Ironman 2!

Apple – Movie Trailers – Iron Man 2

OMG!

Cells, ACTA, Internet, ISP’s

It seems like everyday the people of Canada seem to be getting screwed by some company or Government agency in just about all facets of Canadian life and what is to be done about it?
CBC News – British Columbia – Rogers charges for ‘free’ text messages
You’d think that Rogers, being the major cell/internet/cable/etc provider in Canada that their main modus-operendi wouldn’t just be about raping every Canadian customer for every cent that they own for services that are almost negligible in cost to operate. Not only do they charge exorbitant fees for these services but they change their contracts with these paying customers just to charge them even more for them. WTF??!!

Globalive rewrites foreign-ownership rules, opposition warns – The Globe and Mail
CBC News – Technology & Science – Wind to announce cellphone pricing Wednesday
This brings us to some new competition to these behemoths, WIND. I think more competition in this market is long past due but why should it be acceptable for the government to break its own rules on foreign ownership of companies be the only way to get it? I know I for one will switch away from Rogers at the first chance I get to this new company just to get away from Rogers and there is no way in hell I will ever go to Bell and Telus is, in my opinion just a small player in this trio and not worth it to try. I would rather take my chances on something new.

CBC News – Technology & Science – Open-access internet rules take hits
CBC News – Technology & Science – Time running out on internet access appeals
So in the mix of everything with these telecommunications giants raping every Canadian for everything they have, now they are stifling competition in the Internet world by not allowing potential competitors to actually compete with them. HELLO!!! What is the definition of a monopoly? What pisses everyone off about this, is that its the infrastructure that they are holding hostage here. An infrastructure that was built upon the subsidies of the the Canadian people. Its ok for them to use this infrastructure at their will, but not anyone else. Well god-dammit I helped pay for this, and I want to be able to access it through some other vendor than frickin’ Bell!

Charlie Angus: The trouble with the secret Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement talks | Vancouver, Canada | Straight.com
Is it any wonder why such ideas as “Pirates” and “Pirating” exist? Governments and corporations do whatever the hell they want without any thought to the ones to whom it actually matters, the people.

With all of this bullshit going on, one can only hope and wish that there is actually something to one of the ideas spouted by those crazy 2012 worshipers. That society will have a complete and utter breakdown. No currencies, no corporations, no industry…nothing. As bad as that sounds I almost hope that it happens just so the slate could be wiped clean and everything started over with a completely different attitude in place. Where people actually have a choice in things and corporations aren’t there just to rape and pillage but if they are, something could be done about it, ’cause right now we are spiraling to some ultimate end and it appears there is nothing anyone can do about, let alone even recognize that something is wrong.

ACTA

I am astounded that such things are able to even be thought of in this day and age…wow. Sad

Charlie Angus: The trouble with the secret Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement talks | Vancouver, Canada | Straight.com

CRIA – the biggest Pirate of them all?

Wow, I almost couldn’t believe what I just read:

Geist: Record industry faces liability over `infringement’ – thestar.com

The Canadian Recording Industry Association has been willfully pirating music since the 1980’s, and has it all fully documented as to who has been pirated. Since the recording industries have been garnering $20,000 per infringed copyright on the general public, they should also pay that same amount. Since the number of infringed is well over 300,000 they should be on tap for well over $60 billion!

Karma truly is a bitch.

Local Channels

The CRTC has a new website created to obtain from the public, their opinions on how/what to do about this “Fee for carriage” issue. The website is: http://television.askingcanadians.com/ .

I have added my two cents worth on the topic of Affordability of local TV. They are asking for responces to the following two ideas on the subject:

1. Thinking about the importance of local TV to you, how would you react, and why, if you were asked to pay for local TV on top of what you already pay for your cable and satellite services?
2. In your view, what measures, if any, could be taken to support local television?

My comments:

The cost of “basic” cable/satellite service, in my understanding, since the providers have to provide such channels should be there to support the local channels as part of that cost. I don’t know how, nor do I care how such funds are distributed, all I know is if they’re not being distributed, then the providers should be forced to fork over a percentage of the basic fee to support the local channels being provided. I also think that the providers should be “forced” to provide the local channels in all markets. Currently such providers as Shaw, does not, for example provide a local Global affiliate for the Atlantic region. They used to, but when all of this “fee for carriage” started, they dropped it from their lineup. I now do not subscribe to Shaw’s satellite service because of that.
Local TV is important, but I do not think I should have to pay extra for it because I believe I am already paying for it in the “basic” service costs, therefore I shouldn’t have to pay for it again.
In my opinion, the basic cable fees should be regulated, somehow, and the fees paid for this service should be broken down as to how much goes to the provider for their service and how much goes towards a “local channel” programming fund, whereby all local channels derive a percentage.
If I am forced to pay extra for local programming, I will cancel my cable/satellite service outright, and get what TV programming I desire directly from the internet and rely on public radio for “local” information.

Get on there, post your opinion. It could help!

Vampire Power

I recently went through a bit of an electrical shock (excuse the pun) when we started getting our electrical bills, for our newly purchased home. We bought it in early spring and noticed that our electricity usage kept going up. We discovered that our local library loans out electricity power meters so we borrowed one for a few weeks. We were determined to find out what was causing our electricity usage to continue to rise.

We were concerned about the obvious appliances as all of the appliances that came with the house were all 20-30 years old, nary an Energy Star ranking among them (as far as I could determine), so I started to test them all. Bear in mind that although I tested all of these appliances (the ones I actually could, of course, not able to test 240 V ones) I have no “current”, modern ones to compare the results to. What I can do is compare all of the items tested with each other. My fridge, being greater than 20 years old, is no worse than my 8 year old water cooler. The big shocker for me was my computers. I have 2 computers, one is my desktop that is for everyday use, the other is my server that I use for streaming music from, a website to play with, etc. My desktop I discovered has power saving abilities but weren’t active (in the OS) so I activated it then tested it over a 24 hr period. A certain amount of that time was actual usage, the other was when the PC was idle. Since I was able to activate its power saving abilities, the cost of running that machine over the year amounted to approx. $280. My server unfortunately had no such power saving abilities as its a server machine. Its always on, always available. Its calculated power cost for year turned out to be $1187.14. That’s just about 5 times more than the desktop! Needless to say, I only have that machine on when I need it.

This has made me aware of all of the power that is being consumed, not necessarily when something is being used but simply because its plugged in. Everyday items that you don’t even think about like toasters, or cell phone chargers, or TV’s, stereo equipment or printers and fax machines.

The following YouTube video was taken from the site http://www.vampirepowersucks.com, it has some interesting information there with links to a blog with some interesting industry articles. Check it out:

Ubuntu 9.10 and Flash

As some of you who use Ubuntu (and have installed the latest 9.10 version) Flash (and apparently Java) doesn’t work out of the box as it were. I’ve noticed it, and was annoyed by it but not enough to actually do anything about it. I only go looking for solutions to problems in the Ubuntu forums as a last resort because frankly, they are a pain in the ass. You have to sift through replies made to questions and problem reports that have no use in coming up with what the actual problem may be and the solution to it. So the issue with Flash/Firefox/Ubuntu/AMD 64 systems never really bothered me enough to looking for a solution. Luckily for me I just happened to find one while reading the latest ingest of RSS news items.

BTW I use Liferea RSS news reader. At first I was a little put-off with the way it works but I am now getting used to it. It comes setup by default to aggregate many IT/Ubuntu news feeds so I kept those and added several local RSS feeds. My only problem with it really is that I don’t seem to be able to keep up with it regularly. So when I actually do get back to it, there are hundreds and hundreds of news items that I really have no interest in anymore as I’ve likely read about them somewhere else. Since I’ve been on vacation though I have been checking it fairly regularly and am quite enjoying it. If you use Ubuntu, download and give it a shot, its pretty good.

Ok, back to my problem here. I came across the following blog entry by a Linux user who had been experiencing the same problems and was annoyed that people were blaming the problem(s) on the software providers (Adobe, Java). He wrote up a simple set of instructions explaining how to remove the crap that may be there now, and how to replace it with something that actually works from Adobe and Java. I followed the Adobe instructions and everything with regards to Flash works fine now.

This is the kind of information I desire when I have a problem. The instructions are simple and easy to follow. No complex explanations about crap you don’t need to know about, just a simple how-to with easy instructions to follow. I don’t know who the author is, but sir/madam, I applaud your efforts.

More stuipidity

Michael Geist has released another article on the fate of Canadian TV and it just keeps getting worse as far as I can tell.

In this article he talks about CTV and Canwest (Global) asking the CRTC for the right to be able to block American broadcasts of TV shows, just so they can broadcast those same shows, in Canada, whenever they want to, thus blocking Canadians from seeing those shows when originally broadcast. They want to be able to put off allowing Canadians from watching a show by up to 7 days. WTF??!! And then these same TV stations want us to pay extra for their channels? Are these guys really that dumb? Do they really think people will put up with crap like that?

Perhaps I’m seeing a business opportunity here? Maybe I should start up a business whereby I setup a PC that allows people to download and watch TV shows from the Internet, eliminating a need for people to have to pay for what is shaping up to be a crappy cable/satellite/TV station industry here in Canada.

All of this is just a bunch of crap. I think we need to completely overhaul the entire industry from the TV stations down to the providers.

Eliminate them all and lets start fresh!

Better service from ISP’s

Want 50Mbps Internet in your town? Threaten to roll out your own – Ars Technica

Better service from ISP’s.  That’s what we ALL need.  Especially now, especially in Canada.

Local TV – to pay or not to pay

The TV Matters versus TV Tax war: A solution

I am starting to agree with this fellow (see link above). If the local TV channels want to compete in the TV world, not only are they going to have to charge for their services, but they should also be allowed to be NOT chosen, just like all of the other paid channels out there.

And if they are considering showing more commercials, per half hour (again as this guy is suggesting) then I simply won’t want them. I’m on the verge of dropping my cable for a simple download-as-I-see fit TV shows, and watch them when I want to and not be subjected to the gross amount of commercials now being shown. So, do what you will, I will let my decision on the subject be made by my purchaing (or not) of their channels/services.