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.
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Lens hack and the Toronto Zoo
Ever since reading an article about homemade tilt-shift lenses like this one, I've wanted to build one and try it out. I browsed through ebay for a while and eventually settled on a Xenar lens from an old Korelle SLR for about $75.
I kept my eye open for some sort of bellows and even researched building one. One day though, one of the guys at work had some rubber boots for car suspension struts lying around and he donated one to me. I found some time a couple weeks ago and hacked something together using electrical tape, cardboard, and the base of a busted teleconverter.
Here's what the monstrosity looks like:
I got a chance to try the thing out recently at the Toronto Zoo. Focusing was a little tricky and I was worried about it falling apart. It held up well with the snow and dampness. I used a roll of Kodak C-41 black and white film. The pictures turned out fairly nice for the most part. Here are some:
I really like this one though:
I really like the lens...there's some dirt in it too that adds to the antique soft focus look to the pictures. I used it again at the Toronto Autoshow last week too with a roll of colour film. I noticed that it started to fall apart after a while and probably let in some extra light so I don't know how well the pictures will turn out. In the meantime, I'll have to think of a more robust method of building the lens.
I kept my eye open for some sort of bellows and even researched building one. One day though, one of the guys at work had some rubber boots for car suspension struts lying around and he donated one to me. I found some time a couple weeks ago and hacked something together using electrical tape, cardboard, and the base of a busted teleconverter.
Here's what the monstrosity looks like:
I got a chance to try the thing out recently at the Toronto Zoo. Focusing was a little tricky and I was worried about it falling apart. It held up well with the snow and dampness. I used a roll of Kodak C-41 black and white film. The pictures turned out fairly nice for the most part. Here are some:
I really like this one though:
I really like the lens...there's some dirt in it too that adds to the antique soft focus look to the pictures. I used it again at the Toronto Autoshow last week too with a roll of colour film. I noticed that it started to fall apart after a while and probably let in some extra light so I don't know how well the pictures will turn out. In the meantime, I'll have to think of a more robust method of building the lens.
Saturday, February 02, 2008
PBS e2 Documentary Series
I caught an episode of the e2 (e squared) PBS documentary series one night and found it intriguing. That particular episode dealt with renewable energy and how it can be implemented in different ways. I kept an eye out for it for a while but never managed to see it again. So I decided to buy the DVDs from the PBS store as a Christmas present to myself.
I've been watching the series over the last few weeks and its a really good documentary series. The first two seasons have mainly dealt with architecture and how to design sustainable buildings. It's a little surprising, but it turns out that buildings account for about 48% of greenhouse gas emissions. There are some neat ideas presented in each episode about managing water and solar energy in buildings.
A whole episode is even devoted to renewable energy efforts in China. One vision they shared was about bringing agriculture into urban areas through the use of rooftop farming. China definitely has bad environmental image on top of a bad image in terms of human rights. Dirty smog-filled urban areas come to mind. Even with this image though, one architect made the point that once a totalitarian regime gets hold of the idea of relying less on fossil fuels and implements more sustainable energy systems, the whole country can be transformed very quickly. They even built a test building that implements numerous ideas for sustainable design that developers and architects can visit, learn about these ideas, and put experiments into place. It's not all pleasant though; there are some alarming numbers about rural to urban migration and coal consumption. It'd be interesting to see how China develops in this regard.
India, Tibet, and Columbia are mentioned in addition to American cities. No Canadian content so far. It seems that we're lagging behind in innovation in the area of sustainable development even though the environment gets a lot of air time on the news here and politicians seem to talk about it a lot.
The only downside is that each episode starts with an ad by Autodesk. They sponsored the series so I guess it's not a bad thing. You can always fast forward through them.
Anyways, the e2 website has previews of episodes and worth going through. It's a fairly new series so most libraries probably don't have it yet. I'm definitely going to pass my copies around, but the DVDs are not expensive and definitely worth the money.
I've been watching the series over the last few weeks and its a really good documentary series. The first two seasons have mainly dealt with architecture and how to design sustainable buildings. It's a little surprising, but it turns out that buildings account for about 48% of greenhouse gas emissions. There are some neat ideas presented in each episode about managing water and solar energy in buildings.
A whole episode is even devoted to renewable energy efforts in China. One vision they shared was about bringing agriculture into urban areas through the use of rooftop farming. China definitely has bad environmental image on top of a bad image in terms of human rights. Dirty smog-filled urban areas come to mind. Even with this image though, one architect made the point that once a totalitarian regime gets hold of the idea of relying less on fossil fuels and implements more sustainable energy systems, the whole country can be transformed very quickly. They even built a test building that implements numerous ideas for sustainable design that developers and architects can visit, learn about these ideas, and put experiments into place. It's not all pleasant though; there are some alarming numbers about rural to urban migration and coal consumption. It'd be interesting to see how China develops in this regard.
India, Tibet, and Columbia are mentioned in addition to American cities. No Canadian content so far. It seems that we're lagging behind in innovation in the area of sustainable development even though the environment gets a lot of air time on the news here and politicians seem to talk about it a lot.
The only downside is that each episode starts with an ad by Autodesk. They sponsored the series so I guess it's not a bad thing. You can always fast forward through them.
Anyways, the e2 website has previews of episodes and worth going through. It's a fairly new series so most libraries probably don't have it yet. I'm definitely going to pass my copies around, but the DVDs are not expensive and definitely worth the money.
No Ads
I checked the Google Adsense account for this blog and found that no one had even clicked on anything...ever. I decided to remove the feature; thought it was a bit of an eyesore anyways.
Friday, January 18, 2008
Booo! on Flickr
I tried showing someone at work some pictures from my travels only to find out that Flickr would only show the latest 200 or so pictures unless I signed for an account with a fee of around $25 per year. When I transfered my pictures from Yahoo!Photos to Flickr, they didn't mention this deal.
I'm a little miffed about it. In know it's not a lot of money, but I'd rather pay for online hosting and setup my own web gallery. Time to do it is the primary issue.
In the meantime though, you can see some of the pictures in this blog here (a lot of the photos from India were not included for some reason). I also replaced the link to my Flickr photos with the same link.
In the meantime, I should slowly start on the web albums...
I'm a little miffed about it. In know it's not a lot of money, but I'd rather pay for online hosting and setup my own web gallery. Time to do it is the primary issue.
In the meantime though, you can see some of the pictures in this blog here (a lot of the photos from India were not included for some reason). I also replaced the link to my Flickr photos with the same link.
In the meantime, I should slowly start on the web albums...
Book Review: The Unexpected War, Janice Gross Stein and Eugene Lang
In the fall, I read "The Unexpected War, Canada in Afghanistan", written by Janice Gross Stein and Eugene Lang. I'm not sure but I think Mr. Lang is a journalist who writes for the Globe and Mail. Ms. Stein regularly appears on tvo on The Agenda with Steve Paikin (Mr. Painkin's show is excellent and really worth watching if you want to know more about the world and the major events that happen in it).
When this book was published, it got a lot of coverage on the news. It got a lot of fanfare and some good reviews. The authors were interviewed on the different news networks. I'd been following the news about Afghanistan and its effect on our Canadian politics so I was curious about the book and decided to read it.
The book is a story on how Canada got involved in Afghanistan. The authors interviewed the principal people involved in the decision to go there from the politicians to the military personnel and even former prime minister Paul Martin. .
The story has some surprises. In 2003, when the US was getting ready to invade Iraq, a lot of Canadians (including me) were proud that our government made the decision not to go along and be part of the invasion force. It turns out that the American military didn't really want or need us to help in a military way, but rather was looking more for public moral support and help in convincing other countries to join. Apparently they didn't think our military capability was sufficient enough be much good to them. Other surprises in the story regard the way the decisions regarding Canada's presence in Afghanistan were made.
When Jean Chretien did not play along and declared that Canada would not be joining the invasion force, there was a lot hand wringing in the military and political circles around Ottawa that relations with the US were being damaged and we would suffer economic and political consequences. The book argues, with some interesting quotes, that our presence in Afghanistan was primarily a way to placate the US and show that we support them in their response to the airplane attacks on the World Trade Centre in New York.
The big surprise to me was that, according to the authors, the decision was made to go to Afghanistan without knowing anything about the country or it's people, an idea of the exact role that we would play, nor the real military capability to be effective in that area.
The initial strategy was "early in, early out"; meaning that Canada would be part of the initial push to set up in Afghanistan but would rotate out after a year or two. A fairly short term commitment, but politically beneficial for relations with the US. This is very far from the current idea of a brave noble mission to bring peace and democracy to a people ravaged by 30 years of war and oppression by a militant group of fundamentalist muslims. The book paints a picture of an exclusively European effort in a more peaceful region in northern Afghanistan telling the Canadian group to find their own mission somewhere else. It seems that there were no plans at the time for the Kandahar region so that's where our military and political people decided that Canada would play a lead role. That decision was made before anyone from the government or military had even visited Afghanistan !
An interesting chapter in the book is titled "We Don't Know Anything About This Country" in which the authors briefly explain the history of Afghanistan and describe some of the tribal relationships in the area. They also used this chapter to illustrate that the decision to go to Afghanistan had more to do with make people in Washington happy than helping poor impoverished Afghanis.
There are some interesting side stories. I've always thought highly of Bill Graham and the book shows that he was an excellent foreign minister. You wouldn't know it by watching news clips of him, but the story also describes John McCallum as an excellent defense minister. General Rick Hillier also gets a good mention.
Overall, I found the book to be a good read. It helps that I'm interested in the topic anyway, but I think that anyone with the slightest interest in Canada's role in Afghanistan would find the book interesting. I also think that the topic of Afghanistan will play a major part in the looming federal election. Given that, I think that the general Canadian public should be aware of how we got to Afghanistan, what exactly we went there to do, and how that differs from what we are doing there now. Reading this book is one way of gaining this awareness.
Highly recommended reading.
When this book was published, it got a lot of coverage on the news. It got a lot of fanfare and some good reviews. The authors were interviewed on the different news networks. I'd been following the news about Afghanistan and its effect on our Canadian politics so I was curious about the book and decided to read it.
The book is a story on how Canada got involved in Afghanistan. The authors interviewed the principal people involved in the decision to go there from the politicians to the military personnel and even former prime minister Paul Martin. .
The story has some surprises. In 2003, when the US was getting ready to invade Iraq, a lot of Canadians (including me) were proud that our government made the decision not to go along and be part of the invasion force. It turns out that the American military didn't really want or need us to help in a military way, but rather was looking more for public moral support and help in convincing other countries to join. Apparently they didn't think our military capability was sufficient enough be much good to them. Other surprises in the story regard the way the decisions regarding Canada's presence in Afghanistan were made.
When Jean Chretien did not play along and declared that Canada would not be joining the invasion force, there was a lot hand wringing in the military and political circles around Ottawa that relations with the US were being damaged and we would suffer economic and political consequences. The book argues, with some interesting quotes, that our presence in Afghanistan was primarily a way to placate the US and show that we support them in their response to the airplane attacks on the World Trade Centre in New York.
The big surprise to me was that, according to the authors, the decision was made to go to Afghanistan without knowing anything about the country or it's people, an idea of the exact role that we would play, nor the real military capability to be effective in that area.
The initial strategy was "early in, early out"; meaning that Canada would be part of the initial push to set up in Afghanistan but would rotate out after a year or two. A fairly short term commitment, but politically beneficial for relations with the US. This is very far from the current idea of a brave noble mission to bring peace and democracy to a people ravaged by 30 years of war and oppression by a militant group of fundamentalist muslims. The book paints a picture of an exclusively European effort in a more peaceful region in northern Afghanistan telling the Canadian group to find their own mission somewhere else. It seems that there were no plans at the time for the Kandahar region so that's where our military and political people decided that Canada would play a lead role. That decision was made before anyone from the government or military had even visited Afghanistan !
An interesting chapter in the book is titled "We Don't Know Anything About This Country" in which the authors briefly explain the history of Afghanistan and describe some of the tribal relationships in the area. They also used this chapter to illustrate that the decision to go to Afghanistan had more to do with make people in Washington happy than helping poor impoverished Afghanis.
There are some interesting side stories. I've always thought highly of Bill Graham and the book shows that he was an excellent foreign minister. You wouldn't know it by watching news clips of him, but the story also describes John McCallum as an excellent defense minister. General Rick Hillier also gets a good mention.
Overall, I found the book to be a good read. It helps that I'm interested in the topic anyway, but I think that anyone with the slightest interest in Canada's role in Afghanistan would find the book interesting. I also think that the topic of Afghanistan will play a major part in the looming federal election. Given that, I think that the general Canadian public should be aware of how we got to Afghanistan, what exactly we went there to do, and how that differs from what we are doing there now. Reading this book is one way of gaining this awareness.
Highly recommended reading.
Neglected Blog...
I've been meaning to post something on here for a while but haven't gotten around to it until now. I've been busy with work on a project for Chrysler and a lot of work needed to be finished before Christmas.
I thought I'd have time to sit down and write something over the Christmas break, but I was too busy eating cookies and watching tv...the couch had a deathgrip on my butt too.
I've got a bunch of thoughts and ideas that I'd like to put here, so I'll try to make habit of posting regularly on here this year.
I thought I'd have time to sit down and write something over the Christmas break, but I was too busy eating cookies and watching tv...the couch had a deathgrip on my butt too.
I've got a bunch of thoughts and ideas that I'd like to put here, so I'll try to make habit of posting regularly on here this year.
Thursday, November 08, 2007
Buggin'
A bug got caught in one of my lamps the other night. It seemed like it was on its last legs and wanted a warm spot to stay in. It caught my attention while I was watching Spiderman 3, funny enough. So I decided to pause the movie and take some close up pictures. It stayed still for the most part, but started buzzing and flying when I got too close with the lens. It's a little startling when you're looking at a bug up close. It's a harmless insect but still freaky. Here are some of the pics...I think the eyes are the freakiest part:
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
It's been a while...
I've been pretty busy over the last few weeks and haven't really had anything to write about so this blog's been neglected for about a month.
The weather's just starting to turn cold after a balmy Thanksgiving weekend (Canadian thanksgiving weekend is in October). So I may have more time to ponder stuff and write about it.
My photography hobby is pretty much at a standstill. I haven't explored Toronto nearly as much as I would have liked to, but hopefully the pace will slow down a bit soon. I did manage to capture some good moments of our thanksgiving dinner in Fort Erie like this stitched panorama:
It's a good one of the after dinner mood. My brother made it in from Vancouver, my aunt from Florida, and my uncle and his family from Toronto. It was a good time and I think everyone thought so too. Good memories, hopefully we'll have more family members join us in the coming years.
The weather's just starting to turn cold after a balmy Thanksgiving weekend (Canadian thanksgiving weekend is in October). So I may have more time to ponder stuff and write about it.
My photography hobby is pretty much at a standstill. I haven't explored Toronto nearly as much as I would have liked to, but hopefully the pace will slow down a bit soon. I did manage to capture some good moments of our thanksgiving dinner in Fort Erie like this stitched panorama:
It's a good one of the after dinner mood. My brother made it in from Vancouver, my aunt from Florida, and my uncle and his family from Toronto. It was a good time and I think everyone thought so too. Good memories, hopefully we'll have more family members join us in the coming years.
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
Dirtsurfer
On the subway ride home from the class I saw a couple of dudes with these things. I was pretty curious about the boards so I asked them how you ride the things. Seems interesting...I'm not sure that I'd find it as much fun as those guys...
Back to School
I was thinking about going back to school for a while now mainly to take a fluff course to meet some people...particularly women...and get my social life going a little bit. I decided that I'd go to Ryerson University because it seemed like I'd get more value than at Seneca College or a similar college. Then I started thinking that as long as I'll be spending the money (not an insignificant amount), I may as well take something that I'm interested in.
I ended up registering for computer science 1. This may come as a surprise to some, but it's not exactly a field that's dominated by supermodel-type women.
The first class was yesterday. It was a bit of a pain to get down to the campus. I'll have to leave work a little earlier next week because leaving at 5pm put me right in the middle of peak afternoon traffic. I didn't have enough time to grab a small bite for dinner. I pretty much parked my car and hopped on the subway downtown.
Anyways, I'm pondering getting a certificate for programming applications available through Ryerson's continuing education program. I figured I'd try a course out to see if I like it...it couldn't hurt and I can get a bit of a tax credit for the course tuition.
The course itself is an introduction to programming and uses Java as its base language. The first lecture covered the basic concepts of classes and objects. It moved along pretty slowly...in my opinion, the content could have been covered in one hour instead of three, but that's the way courses are.
I got a little amusement out of listening to the professor. He's got a very robotic voice and way of talking that sounds a bit like Stephen Hawking with a Slavic accent. He also lacks almost any form of facial expression except for the occasional blink.
It should be an interesting course anyways...who knows what it'll lead to.
I'm now thinking that if I pursue the programming certificate I should also balance it with some other courses where I'll have a significantly better chances for dates...something like fashion 101 or the like.
I ended up registering for computer science 1. This may come as a surprise to some, but it's not exactly a field that's dominated by supermodel-type women.
The first class was yesterday. It was a bit of a pain to get down to the campus. I'll have to leave work a little earlier next week because leaving at 5pm put me right in the middle of peak afternoon traffic. I didn't have enough time to grab a small bite for dinner. I pretty much parked my car and hopped on the subway downtown.
Anyways, I'm pondering getting a certificate for programming applications available through Ryerson's continuing education program. I figured I'd try a course out to see if I like it...it couldn't hurt and I can get a bit of a tax credit for the course tuition.
The course itself is an introduction to programming and uses Java as its base language. The first lecture covered the basic concepts of classes and objects. It moved along pretty slowly...in my opinion, the content could have been covered in one hour instead of three, but that's the way courses are.
I got a little amusement out of listening to the professor. He's got a very robotic voice and way of talking that sounds a bit like Stephen Hawking with a Slavic accent. He also lacks almost any form of facial expression except for the occasional blink.
It should be an interesting course anyways...who knows what it'll lead to.
I'm now thinking that if I pursue the programming certificate I should also balance it with some other courses where I'll have a significantly better chances for dates...something like fashion 101 or the like.
Ruby on Rails
I started playing with Ruby on Rails. It's a combination of an easy programming language and a web application framework with database linking that allows you to quickly develop web applications. I started looking into it a little deeper because I was interested in knowing how to make e-commerce sites (online catalogues and the like).
A friend of mine in Ottawa had initially told me about and my brother piqued my interest after he explained how it worked. I went out and bought a couple of books (RoR for Dummies and RailsSpace)
In hindsight, the Dummies book may have been a bit of a waste of money, but it may prove useful down the road. RailsSpace, on the other hand is pretty neat. The book has an online portion to it were you can look at the code a little easier and copy/paste to save you the typing.
The Ruby syntax is pretty easy to learn so far. It's fairly intuitive and a lot of the coding is not cryptic at all...you kind of write down what you have in mind. Have a look for yourself: this site lets you try it out.
The person who wrote that tutorial definitely has a unique brain. Obviously and out-of-the-box thinker. He/She wrote the strangest guide book. I'm not sure how useful it is for learning code, but the pictures are pretty entertaining.
Anyways, I'll slowly be chipping away at the RoR stuff. My interest in it got me thinking about what it would be like to be a programmer for a living. I decided to try a programming course to get a better taste for it.
A friend of mine in Ottawa had initially told me about and my brother piqued my interest after he explained how it worked. I went out and bought a couple of books (RoR for Dummies and RailsSpace)
In hindsight, the Dummies book may have been a bit of a waste of money, but it may prove useful down the road. RailsSpace, on the other hand is pretty neat. The book has an online portion to it were you can look at the code a little easier and copy/paste to save you the typing.
The Ruby syntax is pretty easy to learn so far. It's fairly intuitive and a lot of the coding is not cryptic at all...you kind of write down what you have in mind. Have a look for yourself: this site lets you try it out.
The person who wrote that tutorial definitely has a unique brain. Obviously and out-of-the-box thinker. He/She wrote the strangest guide book. I'm not sure how useful it is for learning code, but the pictures are pretty entertaining.
Anyways, I'll slowly be chipping away at the RoR stuff. My interest in it got me thinking about what it would be like to be a programmer for a living. I decided to try a programming course to get a better taste for it.
Cornucopia Regatta
I went sailing at the Cornucopia Regatta at DYC over the Labour Day weekend. I got an email from SimonK who just bought a Kirby 25 for a really good deal and he needed crew to sail it at the regatta. It turned out that the boat had been sitting for a while and was in no shape for a regatta. Fortunately, Undercover wasn't in the regatta yet so he managed to convince Theo to sign up and he organized a quick crew with Derek and myself. It turned out that I had the most experience at helming a boat in races so I was the helmsman by default.
For a crew that was just thrown together on a new boat, we did fairly well. We had some awesome starts, great point and speed upwind, and had some cool downwind battles. We were in the running for a respectable 5th place, but a couple of key mistakes on the Sunday hurt us since we had a DFL finish on one race. We ended up in a tie, but got 7th place since Ruby's best race was better than ours. I've been waiting for someone to post some pictures, but so far nothing yet on the Kirby site.
It was an awesome weekend and it was great to get back in there again. I didn't get out enough this summer. I'll have to figure out something so I can get out there regularly next summer. There's another Kirby regatta in Barrie this coming weekend, but I don't think I'll be going. The Cornucopia was probably my last sail for the season.
For a crew that was just thrown together on a new boat, we did fairly well. We had some awesome starts, great point and speed upwind, and had some cool downwind battles. We were in the running for a respectable 5th place, but a couple of key mistakes on the Sunday hurt us since we had a DFL finish on one race. We ended up in a tie, but got 7th place since Ruby's best race was better than ours. I've been waiting for someone to post some pictures, but so far nothing yet on the Kirby site.
It was an awesome weekend and it was great to get back in there again. I didn't get out enough this summer. I'll have to figure out something so I can get out there regularly next summer. There's another Kirby regatta in Barrie this coming weekend, but I don't think I'll be going. The Cornucopia was probably my last sail for the season.
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