October 29, 2002 at 8:47PM

InformationWeek Top 500

  Ever year, InformationWeek magazine publishes their list of top 500 companies that use information technology in an innovative way.  This year, amid the downturn of the economy, it's even more important to for cashed strapped companies to use IT in innovative and creative ways - the good ole days of just throwing cash at a problem are just that, "good ole days."  The list is available in multiple formats and sorts (download the PDF if stats turn your crank and go nuts with the details).  The top company?  HIP Health Plan of New York - in the insurance industry.  There's nothing new or dramatic about the in depth findings either, although it is a good read for the general information.  Things like "having IT staff that understands the business and its customers' needs is one key to improving customer satisfaction," should not be anything new to IT professionals - if you're an IT professional and this is new to you, do us all a favour and quit please - you're making it difficult for the rest of us.

  If you have the time as well, check out their online benchmarking tool that lets you compare your company with those ranked.  How much are you spending in comparison with those in your industry that are in the top 500.

October 28, 2002 at 8:28PM

Urban Sprawl

  From NASA's Science site, comes a totally different view of urban sprawl, deforestation and forest fragmentation.  Come see how we've changed the planet.  Damn scary.  If this keeps up, the dystopian future (like in Sheep Look Up) will really come true.

October 28, 2002 at 8:17PM

KidSpace

  Here's a place on the net for kids to create and share their written or artistic works.  The site tries to support children from around the world, by supporting a number of different languages.  This is a neat way of making the world a smaller place for the kiddies.  Whether you're a parent with young children at home, or an elementary school teacher, this site has something that will work for you.

October 28, 2002 at 8:09PM

Math-lets

  Here's a site that has quite a few interesting Java applets that allow you to explore Math - directly from the site, no downloading to your PC required.  Really cool stuff.  Play with graphs, explore sounds, see what happens to equations when you start messing with them.  The lists go on and on.  Great stuff.

October 28, 2002 at 7:35PM

How Astronauts Get Along

  Astronauts have a cool demeanor and good people-skills, but six months in a tiny spaceship with the same crewmates can drive anyone to distraction.  So how do they do it?  And can they do it long enough to survive the trip to Mars?  Or will they arrive dead?  NASA is concerned, so it's researching the topic.  Check out the latest from NASA's Science page.

October 28, 2002 at 6:56PM

Ogden Nash Poetry

  My wife introduced me to Ogden Nash tonight on the way home from work.  Quite the silly poet, mostly writing for children.  His works include such favourites as "The Tale of Custard the Dragon" and many more.  Here's some quick quotes from him that may inspire you to read more of his works:

A husband is a guy who tells you when you've got on too much lipstick

and helps you with your girdle when your hips stick.

Beneath this slab

John Brown is stowed.

He watched the ads

And not the road.

Children aren't happy with nothing to ignore,

And that's what parents were created for.

October 26, 2001 at 11:24PM

School Help?

  Need school help?  Check out these sites:

1. Science help needed?  Ask Dr. Universe.
2. Math help needed?  Ask Dr. Math.
3. Help with just about anything?  Ask the Expert.
4. Library Spot Expert Help.
5. CIESE Find an Expert.

October 26, 2002 at 10:59PM

Last Expression - Art and Auschwitz

  During their incarceration in Nazi concentration camps, hundreds of artists drew and painted, creating everything from commissioned works for SS guards and other prison staff to secret images created as symbols of resistance, catharsis and documentation. The Last Expression Web site serves as a forum to explore the role of art in the camps, offering never-before-seen glimpses of both art and the artists who lived and died at Auschwitz.

October 26, 2002 at 10:54PM

Victorian Ghost Stories

  Get ready for Halloween with Victorian Ghost Stories - read classics by Dickens, Kipling, and Stoker to name a few.  These are not the well known stories, but shorter texts that are pretty powerful in their own right.

October 26, 2002 at 10:41PM

Dilbert's Weasel

  Apparently Scott Adams made Oct. 20th Weasel Day - it's hilarious.  Enjoy!

October 26, 2002 at 8:39PM

Gun-toting Sadaam is George W.'s kind of guy

  A short, and witty article in today's Star - it would be funny, except it's so damn true, it's scary.  Written by Slinger, the article makes mockery of Bush's insistence of waging war against Iraq, against Sadaam Hussein.  Let's get one thing straight - Sadaam is a bad guy - and he isn't good for Iraq - whether there is someone else in Iraq that's actually good for the country is another story - but it really isn't the United States problem to go around killing dictators - after all, like the article contends, why not go against Kim Jong-Il if all dictators are the US's problem?  So why is Bush so caught up with wanting to get Sadaam?  Because, as Slinger points out, Sadaam is not a wienie - he's a tough guy, like Bush is.  And only by crushing another tough guy, can Bush prove that he is a tough guy.  School yard politics - can we expect anymore from him?

  Here's another article from the Star - albeit, more serious.

October 26, 2002 at 8:26PM

Rings Around the Sun

  From NASA's Science site, comes a really good article about some of the marvels you see when you look up into the sky - rings, arcs, etc.  If you trudge through life looking down however, you're not going to see much.  Check out the site for an explanation for the how and why these effects occur.

October 20, 2002 at 10:17PM

Discover Magazine - November Issue

  Got the latest Discover magazine in the mail a couple of weeks ago, and have only read a couple of articles thus far.  Usually, I finish the entire the magazine in a couple of weeks, but with the hell I've been living in lately ... but that's another story (scroll down if you're game).  Anyway, here's a few quick highlights - more will come later.

  1)  The 50 most important Women in Science - you would think that in fields where you have really brilliant minds, that you would find sexism, discrimination, or a world as fucked up as the one we live in.  So much for enlightenment.  Goes to show you that I can still be naive about a few things in this world.  The full article isn't available on the web as yet, but when it does, it's something to read - especially the side bar article of the women who got passed over for recognition, when they did the work, but their colleagues, who didn't even do the work, got the credit and even the Nobel prize.

  2)  The Biology of Stuttering - here's a really cool article (when available fully on the web) about stuttering - and more importantly, how the brain works.  It's amazing.  The amount of work the brain must do just to coordinate speech - the number of muscles, the way the tongue must move, etc.  The article purports that the brain must have models that it follows when trying to complete complex tasks such as speech - it doesn't try to calculate the position and movement of each muscle it takes to produce speech.  What's more remarkable, is that adaptability of the whole model - you put a grape in your mouth when you talk, and amazingly enough, your brain knows how to accommodate to the limitations now placed on the muscles.

October 20, 2002 at 9:55PM

The Transporter - movie

  I went with the guys to see the Transporter.  There is no redeeming qualities to this movie, other that keeping guys like me entertained and out of trouble.  This was a guy movie - from beginning to end.  All action.  The romance lasted 15 seconds.  There were quite a few original fight scenes.  You've got to see the one in the oil slick - I've never seen something like that before.  If you like guy films like Snatch, Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, Reservoir Dogs, Desperado or Killing Zoe (to name a few of my faves), and realize that the Transporter was made by the same guys who brought the Professional and La Femme Nikita - then you know what you're in store for - and you know you've got to see this movie!

October 14, 2002 at 8:34PM

Belfountain (Forks of the Credit area)

  My wife and I went up to Belfountain today, which is the area where the Forks of the Credit Provincial Park is located.  We didn't really stay at the Forks of the Credit, but rather drove around the area.  We wanted to take in some of the fall colours, but with the warmer weather we've been having, not a lot of trees have turned their colour as yet.  Maybe in a couple of weeks.  So we drove around, and snapped some pics.  Naturally, they're already making their way to the web.

1. Pictures my wife took - they were better than mine.
2. Pictures I took.  I had the white balance setting on the camera set wrong, so it screwed up the blue that was in the sky.

October 13, 2002 at 10:10PM

Spider Anatomy

  For my little brother, who's now got a thing for spiders:

1. The first picture from this site is cool.  Save the picture, enlarge it and print it out.  Then measure the dimensions of the different parts - you can scale it from there.
2. Here's another good view of the external anatomy of a spider.
3. Another view of a spider, that will help with making your spider 3D.

  The best way to learn a spider's anatomy however is to draw many, many quick sketches - 30 seconds per sketch of spiders.  Keep drawing them from pictures you find on the net.  Draw them in every position from every angle.  Draw so much of them, that by the time you're done, you can draw spiders without looking at pictures.  When you've gotten to that point, you know you'll have no difficulty in doing the model.  That's the advise I had given' V as well.  And it worked.  For images of spiders, try this search on google.

October 13, 2002 at 9:57PM

Banners!

  Well, lookie here, I've got a page banner - completed by Cheryl on behalf of she, who must not be named!  Thanks Cheryl!  (I didn't want you to spend your long weekend making page banners for me though ... but thanks!  ;-)  Here's the other one you did - I haven't decided which one will remain permanent on the site.  (But I look forward to the cool one you said you're going to do!)

October 13, 2002 at 10:30AM

Balls Falls Thanksgiving Festival

  The family went to the Balls Falls Thanksgiving Festival yesterday.  The festival has been running now for 28 years, and though we missed last year, we didn't miss the crafts on sale.  We saw pretty much the same vendors hawking their wares.  Little was new.  The food there does seem to be getting healthier, though that is a relative comment.  Usually, it's really disgusting fries, but this year, <gasp> there was vegetarian pizza.  And it was actually pretty good too.

  The falls colours were not really there.  The weather has been a bit warmer in Ontario this fall, so the leaves haven't had a chance to turn as yet.  I remember when we went a few years ago, the leaves were a mixture of sunset colours - reds, yellows, oranges - just beautiful - that coupled with the falls, which is usually small, as the river that feeds it dries up later in the summer, so you can actually walk on the river bed - which is just peninsula rock - just beautiful.  This year, it was a bit disappointing.

  I took pictures while there, and they've now been uploaded to my webshots account:

1. Pictures from Balls Falls - the displays they had there.  Things like an old machinery display, a milling house where they make flour, etc.
2. Some nature type pictures from Balls Falls.
3. They also had a group in with birds - hawks, owls and eagles.  It was sad watching the poor creatures tied up.  A few of them attempted to fly off, only to be dragged back to the ground by the ropes tied around their legs.

October 12, 2002 at 10:29AM

Pink and Say.

  Set in the American Civil War, Pink and Say is a true story for children, about two 15 year old Union soldiers, one black and one white, who meet after a battle.  Say, the white kid, has been wounded.  Pink, a black kid, carries him home to where his mother is surviving in ruins of a deserted plantation.  Pink is determined to rejoin his unit in spite of mother's protest.  Say, who was deserting when wounded, only agrees because of the danger they present to Pinks mother.  Marauders come and kill her while they hide in the cellar.  On the way to the front lines they are captured by confederates and taken to Andersonville prison, Pink is hung.  Say survives to become author's (Patrica Polacco) great-great grandfather.  The story has been handed down in the Polacco family for generations - Say wanted his friend, Pink to live on - this is the only way he has.  A touching story.  I never actually read it, my wife was telling us the story this morning in Harvey's.  It's an emotional story.

October 8, 2002 at 8:20PM.

The Sky.

  The sky was beautiful this morning driving to work.  I should have stopped and taken a picture.  It didn't last long, but between 7-7:15AM, the sun hadn't broken the horizon as yet, but its light could be seen.  There were wisps of dark cloud in the sky, and the light from the rising sun illuminated the underside of the clouds - they were gold on the underside, with dark blue at the top.  Where the sky was clear was a beautiful baby blue, and thinner cloud formations were a wash of pastel blues, pinks and purples.  It was magic.  Makes waking up worth it after all.

1. Photographs of the sky I have taken previously.
2. Another album.
3. And another one.

October 7, 2002.

On Welfare.

Ever wonder what it's like to live on welfare?  Ever look down on those that do, and can't make it out?  Here's a good article by Wayne Roberts that shows how easy, yet how difficult and costly it is to dine at 79-cents per meal.  Wayne was among those invited by Toronto Daily Bread Food Bank, along with 19 others, to participate in this program that brings the reality of welfare recipients to those who can make a difference.  You can also read the diary of councilor Joe Mihevc online - his one week of playing welfare misery.

October 7, 2002.

Bottled Water.

So, you drink bottled water - cool, refreshing, better than the crap that comes out of your tap.  But what makes you think your tap water is better than the tap water you're drinking bottled?  Yes, some bottled water actually comes from the tap.  There are no rules for what can be filled into bottled water, and no rules on if it should be filtered properly either.  (And yes, there is even a bottled water web portal.)

October 6, 2002 at 4:55PM

The Flood and other things.

  So we came back to our home today - mostly to do the laundry, to wash up some dishes, etc.  With all this stress, I think all of our immune systems got weakened.  We all have colds.  I've never felt it this bad, as it was this morning.  My head, face, everything ... it just hurt.  I couldn't keep my glasses on my head, that's how bad it was.  The family meeting we had this morning was a slight torture to complete.  I've made a renewed vow to try and be more understanding during the next couple of weeks - everyone's just stressed.

  The house is still a mess.  Things are still in shambles.  I usually like things clean, and a little neat - I can deal with a mess, but this mess is just too much.

  B went with a friend this afternoon to see an Afghan Aid show being put on by the Canadian International Peace Project at the Toronto Centre for the Arts.  Hopefully this will serve as an uplift for her.

  Tonight we have to go out for supper again - not sure what we will be eating as yet.

October 5, 2002.

The Flood - the saga continues.

  Today, the only movement on getting our place back was a guy who came from my insurance company to look at the carpet in the house.  He will put in new underpad for the living room carpet, and replace the carpet outright in the girls room.  We asked the girls what colour they wanted, and they chose something different than what is there already.  Of course, to get to the carpet (and the ceiling that needs work), everything will need to be removed from the room.  So the girls spent some time packing - sacrificing homework time, etc.  By the end of it, we were all frustrated, cranky and B was crying.  Thank god we were going over to friends for supper.  They helped to cheer us up.

October 4, 2002.

The Flood - continuing saga.

  Absolutely nothing happened today.  No one called, no movement was made in getting our condo back to some semblance of normalcy.  I seriously thinking lighting a fire under these guys asses!  I can't believe that I'm going to have to resort to yell and bitching to get stuff done.

  Anyway, we had dinner tonight at the Chung Gi Wa - an excellent Korean/Japanese restaurant.  We had Korean.

October 3, 2002.

The Flood - all dried up and no place to go.

  We had breakfast at our local Tim Hortons this morning.  Tim's is great for coffee, great for lunch, but really sucks for breakfast.  In the morning, they're just there to get you your coffee, or to cater for those who want a bagel to go.  But a breakfast meal?  No way.  They even screwed up our order.

  This morning, I met the adjuster and someone from the disaster recovery firm they deal with.  The guys took measurements of the place, etc.  They removed the blower fans as well, as the carpet was dried.  My adjuster hadn't heard back from the Property Manager or his insurance company as yet.  I call the PM, and he promised to get back to me in the afternoon - which he did, but still didn't have the name of an adjuster from his insurance company as yet.  These fucking guys are moving too slow.

  We had dinner at friends tonight.  Took some of the food we had in our fridge over and shared it with them.  It was good to have a home cooked meal and dine with family members.

October 2, 2002.

The Flood - Slow Recovery.

  This morning we tried to have breakfast at the Holiday Inn.  We had breakfast.  Weird though - they don't start serving breakfast until 7AM, with the kitchen opening at 6:45AM.  What's up with that?  I thought the kitchens of hotels were open 7X24.  Anyway, it sucked because V had to leave for school at 5:45AM, and L & B usually leave around 7:15AM.  Not enough time to have breakfast.  We'll have to plan accordingly for tomorrow.

  Yesterday the adjuster had told me he would pay for Angel getting boarded, so I went to my condo this morning and picked up Angel.  She was so happy to see me that she let me pet her and lift her up.  Usually she just tolerates me, or play rough games with me.  Poor kitty.  I had to dump her in her carrying case to get her to the vet's.  She wasn't happy.  She meowed all the way, but eventually gave up when we got there.  It's $10/day to board a cat.

  The girls went over to a friend's house after school, and since L had curriculum night at school, I picked her up and took her to Bombay Bhel for supper.  It's one of the best Indian restaurants I've found.  A nice atmosphere, and great food!

  The crap thing about this whole affair is the inconvenience.  We already all have short fuses.  Lack of sleep, not having things our way - not being at home - it's making us all cranky.  Tonight we had to go back home to pick up clothes for tomorrow.  B had to make herself a lunch, and L grabbed a small snack she could take to school as well.

October 1, 2002.

The Flood - Disaster Recovery.

  I had a meeting at my condo this morning with my insurance adjuster and the property manager.  The property manager received a tour of the damaged areas of the unit.  I pointed out to him what my insurance company had done.  I also made it known to him that the folks above us came down yesterday afternoon to see the damage and told us that they had no insurance.

  The property manager said he was going to contact his insurance company, and put them in touch with my adjuster.  The two companies would then work out the details.  As my adjuster puts it - my insurance company is responsible for the contents of the unit, which would include the carpet, paint and contents.  Luckily for me, I've only found a toaster and kettle damaged so far.  (Everything else we managed to move out of the way, or put containers in place to catch the water.

  My adjuster said he would arrange for boxes so we could pack up the contents of the girls room.  He also made arrangements for us to stay at the local Holiday Inn - got us two adjoining rooms, and told us he'd cover for our meals.  Yeah - we also have a fridge full of groceries.  Linda had cooked ahead, and there is leftovers from a weekend dinner party we had thrown for friends of ours who just became new Canadians.  We are not going to waste the food.  I asked the adjuster about housing Angel, and he said he'd look into it.

  Tonight, we sleep in a hotel.  This is going to suck big time.

September 30, 2002

The Flood.

  Sometimes all hell just breaks loose, and I know I'm lucky in that my hell is paradise for a whole lot of other people.  But right now, my hell is my hell.  And it's hell.  We got flooded today.  We live in a two storey condo, and we're in the middle, sandwiched between two other condos, above and below us.  My eldest daughter, first heard it - it sounded like rain falling between the walls of our ground floor washroom.  We reacted pretty quickly.  Apparently, the people above us, in their ground floor washroom, a shelve unit over their toilet had fallen, breaking the tank.  That was bad - but then the mechanism inside the tank just tried to fill the tank.  They were not home.  Good thing my daughter and I hadn't left home as yet, because we would have had a hell of a lot more damage than we actually did.  We managed to clean up most of the mess and control the dripping and showers coming from the light fixtures, but then end results were:

September 29, 2002 at 2:37PM

Record Companies to mess with your free music

  Yes, they're at it again.  Record companies are again trying to employ tactics to mess with the free flow of music content on P2P networks.  I don't get it.  On one hand, the industry is still divided over allowing the P2P networks to thrive; they use the networks for marketing purposes by sending out free music from upcoming albums to potential buyers; yet they bitch that they're losing sales due to piracy.  If anything, the P2P networks have allowed people to try music that they would never have even given a chance before.  Let's face it, the music buying public only have so much cash in hand to buy CDs ... what makes the record companies think that every song that is downloaded is a potential missed sale?  What do they really expect anyway?  Technology evolves.  Flood the P2P networks with bogus music, and it will result in the P2P networks evolving to include a quality system to weed out the bogus crap.  This will be interesting to watch.

September 29, 2002 at 10:57AM

Top 500 Supercomputer Sites

  Can't keep up with the seemingly everyday release of a new Intel chip, or their neck and neck race with rival AMD?  Well, here's a race that's easier to keep track of - the Supercomputer race.  Since the Cray's slow fade into history thanks to the every increasing speed of personal computers and proliferation of appliance servers that seem to have taken on the workload from the old centralized supercomputers, there's been little talk of gigaflops and the machines that produce them.  But they're still out there.  They're still being produced by IBM, Hitachi and the like.  They're still being used in government and research facilities, where huge computing power is a must.  Forget the super-clusters of appliance servers running the latest BSD incarnation - these babies take you back to an era where raw power was cause for geeks to salivate.

  Check out this site that tracks the race to be known as the fastest machine on the planet.  And check out the top five for this year:

1. The Earth Simulator - an NEC machine
2. ASCI White - an IBM machine
3. Terascale Computing System - a Compaq machine
4. Tera Computer - another Compaq machine
5. NERSC - another IBM machine

September 29, 2002 at 12:02AM

University Fair

  I took my youngest to the Ontario University fair yesterday.  I was held at the Metro Convention Centre (Toronto), and was way too crowded.  The place was packed with snot-nosed high school students with aspirations of higher education.  Too many of them.  Way too many.  I'm sure a lot of what could be gleamed from the University Fair could have been obtained from the different University websites.  I don't think many of whom were there bothered to check.  The information being handed out was way too general.  Getting too detailed however, with such a large crowd would have been a mistake though.  So, we spent the 15 minutes at the fair, then I took her to lunch at the Noodlery - Zyng!  It was excellent as usual!  Made the day a whole lot better.

September 26, 2002 at 10:46PM

Book Sales

  My eldest and I went to the University of Toronto's Victoria College Book Sale tonight.  I've been going to these book sales on and off ever since I was at UofT.  They're a great way to pick up really cheap books, on just about any topic.  My daughter was there for some artsy stuff for school, and while I picked up a couple of novels yesterday (at another book sale - Woodsworth College), today I didn't pick up anything.  My mind really wasn't on the book sale.  My daughter was sneaky though, and got me to pay for "Life with Father" by Tom Brokaw.  It was a present for me.

September 25, 2002 at 11:07PM

Here we go ... again!

  The number of times I've recreated my website ... this is the 5th major time in the last ... oh, maybe 10 years since I decided the world need my web presence.  Well, here I am again.  My last site, which looked similar to this in design, was hosted at Groksoup.  Groksoup went belly-up.  Died.  Without any friggin notice, the server was just shutdown, and everything went!  That was a few weeks ago.  I'm still pissed about it.  I had a lot of content there.  Well, here I go again.

  I tried to keep the design of this new site similar to the one at Groksoup.  It was a weblog, and I actually was enjoying the updates there etc.  Since this is all my creation, and I have no hosting server that supports custom cgi or php, let alone mySQL or any of the other free dB, there will be no functionality for feedback to individual ramblings of mine.  Maybe I'll insert a forum later, but for now, this is going to be it.  I'm starting a fresh!  That being said, I did manage to recover some of my content from the my old Groksoup page from my browser's cache.  I'll get that properly formatted, and it will be available via the archives.

  So ... until more content, this is it for now.  Drop me a line via email if this cranks your fancy.