Archive for April, 2008

What the Frak is Going On?

Thursday, April 3rd, 2008

I’ll tell you what’s going on! The most impressive show on television is coming back for it’s final season. Usually TV shows get cancelled when they’re not successful and their ending is sometimes held with stitches. This is definitely not what is going on with Battlestar Galactica. It has been decided that the fourth season would be the closing act of the series and this allows careful planning for a great finale.

When I see this show made for television I don’t understand how we’ve been missing out on great television for so long. The production value is higher than many movies that come out today. I can understand that you’ve missed the show and you’d like to start fresh from the start, I would even recommend that to fully enjoy all the fun. I’m currently re-watching season 3 on DVD that was released two weeks ago. But if you’re short on time they have made a nice 8 minutes recap to get you up to speed and start watching season 4 as soon as it comes out. Beware of MAJOR spoilers in this video as it goes to every important plot point from season 1 to the end of season 3!

So now you have no excuse not to tune in for their return April 4th 2008 on SCIFI and SPACE at 10PM Eastern Time. And if you happen to be outside the US or Canada or don’t subscribe to these channels it’s possible to catch a glimpse of their content live using the TVUPlayer.

Belly Button

Wednesday, April 2nd, 2008

I’m young, I grew up with Internet and I’m the center of the Universe. In my computer, there’s my documents, my pictures, my music, my videos. Only my own stuff. And all around me, there are my relatives, some close. Further, there are my irregular contacts, my school, sports and vacation buddies, friends from my youth, my encounters on MSN, MySpace or Skype. And all these people have relatives, people I may wish to get to know.

- Tsss

- To get there, I invite them on my own private web page, a kind of blog real easy that I cooked up with iWeb, MySpace or Live Space. I told them: Here’s my pictures, my music, my info sources. Here is my dog, my cat and my little sister. And here are my buddies; it’s with them that I get to practice my guitar and take my pictures. In exchange, my new buddys invite me on their personal web page and we bond. Virtually of course.

- What ?

- I’m young, I grew up with Internet and I’m the center of the Universe. Whenever I’m in the train!

- And you don’t hold the door for the ladies, and don’t care to give them your seat!

- Driving or on foot between two stores, to buy a gum, my soft drink, a chocolate bar, I have my iPod, my GameBoy, and my cellphone. This way, I’m never bored. I listen to my music, play my games, and talk to my friends. Sometimes, my parents are shocked: they pretend having a hard time talking to me. They say I’m cut from reality. What reality, theirs? The one of politicians, their stars, their TV, their music, of their cheesy food, where they drink too much wine, their shopping at Wal-Mart and Home Depot? What can they tell me that I don’t already know? Their values were valid in the 80s or 90s. Gotta live with our times. With my time.

- Shut up, you dummy!

- I’m young, I grew up with the Internet and I’m the center of the Universe. The parents, these moralizers, these good-thinker, these teachers, I turn up the volume of my iPod and can’t hear them.

- I said shut up, you dummy! Can’t you realize that the Universe can’t have a center? You’re not young! You’re just a pitiful product. The one from a civilization hyper individualized, where people avoid each others, “cyber-flirt”, “cellularize” their pussies and “chat” their balls. You believe you came in this world all knowledgeable. You”ve got the arrogance of believing yourself the equal of those who took a life time to realize that they knew nothing. Of those who gave everything to the others, yesterday like today.

- I’m young, I’m…

- Shhh! In silence you might start listening to something else then your own heartbeat…

I wish I was the one who came up with this little dialog but I am not. I read it two years ago in a QuébecMicro article. I had started making a translation but never got around to finish it. I think now is a good time as any to bring it up and finally publish it. It’s incomplete but since I’ve misplaced the magazine and can’t really put the rest online. At least you might be able to bring up some reflexion from this read.

I ♥ Traffic Shaping… NOT!

Tuesday, April 1st, 2008

A few months ago, the news broke out on Ars Technica that a Bell Sympatico employs traffic shaping to control the flow of traffic on the Internet. They claim that it is only in use during peak hours, and call it “Traffic Management”. I have always tried to stay clear of the tiresome Net Neutrality debate hoping Canada would be spared from this cancer. As with all good things they often come to an end way to early!

I’ve noticed the first effects around mid-December and it seemed to affect mostly BitTorrent traffic. Basicly, as soon as it turns 6PM, the upload and download speeds of BitTorrent is capped at 30kb/s up and 30kb/s down, making the downloading of large files unpractical. However, the purpose of such measure does not really prevent the bandwidth to being used, because it’s still available, at the same time as they apply bandwidth caps in their peak hours, I’m still able to download shows from revision3 at around 500+kb/s.

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The Joke is on You!

Tuesday, April 1st, 2008

Fake news report, massive “Rickrolling” on YouTube, no one is safe from April Fools’ Day! I remember the days when we tried to stick a paper fish in the back of our teacher, and she had to pretend she didn’t feel us tapping repeatedly on her back. In an attempt to research the origin of this practice Wikipedia failed to provide me a clear answer.

One might consider that if you make a terrible joke on April 1st you should be forgiven no matter what. However all the Internet publications out there should be very careful because once a fake news is out there is no guarantee that all who read it will see the following post mentioning it’s all a joke. In real life that’s not an issue because most of the time you can get back to that person directly.