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RIS News and Gartner have completed their 14th annual technology study of the retail industry. The study polls the retail industry and compares the findings with past technology trends to give a view of how the industry invests in and employs, technology. The study concludes that for the first time, "retailers are linking technology with core business processes and making capital investment based on a fully aligned strategy." This "new era of alignment indicates the role of the CIO and the corporate view of technology continue to grow in importance." Other key conclusions that emerge from the data include: Real-time retailing is gaining importance IT budgets will continue to grow POS upgrades remain a focus for stores Self-checkout will emerge in new retail markets Stored-value cards are reaching maturity RFID continues to gain momentum.

Check out Metisse -- an experimental X desktop -- or a 3D GUI desktop for Unix. "3D?" you say. Yes, 3D. The desktop simulates a 3D environment on you flat monitor. Not sure how much this will catch on, but if it does, expect Microsoft to have it in a future version of Windows.

This is a funny one. The Bush administration has denied a freedom of information request seeking the Justice Department's database of foreign lobbyists. According to the DofJ, the act of copying the database would bring the system down and cause devastating data loss. In other words 'no.' Hmm -- copying a database would cause it to crash -- why is the government trying to hide the lobbying activities of foreigners from the American people?

I've been to a few movies recently: Fahrenheit 9/11 -- saw this with some of the guys from work tonight. The movie was, as expected, quite leftist. Michael Moore did use the facts to the best of his advantage of portraying Bush and his inner circle as sometimes buffons, sometimes evil, selfish, calculating men who are manipulating the American public for their own financial gain. While some of it may be true -- and I believe the truth is somewhere in there -- I think he gives Bush a little too much credit -- Bush is not that smart. Regardless, the American public should see this movie. Blood: The Last Vampire -- I saw this movie on DVD, on my laptop instead of sleeping. It didn't seem that long -- I found out afterwards it was about 45 minutes only. The characters didn't get that well developed. The movie is an anime, set in 1966 Vietnam, and is about a mysterious girl, one of the originals, that hunt down and kill vampire monsters -- and she does it hack-and-slas

Regulatory compliance. The very utterance makes businesses squirm -- and there's more coming. Businesses may soon have to make their data and processes secure against cyberterrorists in the name of securing the national infrastructure -- I read somewhere that 85% of the public infrastructure is under private control. Trying to stay ahead of government legislators, businesses are hoping to regulate themselves by creating guidelines that they can adhere to. Read more at Baseline .

Toronto Trek is here this weekend. The cost for admission though is pretty steep. If I go, it will be on Sunday, and it will be for the entire day -- why spend $40 and not be able to get your money's worth? Money's worth -- the whole exercise seems designed to rip you off of all cash. Even the stars that are attending the show are charging for autographs! I've been out of the loop for quite sometime. Since when was this the norm? Anyway, the show isn't just about Star Trek -- it's really SciFi in general. And the entertainment value in seeing some freaks can't be passed up.

Harbourfront Centre's World Fare lands this weekend, starting Friday night. There are dancers, musicians, arts & crafts, and lots, and lots of food! There's actually some dance that I want to see, and as usual, I like to try different music. Friday night I'm interested in seeing Kiran Ahluwalia and Besh o droM -- and maybe even the Nouvel Expose Dance workshop. On Saturday, I'm interested in seeing Tandava and David Murray & the Gwo-Ka Masters . I usually take my camera -- hopefully, they haven't clamped down people taking pictures of the performers.

I posted Nathan P. Myhrvold's article [PDF] from the May 2004 issue of MIT's Technology Review last month . The May issue of the magazine focused on invention and the power of innovation. Here are other articles of interest from the magazine. Woz Goes Wireless [PDF] -- Steve Wozniak is combining wireless technology with the global positioning system -- the results? You'll be able to find anything, anywhere -- including the needle in the haystack. Kurzweil's Rules of Invention [PDF] -- Ray Kurzweil has invented many a things, and has come up with the seven stages in the evolution of technology: precursor, invention, development, maturity, false pretenders, obsolescence and antiquity. Inventions become successful not by the inventor knowing this stages, but knowing the right time to introduce your invention. The Sound War [PDF] -- meet Ed Norris and Joe Pompei. They've both invented the same thing independently -- a way of localizing sound waves so that spe

Who says you can't blog at work? Well, maybe your boss doesn't like you wasting your time on the internet, but more and more companies are starting to see the benefits of allowing their employees to blog at work. Read the article in BusinessWeek.

BusinessWeek has uncovered some disturbing evidence of Boeing 's treatment of their female employees and the ensuing coverup to hide evidence of wrongdoing. In 2000, 38 women took Boeing to court alleging pay discrimination. Boeing's response to the class action suit was to deny doing anything wrong, then withhold information from lawyers, the court, and even going so far as to have evidence destroyed. The evidence that Boeing tried to suppress, and later was forced to release, showed that Boeing knew that its hiring and rewarding practices singled women out and discriminated against them -- and further, Boeing did nothing about, suppressed the findings internally, because it was too expensive to fix their discriminatory practices. What I found most shocking about this was that Boeing female senior managers knew about this and supported it. They collaborated in sustaining Boeing's gender bias.

The Register reports of a man trying to extort $17 million from MicroPatent, LLC, an intellectual property firm that packages patent and trademark information for law firms. The man used unsecured Wi-Fi access from a couple of homes and dentist office to send emails requesting the $17 million, for which in return, he wouldn't reveal sensitive patent information. He covered his tracks pretty well. At one point, MicroPatent even tried using a web-bug to trace who was harassing them. All to no avail. Police got their break when the extortion demand requested that MicroPatent to "make the check payable to Myron Tereshchuk."

You would never visit a new place without a handy-dandy map to get you around -- and so, people with too much time on their hands and a good education, have created a map to the Simpsons home town of Springfield. The map has been officially recognized by Harvard College Library, who have added it to its links of interactive maps on the internet. Only in America. Next, I think Homer should be made a candidate for president -- already many people look to him for guidance during his weekly, sometimes daily, addresses to the nation. [ Darren, thanks for this one too! ]

Whitehouse.org declares today to be "June 28, in the Year of America's Lord Jesus 2004" with the smiling George welcoming visitors from the banner pic, and so begins the parody of the Whitehouse and the government of George W. Infused with profanity and a skilled Photoshop artist, the site uses the Bush camp as humor mill fodder. A definite must see, must read for fans of the president.

This site bills itself as having the largest collection of superstitions on the net. While the site shows that people have over time invented superstitions for just about everything, the site lacks history. It doesn't capture where the superstitions came from or why they were developed. Only if you're bored check out this site.

Here's a site dedicated to the world of building implosions. Whether it's imploding a building to clear way for a replacement, or just blowing buildings up to reclaim the land, ImplosionWorld aims to chronicle world of buildings coming down -- for entertainment and education.

It all starts on Wednesday, June 30th, and runs to July 11th. This 16th annual festival features 950 performances of 128 plays in 21 venues. That's a lot of theatre -- and unless you have no job, no life, and have money, you ain't gonna see them all. To get the most our of Fringe, you'll have to plan. First, you'll need the master schedule -- it comes in three parts: Part 1 , Part 2 and Part 3 . Second, you'll need to know where all the shows are located -- so you'll need the Map ! Lastly, you can order tickets for your shows online . With some planning, little sleep and your friends to share the shows with, you're bound to have a good time.

As regulators, both public and private, descend on businesses, more and more, businesses are responding by turning to software vendors to be rescued. The sales people of course are out in force, and are promising everything from vapourware to actual applications. Can the software offerings save businesses? Well, not really. Any business looking for a quick fix via software is going end up with a bad surprise. Software can't really help if you don't have the business processes in place to make you compliant. All software does is enable business processes -- automate, give efficiency and provide a digital filing cabinet.

InformationWeek has an article updating efforts by retailers to collaborate with their suppliers. Efforts have been underway for years with retailers and suppliers spending a tidy sum -- they've met with limited success however. The annual VICS conference usually bring renewed calls for more collaboration, with practitioners taking the podium to elucidate on their latest successes. So why aren't retailers and suppliers seamlessly sharing information yet? The article tries to answer that, and the usual sorry excuses for data synchronization project failures are the culprits. Namely: good clean data is hard to come by; changing processes to ensure clean data isn't always that easy; trust; and realizing the ROI.

IDSA's Industrial Design Excellence Awards for 2004 have been awarded. Check out the 130 winners from the 12 categories. The IDSA site also has some pretty good articles for the design-minded individual, such as: the Design Trend Report [PDF], as well as links to articles else on design.

Here's a dude with too much time on his hands (I'm envious). He's rigged his motorbike with a computer, running FreeBSD -- think of it as case modding to the max! The computer currently only functions to receive video being captured by his helmet-cam, but he's got plans for it to log tracks from his GPS as well as power his iPod. I hope I'm not the only one that thinks this is cool!

The 3rd Annual Space Elevator conference starts tomorrow and runs until the 30th in Washington, D.C. The conference covers all aspects of getting a space elevator off the ground, with presentations by the scientists working in the field. I'm hoping that the presentations from the conference will be posted to the site after the conference is over. Last year's presentations are online . [ Thanks for the link Darren. ]

If you understand the movie the Fast and the Furious (I didn't see the movie), you'll probably understand this show. It's about pretty cars, fast cars, girls who hang off guy's arms and macho boys. It comes the weekend of July 17-18 to the Markham Fairgrounds. I don't get it. If you get it, explain it to me please. Maybe it's too cool for me.

Toronto is bursting with fruit -- so declares Toronto's Pride Week site. The week long celebration of Toronto's lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual, transgender, intersex and queer people culminates on Sunday with the big parade -- yes, straight people are welcome too. I think it's cool for Toronto to celebrate our diversity -- and here's to the day when there will be no Pride Week, because it just won't be something so different and out of the ordinary.

This was surprising -- Spider-Man being redone as the friendly neighbourhood crime fighter for the streets of Mumbai. Spider-Man's mythology will be rewritten for an Indian audience, with Spidey being an Indian. Instead of Peter Parker, welcome Pavitr Prabhaker -- instead of the Green Goblin, menacing the citizens of Mumbai will be Rakshasa. The comics will be published by Gotham Entertainment Group of India, with Marvel Comics possibly publishing versions for North America.

This came courtesy of one of the comments from my blog. It's a site with lots of cool flash movies! [ Thanks 'Nessa! ] A few I like: Jesus vs. Muhammad , Super Mario Reloaded , and a whole lot more!

Harbourfront's Summer Festivals kick off this weekend. Starting Friday evening and running through to Sunday is Ibutsa Rwanda: Commemoration & Celebration. Ibutsa means "those who know must tell." It's a reminder of the 100-days of hell in Rwanda in 1994, when over one million people were murdered. Friday night features two films: Journey Into Darkness and The Killers -- both quite depressing. The weekend features arts, crafts, music and dance, as well as films. There is not much happy in the films -- and there's quite a few of them. The unfortunate thing is that those who don't need to see the films -- those that don't need to be moved, will be there seeing the films. Those that hate -- those that are bigots -- those people who really need to see the horror, will not be there. Considering after WWII that the world vowed never to let it happen again, we failed miserably in 1994. The voracity of scourge that descended on Rwanda was terrifying

The festival kicks off tomorrow night and will run until July 4th. The festival features more than just Jazz, there's also lots of arts and crafts.

If you would like to have my posts delivered directly to your mailbox -- why? Cause you're just lazy, or you find my thoughts so, um, thought-provoking, that you don't know if you could live without them and aren't in a hurry to find out if you can ... you can join my mailing list and have your daily dose of me. Send me an email to: floccinaucinihilipilificate-subscribe@yahoogroups.com to join the mailing list.

Read this disturbing report from the Public Citizen , on the policy of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund in last couple of decades to use its economic and political influence to force third world counties to private their natural resources, including water. Under the scheme, the World Bank and IMF gets private first world corporations to own the water supply, including rain water, of third world countries. The results have been damning [PDF]. Social upheaval, including riots and deaths; escalating water rates; lack of investments; and environmental disasters. Who does the World Bank work for? Certainly not the poor of the world. Don't think the third world citizens are going to be the only ones screwed. Read the Center for Public Integrity's report: The Water Barons to see how widespread this has become.

Drugmakers are being accused of derailing objectivity in scientific research -- well, duh! Let's see: if drug makers lie, withhold negative results, spin results so that they appear positive, or hire consultants to write positive reviews then pay doctors to sign as authors, then they're only doing what's best for their business. They can hardly be expected to be socially responsible. They can hardly be expected to have the interest of consumers in mind. Why are we so naive that we expect this?

India's educated elite, responsible for India's successful technology industry are also an altruistic bunch. They've been giving back in the hopes of bridging the gap between the rich and India's 700 million poor -- the gap between the lower-caste and upper-caste. They've been the driving force behind getting information to India's mostly illiterate poor. Information that can be used to help with crops, health care, education and dealing with the bureaucrats more effectively. This use of technology for the common good is a grand social experiment that could be a lesson to other third world countries trying to break the cycle of poverty. It also has lessons for the developed world -- instead of thinking of the world's poor and third world counties as a burden, they could be thought of as a 5-billion market . [BusinessWeek's Graphics: The Stats and Tech for the Masses .]

The Athens games will be unprecedented for its security. From terrorists with death and mayhem on their minds, to cyberterrorists and local anarchists out to disrupt the games and gain attention, Greece is readying itself for all potential disruptions. 41,000 police, along with other emergency personnel 10,000 military personnel stationed at venues Special forces will be on call for emergencies Unspecified number of bomb sniffing dogs will be on patrol Ocean floor sensors and frogmen will protect against underwater attack NATO warships will patrol the coast and guard cruise ships 1,600 surveillance cameras will be in use around Olympic sites Unspecified number of Patriot missiles will be in place NATO AWACS planes will scan the sky, while Greek fighter jets will be on call to intercept any hijacked planes A NATO battalion that specializes in nuclear, chemical and biological contamination will be on call

Jimmy Rock poses an interesting question about the nature of life and its ownership -- proposing that with recent patenting of different life, perhaps life itself should be distributed under an open source license -- the way it has always been before businesses took over.

SpaceShipOne didn't have an exactly perfect flight, New Scientist reports. Apparently, the craft did a few unusual things, including the lost of attitude control for a moment. Those failures haven't dampened the spirits of the SpaceShipOne team, but there will be no twin flights for the X-Prize until the problems are fixed.

I didn't believe this one when I saw it reported by MacCentral -- apparently the US Army is getting 1566 dual processor 64-bit Xserve G5 servers to build a $5.8 million cluster that will be a 25 teraflop supercomputer. The US army using Macs ... I suppose since Windows is going to run their battleships , they might as well use OS/X for research.

I found this BusinessWeek article to be a bit ecocentric. It claims the digital convergence is finally happening . Well, it may be crawling in North America, but it's exploding in Asia. It may get to us soon too, unless of course US protectionism curtails it. Asia has a bigger population, booming economies and more early adopters than North America -- we're conservative compared to the gadget freaks of Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea and now, China. Digital Convergence refers to the convergence of consumer electronics with computer technology -- the blurring of the walls that separate the living room from the den. It promises to give the world the next innovative spurt and propel the next levels of growth. BusinessWeek has a top 100 list [PDF] of information technology companies that stand to be at the forefront of the innovation -- that doesn't necessarily mean they will gain the most from it -- in such environments, the more hungry, more nimble startups have the ad

Bring out the lawyers, because they're the only ones to make anything from this. China is not considered a market society by international law, and will have to become one for entry into the WTO. It doesn't help China that it today enjoys a $124 billion annual trade surplus with the US either. So lately, the US has been engaged in some really short term thinking and have been challenging China on just about every industry, claiming China is dumping exports onto the US market unfairly. Not that that isn't true -- but it probably is false as well. China has an explosive economy right now, and having a trade surplus is part of having an economy that's growing too fast for its britches. Using trade law to subdue China though is the wrong move. The US needs China to boom [PDF], and they need China to sustain that boom -- the healthier the Chinese economy is, the better for the US. The more Chinese with money , the more people there will be there to buy US export.

BusinessWeek has a review of James Surowiecki's The Wisdom of Crowds . The book looks at the age old assumption that crowd behaviour is behaviour of the mindless -- it shows that far from being stupid, groups of people tend to out perform individuals. This tends to make sense of you stop thinking of crowds as a herd of hysterical people and more as a team. Surowiecki references the case of the May 1968 disappearance of the USS Scorpion . The US Navy had a general sense of where the submarine went down, but couldn't pinpoint it. Experts were brought in and asked to give their expert opinion on where to look, based on available data. Collectively, they were off by 220 yards, even though individually, not one of the experts were as close. Surowiecki then extends his analogy to businesses -- if teams tend to perform better, why do businesses still rely on individuals to make key strategic decisions instead of relying on a team effort? Already, such thinking is starting to m

I don't get it -- or maybe I get. Ray Bradbury is apparently upset at Michael Moore for taking creative license on his Fahrenheit 451 book and titling his latest movie, Fahrenheit 9/11 . I've read on blogs with subjects like: "Michael Moore Plagiarizes Ray Bradbury?" It amazes me that the American sheep are so willing to hold a public hanging of Michael Moore -- the gut hatred they feel for the man is amazing. The man has done nothing than make a documentary, slightly leftist, but one with more truth than the promises of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. They're willing to burn a man for his use of freedom of speech (the irony here is just too much -- re: the temperature Fahrenheit 451 is the temperature books burn in Bradbury's fiction), while defending Bush, the lair, that sent hundreds of Americans to their death and killed thousands more innocents in his campaign that was nothing more than a compensation for having a small weenie. I also find

A whack of information is available at Fermilab 's site -- animations , streaming video / lecture series and small programs that simulate physics phenomena. The site also contains a rich offering of still images -- photographs and illustrations . I especially like the lecture series, which contains PowerPoint slides accompanied by the streaming RealVideo presentation. Cool presentations: Einstein's Unfinished Symphony: Sounds from the Distant Universe The Search for Extra Dimensions

Today's computers obey the laws of classical physics -- the good ole stuff that we all learned in high school -- Newton's apple bouncing off his head, or something like that. Fundamentally, our computers follow the laws of our everyday reality. Underneath that reality however, is another world -- the world of quantum mechanics -- a world that is not as well understood, still hotly debated, and understood with as many theories as there are laws. In classical computers, bits can only have two states -- 1 or 0. Binary. From a macro level (and this includes the nano scale world) the universe is governed by the nature of this duality. Either or. Never and. Quantum mechanics, and correspondingly, quantum computing have more states. A quantum bit, or qubit, can exist as a 1, 0 or both at the same time, with varying probability of being one or the other. These states can be observed only at the quantum level -- which is very, very small. (Click here for an introduction to

This is for you Bernadette. And this is a good translater -- click!

SpaceShipOne is set for its maiden flight on Monday. The vehicle when launched on Monday, will be the first commercial manned space vehicle. Previously, the vehicle took off attached to an airplane, and landed under its own power. SpaceShipOne is on a race to win the X-Prize , which expires in January 2005, requiring a privately funded space craft to go into space with three people on board twice in a couple of weeks.

Don't follow the link, unless you need to be disturbed. When you think that the madness has no end, you find a site like this that is absolutely disturbing. Disturbing because someone made it -- disturbing that he appears to be a kid -- disturbing because he appears to lack any self-respect -- disturbing because you have to wonder where his parents are -- disturbing when you read his guestbook -- girls love him, guys think he's cool. Disturbing. Madness. A psychopath already produced. (Yes, even if it's all fake.)

Check out more about this video in the review at tastypopsicle.com.

I used to love watching the Transformers. Apparently the love continues. Check out this really cool 3D animation -- play back is in Flash. The music composed for the piece, as well as the animated choreography is simply awesome. [ Naj, many thanks for the link -- quite entertaining. ]

It's been quite a while since I've been to a Comic Convention, and this weekend, one comes to Toronto. Comicon is here, at the Exhibition Place's Queen Elizabeth Building. I want to go to this one for a couple of reasons -- one: I like comics, even though I don't collect them anymore, and two: Bill Sienkiewicz is going to be there. I've never met Sienkiewicz, but I love his art -- everything from his political works of the 80s to the weirdness of Stray Toaster of the 90s. (Check out some of his work online by clicking a number: 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 .)

Garry and his Palm ... Garry takes pictures using his. Garry thinks he's cool cause his phone is better than my crappy phone. Check out the pic -- Garry is the cool looking one.

The latest trends in software development are focused on increasing collaboration with the business clients while delivering solutions at a faster pace. The trends include more use of UML, an increasing use of agile development and extreme programming, and adoption of aspect-oriented development. Read more in this summary from InformationWeek.

Call it e-health, telemedicine, telehealth or any its other names, and it comes out to same thing -- and it's here to stay and become more and more part of the health care system. With health care more widespread, and a dwindling pool of medical practitioners available, technology is being turned to make better use of the resources available. The downside to all of this is that the one-on-one care that patients used to experience may disappear -- but with an increasing aging population that's more tech savvy, hopefully this change won't be seen as a bad thing, and it will free up resources to deal with the bigger problems hands-on.

There are a lot more rules facing public corporations these days, and the costs of being regulated are increasing for businesses. More companies expect to spend more money on compliance this year than they did last year, and less than half expect any benefits. In fact, some of them are complaining that enough is enough. I feel no sympathy. Left to run rampant, business bottom-line focus and greed have basically screwed investors, the public and the environment. Yes, they're the fuel of the economy and of our daily lives, but at what price? Read more at InformationWeek.com .

Molecules by themselves aren't that interesting -- put a bunch of them together however, and weird, wonderous things start happening. Combine the right molecules, under the right conditions, and you can just about make anything. But that's where the problem starts -- making anything -- we have a hard time knowing what individual molecules are doing within a crowd of molecules, so it's hard to get them to combine just right. To help with understanding how molecules behave in a crowd, NASA is flying an experiment aboard the ISS to study crowds of molecules outside of earth's gravity. Read more.

The Toronto Waterfront Revitalization Corporation (TWRC) -- the corporation that was created about 3 years back to revitalize Toronto's waterfront and has done just about squat since, has announced its first park, and the first thing they're planning to do that sounds like revitalization to me. Commissioners Park is to be a 41-acre waterfront park located between the Keating Channel and Commissioners Street , and will come complete with a lots of trees creating walkways, fields for recreational activities and the general environment to get away from the city while staying in the city. There are two design options, the Green Room and Camouflage Park, which the TWRC will be holding public consultations [PDF] to help decide on -- although they've already got a preference: the Camouflage Park design.

The Ontario Government today spoke brave words on what they're going to do to revitalized the province's electricity sector -- everything to from matching projected demand with supply by upgrading the existing infrastructure and replacing polluting plants with non-polluting, to conserving energy. The propose to spend $20-40 billion dollars to do this. Even if we believe that all of this will actually happen, they never said how they intend to do it -- other than using vague words like they will do it with extensive public input and will find creative ways to encourage businesses to help out. Yup, ain't gonna happen.

Here's a lesson in how not to implement big software packages, like Oracle Financials and PeopleSoft's HCM. Stanford has been going away at it for several years, costing millions of dollars, and they still haven't gotten there -- this is despite the fact that Stanford is at the heart of Silicon Valley. This story is to make people like me feel not so bad for not having done so bad.

The British Library currently has a project underway to bring the news of the 19th Century online -- going digital where digital has never gone before! This is quite an impressing historic project, and from the quick click-through, it appears that the content is free.

Quite amusing. These guys are trying to pull together a dotcom business in 24-hours, then taking it to IPO on eBay. Now that's reliving the boom and bust on internet time! Tune in and catch the bubble as it lures you in with hopeless promises, takes your money, then burst! Oh what fun!

The 486 CPU is 15 years old. Yup, and you can still find machines out there humming away with a 486 CPU. We've come a long way in those 15 years, and have so far more to go.

Do you aspire to development greatness? If so, and your ultimate goal is to meet specifications, you fall short, according to Randall Hyde, author of Write Great Code . Hyde admits that greatness is a multifaceted attribute, but focuses on code efficiency, as it has been neglected over the past few years -- mainly due to the fact that the power of computer systems have increased dramatically, and schools are churning out programmers by the droves, many of which are only versed in development employing some software development tool -- and many of those tools lack don't optimize code for efficiency. There is many examples of bad code out there -- from the many software packages that you use everyday, to some operating systems -- but the software inefficiency that really costs are the ones that come part and parcel of your in-house development efforts -- be it to write brand new code or integrate software packages. I've seen it, and getting out of the hole can be downright f

Here's a neat little site. It monitors blogs for books that are being talked about and displays the most popular ones on an hourly basis. This is one way of increasing the signal to noise ratio in all the hubbub about books.

Why not? For those looking for a little more extreme in their X-treme, look no further than Wheelman. It's basically two motorized wheels attached to your feet. So what if you die a painful death, having all your skin burned off your body when you slam face-down into the ground? At least there will be a bikini clad chick looking on that will be totally impressed with what an idiot you are. What's next? Rocketman! They attach a jet engine to your ass. (Oh wait, that's been done already. Damn!)

I had picked up Weaveworld a while back at a UofT booksale -- finally gotten around to reading it, starting about a month ago. Like Clive Barker's other fantasies, this one is grand in scale. It tells the story of two humans who must protect a world of magic and wonder from not only humankind, but a monster from the past that's out to destroy it and all its inhabitants -- in typical Barker fashion, the real monsters turn out to be people -- everyday people that carry a capacity for evil that puts the monsters of our imagination to shame. It is a good story. At times, Clive Barker's words feel like poetry. He brings his world alive -- making it almost tangible -- making you wish that the fairy tale could come through. And at the end, he leaves a beginning. I highly recommend this book.

America the free, where everyone's vote counts -- not! Read this special report from BusinessWeek magazine about how the world's largest democracy is anything but.

Today, women make about 77% of what men make, but when you look at total career earnings, women make a mere 44% of men's wages. What's the deal? Women are punished for not staying full-time on the job -- so taking time off, or going part-time to take care of family, such as having a baby or care for an elderly parent, costs. Women who don't stay full-time, will earning over $8,000 less than other women stay full-time over a 15-year period. One year off will cut a woman's total earnings by 32% -- while two years will take 46% and three years, 56%. Men are likewise penalized, but less -- a man taking a year off can expect to take home 25% less -- but only 8% of men ever take such time off. Our societal and employer norms, as well as our economic system, is based on a family division of labour where women pay the price. The answer? Employers need to restructure jobs to accommodate women and men balancing their work and family obligations. The government can help h

To say that America is security obsessed, is an understatement. They're increasing spending by 10% to $40.2 billion in 2005. That's outside of the money they already spend on the military. It's projected that government and the private-sector will be spending a whopping $130-180 billion on security by 2010. Yes, private-sector -- especially since they own and control about 85% of the US infrastructure that needs securing. You gotta know that Tom Ridge must be smiling when he reads the projections.

Here's a review of Necessary Dreams: Ambition in Women's Changing Lives, by Anna Fels. The book tells the tale of women's dance of denial -- denying praise, attention and adulation that comes from a job well done. This lack of ambition translates to economic loss for women and reinforces the social notion that women aren't capable of achieving. Women may encourage each other, encourage their daughters and want for them and themselves to be able to achieve everything they're capable of, but at the same time, they frown on pride and a female's time in the limelight. It's a social phenomena that needs to change -- when half of our population continues to not be equal, it's time to for a revolution.

Contractors have become a permanent fixture in the American war machine -- in the first Gulf War, the military outsourced only 1% of its work - today, that number is at 30%. It is estimated at as a $100 billion industry, with several hundred companies operating in over 100 countries. Now questions are being raised about accountability -- who exactly controls those heavily armed forces running around? who's accountable for their actions? and are they military of civilians?

Today, for many of America's working poor, the bottom rung of the ladder is all they can aspire to. America, the land of opportunities, doesn't seem to have many opportunities for the poor -- nor does the political machine care enough to do anything for them -- if anything, politicians seem more inclined to cater to those with extreme ideologies and big business than the people. Most of the working poor can expect nothing more than minimum wage -- if they're non-unionized, they can expect no pension, no health care, no paid sick days -- no benefits. On average, a unionized blue collar worker can expect 54% more than those without unions -- and only 13% of the workforce belong to unions, compared to 35% about 50-years ago. Today, about a quarter of the American workforce live below the poverty line -- this from the world's richest, most powerful country -- where those at the bottom continue to be pushed lower, while the educated and those at the top, reap the rewards

With the recent election in India, and crowning of the Congress Party, the world is looking to see what signs the new government will show. India has the potential to become China -- another 3rd world country to experience explosive growth. For the industrialize nations, this represents opportunities and fear -- if India grows, there's a billion people there that will want all of the trappings of prosperity -- but that's a billion people also ready to participate in the global economy -- and as we seen recently with the small migration of IT jobs to India, a global economy only means more jobs will be exported.

The price of gas has risen in these uncertain times in the Middle East, and holds the potential to rise even more if there is significant disruption in production -- especially in Saudi Arabia. The automakers are feeling it too, even though they're not inclined to admit it. Sales of SUVs and other gas guzzling monstrosities are stagnant, if not falling. But this latest crisis is far from the one experienced in the 70s -- prices haven't hit those levels (yet), even though consumers expect today's high prices to remain for the foreseeable future. Which may not be a bad thing -- it may actually spur the automakers and government to speed the delivery of hybrid or hydrogen fuel cars and the necessary infrastructure.

Here's a few movies that I saw in the past little while. Van Helsing -- this was an action movie from the beginning to end, and will most likely see a sequel (or two). I didn't know until it was pointed out to me by my brother, but there is an animated prequel to the movie that was released around the same time the movie was released. The animation is cool, but not as slick as the movie. That's the word for the movie. Slick. All action. Little story. And the love interest, well, it was played down, and the girl is removed from the story at the end of the movie, leaving just the dark hero and his bumbling sidekick. Yup, a guy movie. (And the monsters: Dracula, Frankenstein and the Wolfman -- superb!) Shrek 2 -- this isn't just for kids. I'd like to point that out in the beginning. The appeal of these animated films, and their successes aren't driven by the attendance of the snot-nosed types -- ticket sales shoot through the roof because these movie

Here is Margaret Thatcher's eulogy for Ronald Reagan.

Check out Aunty Spam's Slam a Spammer Blog -- a blog dedicated to everything about nasty spam.

From the latest Technology Review magazine, here are some articles I found of interest: Wireless 911 -- TR has a great way of illustrating how things work, and it's one of the things I like viewing from the monthly magazine. This month's explain the way cellular 911 will work, in concert with GPS or triangulation technologies to locate you in an emergency. The World's Hottest Lab -- an article profiling Microsoft's Research Centre in China. Set up in 1998 with about $80MM spent to date, the Beijing Research Lab has managed to surpass Microsoft's and everyone else's expectations. To date, they have 70 technologies developed that have made it into products, hundreds of patents, 750 published papers, and all from a staff of about 150 researchers complimented by about 200 interns. The lab secret? The brainpower comes from researchers that are closely tied to Chinese academia -- and staff working 100-hour weeks don't hurt either. Skype beyond the Hype

Here are a few places on the new to find e-Texts: Memoware - various topics Project Gutenberg - classics, mostly in text format University of Virginia - classics, African-American documents and more, in MS Reader, Palm, etc. format eBooks4free - manuscripts, historical documents, literature, religion and multi-lingual, in many formats, including audio University of Adelaide - travel, classics, mystery - in html format mostly Internet Public Library - various topics - links to books hosted elsewhere Digital Book Index - various topics, some free - in Palm, MS Reader; links to other sites

Microsoft has increased its push to generate more revenue from its intellectual property portfolio , and as such, has been granted a patent for the to-do list -- as it applies to software code -- but still ...

Check out this site by Juergen Glesen -- here he hosts his collection of about 40 applets that from your browser, will give access to some neat bits of astronomy!

Of course, the best place to catch the Sun on the net is via NASA's SOHO spacecraft.

The transit is completed, and here are some wonderful pictures. (And thanks to the internet, there are probably millions more available -- all you gotta do it search for them .)

50-years ago yesterday, Alan Turing died. Turing invented the concept of the computing machine, that lead to you being able to sit in front of a screen and read this text today. His life was one of interesting career choices, and even more interesting accomplishments. He was even a part of the British government's efforts to break German cryptography (the Enigma cipher machine) during the 2nd World War, and after the war, devised what is now known as the Turing test for artificial intelligence. Sadly, Turing's genius wouldn't be his saviour. He was arrested in 1952 for being gay -- something he tried to keep a secret -- and then allowed himself to be subjected to estrogen injections for a year. The fact that he was gay, also immediately disqualified him from continuing to participate in top secret work for the British government, as homosexuals were ineligible for security clearance. He was shunned, harassed by law enforcement and unable to discuss much of what made

I was on the Statistics Canada site, so I thought I'd look up the latest Consumer Price Index (CPI). Well lookie here ... overall, CPI increased by 1.6%, with Ontario contributing the highest increase of 2.3%. So much for that friggin raise ... if you got one, that is ... and many thanks to the Ontario government for increasing taxes.

A publication of Statistics Canada ... the Canada e-Book. It's an ongoing project to tell the story about Canada -- the land, the people, the economy and the state. The project uses audio files , images and lots of statistics to tell the story. I was especially impressed by some of the pictures. Pretty cool!

Tomorrow, the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI) will be releasing their fifth annual report card on the status of our health care system. The report will take an indepth look at patient safety, from a number of perspectives, using idicators such as, post-operative hip fractures, birth trauma and foreign objects left in the body after a procedue. The report also presents measures of health care professionals from 78 regions across Canada. The CIHI was spawned in the mid-90s by the federal and provincial governments, to be an independent, not-for-profit organization, that would work improve the health care system for Canadians. The organization is funded by the governments, and therefore reports to the governments. This fifth annual report will most likely be using a lot of data collected by Statistics Canada and Health Canada -- as the organization has inherited some health care related information management functions from those agencies. The CIHI isn't the o

A British invention of coating glass with a thin layer of titanium oxide has been found to give glass self-cleaning properties. Titanium oxide is found in food, toothpastes and sunblock -- and is usually a white powder. When used in nano-scale layers however, it is transparent. The titanium oxide allows glass to absorb sunlight, which causes a photocatalytic effect [PDF] -- resulting in a break down of dirt. It also makes the surface of the glass hydrophilic -- meaning that water droplets of the glass attract each other, forming a sheeting that runs off, instead of drying as individual droplets. Cool!

Looking for a management job in IT? Want to move up the IT management ladder? Here's a little advice to help you along the way. It's the basics, but how many of us keep forgetting the basics? Now ... before you embark on the adventure, ask yourself ... why do you want a management job in IT? Really, haven't you read a Scott Adam's book yet?

Here's a few articles that I found of interest from the latest issue of Integrated Solutions Magazine: A novel idea -- use internet search engine technologies to mine data from sources on the protected side of the firewall. Business Process Management -- what's the hype all about? Disaster Recovery -- still important, but so is disaster prevention.

I just read about this in the latest Wired Magazine -- NTT's Info-MICA cards -- thin film holographic memory cards, the size of postage stamps and carrying 1GB of storage to start off with. (NTT is working on higher capacity cards -- hoping to hit 10GB.) The cards are made of plastic, and therefore recyclable -- unlike other thin films that contain metal. They're small. They're cheap. They consume low energy to access, as there's nothing to spin. They can be easily mass produced. And will probably revolutionize technology, bringing a host of new digital applications, and ease our use of them. What might speed adoption is the fact that the media is difficult to copy -- not only would a would-be pirate have to have some high level of knowledge, but the technology required to create the cards doesn't come cheap.

I liked him. Americans loved him -- despite Nancy. Here are some memoorable quotes. My faves are below, check the BBC article for others. My fellow Americans, I'm pleased to tell you today that I've signed legislation that will outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes. A joke, not realising a microphone was on, 1984 Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidise it. 1986

Just what the world need? Sure, why not! Another handheld computer is coming to a shop shelf near you. Meet the OQO. A small form factor PC ... handheld ... thingy. It's supposed to compete with laptops. It's bigger than a Palm, and runs the latest Windows. It contains a 1GHz Crusoe chip, with 256MB RAM, 20GB hard drive, and features an 800x480 display. Will it make it? I don't know ... is it just what the world needs?

The Americans have long fallen behind in the race of speedy computers -- behind the Japanese -- and now they've standing up and taking notice. There's national pride behind the American push to beat the Japanese -- national pride and pure economics. Supercomputers bring the research time down from years to mere hours. The American's have been losing the race mainly because they're targeting business users for their supercomputers -- business users who require general purpose machines that can attack differing problems and do so in a cost effective way. They've therefore been manufacturing beasts that exploit cluster technologies. These machines use off the shelf CPU and components, and allow developers to code problems using everyday delvelopment tools. The Japanese on the other hand, have been creating specialized CPUs that are made to tackle specific types of problems, and therefore need specialized code to be written -- read more expensive. Which approach

Here's a BusinessWeek special report on the 100 Best Small Companies, and why, perhaps, you should be taking note of them. Most of these companies I've never heard of, but their annualized growth are phenomenal -- outpacing veteran companies. BusinessWeek has put together a nice interactive Scoreboard [or click here for the PDF version ] -- check it out to see where you should be investing your precious pennies.

Some at home moms are making new online waves -- they're exploiting eBay to supplement their household incomes -- and some are making a killing. These aren't just moms without careers either -- these are former high-powered women, who were doing the career thing, but then had to make the choice between a career and their children. Those who have found eBay are putting some of those business skills to work the hours they want, get the life they want and be a success.

From BusinessWeek magazine -- here's an article about the new face of Russia. Putin has his second term -- he would have won it easliy without the bullying -- Russians like him, want him, and international investors see his leadership as the one that will open up Russia to a market economy. Will it last? Will Putin stay the course? And what of the leadership that will replace him? (Should he choose to be replaced that is.)

New research finds that porn is more popular than initially thought. More people surf for porn on the net than use all the search engines combined. Hmm ... I wonder how much money the porn industry generates online compared to other industries. I'm sure this goes to show us a lot of things -- can't think of any right now though.

Today only -- from Bathurst to Spadina, on Bloor, is the Festival on Bloor. Between 12-6PM, enjoy an international food court, live music, street performers, and other activies.

Check out the review of the first movie to be released that is completely machine generated. No human actors were hurt, or even involved, in the making. Cool!

It played like a movie. I saw it from multiple perspectives -- seeing the events of their lives through camera lenses. :: I drift in their car, from somewhere in the backseat, as they drive through this small town. They are looking for their little girl who had disappeared a little while ago. She was supposed to be in this town -- why else would they be here? They wear worried looks on their faces as their eyes drift out of the car windows -- looking, looking, in desperation, and with hope. The natives of the town were all out doing small town stuff. Tending to lawns, puttering in driveways, ... There are smiling, friendly faces everywhere. It is a happy place. A surreal kind of happy. Almost made up. The scene shifts. It is night. The tired couple is checking into a motel for the night. They are haggard. They want sleep. The clerk is hurried. Not sure if the clerk is male or female. It does't matter. Details. I follow the couple from my vantage point from b

Here's Charles Ross -- he's known for his one man rendition of the entire Star Wars trilogy. Now he's taken on the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy. He's been performing at various fringe festivals. Hopefully he'll show up at the Toronto Fringe festival [June 30-July 11] this summer.

I just saw this post on Bob Congdon's website -- Calvin is discussing with his Dad, why black and white pictures are black and white. Funny ...

Linus Torvalds is OK with it -- so it must be OK. Swear that is. Apparently programmers are emptying some of their frustrations into their code -- dropping lines of profanity here and there in the comments. Vidar Holen is keeping track of some of the swear words in the Linux kernel. So far, the word of choice by Linux developers is crap -- followed by fuck, then shit ... examples: // This is, and always was, the mother of all routines. // Sorry. (PUSH! PUSH! It's coming! It's... a BOY!) //These chips are basically fucked by design.

(This one was brought to me by a friend at work.) Who'd have thunk it? Apparently there are people with free time -- and they create sites like this -- a complete mirror of Google. It's all backwards. Why not I suppose.