Canada’s show this year took a totally different theme than we’ve seen from Canada in the past by using a “Godzilla” theme.
Weather conditions were pretty good - a slight wind to blow the smoke away and hence everyone got some pretty clear photos of the fireworks.
Next up is the USA on Saturday.
Usability of minor little things can make a major improvement in our lives by improving the information available to us.
The simple crosswalk signal is a great example of where you can make a minor change and improve usability considerably.
At present most signals go something like this:
Solid “WALK” then a steady flashing “DON’T WALK” with a solid “DON’T WALK” just before the traffic light is due to turn.
How can we make it better?
Take the “DON’T WALK” flashing - at present it flashes at a steady rate so one doesn’t have any idea how soon the light is going to change, people do “run it” and get caught in the middle, driver’s can’t use the information to plan if the light is going to change to take their foot off the gas and preemptively brake.
Why not make it so the “DON’T WALK” flashes slowly at first and as it gets closer to the light changing make it flash faster and faster. A slowly flashing signal people means people wouldn’t slow down but for a rapidly flashing one people would. Less gas burned by avoiding accelerating only to brake a second later.
It’d save gas and make things a little less stressful. As an added bonus, you wouldn’t have to replace the signals themselves (the other option the digital count down timer requires a replacement) but rather re-program the lights to change the flash rate.
I managed to get an unbroken fix on my hike up the Grouse Grind yesterday - here’s the tracklog.
Needless to say, I also grabbed an altitude log here - it’s a few meters out of calibration but it gives you a good idea of the grade of the trail.
If you want the GPS tracklog here it is in .gpx format
In short, they have finally offered an “unlimited” data plan for $30/month. Ok - it’s technically not unlimited but given the definition that we have seen by carriers in the US it is more or less.
It’s a concession but still not perfectly acceptable. The voice plans are still outrageous compared with the US and the fine print, the System Access Fee (aka pure profit), massively overpriced caller ID, voicemail, low minute buckets.
Will Rogers fix their minute plans to become an acceptable affordable wireless carrier?
On a related note, both Bell and Telus simultaneously decided to start charging the exact same price for incoming SMS messages. 15c a message to receive messages and you have no way to opt out - you pay if someone sends it. Yes, 15c for something that costs them literally nothing to provide.
Previously free incoming SMS was one of the few good things about Canadian cellular (I would guess the 6.95 to 8.95 SAF would cover the SMS fees) but now it’s gone. I guess top profits in the developed world aren’t enough for Bell and Telus - they need to charge more.
With Rogers getting all the flak over iRipoff - why of all things would their marketing department be so stupid to bring the wrath of consumers onto them by introducing this fee?
This is the first in a series of many as to what is messed about C-61.
With most phones the price you see is a fraction of the wholesale price that the carriers get the phones for. Obviously the phone is not “free” or $50 to the carrier but it certainly isn’t the hundreds of dollars the carrier claims it’s worth retail.
The carrier makes up the money that they “lost” by subsidizing your phone over the plan of your contract hence they “lock” your phone so it can only be used on that carrier’s network.
But what if your contract is up. Surely the carrier has made up their cost to give you the phone and the phone is technically yours in the clear. Shouldn’t you be able to take that phone and take it to Europe where you can buy a SIM (Wikipedia) card and pay European rates instead of extremely expensive Canadian roaming ones?
Currently the carrier isn’t obligated to give you the code to unlock your phone to allow it to work with other carriers. Under C-61 it would be illegal to unlock your phone as that would be breaking encryption.
Two main options present themselves
1) Require the carriers to provide unlock codes for every non subsized phone with a simple phone call request.
2) Make it legal to unlock your own phone / make the tools legal to do it when you’re not under contract by adding some langage saying that all the provisions against unlocking don’t apply on unsubsized phones.
A combanation of both would be ideal as there really is no excuse for someone to have to force unlock something they own. Carriers should be required to provide the codes but if they won’t, it should be legal to unlock.
There is a major confusion in the media about C-61 and they don’t understand the core problem. The issue is not about people downloading music it’s about the anti-circumvention provisions which make it illegal to break the digital rights management (Britannica - Wikipedia) which prevents you from copying music and in some schemes requires your computer to “phone home” to an server from whoever you bought the music from before it will play.
Imagine if iTunes closed up shop suddenly. Most of the tunes you’ve paid for would suddenly become digital paperweights - with no server to verify that the content is legal it won’t play.
Providers have held consumers in the dark in the past. Google discontinued it’s video store leaving millions of videos they sold unable to be played (they did sort of offer partial refunds to people who bought their content.) Major League Baseball changed the format they sell videos in rendering all previously sold content useless. No refunds. Microsoft discontinued some of their phone home servers too so if you changed computers suddenly the music collection that you’ve paid good money for is also worthless.
C-61 would make it illegal to break the DRM on content that you’ve paid for but can no longer enjoy. Who is the real criminal here? It’s not Canadians.
The Canadian DMCA (ie C-61) also contains a provision that makes it illegal for security researchers to do their work.
The legislation would make all security tools illegal - if it’s capable of circumventing DRM it’s no longer allowed. You are only allowed to attempt to crack / find security flaws in a program or an encryption scheme with the creator’s permission.
Companies don’t like to be told that their products have issues that need to be fixed (if they don’t respond to the concerns it gives them a rather bad image) and wouldn’t likely give permission for companies to probe their software for flaws.
Are the bad guy going to respect the law and not exploit these exploits.
No.
Without people finding and getting these problems fixed we’re all less secure.
Just another reason why C-61 needs to be killed and and something that actually makes sense be written.
Today the much feared Canadian DMCA (err, “fair and balanced after consulting with Canadians” amendment to the Copyright Act) came out and it’s anything but fair and balanced.
You know when you go to buy an airline ticket and they show you a price of $199*. When you actually land at your destination the * has more than tripled your price after surcharges, surcharges and more surcharges.
This proposed legislation is more or less the same way. Yes, it does contain a provision according to Prentice’s mass email that “expressly allow you to record TV shows for later viewing; copy legally purchased music onto other devices, such as MP3 players or cell phones; make back-up copies of legally purchased books, newspapers, videocassettes and photographs onto devices you own;” but there is a huge *.
You can’t break DRM or digital locks (Britannica - Wikipedia). So, all a content provider has to do to strip you of your rights is put a digital lock on the content and you’re subject to a $20,000 fine for doing exactly what the earlier provision says you can do.
Another concept is cell phones. With GSM phones (like iPhone) my account is stored on a little removable card that goes into the phone. Rogers (my current carrier) locks the phone so it will only work with their SIM cards.
After my contract is up and I have paid for my phone I want to take it to Europe and buy a cheap SIM card there for use overseas and not pay the arm and a leg roaming charges Rogers wants. If I break the restriction on something I have paid for in full I am subject to the fine. Rogers isn’t forced to provide me with an unlock code at the end of my contract so under this proposed law I would be stuck.
I have no problem with bringing copyright law up to the digital age. I have a problem with false advertising. C-61 has been falsely advertised by Jim Prentice and it needs to stop.
Recently I was in a discussion with someone who was saying that “maps were dead.” I believe that the major problem with that argument is that it does not define maps.
Yes, I will agree that traditional paper maps and charts are not as popular as they used to be. Paper does not store in a very compact format.
A set of maps for all of Canada would be several pounds to carry around. Dozens most likely. I can carry the same set of maps on one DVD. One disc. With that I can view them on my computer or transport them to my GPS so anywhere I am I can get directions to anywhere.
With a GPS I can get a set of co-ordinates. That set of co-ordinates while not a map by itself is now part of our major need for geo-location.
If one looks at flickr, many photos are tagged with location. Some cameras even have GPS chips built into them, instant location.
Geocaching, a very high tech game of hide and seek where people hide caches for people to find, posting co-ordinates which can be viewed on an electronic map or downloaded into a GPS unit to find.
Navigation systems, satnav navigates millions of people from point A to point B. You are looking at a map in there.
With everything, we have Google Earth where you can view all sorts of information, from fast food places to maps showing global warming. It’s open so people can share pretty much anything.
In short, maps are not dead - not by a long shot. Everything has just moved to the digital domain.
A few days ago I was reading “Why the 9 to 5 Office Worker Will Become a Thing of the Past” on Pick The Brain. It’s an interesting read, I suggest you check it out.
I have come to the realization that in many cases, the traditional workplace of showing up every morning, attending scheduled meetings and going home at a fixed time does not make any sense for either the employee or the company.
The obvious solution to this problem is planning around the mental energy cycle by breaking the work day into multiple segments. The traditional office setting doesn’t accommodate this because there are few available recharge activities. People can’t do household chores, run errands, or engage in recreational activities without leaving the workplace.
So, where does that leave us work wise. Do we work from home or do we work more at a “informal office” setting like WorkSpace?
I think the solution is a mixture of both. One does need a traditional office for some things like meetings and to collect mail etc but that’s about it. In many cases, one can rent a virtual office to handle those jobs very easily. No need to spend 2000+ a month on another physical place that doesn’t get used a lot.
With modern communication tools such as
1) Phones (both landlines and mobiles)
2) IM
3) E-Mail (including e-mail everywhere on the Blackberry)
4) Virtual Meetings
We are never out of touch - it really doesn’t matter if you are at home or on a cruise ship - with connectivity you can be anywhere and still work.
For some jobs, you have a fixed schedule - you work when it’s necessary but for many information workers there is no 9-5. A 8-10 and then 6-10 workday might be more productive.
At the end of the day, it’s about results not what time people work at. Breaking up the workday inproves productivity and everyone wins.
andrew wallwork
I speak ‘geek’ - I speak ‘human’ - translating the two in Vancouver, Canada.
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"Grouse Grind" "Vancouver Hikes" business C-61 computer repair computer services Copyright DMCA DRM facebook geeks IT Jim Prentice support web2.0 web apps
