I never knew

There’s a couple of things I’m thinking of buying but I don’t what’s available and I don’t really feel like researching it. Or at least, I’d like to have a couple of pointers so I can then research further.

Memory Key

I’m pretty good on backups but I still think I need something else to store a few text files and various passwords. I was thinking memory stick. There’s also a software “kit” available that lets you install Firefox on it in both Windows and OSX versions, using the same bookmarks. I’d probably install that too. So the questions are; what’s the best/most interesting deal and do I have to look into something special if I want the thing to be super secure/encrypted or do I just use some kind of utility with OSX?

Audio Stuff

I have; vcr, Illico (digital cable from Videotron), little stereo system, Airport Express and a PS2. All of those are very old and well used so don’t come and rob me ;). (PS2 ain’t even here righ now)

The problem is that I like to have the sound from all of those coming out of the stereo system and, of course, I’ve run out of connections. Priority one is more room for the Airport Express so I can stream audio to it, priority two is the PS2. The vcr isn’t even connected to it itself but I only watch the very occasional taped tv show so it doesn’t matter.

So I’m looking for something, possibly a very basic stereo system, that offers loads of connections or some kind of media center oriented speaker set with amp or… something else. Needs to be pretty inexpensive and I’m no audiophile so it doesn’t need to be crazy ass sound wise and I don’t need a lot of speakers and surround and stuff because I won’t run the cables around the room anyway.

Any ideas?

Je ne remarque pas toujours combien je paye pour différentes choses et ça fait un bon bout de temps que je n’avais pas pris un “cornet d’crème à glace deux boules” donc possiblement que je n’avais juste pas remarqué mais…. s’tu juste moi ou 4.95$ pour un cornet deux boules c’est cher en tabarnac?!
(Y’en avait en maudit par exemple, j’vais être malaaade)

McGill University has snagged an American academic star to become its new dean of medicine in what is being described as further evidence of Canada’s brain gain… Richard Levin, vice-dean for education, faculty and academic affairs at New York University school of medicine, who is also a prominent cardiologist, researcher and inventor, will assume his new role in September, the university is to announce today in Montreal.—McGill hires U.S. star for dean of medicine

Deux gars intelligents, deux opinions assez opposées; cfd qui aimerait écrire comme Douglas Coupland et Nicolas qui trouve que “Coupland n’est pas un grand écrivain – ses romans sont généralement maladroits, peuplés de personnages en deux dimensions qui s’expriment de manière artificielle”.

A little while ago I reviewed Into Thin Air and was shocked to see the way people would let others die and literaly walk over the bodies of climbers dead in previous expeditions. Some more have died this year including David Sharp last week and some reports say that as many as FORTY other climbers walked passed, leaving him for dead and kept climbing.

About 40 people passed him that day, and no one else helped him apart from our expedition. Our Sherpas (guides) gave him oxygen. He wasn’t a member of our expedition, he was a member of another, far less professional one.

Note that one of the guys quoted in the article I linked was climbing on two prostetic legs. Impressive but also note the ending;

Mr. Inglis, recovering in his Katmandu hotel yesterday, revealed blackened and swollen finger tips, which may be removed soon... He also suffered injuries to the stumps of his amputated legs caused by the repeated impacts of climbing on prosthetic limbs. His legs were removed below the knee because of frostbite on an expedition in 1982. (emphasis mine)

Those people are nutters.

Then this week, another climber, Lincoln Hall, was again left for dead by various people until a team including Canadian Andrew Brash did the decent thing and suspended their climb to give him a hand. I’m shocked (again) at the fact that this seems surprising. The guy was dying, they let go of climbing a rock and helped him.

On Saturday, Hall was able to walk into the advanced base camp, 6,400 metres above sea level. He was being treated for frostbite and cerebral edema — swelling to the brain caused by altitude sickness. (emphasis mine again)

He walked down. He was left for dead, his family was told he was dead but others helped him and he walked down. Bit of a range of results there don’t you think? From “dead” to walking down. There’s some messed up stuff going on up on that mountain.

Yes!! A Canadian team in the Stanley Cup finals. The Oilers win their series and make it to the “big show” for the first time in 16 years. If they win they would be the first Canadian team to do so since… the habs in 93! Wow, didn’t realise it was that long.

Looks like they might be facing the Buffalo Sabres. Two small markets, two unheralded teams and two organisations taking full advantage of the “new” rules this year. I’m sure the higher ups of the league will be disapointed not to have any teams from the big markets, someone from California or the NY area would probably have made them happier but in terms of the new revenue sharing and the rules putting talent to the fore, it’s a resounding success.

I liked Michael Schumacher for all of one Grandprix, his first. He was with Jordan at Spa and qualified 7th, very high for such a young team. Next race he showed his loyalty and had already moved on to Benetton. The rest of his career would go the same way; outstanding talent backed by no sense of honor or fairplay whatsoever.

This weekend in Monaco he faked an error and left his car parked in a way that prevented others, including Alonso on a pole setting pace, from finishing their last qualifying lap. Surprisingly, considering some stuff he’s gotten away with in the past, the race stewards stripped him of his pole and he started from the back.

The BBC has a rundown of some of the crap he’s pulled in the past as well as some of the reactions from other drivers. The best one is by Mark Webber;

I just feel you don’t have to do this stuff. Why does it always have to happen? It’s like Mike Tyson biting someone’s ear off, isn’t it?

Exactly. Kind of like Bonds in baseball too. This latest and all the other events teint everything he’s done, every record he’s piled. One can only hope that the near unanimous condemnation finally drives him to retirement.

Steve pulled a couple of good quotes from Marc Cuban’s blog which might convince me to subscribe. It’s just so close to what I believe in and/or do naturally, he’s got to be right ;).

Most people won’t put in the time to get a knowledge advantage. Sure, there were folks that worked hard at picking up every bit of information that they could, but we were few and far between.

Indeed. I’m always surprised to meet people in a given field who don’t know all that much about their work. “Web integrators” or designers who still don’t know about web standards and tableless layouts, kind of bogles the mind. I’m not even talking about using the stuff, just having a minimum of knowledge about it. Good for my business but astonishing to my way of thinking.

I’ve always tried to know as much as possible about anything I’m interested in and it seems alien to me for someone not to do the same. Years ago I used to work in a hobby shop and I hated to be asked questions I didn’t know the answer to hated it. Still the same thing today and I’m floored when I do 45 minutes of research on, say, digial cameras and know more than the guy at Futureshop. What the fuck?

I think it’s more a personality trait than something you can decide on. When I was a kid I’d be irritated that my parents knew the names of all the actors when watching awards shows. I made a point to remember them as well. Absolutely pointless exercise but know I do the same with virtually everything. I hate to talk about stuff regarding my work and realize someone knows more. Hate it. Probably not healthy but that’s how I’ve gotten every job I’ve ever had; know more than the next guy.

On Whining

Whining is the first step towards change. Its the moment when you realize something is very wrong and that you have to take the initiative to do something about it. Sure, criticism usually comes along with the territory.

This is something I struggle with constantly. In case you haven’t noticed, I whine a lot. I try my best to cut the actual whining and just do the bits that are a “first step towards change” but it’s hard. Not only because it’s my natural tendency but also because people ’s threshold to what they consider you whining gets lower and lower.

Once people know you to whine, any comment you make, unless it’s 150% positive, can be twisted into “you’re whining again”. Like this last phrase, it’s more a statement than a whine but in face to face conversation, I know what the comment would have been.

The funny thing is that people actually know that in a lot of cases it’s just like Cuban says; a way to affect change, but their initial reaction is still “there he goes again with the whining”. If you take them aside after a meeting for example, they’ll admit those were good points but that’s not the first reaction.

At my last job my bosses would actually tell me to “arrête de chiâler” (quit whining) in meetings but at EVERY performance evaluation they told me to keep doing it, that it was important to have people who weren’t afraid to raise flags and try to have things run smoother. Not to pay attention when people seemed annoyed by it, that it was necessary. Every time.

Get a grip people, ever heard of lynch mob mentality? For fuck’s sake. You don’t even like the damned term!