But i just had to note two things about the weekend and today. One, George Carlin died yesterday, which is sad - he was a funny funny man. And today would be Alan Turing’s birthday, if he hadn’t killed himself due to the bigotry shown to homosexuals in England. Even when one of them helped to win the war.
C-61 is the new Copyright Reform bill that our Government released yesterday. While Industry Minister Jim Prentice and Canadian Heritage Minister Josee Verner will try to see this bill to Canadians by pointing out all these great protections they are being given, Prof. Michael Geist suggests that they read the fine print.
I’m disapointed that the Government put this bill together will little to no public debate or consultation. It seems like it is simply a suplication to the desires of certain special interest groups, namely the RIAA, CIRA, and the MPAA. There is also the inclusion of anti-circumvention legislation, which is even harsher then the terrible American DMCA.
I suggest that all Canadians interested in seeing a balanced approach to copyright reform contact their MP’s and let them know that this bill is not equitable to content creators or consumers.
Here are some quick links where you can get some more info. Please, take the time to read a little about this bill, and write, email or phone your representative to let them know what you think about it.
- Copyright For Canadians - form for sending an email to your rep, Prentice, Verner & Mr. Harper.
- Michael Geist - All kinds of interesting stuff about Copyright, law on the internet, etc
- Putting Canadian “Piracy” in Perspective - quick video debunking some popular arguments about piracy.
Quick updates, most in point form cuz, well, it takes too long to make a “real” post. Yes, this is lame. Sorry.
- Conor is almost done his first year of school. I can’t believe it has gone so quick.
- Rory is clapping and waving. He now has 4 teeth, two on the bottom and two on the top. Getting closer to walking too.
- Found this cool software tool for running stuff on your computer if you are not sure if its safe - Sandboxie. Terrible name, great tool.
- Baby Lion Cam. Don’t watch. All your productivity will drain away as you watch … the … baby… lions… Squeeee!
Everyone is Hale & Hearty, enjoying the warmer weather. Although, up on the 3rd floor where Conor and Rory sleep, during that mini-heat wave, it was too hot for Rory - we had to bring him downstairs into our bed, as the AC doesn’t really reach up there. Now shopping for a small, quiet window AC unit.
Wow. What a great start to the season! The arena (the George Bell Arean) was quite packed - there were over 700 people out, which almost beats the attendance record for last years. The ToRD site has gotten a nice overhaul, which, frankly, was badly needed. Since the game i saw last year, the women on the teams have obviously improved a lot, and the game is quite a bit faster, and more skillfully played. Not that it wasn’t fun’n’fast laster year, its just faster now. Crazy crazy. And you can actually sit trackside, rather then just in the stands - awesome.
Everyone should come out to the next game on June 7th - my friend Bep “Karma Killmillions” team The Bay Street Brusiers are playing The Death Track Dolls. Fun!
Or as close as you can come with 12 five to six year-olds in your house for two hours. Conor’s Birthday party, which was originally scheduled for last Saturday, took place today. Huge thanks go out to the Whimz people, and Tracy in particular for putting on such a great … performance? The kids loved all the animals, and it really helped to make the party special. Most importantly, Conor had a great time.
And now the parents can rest a bit easier knowing that it is over for another year!
If anyone has tried to send Ciara or I an email over the past two days, and have had it bounce, or not, you might want to re-send it. My server was all ka-blooie, and i only got it fixed now.
Sorry for the mess up!
Conor’s birthday was great. He had a great day, lots of fun, enjoyed (and enjoying) his presents, went out to dinner, everything was fine. Till the next day. He managed to pickup a fever, and had to stay home from school till Tuesday. This also meant that we had to reschedule his birthday party. Now, i was sure this was going to be a huge deal for him - he can be very sensitive to changes, and this was a pretty big change. However, Conor surprized both of us by being totally calm and cool about the whole thing. We are now on for this Sunday, Conor is on the mend (again, thank the gods for antibiotics) and things seem to be back on track.
Looking back over the past 5 years of Conor’s birthdays, he really hasn’t had great luck. Sick, scared or something always seems to come up for the guy. At least his actual birthday this time was good!
I think the biggest problem with my lack of commitment to a task management tool is that i’m burning out on all of them. I know that Ciara is sick of switching from tool to tool and having to re-enter data all the time. So, i’ve finally committed. And to a tool that i’ve written off so many other times that i’m still amazed that i’m going with it now.
I know! Who’d a thunk it, a half-finished, sort-a abandoned product with one of the craziest histories of any recent software that i can think of.
But it does sharing very well. And if you can adjust how you think about task management to fit into the way Chandler thinks about it, it (so far) works quite well.
There are still quite a few admittedly large “warts”. Repeating events are limited to simple yearly, monthly or daily - no 3rd Thursday. This is supported in the software itself, there is just no UI for entering this kind of repeating event. This is something that i can live with, if it means i get a tool that has good sharing abilities.
My last attempt at low-tech task management was using the lightning plugin for Thunderbird. The latest version of the plugin is quite good, with a nice-ish UI. The downfall, especially if you are sharing your calendar, is that, if more then one person is working on it at the same time, you can corrupt your data. Which is what happened to me. Which is why i needed a better server side solution, something a bit more advanced then WebDAV. Thus Chandler. I’m using their free Hub service, but you can download the server and run it yourself if you really want to keep your data local.
Since i’m trying to commit, i’m going to be living with the warts and all of this software, but i will blog about my experiences with it, and how it works out for us over the next weeks and, hopefully, months.
Whew - what a great weekend! I was sure it was going to rain, so what a pleasant surprise when it turned out to be the best weekend of the year! We managed to be both productive, and have fun. Saturday was the ‘chores’ day, so we did some baby-proofing and general cleaning and spring tidying. Sunday was the ‘fun’ day, and we all headed off to the Zoo. It was the perfect weather for it - not too hot, a bit of a breeze. And the kids were superstars. I mean, the zoo is big. But we managed to time all our rests and food breaks well. Heck, Rory even managed to have a nap while we were walking around. The only bummer is that the Polar-bears are getting a new enclosure (which is good really), so you can’t see them till that is all done.
Anyway, the weekend was great, and i’m feeling stoked for many more!
Freeedooooooomm! Friday was my last day at my (previous) day job at the ILC. While i’ll miss a bunch of the folks i worked with, the past few months there have been torturous - not because of the work itself, or the place even, but this winter was, well, hard on me. I got pretty depressed there for a while, and then to top it all off i got pneumonia. So it was at that point that i decided, hey, time out! I’m taking a couple of weeks to get my shit back together, then doing a couple of months of freelance work from home. Then some summer vacationing for the whole family before Ciara starts back to work in the fall, and i become the primary home parent for a year.
So, i’ve just got to say, what a great way to start all that. Today was super. And, i expect, tomorrow will be too.
