Talk about being in the wrong place at the wrong time. In the middle of the night in June 2005 outside Glencoe, four OPP officers were watching a suspected methamphetamine operation.
London Free Press - City & Region - Driver admits ramming stakeout van full of cops
Holy cow! What a hotbed of activity Glencoe has become. At one time, it would have been a safe and sleepy town, parents secure in knowing that their wee ones were likely to never cross paths with the truly criminal. Having a meth lab in the neighbourhood likely squashes that feeling completely.
technorati tags:glencoe, meth lab
Email fraud alone cost consumers US$630 million between 2004 and 2005.
Macleans.ca | Top Stories | Life | Pornography, gambling, lies, theft and terrorism: The Internet sucks
For some reason, this number is not terribly surprising. Not even a little bit. Americans [generally] have a deep seated desire to get rich quick, by any means possible, the easier the better. To think that an unknown person from around the world wants to give them $40 million, and all they have to do is send $2500 for an airplane ticket is just silly and irresponsible. You get what you pay for ;-)
Funny that Macleans calls it email fraud - I wonder how much is wasted on lottery systems?
technorati tags:Macleans, email scams
Imagine.
You log into a web portal, choose your own music selections, be it individually, or by genre, or even by release date (say you wanted to stay up-to-date on the newest alternative music released between October 1 2006 and October 25th 2006). You then choose the advertising that's relevent to you: Shoppers Drug Mart, Ikea, Nissan, Loblaws, etc. You submit your selections and pop into your car.
2 things could happen now, you plug your EVDO phone into your radio, or you've managed to snag one of the new IP radios that have just come onto the market, with their own wireless broadband internet connectivity. You enjoy personalized, streaming music for your commute to work.
Imagine. A partnership with an EVDO/wireless broadband carrier, a content provider like iTunes or Pandora, an advertising partner like Google, for personal commercials. 2 streams of revenue, from subscribers and from advertisers... why isn't anyone working on a service like this? Highspeed wireless is rolling out quickly. Bandwidth pricing is dropping faster than temperatures in Ontario.
Disruptive services are all the rage now. This one would be a smash!
A girl can dare to dream.
technorati tags:disruption, personalized radio, wireless broadband
..... think about a solution that would completely disrupt the radio broadcasting industry. Think bigger than satellite radio.
I'll be back.
technorati tags:disruption, radio
Pedestrian killed picking up his shoe
Oct. 21, 2006. 11:46 PM
MEGHAN HURLEYSTAFF REPORTER
A 49-year-old man was killed Saturday by a northbound car as he bent down to pick up his shoe that had fallen off while chasing a dog across Yonge St., police said.He was chasing the dog, which emergency crews could not find, across Yonge St., near the intersection at Lake Ave. in Richmond Hill when he was struck by the car, police said.“As he was crossing the road he lost his shoe and when he realized his shoe had fallen off he turned around to go get it,” Richmond Hill Staff Sgt. Harry Horn said.Emergency crews were called to the area around 8:30 p.m. and transported the man to York Central Hospital where he succumbed to his injuries, police said.Yonge St. remained closed Saturday night between King Rd. and Old Colony Rd. for the investigation, police said.The man is from the Oak Ridges area, said police, who have not confirmed his identity.No charges have been laid, police said.
TheStar.com - Pedestrian killed picking up his shoe
Oh my. The poor fellow managed to dodge traffic to save his dog, until he realized he was missing a shoe. It was the shoe that managed to get him hit by a car. Word on the street it was actually a slipper. Yikes.
technorati tags:Oak Ridges, Pedestrian Killed by Lost Slipper
There’s a trivia book in every bathroom and outhouse in North America. You know there is. Even if no one admits, there is a secret trivia hound in all of us. The wiz now has 2 trivia books, and I’m thrilled (and he has no shame) to admit that he’s spent such a considerable amount of time “sitting” and reading them, that his feet have actually fallen asleep. It doesn’t have to be this way… there’s help for trivia [freaks] buffs….
Imagine the things you could learn:
- Cats purr at the same rate of a diesel engine, 26 cycles per minute.
- The Jack O’lantern is named after a drunk?
- Thomas Jefferson actually served Macaroni and Cheese in the White House in 1802.
- The next time you cough, you might want to know that you are sending air through your windpipe faster than the speed of sound!
All this knowledge, at my fingertips, and no, my feet are not asleep.
technorati tags:Aviva Trivia
MTS Allstream has secured a three-year extension to its data services contract with Hydro One, Ontario's electricity delivery company.Under the terms of the contract, MTS Allstream will continue to supply Hydro One with several data services, focussed on speed, low delay and reliability of data transfer, in support of bandwidth-intensive applications requiring real-time transport of voice, data and video.
mediacastermagazine.com - Mediacaster - 10/23/2006
It's good to see that Allstream continues to resign contracts with existing customers. One intersting point of note - the Hydro One contract is with the enterprise division of Allstream, and not the wholesale division. An interesting angle to take, considering the expansion of the wholesale markets in Canada. One of Allstream's strenghts is wholesale. It would do a world of good if the rest of the beast realized it, and allowed the wholesale group to grow and expand. The Allstream Wholesale division shouldn't be treated like the ugly red-haired stepchild, stuck locked in the attic.
technorati tags:Allstream, Wholesale Telecom, Hydro One
An interesting site hit my radar this morning,
We Are What We DoIt's all about changing the world, one action at a time. It's a feel good site, full of interesting bits and ideas and could likely be the catalyst for some significant conversations. Take a look. Be. Do.
technorati tags:we are what we do
Thankfully not my labour. All I had to do was walk around, wipe up pumpkin shrapnel, and take photos.
I toasted the seeds, but had flashbacks of a bad experience burning pumpkin seeds, and the subsequent burning of a kitchen. I watched these seeds like a hawk.
It’s damn hard to get photos of yourself. Especially when yourself is the photographer. The camera looks pretty small in the photo - I’m ready to upgrade my SLR. :-)
We have a “photo gallery” in our living room, and 99% of the pictures there are NOT me. The wiz says I must include myself. And then he came up with this idea. Self Portrait. I shall soon be adding it…
Man that’s some good hair going on. :-)
... full of pumkpin hunting, cookie sales and wet walks for the smapp dog. If it wasn't for the rain, you'd hardly know that it was Fall...
I am also on the hunt for fast growing trees now, but I have a feeling i've waited too long, and all the good ones have been snapped up. Read: all the cheap ones have been snapped up. I will have to expand the search. Or lower mhy criteria. Neither of those options are terribly appealing. And now, what's worse, every drive we take, I am evaluating trees on the side of the road; thinking, "yah, i could dig that one up".... yeesh.
technorati tags:autumn, trees, pumpkins
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In a move reminiscent of big tobacco funding tobacco research, PayPerPost is announcing a new initiative on Monday called DisclosurePolicy, which “provides policy creation tools, best practices and forums for discussing the delicate balance between content creator freedoms and audience transparency expectations.”DisclosurePolicy creates a disclosure policy for bloggers to post on their blogs, based on their answers to a few questions. They will also pay every blogger who posts a PayPerPost disclosure policy on their blog $10.
Techcrunch » Blog Archive » PayPerPost Is Now Officially Absurd
Aside from the negative slant that Techcrunch has taken with PayPerPost, they are still impresseive at “getting the message out”. Funny, I’m not the only one who is thinking that Techcrunch is doing PayPerPost a favour, instead of a disservice. In fact, the more negativity people read, the better the chance that they actually investigate, and try the service, and decide that it may not be the fruit of the devil!
At some point, Techcrunch has to realize that they are becoming an advocate for PayPerPost, and are driving the blogosphere netizens to see what paid blogging feels like. Techcrunch seems to be turning this into a personal vendetta. Perhaps PayPerPost isn’t the absolute end all, be all to blogging with vendor content, but then again, aren’t we all about evolution? In the beginning, the die hard internet users thought windows 95 was an affront to what the Internet was all about. If they had the choice, we’d all be using Lynx and Pine.
Evolution baby, evolution.
technorati tags:Techcrunch, PayPerPost
A few months ago, I broke this site into 3 sections, and now I'm considering merging them. What do you think - should jules.ca, tech whisperer and the curious tale of the girl and the telco come back together as one?
Sunny skies, open highways
5-1-1
The CRTC has assigned the 5-1-1 access code for the provision of weather and traveller information services, on the condition that the services remain free of charge.
Telecom Trends: July 2006
I don't think that much of the Canadian public is aware of the new 511 service that the Canadian Federal government is going to launch in the next 8 months. Unless you are someone who is in the know about the current National Weather Services Advisory Service - where you call a local number, and receive a recording of the current weather status and road conditions for your area, you may well not even think about 511. Most of you probably already check online for the weather forecast, or the road conditions, or if you should pack a sweater for Rimouski.
The lack of a federal evironmental policy may be pushing this initiative faster and farther than merit and public interest warrant. The new 511 service was proposed by a consortium of different groups, but was spearheaded by Environment Canada. The CRTC has mandated that the service be free. FREE. $35 Million (likely) to be spent on a duplicated service that Canadians don't really know anything about, and may not want.
Just another day in the life for the Governments in Canada. Maybe they can add an option to the 511 service so you could rat out web sites that are advertising gambling.
technorati tags:Canada, 511
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All bets are off, if Ontario has its way
RICHARD BLACKWELL
Globe and Mail Update
The Ontario government is expected to introduce legislation today that will ban advertisements of illegal Internet gambling websites.But the new law — part of a broad package of consumer legislation — could create a huge headache for media companies that will have to closely examine advertisements to make sure they don’t include indirect links to illegal sites.The legislation will not stop advertising of free poker sites or similar sites where no money changes hands, unless those sites have links to betting sites, said Paul de Zara, a spokesman for Ontario’s Minister of Government Services, Gerry Phillips.
globeandmail.com: All bets are off, if Ontario has its way
I say it again, can I become a consultant for Internet for the Ontario Governmnet? Apparently the underlying compelling event is that there are too many good Canadian kids trying to gamble on the internet….
If you follow the whole article, the gov’t is going to make it illegal to have a website in ontario that has an advertisement for a gambling site, or even an ad for a site that has ads to gambling sites. Hmmm, how many websites are there in Ontario? And wait, what about sites that are hosted OUTSIDE of Ontario? Do they have to follow the rules? This site is hosted in America, can I still advertise gambling sites?
The larger issue at stake, the internet doesn’t have any boundaries - if i’m feeling like gambling, i’ll simply go to my favourite hacker site in germany and check out the advertising. Sheesh.
This isn’t the first time the gov’t has set its sights on something silly, it likely won’t be the last. They would find far better traction throwing in with the US government on this one; to eradicate SPAM and child porn.
Martin Geddes makes an interesting comment about what the US is doing to push online gambling away, and by extention, pushing the profits outside of the US by forcing credit card companies to disallow payment to gambling sites…. martin sggests that the fnancial focus will simply migrate to a pre-paid model, and will merrily continue. Imagine, going down to your local variety store, picking up a pre-paid calling card, but being able to use it to play blackjack on the ‘net. Those card distributors who make deals with the gambling associations are going to be set for life. Allready the pre-paid card distribution network is seedy and difficult to police or monitor…. adding one more variable to the pot is not going to make a serious impact.
technorati tags:Silly Canada, Gambling Advertisements
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That's it - I need more links. I need to improve my Google Page Rank. Now that the traffic is up, and the subscribers are up.... this is the last piece of the puzzle.
Help a chickie out?
;-)
technorati tags:google page rank, inbound links
Blogged with Flock
No person shall print, publish, distribute, broadcast or telecast an advertisement or representation that includes an Internet gaming business website address unless the person believes in good faith that the Internet gaming business has been licensed or otherwise granted permission to operate in Ontario or Canada by the appropriate authority and is operated in accordance with the applicable laws of Ontario and Canada.
Telecom Trends
Thanks to Mark for pointing out this silly government bill - where it looks like the ontario government is going to make it illegal to advertise gambling websites, or to even link to sites that advertise gambling websites. Mark points out that this interpretation would even make google.ca offside. This smells alot like blaming the cart, not the horse, for running away. I’d love to know what sorts of experts and consultants are working on this initiative from within the government. Perhaps the gov’t should consider outsourcing these jobs to the private sector? Or maybe even to someone who’s just “living” in the real world?
Silly Ontario government.
technorati tags:gambling, Ontario Government
Blogged with Flock
Since moving into the new place, folks have been regularly providing advice about the neighbourhood, and the seasons, and the decorating… but the biggest piece of advice is to be prepared for Halloween. Apparently kids come out of the woodwork (and woods), and descend like a plague of locusts on October 31st.
I took the voices of the experienced neighbours to heart. We now have over 700 pieces of sugary goodness locked away in the garage. (right next to the 2 cartons of girl guide cookies) Still, there are times when I’ve had to fight back the urge to stockpile more. The fact that there is a new dentist office at the end of our street has not escaped notice either. Irony has been duly noted.
After all, it’s candy. I can freeze it.
:-)
technorati tags:Halloween
Blogged with Flock
True story - I had Microsoft into the office a few weeks ago, to talk about the neat ways that Sharepoint could be configured for my team. I’m a bit new, so I didn’t know the ins and outs of how to book rooms, how to book rooms with LAN connectivity, how to book projectors and phone lines and conference bridges. To be honest, it’s still a mystery. There are web tools, outlook tools, outlook add-ins… global addressbook bits… it’s UGLY.
Anyways, I thought I had a room booked that came automatically with a proxima/projector. No such luck. 6 fancy Microsoft guys, and all I had was a table and 8 chairs. Bleech. So much for the live demo of the Sharepoint Bells and Whistles. :-( We managed to talk and laugh our way through it, and it’s a good thing that I’m familiar with Sharepoint, or it could have turned into a damn sad session.
A few days later, and a bit of digging, and imagine the neat tools i found. Tools that could take away all the internal challenges of “booking resources”. And to make it easier - it’s all web based. The web 2.0 Scheduling Software that NetSimplicity has available is mind boggling in it’s simplicity. Somewhere, someone in the internal helpdesk has got to realize that outsourcing tools like this would make life so very easy for employees. Just imagine.
technorati tags:NetSimplicity, Someone Stole the Projector, Sharepoint
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