Oracle 10G Oracle will soon be releasing their new DB, and boy oh boy, are IT shops in for a load of change. To start with, the database has been optimized for grid computing - the term used to describe parallel, distributed and dynamic sharing, selection and aggregation of geographically distributed, autonomous data sources (where geographic can be vast distances or the database in the box a few feet away). 10G will also host a web development environment to allow ease of application development. It will contain both the repository to hold metadata and the engine that renders and process the code. For those who are greeting this as a big wow, be aware that Domino has had this for quite some time now - though the Domino database is architected in a completely different way. Clearly Oracle is out to milk the mid-market playing field with 10G, and naturally, Oracle will be going around touting their new inventions: grid computing and html databases.
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Ontario Election So, we're headed into an election this week, and I've been trying hard to ignore any media coverage of the whole spectacle. I don't need the aggravation - I don't mean the aggravation of the electoral process - we live in a democracy and everyone should exercise their democratic rights - by God, it's the only time the bastards listen to us anyway. Liberals - 47.5% Dalton McGuinty PC - 31.3% Ernie Eves NDP - 17.3% Howard Hampton (data of the voting intentions of Ontarians, as per the latest EKOS poll ) What a poor and limited choice. I'm leaning more and more towards the NDP - not that I think they have a chance in hell of forming the next government, but because I really have no idea what Howard Hampton looks like. In my self-imposed media exile, I've managed to avoid seeing the man's face completely. Because he's the incumbent, Ernie Eves has suffered the worst of my wrath. I don't lik...
The Pioneer Program I was just surfing through the Pioneer Project's site. Reading through some of the material there made me think of how challenging, amazing and adventurous working on those missions must have been. The human race has come a long way, the world is much smaller, and the legacy of those baby steps into the solar system are still going. Pioneer 10 is now about 7.8 billion miles away (Voyager 1 passed it in 1998), and the last attempt to contact the spacecraft failed in Feb. of this year, most likely due to low power. Pioneer 11 last transmission was received in 1995, and it hasn't been heard from since. Pioneer 10 and 11, will take 2 & 4 million years respectively to reach the stars who's direction they're heading in. I wonder if they will be remembered then ... I wonder if people will be around to remember them then ... and more optimistically, I wonder if we'll be there to watch them arrive at their destinations - now that would be cool!
Can Weblogs make money? Some people are betting on it, and are willing to make a go at it, but acknowledge that it's going to be hard. There are two ways to generate revenue from blogs: 1) ad revenue, or 2) syndication. Both requires traffic to driven to the blog site, which in turn requires compelling content. With the amount of free content out there however, the road to riches will be hard. Still, others dream. (I'm not dreaming however.) Apparently, the key to making cash at this is filling a niche market, and making this your full time job. Being a journalist doesn't hurt either.
Virtual Prison Tours Some US prisons are offering online, virtual tours of their prisons - the message being sent to think twice before you ever do anything wrong. Some sites include photos and criminal records of inmates on death row, as well as high resolution images of the electric chair. I don't think that would be much of a deterrence though ... most criminals commit crimes because they think they can get away with it.
UofT Colloquia If you like to keep up to keep up with the latest in the research arena of various subjects, there's no better place than the free talks sponsored by the local universities. Here's what UofT has to offer: Physics Colloquium - talks range in topic, and carry titles like, 'Quantum control of photons and atoms', 'Neutrino Astronomy at the South Pole: First Light', and 'Self-Organization of Atomic Samples in Resonators and Collective Light Forces.' For the schedule and details of the talk, check out the site. Anthropology Colloquium - if things long dea is your cup of tea, check out talks with titles like, 'Health and Civilization - Another Look', 'Isotopic and Dental Evidence for Diet from the Necropolis of Isola Sacra, Italy', 'The Evolutionary Biology of Menstruation', and 'Studying Early State Formation in Mesopotamia and Madagascar.' Applied Mathematics Colloquium - check out the talks at this site....
Top 10 Richest Forbes magazine has released it's top 400 list - the annual ranking of the 400 richest Americans. The top 10 goes like this: Bill Gates ($46BB), Warren Buffett ($36BB), Paul Allen ($22BB), 5 of the Waltons siblings (total of $100BB amongst them), Larry Ellison ($18BB) and Michael Dell ($13BB). Together, the top 10 richest Americans account for $955BB in wealth!
Space Elevator - Critics welcomed From Wired Online: The Space Elevator movement is actively seeking critics of the idea, in order to scrutinize the concept for practicality. The Space Elevator is basically a long cable, secured on Earth, and attached to a platform in orbit. An elevator would then ride the cable up, giving us extremely cheap access to space. Over the next couple of years the Space Elevator movement would like to secure the concept as practical or not, in order to either shelve the whole idea or move ahead with developments.
Amazon had large cities Just when you thought we had been everywhere, seen everything and know it all about our world, along comes a discovery like this. Or, just blame it on our Eurocentric view of the world. After all, there was no civilization before Rome. Right. A new report, published in the journal Science , used archeological and satellite evidence to conclude that the northern Amazon was densely populated with an advanced and complex society, that used the forest withour destroying it. They found nineteen evenly spaced villages, that were linked by parallel, straight roads - implying use of mathematics.
Goodbye Galileo Today, the Galileo spacecraft will complete its final task of its eight year long mission to the outer planets. Its final task will commence with a skip across Jupiter's atmosphere, before plunging into the gas giant. Galileo will continue sending data as long as it can. Despite early problems with the spacecraft, Galileo has performed exceedingly well, and it is probably one of NASA's most successful spacecraft. It has sent back a wealth of information that still hasn't been sifted through by researchers yet. Some highlights include its witness of the largest recorded explosion, with a comet plunging into Jupiter; the first picture taken of an asteroid with a moon; many close flybys of the moons of Jupiter, including one where it flew through a volcanic plume. But, like all human made things, it must come to an end ... and today, it's the end for Galileo. (I wonder what Galileo would have thought of his namesake?)
Microsoft vs. Google The battle lines haven't drawn. The war hasn't really been declared. But Microsoft has said enough. MS wants a search engine, and aren't willing to buy. They're going to build it, in the hopes that it will surpass Google's. We've all seen it before. I'm not sure if we should start mourning Google now or not.
Changes for Importers The US Homeland Security bureau has rapidly been embarking on a number of initiatives to secure the US borders, and just about everyone of their initiatives would have an impact to Canadian importers and exporters. This is an old article, written in July, but it's still quite on topic. The direction the US is heading in is to get advanced notices of importing cargo before they arrive on US soil ... seeing that a hell of a lot of Canadian imports come through US ports, this will have an impact to Canadians. But not a bad one from a business perspective. It will cost money in the short term to implement new processes and associated systems, but the long term efficiencies that business will obtain from having more data before a shipment lands will more than pay for the money spent today. Especially with the direction the CCRA is pushing Canadian importers in .
Al-Qaeda today An article from Time Magazine: it's incredible to see the changes in the US media two years after the 9/11 attacks in the US. Immediately after 9/11, and then with the Bush administration's "war on terror," the media didn't question, didn't raise doubts, didn't argue ... nothing ... now, after two years, the questions are being asked. But what if the media had been objective in the beginning - would Bush had been successful in mounting a campaign in Iraq? A campaign that's bogged down US forces, and lend support to terrorists and anti-Americans? Had the media questioned - had American's questioned - Bush's motives were hardly for the good of anyone other than himself. He stated it clearly that he was after the man who tried to kill his Dad. Like that's an excuse for the thousands of Iraqis dead, or the daily deaths of US soldiers in a war that really wasn't just.
MIT OpenCourseWare Check this out. I first heard about it from a friend reading the Toronto Star - which probably got the idea for the article from Wired Magazine ... MIT has a pilot project in the works to put their entire course materials online, free for the world to access. They're doing it to advance knowledge. Noble. Incredible. Amazing. Free information for the masses. And it's true.
Europe to Iraq I had this debate with an American colleague at work last week ... what to do in Iraq ... how the world perceives the US ... etc., etc. The US is finally realizing that while they carry the sledgehammer, they will find it difficult to operate the delicate operations of a scalpel. They're asking for help ... even if it's a bit reluctant. George W. does have some face to save. Remember, the boy is from Texas. This is where it would have important if Canada had an army, and not just a few people with the wrong uniform and hulking, rusting, old equipment (but I digress). Looks like the Europeans (eastern) are willing to send people though - although for various political reasons that are nothing more than selfish opportunism ... but hey, the Bush administration isn't about to look a gift horse in the mouth. This is more about image than anything else. The promise if only for about 10,000 troops. It's nothing compared to the 150,000 American troops a...
Nefertiti a man? Discovery channel aired a special on the dead Egyptian Queen a few weeks ago. It was bad. Filled with commercials, and a lot of 'drama.' The multitude of Bristish accents added to the pain. All the hubbub was over the supposed finding of Queen Nefertiti's mummy. 'Yeah, right!' to paraphrase Egypt's antiquities chief, who contends that the mummy might actually be that of a male, and therefore not Nefertiti. Hmmm ... maybe Nefertiti was a man, and not actually a woman. Has anyone ever thought of that? Maybe her and Akhenaten were just gay, but had an empire to run. Makes perfect sense for me. In fact, we have absolutely no proof that Nefertiti should have been a female. We're simply imposing our assumptions on the past.
SIRTF NASA's Space Infrared Telescope Facility is finally running through calibration. The telescope is the last of the large observatories NASA had planned. The telescope took its first image recently as part of getting its system shaken down. The telescope promises sharper, richer images of the universe as it comes online.
The Wee Free Men It's the latest Terry Pratchett book, and it was written for kids. Personally, I don't think it's for kids. Kids will miss much from this book. The legions of Pratchett fans however will enjoy every bit of it. The book is set on Discworld, but introduces a completely new land and new characters. Here's what the cover flap says about the book: There's trouble on the Aching farm - a monster is in the river, a headless horeseman in the driveway and nightmares spreading down from the hills. And now Tiffany Aching's little brother has been stolen by the Queen of the Fairies (although Tiffany doesn't think this is entirely a bad thing). Tiffany's got to get him back. To help her, she has a weapon (a frying pan), her granny's magic book (well, Diseases of the Sheep, actually) and - 'Crivens! Whut aboot us. ye daftie! - oh, yes. She's also got the Nac Mac Feegle, the Wee Free Men, the fightin', thievin', tiny blue...
Mental Health and Well-being Here's another survey from StatsCan that was conducted in 2002 with over 36,000 repondents. The survey looked at the health status of the population, the use of mental health care services and what factors influenced mental health. The findings are not that surprising for me ... Canadians are just as likely to suffer from major depression as they are from other illnesses such as heart disease and diabetes. The survey looked at the differences between males and females, different age groups, and those that sought professional help. The survey also tried to correlate the findings with socio-demographic information, income, stress, medication use and social support. Take a look - you probably know someone who suffers from depression, and this just goes to show you ... they're not alone.
Immigrants to Canada face a hard time I'm an immigrant - my parents came here when I was young, so this one I can vouch for personally. A recent survey of immigrants to Canada by Statistics Canada shows that it just about sucks to be one. The biggest conclusion for me is that finally, there are numbers to prove what immigrants have been saying for a long time - their qualifications are usually dismissed by Canadians, and they find themselves in entry level jobs in sales or general labour. Alarmingly, over half the immigrants surveyed, did not find jobs in the same field after immigration ... which goes against the work our foreign embassies do to get certain skills into Canada. The survey looked at other aspects of immigrant lives, such as where they moved to in Canada, what kind of help they got, what education they brought, etc. The conclusion states that "starting life over in a new country is not always easy." NSS. Read the brief for yourself, it's availab...
RIAA grants amnesty The RIAA continues their stupidy ... now they're granting an amnesty from lawsuits to anyone who admits that they've been pirating music online, deletes their library and promise never to be naughty again. Amusing. Who's going to admit? Well, for a start, there will be a few morons. They always are. Probably the kids of music execs. But why bother? The RIAA can continue to sue their customers or embrace the new medium. One way they win, the other they lose.
Synthetic Diamonds I recently bought my wife a diamond right. It was painful. The research, then the search. I was looking carefully trying to find Canadian diamonds, yet wanting to stick to one of the established jewellers, as I wanted the warranty, and someone to sue if they screwed me over. I ran into excuses after excuses for not having Canadian diamonds, and eventually, I had to settle for a diamond from somewhere in Africa. I was trying my best to avoid blood money diamonds - diamonds acquired by exploiting people in Africa, and the money used to fund wars. de Beers . They control the diamond trade, as they've controlled the diamond trade since the Europeans wandered into Africa and started the slow rape of the continent. It continues today. Diamonds are not precious. Diamonds are not rare. Diamonds are actually plentiful and that makes them less precious. It's a supply and demand issue. de Beers has a strangle hold on supply - as they have a strangle hold o...
Univerity of Toronto's various Speaker Series University of Toronto's Centre for the Study of the United States: Speaker Series - this is mostly politics, economy and societal differences between Canada and the US. UofT's Centre for Innovation Law and Policy is a great site for a look at global political issues. They also have a speaker series (that has nothing booked right now) with archives containing the PowerPoint presentations. UofT's Bookstore Speaker Series - usually talks by an author who has just published a book. There are sometimes interesting speakers.