Author: admin

Two if by train

Do I need more fun? How about taking the woman on a weekend getaway to Ottawa a couple weeks ago? We took a train to Ottawa (first class – that’s just how I roll), booked ourselves into the Marriott Ottawa and tickets to see the Canadian Museum of Civilization. On Saturday, we walked along the Alexandra Bridge, checked out the CMC, the 062%20Like%20Castle%20Grayskull%2C%20but%20better%20funded.jpg IMAX film (Greece: Secrets of the Past, narrated by Nia Vardalos! Yes she qualified herself by mentioning “My Big Fat Greek Wedding”.) and the Petra exhibit, and then walked around the outskirts of Byward Market.

Unfortunately, by then Silverlotus caught my cold and was bed-ridden by Saturday evening and all of Sunday. However, despite having to feed her with a staple diet of McDonald’s strawberry milkshakes and Tylenol Flu, we still had a good time. We watched TV and watch a grandfather cheat in minigolf downstairs on the kid’s playground on the verandah below us.

*Reading*: Finished off _Robots and Empire_ and the Saturday Star (I like their new magazine article format).

*360 degrees*: A romantic dinner at the Merlot, in the revolving restaurant on top of the Marriott Ottawa. I had duck breast and she had prime rib, and damn was the food tasty. But for God’s sake, it’s 2006, get a website.

*6pm*: The time the entire frickin’ town closes up shop. Honest.

*7:15pm*: The time the hot tub closes. The only sign is a piece of paper taped to the actual hot tub. That made me sad. 🙁

*4-0*: The score for the Oilers vs. Hurricanes, Game 6, as we watched on in the hotel room. Silverlotus knows more hockey than I do.

*”Museum of Canadian Civilization”*: Silverlotus’s proposed name for the CMC, as __technically__ none of the rest of the world is in focus. Such a particular one when she’s ill.

CTV dips its toes into Internet TV

CTV is currently streaming CTV News, Corner Gas, Canadian Idol, and other primetime shows. This follows on the heels of the BBC digitizing their video archives, and the recent explosion of video services such as YouTube, Google Video, Yahoo! Video, AOL Video….have I missed anyone?

CTV already features RSS feeds (albeit they kind of hide it and stick it with a legalese) like most other Canadian television and newspaper companies (but only The Toronto Star has dared to dabble in podcasts), so it’s nice to see Canadian Big Media continue to think outside of the boobtube box.

Because it’s ad-supported, CTV prevents those with non-Canuck IPs from viewing the videos. I suppose they figure if they can’t advertise Kraft Dinner to the world market, they aren’t going to show Canadian content either…

DIY wireless

One of the things I’ve come across in my work is the incredible hassle it takes to get a wireless network up and running – regardless if it’s Joey Napster trying to get Internet access in his basement, or large scale WiFi hotspot usage. From the user perspective, the technical details are rarely well explained, the wireless Layer 1 is fickle and unstable by nature, and software is generally no help in diagnosing errors or giving suggestions on how they can get the best signal they can possibly get. In light of this I’ve found a few fun and interesting resources on wireless networking:

For some good technical information that makes good bedtime reading, check out a free PDF entitled, “Wireless Networking in the Developing World”. Don’t judge this book by its title.

Commercially available directional antennae:
Both Linksys and DlInk has bigger, higher gain antenna available.

Do-It-Yourself Antennae
This is for educational purposes, or intrepid people with some time on their hands.

A commercial directional antenna often costs hundreds or thousands of dollars, but it’s reasonably easy to make your own with common household materials and some handyman skills. These could also theoretically help amplify the Wi-Fi AP signal in homes with poor reception.

* How to Build a directional Wi-Fi antenna out of a soup can: This inventor boosted his dBm by four orders of magnitude.

* How to Build a directional Wi-Fi antenna out of an old satellite dish: This inventor was able to access APs from eight miles away!

The caveat is, the antenna must be pointed virtually straight at a known wireless AP to pick up a signal. Obviously a clear line of sight is an asset.

Choice writing: Girl gamers and the games they love

Richard Corbett writes a withering mockumentary on how to write a “Girls in Games” article that would make a misogynistic Ferengi proud:

How you tackle this thorny issue will affect the whole tone of your cutting article. Refer to “Lara’s chest”, and you sound debonaire and suave, aware of the connotations, yet subtly removed from them. A sly reference to “Lara’s boobs” and you’re with the everyman; casual, yet aware. “Lara’s assets” show you as a dispassionate observer of life’s rich tapestry. And “Lara’s back! And her front too!” translates literally as “I am a man with no sense of humour.”

Discussion of character should be avoided at all costs; fighting the objectification of female game figures by ignoring irrelevant details like personality, background, stance, objectives, voice work, dialogue, relationships, and all that other junk, in favour of obsessing over breasts. You know. The important things.

He’s right too. Pretty much every article I’ve read about women and videogames seems to be from the perspective of a twelve year old, viewing the whole idea with such clinical fascination you’d think they were observing polar bear mating rituals. I can’t imagine what they must think when they find out women play hockey and change their oil too.

WeExtortToronto.ca

IM conversation after the illegal TTC strike. Fortunately I wasn’t affected. Can you say VPN?

quanta: only the ttc can pull something like this – and get away with it

V: it’s pure and utter bs so who is at fault? union or mgmt
quanta: doesn’t matter.
V: they both suck!
quanta: when something like this, you know the fault lies in both sides somehow – an endemic dysfunctionality
V: yep… planned miscommunication by both sides

If you may recall, the TTC threatened a strike for other reasons just last year.

Blackberry juice

As of this month, Bell Mobility will now officially support the Blackberry 7250 for high-speed EVDO (~1Mbps nominal speeds). EVDO is now available in all major urban centres in Canada, and coverage is expanding all the time – why, this week they turned on EVDO in the Muskokas, in case you need to get your Google Maps fix while on the lake. Later this year they will upgrade the network to run at 3Mbps. So…it’s a good thing to have.

Here’s how to get it:

# Backup all your data and extra programs from your Blackberry, just in case.
# Upgrade to Version 4.1 Desktop and Handheld Software.
NOTE: Upgrading will take 10 minutes at which time the device will appear unresponsive. This is perfectly normal.
NOTE to BES Enterprise Mail users: You will need to redo the Enterprise Activation after the upgrade.
# Go to one of select Bell World stores to get your device re-flashed to EVDO. They *should not* be charging for this service as it is a maintenance upgrade.
# The indicator should indicate “1XEV” when the Mobile Browser is running (assuming you are in the EVDO coverage area, such as the Greater Toronto Area).

Detailed instructions here.

You may also notice that the new v4.1 Handheld software will now let you to use the 7250 as a wireless modem. It’s expensive though, so I would check with Bell World for unlimited plans.

If it’s advertised in spam, it must be true

The New York Times chats with antispam vendor MessageLabs about all the crazy and clever tricks spammers try to get their genitalia enlargement pharmaceuticals and pump-and-dump stocks to us:

But spammers have hardly given up, and as they improve and adapt their techniques, network managers must still face down the pill-pushers, get-rich-quick artists and others who use billions of unwanted e-mail messages to troll for income…

Shortly after MessageLabs created a filter to catch the stock spams, the images they contained changed again.

They were now arriving with what looked to the naked eye like a gray border. Zooming in, however, the MessageLabs team discovered that the border was made up of thousands of randomly ordered dots. Indeed, every message in that particular spam campaign was generated with a new image of the border — each with its own random array of dots.”

I have to admit, now that my ISP migrated to a new mail platform, and with Gmail filtering the rest of my mail, and finally Mozilla running a Bayesian filter, things seem to have quieted down. But I still recognize half of these tricks mentioned in the article, and it’s interesting to finally find out what was the reasoning behind the scenes. Junkmailers seem to be using every hack in the book, pushing HTML and IP to heights unknown.

Examples: the careful crafting of messages with spelling mistakes or metaphors (such as the use of “gappy text” or calling a Rolex a “wrist accessory”), to splicing email with images and obscure HTML, to using viruses and spyware to turn our PCs into their email servers.

Another crazy piece of trivia: it is estimated that 10% of all email traffic on the Internet originates from two men. One is a Ukrainian spammer with four known aliases, and the other is a convicted Boston spammer currently hiding out in Russia.

The Drake and the Devil

You must understand the Drake to embrace it. When I was waiting for two of my boys to get out of the loo last Friday night, I spied an intricate set of circular brushed metal meters, the type you might see on an old-fashioned water boiler. They were set against the wall in a mess of thick steel piping, and were labelled with locations such as “LOUNGE” and “PATIO”.

Every red line in every meter was jammed firmly to the right, past the maximum value inscribed. Except one. Oh, it was maxed out too, but it also pulsated, almost imperceptible in its tight vibrations, to the beat of a subwoofer that reverberated some distance away.

And this was only 10 ‘oclock.

The Drake Hotel is a former flophouse on Queen St. West that has gentrified itself into a “scenester” (as Space Cadet calls it) type of place that has no qualms in charging you $30 for eight slices of spring lamb. Thanks to a few million in angel investment, it’s become a tumble of bohemian and art deco and beautiful bodies, smack dab in one of the poorest neighbourhoods in the city. And mind you, the lamb doesn’t taste like $30, but you are still having an incredible time.

SSPX0063small.jpgAfterwards, thanks to an inside connection (thanks T!), we went to the front of the line at Devil’s Martini. Lots of sound, lots of liquor, and lots of bodies. It’s a dirty job but someone’s got to do it.

Aside: Everything went swimmingly except for my annoying cab ride home. Cabbie claims he takes credit card, but when we get to my place, we find out his machine has run out of ink. Since I only had a ten, I suggest him driving me to the ATM about two klicks away, as long as he keeps the meter off.

So we drive up to the ATM, I get the cash, I step back into the cab and give him the fare plus tip, and he tells me to get out and walk home because he “can’t afford to drive [me] back for free”. I argued – at least as much as you can argue at 3am after drinking screwdrivers – but to no avail. I walked two kilometres home and only realized when I entered the front door that I left him a tip – a tip that technically would have been enough to cover the trip.