Forbidden Planet

I hate Home Depot yard waste bags. Every single one I have used has torn. I cannot even tamp down the yard waste in it without the sides splitting. I find the ones sold at Canadian Tire or Loblaws to be much more robust. Heck, I can jump on them and the don't rip. Makes me wonder were Home Depot gets theirs, because there cannot be that many different manufacturers of yard waste bags. [This was prerecorded]

I don't know how many of you read the fine print when you sign up for things .. erm ... I generally don't. I used to, but always found them to be draconian terms of enslavement that that basically said they have all the power and rights and you have none, forever, in perpetuity. Recently I decided to read the Google terms of service , after all, I use Google to blog (Blogger is owned by Google), I have a gmail account, I have considered using their online office applications to store documents - leaving storage and backup to them (I reckon they are likely to be better at it than I am). Section 11 starts off promising enough: 11.1 You retain copyright and any other rights you already hold in Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services. I own the rights to all the content (intellectual property) I post, store or transmit (e-mail) using Google services and tools. Then it goes downhill: By submitting, posting or displaying the content you give Google a per...

Seeing as I had nothing better to do last night, I calculated the taxes on my phone bill. There are two taxes: a 5% Federal Goods and Services Tax (GST) and (in Ontario) 8% provincial sales tax (PST). My bill was $50.07 before taxes. My GST should have been $2.50 and my PST should have been $4.01. Instead it was $2.51 and $4.02 respectively. I was over billed $0.02! Of course, that is really insignificant, however, this morning I discovered it is happening to others . Assuming Bell Canada bills 1,000,000 customers (probably low, considering the number of residential, business and cell phones available in Canada), that means an extra $10,000 per month for Bell or $120,000 per year. Typical rounding practice is to round down if less than 1 / 2 a penny and round up if 1 / 2 a penny of more. And Bell appears to round this way, except it then adds a penny to the final result. The numbers in bold should be the final result, but since Bell adds a penny, it is actually the numbers in italic...

What a wonderful word. A languid, viscous word proceeding out from the pit of chest distending the throat and smothering the tongue as it oozes out. It is a word that begs for exaggerated pronunciation, loo-oo-oo-goo-oo-oo-bree-ee-ee-us, yet it has a serious short coming: The meaning is all wrong. It means sad, mournful, gloomy, miserable, melancholic. Yet ... that is not at all what it sounds like. To me, it sounds like it should mean something thick, heavy, slow moving, plodding. I want it to mean languid and viscous, but it doesn't. I feel cheated, deceived and betrayed. (There are other words that fit in this category, where the actual meaning is not what I intuitively feel they should be, such as condone or vicarious, their meaning and understanding is a conscious effort.) I want to use it in sentence like, "He had a lugubrious moustache." and I want it to mean he had a large, heavy, drooping walrus moustache. I want to be able to say, "He was feeling lugubrio...

I really dislike (bordering on zealous detestation) of things that don't make sense, are obviously wrong or, worse yet, deceptive (except as humour). That great provider of comedy, satire and parody - AOL - recently ran a consumer piece comparing prices between warehouse retailer Costco and normal retailer Giant and showing where you got better savings. What struck me was the way the savings were expressed - they were nonsensical. If I say you can save 50%, you would expect (at least I would hope you would expect) to pay 1/2 the price for it. If I tell you that you can save 100%, you would expect the item to be free (zero cost). That it not how AOL does math. In fact, on some products you can save as much as 267%! ????? I don't see how you can save more than 100% and I would expect any person to look at that and go, "That is just plain wrong." For your consideration two examples pulled from the AOL piece claiming 100% and 267% savings. (The real savings is 50% and 72....

[Update 10-Deember-2007 @ 17:38, since this post went up 3 days ago, I have had a few search engine hits using the keyword smoking on this post. To dispel any possible confusion: the title is ironic . Smoking increases the risk and incidence of cancer. So do oral contraceptives. However, both also have positive side effects. Smoking appears to reduce the incidence of Alzheimer's. Researchers are currently looking into a nicotine like compound found in a marine creature as a possible treatment for Alzheimer's (why they don't look at tobacco, I don't know - probably because it would not be politically correct). Oral contraceptives reduce the incidence of certain rare forms of cancer, however, the sum of cancers prevented and cancers caused show an overall increase in the number of cancer cases.] I am still in an anti-spinning mood. Eleven years ago or so, the Ottawa Citizen ran a front page article on the pill. The headline (in the biggest font I ever recall seeing) was ...

As someone who likes his information unadulterated, I am often annoyed by news reporting, political rhetoric and spin in general. Two nights ago I was listening to The Review on CBC radio, which featured a segment on plasticizers from the The Current earlier that day. Like most "in-depth" reporting, it was not. It was primarily about presenting one side of a story and making it as sensational as possible. Of course, it helps to bring in some experts from McGill University. There were two things about the report that really annoyed me because the information was disingenuously presented. The first was about how not much research has been done on the biodegradation of plasticizers. Ok, then we should do more research. A group from McGill did an experiment in which they put microbes into a container with plasticizer and watched what happened. As expected, the organism broke down the plasticizer, but then, (oh, shock!) they discovered the microbes were dying from compounds the pl...

As tin-tin commented in my previous post , waste water can be reused for other pruposes. While I would not advocate reusing toilet water to water your garden or lawn (unless it is going into a septic tank - in which case, you are already reusing your waste water). You can certainly reuse dirty dish and bath water. Granted, the convenience of scooping the water out the sink, into a bucket and carrying out to your garden may be a bit much. However, here are two ways waste bath and sink water can be reused, rather economically, if only they would build houses this way: (1) irrigating lawns and gardens. It would be a fairly simple matter to have option of redirecting the water into the drainage tiles (like a septic tank) under your lawn. I envision the drainage for the bath and sink would be switchable between sewer and irrigation. Alternatively, it could be fed out to a cistern, though I am not sure I would want standing dirty water :P (2) waste heat could be reclaimed from the water (m...

The problem is not that the tap water is dirty (as the commercial implies), but rather that we are flushing perfectly potable water down the toilet.

Today is the Ontario provincial election. I voted for the Green Party. Not because of any ideological attachment to them (although, listening to the Green Party leader on CBC radio two weeks ago, he was far more reasonable, coherent, and less inflammatory and divisive than the main party leaders). No, I voted for the Greens because it was a strategic vote. I suppose I could have spoiled my ballot, but I have grown tired of that. I reckon the politicians ignore it and assume I am an idiot who doesn't know how to mark a single X next to a candidate's name. I figured it was better to give my vote to some non-mainstream party in the hope that it will spur greater choice and genuine debate. (At least in the Federal elections, doing so makes sense, since parties are funded according to the number of votes they get - assuming the cross a 3% of popular vote threshold. I believe that only the province of Quebec similarly funds its political parties). The hot button issue for this electi...

One thing I find inexplicable is the strong desire people have to "label" themselves. They make sure they wear and consume the "right" brands. They ensure they have the "right" look and walk and talk. They even make sure they have the "right" psychoses or ailments. These thoughts were spurred by an article I read a few weeks ago by a woman claiming her relationship problems are due to her high IQ (intelligence quotient) and low EQ (emotional quotient). Years ago, ADD / ADHD was a popular identifier, then dyslexia, asthma and now, it seems, autism. As more and more people are labeled and it becomes fairly normal, we then start hearing of epidemics and rising rates. I don't dispute that some genuinely have issues. My beef is with those who seek labels to abdicate responsibility for their actions, "Oh, it's not me, it's because I have / I am ******." Ultimately, what we do or don't do is our responsibility. (As you might b...

Following on the heels of Barbara , I have my own tale of consumer woe. Background Until the middle of August, I have the kids up here in Ottawa with me, since it is easier for me to get them to and from summer camp than it is for Sofia in Montreal. Since the kids principally live in Montreal, that is where their beds are. I live in a mostly empty house in Ottawa, so I need to buy a bed for them to sleep on. It was a pretty simple decision for me, I went to Mattress Mart because I've bought from them four times before (97 or 98, 2000, 2001, and 2003) and was happy with them. On 03-July-2007 I bough a futon from them and asked to have it delivered in the evening of 04-July-2007 - defined as being sometime between 17:00 and 20:00. ”Call tomorrow after three for a more accurate delivery time” , I was told. 04-July-2007 between 15:30 and 16:00 (I tried calling at 15:00, but the line was busy). me: ”Hi, I was told I to call after three to get a better estimated time of delivery" ...

Our Sympatico connection in Montreal is not working. It has been flaky for a while and now it is mostly not working. The problem is a connection one, not software or setup. Unfortunately, getting that through tot he first line of tech support is very, very hard to do. They assume it is a software problem and ask you to uninstall an reinstall various bits of software. Unfortunately, as Sofia found out last night, this left the computer even less functional. There solution, contact Microsoft to fix the OS setup and then call them back. Bah! How do I know it is a connection problem and not a software problem? Simple, my laptop has problems connecting in Montreal, but when I connect to a Sympatico service in Ottawa, it has absolutely no problem. Aside form that, the DSL lamp on the modem keeps going out. The past weekend was absolutely brutal, we hardly had any service at all. It will have to wait until I am back in Montreal Thursday night for me to start addressing it. sigh. I have to con...

A while back I posted a piece of SPAM e-mail I received. It is both a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, it is responsible for the majority of search hits on my blog (about 60% at the moment, just after New Year it was running around 90%). But it would be nice if other topics were drawing people to my blog instead. I've had two comments on the post. One was an anti-curse comment aimed at exorcising Anthony de Croud in the name of Christ. I have deleted that one, since I think it was left by a robot that scours the web looking for references to this letter and then posting the anti-curse. The second is this one came yesterday evening from an IP address in Guatemala: LUCK is nothing more than adequate timing in a particular situation, I have received this letter from a loved one and it hurts to see that this wish of luck hides such thoughts of anguish relating to health and well being,if one wishes LUCK one does not threaten someone to do something he does not wish, I have alway...

The Ottawa library is changin their URL from library.ottawa.on.ca to biblioottawalibrary.ca and I don't like it. Mind you, I mostly use their portal located at lirico.ca any how, so it is not a big deal. I suppose if I was like most people, I would just bookmark pages, but I don't. I insist on typing in each and every URL I visit. Just as I insist on typing in each and every username and password I have. For a software developer, I can be a terrible Luddite at times.

For the past while I have been noticing more and more people with things stuck in their ears as they shop, drop their kids off at school, or otherwise go about their daily routine. I think they look really silly. It is even worse when it is actually on and they are blabbing away in public, staring straight ahead. I wonder if they could be marketed a product that cleans their teeth and freshens their breath with "vigorous foaming" action while they talk? I can see were handsfree bluetooth headsets might be practical, but does the average person really need to be wearing one while squeezing a mango and yammering away? Does the average person really need to be connected / available 24/7? So, if you are one of those with a bluetooth stuck in your ear, sorry, but I think you look silly. I thought it looked silly back in the original Star Trek series. Disclaimer: this rant comes from someone who doesn't even own a cell phone. Images nabbed from here and here .

After campaigning hard to get us out of the sun, science is now developing sunshine in a pill. Vitamin D is often called the sunshine vitamin because it is produced by our bodies upon exposure to sun. Vitamin D is also known to reduce the incidence and rate of progress of various cancers. The company Novacea is currently doing trials on a new drug called Asentar (DN-101) providing 50-100 higher level of vitamin D than normal. As the promo literature says: Drug makers came up with the idea because vitamin D from sunlight improves the prognosis of certain cancers. However, the following sentence is rather odd: But taking natural levels of the vitamin has no effect. Vitamin D is an interesting vitamin because there is no clear RDA (recommended daily allowance) for the vitamin, since our bodies can produce it from sunlight (apparently a Caucasian will synthesize about 10,000 IU from about a half hour of sunlight exposure). However, the RDA is generally listed at between 200 and 400 IU for ...

You might think the cold, or ice, or long darkness, or even the snow might be a downside, but they are not. The downside is shoveling snow. More specifically, shoveling the snow from the front of my driveway. It takes me very little time to shovel the driveway - less than half an hour; today it was 20 minutes, the snow was light and powdery (it was also a brisk -20C (-4F) with a windchill of -37C (-35F) - like Renny said, there is no such thing as poor weather, just poorly dressed people). The pain in shoveling snow comes in cleaning the snow the city crews plow into the front of my driveway as they clear the street of snow. Cleaning it usually takes between half and hour to an hour because (1) it is heavy, (2) it is packed tight, (3) it is frozen or has frozen bits. It becomes frozen because salt and slush are usually mixed in with it. Oddly enough, it is illegal for me to push my snow out into the street (at least in Ottawa), but it is perfectly legal for the city crews to push snow...