My thoughts on bottled-water-containers
Posted on August 22, 2008 in the Town and about the water cooler
14 comments
Last Monday, the council of the city of London, Ontario, voted 15 to 3 to stop selling bottled-water in all city-owned buildings.
I agree it’s a step in the right direction to protect the environment from the accumulating plastic in our landfills. City officials point out that only 50% of single use bottles actually end up being recycled. They also argue that it will cut the amount of energy needed to truck-in the bottled water.
Refreshments Canada on the other hand say that the City of London should instead have put more effort in educating its residents about recycling, because plastic bottles are 100% recyclable and some cities like Hamilton recycle at a rate of 91% (if it’s true - Whohoo !).
United Pigeons Toronto Confluence
Posted on August 19, 2008 in the Town and about the water cooler
8 comments
2008 Session, Union Station, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
“Mr. Secretary, scouts have reported of intruders from south of the border. Unconfirmed reports also point to a certain Hamiltonian attempting to show them a good time.”
“Do you have a strategy ?”
“Yes Sir. We will target the Hamiltonian first by pooping into his lunch …”
Recuperating an old Laptop - Part 2
Posted on August 4, 2008 in Computing
5 comments
Installing Debian and resolving some issues on an i1300
In Part 1, I introduced you to my Thinkpad and some challenges I’ve had adopting Linux and FreeBSD. There I also discussed how its aging hardware prevented me from installing newer versions of Linux let alone, boot the installer from a CD.
But that problem faded into the background when I was pointed to an article about installing Linux without burning a CD. It opened up opportunities to test out all the Linux distributions I wanted to try, and satisfy myself that it wasn’t only the hardware that had problems but the drivers that came with those distributions.
There are many reasons I chose Debian but here are my top five:
- I was recommended by my friend, Firas of My Dominant Hemisphere to try Debian for its stability and support for old hardware.
- Installation over the Internet - CDs can be unreliable and their .iso files are not always updated until the new version arrives. In most cases Internet installation fetches the latest packages and security updates. Most major distributions facilitate installing over the Internet.
- I was unable to get the installer launch for SUSE, Fedora, Ubuntu and several other distributions. The Debian installer simply worked.
- The Debian Project pioneered in taking guesswork out of installing new software and upgrading. APT and its graphical front end Synaptic are considered Debian’s best features.
This is the very fist time I’ve used Debian. I had on purpose avoided it because of serious criticisms on Wikipedia a few years ago. Those criticisms have since been removed.
Recuperating an old Laptop - Part 1
Posted on July 26, 2008 in Computing
14 comments
The Medical History
I bought my Thinkpad in 2001. It’s an i series 1300 and it came with modest configuration: 750 MHz Pentium iii processor, 128 MB RAM of which 8 MB is shared with video and a 20GB hard drive. Over the years, it’s helped me get my work done, provided entertainment, I played a lot of games on it, watched a lot of movies and pushed its limits by running resource intensive games and programs (like Flight Simulator and Pro/Engineer). I could go on talking about it and never stop. But now that the hardware is beginning to perform less than optimum and that and I am in no position to by a new computer, it was time to give it much needed new life.
For most of its lifetime, it has run Windows XP and it performed quite solidly. But being the memory hog XP was and the fact that most windows programmers design their programs to run on the fastest processors of the day, my Thinkpad was becoming more obsolete with time and it only added to my frustrations.
Thus speaketh I
Posted on July 14, 2008 in Social
12 comments
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iPhone mania ! Really ?
Posted on July 11, 2008 in the Town and about the water cooler
9 comments
This morning’s news were all over the launching of the iPhone today for the first time in Canada. Representatives from Rogers Communications, who is the official carrier of the iPhone in Canada, were grilled over the prices, while the buyers were asked if it was really necessary.
Apple thretened Rogers by pulling the iPhone last week for ripping off customers by offerring only one plan which was outrageous and overpriced: 60$ a month for 3 years, 150 minutes and only 400 MB of data. Under pressure from consumers and Apple. Rogers announced other plans as listed on their website.
It was reported by AppleInsider that Apple had already diverted shipments bound for Canada to Europe creating a shortage. Thus participating Rogers stores are officially stocked with only 20 iPhones and limiting two per customer.
LIUNA changes mind agreeing to Lister Block Deal
Posted on July 1, 2008 in the Town and about
2 comments
Just last week, the City of Hamilton proposed a deal that LIUNA build a second phase next to Lister Block, if the city bought and restored the building. The proposed phase will bring $600 000 to the city in tax dollars.
LIUNA rejected the deal outright describing it unacceptable and declared that their business with the city was as good as dead.
However, last night, LIUNA turned in a signed deal over to city officials - just hours before the promised $7 million funding by the Province of Ontario expiring.
Under this deal, LIUNA will also restore Lister Block before the city moves into the building by 2012 and buy it for $25 million.
It was clear that nobody wanted to loose the $7 million grant. For more information, check out a draft of this story on CHCH news .
I think this is a good time to take a break from stories about Lister Block for a "few months". Obviously I am getting very excited with any new developments and it’s holding me back from other things I need to do !
Also, Happy Canada Day fellow Canucks. Hope you have a great day. I’ll be unfolding a chair in my balcony in the evening to watch the fireworks.
Tarheel Ramblings calendar finally arrives !
Posted on June 30, 2008 in Social
1 comment so far
Lee of Tarheel Ramblings held a contest last month in which I was the first to come up with the correct answer. The prize was a copy of a Tarheel Ramblings Picture Calendar.
Before I go on, I have a confession to make. I put off buying a calendar because I thought it would be the traditional January 2008 to December 2008 calendar no matter in which month it was purchased. I thought I’d instead buy one in November this year to get a 2009 calendar. Boy was I wrong as you will see.
The package actually arrived on Thursday. But since no one was home that afternoon, I had to pick it up this morning at the post office.
City council kills Lister Block deal
Posted on June 26, 2008 in the Town and about
4 comments
This morning, CHCH news reported that The Hamilton City Council met Wednesday night with LIUNA, the current owners of the historic Lister Block for a round of talks to buy the building. This time city proposed that LIUNA would agree to build a second phase next to the building, if the city bought restored Lister Block.
The proposed second phase would hold a senior’s residence and several retail shops. It is estimated to bring $600 000 a year in tax dollars back to the city.
قصيدة مليباري
Posted on June 20, 2008 in the water cooler
2 comments
Today’s post is in Arabic. Let me correct that - broken Arabic. It’s a poetry (I found in my e-mail inbox last week), that is a narration by a Keralite (a person from the state of Kerala in south India), who recounts his miserable life in Saudi Arabia. It’s hilarious as it captures the flavour of Hejazi Arabic but in a broken and accented form. The story actually is sad and very true.
Keralites form a majority among the population of foreigners especially in western Saudi Arabia and have become a stereotype among the South Asian population. They are commonly referred to as Malabari in the Gulf because the majority of Keralite Muslims there come from the Malabar region . Their language, accent and to some extent their gullibility, make them irresistible for the rest of the expatriates to poke fun at them.
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