AlterNet: Mad Cow USA: The Nightmare Begins – An excellent overview of what the USA has got to do to stop Mad Cow Disease, instead of just throwing the public a great big smokescreen, or blaming Canada.
Month: December 2003
-
-
Forum: The fish that threatened national security – Seriously, if security supervisors are going to yell and scream at someone about a tropical fish, MAYBE THERE’S SOMETHING WRONG WITH YOUR COUNTRY.
-
Cheer(s)!
Well, it is the latter part of December, a time for getting time off work and going to parties for most people. Myself, our office get-together is tonight, and then on Monday is a reunion of sorts with my old high school class. In between we’re seeing Sandy’s kin over Christmas and then my folks over the weekend. Not as busy as most people, but just busy enough IMHO. Oh yeah, and to top it off I have the pager for a week. Fun! It had better not go off.
So anyways, everyone should have some relaxing holidays. See you on the flip side.
-
Terror alert chart
Via boingboing:
I put this on the fridge at work, it was so funny I couldn’t resist.
-
out with the crap, in with the new
For the first time, umm, ever, I finally have a cell phone with the features that I want instead of the best thing I could get for $0.
On the left: my crappy old Motorola V101. Goodbye, sweet stupid bulky box with a full keyboard. Why didn’t you have a WAP browser? On the right, my brand new and now fully unlocked Sony Ericsson T310. Most importantly the new phone has easy connectivity to my PC and anything else (like, say, my Newton) via its IrDA port. All I wanted was a phone with a flippin’ IrDA port. Yay. Thanks dad.
-
Nothing like some wackos on a Tuesday.
Steve Currey’s Expedition Company – Voyage to Our Hollow Earth – This sounds like it’ll be one helluva trip. I mean, just look at the itinerary: Day 1 – Depart your Hometown to Moscow.
Day 2 – Arrive in Moscow. Transfer to Hotel Russia. Sightseeing Moscow. Overnight in Hotel Russia front of St. Basil’s.
Day 3 – Sightseeing Moscow in morning. Afternoon flight to Murmansk. Board Yamal Icebreaker. Overnight aboard Yamal.
Days 4-7 Enroute to North Pole
Day 8 – Spend day at the North Pole
Days 9-11 Enroute to Inner Continent
Days 12-14 Travel up Hiddekel River to City of Jehu.
Days 15-16 Monorail trip to City of Eden to visit Palace of the King of the Inner World
Days 17-18 Monorail trip back to City of Jehu
Days 19-23 Enroute from City of Jehu back to Murmansk.
Day 24 Flight Murmansk to Moscow. Connecting flight back to your hometown.
-
phones phones phones.
Seems like Nokia still has the most phones that have an actual infrared port. Given the cheapness of the hardware I don’t understand why all phones don’t have one. Anyways. I’m seriously leaning towards getting either a 7210, 7190, or 8390. The 7210 and 8390 are still current models, while the 7190 is older and kind of the granddaddy of the former two. Also the 7190 is the phone they used in The Matrix. The Sony Ericsson T310 is looking pretty darn spiffy too, but sold by Fido (although given my current situation, I’d be buying an unlocked phone anyways.)
-
Someone build this mail client. Now.
This is IBM’s view of the future or mail clients. It kicks ass! I want it now! Of course, only IBM is stupid enough to publish their research like this instead of putting a bullet in the head of Lotus Notes and releasing this instead.
-
Uptown theatre in Toronto collapses
CBC Toronto – Man killed in theatre collapse – It’s weird to find out about things that just happened in Toronto via the BBC.
-
phone envy.
Okay. I’ll be the first to admit that I’ve chosen some poor phones in my life. Like our Uniden cordless phone which I just bought another rechargable battery for – the third one it’s had in over two years. At this point I’m thinking of building one myself. Or the Motorola V101 – when Sandy and I signed up for the Rogers Family Plan some 16 months ago now, we both got one of these. I thought it would be really useful to be able to easily write SMSes on the keyboard and use ICQ Mobile – and I was right, and I used ICQ Mobile a lot. But I soon learned that the 101 is horrible, absolutely horrible as a voice phone. Also, the interface is just crap. I don’t think Motorola learned how to make a decent cell phone menu until very recently. Sandy ditched hers in favour of a Motorola C332, but found it to be very quiet, and the battery seemingly held very little charge (might be defective). You might remember that I had to unlock that phone. She just switched again and bought a Sony Ericsson T226, which she loves. I think this one is a keeper for her.
Anyways, this story is about me, and I still have the V101. I barely use the SMS anymore because I’m no longer behind the evil firewall of doom at work, so I can use ICQ and MSN from my PC. The usefulness of having a QWERTY keyboard is almost gone. It’s pretty big for a phone, and the phone volume is bad, but better with the handsfree. I’m thinking of replacing the V101 with something else, but I’m not sure what. Spending money on a new one (which I would have to buy outright) wouldn’t seem to be worth it for the amount of time I use my phone. I could switch over to Sandy’s old C332 but there’s the lingering battery issue.
Ideally I’d like to have a phone that has IrDA or serial data cable capability – so it can communicate with either my PC or my Newton. The C332 only has a USB data cable, so that wouldn’t be useful for my USB-less Newton. Bluetooth would be future-proofing but those phones are still expensive. Right now I’m jonesing for the old days of my Nokia 5160 and data cable. Can anyone suggest to me a decent GSM phone with IrDA? It doesn’t have to be available new. IrOBEX and IrCOMM would be required though. Also, price is an issue.
I wish there was a huge matrix/table somewhere comparing all phones and their features…