I inherited a big UPS for my NSLU2 backup system. It’s all hooked up, and should be providing protection. I don’t think the power went out today, but I find this evening that the NSLU2 is off — what’s that all about?
Tag: ack
kotthu roti night in Canada!
Yeah! Amma is back open after the fire. Had my first kotthu roti in months, and it’s as great as it ever was. The place was jumping, and the Sri Lankan bachelors (reluctant) were looking forward to their first square meal this year.
Poondy Bread is back, too, so the neighbourhood smells just like it used to; bread and curry, mixed in with occasional candy (from the Cadbury plant) and biscuits (merci, Peak Freans).
heading east
Well, that’s me heading back east from Edmonton. It was fun to meet the rest of the team at EPCOR.
In Edmonton, but no thanks to WorstJet
Jet lag, lack of sleep, and a whole day of company orientation isn’t doing much for my clarity of thought right now. What I need is steak and beer.
Last night’s flight was supposed to get in at 10:30, but what with WestJet‘s faffing around, we got in well after midnight. It was about 1am (or 03:00, Toronto time) before I got settled in the hotel room.
I’ve never been in a city with trolley buses before. Guess I can’t say that any more. It’s also the furthest west I’ve ever been.
I wonder if the snow drawing below (as seen from my hotel window) is supposed to be a hometown homage to Bob The Angry Flower?
Chicken Payback
I had the misfortune to have a Swiss Chalet lunch near an argument. It was actually more of a harangue since it was very one-sided, and I was on the verge of getting up to tell the antagonist to shut up.
I don’t know the relationship, but it was an older guy and a younger woman, possibly his daughter. He was going on and on about how she was cutting work to go to the gym, how she was being paid for working 37.5 hours a week but was only working 35, did she feel good about stealing from the company, it didn’t matter if she got the work dones, she was paid to be there, her a manager too, etc, etc.
What was particularly pathetic was that he only ever gave her a couple of seconds to answer before launching another tirade. I think she maybe said about 10 words in a fifteen minute period.
I suspect he thought he was making a good point, but he was just coming across as a complete dork. And he was putting me off my food, too.
How to dismantle an nuclear power station
… [the] process is only projected to be completed by the end of this century, as it is not considered safe to start dismantling the highly radioactive core until the 2080s
— BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Tackling the UK’s nuclear legacy
Imagine Me & You, and a redwing
We just saw Imagine Me & You; fairly amusing, mostly harmless. But there’s a problem; in a scene (Hec & Rachel’s breakup, if you must know) a red-winged blackbird can be clearly heard. There are no redwings in England …
first day new job
I had a good day. There was a lot of administrivia, setting up e-mail accounts, form filling, and learning about the network, but that’s all once off. The afternoon was mostly spent fighting with my new BlackBerry (a 7130e, you nerds), which works as a very nice phone, but the e-mail isn’t set up.
My cube has a view, and the transit is great. I’m happy.
work prep on Ivor’s birthday
Getting ready for the new job; clothes have been bought, shoes polished, case packed.
And it’s Ivor Cutler’s birthday. No gruts for tea for me.
ex-GG at the movies
We saw Brokeback Mountain at the Cumberland this evening, and who should sit next to us but former governor-general Adrienne Clarkson and her posse.
I think she wanted our seats, as Catherine had got there early, and nabbed excellent ones; centre-row, 1/3 back.
Back from Missouri
Unpacking and all. Guess what? I was selected to be the TSA’s Mr Random again! I detect a pattern …
More later, when I’ve unpacked.
A little Irish festive spirit
If I stood on the bow-backed chair, I could reach
The light switch. They let me and they watched me.
A touch of the little pip would work the magic.— Seamus Heaney. Electric Light
and also Airtricity’s Christmas e-card
“The clean air choice of Earth Day Canada.”
So, what would you think would be “The clean air choice of Earth Day Canada“? A bicycle, perhaps? Some kind of renewable energy? Some really brilliant Canadian enviro-social development, like a biodegradeable donut?
Nope, a car; the Toyota Prius. Last time I checked, it still used petroleum (with its high environmental and geopolitical toxicity). It still causes gridlock; I see Priuses (Prii? Your moon-pie eye!) inching along the Gardiner from the GO train with all the other wretched junkers. The way I see it, it’s not looking like part of the solution. It’s a bit like having an official assault rifle for the the International Day of Peace.
Toyota also give out $5000 Toyota Earth Day Scholarships. I mean, that’s nice and all, but it’s hardly giving back. If you look at all the scholarship materials, it’s carefully arranged so it looks like the event is called Toyota Earth Day, with the ‘scholarship’ on the next line. Nice cooption. Good greenwash.
Toronto Subway Station GPS Locations
After seeing the various nifty web-enabled transit maps, I realised I had the data handy to get things started. A while back, I georeferenced the TTC Ride Guide, and digitized all the station locations. I cleaned them up today, and in the hope of being useful, here are the files:
These are simple three-column CSV files, stating latitude, longitude, and station name. They should be in order of stations. Locations are probably within about 50m of real life, but don’t bank on it.
I’ll get these into more useful formats soon, like GPX and KML. For now though, if you can use ’em, go ahead and do something.
corvettesnowmobile
A yellow Chevrolet Corvette soft-top was having a really hard time going up Kennedy Road this morning. It was moving no faster than walking pace, and the back end was fishtailing out at every possible opportunity.
Stewart’s long walk
After picking up my UK passport form at Bay & College, I walked to Spadina Subway. Not far, you’d say. It is if you go via College all the way to Dufferin, and back. 7.3 km, I make it, from the amazing Gmaps Pedometer. I went via Canada Computers (where I got a fantastically quiet Vantec case fan) and Soundscapes (where, of course, I bought too many CDs).
And you know why it was such a long walk? I was looking for a Timmy’s. Sad, isn’t it? It would seem that Little Italy is almost totally free of Tim’s. Yes, I know I could have had fantastic espresso and some kind of pastry there, but I wanted Tim’s, and I was prepared to walk for over an hour in sub-zero temperatures to get it, dammit.
saturday night with the resisters
Just back from Innes Town Hall, to see a screening of Let Them Stay, a documentary about US war resisters in Canada, hosted by War Resisters Canada. It was a fun evening.
I wonder if I should start wearing a resistor in my lapel: Support a Resister, Wear a Resistor? Sure beats wearing a triode for the War Amps …
go 1and1!
I just noticed that 1and1 upgraded my hosting package to 30GB and 100 MySQL databases. Meep!
the monopoly on free money
It’s a licence to print money! Well, Monopoly® money, that is. But you can’t have everything; it doesn’t stop people from trying, though.
The above image is copyrighted, trademarked, service-marked and intellectually-propertized 15-ways-to-Sunday by Hasbro. I hereby acknowledge that I’m a very naughty person to have nicked it for my website, and have felt good and contrite for at least the last 5 (five) seconds. But then, since Hasbro own the rights to my earliest published writings (long story: they bought Database Publications, for whom I used to write) and are sitting on the goldmine that is the film rights to Stardodger (my first, and only, game), I think they’ve done okay from me.
Stuffin’ it since the days of the Neanderthals
If Stuffit Expander were to be believed, this package would be ready to install in a little over 230,824 years. I must have a really fast computer, ‘cos it’s already installed.