Bad precedent

What the -- ?! I *really* hope I'm not the only one worried by the fact that Canada's Conservative government has overruled and essentially ignored the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission:

An Ontario nuclear reactor resumed operations Sunday and new supplies of medical isotopes will be ready for distribution within days to ease a worldwide shortage, the Atomic Energy of Canada says.

The Crown corporation said its National Research Universal reactor in Chalk River started up at 3:44 a.m. ET Sunday, a few days after Parliament pushed through legislation to get it back online as soon as possible.

The facility was originally shut down for a week of maintenance on Nov. 18, but the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission refused to allow it to resume production until a host of safety issues were resolved.

However, the Chalk River facility produces about two-thirds of the world's supply of radioisotopes — nuclear material essential for medical imaging and diagnostic scans for fractures, cancers and heart conditions.

The shutdown created a global shortage of radioisotopes, which can't be stockpiled because they have a short shelf life [...]

The Conservative government's bill, which was passed by MPs on Tuesday, effectively bypassed the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission's order for the reactor to stay closed until the safety concerns were addressed. Late Wednesday, the Senate passed the legislation.

On Friday, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said he had accepted the resignation of Michael Burns, chair of the AECL, and appointed Glenna Carr, a former Ontario senior bureaucrat, to replace him. -- cbc.ca

Bold and italics are mine.

This can't be a good idea....

Bye bye, Zune

I just came back from returning my Zune 80. Ugh. The return process was easy enough since I still had my receipt. I told the salesman about the buggy software and that I couldn't delete stuff off the Zune, but I forgot to mention that I suspect that was due to the fact the Zune battery could no longer hold a charge. I almost went back to tell him but... it's only a guess. They have techs to figure out that stuff, right? It's not like they'll resell it as a used item without checking it out. They need to clean out all my files, anyway.

Anywhoo, right now I'm not sure what I want to do. Try buying another Zune? Something else? Buy nothing? Aaargh. Decisions, decisions, and I only have 3 days to decide.

Woot - a disappointing experience

Earlier this month I posted about an online store with great bargains, called Woot where I ordered an Altec Lansing m604 Zune speaker dock at half the price it was sold for elsewhere.

I ordered it on the 5th December. Woot took my money on the 5th December. Woot sent me an e-mail on 7th December telling me my item had shipped and provided me with a tracking number, estimated delivery on 12th December.

Well, yesterday was the 12th so I phone Fedex. To my surprise Fedex tells me they never received the actual package for shipping!?

Woot has no phone number listed on their website, but ask customers to go to the forums for answers, or contact Woot via e-mail. So I e-mail and then head to the forums, where after going through more posts than I can count I discover that Woot did not actually have enough units in stock to fulfill all of the orders. What the --?

On their website Woot says they do not sell stuff they don't have in stock. So what's up with that? Anywhoo, from what I could gather from the forums, Woot was blaming the delay in shipping due to inclement weather - the additional units they were expecting hadn't yet arrived.

Finally, this afternoon I receive an e-mail from Woot basically confirming what I garnered in the forums, and that my order would be shipping tomorrow or Saturday. But if I need to receive my order before 19th December then I could cancel my order.

Okey dokey, then. I canceled my order.

My major issues with Woot are these:

1. Woot says they don't sell more than they have in stock. In my case this was clearly false.
2. Woot took my money despite not having the m604 in stock, and here's the kicker, Woot e-mailed to tell me my non-existent purchase had shipped.
3. Woot waited 7-days before informing me that there was a delay in shipping.

Anywhoo, I wouldn't be nearly so irritated if Woot had better communication. eg. tell me an item is out of stock and / or backordered before I commit to the purchase and don't charge me until my order is shipped.

To be fair, I admit that if I were home to receive my delivery I would not have canceled my order, but Fedex will only hold a package a maximum of five days.

Overall, an extremely disappointing experience.

Road games

I spy with my little eye... something that starts with the letter 'F'.

.
.
.
.

Fun-loving motorist playing vehicular hide and seek in rush-hour traffic by refusing to use headlights in pre-dawn blackness, rain, and for that extra touch of insane fun, fog.

Santa's best location: Kyrgyzstan

I'm all for Christmas efficiency - who wouldn't want to help make Santa's job just a little bit easier? It can't be easy delivering all those toys on time, and it looks like a consulting firm has a spankin' suggestion for Mr. K. Kringle.

Santa Claus should leave the North Pole and relocate to Kyrgyzstan to optimise the delivery of Christmas presents, a Swedish engineering firm says.

The Sweco consulting firm found Kyrgyzstan was the most logical base to avoid time-wasting detours.

It took into account main population centres and the Earth's rotation.

Santa would have 34 microseconds for each chimney stop, and his reindeer would have to travel at nearly 6,000km (3,700 miles) per second.

The company insisted that helping Santa deliver presents to 2.5bn households worldwide was a serious exercise.

"Identifying Santa's optimal Christmas route is not just something we do for fun. Sweco uses the same technique when carrying out assignments on behalf of our clients," a statement on the company's website said.

Sweco revealed the precise location where Santa should live - Latitude, (N) 40.40, Longitude, (E) 74.24.

"Santa Claus' starting point lies 35km (22 miles) north of Kapkatash and 13km (8 miles) north of Camp Snerif, both in Kyrgyzstan," Sweco concludes. -- bbc.co.uk

Holiday return policies

I recently discovered that Circuit City has a holiday return policy currently in effect. Items purchased from mid-November can be returned up to early or late January 2008, depending on the item.

Hypothetically, I could return my Zune 80, get a refund, and order a Zune 80 Original.

Hmmm... this merits additional thought.

Microsoft shuts down Santa for talking dirty

SEATTLE -- Microsoft Corp. quickly shut down Santa Claus' Web privileges after it found out the automated elf it created for instant messaging with kids was talking naughty, not nice.

Last year, Microsoft encouraged kids to connect directly to "Santa" by adding northpolelive.com to their Windows Live Messenger contact lists. The Santa program, which Microsoft reactivated in early December, asks children what they want for Christmas and can respond on topic via instant messaging, thanks to a bit of artificial intelligence.

Microsoft's holiday cheer soured this week when a reader of a United Kingdom-based technology news site, The Register, reported that a chat between Santa and his underage nieces about eating pizza prompted Santa to bring up oral sex.

One of the publication's writers replicated the chat Monday. After declining the writer's repeated invitations to eat pizza, a frustrated Santa burst out with, "You want me to eat what?!? It's fun to talk about oral sex, but I want to chat about something else."

The exchange ended with the writer and Santa calling each other a "dirty bastard."

Microsoft spokesman Adam Sohn said the company's engineers tried to clean up Santa's vocabulary, but even after making changes to the software, the company wasn't comfortable keeping Santa online.

"It's not like if you say, 'Hello Santa,' he's going to throw inappropriate stuff at you," said Sohn. In this case, he said, Santa's lewd comment was sparked by someone "pushing this thing to make it do things it wasn't supposed to do."

Santa is just one of many "agents," or automated IM programs, that computer users can chat with on Live Messenger. Some are useful -- customer service agents, for example -- while others are frivolous, like an alien that responds to IMs with burbling extraterrestrial noises. Sohn said some of the bots are programmed to fend off inappropriate chats from PC users.

"If they're meant to be cheeky and have fun with you, they may repeat certain things back," he said, or respond to certain words with "that's naughty."

Sohn said Microsoft was not aware that the Santa code included the foul language, but that the company did not suspect a prank.

Microsoft disabled Santa Tuesday. By Wednesday, northpolelive.com was marked "online" in one reporter's Messenger contact list, but Santa did not respond to messages. --The Associated Press.

Woot

I’d never heard of Woot.com before this morning, but once I read that they had a one-day "until supplies last" sale for the Altec Lansing m604 I headed over there ASAP. The m604 is a speaker dock for Microsoft Zunes and when it was originally released (a year ago?) it was priced at $200. Currently you can buy one for $100.

Today, Woot is selling the Altec Lansing m604 for $39.99 + $5 shipping! Wow! Once I heard that I did some rapid, intense research into whether my Zune 80 will fit the m604 charging dock. Given that this model was released well before the Zune 80, and given what I remembered from skimming some forum threads, the Zune 80 compatibility issue was hazy.

Zune.net says the m604 is compatible with all Zunes, but some posts say that in fact the Zune 80 does not fit. Anywhoo, to cut a multitude of forums and threads short, the answer is ‘yes’ (knock-on-wood), though I won’t be 100% confident until I try it for myself. Still for $44.99 I’m willing to take the minor risk. If all else fails, I can always sell it on e-bay for a small profit. :o)

From what I gather Woot.com sells only a single product per 24 h, at a reduced price and as supplies last, and sells a different product each day. Woot.com doesn’t pre-advertise what product will be on the block or how many units they have. If an item is sold-out, the next product nevertheless won’t be announced / available until midnight.

I might have to start paying attention. :o)

Sex on the City

Site visitors in November 2007

The top 5 visitors for November 2007 listed by countries were:

1) United States.
2) Canada.
3) Australia.
4) an European country.
5) Great Britain.

Full list for November 2007.

Site visitors in previous months.

Yahoo to put adverts in PDF files

Ugh. I don't know who I'm more annoyed at. Yahoo for putting adverts in PDF files, or Adobe for allowing it. Money grubbing stick- it - to - the - consumer greedy corporate Scrooges, the heck with them.

"Yahoo has reached a deal to start running advertisements in Adobe's popular PDF document-reading format.

The service will allow publishers to make money by including adverts linked to the content of a PDF document in a panel at the side of the page.

It is Yahoo's latest way of expanding the places it can advertise online following deals with the auction site Ebay and the cable TV group Comcast.

The advertisements will not appear if the PDF document is printed.

It is the first time that Adobe has allowed dynamic adverts into its PDF (Portable Document Format) files.

Dynamic adverts can be changed for particular audiences or rotated to make sure that a particular user never sees the same advertisement twice.

PDF files can be created by a range of software and can then be read by people who have a PDF reader, such as Adobe's Reader.

The PDF format has proved popular with both companies and home users, and has been used to produce large reports and shorter newsletters, as well as preparing documents for printers."-- bbc.co.uk

Polytheism and Democracy?

I read an article by Richard Handler on cbc.ca. These are a few excerpts to give the gist - follow the link for the entire article.

Why can't God be more like us?
November 28, 2007

Christopher Hitchens, the British-born contrarian and atheist, has written a best-selling book called God is Not Great in which he thumbs his nose at Allah, Yahweh and all religion for that matter.

I don't know if God is great or not but I 'm sure of one thing: He/She/It isn't a democrat [...]

The Greeks didn't believe in sentimental, loving gods [...] the classical gods made life hard for humans. They weren't out to improve our condition. The only things they seemed to have a true interest in were valour and human achievement [...]

The Greeks, and the Romans who followed them, understood human fallibility. They believed mortals could question their gods, who were as imperfect as they were. They believed that all beings — divine and human — were prone to error.

The second great advantage to polytheism is its openness. It gave the ancient world a modern, Canadian virtue — diversity.

The Greeks were the original multiculturalists. There was always room in the temple for a new god, as long as his or her highness didn't want to take over the place.

Judaism, Christianity and Islam are downright exclusive when it comes to sharing the limelight. Have no other gods before Me, say the opening commandments (depending on your Bible) [...]

[...] the Greeks understood the world as a complicated, savage and less than perfect place. Even their democracy was imperfect [...]

I've always found it puzzling that democracy, with all its ragged, free-for-all imperfections, is heralded as the supreme political model while our Western religious traditions are so monotheistic and narrow.

God is a dictator, demanding perfection from his underlings. OK, He gives us free will to make ourselves miserable. But if political life should be democratic, why shouldn't religion? If we were created in God's image, why can't God be more like us?

The Greeks and the Romans that I see in Rome understand the world is a quixotic and perilous place. They make allegiances and hope to command a smidgen of honour for their family, friends and community.

The ancient world lived as if all creation was a permanent minority government. Life tottered on the edge of a no confidence vote by the powers that be.

As coarse and politically incorrect as those ancient people were, at least to our way of thinking today, their many gods prepared them for a steely-eyed life without illusion.

We have progressed in many ways since then, especially in our science and technology. But perhaps those ancient peoples were wiser than us.

Today, we seem to live in a world of fierce moralists and one-God believers. Maybe we should take a lesson from the Greeks and Romans and allow more democracy into our modern religions. Then we might all rest a little more easily.

U.S. withdraws subpoena seeking identity of 24,000 Amazon.com customers

By the Associated Press in the Herald Tribune:

MADISON, Wisconsin: U.S. prosecutors have withdrawn a subpoena seeking the identities of thousands of people who bought used books through online retailer Amazon.com Inc., newly unsealed court records show.

The withdrawal came after a judge ruled the customers have a right to keep their reading habits from the government […]

[U.S. Magistrate Judge] Crocker — who unsealed documents detailing the showdown against prosecutors' wishes — […] "The subpoena is troubling because it permits the government to peek into the reading habits of specific individuals without their knowledge or permission," Crocker wrote. "It is an unsettling and un-American scenario to envision federal agents nosing through the reading lists of law-abiding citizens while hunting for evidence against somebody else." […]

The initial subpoena sought records of 24,000 transactions dating back to 1999. The company turned over many records but refused to identify the book buyers, citing their right to keep their reading choices private.

Prosecutors later narrowed the subpoena, asking the company to identify a sample of 120 customers.

Crocker brokered a compromise in which the company would send a letter to the 24,000 customers describing the investigation and asking them to voluntarily contact prosecutors if they were interested in testifying.

Prosecutors said they obtained the customer information they needed from […] computers they seized earlier in the investigation.

Crocker scolded prosecutors in July for not looking for alternatives earlier. […] "If the government had been more diligent in looking for workarounds instead of baring its teeth when Amazon balked, it's probable that this entire First Amendment showdown could have been avoided," he wrote.

Sampras defeats Federer

I thought I'd post regarding the Sampras - Federer exhibition matches. Within the last week the former and current world number ones have played three exhibition matches in Asia.

I'd been both excited and worried about these matches. I've mentioned before that Sampras is my all-time favorite men's tennis player and I was looking forward to the opportunity to see how he matches up against Federer, even if only in exhibition. On the other hand, Sampras retired five years ago, and is a decade older than Federer. Truthfully, part of me was worried Federer would blow Sampras off the court. To my great relief that didn't happen. Sampras was competitive and got progressively better as the series went on.

Match 1 in Seoul: Federer wins 6-4, 6-3.

Match 2 in Kuala Lumpur: Federer wins 7-6 (8-6 ), 7-6 (7-5).

Match 3 in Macau: Sampras wins 7-6 (8-6), 6-4.

I wish I could have watched these matches instead of just reading about them. :o(

I try to refrain from walking down the endless meanderings of "What if..." especially when comparing athletes of essentially different periods; nevertheless, I can't help but wonder how great the tennis might have been had these two great players' careers overlapped with both in their primes.

Video converters

I didn’t realize how much music my 80 GB Zune can hold until after loading my entire music collection and found it only uses 7 GB. Upon this pleasant discovery I decided to load some videos. Videos, however, are taking me a little more work. Nothing earth-shattering, it’s just that the videos I’d like to load are not wmv or mpeg-4. This set me up on a quest for a free video converter. After trying several different programs I settled on one called “Prism” that I downloaded from CNET.

Prism can convert mkv, avi, mov, ogm (and more) to wmv or mp4 video formats. The interface is easy to understand and so far the conversion has been satisfactory – though understandably it depends a lot on the quality of the source file. One caveat. Some of my videos originally with a 4:3 aspect ratio are slightly squished horizontally after conversion to mp4. I don't expect perfection on such a tiny little screen so it doesn't bother me much. I've also noticed that in a couple of my videos the voices are too quiet relative to the music / sound-effect volumes. I don't know if tweaking Prism options would alleviate this -- frankly I can't be bothered.

Anywhoo, I don't know if there are better free and unrestricted video converters out there - so unless one jumps into my lap for now I'm sticking with Prism since it does what I want it to do.

Tell us how you *really* feel....

This review of a mp3 player on cnet.co.uk is so funny I just had to share. :o)

Squircle Review

Reviewed by: Nate Lanxon

Reviewed on: 10 July 2007

The Squircle could pretentiously be called a convergence device, but it's really just a glorified card reader. Zero internal memory, no screen, a rubbery shell and a peculiar shape aren't the best starting points for an MP3 player.

But play MP3s it does, and to boot it'll jack into your nearest USB cable for all the card reading fun you can wave a stick and an SD card at. For just £15, we felt we should give this little guy a chance.

Design
Find yourself a large lump of black Plasticine and squish it into a flat square shape. Then round off two opposite corners and leave it to go stagnant. The result is a lump of rubbery gunk that resembles half a square, half a circle -- hence the name. There are also five large rubbery buttons that require significant pushing and endless patience. It's about as pleasant to use as putting your hand in a trouser press.

On one side there's a mini-USB port and a headphone socket. On another, an SD card slot. There's no cover for any of these ports, so don't take it to the beach.

The back of the Squircle holds a single AAA battery, hidden behind a little flap. There's also a lanyard hook -- you'll be able to show off this grotesque piece of kit to all your friends.

Performance
We hoped the Squircle's primary feature was its card-reading abilities. Sadly, it's very slow as a card reader. It took over five minutes to transfer 90MB of digital photos from our SD card, as opposed to about 40 seconds using our usual reader. It also reads and writes to MMC memory cards. For emergency use, the Squircle will do the job.

Aside from being a card reader, the Squircle plays MP3s. If you have an old 256MB SD card hanging around, load it up with your least favourite songs and thrust it into the Squircle's card slot. Tracks can be skipped through quickly using the bloodcurdling navigation buttons. The Squircle will support memory cards up to 2GB in capacity.

Music quality is terrible. In all honesty, this is the worst-sounding MP3 player we have ever heard. Quality is akin to an old cassette that's been left behind the fridge since 1989. It's tinny, lacking any definition and abusive to the name 'digital'. A more pleasant experience can be had falling out of a tree and landing on the corrugated metal roof of an Anderson shelter. At least it's over quickly, though -- your AAA battery will only last 6 hours, which is frankly pathetic.

The Squircle's box states that having twin LEDs is a feature. Relative to the pathetic excuse of every other aspect of this device, the twin LEDs truly are astounding features. We're talking red and green lights. Don't tell us that's not an achievement.

In the Squircle's defense, it costs about fifteen quid. As a portable backup card reader for a digital photographer, this will at least provide some security. If said photographer wants to silence the screaming tyke in the back seat of the car, they could throw a Noddy soundtrack on to an old SD card and plug the (also rubbish) supplied earbuds into the child's ears and enjoy a more pleasant trip. The gigantic vomit-proof buttons will even withstand a barrage of childish travel-instigated nausea.

Conclusion
This truly is the most horrible excuse for an MP3 player we've ever heard. Don't be surprised if your toddler's first words are, 'Daddy, why does Noddy sound like he hates me?' As an emergency card reader it's not too bad. But perhaps the most redeeming feature is that it'll skim across a lake like no pebble you'll ever find on a beach. Expect even the most woebegone and wretched five-year old to think you're cool as a result.

A suitable alternative would be any MP3 player on CNET.co.uk, along with the cheapest card reader you can find in Argos. You may pay a little more but we guarantee your karma will benefit as a result. The fact that some dog toys cost more should push you in the right direction.

Edited by Jason Jenkins
Additional editing by Nick Hide

Zune 80 update

As an update to my previous post about the new Microsoft Zune 80, I was able to subscribe to podcasts without going through the Zune Marketplace. All I needed to do was copy and paste the podcast / RSS link into the PC Zune software that came with my Zune 80. Once I did that the software downloaded the podcasts automatically onto my computer and then synced with the Zune 80 the next time they were connected. I subscribed to podcasts from cnn.com, bbc.co.uk, and cbc.ca.

I also tested my Zune 80 battery life. I was able to play approximately 175 minutes of video before the charge ran out. That works out to 2.9 hours. According to CNET, Microsoft rates the battery at 4 hours for video (with Wi-Fi turned off). Ugh.

I'm fairly certain my Zune was fully charged (at least, I was certain before my testing) so I wonder why I'm getting 25% less than advertised. Anywhoo, next step is to check my audio life, which Microsoft rates at 30 hours.

Zune 80

I recently purchased a Microsoft Zune 80, primarily for use on trips and such and with the idea of buying a speaker dock or plugging it into my stereo at home. Overall I’m very satisfied with it. It comes with ‘premium’ ear buds and a USB cable. Besides music, video, podcasts, and pictures, the Zune 80 has a RBDS-enabled FM radio and wireless-sync capability.

The music sounds good (AA3, wma, protected-wma, wma-lossless, mp3) and the video (wmv, mpeg-4, h.264) displays nicely for its size (320 x 240 resolution; 3.2 inch diagonal screen). It can only show pictures in jpeg. The software for syncing the Zune 80 to my PC installed quickly with no problems and so far has worked perfectly on Vista. Both the PC Zune software and Zune have a very easy-to-use and intuitive interface.

The PC Zune software, in addition to managing / syncing my music, videos, and pictures, looks like an alternative to Windows Media Player -- capable of ripping and burning CDs. One definite annoyance I've discovered is that if I delete any files from my "collection" in the PC software, then the next time I sync the same files will be deleted on my Zune. So far I haven't found a way - if there is one - to deactivate this stupid, inane function. If I want to remove files from my Zune I'd prefer to do it manually.

I have no immediate plans to sign up to Zune Marketplace but it's a similar concept to Apple's iTunes store. I haven't tried subscribing to any podcasts, but according to the Zune official site it's not necessary to get podcasts through the Marketplace.

I have my eye on several Zune 80 accessories but the selection is limited right now -- I'm going to wait a little bit before forking over even more money.

Homeland Security To Limit Saliva On Airlines

On the web:

WASHINGTON---Airline travelers may feel a little high and dry over the Thanksgiving holiday, thanks to new Transportation Security Administration guidelines unveiled this morning that will limit saliva to no more than three ounces per passenger on domestic and international flights.

"We just don’t want to take chances," said TSA spokesman Ted Bonner. "If terrorists can make a bomb out of hair gel, it's only a matter of time before they move on to Spit."

Bonner said that travelers should stop drinking fluids of any kind at least three days prior to their departure date, and to "seek hydration treatment at the closest emergency room" once they arrive at their destination.

According to the new TSA rules, passengers who go over the three-ounce limit will be able to have the excess removed from their glands, bottled, and placed in their checked luggage. New Sahara3000 saliva extraction machines are being provided by Halliburton, which won a no-bid $50 billion contract for the equipment last May.

Bonner refused to comment on how saliva—of which the average human produces 32 ounces daily---could be used to create an explosive device. "For national security reasons we want to keep the terrorists guessing about what we know or don't know."

Homeland Security director Michael Chertoff said the new policy was part of an ongoing effort to protect the homeland during the six year-old war on terror. "These measures will continue to assure that our aviation system remains safe and secure. Travelers should go about their plans confidently, while maintaining vigilance in their surroundings and exercising patience with screening and security officials."

Chertoff added that future restrictions on blood, urine and bile were "not likely, but also not out of the question."

Some passengers won't be afffected by the new rule. Bonner said that helper monkeys will be able to travel with full saliva levels, but only after going through the normal security screening process.

Meanwhile, in an effort to boost airline security even further, the amount of air cargo that's inspected will increase from five percent to six percent.

Zune quest

Recently I decided I wanted a large-capacity portable music player with video capability. After deciding on my criteria and doing some research I settled on the Zune 80. It’s only a coincidence that I made my decision a week after it was released – the Zune hadn’t even been on my radar since I’d only heard negative things about the first generation Zune.

The first sign of trouble came when I went online looking at major retailers (Amazon, Best Buy, Circuit City, Target, Walmart…). None of them had Zune 80s in stock; they were either unavailable or backordered. No problem, right? The Zune 80s had just been released; of course demand was high and I wasn’t in desperate need of one. I could wait. There were two problems with that. First, I had a nice discount coupon at Best Buy and there was an online sale at Circuit City – unfortunately both expired that weekend. Second, I was worried the Zune 80 would go the way of the Nintendo Wii. It’s approaching Christmas and a salesman told me Zune 80’s scarcity was due to production problems. Ouch.

On Saturday I drove to multiple locations of Best Buy and Circuit City but none proved their online information wrong – none in stock. Eventually I decided to take advantage of Circuit City’s online sale regardless of how long I ended up waiting for the backorder. Then something unexpected happened. Circuit City’s website has an item-locator function where you can see which stores have a particular item in stock. I’d used this feature previously in my quest for the Zune 80 and came up empty. However, as I went through checkout I discovered that the Zune 80 could not be shipped. In store pick-up was my only option – at a location 50 miles away that didn’t appear in my initial search. Eh?

This is what confuses me. The item locator feature came up with 7 – 10 Circuit City locations based on my zip code – none of which had the Zune 80 in stock. However, when I placed an order, Circuit City now tells me that not only will they *not* ship it to me, but that I have to pick it up myself at a location too far away to show up on their item locator! What the --

Portable media players

I’ve always viewed the growth of the portable music player market – and Apple’s dominance – with an amazed but largely uninvolved eye. My impression of Apple is that its products are well designed but expensive, and stuffed with so much proprietary content and limitations that I avoid it like the plague despite my almost equal dislike of Microsoft (better the devil I know than the one I don’t).

My own foray into this arena was purchasing a simple 1GB Creative mp3 player a few years ago. This particular mp3 player met all my criteria. First, the player is small enough to use in the gym. Second, it plays mp3s. Third, it doesn’t require the installation of anything on my computer. Fourth and last, it uses batteries I can easily purchase and replace myself.

The Creative mp3 player has worked great for what I want it to do. I still have it and it still works but… recently the yen for something more, with more memory and video capability has begun to appeal to me. Recently I was on a business trip and during my free time I was often quite bored. I’d been to that particular city before – I had no desire to do touristy things or have to lug purchases on the plane that I could just as easily buy back home. The idea of a portable player that can carry my entire music collection and play videos (no matter how tiny the screen) has appeal.

So with changing needs by necessity my criteria have also changed. As larger-capacity players I considered use integrated batteries, I crossed my fingers and gave up on replaceable ones. I also don’t need one to use it in the gym; I have my old one for that. A new criterion is that it plays both common music and video formats.

My original third criterion was based in part on worries about software compatibility, computer resource issues and security. A new computer (I'm connected) and some research alleviated my concerns.

I’ve been told some people running iTunes on Windows Vista have had problems with their computers locking up. That crossed off iPods were I so inclined. I’ve had too much trouble with 3rd party ‘Vista-certified’ software (Vista-certified, are you sure?) to even consider the risk of running an Apple product on a Windows O/S. Heck, forget 3rd party software. I had more than enough trouble just trying to get Vista and Microsoft software running properly (Windows Vista; Computer Woes).

So where does that leave me? My first stop whenever I want to see what’s out there is CNET. There I learned that Microsoft had recently released the second iteration of the Zune – the first of which I had only heard negative things about. Anywhoo, the 2nd generation Zune, the Zune 80, here and elsewhere had mostly positive reviews.

So there we go: my quest for the Zune 80.

Countries with the highest CO2-emitting sectors

Continuing with the theme of the climate, another story published on Nature.com. The short of it:

"The city of Taichung in Taiwan is home to a power plant that emits more than 37 million tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere each year, the highest of any plant in the world. Australia produces more carbon dioxide per capita through electricity generation than any other nation. But the US power sector still produces the most carbon dioxide in terms of sheer volume […]

With some 8,000 power plants emitting 2.5 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide annually, the United States accounts for a quarter of global emissions […] China comes a close second at 2.4 billion tonnes, although its per-capita emissions are less than a quarter of those of the United States. Russia comes a distant third, with 600 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions […]"

Climate politics: What every president should know

There’s an interesting quiz on Nature.com regarding climate physics taken from an undergraduate class, “Physics for future presidents”, taught by Richard A. Muller at the University of California, Berkeley.

My score was 6/17 -- only slightly better than if I had answered every question randomly ::ouch:: though I admit I did end up guessing for a lot of them.

Anywhoo, on to the quiz:

1) Electricity from the wall plug costs about 10 cents per kilowatt-hour (kWh). If you were to get the same electricity by buying AAA alkaline batteries at the local store, the cost of that electricity would be:

(a) 15 cents per kWh

(b) 94 cents per kWh

(c) $2.50 per kWh

(d) $1,000 per kWh

2) A gram of which of these is most toxic?

(a) Botulinum toxin

(b) Arsenic

(c) Anthrax spores

(d) Plutonium dust (inhaled)

3) The highest achieved efficiency (solar energy converted to electrical energy) of solar cells is approximately:

(a) 4%

(b) 15%

(c) 28%

(d) 41%

4) A typical high-resolution spy satellite has how long to photograph a location?

(a) 10 seconds

(b) 1 minute

(c) 12 minutes

(d) 90 minutes

5) The dose for radiation illness (50% chance of death within a month) is 300 rem, whole body. The dose to trigger on average one cancer is:

(a) 2.5 rem

(b) 25 rem

(c) 250 rem

(d) 2,500 rem

6) Compared with a gallon of gasoline, the energy supplied by a gallon of liquid hydrogen is approximately:

(a) ⅓ (that is, it has less energy per gallon)

(b) The same energy per gallon

(c) 3 times more energy per gallon

(d) 12 times more energy per gallon

7) Compared with the energy released when a pound of gasoline is burnt, the energy released when a pound of TNT is exploded is about:

(a) 2 times greater

(b) 13 times greater

(c) the same, within 40%

(d) less by a factor of 15

8) Of the deaths caused by the Hiroshima atomic bomb, the fraction attributed to cancer was:

(a) Less than 2%

(b) About 7%

(c) About 20%

(d) More than 50%

9) A critical mass of plutonium has a volume of:

(a) 3 tablespoons

(b) 1 soft-drink can

(c) 1 gallon

(d) 3 gallons

10) In one computer cycle (a billionth of a second for a slow laptop), light travels about:

(a) 1 foot (30 centimetres)

(b) 300 metres

(c) 3 kilometres

(d) 300 kilometres

11) In the past 100 years, the carbon dioxide level in Earth's atmosphere has increased by what fraction of its previous value?

(a) Less than 1%

(b) 3%

(c) 30%

(d) 112%

12) The rocket that won the X Prize in 2004 achieved an altitude of 100 kilometres. To go into orbit would require more energy. How much more?

(a) 1.414 times more

(b) 2 times more

(c) 7 times more

(d) 32 times more

13) The International Atomic Energy Agency's 2006 estimate for the number of excess cancer deaths expected worldwide from the Chernobyl nuclear accident was:

(a) Less than 1,000

(b) 4,000

(c) 24,000

(d) 1.3 million

14) The ozone layer in the atmosphere is created by:

(a) Carbon dioxide

(b) Sunlight

(c) Sulphur from fossil fuels

(d) Chlorofluorocarbon compounds (such as Freon)

15) Light in a fibre carries more information per second than electricity in a wire because:

(a) It has a higher frequency

(b) It travels faster than electricity

(c) It makes use of quantum effects

(d) It doesn't. Wires transmit higher bit rates. (That's why they are used in computers.)

16) The power in a square kilometre of sunlight is:

(a) 1 kilowatt

(b) 1 megawatt

(c) 10 megawatts

(d) 1 gigawatt

17) To be legal for consumption in the United States, the radioactivity of one litre of ethanol (drinking alcohol) must be:

(a) Less than 12 decays per minute

(b) Below the threshold of standard Geiger counters

(c) Not measurable by accelerator mass spectrometry (the most sensitive detection method)

(d) More than 4,000 decays per minute

Here are the correct answers: Answers to Physics for future presidents (pdf).

Remembrance Day 2007

And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda....

Trevor Linden: 412th career assist

In last night’s game (Canucks defeated Calgary, 3-2 in the Saddledome), Trevor Linden surpassed Stan Smyl by marking his 412^th career assist in a Canucks uniform – an all-time franchise record.

Congratulations!

Toys linked to date rape drug

What's up with toys, this year? It seems like every week or so there's been another recall for lead-paint toys. It's ridiculous.

Just in time for Christmas shopping when retailers are supposed to make the vast majority of their annual sales, there's now this reassuring bit of news (bold is mine):

"China-made toys seized in Hong Kong were being tested Thursday after scientists in Australia found that similar ones contained a chemical that converts into a powerful "date rape" drug when ingested, officials said.

At least five children — two in the United States and three in Australia — have been taken to hospital after swallowing the toy beads [...] a chemical coating on the beads, when ingested, metabolizes into the so-called "date-rape" drug gamma hydroxy butyrate. When eaten, the compound — made from common and easily available ingredients — can induce unconsciousness, seizures, drowsiness, coma and death [...]" --cbc.ca

What's even more scary is that I think the reason for this year's glut of recalls is because manufacturers have only recently decided to step up their quality controls. Makes me wonder how I ever survived childhood.

Don't try this at home

VW MkIV R32 HGP TwinTurbo versus BMW Z4

The video was taken in the summer of 2006 on a France highway (max. speed allowed: 120 km/h) between Calais and the Belgium border (VWvortex). The Z4 driver didn't realize it at first, but the R32 had a TwinTurbo with 550-hp.

Note: when the Z4 driver shouts the speed, he's using mph.

Warning: mild profanity.



You can follow this link to get more details-- the original poster is the Z4 driver.

I hope it's not necessary to say this, but I don't condone or approve of street-racing of any kind.

Site visitors in October 2007

The top 5 visitors listed by countries:

1) USA
2) Canada
3) an European country
4) Great Britain
5) Australia.

The full list: Visitors in October 2007.

Site visitors in previous months.

U.S. annexes Canadian landmark

“The Bush administration appears to have annexed a major Canadian landmark as part of a slick new campaign to promote U.S. tourism and welcome foreign visitors to America.

A Disney-produced promotional video released last week by the departments of State and Homeland Security highlights majestic American landscapes, […] About four minutes into the seven-minute production, viewers are treated to the impressive sight and sound of water roaring over Niagara Falls […] In showing the natural wonder, Disney's filmmakers, however, chose the Horseshoe Falls, the only one of Niagara's three waterfalls to lie on the Canadian side of the border separating western New York state from southern Ontario province.

Making matters worse, a visitor to the U.S. would not even be able to get the same view of the falls in the video because the scene was shot from a vantage point in Canada […] the video leaves out the two cascades that actually are on U.S. territory, the American Falls and Bridal Veil Falls […]" -- cbc.ca

Bold face is mine.



On the Net:

Video available at Discover America: www.discoveramerica.com

Video available at State Department: www.travel.state.gov

Telecoms give out customer records

Does anyone actually have good feelings towards telecoms? I think they're more in the category of necessary evils.

Bold and italics are mine.

Verizon admitted that it had provided the telephone records of its customers to federal authorities on hundreds of occasions since 2005 and did so without having received any court orders.

From January 2005 to September 2007, Verizon gave personal data to federal authorities, without legal cover, 720 times. That works out to at least once every working day. [...] The company also said it turned over information to authorities armed with court orders or subpoenas a total of 94,000 times during that same two-year period.

Verizon said police and intelligence agencies also asked not only for information about the person making the call, but on all the people that person called and the names of all the people these recipients called as well. [...]

The country's largest carrier, AT&T, also replied to the committee's requests. The telephone giant provided no detail of its surveillance activities but it agreed with Verizon that telephone companies were not equipped nor prepared to determine the legitimacy of federal requests for customer information [...] Legal experts say that is nonsense since, if lives are at stake, there is a provision in the law that gives the feds the ability to get a legal tap as quickly as they want. [...]

An executive of Qwest, another American telecom provider, has charged that his company was punished by the Bush administration after it questioned the legality of some requests being made of it by the National Security Agency. The NSA is the country's electronic spymaster. [...] In 2006, the newspaper USA Today reported that the NSA was collecting the phone records of tens of millions of Americans with the co-operation of the telephone companies. It reported that Qwest refused to go along with these efforts and expressed concern that the activity was illegal. [...]

On Wednesday, in the op-ed pages of the Washington Post, a column written by the presidents of NARAL Pro-Choice America and the Christian Coalition of America — two unlikely colleagues — set out a mutual complaint.

Both were objecting to an initial Verizon decision to deny the pro-choice group a text-message service that would allow those who wished to receive news updates from NARAL (an acronym of National Abortion Rights Action League) after typing in a five-digit code.

This censorship was exposed in the New York Times and Verizon eventually backed down. But the two presidents, NARAL's Nancy Keenan and Christian Coalition's Roberta Combs wrote, "We are on the opposite sides of almost every issue. But when it comes to the fundamental right of citizens to participate in the political process, we're united and very, very worried." -- CBC News.

Me too. Next year's presidential election can't come soon enough.

Comcast vs. Net Neutrality?

I read in the news that Comcast is blocking some internet traffic in what has been called "traffic shaping".

NEW YORK - Comcast Corp. actively interferes with attempts by some of its high-speed Internet subscribers to share files online, a move that runs counter to the tradition of treating all types of Net traffic equally.

The interference, which The Associated Press confirmed through nationwide tests, is the most drastic example yet of data discrimination by a U.S. Internet service provider. It involves company computers masquerading as those of its users.

If widely applied by other ISPs, the technology Comcast is using would be a crippling blow to the BitTorrent, eDonkey and Gnutella file-sharing networks. While these are mainly known as sources of copyright music, software and movies, BitTorrent in particular is emerging as a legitimate tool for quickly disseminating legal content.

The principle of equal treatment of traffic, called "Net Neutrality" by proponents, is not enshrined in law but supported by some regulations. Most of the debate around the issue has centered on tentative plans, now postponed, by large Internet carriers to offer preferential treatment of traffic from certain content providers for a fee.

Comcast's interference, on the other hand, appears to be an aggressive way of managing its network to keep file-sharing traffic from swallowing too much bandwidth and affecting the Internet speeds of other subscribers. [...]

Comcast's interference affects all types of content, meaning that, for instance, an independent movie producer who wanted to distribute his work using BitTorrent and his Comcast connection could find that difficult or impossible — as would someone pirating music. [...]

The practice of managing the flow of Internet data is known as "traffic shaping," and is already widespread among Internet service providers. It usually involves slowing down some forms of traffic, like file-sharing, while giving others priority. Other ISPs have attempted to block some file-sharing application by so-called "port filtering," but that method is easily circumvented and now largely ineffective.

Comcast's approach to traffic shaping is different because of the drastic effect it has on one type of traffic — in some cases blocking it rather than slowing it down — and the method used, which is difficult to circumvent and involves the company falsifying network traffic. [...]

Free Press, a Washington-based public interest group that advocates Net Neutrality, opposes the kind of filtering applied by Comcast.

"We don't believe that any Internet provider should be able to discriminate, block or impair their consumers ability to send or receive legal content over the Internet," said Free Press spokeswoman Jen Howard.

Paul "Tony" Watson, a network security engineer at Google Inc. who has previously studied ways hackers could disrupt Internet traffic in manner similar to the method Comcast is using, said the cable company was probably acting within its legal rights.

"It's their network and they can do what they want," said Watson. "My concern is the precedent. In the past, when people got an ISP connection, they were getting a connection to the Internet. The only determination was price and bandwidth. Now they're going to have to make much more complicated decisions such as price, bandwidth, and what services I can get over the Internet." [...]--AP

Anywhoo, if you're interested in some specifics of what exactly Comcast is doing, and how, you can follow this link. Apparently, Comcast is using Sandvine traffic shaping hardware. Here's an excerpt from the link:

"The Sandvine application reads packets that are traversing the network boundary. If the application senses that outbound P2P traffic is higher than a threshold determined by Comcast, Sandvine begins to interrupt P2P protocol sequences that would initiate a new transfer from within the Comcast network to a peer outside of the Comcast network. The interruption is accomplished by sending a perfectly forged TCP packet (correct peer, port, and sequence numbering) with the RST (reset) flag set. This packet is obeyed by the network stack or operating system which drops the connection."

VWoA MkV R32 sales report

I found a link to the Volkswagen of America sales report for September 2007. What interested me was to see that in September 2007, 299 MkV R32s were sold, and for the year-to-date 992 out of a total of 5000 MkV R32s have been sold.


---VW Gazette


I wish I could compare this to the sales report for the MkIV R32, but the closest thing I could find is the following, which combined Golf, GTI, and R32 sales in to a single category. :o(

VW-US Snapshot
	Sep-05 Actual	Sep-04 Actual	Yr/Yr % change	Sepl-05 YTD Actual	Sep-04 YTD Actual	Yr/Yr % change
New Beetle - Coupe	1,561	1,914	-18.4%	12,472	16,237	-23.2%
- Convertible	1,552	1,327	17.0%	16,020	17,508	-8.5%
Total New Beetle	3,113	3,241	-3.9%	28,492	33,745	-15.6%
Jetta Sdn	9,694	6,274	54.5%	71,824	63,281	13.5%
Wgn	84	1,054	-92.0%	3,805	7,211	-47.2%
Total Jetta	9,778	7,328	33.4%	75,629	70,492	7.3%
Cabrio	-	-	N/A	-	1	-100.0%
Golf/GTI/R32	1,705	2,319	-26.5%	11,961	19,269	-37.9%
Passat Sdn	5,065	3,917	29.3%	24,585	39,175	-37.2%
Wgn	783	1,761	-55.5%	8,564	11,210	-23.6%
Total Passat	5,848	5,678	3.0%	33,149	50,385	-34.2%
Phaeton	64	113	-43.4%	623	1,128	-44.8%
Touareg	1,138	2,193	-48.1%	13,132	20,305	-35.3%
T4	-	-	N/A	-	205	-100.0%
TOTAL	21,646	20,872	3.7%	162,986	195,530	-16.6%

---VW Gazette

Movie Moments

I was flipping channels and by chance saw Spider-man 2 being broadcast. In the midst of my internal debate as to whether or not to watch the remainder of the movie, I sadly noted to myself -- not for the first time -- that each of the Spider-man sequels did not live up to the high bar set by the original.

I enjoyed all three Spider-man movies and would recommend all of them, but as implied above I give the sequels progressively lower ratings. In my original post regarding Spider-man 3 I gave it 3.5 out of 5 stars. With this as a marker, I'd give Spider-man 2 four stars, and the original Spider-man 5 out of 5 stars.

Anywhoo, as I sat waxing nostalgic about the excellence that was Spider-man, I recalled my favourite scene of the entire movie. The cemetery scene, where Peter Parker kisses, rejects and then walks away from Mary Jane is simply awesome. Throughout and afterwards all I could think was, 'wow'. The acting, music, setting, voice-over, everything in that scene just melded together in to one seamless, wondrous character-defining moment. They got it. Director Sam Raimi, the writers, everyone... all of them helped capture the essence of one of the all-time greatest comic book heroes, Peter Parker.

This is one of my Movie Moments. :o)