Month: February 2006

Pass the korma

a920_spring2006%20012.jpgAfter a five year hiatus, I finally tried Indian cuisine again. I’ve shied away from everything except samosas because of a bad experience at a buffet in Hamilton (6 curries. Six colours, same taste).

But I went to Mantra on Elm Street, and I really enjoyed myself. There was salad and chutney, chicken in some orange sauce, and some awesome vegetable korma. There were even samosas, and nothing was fiery spicy, which my stomach doesn’t take a liking to. Vegetable korma! Where have you been all my life?!

The best thing was how everything smelled. The air was lit up with the aroma of spices. It was like having a room filled with Dristan.

New course at Lakehead: How to Ignore Empirical Facts

Smart university: University of Windsor goes wireless. In partnership with Bell Canada SMB, they just completed the crazy task of deploying over 1,000 802.11b/g wireless hotspots in and around campus.

Stupid university: Lakehead University bans wireless networks because it has “the potential for ‘some fairly significant’ health consequences”.

Other devices that work on the 2.4GHz spectrum at equal or higher electromagnetic strength than Wi-Fi devices but presumably are allowed on Lakehead’s campus:

* cordless phones
* walkie-talkies
* microwave ovens
* TV extenders
* Bluetooth devices (cellphones, headsets)
* Garage door openers
* Microwave radio transmitters on buildings

Maclean’s currently ranks this Thunder Bay-based institution of higher learning in 16th place out of 21 primarily undergraduate universities.

Hyperbole much?

jurij_klufas.jpgWell, the election is over, but here’s a little momento from a CPC flyer that was stuffed in my mailbox in early January.

It appears that the evil, kitten-snorting Liberals and NDP are against child care, health care, and families. Fortunately, they also appear to be against taxes and crime…so vote for Klufas if you like kids but don’t mind being burgled. At least I think that’s what they’re trying to tell me!

In the Xbox 360: __Ridge Racer 6__. Yuck. I feel like I’m driving a train.

How cool is that

chapleau_jan%20072.jpg Does your job involve you being given an Xbox 360 Premium, two controllers and a game and instructed to take it all home and play the living daylights out of it?

Apparently mine does.

Admittedly, there are others with cooler jobs in engineering. Check out IEEE Spectrum’s Dream Jobs 2006 Special Report. They interview one of the lab technicians from Discovery Channel’s __Mythbusters__, and the guy who maintains the water fountain system at Las Vegas’s Bellagio Hotel (Each fountain can fire water 160 feet into the air with the force and sound of a shotgun blast). In the end, the Xbox 360 is only a loaner.

Quickie 360 review: I love the integrated content delivery system that is the Dashboard that lets me download game demos, trailers, and access music and photos from networked PCs. I really hate the noisy fans, which sound like a hairdryer on medium.

In the 360: __Project Gotham Racing 3__.

Yum yum dim sum

Took the woman to her very first dim sum lunch at Rol San. Bfunked showed up and we act copious amounts of all food groups (but no chicken feet my favourite, fried taro). Afterwards we walked off our brunch at Yorkdale, stopping by the chic new Apple Store in the process. It’s like The Gap, but with sixteen times more people.

a920_spring2006%20003.jpg

It appears the new 5G video iPod really is the same width and height as my totally old and obsolete and senile 4G iPod.

Almost as good as meeting Preston Manning

Shades of six degrees: I just found out that Dalton McGuinty, current Ontario Premier, came from my alma mater, McMaster University. In an interview with the McMaster alumni magazine, it turns out he lived in a student house on the exact same street in Westdale I co-habitated in for two years, Hollywood. Heck, we may have had rented the same house.

P.S. Speaking of minor celebrities, yes, I did shake the hand of Preston Manning on Parliament Hill during Canada Day, 2000. I also saw Jacksoul and the Canadian Cheerleading Team. Couldn’t get close to Jean Chretien, though.

Proprietary software gets the patent blues too

Remember how Microsoft spread fear and doubt on open source software, claiming its users are sitting ducks for intellectual property lawsuits? Guess what, corporations that use Microsoft Office XP or 2003 are now seeing the indemnification that Microsoft offers them isn’t worth the CD-ROM it’s printed on:

“It was recently decided in a court of law that certain portions of code found in Microsoft Office Professional Edition 2003, Microsoft Office Access 2003, Microsoft Office XP Professional and Microsoft Access 2002 infringe a third-party patent,” Microsoft said in an e-mail to customers. “As a result, Microsoft must make available a revised version of these products with the allegedly infringing code replaced.”

The question for companies, though, is if they are exposing themselves to potential legal liability if they don’t quickly move to the new software. Microsoft promises to indemnify customers from third-party patent claims, but [Gartner analyst Michael] Silver said the license terms also require customers to “immediately” move to any new noninfringing version that Microsoft releases.

For those who believe that FLOSS contains no guarantees, warranties or indemnification, they would be correct. But check the fine print on the EULA on that proprietary software you just paid thousands of dollars for. You aren’t getting any kind of protection there either.