Friday, December 26, 2008

The politcally correct version of a holiday greeting

Please accept with no obligation, implied or implicit, our best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low stress, non-addictive, gender neutral, celebration of the winter solstice holiday, practiced within the most enjoyable traditions of the religious persuasion of your choice, or secular practices of your choice, with respect for the religious/secular persuasions and/or traditions of others, or their choice not to practice religious or secular traditions at all; and a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling, and medically uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally accepted calendar year 2009, but not without due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures, and without regard to the race, creed, color, age, physical ability, religious faith, choice of computer platform, or sexual preference of the wishes.

By accepting this greeting, you are accepting these terms. This greeting is subject to clarification or withdrawal. It is freely transferable with no alteration to the original greeting. It implies no promise by the wisher to actually implement any of the wishes for her/himself or others, and is void where prohibited by law, and is revocable at the sole discretion of the wisher. This wish is warranted to perform as expected within the usual application of good tidings for a period of one year, or until the issuance of a subsequent holiday greeting, whichever comes first, and warranty is limited to replacement of this wish or issuance of a new wish at the sole discretion of the wisher.

Thursday, December 25, 2008

Is the censorship idea in China really that bad?

I recently read a document about Google. It talked about how much we really trust Google and about there motto "Do No Evil". In the message boards everyone was talking about how well Google sticks to the motto with one exception, The censorship they have imposed on China.

keep in mind that I live in Canada. I don't live there, and never have. The only information that I get on China is the stuff that seaps out of the seams. And one has to really question the accuracy of that information. It seems like everything I hear coming out of China is that it is a horrible place to live because of the laws and censorship that does go on there. I have a tough time believing all the information coming out of China.

Let's do a little history review. Before the 1950's China was in ruins. They just lost the war, and didn't have much money to fall on. Less then 10% of the population had 90% of the wealth (I've heard that it was closer to 3% wealthy population). There was no middle class, just an upper and lower class, and the lower class was treated like garbage. Low pay, beatings, the whole 9 yards. Sort of what was going on in Canada in the early teens before the unions started to move in.

Something had to be done. A civil was building in Japan and the end results was a new Government. This government had to do a lot of things to ensure it's safety. First they had to do away with a lot of the rich people (you may have heard that the dalai lama being leaving China, he was amongst the 10% richest). You may have also heard of the riots that went on. You can't ask 10% of the population to give up your money or get out so people caused riots.

The government also had to do various things like destroy historical items from China. I've heard that it wasn't all that historical at all. Nothing was broken that was more then 50 years. How can that be considered historic. I think a lot of it was related to the Dalia Lama.

The final thing the government had to do was censorship. They had to stop the bad information that the United States, and other countries were spreading about China. This had to be done because the world hated Communism which was the government that came to power. In a way I sort of wish that I didn't have to read all the negative garbage that the US says about Canada because we are more socialist and less capitalist then them. They don't live here yet they have their opinions that it is bad. I don't know the feelings of big business but I love living in Canada.

Back to the censorship. It became very important for China to censor the outside world. I don't blame China for doing it and I sure don't blame Google for offering there search engine uncensored. I don't believe that Google is doing evil by censoring the Google search engine. Let's go over all the reasons that it is good for Google to be doing this.

1. A world without Google would suck. The search engine is only one of the many services that they offer. Can you imagine a world without Google Calendar, Reader, Documents, ect. I love those features of Google. I'm not saying they are the best tools these days but they were the first. They were the ones that said it is possible and took a risk with coming out with it.

2. China law states that censorship has to occur. Google doesn't want to break the law. That would be infringing on their motto of "Do No Evil".

I don't blame China for being censored and to the people who live there aren't in a panic that Google has done it. It's just to the outside world it seems inhumane.

Reference: http://digg.com/tech_news/In_Google_we_trust_8.
Reference: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13505_3-10127876-16.html?part=rss

Monday, December 15, 2008

Why isn't theft illegal?

There is a lot of technology around these days. There are Cell Phones, MP3 Players, Game consoles, Car Radios, Computers, ect. All these electronic devices can be linked to one thing the Internet. Why aren't they building the internet up to be the easiest and best way to catch a thief?

Here are some scenarios:

Your Xbox gets stolen. Chances are somwhere in it's life the Xbox will reconnect to the internet, and will connect with Xbox Live. Why if a theft claim is made to the police will Microsoft not give out the IP address of the Xbox?

Your MP3 player gets stolen. Your MP3 player has to connect to a computer before you can update it's songs. Chances are this computer is connected to the internet. Why isn't the serial number transfered to the proper dept with the IP address if a theft complain it made.

Your Cell phone gets stolen. They have GPS built into most phones, and they all have serial numbers and some even accept simm cards which should make tracking cell phones even simpler. Why can't the cell phone companies report the location of a stolen cell phone to the authorities?

Your Car Radio gets stolen. Car Radios these days connect via USB/bluetooth to MP3 players. Why can't these MP3 players gets store the radios information which then gets synced to your computer and gets reported in a database.

That last one would be hard to do but it should be something that is posssible in the future. Let's stop theft dead in it's tracks. I usually at least 1 electronic device a year. The moment I tell the police they take my statement and say there is nothing they can do. Petty theft isn't a priority. Who will make it a priority? No one. Not even those who cell it. I'm going to do a test to see what happens.

When my cellphone contract is almost up I am going to report my cell phone stolen to the police and to my cell phone courier. I am then going to drop the phone into the cell phone recycling program that my cell provider hosts and wait. I am going to wait to see if it gets returned to me. My expectations are that it won't be returned. The cellphone will be lost. I will do my best to document everything.

What do you think about my plan?

Wednesday, December 3, 2008

My worst quality strikes again

At 8:30 I was supposed to be at the Seven Oaks physiotherapy offices getting my back checked out. I was there like I was supposed to be, however the physician was not. The physician didn’t get there until 8:52. 22 minutes. Let’s talk about that 22 minutes.

22 minutes is a long time. A lot can go through someone’s mind in 22 minutes. Especially when there MP3 player died just a few minutes before the meeting. Let me try to explain my thoughts during those 22 minutes.

I arrived at the meeting at 8:23. I waiting and waiting. With no music and nothing to read I was starting to get really bored. I started to count the number of tiles on the roof, then the number of chairs in the room. Finally the secretary came to get me and put me in the doctor’s office. I took a look at my watch and it was 8:27. 4 minutes had passed although it felt like an eternity. I can’t complain because it’s still a bit early.

In those room I waited, and waited and waited. For what felt like 30 minutes I took a look at my watch and found out only 15 minutes passed. At this point I was telling myself that if the doctor isn’t there by 9:00 then I am taking off. This got me to thinking. Why am I waiting for this doctor in the first place? There are a lot of physiotherapists in the city who would love to have me. I seem to have to see a physiotherapist on a yearly basis. Each year I probably go about half a dozen times. I should be a physiotherapist’s wet dream. But instead I am waiting.
Now I am starting to tense up. It started to occur to me what a horrible first impression this doctor was making. If he makes me wait 30 minutes this time and he is trying to make a good first impression then does that mean his second time he can be 45 minutes, then an hour. This was the first seed of doubt that was planted in my head while I wait.

Then time passes on and I start to think about how much this is going to cost me. The initial charge for this great service is around $60.00. That could be a lot of money to the average individual. At minimum wage that is a full days wage and yet I find myself waiting. It occurred to me for a brief second that the longer the better because then I am really getting my money’s worth. But then that second past and I fell back into my negative thoughts.

The final draw happened at 8:50. I realized that I was waiting in line. Even though it was an invisible line there was still a line. I hate waiting in lines. It’s my worst quality. Every time I wait in a line I over think the situation. I question the need for the product at the end of the line. Usually I talk myself out of whatever prize or product awaits me at the end.

At 8:52 I got my jacket on and proceeded to work out. As I was walking out I bumped into the doctor just as he was walking in. I shook the man’s hand and simply said I had to go. I walked out the doctor’s front door and decided to visit the bakery across the street. There was no line at the bakery so I ended up buying what they were selling.

Monday, December 1, 2008

What if we were an atom on a baby’s behind?

I’ve been reading a lot of science books and watching a lot of scientific documentaries. I have been reading about quantum physics and the string theory. I have read about some of Einstein’s adventures and dreams and how little we really know about particles, and space. I’ve read about the theoretically 8 hidden dimensions that we can’t see and the 4 that we do understand. After all this reading I have come up with my own theory.

I believe that we are just an atom on a baby’s behind. Let’s review what we know about space and time by asking a simple question: Have you ever wondered what it would be like living on an atom? I have put a lot of thought into it. Here is what I have uncovered.

First thing that we would notice is space. When we looked up from this atom we would see a lot of space not unlike what we see when we look up from earth. As a matter of fact it is very likely that we would see stars too. We could even see planets close to us that would resemble our solar system. The sun would be too big for us to see but other particles would seem like far away planets. We might even find ourselves asking if there was other life on these planets.

Let’s talk about time. Atoms spin near the speed of light. If we did live on the atom then millions/billions of years would pass to us but to the baby would experience only a few days/months/years would pass. It’s taking into affect the fact that the closer you get to the speed of light the slower time seems to everything else but to us it still runs on normal time.

Then there is the theory of the big bang. All of a sudden we come into existence. Sort of like a little sperm penetrating an egg. I’m not entirely sure what happens after the sperm fertilizes an egg but from an atoms perspective it may look like a big bang. I know every time I try to fertilize an egg the girl always says it’s like she experienced a big bang. :)

There you have it. What do you think about my theory?