Enjoyed the Grade Nine school play.
Henry was a ‘Greaser’ in a classic, The Outsiders, the 1967 novel by S.E. Hinton.
Month: February 2011
I love Minister Tony Clement
I love him so much, I just might have to vote Conservative next election.
I heard Clement on the radio yesterday, making exactly the right noises.
Canada minister says Internet billing ruling flawed
… A Canadian regulatory ruling that effectively stops small Internet providers from offering unlimited downloading must be revised, Industry Minister Tony Clement said on the social networking site Twitter.
“True. CRTC must go back to the drawing board,”
Read more …
Prime Minister Harper dropped the hammer on the CRTC via Twitter, too.
The people I trust on the internet are Michael Geist, Jeff Jarvis and Cory Doctorow. (2 of them Canadian).
They’ll like the stand made by Clement.
Here’s what Cory Doctorow had to say Feb. 2nd, before the elected masters stomped all over the CRTC ruling:
Welcome to the Canadian Internet, where extreme concentration in telecoms and a weak, lame regulator have given rise to a nation where your Internet access is metered in small, ungenerous dribs, and where ranging too far afield during your network use results in your ISP breaking into your browsing session to tell you that you’re close to being cut off from the net. …
Boing Boing – Welcome to the Canadian Internet, now stop using it
Other politicians are coming ’round to the ephiphany that standing up for the voters is a WINNER of an issue.
Jeff Jarvis:
In her second major speech on internet freedom, I’m delighted that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton stood for the freedom to connect and recognizes the internet as a public space …
She vowed Tuesday to invest $25 million for developers to build tools that will let online dissidents get around “thugs, hackers and censors.”
Just How Open Is Your Internet? [INFOGRAPHICS]
I know what you’re thinking. We’re going to drive TELUS, Bell and Rogers out of business in Canada !!
I hope so.
Some leaner, more honest competitors will rise to take their place.
If there’s a demand for internet, companies will fill that need.
what kind of tea would you like?
Jude stores her teas on a serving tray, something like this one that Jane uses.
Good idea.
But this is all the tea I need.
best Mac twitter clients?
I’ve had it with TweetDeck and Seesmic Desktop. Adobe Air and Microsoft Silverlight software sucks. The never ending updates are infuriating.
The trend in 2011 is to use the Twitter.com website. Not bad.
Or one of the new lightweight simple Twitter apps. I’m running both Twitter app (free) and Kiwi desktop (free with ads).
Both are excellent. I’d say Kiwi is slightly better. It requires the latest version of the Mac operating system, Snow Leopard.
… That said, I think twitter is the most over-rated web service ever. It’s a waste of time for most people. (But for a few, especially bloggers, it can be valuable.)
UPDATE: There’s a very similar email client called Sparrow ($10)
Requiem for Molly
Kate in Vancouver:
… Molly, a Golden Retriever-yellow Labrador cross, was almost 12, happy, affectionate and still quite energetic, when her health suddenly declined. I’ll spare you the details, but, among other things, she had inoperable cancer, and euthanasia was the only compassionate option.
Twelve years is a reasonably long life for a dog, and Molly had a wonderful existence, gamboling along the North Shore’s trails, dashing in and out of its rivers and bogs, and hanging around with children and teenagers, her favourite pastime. Give her a body of water and a bunch of swimming kids and she was in absolute bliss. …
read more on Kate of Late
Rockin’s ‘Best Friend’
more photos on Facebook
Precious – the film
I finally saw the critically acclaimed and award winning movie.
Life is hard. Life is precious.
In 1987, obese, illiterate, 16-year-old Claireece P. “Precious” Jones (Gabourey Sidibe) lives in the ghetto of Harlem with her dysfunctional and abusive mother, Mary (Mo’Nique).
The acting is excellent, especially Mo’Nique. But everyone in the film is believable: Mariah Carey, Lenny Kravitz, Paula Patton. Everyone.
It feels more like a documentary than a film.
Click PLAY or watch the trailer on YouTube.
Recommended. But know that it’s a very harsh slice of life from a very harsh environment. I wouldn’t blame you a bit for NOT wanting to see it.
best browsers: Chrome and Firefox
I keep both open on my Mac at all times, switching frequently.
Lifehacker posted a reader’s poll where ‘power users‘ strongly liked those two best.
Since that poll, Firefox has closed the gap. A little.
The main rule, however, is do not use Internet Explorer … unless you have to. IE still sucks, though it’s not as ghastly as in the past.
If you want to know why click over to Lifehacker – How and Why Chrome Is Overtaking Firefox Among Power Users
UPDATE: … The next version of Internet Explorer (not available yet) was just reviewed. Some improvement. But it only works well on Windows 7 and Vista, not XP. And, as usual with Microsoft, it’s too little too late.
Second UPDATE: Dave Sykes links to a BBC Tech reporter who confirms IE 9 is available for download. Microsoft claims it’s now the fastest browser on Windows 7. … When I went to check, all I can find is the IE9 Release Candidate. That’s still something of a Beta.
Microsoft doesn’t care much about IE, in any case. The big problem at Microsoft is Windows Phone 7, too little too late.
Scientology fact-checked
NPR interviewed director Paul Haggis (who left the Church of Scientology after 35 years) in an audiocast titled The Church Of Scientology, Fact-Checked.
One of many Hollywood bigwigs in Scientology, the story of Haggis falling out with the secretive religion is big news after The New Yorker posted this story – THE APOSTATE – Paul Haggis vs. the Church of Scientology.
Haggis left the church mainly because some Scientologists supported California’s Proposition 8. Haggis felt it was discriminatory to gays and lesbians.
But his departure has blown up. The most important thread, in my opinion, is this detail about the life of L. Ron Hubbard:
… the founder of Scientology, had maintained that he was blind and a ‘hopeless cripple’ at the end of World War II — and that he had healed himself through measures that later became the basis of Dianetics, the 1950 book that became the basis for Scientology.
But checking American military records showed:
… there was no evidence that he had ever been wounded in battle or distinguished himself in any way during the war.
read more on the NPR blog – The Church Of Scientology, Fact-Checked
If Hubbard lied about that, what else is bogus about Scientology?
I’m disillusioned. 🙂
Rick McCharles 