If you think Windows Vista or Mac OS X is cool, check this out. Considering that linux is free, it's pretty amazing compared to the other two operating systems.
It's not without problems though. The guy who made that video posted his Ubuntu 7.10 installation procedure for the Thinkpad R61.
Some vendors are starting to offer linux pre-installed on their hardware. I read somewhere recently that Lenovo will be offering them with Novell Suse Linux (don't remember where I read that though...). Dell now offers systems in Canada with Ubuntu already installed (They offered it in the US for a while now, but just recently made them available in Canada. Not sure why the delay...). System76 sells Ubuntu systems on what looks like Lenovo hardware...the laptops do anyway.
You can always buy an Apple machine and run Linux on it too.
Sunday, March 30, 2008
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Tim Flannery in Toronto
Tim Flannery is the author of The Weather Makers. I read his book and wrote about it in an earlier post.
I got an email the about a lecture that he'll be doing here in Toronto next week at the Bloor Cinema (April 3rd, 7pm). I'll be checking it out with a couple of friends. Here are the details:
RSGC Guild Sponsored Speakers Series
A Focus on the Environment
Tim Flannery and Bridget Stutchbury
The Weathermakers: The History and Future Impact of Climate Change
NSW AOTY Tim Flannery.jpg
Speaking at the Bloor Cinema ~ 506 Bloor Street
April 3rd, 2008
Doors open at 6:30 pm ~ Lecture begins at 7:00 pm
Followed by book signing ~ Books available for purchase
Tickets are $25
General Admission
Purchase tickets online at www.rsgc.on.ca
https://www.netdirectories.com/~rsgc/oler2.cgi?1054
World renown explorer, conservationist and writer-scientist, Tim Flannery has written many bestselling books, including The Future Eaters, The Eternal Frontier and of course the #1 international bestseller The Weather Makers. Tim Flannery was director of the South Australia Museum and professor at Harvard and the University of Adelaide. He was voted Australian of the year in 2006 and is now professor at Maquarie Universty. His new book, An Explorer's Notebook, Essays on Life, History and Climate, will publish in Canada Spring 2008.
Short-listed for the 2007 Governor General's award for non-fiction, Silence of the Songbirds follows birds on their 10,000-kilometer journey from Canada to South America, and charts the threats. Tim Flannery claims, "this book is a must-read for anyone whose heart has thrilled to the song of a bird." Author Bridget Stutchbury completed her PhD at Yale , was a fellow and research associate at the Smithsonian and is now an Associate Professor of Biology at York University.
I got an email the about a lecture that he'll be doing here in Toronto next week at the Bloor Cinema (April 3rd, 7pm). I'll be checking it out with a couple of friends. Here are the details:
RSGC Guild Sponsored Speakers Series
A Focus on the Environment
Tim Flannery and Bridget Stutchbury
The Weathermakers: The History and Future Impact of Climate Change
NSW AOTY Tim Flannery.jpg
Speaking at the Bloor Cinema ~ 506 Bloor Street
April 3rd, 2008
Doors open at 6:30 pm ~ Lecture begins at 7:00 pm
Followed by book signing ~ Books available for purchase
Tickets are $25
General Admission
Purchase tickets online at www.rsgc.on.ca
https://www.netdirectories.com/~rsgc/oler2.cgi?1054
World renown explorer, conservationist and writer-scientist, Tim Flannery has written many bestselling books, including The Future Eaters, The Eternal Frontier and of course the #1 international bestseller The Weather Makers. Tim Flannery was director of the South Australia Museum and professor at Harvard and the University of Adelaide. He was voted Australian of the year in 2006 and is now professor at Maquarie Universty. His new book, An Explorer's Notebook, Essays on Life, History and Climate, will publish in Canada Spring 2008.
Short-listed for the 2007 Governor General's award for non-fiction, Silence of the Songbirds follows birds on their 10,000-kilometer journey from Canada to South America, and charts the threats. Tim Flannery claims, "this book is a must-read for anyone whose heart has thrilled to the song of a bird." Author Bridget Stutchbury completed her PhD at Yale , was a fellow and research associate at the Smithsonian and is now an Associate Professor of Biology at York University.
Book Review: The Assault On Reason, Al Gore
I initially found out about this book last year by reading an excerpt of the book on commondreams.org. The excerpt talked about a lot of issues that I was interested in regarding society and democracy. I even posted an entry here about it.
I got the book as a present this past Christmas and only got around to reading last week. Here's a list of the contents:
i. Introduction
1. The Politics of Fear
2. Blinding the Faithful
3. The Politics of Wealth
4. Convenient Untruths
5. The Assault on the Individual
6. National Insecurity
7. The Carbon Crisis
8. Democracy in the Balance
9. A Well-Connected Citizenry
10. The Rebirth of Democracy
The book starts out fairly well. In his introduction, Mr. Gore talks about different areas of the brain that are activated while one is reading versus the areas that are activated while one is watching tv. The main idea is that reading is an active process where the reader processes symbols on a page and mentally creates images and abstract concepts. Watching tv, on the other hand is a more passive activity and the brain activity is mostly focused around the visual centres. He doesn't get too technical, but manages to convey the message fairly well.
There are some unexpected nuggets of information here and there like how to hypnotize a chicken, but overall a lot of the content dealt with stuff that I already knew about. He mentions Edward Bernays and the BBC documentary "Why We Fight", topics that I wrote about in my previous post.
I found the middle sections of the book tiresome to read. It seemed like he was blaming everything that went wrong with America on Bush, Cheney, and their cohorts. I agree that it seems a little surreal that so many Americans were duped into agreeing to the Iraq war, but the blame doesn't entirely rest on Bush and company. In a democracy, the people rule. It's up to the citizenry to stay well informed and hold their elected officials accountable. The American citizens have to shoulder some of the blame for being so apathetic to what's happening to their government and country and buying into all the false information that was thrown at them (e.g. Saddam Hussein/ Al Qaeda link, Saddam Hussein playing a part in WTC bombings, WMDs in Iraq, unexpected levy collapse in New Orleans with hurricane Katrina, etc.). We have the same problem here in Canada, but the repercussions of the apathy of Canadian citizens don't have such a massive global effect.
In any case, Mr. Gore's book was long on blame and short on solutions. He tries to explain that the internet will be key in re-activating the populations' interest in their government, but doesn't really offer up any ideas on how exactly that could happen. He draws a parallel between the advent of the printing press and the current development of the internet in that almost anyone can publish something online at very little cost without having to pay huge sums of money for a national newspaper ad or a 30 second commercial. I understand that logic, but people surfing on the internet have to be interested in a topic before they can search for information about it. I think most people will be just as disinterested as they were before the internet, but instead of watching tv, they'll spend their time on facebook, youtube, and albinoblacksheep, among other places. (By the way, Mr. Gore sits on Apple's board of directors and is a senior advisor to Google).
I was hoping that Al Gore would have some brilliant insights into how people can combat the massive marketing and propaganda type campaigns being thrown at them, but the book didn't offer much in that area. So while I'm fairly disappointed with the book, I still recommend reading it. There are a lot of lessons to be drawn from it and if Canadians are aware of how the current situation in Iraq came about, maybe that will help us gain some clarity on what exactly we are doing in Afghanistan.
I got the book as a present this past Christmas and only got around to reading last week. Here's a list of the contents:
i. Introduction
1. The Politics of Fear
2. Blinding the Faithful
3. The Politics of Wealth
4. Convenient Untruths
5. The Assault on the Individual
6. National Insecurity
7. The Carbon Crisis
8. Democracy in the Balance
9. A Well-Connected Citizenry
10. The Rebirth of Democracy
The book starts out fairly well. In his introduction, Mr. Gore talks about different areas of the brain that are activated while one is reading versus the areas that are activated while one is watching tv. The main idea is that reading is an active process where the reader processes symbols on a page and mentally creates images and abstract concepts. Watching tv, on the other hand is a more passive activity and the brain activity is mostly focused around the visual centres. He doesn't get too technical, but manages to convey the message fairly well.
There are some unexpected nuggets of information here and there like how to hypnotize a chicken, but overall a lot of the content dealt with stuff that I already knew about. He mentions Edward Bernays and the BBC documentary "Why We Fight", topics that I wrote about in my previous post.
I found the middle sections of the book tiresome to read. It seemed like he was blaming everything that went wrong with America on Bush, Cheney, and their cohorts. I agree that it seems a little surreal that so many Americans were duped into agreeing to the Iraq war, but the blame doesn't entirely rest on Bush and company. In a democracy, the people rule. It's up to the citizenry to stay well informed and hold their elected officials accountable. The American citizens have to shoulder some of the blame for being so apathetic to what's happening to their government and country and buying into all the false information that was thrown at them (e.g. Saddam Hussein/ Al Qaeda link, Saddam Hussein playing a part in WTC bombings, WMDs in Iraq, unexpected levy collapse in New Orleans with hurricane Katrina, etc.). We have the same problem here in Canada, but the repercussions of the apathy of Canadian citizens don't have such a massive global effect.
In any case, Mr. Gore's book was long on blame and short on solutions. He tries to explain that the internet will be key in re-activating the populations' interest in their government, but doesn't really offer up any ideas on how exactly that could happen. He draws a parallel between the advent of the printing press and the current development of the internet in that almost anyone can publish something online at very little cost without having to pay huge sums of money for a national newspaper ad or a 30 second commercial. I understand that logic, but people surfing on the internet have to be interested in a topic before they can search for information about it. I think most people will be just as disinterested as they were before the internet, but instead of watching tv, they'll spend their time on facebook, youtube, and albinoblacksheep, among other places. (By the way, Mr. Gore sits on Apple's board of directors and is a senior advisor to Google).
I was hoping that Al Gore would have some brilliant insights into how people can combat the massive marketing and propaganda type campaigns being thrown at them, but the book didn't offer much in that area. So while I'm fairly disappointed with the book, I still recommend reading it. There are a lot of lessons to be drawn from it and if Canadians are aware of how the current situation in Iraq came about, maybe that will help us gain some clarity on what exactly we are doing in Afghanistan.
laptops of the future
I'm looking to get a laptop computer and I've been doing a ton of research about them lately. I'm not keen on buying a new laptop with Windows Vista on it. It seems like such a bloated OS to me with a lot of unnecessary bells and whistles. The cheap deals on some of the newer laptops are hard to beat though. I'd buy an apple macbook but they're too expensive for what you get. Nice machines but so what. Anyways, enough about that nerdy topic and onto some cool nerdy things.
I came across a computerworld article about laptops of the future. Not too distant future...more like 2015. They concept renderings look amazing. Not too rugged looking though, except maybe the solar powered one. Check them out for yourself.
I came across a computerworld article about laptops of the future. Not too distant future...more like 2015. They concept renderings look amazing. Not too rugged looking though, except maybe the solar powered one. Check them out for yourself.
Sunday, March 16, 2008
Riding the Subway
Every time I ride the subway I see something that I'd like to take a picture of. I always wonder about how some people are going to react and most of the time don't bother taking a picture because I don't want to provoke a scene. I'll have to get over that feeling sometime. Here are a couple of pictures that I managed to take recently:
Interior Design Show
I checked out the Interior Design Show with a couple of friends just to see what it was about. One of my friends is really keen about the show and does some part time work designing rooms for people.
There were some neat ideas for condo living and some interesting artistic pieces. We got there fairly early in the morning and it didn't take long for the show to get really busy. With the real estate boom that we have here in Toronto, it's not surprising that there's a huge market for furnishings and other stuff for the home.
While there some really neat things there, I was floored by the pricing of the majority of items. It seems that there are a lot of people with a ton money to spend and no clue as to how what it takes to make furniture and how much it should cost. The markups on some pieces was insane. I did hear a few people asking about how some products were environmentally friendly or somehow green. One company said that they planted a tree for every furniture product that they sold. There were a bunch of companies with green sounding names like "Erth Coverings". Their main deal was that they sold natural products, but there was no mention of a closed system where they treat and recycle their waste water or if they have a solar panel bank supplementing their electricity usage. I mainly got the impression that consumers were more or less looking for an answer that said that the companies were environmentally friendly but rarely asked how.
There were some pretty neat items and some slick materials for countertops and tiling. Overall, though, I left there thinking that it would be a good idea to start a home decoration company with a truly green manufacturing cycle and some unique products...could make a lot of money. In any case, here are some of the more interesting pictures that I took:
(stuff made in China wouldn't cost a lot...these guys must have had a huge markup on their price!)
There were some neat ideas for condo living and some interesting artistic pieces. We got there fairly early in the morning and it didn't take long for the show to get really busy. With the real estate boom that we have here in Toronto, it's not surprising that there's a huge market for furnishings and other stuff for the home.
While there some really neat things there, I was floored by the pricing of the majority of items. It seems that there are a lot of people with a ton money to spend and no clue as to how what it takes to make furniture and how much it should cost. The markups on some pieces was insane. I did hear a few people asking about how some products were environmentally friendly or somehow green. One company said that they planted a tree for every furniture product that they sold. There were a bunch of companies with green sounding names like "Erth Coverings". Their main deal was that they sold natural products, but there was no mention of a closed system where they treat and recycle their waste water or if they have a solar panel bank supplementing their electricity usage. I mainly got the impression that consumers were more or less looking for an answer that said that the companies were environmentally friendly but rarely asked how.
There were some pretty neat items and some slick materials for countertops and tiling. Overall, though, I left there thinking that it would be a good idea to start a home decoration company with a truly green manufacturing cycle and some unique products...could make a lot of money. In any case, here are some of the more interesting pictures that I took:
(stuff made in China wouldn't cost a lot...these guys must have had a huge markup on their price!)
Toronto Autoshow
I went to the Toronto Autoshow with a group of my colleagues from work. Being an automotive company, they gave us free tickets and an afternoon off to go check it out. We walked around for about 5 hours looking at all the different cars. Being a hinge designer, I took the time to check out some of the ways that the different car makers design their hinges for the side doors, hatches, and hoods. It was interesting to see the various implementations, but I think most people wouldn't even notice.
There were some interesting concepts but, sadly, no electric cars. GM had their Chevy Volt car there, but it was pretty obvious that it's still in the early development stage. They had a cover hiding the interior of the car so you couldn't see the console or the controls. I suspect that the interior is largely unfinished and the cover was there to hide the ugly prototype functionality that they had in there. I'm not even sure if the car could be driven or not. Here are some pictures of it:
I recently read an article about how the GM head of product development believe that global warming is a farce so I really don't think that they're taking this car too seriously. I think it has more to do with marketing than anything else. I'll be surprised if it makes it to production by 2010.
There were some other interesting cars out there like this one:
We also checked out some of the products that our company makes like this step on the Ford F150 tailgate. Naturally, we had to stop and take a few pictures:
Describing the versatility of the MultiPole:
The Lamborghini exhibit showing the history of their line of cars was pretty cool. It was interesting how the styling has changed over the years. I managed to get this picture of one of their newer models:
There was also a neat little motorcycle section showing some slick Ducatis and other bikes:
I had a thought of having a small truck as my next vehicle so I decided to check out the Chevy S10. I stepped on the rail they had on the truck and felt it move. I took a closer look and found that it was loose and kept getting looser the more I put weight on it. I pointed it out to some of the guys...you show a bunch of engineers something and they jump on it like kids on a jungle gym. One of the GM show people came over and said that it was show quality rather than production quality. I thought it was ridiculous that they showed something that flimsy at the premiere Canadian autoshow. Here's a video showing how flimsy the thing was.
Overall, the show was pretty good, but after 5 hours of looking at cars I was beat and ready for some dinner.
There were some interesting concepts but, sadly, no electric cars. GM had their Chevy Volt car there, but it was pretty obvious that it's still in the early development stage. They had a cover hiding the interior of the car so you couldn't see the console or the controls. I suspect that the interior is largely unfinished and the cover was there to hide the ugly prototype functionality that they had in there. I'm not even sure if the car could be driven or not. Here are some pictures of it:
I recently read an article about how the GM head of product development believe that global warming is a farce so I really don't think that they're taking this car too seriously. I think it has more to do with marketing than anything else. I'll be surprised if it makes it to production by 2010.
There were some other interesting cars out there like this one:
We also checked out some of the products that our company makes like this step on the Ford F150 tailgate. Naturally, we had to stop and take a few pictures:
Describing the versatility of the MultiPole:
The Lamborghini exhibit showing the history of their line of cars was pretty cool. It was interesting how the styling has changed over the years. I managed to get this picture of one of their newer models:
There was also a neat little motorcycle section showing some slick Ducatis and other bikes:
I had a thought of having a small truck as my next vehicle so I decided to check out the Chevy S10. I stepped on the rail they had on the truck and felt it move. I took a closer look and found that it was loose and kept getting looser the more I put weight on it. I pointed it out to some of the guys...you show a bunch of engineers something and they jump on it like kids on a jungle gym. One of the GM show people came over and said that it was show quality rather than production quality. I thought it was ridiculous that they showed something that flimsy at the premiere Canadian autoshow. Here's a video showing how flimsy the thing was.
Overall, the show was pretty good, but after 5 hours of looking at cars I was beat and ready for some dinner.
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