to use it, when to enjoy it, or what to play it on. I feel that this is a reasonable assessment of ownership and that any copyright reform should take this common sense into account.

Thank you for your time.

Posted at 12:09 PM | Comments (2)

Our enemy has a name: Bill C-61.

Credit is very much due to the Vancouver Sun for its well-thought out and educated reporting on Bill C-61 (June 12, 2008: "New copyright bill aims hefty penalties"). It's quite refreshing to see the mainstream media finally get it right when it comes to technology. (Ars Technica and the Globe and Mail also have very good articles.)

Jim Prentice and the Conservative government have gone to great lengths in the bill to explain the legality of device-shifting and time-shifting. Respectively, these terms refer to moving one's legally purchased media to different playback devices, and recording broadcasts for later playback. However, both of these legal-use scenarios are made absolutely meaningless by the anti-circumvention provisions in section 41.1 of the bill.

For example, Canadians have only recently been able to purchase movies from Apple's iTunes music store, meaning the only content available for video iPods was movies ripped from DVDs. But such a practice circumvents the DVD's encryption and as such would be a criminal act under the new law. Likewise, a recording of a digital broadcast would not be legally possible if the broadcaster chose to lock their broadcast with DRM (digital rights management).

As long as media companies have carte blanche to use DRM to restrict how, when and where we can use the media we've legally purchased, the legal protection for device-shifting and time-shifting is utterly meaningless . This legal double-talk makes me wonder if the government is ignorant of the technologies they are attempting to legislate, or if they are trying to assuage Canadians through misdirection.

I can't decide which I would rather it be.

Posted at 02:48 PM | Comments (1)

This weather is really starting to piss me off.

Posted at 12:40 PM | Comments (0)

FUCK.

Okay. Let's say I take a liking to your small town. I move there, and after a few months I run in the mayoral election and win. For my first act as mayor, I decide to knock down the historic statue in the town square that has been there since the town was founded. This would make me a gigantic, arrogant, presumptuous prick, wouldn't it?

Well, that's exactly what the CBC executives have done. They decided that $3 million was too much to permanently buy the Hockey Night in Canada theme song. CTV, on the other hand, decided that it was a bargain investment. So now CTV owns the song and it will be played on TSN. Thus ends 40 years of play as the shows theme song.

40 years. "What made you think you had the right?" I would ask those executives. "Some things are bigger than you."

Undoubtedly, there are some among you who will think that this is a silly issue to be upset over. I disagree. Every piece of identity that makes Canada distinct is important. All the quirks of our shared French & English colonial heritage. Our ties to the monarchy. Our Native American culture. Our broad spectra of biodiversity: beavers, moose, loons, polar bears. O Canada. Hell, calling soft drinks "pop" instead of "soda". Anything we can cling to that will differentiate ourselves from the pervasive culture of those guys down South. Yes, in the grand scheme of things Canadian society will go on functioning just fine without them; but they are all part of our soul.

But the Conservatives are in power, and have stocked the CBC with penny-pinching businessmen who think that American television networks have all the right ideas.

I would have gladly shelled out some of my taxpayer money to save our soul.

Posted at 08:14 PM | Comments (0)

These retro-futurism t-shirts are very nice.

I'm especially fond of the "Stand Back, I'm doing Science!" Which is graphically better than XKCD's version. XKCD still takes the win with Sudo Make me a sandwich.

Gift buyers take note.

Posted at 02:57 PM | Comments (0)

Mom tried to co-op my discussion yesterday with a comment about something entirely different. On Slashdot she would be flagged "-1 Off Topic". But since this isn't Slashdot and she isn't the only one who has raised the issue I'll give her some stage time:

"Check out what remained of my angry letter in the Vancouver Sun today.

Just regret that, the Device to Root Out Evil, reminiscent of Emily Carr's coastal churches is being shipped to Calgary of all places, the seat of righteousness."

That is, the Vancouver Parks Board has removed Dennis Oppenheim's somewhat controversial sculpture "Device to Root Out Evil" from Harbour Green Park in downtown Vancouver, and will be sending it to the Glenbow Museum in Calgary.

Now of course, it's somewhat ironic that a religiously controversial sculpture can find a home in Calgary when it can't find a home in Vancouver. That being said, there are a couple of points to consider.

First of all, I'm not sure how many of you have had to look at this thing in person. When you're downtown, you feel cramped. Everything is sterile, angular, and artificial. And when you have time to walk down to the water, all you want is to be exposed to that open greenspace with a view of Stanley park. When you went to Harbour Green Park, you ran into this angular thing that felt like it was going to fall on you.

Now I'm not saying that we should never have thoughtful outdoor sculptures (and let's face it, even Device is a huge improvement over those Goddamned whales and bears that Vancouver subjected us to... God-DAMN those things are hideous... I mean, the Darth Vader and Batman ones were kind of cool, but only as a sort of countercultural statement. Anyways...) Nevertheless, I feel that an outdoor sculpture, when it's a a sort of urban-oasis-space like Harbour Green Park, should be a little more organic and unobtrusive. Placed in the environment of a park, Device felt belligerent and ugly. It actually looks pretty amazing in the gallery space.

The next issue may get me in a bit of trouble. If tomorrow, the Vancouver Parks Board decided that they were going to erect a 12-foot tall statue of the virgin Mary in a public space, many of us would probably be pretty upset, and rightly so. Why? Well it's simple: the public space belongs to ALL of us. As such, any use of the public space should reflect the sensitivities of everyone it belongs to, including those of us who don't believe in Jesus.

Hmm... unfortunately that also means that the parks board has to respect Christians who might have a problem with a sacrilegious symbol being placed in a public space.

Now, don't bust my balls, okay? Device to Root Out Evil is trying to be sacrilegious. It's placed a church, something sacred to Christians, and turned it upside-down. And if that weren't obvious enough, the ironic title contextualises it as an indictment of what the artist sees as a corrupt church that doesn't have the moral authority to provide ethical leadership. Pure aesthetics aside, the sculpture is coloured by its artistic intent.

And that's fine. The best art is often the art that provokes controversy, and thus, discussion. In a tolerant society, Device, even as a sacrilegious symbol, has a right to be created and displayed in a private space: that's freedom of expression. But tolerance works both ways. Device shouldn't be installed into a publicly-owned space any more than iconic representations of Christianity should. Certainly, nobody who thinks that all references to "God" should be removed from our constitution can turn around and tell me that Device should be allowed in a public park. That's just trading one type of intolerance for another.

We've worked hard to create a secular society, and we are uncompromising in our expectation that Christians must respect all aspects of that secularism. It would be hypocritical for that society to then publicly impose disrespect of a particular religion. It's called compromise. And let's face it: it's the only way that democracy works.

Posted at 12:53 PM | Comments (4)

Jesus... this is like the month of angry letters for me...

Dear Sir or Madam,

Today I was shocked and confused to learn that CBC has decided to ditch it's iconic theme song to "Hockey Night In Canada" after nearly 40 years.

It is baffling as to why the CBC management could possibly assume that they would ever need to replace such a timeless and triumphant work.

In fact, many of the decisions made by CBC management in the last year seem designed to spit in the face of Canada's hallowed institutions. It seems that it was not enough to pre-empt The National for a reality TV show, nor was it enough to axe North America's only remaining radio orchestra, but rather that the par for the course is to kick about Canada's favourite sports broadcast.

And while the former two offences may have gone unnoticed by much of the Canadian public, the CBC can bet that the majority of Canadians want CBC's new management to keep it's grubby managerial paws of Hockey Night in Canada, and keep them off permanently.

If the tone of this letter offends, I apologize. Nevertheless, the CBC's management would do well to remember that they will not survive as a broadcaster by alienating the most loyal members of their audience.

Thank you for your co-operation.

Posted at 03:03 PM | Comments (0)

Something horrible/wonderful has happened: I have figured it all out.

Battlestar Galactica, that is. For quite some time now the mystery has been tantalizingly dangled in front of us all. Many clues were dropped, disguised as other mysteries. And I have solved the riddle.

What is more, the answer came to me just as I was about to fall asleep. Now I'm sitting here in bed, wide awake, and as I add all the other clues in it becomes more and more ironclad.

It is truly awful.

I wouldn't dare spoil all of you. If you do want to know, contact me, and I'll fill you in.

Must go now, my late night blogging is annoying Angela.

Posted at 10:40 PM | Comments (5)