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It Happened to Me

Happy 23rd Anniversary, AKMA and Margaret!

AKMA (one of the co-officiants at my upcoming wedding) and his wife Margaret are here in Accordion City on a little getaway to celebrate their 23rd anniversary, which falls on this very day.

Photo: AKMA and Margarent Adam, on the beaches in Toronto.

They spent the earlier part of yesterday hanging out with Michael O’Connor Clarke and the evening hanging out with Yours Truly. AKMA’s already blogged it.

Congratulations, AKMA and Margaret! I enjoyed hanging out with you last

night and I hope you enjoy the rest of your stay in Accordion City! See you folks in September!

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Uncategorized

Interesting Reading

I’ve been proving it for years, and the New York Daily News has finally decided to back me up: Nerds Make Better Lovers.


The Colbinator has comments on AC/DC’s Back in Black (which I wrote about in this entry) here and here.

In his first entry on the topic, Colby states that no AC/DC album has

any “chick flick” parts the way Led Zep albums do. My DJing and AC/DC

accordioning experiences suggest otherwise. I must agree with his

friend Jason, who says the the chick flick part of Back in Black is in fact the booty anthem You Shook Me All Night Long. Think of it this way, Colby: the chick flick parts of Zep albums are analogous to Gilmore Girls; the chick flick parts of AC/DC albums are analogous to Buffy the Vampire Slayer.


I wish to throw my support behind my friend Suw Charman’s campaign for publicly-accessible power points.


I also wish to throw my support behind my friend Ben Hammersley’s call for a new Tatler [1.2MB, PDF].


[via BoingBoing] Downing Street Memo site. Read and learn!


Remember that site I pointed out — the one that lists the ten most

harmful books of the past 200 years? The Flea has compiled what he

considers to be the ten most helpful. Interestingly enough, Charles

Darwin’s The Origin of Species appears on both lists.

Worth repeating is the original list’s critique of Keynes’ General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money:

The book is a recipe for ever-expanding government. When the business

cycle threatens a contraction of industry, and thus of jobs, he argued,

the government should run up deficits, borrowing and spending money to

spur economic activity. FDR adopted the idea as U.S. policy, and the

U.S. government now has a $2.6-trillion annual budget and an

$8-trillion dollar debt.

To which The Flea adroitly responds:

Though one could also say, “FDR adopted the idea as U.S. policy, and

the U.S. government now administers the largest economy and highest

standards of living in human history” or, following the non sequitur to

its logical conclusion, “FDR adopted the idea as U.S. policy, and I

like lappi cheese”. It seems to me a more germane observation is the

irony of how those governments adopting policies from the Nazi or

Communist representatives on the reading list would share Human Events’

disapproval for the work of Sigmund Freud, Betty Friedan or Alfred

Kinsey. But that is the tricky thing about arguments advocating greater

individual responsibility, choice or liberty: we are always going to be

stuck with the problem of other people disagreeing with us or, heaven

forbid, having fun while we sit at home typing grumpy articles and not

getting laid.

That last sentence reminds me of just about everyone with posting privileges over at The Shotgun.


Linux is a great and wonderful server operating system. However, it

leaves much to be desired as a desktop OS, even to guys who eat, sleep

and breathe computers like me. I’m not alone, either. I’ve seen lots of

alpha geeks of all stripes — programmers, systems architects,

sysadmins and people who generally tweak computers for money and/or fun

— simply switch to an operating system which combines Unixy goodness,

a great UI and the “it just works” mantra: Mac OS X.

The latest

convert is Jamie Zawinski, Netscape/Mozilla developer turned club

owner, who’s just had enough of Linux’ primitve support for sound cards. There’s much carping going on in the comments to his entry as well as in Slashdot from the Linux zealot crowd, to whom I say: turn off the computer, get out of the basement, and go help Mom do the dishes.


[via MetaFilter] This sounds even worse (in the so-bad-it’s good way) than the Star Wars Holiday Special: Legends of the Superheroes, a live-action show featuring your favourite DC Comics heroes and villains. And Ed McMahon. Kareeeeeeem!


Jeffrey Rowland is funny because he’s true:

Comic: Panel from 'Overcompensating', Tuesday, June 7th, 2005.

Categories
Music

"I’ve got a fever, and the only prescription is more greased-up cub scouts…er, um, I mean cowbell! COWBELL!"

[via “The Colbinator”] I knew that Michael “Bad Touch Scout Troop

Leader” Jackson owned the rights to a large chunk of the Beatles’

catalogue, but didn’t know that he had a 50% share in Blue Oyster Cult’s

Don’t Fear the Reaper.

Here’s a list of the other songs for which he is half-owner:

  • ’65 Love Affair, Paul Davis
  • Alone Again, Naturally, Gilbert O’Sullivan
  • Bad Case of Lovin’ You, Robert Palmer
  • Blue Bayou, Roy Orbison
  • Burning Love, Elvis Presley
  • Clones (We’re All), Alice Cooper
  • Crazy, Patsy Cline
  • (I Just) Died In Your Arms, Cutting Crew
  • Gettin’ Jiggy Wit It, Will Smith
  • Here Comes the Night, Them
  • Hit Me With Your Best Shot, Pat Benatar
  • Hush, Deep Purple
  • I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry, Hank Williams Sr.
  • Let It Ride, Bachman-Turner Overdrive
  • Long Tall Sally, Little Richard
  • Positively 4th Street, Bob Dylan
  • Radar Love, Golden Earring
  • Stop Your Sobbing, The Pretenders
  • Sometimes When We Touch, Dan Hill
  • Son of a Preacher Man, Dusty Springfield
  • Suspicious Minds, Elvis Presley
  • Sweetest Taboo, Sade
  • Wonderwall, Oasis
  • You Really Got Me, The Kinks
Categories
In the News It Happened to Me Music

Me on CTV News Last Night

Photo: Still from Joey deVilla's interview on CTV News, June 8, 2005.

Smoothest Asian on TV since Mr. Sulu! Click the photo to see the high-definition video or here to see the low-definition video.

I did an interview with CTV News yesterday for a David Akin piece on

upcoming changes to Canada’s copyright laws. I was the “Internet user”,

copyfighting lawyer Michael Geist was the legal voice of reason, Jay Thomson of the Canadian Association of Internet Providers was the technical voice of reason and Graham Henderson of the Canadian Recording Industry Association was the Sith Lord.

The story is summarized on this web page, and if you’d like to see the piece, here are a couple of links:

Yes, that is a “Snoop Doggy Dogg” mechanic’s shirt I’m wearing, and yes, I wore it just for the interview.

The piece closes with me, delivering a pretty nice off-the-cuff quip. I am the sound-bite king! I can do anything!

For My Darling Fiancee

Wedding planning can sometimes be stress-inducing, but remember: one of the alternatives is…this!

As my future in-laws would say: Oy!

Categories
It Happened to Me

Yesterday’s Quest for RAM

I got a very sweet deal from my coworker James on a six-month old 12″

1.33 GHz PowerBook, which is only slightly slower than the current

top-of-the-line 12″ model (which is almost identical, except for the

1.5 GHz processor). The end result: I get a great and portable

development machine, cheap, and Wendy gets her first Mac in ages — my

old 12″ 867MHz model with WiFi-G, the RAM maxed out and hot sexy tech

support from Yours Truly.

The PowerBook had the stock 256MB RAM and could take a single PC2700

SODIMM up to 1GB in size. Maxing out the RAM in your computer is the

most cost-effective way to maximize its performance, so I started

looking about for places in town where I could purchase it.

Although I didn’t expect to buy the RAM at CPUsed,

one of the higher-profile Mac stores in Accordion City, I gave their

price list a look-see. When it comes to RAM, CPUsed is good for

determined what the “rip-off price”; if you’re paying the CPUsed price,

you’re getting ripped off.

The CPUsed price, according to their online price list: CDN$399.

Next: Carbon Computing, where those disgruntled with CPUsed tend to migrate.

Their price: CDN$449. Holy crap, someone beat CPUsed at their own game!

Compusmart, who have a branch just down the street from my house, charge CDN$620 for Hewlett-Packard brand RAM.

On a lark, I decided to call the new Apple Store at Yorkdale Mall, which opened just over a week ago.

Their price: CDN$625. That’s only four bucks less than the basic Mac Mini!

Fortunately, I never expected to purchase the RAM from any of the

aforementioned vendors. I just wanted to see how high the price for the

RAM I wanted could go.

The next step was to visit NewEgg.com to see how low the price could be. Their price: US$118, or CDN$147, plus shipping and possibly some duty (here’s their entry for the RAM).

Some Googling found what I was looking for: a 1GB KingMax RAM stick for CDN$176 from Canada Computers (where I bumped into the worried Mac fan from this entry). Some more Googling found generally positive reviews from other PowerBook users, so I bought my RAM from there.

The PowerBook is running just fine, showing a whopping 1.25 GB of RAM — the most I’ve ever had in any computer.

Thus far, it works like a charm!


For the technical and curious, here are the speed results reported by XBench:

  • Results    133.32

     

  • System Info 
    • Xbench Version        1.1.3
    • System Version        10.4.1 (8B15)
    • Physical RAM        1280 MB
    • Model        PowerBook6,4
  • Processor        PowerPC G4 @ 1.33 GHz
    • L1 Cache        32K (instruction), 32K (data)
    • L2 Cache        512K @ 1.33 GHz
    • Bus Frequency        167 MHz
  • Video Card        GeForce FX Go5200
  • Drive Type        Hitachi IC25N060ATMR04-0
  • Memory Test    133.32   
    • System    148.06   
    • Allocate    696.69    454.45 Kalloc/sec
    • Fill    153.86    1224.72 MB/sec
    • Copy    81.12    405.61 MB/sec
  • Stream    121.24   
    • Copy    118.69    867.59 MB/sec [altivec]
    • Scale    120.48    889.14 MB/sec [altivec]
    • Add    123.87    792.75 MB/sec [altivec]
    • Triad    122.06    745.76 MB/sec [altivec]
Categories
It Happened to Me

Some Mac Fans are Concerned

The recent announcement that Apple will switch from PowerPC to Intel chips had at least one Mac user worried: while pickup up some RAM at one of the computer shops along College Street West’s “Geek Row”, I overheard a guy say that he was a bit worried about it.

“I’m afraid it’s going to change the Mac experience,” he said.

I reminded him that the usability of the Mac didn’t lie in the

underlying processor, but in its operating system and user interface. I

cited the example of the Palm handhelds and compatible units, where

different models use different processors.

“The difference you will notice is faster machines, and since Intel can

actually manufacture chips in volume, you probably won’t be waiting as

long for your new computer order,” I said. “Who knows, Macs may get

cheaper, too. Economies of scale and all that.”


I don’t know if this guy would be a typical example of the Mac faithful

— a sometimes rabid group whose love for the Mac sometimes crosses the

bounds of rationality.

(Don’t get me wrong — I rather like the Mac platform. In fact, I’m making this entry on my new 12″ PowerBook.)

Apple spent years touting the superiority of the PowerPC chip, so this

sudden turnabout, while sensible from a technical point of view, may

seem like heresy to the Mac faithful. The Apple marketing team has an

interesting challenge ahead!

Perhaps they could recruit the Simpsons, as Intel did back in the days of the Pentium II [775K, QuickTime]…

Screen capture: Still frame from the Intel Pentium commercial featuring Homer Simpson.

This ad could be an allegory for what will happen to Apple’s computers. Click to the view the movie.