AlexH

Thumbs up to Panago for exceeding standards

admin — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 22:09:28 +0000

Jamie Oliver’s pioneering work is having an effect in British Columbia:

B.C. pizza chef tweaks recipe, surprises school cafeterias

In an effort to improve lunches in B.C., the Health Department created four categories of school food based on nutritional value: “Not Recommended,” “Choose Least,” “Choose Sometimes” and “Choose Most.”

Most of Panago’s pizzas fell within the “Choose Sometimes” category, but the company decided every pizza had to get top rating, and the tinkering began.

My meeting with James Moore

admin — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 16:14:12 +0000

I’ve talked to my MP twice: once briefly during his 2007 XMas Open
House, and then on July 23, 2008.

I discussed my objections to the bill, from a perspective of a parent
who needs to back up his kid’s dvds, someone who uses MythTV, and a
software engineer who is concerned about reverse engineering and
‘digital locks’.

Section #’s are from memory here:
I marked up a copy of the act with my notes, mostly regarding 29.21,
the rules about keeping one copy (which people can inadvertantly
violate with RAID, Apple’s Time Machine, drive caches, etc), and
destruction of copies after resale clause which would require physical
destruction of hard drives / flash media due to forensic recovery
software, 29.23, the restrictions on time-shifting, and the entire
section 41.

He is going to pass along my notes to someone in the Industry Committee.

He agreed with me that keeping one copy was not practical from a
computer architecture standpoint.

He agreed that the time shifting restrictions weren’t practial for a
PVR user that may catch up on their TV watching once a week. He also
admitted that he has some favourite episodes of The Hour that he
watches multiple times on his iPod.

So he understands things and is fairly computer literate, ie
understands the difference between RAM and hard drives.

We talked about what is going to happen to the bill when it is
discussed in the Industry Committee, and how the various parties can
voice their objections and bring in expert witnesses to explain
things.

My impression is that he is keeping the party line, said that there is
a need to bring the copyright legislation up to date. But he has been
known to vote against the party line for things that his constituents
want, ie the gay marriage ban.

I’m reminded of the scene in Idiocracy

admin — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 19:39:41 +0000

Where our hero “Don’t Know” escapes by telling the guards he’s in the wrong line, he should be in the one leaving the prison:

RCMP nab escaped prisoner near Hope

A fugitive who escaped from a pre-trial centre in Coquitlam, B.C., by posing as another inmate has been arrested, police said Friday.

Sony TVs run Linux

admin — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 19:01:00 +0000

Someone posted this link on the VanLUG mailing list. Very interesting!

Sony – Open Source Code – English

The following products incorporate software covered by the terms of the GNU General Public License and/or GNU Lesser General Public License, as specified in the software listing below.

Sourdough is frothy!

admin — Fri, 16 May 2008 04:20:27 +0000

I wish I could take a picture but I can’t figure how to make Tracy’s stupid camera focus. I changed my strategy with the sourdough to feed it every twelve hours, and keep it in the closet where our hot water tank is. Much better! Today after work I came home to a bubbly, frothy, sour batter. I scooped out 1 cup to save in the fridge for pizza shells. For the feed on Friday night I’m going to save some for pancakes on Saturday morning. After that, I hope the starter will be proofed enough that it can live in the fridge and fed weekly.

Anyone want some starter? I’ve have more than enough now!

Square Foot Garden 2008 is underway

admin — Wed, 14 May 2008 02:44:16 +0000

My apologies to anyone who subscribes to my blog for gardening related posts, I’ve been neglecting this blog, and the garden. But here’s a note on my progress so far this year.

After my shopping spree at Seedy Saturday Vancouver, it took me a while, but I got my horseradish and Jerusalem artichokes potted up. They are living in containers on the patio. I’ve left a Brussels sprout plant from last year, and it is going to seed already. I doubt that I’ll plant the seeds, but it’s fun to watch.

The Square Foot Garden in Tracy’s parents’ backyard has been cleaned up, but it needs a refresher of compost. I cleaned out the compost bin already, but it needs some more. I’ve got a bucket of coffee grounds from my office that is going to go into the compost, but it won’t be enough, so I’ll probably have to buy some.

So far, I have planted onion and leek starts, and moved the parsley that survived the winter into their new squares. Some seeds have gone in as well: spinach, peas, chard, and carrots. They’ve sprouted and are doing fine. My only problem is that I lost my notepaper that I wrote down where I planted things. Oh well, I guess I’ll just have to let things grow enough to know what is a weed.

This weekend I’ll be buying some seedlings, and putting the rest of the seeds in.

Making sourdough

admin — Tue, 13 May 2008 15:44:12 +0000

My mom brought me back a sourdough starter kit from her trip to Alaska. I finally got around to starting it on Sunday. It was a dry mix so all I needed to do was mix it with some flour and water, and let it sit. I’ve been researching how it’s done, and it seems like most people are starting from scratch, with a multi-day process of feeding. Some people recommended finding locally grown organic grapes to jumpstart the local yeasts. I’m happy with a ready mix for now.

It’s been brewing in a plastic container for the past couple of days, and I’ve stirred it a couple of times, and fed it once already. Hooch has formed on top, although it hasn’t been as bubbly as I expected. It’s now in the fridge. I’m going to make a loaf in the breadmaker tomorrow, since I’m working from home. I hope it turns out ok!

I have a feeling I’m going to be sending containers of starter home with anyone who comes to visit us.

Garden update

admin — Fri, 09 May 2008 14:53:59 +0000

It’s been a busy time here as Tracy has gone back to work 2.25 days a week, but I have managed to do some gardening in my spare time.

I cleaned up my existing 3 squares in the garden and direct seeded a few cold weather crops like spinach, peas, and chard. I also moved some parsley plants around and was happy to see that they survived the move. I’ve also transplanted some store bought leeks and onion seedlings… the cashier at Gardenworks smelled them before putting them in the bag, then apologized, ‘Sorry, I’ll stop smelling your purchases now’. Ok, thanks.

I started some other plants from seed. A bunch of herbs, but it looks like they aren’t germinating. That’s ok, the seeds were about 5 years old. The cucumbers look like they have been the most successful, and I will probably need to pot them up this weekend.

That’s all for now, I hope to get some seedlings next week and get them planted for the long weekend.

The HD PVR is out!

alexh — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 17:47:21 +0000

Been looking forward to this coming out. Now all I need is an HD source.

HD PVR Product overview

HD PVR is the world’s first High-Definition video recorder for making real-time H.264 compressed recordings at resolutions up to 1080i. HD-PVR records component video (YCrCb) from cable TV and satellite set top boxes, with a built-in IR blaster to automatically change TV channels for scheduled recordings. Audio is recorded using AAC or Dolby Digital.

Eliminate the penny in Canada

alexh — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 15:43:42 +0000

My grandpa would have been happy to see this story.

MP to introduce bill to eliminate the penny

A Winnipeg MP who thinks the penny is a nuisance and too expensive to ship around the country is expected to introduce a private member’s bill on Monday to take it out of circulation.

It makes sense for a variety of reasons:

Inflation: Prices are increasing, and there are few things that you can buy for a penny now. What you can buy for a penny is generally not sold in single units.
Metal prices: Metal prices increase over time (again due to inflation) and you get into a situation where the coins are worth more melted down than they are as currency.

The article brings up an interesting note that I doubt my grandfather ever considered: electronic payments. Transactions that are done with debit or credit cards would not be rounded to 5 cents, they would round to the penny. But this begs the question, what should we round transactions to? Computers can handle large numbers of decimal places, so why round to the penny? We shouldn’t round the amounts for any transactions that are done electronically.