I'm not quite dead...

I'm just working nights. Pt Lepreau took an outage Tuesday night and I got assigned to do engineering support on the 7:30 pm to 8:00 am night shift the next day. When will it end? Who can say... we were originally shooting for noonish on Tuesday, but some more stuff has come up and right now the schedule says Thursday night. As to how long I'll be slogging it out on the night shift, I also have no idea. I have received no management direction other than "you're on nights until further notice." Thriving on vague objectives. Sometimes my job becomes strikingly Dilbert-esque. In theory, I can work clear through to next Saturday (that's Friday night/Saturday morning for the rest of you) without a day off without exceeding the hours of work limits. Now, I'm all for sucking back overtime while its there to be had, but I'll probably reach a personal hours of work limit before I reach the administrative one. Just leave me where I drop, I'll sleep it off.

What an idiot

The UK say a new record today... and no, not the world's largest pot of tea, or anything like that. It was the highest speed ever measured on Britain's highways (or motorways, as they call them). A guy was caught doing 172 mph (277 km/h), beating the previous UK record of 153 mph. Not like it matters at this point, but he was in a 70 mph zone. To boot, the car was a rental, a Porsche 911 Turbo (the guy worked for a company that rents exotic cars). He was sentenced to 10 weeks in jail.

To put the whole incident into perspective, a formula 1 car tops out at just over 300 km/h, while a typical airliner has a takeoff speed of around 260 km/h. That's right, he was going a speed normally consistent with a jet taking off. Thanks for coming out.

In local dumbness, a professor at UdeM (that other New Brunswick University) submitted a study to the province that said that all information should be accessible, unless it is private information. Specifically, he wants the Protection of Personal Information Act and the Right to Information Act combined into a single piece of legislation. I can't wait to see how this thing is worded. Because, really, privacy and access to information are two competing goals in most cases, yet not strictly mutually exclusive. We could call it the Right to Personal Information Act, or maybe the Protection of Right to Information Act. I'm not saying it couldn't be done, but the lawyers would be blasting hot air for years just trying to close all the loopholes.

The iPod Gap

I'm sure lots of people have noticed this already, but I just picked up on it yesterday. My girlfriend pointed out to me that there is a big capacity gap in the current iPod lineup since there is no longer a 30 GB version like the previous generation.

The current crop of iPods (including Shuffle, Nano, Classic, and Touch) come in 1, 4, 8, 16, 80, and 160 GB capacities. It's a long way between 16 and 80 GB. Right now I have about 10 GB of music on my computer, so if I where to dump it all into an iPod (which I would because that way I don't have to think about what I want to listen to over the next while it also makes syching a no-brainer), the 16 GB capacity would probably be a bit restrictive at the rate my music collection typically grows. In any case, that model is a Touch, which is first generation and less reliable. But the next one up is 80 GB, which is actually bigger than my computer's hard drive (it has 60 GB, which was pretty typical capacity when I bought it). Since the iPod at some point would be synced with my computer, I'd not only have way more iPod capacity than music, but more iPod space than space on my computer, period, especially when you consider that a PC needs about 50% of the hard drive free to work properly. The only way to use the remaining iPod capacity would be to use the iPod in part as a back-up drive.

Now for the counter-arguement. In terms of cost per GB, the hard-drive based classic is far and away the best deal compared with its flashed-based cousins. The 80 GB version works out to be $3.50 / GB (at current Canadian prices), the 160 GB version $ 2.50 / GB, so even if I only use, say 25 GB (about the max I could squeeze onto my current PC), I've simply bought $195.50 of extra space on the 80 GB version. And I don't need to think about outgrowing my iPod, and when I replace my current computer, there will be doubtlessly a bigger hard drive in the new one. In case you want to know, the flash based iPods average out to $44.87 / GB, ranging from $28.85 to $84.99 per GB.

Oh, Snap!

And yes, that expression only reached my corner of geekdom last week. Anyway, I think it fits with CNet's buzz out loud podcast from Friday. In that episode, the hosts talked at length about a study recently performed by Google about its ad feeds. The concensus was that as long as the ads where useful (hehe), relevant, and not intrusive, that it was okay to have, say, a small banner ad. This in response to recent legal wrangling about the legality of ad blocking software. Yeah. Seriously, there are those that want to get it legislated that we have to see thier ads. At the end of the podcast, a caller points out that the podcast has an ad right in the middle for Earthlink, an American ISP. This ad has sat in the podcast, the exact same ad, for months if not over a year. How's that for intrusive, not to mention not relevant. If you can steam the podcast you clearly already have a decent internet connection. Oops, logic alert!

Obviously Oblivious

I was over on CNet watching the video feed, which included the trailer for Halo 3. Which, really, looks awesome. I'm not a gamer, mostly because today's games are more difficult and complex than I have the time or patience for, not to mention how expensive consoles are these days (the Wii being the exception). But the trailer is cool, graphics having advanced to the point where game rendering and movie rendering don't look much different. Then my brain kicked out the idea that Halo would probably be a movie. And it will be, in 2008, according to rottentomatoes.com. I probably heard this months ago and my brain picked this particular moment to kick out this particular piece for jetsam (far superior to flotsam).

But, duh, any succesful video game is bound to become a movie, and vice versa, if for no other reason than for fanboys to have something else to buy. It might suck, it might not. I'd say the movie adaptation of Halo will do the Transformers thing and turn into one huge recruiting ad for the army. Starship Troopers did wonders for the air force way back when.

iCrap

Seems people are having a love-hate relationship with Apple lately. Recently, the wikipedia page was defaced, describing Apple as a "dick licking company." I see that's been fixed and returned to G-rated goodness.

The Apple crew have been in the news a lot, lately, for many reasons. There was the iPhone, the next generation iPods, and new versions of the iLife entertainment suite and iWork office package. In fact, I'm pretty sure that at this point Apple could announce some kind of gadget called the iCrap and it would sell.

Some may say that there is already an iCrap, that being the brick early adopters shat when the $200 price drop for the iPhone was announced. Hehe. Fooled you, Macheads! Well, at least there was a $100 rebate to sooth the ruffled feathers. Those of you fortunate enough to have the option of purchasing an iPhone are a small but slowly growing minority. We're, what, coming up on two months after the US release, with only the UK and Germany officially lined up with official release dates. Canada is not even of the radar screen at this point.

I suppose those Canadians jealous of our southern pals can content themselves with the iPod Touch, basically an iPhone without the phone. Which may actually be a good thing, since Apple has caught a great deal of flak by locking the iPhone in each contry into a single carrier's network, AT&T stateside, O2 in the UK and T-mobile in Germany.

Then there was the 300-page iPhone bill. Yeah, itemised reporting of web data transfers was pretty dumb.

All the little oopses aside, I'm glad that Apple is gaining market share across the board and sticking it to Microsoft. The Zune was so worth it just to watch MS crash and burn (which is much more fun than when thier OS does the same). I'm very much hoping for a iPod in my stocking and plan to get a Macbook when my current Compaq is ready to be put out to pasture.

Even more amazing discoveries!

(1) I do not have a heart condition. I've reached this conclusion because if I had any kind of heart defect, the Broncos 15-14 win with one second left on the clock, followed this week by their 23-20 over time win (with cleverly placed time out) would have done me in.

(2) Futureshop makes me sad. This is because they currently stock about 30 37-inch and larger flat screen tvs of either the LCD or plasma persuasion, and if I hadn't racked up a pile of credit card debt while struggling to survive in Ottawa, I could so afford the payments on one.

(3) There a no rules in Formula 1. There a simply generally agreed upon guidlines supplimented by shadey backroom deals that had certain teams championships they have not earned. You know who you are.

(4) Sirius satellite radios are actually quite easy to install in your car, despite what Sirius claims (all the documentation goes to great lengths to recommend professional installation). I put my starmate 4 into my '03 Focus SE in about 45 minutes.

SUV Insanity

First, there was the sport utility vehicle. And it was bad. Gas guzzling, overgrown Jeeps that were and are driven as status symbols. Because, let's face it, you have to be rich to put gas in one.

Recently, the "Sport" part has been dropped to create the luxury utility vehicle, for which the principle is the same but without the pretext of being able to go off-road.

Then, the was the SUV hybrid. Sure, a gasoline-electric hybrid drive is easier on gas while still giving reasonable performance. But really, putting one in an SUV just takes some of the guilt away, since it will now use "only" as much gas as, say, a typical American sedan. And hybrid SUVs are by far the most common type of hybrid vehicles.

Have a quick look at caranddriver.com, you will see that only Honda and Toyota offer a hybrid compact, while only Lexus and Nissan offers a hybrid mid-size. Ford, Mercury, Lexus, Saturn, and Toyota all offer a hybrid SUV. This compromised hybrid is becoming disturbingly common at the expense of putting hybrid drives in cars were the switch would actually save gas, rather than just compensating for innately poor fuel efficiency.

I was considering going hybrid for my next car, but unless some selection actually appears in the small and mid-size ranges, I'll have to opt for a car like the current Honda Fit or Toyato Yaris, which give similar mileage by simply being small and using highly efficient conventional engine. The lack of technical advances is getting a bit old. Hopefully Volkswagen will continue to make the desiel version of the Jetta, because with only a few exceptions nobody seem willing to do any better.

More odd discoveries

It seems I've been picking up a lot of odd information lately, so I thought I'd pick up on the theme from a couple of previous posts and regurgitate this mental lint I've been collecting.

(1) We think of Australia and New Zealand as being relatively close together, but in fact that's a big stretch of ocean, especially for early human settlers. While Austrialia and New Guinea where colonised about 40, 000 years ago, humans did not reach New Zealand until the ancestors of the modern Maori made the trip sometime between 800 and 1300 AD. This makes New Zealand one of the last large landmasses to be populated by humans.

(2) Britons need a pint to cry into. The EU has apparently conceded defeat in its effort to get the UK to switch completely to metric units.

(3) Turbine and power plant equipment manufacturer Siemens needs to reconsider some of the shorthand they use. My work does business with them, so I see some of the internal documents. The Canadian centre in Hamilton, Ontario is given the monkier "SHAM", the American headquarters in Orlando "SOR" (pronounce sore), the UK division is "SUK" and the main manufacturing division in Germany is Siemens Turbine Deutshland, or "STD".

(4) Russians need to have more sex. In an effort to boost flagging birth rates in parts of central Russia, workers were recently given a day off with the goal of concieving childern to be born on Russia's national day, June 12. If you manage to hit that magic date, some districts are even offering prizes or financial incentives such as educational aid or housing subsidies for families with 3 or more kids. Personally I think this is a great idea, and would love to have a paid holiday to go home and have sex.

And about time, too.

Football season starts tomorrow, if you don't count that odd Thursday night game that hase been a feature of recent NFL seasons. Of course, those of us north of the 49th have been able to watch the CFL since July, but I must say NFL rules and a greater number of teams make for much better product.

This year is the first I've actually had the cable bill in my name, so I coughed up the $29.95 a month for Roger's super sports pak, which includes NFL Sunday Ticket, NHL Centre Ice, NCAA sports as well as pro basketball, baseball, OHL hockey and NASCAR. Which, really, is a great deal (except in the summer, since I'm not a baseball fan).

I'm looking forward to the improved coverage, for a number of reasons. I'm a Broncos fan, my second favorite team is the Packers, two teams that rarely get TV time on the east coast. In fact, for those of us who aren't Patriots fans, the coverage on basic cable is rather lack luster. Also, most times that the Broncos play its a 4:15 ET start time, and since all but local affilates have to finish the first game first, I've often been obliged to miss the first quarter even when I've been able to get the Broncos game. Also, this is the first season when I've had no homework/work on Sunday to take up time that I'd rather spend watching football. And when hockey starts, I will actually be able to watch the Sens of Saturday night, which owing to CBC's version of regional coverage isn't otherwise possible outside the Ottawa Valley. I took advantage of the new channels today to watch Akron go down to Ohio State 2-20, agian a game not otherwise available in my area.

Tomorrow is a big day for me, the Italian Grand Prix followed by chicken wings and football. So let me ask you this, why is it that watching football makes me crave meat? Just wouldn't be a super sports pak without it.

Merge this

Time for some local Saint John content...

This morning the CBC aired a report about a group of businessmen that want the University of New Brunswick's Saint John campus to merge with the local community college, creating a "centre of excellence" that will offer a variety of trades and degrees, the choice of which will be "market driven" and make Saint John's post secondary education "world class," in the process getting the NBCC some badly needed new facilities.

Now, it is unlikely that Saint John will ever be "world class" at anything, but we can get to that later. The bit about market forces determining the degrees and trades to be offered sounds, at least to my ears, that the muckemucks (bigshots) that already have a tight hold on everything that goes on in Saint John will decide, based on their perception of the way the economy is going, what knowledge is valuable and what isn't. This is objectionable for two reasons:

(1) knowledge has value beyond purely economic, most universities have the idea of learning as valuble for its own sake buried somewhere in thier founding. Research performed in Canada's universities has helped improve our lives by simply understanding the world around us more fully.

(2) post secondary institutions require as much independence as possible to be effective in education and research. They are not simply places that the Irvings or the McCains or Ganongs can call up and place an order for a quantity of tradesmen or professionals to be delivered to them by a certain date to react to "market forces."

As a professional myself I know I am expected to do more than simply keep myself employed. We are expected to contribute to the body of knowledge in our field and to act in a fashion that represents the best of our profession. In short, I am not a commodity, not a dollar value, and not something to be ordered up from the local "polytechnic institute".

So in summary I hope that UNB rejects the merger, even if in a characteristically daft moment the local politians bow to the will of big business. The NBCC should also be taking a serious look at what its goals are and whom it serves.

The new school is the old school is the no school.

At least that's what seems to be happening in the NHL with the new-look jerseys. The Reebok "EDGE" jersey was introduced at last year's all star game to mixed reviews. Especially controversial was the addition of a contrasting colour panel under the arm and down along the side. Some of the talk seemed to die down when Rbk stated that the panel could also be the same colour rather than a contrasting panel, which seemed to satisfy the purists. Indeed, some of the "new" unis introduced in the ramp-up to the 2007-8 season look very much like last year's models.

Montreal went with a version that, except for the v-neck, is indistinguishable from their traditional jerseys. Ottawa, rebels that they are, went for the contrasting panel (white on the red home jerseys and red on the white away jerseys) as well as a slightly updated logo (formerly the third-uniform logo, now promoted because the old one was boring). Meanwhile, Vancouver went old school with the new school, introducing a jersey that is the same green, blue, and white the team wore when they entered the league in the 1970s, oddly paired with a toned-down version of the more recently used orca logo.

Rbk has claimed that the new jerseys are lighter, absorb less moisture, and allow greater freedom of movement. All of which remains to be seen, but they did at least come up with a jersey that can be made a modern or as traditional as individual teams desire.