http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1850&ncid=1850&e=1&u=/cpress/20060130/ca_pr_on_sc/britain_climate_change
[Edit: Link no longer operational]
From the article:
"The threat posed by climate change may be greater than previously thought, and global warming is advancing at an unsustainable rate..."
You hear that, folks? If we don't want to keep having to invest more and more into raising the earth's temperature, we've got to act now.
8P.
- RG>
Monday, January 30, 2006
My First Cyrillic Spam
I got my first Cyrillic (Russian alphabet) spam today in my Gmail account, complete with attachment!
"Земельные участки. Новое в 2006 году." - makes 1337speak look like a pile of crap.
Gmail is actually very good at filtering spam; most of the false negatives are from my e-mail accounts that forwards to G-mail, and I know that there are at least 200 spams/day from there.
- RG>
"Земельные участки. Новое в 2006 году." - makes 1337speak look like a pile of crap.
Gmail is actually very good at filtering spam; most of the false negatives are from my e-mail accounts that forwards to G-mail, and I know that there are at least 200 spams/day from there.
- RG>
Sunday, January 22, 2006
My First All-Nighter
Friday night, after the weekly activist movie, I went to the office to analyze four years' worth of financial documents. This took me until about 03:30.
When I got home, I did my regular checking-of-the-internets, ending about 04:30. I went to go to sleep, and failed to do so. So I went back on the internet and started watching video clips from [a website that no longer exists]. I did this until about 10:30am. I then read the two issues of Macleans that I had lying around, and got really tired. I went to sleep at 11:30am.
And then I had to get up at 13:00 again.
It was my very first all-nighter (although not the typical kind, where you do it out of necessity). Prior to this, the latest I'd ever stayed up was about 04:00. I did it without food or drink, and the 6-hour finance meeting at 13:00 was a pain in the body, though I was able to concentrate. Thank you Tim Horton's donuts.
I just hope that I'll be able to make it on Election day--I will be the only Registration Officer working at the polling location, from 09:00 to 21:30 (or later, if there's a lineup when the doors close). Seeing how I'm in Ottawa Centre, a very political riding, and they're predicting a high voter turnout, I might be in for a big day.
Anyway, I'm still sick. I think it might be tonsillitis.
- RG>
[Edited 2007-12-29 to correct the url "[website].org", after discovering a surprising number of referrals for the search term "[website].com". Other errata/updates include: m90 is no longer in my rounds for internet videos; I cancelled my Macleans subscription years ago; the thank-you was to the donuts, not to the corporation; and I was not the only Registration Officer that day; I do, however, still feel a little under the weather.]
[Edited 2023-06-09 because Blogger told me this is 'sensitive content'. I removed the direct references to an old video website that is now a holding page for spammers. Also I was missing the 't' in "All-Nighter" in the title!]
When I got home, I did my regular checking-of-the-internets, ending about 04:30. I went to go to sleep, and failed to do so. So I went back on the internet and started watching video clips from [a website that no longer exists]. I did this until about 10:30am. I then read the two issues of Macleans that I had lying around, and got really tired. I went to sleep at 11:30am.
And then I had to get up at 13:00 again.
It was my very first all-nighter (although not the typical kind, where you do it out of necessity). Prior to this, the latest I'd ever stayed up was about 04:00. I did it without food or drink, and the 6-hour finance meeting at 13:00 was a pain in the body, though I was able to concentrate. Thank you Tim Horton's donuts.
I just hope that I'll be able to make it on Election day--I will be the only Registration Officer working at the polling location, from 09:00 to 21:30 (or later, if there's a lineup when the doors close). Seeing how I'm in Ottawa Centre, a very political riding, and they're predicting a high voter turnout, I might be in for a big day.
Anyway, I'm still sick. I think it might be tonsillitis.
- RG>
[Edited 2007-12-29 to correct the url "[website].org", after discovering a surprising number of referrals for the search term "[website].com". Other errata/updates include: m90 is no longer in my rounds for internet videos; I cancelled my Macleans subscription years ago; the thank-you was to the donuts, not to the corporation; and I was not the only Registration Officer that day; I do, however, still feel a little under the weather.]
[Edited 2023-06-09 because Blogger told me this is 'sensitive content'. I removed the direct references to an old video website that is now a holding page for spammers. Also I was missing the 't' in "All-Nighter" in the title!]
Saturday, January 14, 2006
Deep thought
I was just thinking to myself about myself, and I started saying "I feel like Schrödinger's cat," because I don't know whether or not I am alive.
And then I thought, wait a minute! If I were Schrödinger's cat, I would know whether I were alive.
Then I thought, what if I were Schrödinger's cat, but also outside the box, unable to see inside it? Then I both would both know and not know at the same time!
And then I said, "whoa..."
- RG>
And then I thought, wait a minute! If I were Schrödinger's cat, I would know whether I were alive.
Then I thought, what if I were Schrödinger's cat, but also outside the box, unable to see inside it? Then I both would both know and not know at the same time!
And then I said, "whoa..."
- RG>
Tuesday, January 03, 2006
Tuesday, December 20, 2005
Why news media must be public (commentary)
A renecnt advertising campaign that reeeeeally bothered me was CPAC's "We're better because we're independent" campaign. I only read about it in the paper, since I don't watch tv. However, the article explained that the spots featuring Tom Green (they would have gotten Rick Mercer, but his CBC contract wouldn't allow it!) claimed that CPAC was more reliable (than CBC, I would presume) because it is "owned by a group of cable companies" (I'm paraphrasing).
Uh, yeah. Rogers and Bell and Global. They don't have any interest in public policy whatsoever, do they?
Just now, it clicked for me: I was watching reading the director's introduction to the movie WAL-MART: The high cost of low price", which I was given a copy of recently. I had also just finished watching the producer's interview with Lou Dobbs on the website.
The introduction made a reference to footage of WAL-MART CEO Lee Scott that they had "secured". This reminded me that to use a media corporation's broadcast, you need their permission. Such permission means that the corporation can decide who they want to use their footage (e.g. of announcements, speeches, etc.). This gives them a way of being biased (i.e. not independent) towards the people they report on by only sharing the material with producers they know will use the footage in the way they want it to be used.
The only solution to avoid this conflict is to make all of their footage available for free, and the closest I think that we have is the BBC, which has opened up its entire archive for download on the internet (although I've never personally dabbled with trying to get a rebroadcast permit from any media company).
Ironically, the BBC is not, as CPAC put it, "independent". Go figure.
- RG>
Uh, yeah. Rogers and Bell and Global. They don't have any interest in public policy whatsoever, do they?
Just now, it clicked for me: I was watching reading the director's introduction to the movie WAL-MART: The high cost of low price", which I was given a copy of recently. I had also just finished watching the producer's interview with Lou Dobbs on the website.
The introduction made a reference to footage of WAL-MART CEO Lee Scott that they had "secured". This reminded me that to use a media corporation's broadcast, you need their permission. Such permission means that the corporation can decide who they want to use their footage (e.g. of announcements, speeches, etc.). This gives them a way of being biased (i.e. not independent) towards the people they report on by only sharing the material with producers they know will use the footage in the way they want it to be used.
The only solution to avoid this conflict is to make all of their footage available for free, and the closest I think that we have is the BBC, which has opened up its entire archive for download on the internet (although I've never personally dabbled with trying to get a rebroadcast permit from any media company).
Ironically, the BBC is not, as CPAC put it, "independent". Go figure.
- RG>
Friday, October 28, 2005
More trees, less Bush (commentary)
While playing online backgammon the other day, someone commented on my username (which combines "realgrouchy" and "canada" in an entirely unimaginitive way).
Their comment was, "What do you have to be grouchy about up there? At least you don't have Bush."
As much as I hate to chat while playing online games (after all, I don't go into other people's chatrooms and start playing backgammon), in this case I couldn't help but give a clever and concise reply à la moi:
"His foreign policy."
- RG>
Their comment was, "What do you have to be grouchy about up there? At least you don't have Bush."
As much as I hate to chat while playing online games (after all, I don't go into other people's chatrooms and start playing backgammon), in this case I couldn't help but give a clever and concise reply à la moi:
"His foreign policy."
- RG>
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