In defence of bloggers
David Janes defends bloggers: One of the things I enjoyed about the blogosphere [is the] commitment [of] most of the bloggers I read to “anti-idiotarianism”, a commitment to truth even if it doesn’t...
View ArticleConfessions of a non-techie
Blogger, the tool I use to publish this site, just announced that they now have an Atom feed capability for all weblogs on the system. So I, naturally, went and immediately activated the setting for...
View ArticleA mom who gets it
A few months ago, the blogosphere was abuzz with the Onion’s satire “Mom finds out about blog”. The ultimate embarrassing nightmare. But this cool Mom not only knows about her 14-year-old daughter’s...
View ArticleGooglebomb success
Proof that Internet and website campaigns can make a difference (via Israpundit): When you search for the word “Jew” in Google, you no longer get an antisemitic hate site as the top result. Thanks to a...
View ArticleISPs don’t have to pay royalties
And speaking of important court rulings today, our supreme court at home has been tackling an important issue: music downloads. Today, the Canadian Supreme Court ruled that ISP’s don’t have to pay...
View ArticleBlogger’s new WYSIWYG editor
Blogger’s new WYSIWYG editor gets a big thumbs-down from me. After spending a half-hour trying to fix the messed-up formatting of the links in the last post, I’m starting to wonder why it is that...
View ArticleConfigurations and connections
Blogging will be light for a few days, while I attempt to set up my new computer. So far, I’ve managed to connect to the Internet, but I’ve been incapable of connecting it to the old one to transfer...
View ArticleComputer update
Well, 24 hours later and I’m more or less up and running. The Internet’s working, and so is the network between the computers to transfer files. I’ve managed to reinstall most of my software, though...
View ArticleWisconsin school district teaching creationism
A school district in Wisconsin will teach creationism in classes, claiming that it’s just as valid a theory as evolution: Members of Grantsburg’s school board believed that a state law governing the...
View ArticleThe digital revolution?
With my convenient little pocket 35mm point-and-shoot camera stolen in Costa Rica, I’m faced with the prospect of having to replace it. And that means it’s decision-time: do I stick with the film I...
View ArticleDigital revolution update
I’ve officially succumbed to pressure and joined the digital revolution. My new camera seems to be a lot of fun. I played tourist in Montreal yesterday, walking around all the places crowded with...
View ArticleTrying to curb music downloading
The Federal Government has been bogged down with AdScam, party switching and non-confidence votes, and as a result has been able to get precious little done. But it seems that instead of trying to...
View ArticleNew MSN Messenger
Yeah, it pretty much sucks. Tons of ads, extra buttons, useless features and nonsense clutter. If, like me, you installed it because you were tired of being reminded to, see here and here for ways to...
View ArticleThe age of electric
I can’t help but think that life before electricity must have been so much simpler. Earlier today, I had to break into my own car when my car alarm inexplicably stopped working. At first, I thought the...
View ArticleSoon, Google will own the world
Google launched its new Talk service in Beta. From what I gather, it’s an IM service that allows you to voice call for free. Soon, it will likely be on every computer. I’m gonna wait a bit, and see if...
View ArticleBeliefs versus facts
Something Damian Penny wrote the other day came back to me just now: “Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.” Damian was, of course, referring to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s...
View ArticleWhat happened to the whole “one phonecall” thing?
Watch for the newest craze to hit the blogosphere: Prisonblogging: The prison blog of a New Zealand political activist jailed for the rare crime of sedition has outraged opposition politicians but...
View ArticleMahmoud Ahmadinejad’s blog
Seems that in addition to calling for Israel’s destruction, denying the Holocaust, and developing nuclear weapons, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s list of hobbies has expanded to include...
View ArticleAnd then there were eight…
There are some things in the world that you just take for granted. The sunrise. Gravity. There being nine planets in the solar system. Well, not anymore. Pluto has been demoted and is no longer a...
View ArticleWho called it?
I could’ve predicted this was coming. Oh, wait, I did. Six years ago. Sure took ‘em long enough! (Via Damian Penny).
View ArticleCelestial musings
So is it a planet or isn’t it? Pluto’s dubious status continues to cause debate among scientists, stargazers, and a lot of people with nothing better to do. In the meantime, it seems they’re filming a...
View ArticleGoogle really will own the world soon
The latest Google takeover: YouTube. At least it wasn’t Yahoo, which means that the content on YouTube will probably stay relatively open and free of pointless Yahooisms. (I don’t use Facebook...
View Article“Information wants to be free”
So says this Gazette editorial about the government’s case against Paul Bryan for posting election results from eastern Canada on the internet before the polls closed in western Canada: It was almost...
View ArticleScary noises
Last week I came home one day and turned on my trusty computer, only to discover that it was making a noise. A very loud noise. A very loud and scary noise, considering I had committed the cardinal sin...
View ArticleFinally caved in
I’ve resisted as long as possible, and have finally caved to the pressures of Facebook Crackbook. See you when I emerge… Eventually…
View ArticleOnline photo sites: Close, but not there yet?
As many of you know, Yahoo Photos, which I’d been using for some time now, is in the process of shutting down. Yahoo’s acquisition of online photo sharing and social networking site Flickr earlier in...
View ArticlePlan B?
If Gore, Dion et al. are right and we really are about 10 seconds away from totally fucking up our planet beyond repair… well, maybe we’ll all have someplace to go: A new world has been discovered...
View ArticlePrice-gouging: The cell phone market in Canada
Two related stories in today’s Gazette, referring to all three major players in Canada’s mobile phone market: First, a story about how Bell and Telus are both going to start charging for incoming text...
View ArticleUpdate on the cell phone wars
Responding to massive public pressure, including an online petition that garnered over 57,000 signatures, Rogers has announced a $30 data plan for the iPhone. It’s not the unlimited flat plan that...
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It’s the end of Facebook as we know it
We knew it was coming, but that doesn’t make this announcement any more welcome: The new layout for Facebook doesn’t actually streamline anything. Instead, it forces a half-dozen clicks to get the...
View ArticleHarper promises crackdown on text message fees
In a very un-Conservative move, Stephen Harper made a campaign promise today to regulate businesses more, cracking down on such unfair business practices as price-fixing, deceptive marketing, and...
View ArticleIt’s about time
The GSMA have announced measures to standardize mobile phone chargers by 2012.
View ArticleEnd of an era
Geocities has officially closed. For the most part, this happened with a whimper, not a bang. You can continue to access this site for now, but stay tuned for updated information within the next few...
View ArticleCh- ch- ch- changes
I’ve got the new hosting for segacs.com up and running, and the migration of this site is more or less complete. Most links should work, though if you encounter any broken links, please let me know....
View ArticleNew look for segacs.com
So, how do you like the new look? It’s the latest in the long list of changes that have been taking place around here. The first step was my move to my own hosting at segacs.com after Geocities closed....
View ArticleFacebook blocked in Vietnam?
Is Vietnam the latest country to block access to Facebook? Since last week, it seems that way. Even though the Vietnamese government is issuing denials. Some Vietnamese Facebook users launched a...
View ArticleHow not to ask for money
‘Tis the season to be… generous. Of course, that’s a load of hogwash. Supporting worthy causes is important year-round, not just in December, when the idealists get all imbued with holiday spirit and...
View ArticleMeanwhile in Iran
The death of opposition cleric Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri has sparked more protests - which never really died down, despite strong-arm efforts from Ahmedinijad to stamp out dissent:...
View ArticleDeep freeze
Here’s an explanation for the unusually cold weather in parts of North America and Europe lately: The folks who run the National Center for Atmospheric Research have a great rundown of the details of...
View ArticleMore H1N1 conspiracy theories
Why rely on information when conspiracy theories are just so much more fun? THE swine flu scare was a “false pandemic” led by drugs companies that stood to make billions from vaccines, a leading health...
View ArticleGoogle’s “new approach to China”
Big. Huge. Potentially game-changing. These attacks and the surveillance they have uncovered–combined with the attempts over the past year to further limit free speech on the web–have led us to...
View ArticleDebunking the vaccination-causes-autism myth
The study that had initially claimed a link between childhood vaccination and autism and had long since been essentially debunked as having no supporting evidence, has been formally retracted by the...
View ArticleAre smokers dumber?
A new Israeli study suggests that smokers have lower IQs than nonsmokers: According to the researchers, 28 percent of the study participants smoked at least one cigarette a day, around 3 percent said...
View ArticleThings I’ve been thinking about
A few things that have been on my mind lately: 1. Idiots are their own worst PR nightmare. Let ‘em talk long enough, they’ll shoot themselves in the foot. No need to do it for them. 2. Laziness is an...
View ArticleThose darn Israelis, at it again
Conducting breakthrough medical research, that is. This time, it’s a research team from Hebrew University that has developed a breakthrough in the fight against AIDS: a treatment that appears to kill...
View ArticleThe $47,000 phone bill
Imagine the surprise of a woman who was charged $47,000 by Bell for the use of mobile internet, after being instructed to set up her phone that way by Bell’s customer service department: “The guy on...
View ArticleFederal government to CRTC: you’ve gone too far
You can tell it’s an election year when the government actually bothers to do something useful. Harper, seeing the writing on the wall after massive petitions and public outcry, has issued an ultimatum...
View ArticleRIP Steve Jobs
Steve Jobs, the man behind Apple, is dead at age 56. I’m not an Apple product aficionado. I don’t have an iPhone or an iPad or a MacBook Pro. I’m not part of the Apple cult(ure). But there’s no denying...
View ArticleCRTC’s new wireless rules don’t go far enough
We Canadians pay the highest mobile rates in the world, thanks to the entrenched Bell-Rogers-Telus oligopoly that for years has been gouging customers with impunity. The CRTC, the regulatory body that...
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