Oh, the Manitoba Museum has free admission yesterday? I'm so there!
I always find these things out after the fact.
Monday, February 21, 2011
Sunday, February 20, 2011
Public washrooms and religious graffiti.
I've noticed a lot of public washrooms have religious graffiti in them lately. as Simon and Garfunkel once sang "The words of the prophets are written on the subway walls and tenements halls". How odd how the bible seems to preach vandalism. Or at least some of its adherents seem to believe vandalism is justified so long as it is proselytizing their religion. I couldn't find with google any admonitions against graffiti, but I did find psalm 17:7-12. "Paint grace-graffiti on the fences". Perhaps I'm missing some significant subtext into why this is considered acceptable behaviour.
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
SOLAR FLARE
A Solar Flare is heading straight to Earth, and will hit us on Tuesday morning. It will mostly hit the Atlantic Ocean, influencing weather patterns. Will it mean an extension of this warm weather in Winnipeg? Or an unfortunate and untimely return to cold weather. I dunno. If you're awake Tuesday morning before the sun comes up you will apparently get to see a nice Aurora effect.
Actually I just did a quick check, looks like it's still projected to be nice until Friday.
Actually I just did a quick check, looks like it's still projected to be nice until Friday.
Wednesday, February 09, 2011
Bombers in Korea
Maybe I'm turning dyslexic, but occasionally when I see articles on Google News or elseplace lately, I've had to take a second look. I'm probably skimming too fast in the first place, but I read this article Blue Bombers ‘get involved’ in Kenora as Blue Bombers 'get involved' in Korea. All the letters are there, so I see how I got there, and it gave me such an odd impression in my mind. CFL outreach into the orient. Whoda thunk. But no, it's a little closer to home. Then I got to thinking this is good. They really should get out there a bit more. Maybe even into North Dakota and Minnesota.
Sunday, February 06, 2011
More UBB
In my burning rage I got to wondering, would a UBB overage charge even hold up in court? In electricity and gas and oil, we have actual standard measures that are applied to what we get. The tools used to provide those services are heavily regulated as are the monitoring tools and methodology behind them. Gigabytes are not. CAN an ISP legally charge us for a unit of measure that doesn't have any backing behind it? Where the ISP itself is the one doing the measuring, and the data itself is circumspect? I mean, when water goes in to your house, that little water meter is kept to a specific standard as set by government rules. Are Rogers or Shaw actually able to prove in a court of law that you used so and so amount of bandwidth? Sure they can say that you did, but its your word against theirs. I've heard of speeding tickets thrown out of court for worse reasons. What if every Bell and Rogers and Shaw customer just downloaded gigs of data, then took the ISP's to court? I'm not a lawyer, but I really don't see how they'd have much of a case.
Saturday, February 05, 2011
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes
Today I learned that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, writer of Sherlock Holmes stories, and some other stuff, came to Canada twice. Both times apparently to Jasper national park (once upon its opening). He spent at least one day in Winnipeg to boot. Neat. Irrelevant to anything whatsoever, but still, cool.
I've been reading the Sherlock Holmes stories, as I had never read them in my youth and all my sherlock holmes knowledge comes from Star Trek TNG holodeck episodes. That is to say, next to none. The character is actually quite surprisingly different from what years of "elementary, my dear watson" type stories have shown. Heck, I bet the Robert Downey Jr. Sherlock Holmes movie is closer to the real Sherlock Holmes than anything else ever put to film.
I mean, the character is almost autistic, horribly anti-social, takes cocaine and other recreational drugs (though legal at the time), and subtly disrespectful of most authority (and with good cause).. Why had nobody told me this? I thought I was in for some boring crime solving, but instead I was given excitingly better than you douchebag know-it-all. Kind of like House from that TV show he's in. House. Except British.
Anyways, hurray to project Gutenberg for hosting these classics. The only bad thing is once I'm done with it, that's it forever. There will never be new Sherlock Holmes stories. It's like the stories really are chronicles of actual events, and we'll never truly go back there. It's kind of sad, but at the same time, kind of nice to think those stories will stand forever. They're fiction, but there is something of the "real" about them. It'd be nice to think there really was a Sherlock Holmes, like there was really a person James Bond was based on, and these stories were published as fiction to hide the real person's identity. And somewhat sad to think that our world today has more Professor Moriarty's running it than Sherlock Holmes's. I mean just as you can take James Bond and write new movies set in the modern times, you can do the same with Sherlock Holmes, but when you look at it, Sherlock Holmes truly belongs in turn of the century London just as James Bond belongs in the 50's and 60's.
I've been reading the Sherlock Holmes stories, as I had never read them in my youth and all my sherlock holmes knowledge comes from Star Trek TNG holodeck episodes. That is to say, next to none. The character is actually quite surprisingly different from what years of "elementary, my dear watson" type stories have shown. Heck, I bet the Robert Downey Jr. Sherlock Holmes movie is closer to the real Sherlock Holmes than anything else ever put to film.
I mean, the character is almost autistic, horribly anti-social, takes cocaine and other recreational drugs (though legal at the time), and subtly disrespectful of most authority (and with good cause).. Why had nobody told me this? I thought I was in for some boring crime solving, but instead I was given excitingly better than you douchebag know-it-all. Kind of like House from that TV show he's in. House. Except British.
Anyways, hurray to project Gutenberg for hosting these classics. The only bad thing is once I'm done with it, that's it forever. There will never be new Sherlock Holmes stories. It's like the stories really are chronicles of actual events, and we'll never truly go back there. It's kind of sad, but at the same time, kind of nice to think those stories will stand forever. They're fiction, but there is something of the "real" about them. It'd be nice to think there really was a Sherlock Holmes, like there was really a person James Bond was based on, and these stories were published as fiction to hide the real person's identity. And somewhat sad to think that our world today has more Professor Moriarty's running it than Sherlock Holmes's. I mean just as you can take James Bond and write new movies set in the modern times, you can do the same with Sherlock Holmes, but when you look at it, Sherlock Holmes truly belongs in turn of the century London just as James Bond belongs in the 50's and 60's.
Wednesday, February 02, 2011
Who says I don't get results?
5 days ago, in my last post, I complained about Shaw, UBB, and what was taking so long with MTS and their HSDPA network rollout. Firstly, Shaw... Whateves, they're dead to me now. Secondly, UBB, The Conservative government realized that to support the already ridiculously overprofitable telcos in this would be sheer madness on a scale never before attempted, and it looks like they're going to put their foot down on the issue, which is great.
But best of all, it looks like someone at MTS has read my blog and realized that if they want me to switch, they should give me a timeline for their new network. And that date is March 31st, coincidentally the last date on my Rogers cell phone plan. Almost suspiciously so. MTS website link is here.
Will MTS keep their "unlimited" data plans with the HSPA+? I think it would be wise of them to do so, as they would effectively shut down Telus, Bell, and Rogers flat (and minimize the potential threat of Wind Mobile and others). Perhaps a wise business strategy would be to offer 30 gigs as the base amount at $30, 60 gigs at $60, and unlimited for $80-$100 a month. I think there are a number of people who would willingly pay $100 a month for unlimited mobile internet throughout Manitoba. It would be also be good for people outside of Winnipeg to actually have useable high speed data access who otherwise would be stuck on dialup or satellite. But, I don't work for MTS so whatever. Though people who can bundle home internet with HSPA+ should get a reasonable discount. I mean, they're paying twice for the same service. I totally can't wait to see all those Mennonite farms hooked up to Facebook.
MTS however should have taken a stand publically against UBB, rather then their mealy mouthed comments that essentially amounted to "maybe.. maybe not.. we dunno.. depends on what our astrologer tells us" .. it would have made them look more appealing than Shaw, who has lowered their caps, and is attempting to push UBB themselves. Now that the winds of public gamma ray induced rage are moving parliament into fast action against it, they may have missed their opportunity to ingratiate themselves upon people who might want to give MTS a chance.
Also I think MTS should just rebrand themselves Allstream. Drop the MTS.
And most importantly, I'm partial to an HTC google phone or perhaps a Sony playstation phone or Xperia X12. I haven't decided yet.
But best of all, it looks like someone at MTS has read my blog and realized that if they want me to switch, they should give me a timeline for their new network. And that date is March 31st, coincidentally the last date on my Rogers cell phone plan. Almost suspiciously so. MTS website link is here.
Will MTS keep their "unlimited" data plans with the HSPA+? I think it would be wise of them to do so, as they would effectively shut down Telus, Bell, and Rogers flat (and minimize the potential threat of Wind Mobile and others). Perhaps a wise business strategy would be to offer 30 gigs as the base amount at $30, 60 gigs at $60, and unlimited for $80-$100 a month. I think there are a number of people who would willingly pay $100 a month for unlimited mobile internet throughout Manitoba. It would be also be good for people outside of Winnipeg to actually have useable high speed data access who otherwise would be stuck on dialup or satellite. But, I don't work for MTS so whatever. Though people who can bundle home internet with HSPA+ should get a reasonable discount. I mean, they're paying twice for the same service. I totally can't wait to see all those Mennonite farms hooked up to Facebook.
MTS however should have taken a stand publically against UBB, rather then their mealy mouthed comments that essentially amounted to "maybe.. maybe not.. we dunno.. depends on what our astrologer tells us" .. it would have made them look more appealing than Shaw, who has lowered their caps, and is attempting to push UBB themselves. Now that the winds of public gamma ray induced rage are moving parliament into fast action against it, they may have missed their opportunity to ingratiate themselves upon people who might want to give MTS a chance.
Also I think MTS should just rebrand themselves Allstream. Drop the MTS.
And most importantly, I'm partial to an HTC google phone or perhaps a Sony playstation phone or Xperia X12. I haven't decided yet.
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