June, 2008

travel / world heritage — No Comments
30
Jun 08

#1 – Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump

Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump Entrance Sign

Not a bad place to start off the tour. Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump is located about 20 kilometres outside of Fort MacLeod, Alberta.

I headed out of Drumheller at 9am, and as usual drove through Rosebud on the way to Calgary, and then onwards south to Fort Macleod. I have to say, Rosebud is a wonderfully unique community that I have yet to see replicated to any degree elsewhere. The town is tiny – probably 200 residents or so – and no gas station, franchise of any kind, and only a few small tourist shops. The one thing that it does have that is very obvious as you drive through it is a theatre. Right in the middle of the town is a decent-sized building housing the Rosebud Theatre Company, and big signs announcing the current and upcoming plays. As I drove through I really got the vibe that the whole town exists just for the theatre. It’s the only really visible business in town, and right in the center at that. Very quaint little place, I must say. If you ever have then chance to head out there to catch one of their theatre productions, I’m told they are very well done and worth the drive.

Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump

Anyway, I’m getting away from myself. Three hours after I left I was pulling up to Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump, about 16km outside of Fort Macleod. It was a very well-done museum, with quite a few interesting displays. The museum consists of 4 or so levels built into the side of the cliff, and as you go (up) through the museum all the displays are laid out until you get to the top level. At the top there is a concrete sidewalk leading out a hundred yards or so to a lookout point where you can get a very good view of the buffalo jump itself, as well as looking out east to the wind farms located a few kilometres out.

Pretty neat trip overall, but short. Worth visiting if you’re within driving distance. One down, 850 World Heritage Sites to go!

geekery / rants — No Comments
30
Jun 08

I Really Can’t Believe…

The University of Queensland has their own ISP that handles all on-campus internet traffic and provides “deals” for home internet access for students and staff. I couldn’t believe my eyes when I looked at the deals they’re offering – their biggest plan is $80/month for 8mbps (decent), with a quota of 20 GB! For that amount of money you could get 24mbps and 100GB with any of several commercial ISPs in Brisbane. I just simply cannot believe that they can offer plans like that with a straight face. And since I’ll have to deal with their 200MB/month (!!!) on campus quota for the next 4 years, I am not a very happy camper.

As a contrast, I would say the University of Alberta has middle-of-the-road bandwidth available for their students, and their limit is a “soft” 10GB/month.

Yikes.

geekery — No Comments
29
Jun 08

Fuck You Rogers

As linked to by Daring Fireball, I just signed the petition at fuckyourogers.com:

I was extremely disappointed (but not surprised) to find that your voice and data rates for the iPhone in Canada are ridiculous. We have, by far, the most expensive iPhone plan I’ve seen out of any developed country, and your greed and the monopoly you have on GSM spectrum here in Canada is to blame.

travel / world heritage — No Comments
27
Jun 08

851 Sites in a Lifetime – The World Heritage Tour

So, I’ve had this idea.

My mother instilled in me at a young age a love of travelling. There is so much of our world that we will never get to see, and so much of it that is beautiful, stunning, heart-wretching, or extreme beyond description.

And then I ran across UNESCO’s list of World Heritage Sites, and I realized that someone else had bothered to go to all the work of finding all those hidden cultural and natural gems in this world.

So, I’ve decided to start a life-long journey to visit all of the (currently) 851 natural and cultural World Heritage Sites on the list. This isn’t going to be a mad dash to the finish by any means. I’m currently broke and heading off to school again for another degree, so this will be an “as I have the means” trip. The purpose is really just to point me in the right direction, and to allow me to easily keep track of just how many amazing places I’ve been to, and what I’ve seen.

I hope to keep track of every place I visit on this page, and count down over the years, and hopefully eventually make it all the way to #851!

I’m starting off the trip easy – tomorrow I’ll be heading to #158 – Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump. I’ll post a picture to prove I was there and a summary tomorrow!

By the way, the UNESCO World Heritage Centre has as wonderful RSS feed available that lists all 851 World Heritage Sites, as well as includes photos of each site.

geekery / interesting / web — No Comments
27
Jun 08

Stretching Your Brain: Project Euler

For the last few months, I’ve been working on Project Euler – a set of 200 or so mathematical and/or programming problems to solve. A lot of them are pretty neat, requiring a lot of thought to be able to solve them in a reasonable period of time, and they’ve served as an excellent break from studying.

From the summary:

Project Euler is a series of challenging mathematical/computer programming problems that will require more than just mathematical insights to solve. Although mathematics will help you arrive at elegant and efficient methods, the use of a computer and programming skills will be required to solve most problems.

I suggest you give it a go! Up until now, I’ve managed to solve 39 of the (currently) 199 problems, which apparently makes me “20% genius”. I can live with that.

rants — No Comments
27
Jun 08

My brother’s car

My Brother's New Mazda
I’m very jealous.

interesting / rants — No Comments
20
Jun 08

Worth Passing Along – Fuck You Jim Prentice

Boingboing has had extensive coverage of the Conservative Government, and specifically Minister of Industry and U.S. copyright reform shill Jim Prentice, passing Bill C-61 here in Canada, our so-called “Canadian DMCA”. It’s called that because it criminalizes almost all DRM circumvention, even for personal backup and use.

Please continue reading up on the issues, starting with Cory Doctorow’s latest article entitled “Canadian DMCA will criminalize emailing your kids’ class photos to their grandparents“.

UPDATE – the Canadian Coalition for Electronic Rights has a dead-simple online form set up so you can send your thoughts on Bill C-61 to the people that matter. Please, please, go and send your thoughts!

rants — No Comments
18
Jun 08

Some things just ruin my day…

For example, Cory Doctorow’s latest article on boingboing entitled “Debunking the climate-change denialists’ talking points“. Now, after you’ve read that – my rant, composed of a selection of the excellent (as usual) comments posted in response to his article on boingboing:

Being skeptical about an agenda behind Global Climate Change should not be equated with being a “denialist” (gee, how that nicely lines up with “Holocaust denial” – in the spin zone.) … The POINT is to keep ones eyes open, and not just be swept up in another historical political movement which might be exploited for nefarious purposes. To view things with a critical eye.

Cory Doctorow, stop using rhetoric like “denialist” to bully people who don’t have the exact same views as you. This site is supposed to be a directory of wonderful things, not a platform for you to attempt to make people feel bad about themselves. If I keep seeing these kinds of posts from you I might start looking for a modified RSS BoingBoing feed that does not include your posts.

That’s it.
I’ve had enough of Cory’s pedantic neo-fascism.
Now, I’m as concerned about the environment as the average boing-boing reader, but the utter intolerance of any contrary position that Cory and his ilk display are getting a bit scary. What next? Jail time for the ‘denialists’ on the basis of social harm? Boing-boing used to be an interesting site full of cool and wonderful ideas, but lately, it seems to be turning into just another propaganda site, where there can be no disagreement.

It’s amazing how the choice of words, and the implied meaning behind them, can be used to stifle rational discussion.
And unfortunately Cory is inadvertently guilty of using two such words/phrases. I expect better of someone who believes in getting the facts straight, the objective use of language, general rational discourse, and applying the principles of skepticism to all sides of an issue.
I’m with Cory 100% on issues regarding copyright, DRM, etc., and he has been great at getting the message out using rational arguments. Over time he has even persuaded me on a few sub-topics in the realm of IP. So his “global warming denialists” article took me aback. This certainly cannot be Cory!
…
Again, I am disappointed since I expect better of Cory. Religious fervor is something he has always written against.

interesting / work — No Comments
16
Jun 08

Treat Your Employees Like Customers

Along the same line as the Results-Only Work Environment article I read recently, 37signals comes up with a great post on treating your employees properly – treat them as you would your customers.

http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/1080-you-have-to-treat-your-employees-like-customers

interesting / work — 1 Comment
5
Jun 08

Results Oriented Work Environment

See here: http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2008/05/21/no-schedules-no-meetings-enter-best-buys-rowe-part-1/. I’ve been following Best Buy’s story on this ever since it first made the news that they were trying a results oriented work environment (ROWE) in their company, and the tremendous success they’ve had with it has led me to believe that my current company could benefit enormously from that sort of paradigm shift. Our industry in particular is dealing with the problem of knowledge transfer as the baby boomers who started this industry start to retire.

I’ll keep you informed as to my progress – I’m going to try my best to get someone important to hear what I have to say on the subject, because I think it just might be the solution they’re looking for.

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