Toronto Street Festival
Lots of things happening this coming weekend in Toronto. Competing for my time now is not only the stuff at Harbourfront (see below), but also the Toronto Street Festival ... what to do? what to do? and who's willing to do it with me? Hmmm ...
Posts
Sensors, Sensors
They're coming, a whole lot of them, and soon, the already saturated airwaves will have even more data using up frequency gaps. (Data smog anyone? or just dasmog?) They will also be a whole lot better than the sensors of today. Today's sensors are usually stationary data collectors that send data to a central processor for dissemination and interpretation. Tomorrow's will create wireless, intelligent networks that will not only share information, but also interpret and make decisions based on the information at hand. (I remember reading an article a little while back about the same concept being used to produce small, sub-orbital satellites that can link up and create networks, thereby increasing their usefulness and intelligence.) The range of applications for such devices can be anything from monitoring industrial processes, buildings and large scale infrastructure (bridges, roads, etc.), vehicles, climate conditions, all the way to military applicatio
Harbourfront
For a couple of weekends now, I've been going to Harbourfront with my youngest (she's the musician) on Friday nights, to enjoy the summer festivals. This past Friday saw the launch of the Canada Day celebrations, featuring acts that are very Canadian. Friday night's act, Veda Hille , was OK, but a little too weird for my tastes. We didn't stay for the other performances, as a cool breeze came in without warning, and drove us away. The previous weekend was similar - we had to leave early for other reasons. I'm hoping that this upcoming weekend, I can actually spend sometime enjoying the performances there, as it's the Blue's Festival , which should be very good.
Living Machines
The goal of bio-mechanical research has always been on totally artifical organs - afterall, that's where the glory is - being able to developed a completely artificial heart, or lung, or whatever other critical organ to keep us going. How about an intermediate step however? A cyborb organ if you will? Well, Univeristy of Michigan internist, David Humes, has done just that - he's managed to create a bioartificial kidney - a pastic device packed with kidney cells, that in clinical trials, is showing some promise. Read the article at MIT's Technology Review, or click here to download the PDF version .
TV Advertising faces Reality
The common wisdom for advertisers marketing on television has always been: the more popular the show, the more people will watch the ads; the more viewers a show gets, the more people will watch the ads. Oops! According to TiVo, which has the ability to track how many ads their viewers watch, that isn't the case. In fact, the more popular the show, the less likely that ads will be watched. The reverse is true - the less popular a show, the more the ads will be watched. Makes you wonder if you'll see more bland, boring shows being delivered to TV in order to capture more eyes. Not that any of this bothers me, I don't watch much TV. I can see the day though, when your movies will come complete with ads not at the beginning, but scattered throughout the flick. Don't say I didn't warn you!
Card Collecting to the MAX!
Well, I never thought ... you know all those sports cards that you see kids and those nerdy men (who you think probably still live at their parents home) collect? The ones when on display at your local mall is as much a spectacle for the people who're hawking them? Well, Topps , the biggest of the makers of sports cards, has taken collecting to another level ... and then some. Imagine collecting, trading, buying and selling, cards that you will never see; cards that are rare; cards that are in such pristine condition, that if you got your gloved hand on it, it would quickly lose value. Topps seems to have pulled that off. On a site hosted by eBay , Topps is sellng cards that the buyers can't have. The cards are sealed away in a cool, secure warehouse, and their only presence is online. Buyers and sellers then go at it. And they're doing it with a vengenance. A new stock exchange is born. Read the Wired article for more ... just when
Santa?
Only one person should try nighttime adventures via a chimney, and that's Santa. This burglar would have done well with this advice. He tried to use the chimney to gain access to a restaurant to rip it off, got stuck, and had to be freed by police of three hours of personal time to contemplate his idiocy. Funny thing was, the restaurant keeps no cash overnight, and the chimney led directly to the basement.
HardDrives just got bigger
From MIT Technology Review: Researchers have figured out a way to shore up the magnetic energy in certain ferromagnetic materials, making them less susceptible to thermal fluctuations - the major physics barrier to storing more data per area. The results will be larger drives. Will we need the higher capacity? Well, once the MPAA & RIAA gets their heads out of their butts and face inevitable future that's already here ... yes.
Rage Against the Machine
This is a great band. I was listening to the Darkness of Greed driving in this morning. Pounding beats with a social conscience. Another great song of their's is Take the Power Back . I like quite a few RATM songs. It's rap, hip hop with a lot of hard rock thrown into the grind. Here's the lyrics to Darkness of Greed:
Greed!
Causing innocent blood to flow
Entire culture, lost in the overthrow
They came to seize and take whatever they please
Then all they gave back was death and disease
My people were left with no choice but to decide
To conform to a system, responsible for genocide
Responsible for genocide
Responsible for genocide...
Spoken:
'AIDS is killing the entire African nation
And a vaccine is still supposedly under preparation
But these governments they don't mind the procrastination
They say "We'll kill them off, take their land and go there for vacation."'
My people's culture was st
Onward Christian Soldiers
Stories like this wish that I could squish some heads like the boys used to do on Kids in the Hall. I'm not Christian. I find some its stories interesting, some of its believers good people, some screwed ... in other words, just like the rest of us. Christianity also happens to be the dominant religion of the world. It was in the name of the Christian god that a lot of evil was committed as Europeans raced across the world, fed by hopes of a better life, escape from persecution and greed. I happen to think the evil that was done far outweighs the good. But that's history. History that shouldn't be forgotten, history that should have its truths told and lies revealed. We can learn from them, so as to not repeat the same mistakes again. Life goes on. We can make a better world for tomorrow by the way we live our lives today, not by going back to the past and try to recreate what would today be artificial. There ... that was my level set
Finding Nemo
I was taken to see the movie on Father's Day by my girls. I've always been a fan of Pixar Studio's work, and this one was no exception. The animation, the characters ... it was all well done. It's amazing the characterizations the animators could produce with fish. I highly recommend this movie for anyone with kids, as it will keep the little tykes occupied for a couple of hours. As a date movie, it would be great as well. While North Americans continue to think of animation as kids fare, it's not, and this movie, although it has a 'G' rating, is entertainment for anyone seeking entertainment. It's just plain fun!
Italian Job
I went out with the guys to see this. It's a guy movie. There ain't no redeeming quality to this movie. It's about guys being cool (OK, they had a cool girl too - but she was for the guys to be cool, showing that cool girls are OK too). It's about guys bonding. It's about guys sticking to their morals, even if they're crooks, so you already know they have misguided morals. It's about guys who want to be bad, because it's cool, but not too bad so you can't be seen as good either. Did you know that good bad guys are in it just for the score? Yes! Not for the guns. Oh no, no guns! And certainly not to hurt people. These are bad guys with morals after all. Now having said all that (laced with sufficient sarcasm), I do have to say it was an entertaining movie. Who doesn't want to pretend? Who doesn't want to imagine that they can speed around like crazy in one of those new Minis ? That's a cool car! For all of yo
Genetic Programming
I'm reading Digital Biology - I had to put it down for a little while to get back to work and real life, but I picked it back up again. The part I just finished reading introduced me to genetic programming (GP). In its most basic sense, GP is all about computer programs that evolve. Code that's written to evolve in order to solve problems. For instance, if your code was a piece of GP, then for instance, you would tell it that 1999 may be a problem, and that the program is needed to work in 2000 and beyond. The program would then evolve code - it would change itself, adding, modifying, growing, ... evolving if you will, to meet the new demands. The title link will take you to "a source of information about the field of genetic programming." There is a wealth of information at the site, including a short tutorial to introduce you to the field, lots of illustrations, papers, and even a flowchart of genetic programming . Another good place t
Hulk's manhood?
Well, I think it should be more like 'monsterhood,' but nevermind. Who would have thought? I know I never did. Whenever Bruce Banner changes into the Hulk, his clothes gets ripped off, but his pants stay on. Shouldn't his pants rip off as well? Apprarently, Director Ang Lee thought about that too. (But no, you won't be seeing the Hulk's swinging in the new movie.)
Waste
Justin Frankel , creator of WinAmp , Gnutella & Shoutcast, quietly posted the code for a new piece of software on Nullsoft's website last month. A few hours later, it was quickly yanked from the site by parent company AOL , and replaced with a warning that everyone who downloaded the code is to destroy it immediately. The same thing happened two years ago when Frankel posted the code of Gnutella. What is Waste? Waste is a decentralized, encrypted chat program that allows specified folders on a users computer to be shared. While the code is still in beta, enough coders now have their hands on it, and enough mirror sites are up distributing the code. Waste is about to evolve. Where will it go next? As for Frankel ... while he's a respected programmer, his antics and bad boy image (read: he cares about programming, not protecting media giants or skirting the law) have apparently pushed AOL too far. Looks like he's either going to quit , or they're goi
The Wired 40
Wired Online has just published it's Wired Index (now called Wired 40), ot the most innovative companies. Topping the list is the privately held Google . The love affair with Google is apparently seeing no end. You'll also find Nokia, IBM, Yahoo!, eBay, Amazon.com, Microsoft, and some non-tech firms like GlaxoSmithKline, FedEx, Wal-Mart and L-3.
See-thru skirts? Skirts with panty prints?
I got this email at work today with a couple of images (click the link to see them) showing women, fully dressed, wearing skirts, but not just any skirts - see-thru skirts. You can see the women's panties that is. The email claims that it wasn't really see-thru skirts, but apparently skirts with panty images printed on them - and this was an apparent fad in Japan. Well, this is a hoax on top of a hoax. Second hoax: the images are from Japanese porn magazines. They're not some fad happening in Japan. I can't for the life of me imagine women wearing skirts with printed panties on them. The idea of it being a fad of Japanese women is probably supposed to entice western males who don't know better. Whatever the reason for the hoax, it's apparently doing the rounds on the net, and coming to an inbox near you soon (if not alreaady). First hoax: the Japanese porn magazines that actually produce these images, claim
Move over Hummer, meet MaxiMog
Designed by a very rich guy, for scientific research. Think of where Indiana Jones could have gone if he had one of these. And he would have probably looked a little less rugged for the trip, thanks to the luxuries that this beast contains. MaxiMog was designed by Bran Ferren, formerly of Disney. He's an engineer, a designer, and probably a few other things thrown in. He wants to explore the world for scientific reasons and take pictures. MaxiMog is built by Thomas Ritter's Unicat, a German company. And since Ferren has made MaxiMog's plans freely available, Unicat can make the machine for anyone with the money. The vehicle is street legal, even passing California's strict emissions standards. It comes with a trailer that gives camping a new meaning; a motorcycle; an unmanned aerial vehicle; power generators; around seven computers; a communications suite that allows you to be in contact with virtually anyone, anywhere in the w
MRAM
It has the potential to revolutionize personal computing devices - it has the potential to make PCs boot up like the lights when you flip the switch. MRAM (magnetic random access memory) has been under development by IBM since the 1970s, and recently, IBM and Infineon AG, which formed the joint venture, Altis Semiconductor , announced plans to start commercializing MRAM . The speed at which computing technologies have been hitting the market implies that you could see MRAM products hitting the market as early as 2004, with computer manufacturers replacing DRAM with MRAM soon after. IBM has received massive funding from DARPA to get some of this work done. The defence department is interested in having computing devices that retain its memory after the power has gone off. The possibilities of the technology are limitless.
Microsoft sinks into the Movie Industry
Fangs that is. Apparently the release of the Windows Media 9 Series was aimed at more than just another player for the all the media on your harddrive. While it is undoubtedly one of the best media players around (and it saddens me to say so), Microsoft may have more plans for the technology than they're letting on. Could they really be after Hollywood? If so, what the hell happened to Apple ? Hopefully Apple will continue to develop its technology to at least bring some competition to the space.
Linux Rocket
Another from Wired Online. Amateur rocket enthusiasts are using the Linux OS to help give their rockets the smarts they need to fly. While the rockets are in no way professional, capable of carrying payload or instruments into space, they do serve to exemplify what off the shelf equipment can do. There is actually hope that these guys can get their rockets into orbit - that would be a feat for an amateur group. Kinda makes me want to start playing with rockets again!
Fotolog
I just found this site courtesy of Wired Online. It's a cross between a weblog and a gallery site like Webshots. The only difference between the two has been log nature of Fotolog. So, I created an account for myself , just to try it out for a little while. The site is free, but it only allows you to post one photo per day. The site, according to the Wired article, currently has a little war going on. A war between the serious amateur photographers, and Brazilian webcam-girls. Apparently, the Brazlians outnumber other groups on the site, and have been posting a lot of personal, sometimes scandalous pictures. The serious types are offended by this, as they don't want to see Fotolog become just a cheesy personal site, a teeny-bopper site, or anything else than a haven for semi-serious amateurs, or serious amateurs. I'm of two minds of the place, but I'll stick around long enough to see if it's of any use for me, or how the fight goes.
Port Perry Drive
My wife and I went for a drive this afternoon. The weather was cooperating a little. There wasn't the weekend rain we were expecting in Toronto. We headed east on highway 7, with no destination in mind, the music blaring, the windows down. You would think summer was here. We decided to make our way up to Port Perry - a place we had found ourselves this past winter, in search of a shop that promised lots of magical creatures, with a touch of enchantment - we were disappointed to find only a few figurines of faeries and the like. We found however, a nice little cafe, the Pantry Shelf, that served freshly baked scones, tea, soups and sandwiches. So, after meandering a little on highway 7, we decided that Port Perry for a tea (ain't that so British?) was just what the day was going to give us. The weather was good, and so was the music, so we didn't stop off anywhere along the way. We passed through Locust Hill, the outskirts of Pickering , Brougham,
One Love (Bob Marley)
One Love! One Heart!
Let's get together and feel all right.
Hear the children cryin' (One Love!);
Hear the children cryin' (One Heart!),
Sayin': give thanks and praise to the Lord and I will feel all right;
Sayin': let's get together and feel all right. Wo wo-wo wo-wo!
Let them all pass all their dirty remarks (One Love!);
There is one question I'd really love to ask (One Heart!):
Is there a place for the hopeless sinner,
Who has hurt all mankind just to save his own beliefs?
One Love! What about the one heart? One Heart!
What about - ? Let's get together and feel all right
As it was in the beginning (One Love!);
So shall it be in the end (One Heart!),
All right!
Give thanks and praise to the Lord and I will feel all right;
Let's get together and feel all right.
One more thing!
Let's get together to fight this Holy Armagiddyon (One Love!),
So when the Man comes there will be no, no doom (One Song!).
Hav
Google
Who would have thought? There's more to Google than meets the eye as this article from MIT's Technology Review proves. If you're like most people, you just go to Google, and type in your search - blindly. But, if you take a few minutes to learn how to use the search engine, you might actually get more value out of it. It's like every piece of software - it will do as much as you want it to do, and not much else. Of interest to me was the find that there is a Google Labs site , where you can find, among many other goodies, papers written by a lot of Google folks over the years. Other points of interest from the article: Froogle , Cookin' With Google , Googlism , and Googlefight . Checking out Google's other services will reveal a wealth of other information rich Google sites.
Harbourfront Centre Festivals
Ah ... summer. It's not quite here yet. Today it was freezing, the rain was pouring, and from my desk at the office, I was sure I saw specks of white stuff floating in the air (no, I'm not going to say it). Coming home tonight, I had to have the heater on in the car. It was cold. Regardless, summer is coming. It's inevitable (say that with an Agent Smith voice). WIth summer time, are my plans to take in the free shows at Harbourfront - my youngest will hopefully find some of these appealing, as she is the only one I can possibly count on for some consistent company at these events:
Sol Soulstice : June 20-22
Anthems & Icons : June 27-29
Labatt Blue's Festival : July 4-6
World's Fare: The America's Now : July 10-13, 18-20
Francophonix : July 25-27
Free Flicks : Weekly, July 3-Aug. 23 (This for my eldest and I.)
Guinness Island Soul : Aug. 1-4
Masala! Mehndi! Masti! : Aug. 8-10
Gobsmacked! : Aug. 15-17
Video-game ban lifted
I wonder sometimes about the US. Their continued slide to right-wing conservative-fundamentalism continues (and there's a mouthful I just don't believe I just said). The state of Missouri had sought to ban violent video games from minors because they would be harmful to minors. The ruling came down on the side of the video-games producers. I agree with them. I also agree with the contention that kids should not be exposed too much unsupervised violence. Violence is a part of our world. Even if we go back to the 'utopian' days of the 1950s in North America. Violence was prevalent then too. Just not in mainstream media. However, it's not the place of the courts to raise our children. The comment by the St. Louis County counselor, that "It means the kids can rent video games without their parents' permission" is a load of hog-wash. If parents aren't aware of what their kids are doing, they shouldn't be parents.
Bloggers @ G8
Wired Online reported that blogging has taken on a new importance in the latest G8 meeting. Protesters who had blogs were updating their sites frequently on the happenings at the summit protests, and their reports differed from what the mainstream media reported. It's not surprising the difference, especially in opinions of what was happening. Protesters have always been marginalized (I personally think they're a bunch of kooks), and the mainstream media treats them that way. While I'm a little left in my opinions, I don't see a problem with globalization as many of them do. I do find merits in their stance for forgiving 3rd World debt, stopping war, not be a total ass ... things of that nature. I just don't see the problem with globalization. The world is getting smaller. Big business, little business, just plain business, is not that bad. There are many more opportunities in the world today than there was yesterday. Stopping globalizatio
Chris Sheppard
OK you bozo! You know who you are. Just because you have clients you never want to speak to again is no excuse for not telling them that you have a new cell number. It's been about a year and a half, and I'm still getting the calls! When I find out your number, I'll be happily giving it out! Oh, and I think I may have lost you a few clients. I was uncooperative. Go figure! Kind like you. You must be a sales guy.
Natives
Here's a bunch of links to sites that may be of interest for your work B.
Native Web : a good place as any to start. Click on the resources tab to see if that organizes things well for you. If that doesn't work, you can always supply a search criteria and cross your fingers. (Use the Google search from the main page!)
Aboriginal Digital Collections : from the government of Canada.
Confirmations
Last week was an interesting week for me, with my two very close and personal encounters with Catholicism. Two family friends had their kids confirmation this week.
The first one had the Cardinal presiding over the ceremony. It was bad. He was a perfect example of how irrelevant the Catholic church is making itself to the youth. He mumbled through the ceremony, making a few unwise cracks, that no one could hear or find funny. The whole ceremony was not centered around the kids, it was around him. How important he was, and how lucky we all were to be in his presence. But that wasn't what bothered me about the ceremony. I sat there and saw the glorious multi-cultural Toronto - and what I saw were Catholics. I'm sorry, but Catholicism was never native of Asia or Africa. I got angry, when I saw the different non-European faces, kneeling, and praying, and declaring how they've sinned to Cardinal and the Pastor. No. That's just wrong. T
Shadowbane Hacked
I found this amusing. Shadowbane, a popular online game was hacked. Usually, when people hack games, it's to grant themselves god-like powers, or make themselves rich, etc. Not this hack. The hackers turned the game ruthlessly on its players. The population town of Shadowbane was moved to the bottom of the sea, where they all drowned. City guards attacked residents. Superpowerful creatures spawned out of nowhere and began killing game characters. All hell broke loose. I'm not sure what the motivation would be for hackers to do this, but whatever it was, this was just too funny a story!
My Cat
Before the cat we have now, I've never had a pet. My wife, and the girls have had pets before - cats. They're used to them. Every now and again, our cat, Angel, does something that just leaves me wondering - just what exactly is the little beast thinking? I was just in the washroom, and like many nights when I go to the washroom, Angel follows and stands outside of the door. Tonight, like on a few other occasions, she came with her toy mouse. First, he batted the mouse under the door in the washroom. I saw it coming in, and decided to ignore it. Angel sat patiently outside the door waiting. Eventually, she figured I just wasn't getting it. So in she reaches with one paw, grabs her mouse and takes it out under the door. Moments later, she bats it back in. This time it came in further. Again, I decided I wasn't going to play, so I ignored her. Previously when she's played this game with me, the expectation is that I would send the mouse flying b