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The latest news out of Toryland is that the Conservatives are slashing funding to the Status of Women Canada program. According to the Globe and Mail, this program will see $5 million cut from its $23 million annual budget during the next two years.

I have no idea whether the Status of Women Canada program actually benefits women enough to justify its budget, but this cut gives the impression that the Tories don't particularly care about women. This is a rather odd decision for a party that works so hard to try to put a positive spin on its actions and is obviously desperate to earn a majority government.


The Globe also reported that Canadian economic growth has sunk to its lowest rate in three years. I take full blame for this: whenever I am looking to enter the job market, the economy always goes into the tank. Sorry about that, everyone!

Mind you, in the technical writing field there is always work available. There are always a couple of really crappy jobs that about six to eight recruiting agencies are trying desperately to fill. Here's a made-up job description that sums up the worst features of these jobs:

Experienced, dynamic, team-oriented technical writer needed to create a set of documents for a rapidly evolving leading-edge software product. This is a two-month fixed-price contract position. The successful candidate may also be assigned to produce marketing materials and perform quality assurance testing, and might also be required to take notes at company meetings.

This writer must have expert knowledge of FrameMaker, Microsoft Word, Photoshop, Illustrator, Power Point and Visio, and must supply his or her own laptop computer containing the necessary software.

The writer must be a highly motivated self-starter and team player, able to juggle multiple simultaneous responsibilities and meet extremely aggressive deadlines. Some travel may be required.

I've never seen a job with all of these non-redeeming features, but I have seen jobs that were so bad that no one wanted to take them. One job, with one of the big international accounting firms, required both marketing and technical writing, but paid substantially below market rates. One recruiter who called me about this job spent several minutes complaining to me about having to spend so much time trying to talk people into considering what was obviously an awful job.

And I once got contacted about a contract position at a company where the technical staff were all working 70 to 90 hour weeks. Whoa. That's some scary mojo going on there.

Dry your eyes

Today, I have been listening to The Streets' "Dry Your Eyes". It's about a man who is just discovering that his girlfriend wants to break up with him. He's desperately trying to hold on to her - literally - but she's already made up her mind.

If the authors of I Love You, Nice To Meet You are to be believed, the poor guy in that song didn't stand a chance. One of the authors, Kevin Bleyer, claims that many women break up with their boyfriends without telling them. As Bleyer puts it, "When a woman breaks up with us, she's not actually breaking up with us. The transaction happened long ago. We're simply being debriefed. She's just getting us up to speed." The female half of the author team, Lori Gottlieb, claims, "Women may be guided by emotion, but when it comes to ending a relationship, we're as cold-blooded as Saddam Hussein." (Hey, I'm just quoting, not necessarily agreeing!)


I got this in the mail today:

Hi,

VrAGRA
CrALiS
VALrUM

web address: [deleted]

what we heed to make this prison world a thing of the past.

And I got a new bank scam message that started like this:

Dear Friend,

I wish to accost you with a request that would be of immense benefit to both of us. Being an executor of wills, it is possible that we may be tempted to make fortune out of our client's situations, when we cannot help it, or left with no better option.

Erm... dude, you're supposed to make this sound like a good thing.


In the news today, John Tory, the leader of the Ontario Progressive Conservative party, is calling for a province-wide registry listing houses that had been formerly used as marijuana "grow-ops". I don't see the point of this. Does growing marijuana in a house cause structural damage to the building?


I'm off now to finally bite the bullet: I'm going to update my computer to include all of the latest Microsoft Windows XP updates. This might take ages. When I'm done, my hard drive might be a smoking ruin. If you never hear from me again, you'll know why; tell my next of kin that I love them, will you?

Personal injury at track level

Toronto subway service was disrupted during this evening's rush hour, as the power was out at Dundas station due to a "personal injury at track level". This is the TTC's polite euphemism for a jumper.

According to a NOW magazine article from 2004, the TTC doesn't publicize the number of suicides and suicide attempts on their subway lines, as they don't want to encourage copycat attempts. But, apparently, there's usually one jumper a week. Some veteran drivers have seen two dozen or more people jump in front of their trains - which, needless to say, is a horribly traumatic experience.

Two years ago, I was on a train that somebody jumped in front of. It was heading into Rosedale station; I was on the last car. From my vantage point, all I knew was that the train had come to a sudden stop halfway into the platform. Those of us in the back half of the train were asked to walk through the subway cars until we reached a car that was inside the station.

I did not want to see anything related to the accident, but I couldn't have seen anything even if I did want to: by the time I got out of the train, the entire platform and all available vantage points were blocked by gawkers. Needless to say, this did not improve my opinion of the human race.

I have had one other sorta scary moment on a TTC vehicle. Many years ago, I was on a Carlton streetcar when a power line broke and landed on the roof of the car. We were told to leave the car, and were told not to step down from the last step of the car onto the street, but to jump down. Apparently, anyone who had one foot on the car and one on the ground would have been electrocuted. (Thankfully, there were no elderly or infirm people on the streetcar.) I walked north to the Danforth, feeling very very weird and grateful to be alive.

A PM's work is never done

More fun in Harper Valley: Garth Turner, who was recently turfed out of the Conservative caucus, is ranting about his former leader once again. According to the Globe, Turner claims that the religious right have a pipeline into Stephen Harper's office. He cited a comment by evangelist Charles McVety, who boasted that he could reach the Prime Minister in two minutes flat, any time he wanted.

Turner, according to the Globe, also claims that the Harper government is centrally controlled, with no input accepted from Conservative MPs and no dissent tolerated. Apparently, the Tories' major legislative accomplishments this past year were all created on high: the Clean Air Act, the budget, the income trust legislation and the commitment to action in Afghanistan were presented to the Tory caucus as finished products.

You know, sometimes I feel sorry for Mr. Harper. It must take a lot of work to run Canada all by himself. You get the impression that he is so smart that he is afraid to delegate anything: if someone else does it, he thinks they'll likely do it wrong. I've known managers who were like that.

The problem with having one person create policy - or one very small, select group - is that even the smartest people can't come up with all the right answers. That's why democracy works better than all the other types of government. In a democracy, more people are given the opportunity to influence the government and its decisions. The more input you get, the better the result is.

If Harper continues to try to create policy in a vacuum, he'll make mistakes, which will make voters unhappy. And it won't take too many unhappy voters to push the Conservatives back into opposition. At least, that's what I'm hoping.


Also in today's Globe: a group of Liberal women are accusing the Tories of wanting to keep women barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen. This is more entertaining than television!


And a shout-out to the people of Vancouver, who have had to endure a whole mess of trouble. First, there was a whole lot of rain and mudslides, which led to a boil-water advisory. Then, there was a huge snowstorm: according to the National Post, Vancouver got 9 cm this weekend, which is a record for this time of year, and parts of the Fraser Valley got up to 46 cm. (That's about a foot and a half, for you Imperial types.) Next up, the Big Freeze: the temperature is supposed to drop to -11C tonight. Of course, what constitutes a freeze depends on where you are: in Winnipeg, -11C is nothing.

Meanwhile, in Toronto, it's currently 12C. Okay, the sun has disappeared, and it's not likely to come back this week, or perhaps ever. But we don't have snow, and you do. This is payback for all those beautiful February spring days in Stanley Park. Na na na nyah na.

By the way, here is a weather cam for Vancouver, and a collection of live cams for Toronto and other places in Ontario.

Changing attitudes

I've always been fascinated by the fact that "accepted wisdom" - the rules and mores of a culture - changes over time. I'm old enough now to have seen a few of these changes.

For instance, I remember when the third-person singular pronoun was always "he" or "him". Nowadays, that would seem a little unusual, if not sexist, as most writers are trying to make a point of being gender neutral. Similarly, "Ms.", as in "Ms. Joan Smith", is now a commonly accepted title. In the 1960s, married women were not only referred to as "Mrs.", but often were denied the right to see their own first names in print, being referred to as "Mrs. John Smith".

Also, here's something that people younger than about 35 to 40 would find hard to believe: before about 1980, drinking and driving was (more or less) socially tolerated. It wasn't considered a good thing, but it was accepted that, every now and again, people might find it difficult to drive home. I am just old enough to remember when people would come into their workplace and joke about how they didn't remember how they got home last night. Nobody would do that now. (This, I hasten to add, is a decided improvement.)

I was thinking of this when reading Bill Bryson's memoir, The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid. Like all of Bryson's books, his memoir contains a lot of fascinating facts tossed in as asides. For example, he talks about the early atomic tests conducted by the U.S. The size and scope of these tests boggle the mind. Governments were taking risks they wouldn't dare take now.

For example, the largest of these bombs was a hydrogen bomb that was exploded underground in Nevada in 1962. The blast was powerful enough to raise the land around it by 300 feet, and left a crater 800 feet across. Bryson quotes historian Peter Goodchild, who wrote that the resulting radioactive fallout was so thick that street lights came on, in broad daylight, 200 miles away. The fallout was scattered over six states and two provinces - none of which were warned about impending radioactivity.

Bryson also describes the first hydrogen bomb test, in Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands in 1954. (The bikini was named after this.) The flash was visible over 2600 miles away, and the atoll is still uninhabitable today.

Attitudes towards sex were also different back then. In the 1950s, according to Bryson, most of the United States had laws prohibiting oral sex, anal sex, homosexuality, and sex between unmarried couples. And, apparently, in Indiana you could receive up to 14 years in prison for suggesting to anyone under 21 that masturbating could, perhaps, be a good idea.

Ann Fessler's The Girls Who Went Away, which I've just started reading, describes the restrictions on sex in even more detail. Here's a few of them:

• Unmarried women who became pregnant were invariably shunned, and were shunted off to a home for unwed mothers to have their baby safely out of sight and out of mind. These babies were then put up for adoption.
• In Connecticut, a physician was arrested in 1961 for giving contraceptive information to a married woman.
• In 1967, in Massachusetts, a man was sentenced to 36 days in jail for "crimes against chastity" for giving vaginal foam to a woman after a lecture on birth control.
• Birth control was not universally available in the United States until 1972.

To make things worse: it was hard to obtain a divorce in those days, to put it mildly. According to the Canadian government archives, before 1968 a divorce in Canada required an Act of Divorce to be passed by the Canadian Parliament. A person wanting a divorce had to have an announcement published in the Canada Gazette and two local newspapers. This announcement had to contain the date and place of the marriage and the reason for the divorce petition. In the case of adultery or bigamy, a co-respondent was often listed. Six months later, if the petition was allowed, Parliament would grant the divorce.

If you're curious, apparently you can look up divorce petitions in the Library and Archives Canada database.

Utilize in the swift attack!

Another day, another wodge of spam. The Debora spam appears to have died down, at least for the moment - perhaps some desperate system administrator tracked the spammer down and shot him. But today I got one message written in German, and another in Japanese. Thanks to Babelfish, and its slightly inaccurate translations, here's what they have to say.

First, the German:

"Why ever more humans does their private Sexfilme show in the InterNet?"

We know why: Because it geil is and one can make also still money. To [URL deleted] at present thousand Germans show, what they find geil and which them make geil and leave themselves thereby from millions InterNet users secretly to observe. "the world to guest with friends" appears there in completely different light, if Susanne from Berlin demonstrates offenherzig its intimate range or if his Mrs. Anna in the Homevideo spoils and vollsaut Peter from Hamburg according to all rules of the art.

Schau you pig-purely on [URL deleted] AND earn money, if you high-load pictures and videos from you.

HERE CLICKING!

I like the Japanese version better:

* The partner who answers your various needs offer *

Mass being on the register such as etching limited opposite support OK & serious sweetheart collection & tele etching limited opposite support stewardess nurse model SECRETARY housewife getting the partner of your ideal thoroughly, please pass the hot night. Both man and woman relief! With free address register possibility! Favorite partner and number exchange and adding exchange freedom! Registration fee, year fee, altogether there is no introduction charge and a withdrawal from membership charge!

[URL deleted]

< Perfection no charge >

Being to issue after the registering the free ID free pass instantaneously, you can utilize in the swift attack.

Yes! Utilize in the swift attack!

I have a new pet peeve: people who stop at the top of an escalator while they try to figure out where to go next. Um, this isn't good.

And, today, I saw an SUV with two women in the front, each of whom was using a cellphone to talk to somebody else. Weird.

And Johnny Cash's version of "Hurt" may be the greatest song in the history of the universe. Prove me wrong.

Tales of IT Recruiting

I feel sorry for IT recruiters, especially ones working for firms that are struggling to try to establish a niche in the industry. Their jobs must be no fun at all. They're constantly on the phone cold-calling employers or job-seekers. They have to dress professionally (on what probably isn't a professional salary). And they know full well that their field is overpopulated and that they themselves are easily replaced. I especially can't help but feel sympathy for somebody who is calling from a crowded office environment: when you can hear several voices in the background of your conversation, you can tell that your poor caller is working from a desk instead of a cubicle or an office.

Having said that, I have to say this: there are a lot of bad recruiters out there. I've had to enter the job market several times in the last few years, and I have a lot of stories to tell.

First off: there seem to be many firms that try to fill positions by contacting several recruiters at once. (Maybe they're in a hurry or something.) When I have a resume active on monster.ca, I find I can tell when one of these new positions hits the streets, as I usually get called about it by two or three recruiters.

My personal record for most times being contacted about the same position is eight - three of which were from the same recruiting firm, and two of which were from the same recruiting firm within a half-hour of each other. The firm must have hired a bunch of newbies and turned them loose on the same database. I found it amusing, but felt compelled to tell recruiter #3 that perhaps he might want to touch base with his colleagues. (Of course, he might be being asked to compete with his colleagues for a position. Yuck.)

Somebody once called me at 7 in the morning. I was awake - it was the Monday after the shift to Eastern Standard Time - but wow, that's early.

A few years ago, I had just decided to accept an offer of a writing job from a startup company. The week before I started work, I got a call from a recruiter wanting to talk with me about an "opportunity" (which is what they always call them). When I said that I was about to start a new job, he tried to talk me into taking his job instead of the one I was about to start. Curious, I asked for details - it turned out he was recruiting for the position I had just accepted.

A recruiter phoned me on a Sunday about a job that had been going around a lot of agencies. When he provided details, I told him that I had already applied for that job through another agency. He then offered to try to get me a higher hourly rate, provided that I pull my application from the other agency and go through him instead. Ick.

Some really bad recruiters use a simple checklist when trying to determine suitability for a position, asking questions that have "yes" or "no" answers. ("Do you have the following skills: Microsoft Office? HTML? FrameMaker?") I don't see how this serves as an effective screening tool at all, as the temptation to answer "yes" to everything would be difficult for some job seekers to resist. (Me, I'm always honest. This may not be an effective strategy, but I can look at myself in the mirror without flinching.)

And last, and definitely least: I was contacted by a recruiting firm that wanted me to go out to Mississauga for a face-to-face interview. When I asked whether we could do this over the phone (I don't have a car), the caller said no. After the caller hung up, I did a Google search on the firm's name, and found out that there had been complaints about them: apparently, they get candidates into their office, and then try to offer them "special access to the hidden job market" for a fee. Worse still, the fee is apparently based on an estimate of the candidate's ability to pay. If you're well dressed, and look vulnerable, they'll try to hit you up for more.

All of this would be annoying enough if recruiters were successful at finding people jobs. But I've found that I virtually never get good job leads through recruiters: they only get their hands on jobs that nobody really wants. Which is why I'm trying to learn how to network - which is a difficult thing for a shy geeky person to do!

Let's go egosurfing now, everybody's learning how

Please pardon me in advance - this entry is all about me. Or, rather, about my name.

I think that everybody searches the web for their own name every now and again. This practice is so common that it has its own name: egosurfing. (It's also called autogoogling, which sounds vaguely unsavory.) For me, the fun part of egosurfing isn't finding references to myself on the web - I already know what I've done on (or to) the web. The fun part is finding references to people with the same name as me who aren't me.

Here are some of the references I found to people named Dave Till who aren't me. Some of them may refer to the same person; I'm not sure. All I know is that they refer to somebody with my name.

• An executive MBA graduate from Lancaster University in England, who was happy enough with the program to write a testimonial about it
• An entry in the Internet Movie Database
• A Scottish Hill racer
• A publicity manager for Universal Hall in Scotland (this Dave is also a poet)
• The area manager for the Langdale/Ambleside Mountain Rescue Team
• A horn player with John Wetton's first band
• Spiderman in costume
  
• Why be a Responsible Business? (a PDF file)
  
• A Regional Programme Manager for Rural Action, Business In The Community (this might be the same Dave as the one above, seeing as how it's about business and all)
• A Scottish bed and breakfast (the page just lists Mrs Till as the proprietor, but the Google entry lists a Dave Till, so I'm counting this one)
• A man selling a heavy anvil that had been in his grandfather's barn
• The Creamer Company extends its sympathy to Dave and Jim Till for their loss of a son and nephew (PDF file - this one was spooky, as my father's name is Jim)
• Somebody selling used medical equipment

And there's a few for my given name of David Till as well:

• A retired professor of computer science
• Another Internet Movie Database entry
• My namesake has married Maureen Galvin (may they have many happy years together)
• The publisher of the Jerusalem Medley (Instrumental Pak)
• A participant in a Taiwan exchange program

There's also a singer named David Till from Malaysia, but his page is gone, alas. And there's my second cousin Dave from Wisconsin (hi, if you're reading this!).

When I lived in the Beach district of Toronto (from 1996 to 2000), I used to get phone calls for another Dave Till, as I was the only one with that name in the phone book. I found out things about him - one phone call at a time - but I never met him. I can tell you, though, that he was a stage manager living in Toronto, and he had an old buddy named Ern who lived in Hawkesville, Ontario.

Yet more politics

Lots of interesting political news today.

First off: the Globe reported that Prime Minister Stephen Harper referred to Quebec as a "nation within a united Canada". This has produced the usual heated discussion that occurs whenever the topic of Quebec is brought up.

For someone like me - an anglophone from Toronto - the whole question of Quebec as a "nation" is difficult to get a handle on because I don't know what the French-language equivalent of "nation" is. Does "nation" refer to the people of Quebec and their traditions, or an actual physical nation-state with boundaries?

For what it's worth, I believe that Quebec is obviously a unique political entity with its own culture, heritage and tradition. Equally obviously, Quebec is a part of Canada. Canada has never existed without Quebec, and Quebec would not function as effectively if it were forced to go it alone.

I think that Quebecois humorist Yvon Deschamps probably put it best: he once claimed that what Quebec wanted was a strong independent Quebec within a strong united Canada.


The news out of Iraq is not exactly good: the Globe reported today that this October was the deadliest month yet for civilians there, as 3709 were killed. (To put this in perspective: about 3000 people died in the 9/11 attacks.) This tops the previous record of 3590 killed in July.

There seems to be no good potential outcome to all of this. It doesn't look like the U.S. is going to be able to accomplish what it set out to achieve in Iraq. If they don't pull out, there will be more civilian and U.S. military deaths. If they do pull out, it's likely that the most ruthless of the groups trying to seize control of the country will wind up in charge, because that's what usually happens. Either way, life for the ordinary people of Iraq is going to be just plain awful.

From what I've read, the Republican administration were guilty of a failure of imagination. Did they really believe that the Iraqis would welcome the incoming Americans as liberators, and that everything would turn magically wonderful once Saddam was overthrown? Or are there people in charge who don't really care what happens to the Iraqi people, as long as the oil keeps flowing and large corporations get their revenue? Is there anybody in the Bush administration who is that callous?

Going back in time

I love the Internet Archive.

For one thing, it contains a copy of the long-lost page for the Fibblesnork Uber-Garlic Pickle ("the only pickle with hang time"). Here is the recipe, and here are some quotes from satisfied customers. Since I normally order my chicken wings with either mild or bland sauce - whichever is wimpier - I dare not try one.

The Internet Archive includes copies of every single web page throughout history that they could get their hands on. It isn't a complete record, but it's pretty impressive. For example, it has preserved copies of my web site from 2000 and 2003. (Try not to laugh too hard - hey, you had to learn too.)

But, best of all, it contains the Prelinger Archives. This is a collection of old health and safety films from the 1940s, 50s, and 60s - the sort you or your parents might have been shown in health class. (Health class was always a little strange because - at least in my school - they had separate health classes for boys and girls. You always wondered: what was going on in the other class?) The archive also includes collections of old commercials, animated short features, and much, much more. And everything in the archive is in the public domain. You can download these films, watch them, show them to your friends, include them in your own works of art, or anything you want.

Here's some of my favourites:

Duck and Cover (1951): One of the most famous health and safety films ever. Bert the Turtle tells kids what to do if an atomic bomb goes off in their home town: duck as low as possible, and cover yourself with a coat or an old newspaper.

The House In The Middle (1954): The premise is simple: neat, tidy and freshly painted houses are more likely to survive an atomic blast. You absolutely have to watch this movie.

Boys Beware (1961): You might think that the streets of Fresno were safe for boys, especially in the early 1960s. Not so fast, says Sid Davis Productions: after all, there are, gasp, homosexuals lurking everywhere! Companion movies from Sid Davis are Girls Beware and The Strange Ones.

In My Merry Oldsmobile (1932): Wonderful early animated feature, plus singalong footage. The cartoon probably could not be shown on national television today, as it's a bit too suggestive for the delicate eyes of network censors. (Plus, it includes footage of a newly married couple fighting each other with boxing gloves on.)

Are You Ready For Marriage? (1950): The title alone is worth the download.

Body Care and Grooming (1948): Ditto.

My Japan (1945): Made when America was at war, this is a portrayal of the enemy as hard-working and ruthless. Its intent was to scare Americans into fighting harder. Features a Caucasian actor with ludicrously bad Japanese makeup and accent.

Your Name Here (1960): A sendup of self-congratulatory advertising films produced by companies that wanted to trumpet their achievements to the world.

All of these films, and everything else in the archive, are available in DVD quality or in a more compact computer-viewable size.

Does our PM have any fun?

I am not that much younger than our current sitting Prime Minister, which means that he and I are in roughly the same generation. Which leads me to wonder: when he was young, did he do the same things that most of us did?

• Did he slowly lower himself to the floor while singing "Rock Lobster! Down! Down!"
• Did he get all moody and depressed while listening to Joy Division albums?
• Did he drink Brador (or Extra Stock) because it had a higher alcohol content than most beers?
• Did he stay up late to watch Saturday Night Live back when it was funny?
• Has he ever gone nuts while dancing to "Papa's Got A Brand New Pigbag"?
• Or did he - poor man - spend all his time in dingy libraries poring over obscure features of the Canadian Constitution?

Given a choice, I would prefer a Prime Minister who is relaxed and who knows how to enjoy himself. I've never met the Rt. Hon. Harper, but I sometimes get the impression that he is trying to impose his way of thinking on Canadians whether they want it or not - a kind of legislative cod liver oil, if you will. (This may explain his predisposition towards almost fanatical secrecy.) And I believe that he wouldn't be wanting to do that if he were a bit more laid-back.

Of course, I may be being too harsh: after all, the Wikipedia entry for Stephen Harper claims that he has an extensive vinyl collection, and is a fan of AC-DC. Which leads me to two vital questions:

• Does our PM prefer the Bon Scott AC-DC, or the Brian Johnson version of the band? This is important!
• Are there times, in private, when no one is looking, when he takes out his copy of "I'm a Rocker" and just cranks it up? If he does, I'd have more respect for him. I wouldn't vote for his party, but I'd be a lot less scared of him.

Then again, perhaps I wouldn't be. In 1997, Harper co-authored an article, "Our Benign Dictatorship", in which he praised Conrad Black for taking control of the Southam chain of newspapers. As the article put it, "Those papers, monolithically liberal and feminist under previous management, are quickly becoming more pluralistic, with a strong representation of conservative voices." Anybody who uses "feminist" as a pejorative word is somebody I want to run far away from, fast.

Free software

It's startling to realize how much good free software there is nowadays. If your computer is running some flavour of Microsoft Windows, you can get the following without spending so much as one thin dime:

• The complete OpenOffice package, which does the same things that Microsoft Office does. It includes a word processor, a spreadsheet, and a presentation tool, which can read files produced by Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint, respectively;
• Mozilla Firefox, which is a flexible and extensible web browser (though be careful - some extensions can cause problems);
• Mozilla Thunderbird, an email processor;
• Apache, a web server (which is very handy if you design web pages and want to test out how they work);
• PHP, a programming language that enables you to add code to your web pages (to do things like read from files, and much more);
• MySQL, a powerful database (free for individual users);
• phpBB, a fully functional bulletin board application;
• MediaWiki, the software that powers Wikipedia;
• Game programs: I have programs that play Othello and backgammon, among others. (The Othello program can beat any human player; the backgammon program regularly kicks my butt.)

There are lots and lots of other free programs out there; these are just some of the best-known ones. They were created by thousands of computer geeks, mostly in academic environments, who had some time on their hands and wanted to help create something cool. These programs are called open source programs, because the code for these programs is freely available; anybody who wants to tweak the program can do it. And because the resulting software is free, and lots of people are using it, any bugs are found quickly, and are fixed by some of the army of geeks who created the program.

This means that most open source software runs at least as well as software that you have to pay for, and usually has many more interesting features. For example, most people I know that use Firefox prefer it to Microsoft's Internet Explorer; I, for one, wouldn't want to go back.

And most open source software is now easy to use and install. Today, I just installed version 5 of PHP and the latest version of MediaWiki on my machine. For PHP, all I had to do was tell the installation program that I was using MySQL and Apache 2.0, and it took care of the rest for me. To install MediaWiki, I just had to start my web browser, type in a particular URL, and answer a few simple questions that the installation application asked me (for example, what I wanted the system password to be). It was, for the most part, quick and painless. Soon, I suspect, open source will rule the world.

As I see it, though, one of the unhappy consequences of the rise of open source is that it is harder to actually earn a living as a computing professional. I work as a technical writer, and there just aren't as many places to work as there used to be: there's a few big companies, such as Microsoft and IBM, and a host of small startup companies that are hoping to find a niche. As a result, I have lots of free software, and I can't afford to buy much non-free software. So it goes.


The Debora spammers are back with a vengeance. The latest mutation of their spam onslaught has a subject header of "it me name", where name is a common first name. I guess the spammer figures that this is enough of a change to get past people's spam filters. As I write this, I have received 62 identical spam messages today, all with different first names, and all from email addresses starting with "debora". Either there's a group of people out there churning this stuff out, or somebody is on their way to a whole bunch of repetitive strain problems.

Lonesome No More

One of my favourite writers, Kurt Vonnegut Jr., often writes about the importance of communities: to stay sane, human beings need to be part of like-minded groups of people. This is the theme of his novel Slapstick, or Lonesome No More.

In this novel, everyone in the United States is given, at random, an extra middle name that is composed of a noun and a number. The noun is something commonly found in the world, such as a flower, an animal, or a periodic element. The noun and number are used to assign each person to an artificial extended family. The President of the United States, for example, is given the middle name of Daffodil-11, which means that every other Daffodil-11 in the U.S. becomes his brother or sister, and everyone who is a Daffodil becomes part of the President's family (and he of theirs).

I think about Vonnegut's novel, and the need for extended communities, when thinking about social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook. Sure, these sites have their drawbacks - mostly involving men preying upon, hassling, or in some way bothering young women - but they offer a chance to form a community that was not possible in the pre-Web days.

I've been on MySpace since April - a friend of mine talked me into joining - and, gradually, the Toronto arts and performing community is making its way onto the site. As I write this, I am "friends" with 38 performers that I know, either well or slightly (plus 18 troupes or bands). Sometimes, when I'm feeling lonely, I can go to my site and reassure myself that I actually am not alone in the world.

It's even better for younger people, who have been social networking with MySpace and Facebook from the beginning. As they get older, they will be able to maintain dozens, if not hundreds, of connections. This will help them in all sorts of ways - in particular, when looking for work, as studies have shown that 80% of all jobs are never posted as want ads, but are filled by friends or friends of friends.

When I was a freshly minted university grad, in the mid-1980s, I would have killed for a social networking site that provided a way to keep in touch. Back then, not only was there no World Wide Web - there was virtually no email. The only way to maintain contact with someone was to phone or write him or her - and, since people move a lot, it was hard to stay in touch. It was so easy back then to become isolated and alone - and I speak from experience.

Pssst!

Today, the Globe and Mail reported the following fascinating story:

Sandra Buckler, the communications director for Prime Minister Stephen Harper, has asked that staff working for Conservative cabinet ministers secretly provide her with assessments of their bosses' communications skills.

Meanwhile, at an undisclosed secret location somewhere in Ottawa:

"Pssst."

"Huh?"

"Over here."

"Sandra, is that you? Why are you wearing that ridiculous disguise?"

"Shhh. No real names! Those liberal leftist enemies and journalists are everywhere! Now, deal. Give me the dirt on your boss's communications skills."

"He's kind of socially clumsy, and he uses double negatives a lot. The man only graduated high school, Sandra --"

"No names!"

"-- Blue Ringmaster. Proust, he isn't."

"I don't care about his grammar. Is he staying on message?"

"What do you mean?"

"Is he emphasizing our talking points: accountability, lower taxes, crime, child care, and health? And is he blaming everything on the Liberals, like he's supposed to?"

"I'm trying my best, Sand, er, Blue Ringmaster, but he tends to shoot from the hip, especially after Happy Hour starts, and I --"

"For crying out loud, this is hardly good enough! We're in a deadly fight for survival against the forces of evil: Liberals, leftists, nosy journalists, eco-freaks, gays, urbanites, and, if the polls are correct, just about everybody outside of Alberta. We can't afford to have any deviation from party policy. Now, go back to your office and await my blizzard of memos. And stay on message."

"Message this, Blue Ringmaster: I quit."

"You can't quit! Eight of you have already quit! What can I do to get you to stay? Give you a raise? Move you to a nicer office? Berate you less frequently?"

"I'll stay on one condition: get me a PlayStation 3."


The Globe also reported that Prime Minister Harper met with Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung. Our fearless leader told Mr. Nguyen that economic openness went hand in hand with freedom of the press, while denying Canadian journalists access to his activities for the day - apparently, because one uppity scribe asked Harper whether he was going to meet with the Chinese president.


A couple of links, courtesy of Metafilter:

• The amount of time it takes an average worker to earn a Big Mac.
• Some geek news, from Computerworld: Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer claims that Linux infringes on Microsoft's intellectual property. This could get interesting.

What is this "sun" I have heard so much about?

Occasionally, I need to remind myself not to complain too much about my life. Today, I was playing bridge online. My partner was a woman I'd never met before. In her profile, she wrote:

I am totally disabled and I use a head mouse. It takes a few seconds to click.

I, on the other hand, am almost startlingly mobile; I walk an hour a day. Yep, I'm lucky.


The online version of the Globe and Mail reports that the entire Vancouver region is under a boil-water advisory. Residents are advised that even brushing teeth or washing vegetables in unboiled water is dangerous, as water supplies may have been stirred up by Wednesday's storms. The Canadian solution to this problem is, of course, to use beer in place of water.

Our weather is a little wonky too: in my part of the world, we could get as much as 50 to 75 millimetres of rain today. (For those of you not familiar with the metric system: 50 millimetres equals one humongous amount of rain. 75 millimetres equals 1 1/2 humongous amounts.)

One final comment on the weather: the Globe provides a comments section for most of their online articles, in which ordinary citizens such as you and me can sound off to our hearts' content. As I write this, the last comment on the weather story was this plaintive lament:

Has anyone seen the sun?

I think I'm old enough to remember the sun. Or maybe my parents told me about it. It's that bright yellow thing, isn't it?


The Globe also reported that scientists have created a four-legged robot that can cope with injury. It senses damage to its body, and figures out how to adjust its gait. This is an important development - for example, bridges could be built that could sense their own structural weaknesses and send out a red signal to stop traffic. (If, of course, they choose to. Mwahahahaha.) I say that robots won't come close to being human until they learn to adapt to pain the way humans adapt to it: by whining and complaining a lot.


My Debora spam has evolved again. Now, its header is "Name message", where Name is the last name of the fake person sending the email. I have received messages from John, Greenberg, Swain, Howe, Wilder, Salinas, Carrier, Wesley, Pennington, Joiner, and Mccarthy. There's not quite as much of it today (he said, crossing his fingers).


My grocery store has Christmas decorations up already. My grocery store. In mid-November. Is there anyone who works in retail who isn't thoroughly sick of anything related to Christmas by the time December 25th actually comes around? Ho, ho, fricking ho. Bah, humbug. Bring back the pagan winter solstice festival.

"Someone close to the Boston area is preferred"

A few odds and sods to get started today:

• Has O.J. Simpson really written a book called If I Did It? You've got to be kidding me. (Some enterprising capitalist has already parked the ifididit.com domain name, just in case.)
• The French translation of The Wedding Crashers is Garcons Sans Honneur.
• My copy of Firefox has started seizing up at random intervals. Sigh.
• Esquire has named Scarlett Johansson the sexiest woman alive. Works for me.
• The Debora spam (see earlier blog entries) has mutated slightly: now, the subject header is "Hi, it's Angelica" (or Jeannie, Audrey, Kristen, Myles or Marietta) instead of just "Angelica".

I promise to stop writing about spam soon, but I have to mention two more favourites. Here's one I got in 2002:

Hello,
If you are a Time Traveler from Dimension D1263GT10, year 2008 or Dimension D2044GT5, year 2432 and or in possession of the Dimensional Warp Generator wrist watch, the Carbon Copy Replica model #52 4350 series or similar technology I need your help! My entire life and health has been messed with by evil beings! I simply need the safest method of transferring my consciousness or returning to my younger self with my current mind/memory. I need an advanced time traveler to work with who can help me, I'd would prefer someone with access to teleportation as well as a variety different types of time travel. This is not a joke! I am serious! Please send a separate email to me at: (address deleted) if you can help! Thanks

And here's one from 2003:

Hello,

Have you really, really, really been hurt to the point where your live is a living hell?

~ Has somebody or something drastically altered your life? ~
~ Would you give anything to take back your stolen life? ~
~ What if there was a way to undo all done to you for $100,000? ~

What I am referring to is something which is well covered up from the general public! I have access to the way, and need just one single person to work with.
Who I pick will be determined on the severity of their situation.
This is your one and only chance to live life over, and take control over what was stolen from you. Mentally stable open minded individuals a must! Someone close to the Boston area is preferred.

I love that last line more than words can say.

I've been thinking about Stephen Harper lately. (Perhaps I need to change my diet.) His approach to governing Canada prompts an interesting question: How much influence should the people have on their elected officials between elections?

There are two extreme positions:

• Our elected leaders are there to carry out what we, the people, want implemented.
• Our elected leaders are chosen because they are the best people for the job, and should be free to do what they think is best.

Harper seems to be partial to the second category. He seems to see consultation with the electorate as something to be avoided. The problem with this second category is obvious - sometimes, even smart people are very, very wrong.

"Father's Love Letter"

I used to collect religious tracts; they fascinate me. The message in a typical religious tract comes in one of two flavours:

• God loves you. Join our church, and feel God's love.
• You are a sinner. Join our church, or you will rot in Hell for all of eternity. (Jack Chick Publications specializes in tracts of this type.)
  

A tract I got the other day belongs in the first group: It's called "Father's Love Letter", and consists of alleged quotes from the Bible, arranged as if they were a letter from a loving father to a beloved child, and finishing with "Love, Your Dad, Almighty God."

The reason I noticed this tract was the following, which claimed to be from Luke 15.7:

Come home and I'll throw the biggest party heaven has ever seen...

That's the first time I've ever heard of parties mentioned in the Bible. So I looked it up in the King James version I happen to have. (I'm a third-generation agnostic - I actually bought my Bible as a prop for a performance piece. My own belief is that I am not smart enough to know whether there is a God or not.) In this version, Luke 15.7 reads:

I say unto you, that likewise joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons, which need no repentance.

Okay, there is joy involved, but this doesn't sound like they're getting down up there in the sky.

Of course, there are as many interpretations of the Bible as there are people who care about it. The classic example is homophobes using Leviticus (18.22, to be exact) as alleged proof that God abhors gayness. But I just took a quick look at the whole chapter, and I found the following rules, which fundamentalists tend not to mention:

• If a snail falls in your earthenware, you have to break the vessel, as it is unclean
• You can't eat hare, swine, or anything in the water that doesn't have fins or scales
• You can, however, eat locusts, bald locusts, beetles, and grasshoppers - yum!
  
• A woman is unclean for seven days after giving birth to a male child, and two weeks after giving birth to a female

And this one (Leviticus 21.5), which seems to condemn tattooed skinheads:

They shall not make baldness upon their head, neither shall they shave off the corner of their beard, nor make any cuttings in their flesh.

Apparently, there is also a passage that condemns people who wear clothes that are a mixed blend of cotton and polyester, but I couldn't find it.

If you're curious about any of this, the Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance have a page which collects interpretations of the infamous Leviticus passage. And, while I'm getting all religious on you all: here's a page on Genesis 38.8-10, in which Onan is put to death by the Lord because he refuses to sleep with his brother's widow.


Another new plague of spam touting a (different) penny stock: today's senders are Bessie, Israel, Mitchell, Susie, Katina, Dixie, Merlin, Dionne, Jake, Luann, Roosevelt, Deandre, Robyn, Thanh, Myrtle, Wilmer, Randolph, Quincy, Ellen, Eliza, Lewis, Tia, Milo, Vern, Andrew, Roslyn, Joshua and Aurelia. And, once again, all of the spoofed email addresses start with "debora" or "deborah". Hell hath no fury like a spammer scorned, I suppose.

Songs for a desert island, Part 2

Here's part 2 of my favourite songs list.

(The Girl Is) An Unsolved Mystery, Groovie Ghoulies: It's just simple guitar, bass and drums. But they're having a lot of fun.

Step On, Happy Mondays: The piano is doing one thing. The guitar is doing another thing. And the bass is doing something else. All at the same time. It's brain candy, all of it.

For All This, Holly Golightly: Revenge is a dish that is best served cold.

The Dark End Of The Street, James Carr: If you've never liked old-school Southern soul, you might want to check this out. Carr's version blows away the version in The Commitments.

Just Like Honey, Jesus and Mary Chain: This was the song that ended Lost In Translation.

Pure, Lightning Seeds: Fun, light-hearted, bouncy pop. Great for a sunny spring morning.

Jesus Built My Hotrod (Redline-Whiteline version), Ministry: The fastest guitar on earth. I've never taken cocaine; because I have this song, I don't need to.

Harbour and When It's Cold, I'd Like To Die, Moby: These songs got me through a bad patch in my life. (Along with a Tom Waits album that I will never be able to play again.)

Where Did You Sleep Last Night, Nirvana: I was never a big Kurt Cobain fan until I heard this. By the end, he's ripping out huge chunks of his soul and flinging them onto the stage. If you haven't heard the song, you'll think that this is an overly dramatic description. If you have heard it, you'll know what I'm talking about.

Joan Of Arc (Maid of Orleans), Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark: Wonderful atmospheric chord progression. I've loved this song for a quarter of a century, and I still love it now.

California Sun, Ramones: No list is complete without something from the Fab Four.

Stadium Arcadium, Red Hot Chili Peppers: How do a bunch of middle-aged ex-stoners from California keep finding those wonderful chord progressions? It is to weep.

Fall On Me, R.E.M.: The most wonderful chorus in the history of humanity.

Golden Hair, Slowdive, and Golden Hair, Syd Barrett: Barrett's is the first version (it's excerpts from something by James Joyce). Slowdive's version is even more spooky and atmospheric.

Ballroom Blitz, Sweet: I was a teenager in the 1970s, and I have no nostalgia for the decade. The fashions were all weird and strange (bright pink pants for guys; three-inch blue suede platform shoes for everybody). And I endured a lot of wedgies and disco in that decade. But this song is wonderful. It's the musical equivalent of the most exciting ride at the county fair. (You might want to check out the Damned's cover of it, which is even more manic.)

City of Dreams, Talking Heads: "Here where you are standing, dinosaurs did a dance."

Nowhere Near, Yo La Tengo: I can't explain why I like this. It starts off with a simple, repetitive melody, and veers off into strange experimental guitar noodling. This song makes me feel sad and reflective.


And yet more spam. I'm being spambombed with several dozen messages, all touting the same penny stock. Their subject headers are first names of fake people. I have received email from Isabel, Chauncey, Jonathan, Jackie, Brain [sic], Shelly, Ericka, Issac, Mavis, Jeannine, Antwan, Ada, Elliott, Mattie, Dominic, Federico, Fletcher, Michelle, Leila, Marcel, Tom, Gabriel, Nelson, Luz, Tanya, Kristine, Devin, Raul, and Elizabeth. The weird part: all of the userids that the messages pretend to be from start with "debora" or "deborah". The spammers seem to have a thing for somebody named Debora. How better to commemorate a lost love than to send out dozens of fake emails in her name?

Songs for a desert island, Part 1

If a malevolent Fate forced me to reduce my MP3 song collection down to my absolute favourite songs, here's some of the ones I'd pick. (I broke this into two parts because it's too long for a single blog entry. I have too many favourite songs.)

Sloop John B and In My Room, Beach Boys: I'm an absolute sucker for multi-part harmonies. Brian Wilson apparently doesn't read music - he did all of this in his head. Ohmigawd.

Twist and Shout, The Beatles: I literally grew up with this song, as my parents bought one Beatles single to find out what the fuss was about, and this was it. Those dudes could really rock out when they wanted to. (Trivia note: the flip was "There's A Place".)

Chance, Big Country: I love the way this song gradually builds up. The rhythm section is wonderful. And the lyrics are so sad - they tell a story of how possibilities shrink as you grow older. (Stuart Adamson, the band's front man, took this too much to heart - in 2001, he hanged himself, at the age of 43.)

Walk Away Renee (Version), Billy Bragg: I don't really care that much for his political songs (though I kind of agree with his politics). But I don't know anybody who writes better songs about loneliness and failed relationships. In this song, Billy recites a monologue about a brief and intense love affair, while Johnny Marr plays the melody from the Left Banke's "Walk Away Renee" on acoustic guitar.

Put A Straw Under Baby, Brian Eno: A gentle lullaby, accompanied by the Portsmouth Sinfonia, an orchestra of enthusiastic but not especially skilled players.

The Day Lassie Went To The Moon, Camper van Beethoven: Best. Song lyrics. Ever. "Lassie knew she had a duty to serve the youth of America and the stars above."

My Virginia Rose Is Blooming, The Carter Family: From a 1935-1941 collection, this is classic old-time American music. One guitar, and three voices harmonizing on old standards. Note: all old-time songs are about weddings, partings, or death.

Dream On, Chemical Brothers: Hypnotic and soothing. I love it to pieces.

Sleep, Dandy Warhols: The Dandy Warhols are a strange band. Most of their songs are clever little power-pop numbers. But some of their stuff is ethereal and wonderful. I could listen to this song all day.

Heroes, David Bowie: But only the long version - the short version doesn't build properly. What could be a better image than lovers kissing by the Berlin Wall?

23 Lies, Death in Vegas: A song for a slightly gloomy fall or mid-winter morning.

White Flag, Dido: All I'm going to say is that I am one of the world's leading experts on the subject of unrequited love.

The Things That You Say That You Do, Dressy Bessy: I love cheerful indie pop. And I'm always compelled to air-drum along with the drum roll in the middle of the chorus.

Lightning Express, Everly Brothers: Their best harmonies. And that's saying something.

Rag Doll, Four Seasons: A guilty pleasure. Usually, Frankie Valli's voice irritates me. But the intro to this song is like a direct channel from Heaven.

Walking In The Rain, Ronettes: Did people really believe in the power of true love, even back in the early 1960s? There's so much here to listen to - Phil Spector is a god (admittedly, a psychotic and allegedly violent one). Brian Wilson used to listen to their "Be My Baby" over and over again, and I don't blame him.

Enter the Bitch (Missy Elliott vs. Metallica), Freelance Hellraiser: I can't stand either of these songs separately. But together, they kick major butt. If I need a burst of energy, this is where I go. I love mashups.

Isn't It A Pity, Galaxie 500: A great song to listen to late at night.

Love Hurts, Gram Parsons: The best version of this, better than the Everlys or Jennifer Warnes. (Don't even think about Nazareth.) Emmy-Lou Harris provides the harmony voice.

More in my next entry.


Sorry to go on about spam so much, but I got another good one today. Some spam messages use filler text to try to sneak themselves past spam filters. Today's message had this filler text added:

If I'm not 150 percent sure about something, I won't mess with it
What do you do to make your guy happy?
Not to mention it looks pretty dope on your crusty-ass ride.
Before you test your power and acceleration, here are some key elements to remember: A closed track is the ideal test environment
I want to get more into TV
The "i" stands for intelligent, and incorporates VTC (Variable Timing Control), which is variable

Hell, if you are only looking for those kinds of gains, just loose 10 pounds - that alone will make
The 5hp gained from losing the factory cat for the metallic one is substantial
Contrary to popular belief, not all cats are created equally

She's a firecracker, and if you accidentally light that fuse
I was crying when I bumped into my brother
June is now heating up your September 2NR
Like Yao Ming?

If Uncle Hef says you're hot then by golly you may well be

It's poetry, by golly. Dig.

Stephen Harper Goes Out On A Limb

So, Stephen Harper's latest piece of legislation is a bill that tackles the problem of drug-impaired driving. Great, I guess: after all, it's not like there are many people who are in favour of mixing drugs and driving. But I didn't realize that drugging and driving was a major problem in Canada - and, even if it is, shouldn't the existing impaired driving laws cover it? After all, if someone is in a car, and he is weaving all over the road, the police have the power (and the duty) to arrest him, regardless of whether he is drunk, wasted, tired, merely careless, or devoting too much attention to a cell-phone conversation. How does new legislation make things different?

As the Globe reports, the press conference had the look and feel of a campaign photo opportunity, complete with apple-cheeked children and Canadian flags. It'll make a great bullet point on Tory campaign literature. Which is one of the things that bothers me so much about the Harper government: like the Ontario Tories, they seem to spend more time figuring out how to put a positive spin on their legislation than they do actually crafting it.

And I glumly predict that Finance Minister Jim Flaherty will do the same thing federally that he did provincially in Ontario: announce tax cuts, and then cut programs that benefit areas of the country that don't vote Tory. Argh, argh, argh.


I now have a new all-time favourite spam message. I got it yesterday. It is titled "With no safe place to land":

Hello!

Smoked six packs a day.

No, I really don't see how.
Just think of all the energy
Just think of all the energy
We have painted all the toilets black
They said, "Today's St. Patrick's Day
I didn't do my reading.
with some very painful sneezing,
School is closed now, what's it to ya?
that I am such a slob.
Rocky Mountain spotted fever,
while munching cookies, cakes, and chips
I hope my students don't find out
I give him all my homework,
and a patch of poison ivy,
They said, "Today's St. Patrick's Day
eight spider bites and hair loss,
a million, more or less.
If I don't get it off my chest
We have broken all the blackboards
A nice warm bubble bath!
I asked, "Why are you pinching me?
Which makes my parents glad.
but the joke was lost on me.

Obviously, this is random lines from several poems jumbled together: I found a reference to one of them, which is by Bruce Lansky.

I did a Google search for "eight spider bites and hair loss", and only got other samples of similar spam: here and here. I still think it sounds like beat poetry: I can picture the cool cats in their berets, snapping their fingers in appreciation.


If you're looking for something to do in Toronto, here's a good site to check out: 52 Mondays, dedicated to "exploring the lost art of stuff other than television". I definitely have to spend some time here, as I'm seriously thinking of getting rid of my cable: in the last month, the only thing I've watched is Raptors basketball - and, after their last game, I might not even want to do that.

Spam, Spam, Lovely Spam

I'm probably one of the last people on earth who still uses the "a href='mailto'" HTML tag to allow people to email me directly from my web page. I'd rather make it convenient for people to email me, even if it means that I get bombarded by spam. (As I write this, people are constantly telling me that Cana Petroleum is heading straight up. They also seem extraordinarily concerned about potential performance or size issues. Bless them.)

The only good thing about this constant barrage of junk email is that, occasionally, somebody sends me something weird or interesting; I save those. For example, here's one that, according to the mail header, was sent to me on February 6, 2101:

Free Cable! TV

That's the entire text of the message.

Here's one from December 1, 2006 (hey, that's what it says), with the subject header "mincing horse military band":

and talking together very agreeably, when the sound of horses drew their notice, and darcy and"do you really think so?" cried elizabeth, brightening up for a moment.

I've gotten two messages that start off with the following:

The tribunal says that some pedophile is sane and has no mental illness or disability; crimes against the patrimony or with economic motive are not physiological conducts.

They also both contain

Siegmund Freud lies not knowing to be lying: he is a conceptual pedophile who says children has sexual attraction for parent (edipus), and that mind is partitioned in three parts (ego, superego, es: isn't psychoanalysis a fake?). False premiss brings wrong result: like Freud says, cognitive error is associated with pathological conduct.

Okay, whatever. I have also received Nigerian bank scam emails from the following people, among others:

• Mr. Cheung Pui, director of operations of the Hang Seng Bank Ltd, Sai Wan Ho Branch, who is something of a regular correspondent, and once had an "obscured business suggestion" for me
• Barrister Robert Peters, the Personal Attorney to Mr. John Templeton, who apparently was one of the victims of the AF4590 German Concorde plane that crashed in Germany, 2000
• Princess Sarah Johnson, "The Daughter of (Late Chief Adam Johnson)"
• Mr. Timothy Frost from Mauritius, who has worked "in different parts of this world as an oil consultant building and refurbishing oil rigs for millions of USD"
• Samuel Yapi "from Sierra Leonean and only son of my late father"
• Mrs Sandra Konan, the widow of Late General Thomas Konan, the former Director of military inteligence (sic) and special acting General Manager of the Sierra-Leone Diamond mining co-operation (SLDMC)
• Noh Dae-Jung, the brother of General Noh Tae-Woo, the former President of South Korea
• Mr. Willy Barcly, the auditor of a bank in London (whose email had the header "From Mr.Willy!!!!!")
• Mother Margaret Udom, 65 years old, and suffering from "long time liver problem"

And, last but not least:

• Mr. Michael Ramsey, a "representative and an attorney to Kenneth Lay, the former chairman & CEO, Enron Corp"

Hey, the money had to have gone somewhere, right?

I also have received phishing email pretending to be from, among others, Authorizations.Net, the U.S. Bank, PayPal, eBay, Citibank, SunTrust, Washington Mutual, wamu.com, TCF Bank, Citizens Bank (I guess that's Citibank again), Charter One, Bank Of The West, Marshall & Ilsley, Regions Bank, and Mr. Cheung Pui of the Hang Seng Bank. (Okay, I made the last one up.)

But my favourite spam email of all is this one, from Neateye, with the subject header "Gouranga":

Call out Gouranga be happy...
Gouranga Gouranga Gouranga
That which brings the highest happiness!

I looked this up just now, and apparently it's related to the Hare Krishna movement: links can be found here and here. I have just one answer to that:

There is but One God
He is the Sun God
Ra! Ra! Ra!

Either that or the poem about preferring to see purple cows rather than be them. I'm not sure which.


I got this in my email today: What Celeb Matches You Best? Apparently, I am an ideal match for Lisa Marie Presley. Or Mr. Cheung Pui of the Hang Seng Bank.

High-Rise Protocols

I have always been fascinated by the unspoken rules of behaviour that are agreed on by people in urban environments. I live in a 21-story high-rise building, and certain protocols seem to have evolved among its residents.

Most people who live here enter by the side door, which requires a key to open. A sidewalk extends about a hundred feet from the door, and then bends left towards the street. The accepted rule is that if Person A is opening the door, and Person B has reached the bend in the sidewalk, Person A holds it open and waits for Person B to arrive. If Person B is further away than the bend in the sidewalk, he or she is deemed too far away, and Person A doesn't have to wait.

An unspoken assumption is that everybody who is entering by the side door is a tenant. Visitors wouldn't realize that this is the most commonly used entrance.

For the front door, the rule is slightly different. People waiting for the elevators can see anybody trying to get in by the front door - but, unless the person at the door is obviously elderly or disabled, nobody opens it. After all, the front door is where visitors come in. And nobody wants a visitor to come in unless they've been let in by somebody who lives here. (If I ever plan on starting a burglary ring, I think I'd find a crooked little old lady and cut her in on a share of the profits. Nobody would ever suspect that Granny is here to make off with the silverware.)

Okay, now everybody's inside. Next up is the elevator protocol. Here's a few rules I've figured out:

• If you're on an elevator that's going down, and it reaches the ground floor, old people and women get to get off first.
• After that, people normally leave in reverse order of their arrival.
• If you're on the ground floor, and somebody is getting on who has their hands full, the usual rule is to ask, "What floor?" But it is important to say this in a slightly off-handed way, so as not to imply that the other person is incapable of doing it himself or herself.

I've seen offices where the elevator protocol is more complicated, and sometimes difficult to resolve: Do older people get on first? Senior management? Your boss? At one place I used to work, the elevator would sometimes go up with nobody in it, as the people on the ground floor were too busy working out who should go before whom.

I guess it could be worse: we could live in a country like Japan, where the rules of behaviour and protocol are much more complicated. I did a Google search on "Japan" plus "protocol", and found at least two companies that specialize in training businesspeople how to behave in Japan. (The links are here and here. There's probably a lot more of them.) And I'm also glad that English doesn't have formal and informal second-person pronouns: we don't have to worry whether we know someone well enough to use the informal second-person with them.

By the way, here is a page that claims to say "thank you" in 465 languages.


While I'm here: a friend of mine sent me this link to an album cover wars video. Wow - somebody has a lot of time on their hands.

The man who started WW2

Here's a bit of trivia that I just loved when I first read about it: the first American to be attacked by the Japanese was a man in a private plane.

On the morning of Sunday, December 7, 1941, a man named Ray Buduick, who lived near Pearl Harbor, decided to take his private plane up for a spin. Unfortunately for him, the Japanese were launching their surprise aerial invasion of the United States that very morning. And, as Bill Bryson put it, in Made In America: An Informal History of the English Language in the United States, "As he headed out over Pearl Harbor and Manila Bay, Buduick was taken aback, to say the least, to find the western skies dark with Japanese Zeroes, all bearing down on him." The Japanese planes opened fire on poor Buduick's private plane; luckily for him, he managed to land successfully. (This newspaper front page contains a reference to Buduick's epic journey.)


As I write this, the United States Senate is still up for grabs. One seat, in Virginia, is too close to call. Whichever party wins the seat gains control of the Senate.

I'm sure I'm not the only person whose first thought was, "Oh, no, not again." No matter who wins, the loser is likely to first demand a recount and then go to court to try to get some votes disallowed. The appeal process will probably take weeks, and the American government will be thrown into chaos as a result. Of course, given what the American government has been doing lately, chaos might well be an improvement.

This all reminds me of an old headline from The Onion: Serbia Deploys Peacekeeping Forces To U.S.


Just for the heck of it, here are two of my favourite web sites of all time:

• The Baby Name Generator: Type in a name, and it gives you a graph of the name's popularity over time. My given first name, David, was the 2nd most popular boys' baby name in the 1960s, but has fallen to 14th in the 21st century. (In the 1890s, David ranked only 29th.)
• The Knights Of The Round Table song from Monty Python and the Holy Grail, reenacted in Lego.

...and they blot out the sun, too

I was going to rant about George Bush, seeing as how it's the U.S. midterm election day and all, but I decided to rant about condominiums instead.

I don't understand how the condominium business model works over the long term. Sure, condos are great for builders: they put the buildings up, collect enormous sums of money from purchasers, and then go off and repeat the process. In Toronto, where the housing market has gone insane, builders go one better: they buy the land, build a model suite, and then raise money by selling suites in a building that doesn't exist yet. When they've raised enough money, they then put up the building. I know people who have had to wait over a year to move into their condo; one friend of mine had to move at least once while waiting, as construction of his unit was delayed.

As I understand it, condominium maintenance is paid for by the condo owners themselves - the necessary expenses are totalled up, and divided by the number of residents. On the surface, this seems workable. But what will happen as the shiny new green-glass downtown condo palaces age? From my own experience, I fear that it won't be pleasant.

You see, I live in a rental building that is now a little over 40 years old. During the 5 1/2 years I have been here, all the windows have needed to be replaced, lots of old pipes have had to be dug up and fixed, and the elevators have just been completely overhauled. None of these renovations were cheap. For a rental company, this is part of the cost of doing business: they get their costs back by collecting regular monthly rent from their tenants. (Or applying for higher rent hikes. But that's another story.)

Condo owners would have to pay for any major overhauls out of their fees, which would go up like crazy. This could lead to some interesting moral dilemmas:

• Owners might be tempted to skimp on maintenance to save money. At the very least, there would likely be heated discussions between people who are willing to spend money to ensure maximum safety, and those who are struggling to get by and can't afford huge fee hikes.
• Owners would likely be tempted to bail out of their condos and buy newer ones to save maintenance money. This would lead to a guessing game: when is the optimum time to sell?
• People who want to stay in one place for a long time would likely be out of luck: either their fees would go way up, or the value of their property would go down just as they start to get old. No fun.

I suppose that there are sensible condo boards that budget for long-term expenses and plan fee schedules accordingly. Maybe, I am being overly pessimistic. That still doesn't account for freak accidents, unexpected surprises, or random bursts of inflation, so I still have my doubts. If I ever buy anything to live in - which is laughably unlikely, given my current financial health - I think I'd want to buy a piece of land as well as the building. After all, as someone once put it, they're not going to be making any more land any time soon.

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Okay, I will rant a bit about the U.S. electoral process, while I'm still here. Something I've never understood: why do they allow the executives of a major voting-machine company to give money to one of the political parties? The conflict of interest here is obvious, don't you think?

The logic is that Diebold execs should have the right to do what they want on their own time when not speaking as company representatives. In most cases, this makes sense - but not when it's the people who are counting the ballots! I'd think that these guys have to be scrupulously, almost anal-retentively neutral - after all, the validity of American democracy is at stake. I don't necessarily believe that Diebold is rigging their voting machines - but a lot of relatively sensible people do believe it, and have doubts about, say, Ohio in 2004 and Florida in 2000.

I'm glad that Canada still does it the old-fashioned way: you take a pencil and put an X on a piece of paper, and put the piece of paper in a box. Then, pleasant senior citizen volunteers take out the pieces of paper and count them. If there's a problem, people eventually recount them. I may not like Stephen Harper (hell, I can't stand Stephen Harper), but I know that he got into office fair and square. America isn't sure whether Bush's election was legit, and that's obviously a Very Bad Thing.

More Germs

Some more unusual or heartbreaking facts from Wayne Biddle's A Field Guide to Germs:

• The largest outbreak of anthrax in the U.S. took place in 1957, when nine people handled a contaminated shipment of goat hair.
• In the northeastern United States, between 15 and 30 percent of all deer ticks are infected with Lyme disease.
• In Paris, 18,000 people died in 1848-1849 in a cholera epidemic, out of a population of 785,000. (Cities didn't grow large until modern times, as epidemics always kept the population down.)
• Here's a depressing figure: about 560,000 babies die every year in the Third World because of infections resulting from the cutting of the umbilical cord.
• In April 1993, 300,000 residents of Milwaukee developed the runs from drinking their tap water.
• The earliest documented case of HIV infection was reported in Africa in 1959.
• One-tenth of American workers was sick in bed during the Spanish flu epidemic of 1918.
• During the U.S. Civil War, 1,213,814 Union soldiers caught malaria while fighting in the South.
• Smallpox has basically been eradicated from the world - the last natural case of the disease occurred in 1977. The last remaining smallpox germs are kept frozen, under maximum security, in Atlanta and Moscow. Despite this, the U.S. stores 17 million doses of smallpox vaccine, just in case.

While we're on the subject of nasty bugs: I've always been fascinated by reports of the 1918 flu epidemic because its effects were so devastating. A Stanford University web site on the flu and the US National Archives site provide fascinating information on what so far has been the deadliest bug in human history. Thinking about it has the same effect as watching a horror movie: bad things are happening to people just like me.

• The 1918 flu epidemic was so severe that the average US life span was shortened by 12 years.
• Healthy people in the prime of life were the most likely to catch it (most flus prey on the old, young and infirm)
• One-quarter of the population of the US caught it, and one-fifth of the world.
• An estimated 50 million people died - three times the number that died in World War I.
• People contracted the virus on their way to work and died within hours. (The Stanford site describes an anecdote about four women who were playing bridge late into the night. By morning, three of them were dead.)
  

Whee! If you haven't decided to crawl under your bed and not come out, here's some good news: over time, viruses tend to become more benign. A virus that kills its host dies out itself - evolution tends to favour viruses that don't kill their hosts, and hence can spread to other hosts.

MIPITU

I forget when it was I learned that some people just can't be argued with or reasoned with.

You know the sort of people I mean. When there's a traffic jam on the freeway, they're the ones who zoom up the breakdown lane in order to get ahead. At a subway stop, they're the ones who barge into the car before anybody has a chance to get out. I have a name for someone who exhibits this type of behaviour: I call him or her The Most Important Person In The Universe, because that's how he sees himself. (I'm going to alternate between masculine and feminine pronouns from now on, because "he or she" and "himself or herself" are too wordy.) Such people have serious entitlement issues.

The Most Important Person In The Universe shouldn't be forced to stand in line, and is willing to talk loudly on her cellphone, no matter where she happens to be. He always pushes his way out of elevators first, and won't thank you if you hold the door open for her. (After all, she is entitled to have someone open the door for him. Okay, maybe that's too much alternation between masculine and feminine.) In a restaurant, the MIPITU is willing to take five minutes to explain exactly how she wants her order delivered to her table - and, even then, is likely to send the food back at least once. And he won't tip generously, either.

Never get in an argument with a MIPITU. By definition, if you disagree with her, you're wrong. And if you argue with him, you're even more wrong, because you had the colossal nerve to disagree with him in the first place. The trick is to spot these people as soon as possible, so that you can avoid them. It's not always easy (unless they push past you on the subway).

While I'm in a grumpy mood (I'm on Day 10 of my cold), here's some other things that annoy me:

• Whistling. It's a high-pitched whining noise that is inevitably tuneless and repetitive. It's worse than fingernails on a chalkboard, and it's much worse than somebody blasting music out of a boom box: usually, music from a boom box has been recorded by professional musicians, even if it's professional musicians playing music you can't stand.
• A group of people walking slowly and taking up the entire width of the sidewalk. Somebody move, already. (I can't imagine what it must be like to be part of a large family that always travels together. Nothing can ever happen quickly, as everything has to be put to a 12-person vote before a decision can be reached.)
• Fake smiles. Look, I can tell whether you mean it: a real smile touches the eyes. A fake smile makes me seem like an annoying nuisance, best gotten rid of. I feel sorry for waiters who have to give people fake smiles as part of their job - I want to tell them that it's okay, you don't have to pretend to like me. Just be polite, and don't spit in my food, and everything's cool.
• Snobs. Okay, maybe you are better than me - why are you hanging around me then?
• November. It starts getting dark at 5:00. Everything is drab and gloomy, and we have nothing to look forward to but winter and lots of it. A lot of people hate February, and with good reason - it's usually pretty crappy. But, in February, spring is coming soon (it's only about two to three months away, instead of six).
• OCATW (Obligatory Conversations About The Weather) in elevators. There's not much I can say when somebody says "Hot out, isn't it?" other than "yup". Especially if it's morning, and I haven't been outside yet. I am only capable of a limited amount of polite conversation in any given day, and I'd prefer to reserve it for people I care about (or, I suppose, people I want to impress).
  
• George W. Bush and Stephen Harper. I'll save those for later.

Me vs. The Common Cold

You'll have to excuse me: right now, I'm at war.

For the past week or so, alien life forms have invaded my body. Based on the available evidence, they have taken up residence in my nasal passages, from which they are issuing non-negotiable demands. I haven't had a functional sense of smell since last Saturday. And it feels like somebody has siphoned away my Life Force and replaced it with glue poured into the top of my skull. (Other than that, I'm just fine - thanks for asking.) It serves me right for taking the subway at rush hour a week ago Wednesday - this time of year, a full transit vehicle is a disease ship, a plague zone, a no-go area. Abandon health, all ye who enter here.

I once read somewhere that colds last seven days if you take care of yourself - otherwise, they last a full week. Ha, ha. The person who wrote that little witty remark was probably in the peak of health. In my experience, colds last until you are in despair - until you believe that you will never get healthy again, and that you and your virus are doomed to co-habit until the end of time. Then, and only grudgingly, do the bugs withdraw. Right now, I'm on Day 9, and am not quite in the Slough of Despond, so I've got a ways to go yet.

I've found that there are two types of colds: let's call them Type A and Type B, for now. Type A has the classic progression of symptoms. You start with a sore throat, then suffer from, in no particular order:

• A sinus headache
• A non-sinus headache
• A stuffed-up nose
• Random sneezing fits (Yay, say the bugs! We get to travel and meet new people!)
• A feeling of tiredness, as if vampires are leeching your vital energies while you sleep
• Sore neck glands, or whatever those things are
• Gunk in the parts of your body normally responsible for breathing
• Coughing (optional)

A Type A cold ends once you have had all of these symptoms. It's like a check list.

Type B, on the other hand, seems to consist of two symptoms: a stuffed-up nose, and an occasional headache. And you feel more tired than usual, and sneeze every now and again. That's it. You're not confined to bed. You can slowly stumble your way through your day. But those symptoms don't go away. Ever. I've forgotten what it's like not to feel clogged.

To learn more about colds, I consulted one of my favourite books in the history of the world: A Field Guide To Germs by Wayne Biddle. This book lists, in alphabetical order, all of the common and uncommon viruses that plague us poor mortals, covering everything from adenoviruses to Zika fever. It's perfect for hypochondriacs and other people who like to worry a lot, and it's full of fascinating facts: did you know that measles is the most infectious common disease? If someone with measles walks into a crowded room, everybody in the room is going to get it.

Anyway, back to the cold. According to Biddle, common colds are usually caused by two classes of viruses: coronaviruses and rhinoviruses. The rhinovirus tends to spread in late summer or fall in the Northern Hemisphere, whereas the coronavirus is more common in winter and spring. Coronaviruses tend to cause more nasal congestion, but apparently you can't tell from the symptoms whether you have a rhinovirus or a coronavirus. So much for my Type A and Type B theory, I suppose.

One final fact, from Biddle's book: apparently, when you're under stress, your colds get worse. Great - as if poor stressed-out wretches don't have enough on their plates. Why don't colds have a greater effect on smug, contented people? Whose idea was this, anyway?

Adventures in Personality Typing

Recently, I went to a career planning workshop organized by my alma mater, the University of Waterloo. As part of this workshop, everybody took the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) test, which determines your Myers-Briggs personality type. An accompanying Career Report provides suggestions for what sort of career path best suits people of that type.

The MBTI is based on Carl Jung's theory of personality types, and has been in use for over 60 years. It uses four criteria to classify people into 16 types. The criteria are:

• Where you focus your attention (E or I): Extraverts (E) focus their attention on the outside world, and Intraverts (I) focus on their own thoughts and impressions. Extraverts gain energy from interacting with other people; Intraverts need to be alone to recharge their batteries.
• The way you take in information (S or N): Sensors (S) obtain information using their five senses, and tend to concentrate on the here and now. Intuitives (N) focus on the big picture: they see the world in patterns, and tend to concentrate on the future.
• The way you make decisions (T or F): Thinkers (T) make decisions logically and objectively. Feelers (F) make decisions subjectively, based on feelings and values.
• How you deal with the outer world (J or P): Judgers (J) like to plan and organize their lives. Perceivers (P) prefer a spontaneous and flexible approach. (I once read that the best way to decide whether you are a J or a P is the condition of your desk. If you have everything neatly in its place, you are a J. If your desk looks like somebody dropped a bomb on it, you are a P. I am a P.)

These four criteria are then combined to yield your personality type. For example, someone who is an Extravert, a Sensor, a Feeler, and a Judger would be classified as an ESFJ.

In our workshop, each of us first tried to determine what our own personality type was. (We hadn't seen our reports yet.) Then, the workshop leader divided us into four groups:

• Guardians (people who are S and J) - this is always the largest group
• Idealists (people who are N and F)
• Rationals (N and T)
• Artisans (S and P) - there are usually only one or two of these in a room

Each group was given the following exercise: Picture yourself on a desert island. What three things would your group want to bring with you, and what three people would you want to have with you? I was with the Idealists, and we agreed that we wanted an Internet connection or supply of books, a musical instrument, and art supplies. The three people we wanted with us were a close family member, a creative intellectual of some sort, and a practical person to do all the stuff that needed to be done.

By the time we finished (we went first), the Guardians were hooting with disdain. Their suggestions were more practical, such as a hunting knife, a supply of water, and so on. We Idealists tended to assume that the means of survival would all somehow magically appear.

People who doubt the validity of the MBTI, such as Robert Todd Carroll in his entry in The Skeptic's Dictionary, point out that the personality types used in the MBTI are not based on controlled studies. Other concerns:

• The MBTI might be used to pigeonhole people
• Most people tend to be a bit of everything: for instance, many people use both logic and feelings when making decisions, and are therefore both T and F
• When taking the MBTI, people may select the trait they find most admirable, rather than the one that accurately reflects who they are. (This was something I had wondered about, especially since I'd seen shorter on-line versions of personality typing tests, and could guess which trait went with which criterion.)

My own belief is that people can't be narrowly classified into 16 types, but that personality typing is useful. It draws attention to the fact that people see the world in different ways - as our group exercises showed.

Oh, by the way: I'm an INFP. Apparently, my preferred work environment:

• Offers private time and space to concentrate for long periods without interruption
• Emphasizes that the work has meaning beyond the paycheck
• Offers opportunities to work in harmony with others who share my values
• Fosters cooperation and helping
• Trusts people to work autonomously without close supervision

If you happen to work in such an environment, and need a writer - by all means, give me a shout.