Cool "who won the olympics" widget

Thanks to "morejamesmore" who pointed out this medal counter after reading my last post. It will calculate medals won per million people, and medals won per trillion GDP.

The results seem to come up a bit different than mine, so I don't know what's up with that, but it's pretty cool.

Olympic medals per capita

We've all seen the Summer Olympic 2008 medal count, with China and the United states and Russia dominating the top spots, and everybody else way behind.

Canada sits at either 19th or 14th place, depending on if you think the rank is by the number of medals, or the number of gold medals.

Well, this doesn't seem exactly fair to me, as the US has 10x the population of Canada, and China has nearly 20% of the world's population!

So, I decided to waste a significant portion of my afternoon to determine who won when we consider the population of the country. So, I looked up all the medal rankings and the population of all the countries, and used "medals per 100M people" as my metric.

If you're a sucker for detail, the full results can be found here, but I will try to summarize them.

The results are as follows (Out of 87 Countries that won at least 1 medal):

1. Bahamas - 604 medals per 100M people
2. Iceland - 331
3. Slovenia - 248
4. New Zealand - 218
5 Norway - 216
6. Australia - 215
7. Cuba - 210
8. Armenia - 199
9. Belarus - 195
10. Estonia - 151

35. Canada - 54
36. Russia - 50
45. USA - 45
68. China - 7.5
87. India - 0.3 (Out of 87 countries that won a medal)

So, for Canada there is some good news/bad news here. Overall, we actually rank WORSE on a per capita basis, but we did beat the top three countries of USA, China and Russia, so that's kind of nice.

But wait a minute here, the Bahamas, Iceland and Slovenia won the olympics?! Bahamas and Iceland have populations of just over 300,000, but won 2 and 1 medals respectively. These small populations kind of throw the statistics off a bit.

So, lets say to "qualify" to be in the top ranking group, you have to win at least 5 medals.

The ranking then change slightly (Out of 41 countries that won at least 5 medals):
1. Slovenia - 248
2. New Zealand - 218
3 Norway - 216
4. Australia - 215
5. Cuba - 210
6. Armenia - 199
7. Belarus - 195
8. Georgia - 129
9. Denmark - 128
10. Croatia - 111

25. Canada - 54
26. Russia - 50
31. USA - 45
39. China - 7.5

A few interesting things to note:

• I thought Canada might do better on a per-capita basis, we actually do worse. In the end we are somewhere in the top third.
• China is almost dead last on a per capita basis.
• Georgia, which is currently in a state of quasi-war, managed to still be one of the best performing countries.
• Slovenia is a tiny country of just over 2M people that managed to pull off 5 medals. Kudos.
• Of the top 20 countires, all but Australia (21M), Cuba (11M) and Belarus (9M) have a population under 5.5M.
• Cuba beat the USA. That's funny to me.

After going through this, it got me thinking, what other insteresting ways might there be to determine who "won" the olympics?

• Break the countries into divisions based on population. (I.e. "heavyweight" division would include China, India, USA, Russia, etc..., "Middle weight" would include Canada, Netherlands, Malaysia, Australia, etc... "Lightweight" would include Iceland, Slovenia, Bahamas, etc...)
• Who won on a medal-per-GDP basis?
• What's the per capita ranking of the G8
• To account for the amount of "summerness" that each country has , what is the per capita ranking when grouped by distance from the equator?

Mac + Vista + Parallels + Bootcamp + Virtual Machine ... Just don't do it

I'm in week 2 or 3 of my new "Mac" life now, and definitely appreciating some of the finer points of owning a Mac.

However, I do need some windows apps on a fairly regular basis, so I decided to load Windows on as well. There are a few options available to those who want to run windows on a Mac:

1. Use Max "Leopard's" built in "Boot-camp" feature that lets you boot into Windows. This feature is fairly solid, as it gives you a reliable version of windows that uses the full power of your Mac's hardware. The obvious downfall is that you don't have access to your Mac applications unless you reboot into the Mac OS. ALSO, you can't install Windows XP if it's only service pack 1. Bummer, because that's what I had a disk for.
   
2. Use a program like parallels or fusion to create a "virtual PC" and run windows. While running your Mac. This is great because you can run everything at once. The downside is that your computer takes a bit of a performance hit, particularly since you have to "allocate" a certain portion of your RAM and video ram to the windows partition. So if you're running Vista, unless you have at least 2 GB of RAM, you're going to feel the pain. You can also run ANY version of windows, even windows 95 or DOS if you feel particularly nostalgic. Also, unlike boot-camp, you don't have to repartition a portion of your hard drive and allocate it to windows.
   
3. Parallels has a feature where you can use Boot-camp AND a virtual machine, so that you can run a version of windows while running your mac, OR if you want to go full speed, then you can ALSO run the same image of windows in Boot-camp. Presumably, this would give you the best of both worlds.

I was ambitious and opted for running boot-camp & a virtual machine, with Vista. I thought it would be great.

I was wrong.

The reality is, you lose a lot of the benefits of a virtual machine when you do it off of a boot-camp image, such as being able to "pause" the VM, take "snapshots" of the VM (easy backup), being able to "hard reboot" windows and sharing the same files on the desktop and "My documents folders".

So, when Vista would crash or freeze or slow down or run out of video memory (which would be fairly frequently), it would bring the Mac down with it, and I could reboot my mac. ARG! All the benefits of windows, but all it's problems too! This is accentuated by the fact that VISTA is a memory hog, so to try and get it to run better, you have to give it more RAM, which in turn makes your Mac run slower.

Another problem is that if Windows crashes in VM mode, then you can't reboot it in boot-camp mode, and vice versa. You have to reboot it in the mode that it crashed, then turn it off again and reboot to go into the mode you wanted.

My final solution: I'm going to keep running vista, because it's kind of nifty and apparently it's the "future", but only in boot camp mode. If I come across any processor hungry apps (games maybe?) that require windows, then I'll boot into Boot-camp Vista.

I will run my copy of windows XP in VM mode only. It's less of a memory hog so I shouldn't see too much of a hit on my system performance, and I'll be able to run all of my windows apps while in my Mac.

My biggest problem with this solution is that I'm going to have to install all my applications twice. This will be a problem for any apps that have single computer validated license keys (such as business versions of MS Office).

I'll let you know how it goes.

An interesting note: I started installing XP when I started writing this article, and it just finished now. That took about a quarter of the time it normally takes to install XP on a PC!

New Mac User: Day 1

After a year of internal debate, I finally jumped ship to a Mac yesterday. I ended up with a Macbook. After my first day, here are a former PC-er's first impressions:

The Good

• An amoeba could set up a wireless network connection
• It's shiny
• Mac's way of selecting from all your open windows (expose) is WAY better than Vista's fancy but useless cascading windows feature
• Really easy to set up my bluetooth devices
• Configuring the system is fun and straightforward (there's no "Apply" button)
• Built in apps are much much much better than their built in windows equivalents (mail vs. outlook express, itunes vs. media player, imovie vs. movie maker, iphoto vs. windows file system, dashboard vs. MS widgits, spotight vs. buried search)
• Macs extra apps are nifty (garageband & photobooth are fun, calendar can import web calendars, time machine is much more than a "backup" program)
• Surprise surprise, MS Messenger IS available on the Mac
  

The Bad

• The keyboard isn't quite responsive enough
• Macbook pro get's REALLY hot
• Right clicking doesn't work until you change your system preferences
• You can only resize your windows with the bottom right-hand corner of the window
• Safari browser... Why bother when there's Firefox?
  

The Confusing

• File menus show up at the top of the screen, not the app. I couldn't figure out how to find the settings on any of my apps for the first two hours of ownership.
  
• What's with the "squiggly key"?
  
• File system looks like my iPod... weird.
• .dmg files vs. .exe files and "Mounting" programs as devices instead of installing them
• My regularly used shortcut and navigation keys are all different
  

As "easy" as the mac is purported to be... it definitely takes some getting used to for someone born and bred with a PC, but it is fun. It's kind of like learning to ride a bike again. I'm sure I'll have it figured out soon.

Is New York the natural "disaster-movie" site?

I just finished watching "I am Legend", a movie which features the total destruction of New York (and borrows heavily from 28 days later, castaway & Signs) and realized that I've seen a lot of "destroy New York" scenes in the movies and TV.

You might think that in a post-911 world, the annihilation of New York would be off-limits, but not so. The practice of destroying New York was fairly fashionable pre-911 and today it seems even more popular.

I believe that there are a few reasons for this:

1. Landmarks include times square, the empire state building and the statue of liberty, what other city can match that? (Maybe London and Paris...)
2. The city is really a symbol of man's power in the world, thus it's destruction represents man's weakness
3. Emotional resonance: you either live there, or have at least one relative/friend who does
4. The arch-rival of Los Angeles (i.e. Hollywood)... is New York.
   

Here's a list of "New York Destruction" flicks I could come up with, am I missing any?

Pre 911

• Deep Impact [Asteroid]
• The Siege [Terrorism]
  
• Independence Day [Alien Invasion]
  
• AI - Artificial Intelligence [Global Warming]
• Planet of the Apes [Smart Apes]

Post 911

• The day after tomorrow [Global Warming]
  
• An inconvenient Truth [Global Warming]
• Heroes, Season 1 [Nuclear Explosion]
  
• Heroes, Season 2 [Deadly Virus]
  
• I am Legend [Deadly Virus]
• Cloverfield [destruction method unknown] (not yet released)
• United 93 & World Trade Center [Terrorism]
• War of the Worlds [Alien Invasion] (Well... it's in New Jersey, but that's just across the river)

Honorable mentions for partial destruction:

• Godzilla, King Kong, Gangs of New York, Armageddon, Ghostbusters I & II

Forbes.com completely misses the point about what killed the "CD Market"

I stumbled upon a completely nonsensical article in Forbes.com, a supposedly reputable business analysis site/magazine that shows just how ignorant business-people can be sometimes:

The iPod [ has ...] a proven record of disruption, with customers bypassing record stores to tap into illegal distribution networks, along with Apple's iTunes music store, to fill the up their devices.

The result: Sales of CDs fell more than 30% to 614.9 million units last year from a peak of 881.9 million in 2000, according to the Recording Industry Association.

It should be obvious to anybody that there are many root causes to the demise of the CD industry, but the iPod is not one of them, it simply did the best job of capitalizing on the opportunity. The real causes are:

• The ability to store music in MP3's, a small (reasonably) high fidelity format that could be downloaded in a few minutes over the internet.
  
• Napster, the first truly successful peer-to-peer music sharing network
• The fact that the studios would release CD after CD with one good song, and 12 fillers, and charge $18 for the privilege
  

With these root causes, even without the iPod, CD sales would have fallen dramatically. Forbes is blind not to see this.

To place the demise in the hands of the iPod gives Apple far too much credit.

Forbes goes on to say that shortly Apple will do the same thing to movie rentals that they did to CD sales, and kill blockbuster. However, there are a few key differences:

• Unlike music, movies take a long time to download, and take up a lot of hard drive space
• Watching movies at home is moving towards High definition, and even when compressed, the files are huge. Lower video quality movies (the kind that look fine on an iPod) will be of less appeal to many consumers who own an HDTV
  
• "Bandwith caps" on internet connections though the major internet providers are becoming pervasive, which may actually make it more expensive to download than to rent if you go over your cap.

Forbes goes on to claim that:

[The rental stores'] days might be numbered: The iPod has killed before. It will kill again.

I just have a hard time believing that this will be the case.

Is the paragraph dead?

This morning I was doing my regular online news circuit, and reading a printed magazine copy of "Canadian Business", when I noticed an interesting difference for the first time: Online news & blogs don't use periods to end sentences any more, they use paragraph breaks.

I opened up an article about the Bhutto assassination, and found that 24 out of 34 paragraphs had only once sentence, the remaining paragraphs had two.

Meanwhile, my Canadian Business magazine had 3 - 5 sentences per paragraph, with no spacing between them.

3 - 5 would be in line with what I was taught in grade school about writing, however that was pre-internet.

I suspect that the reasoning for doing one sentence per paragraph is that it makes it easer to read in narrow 600 pixel columns, and you don't have to worry about extra paper costs like you would in print.

There are a number of other ways that writing style "rules" have been changed by the internet since I was in grade school:

• Referencing authors is no longer required, simply provide a hyperlink
• There's no such thing as a word count, use as many or as few words as it takes to get an idea across. When I started reading blogs, my mind had to get around the idea a 100 word blurb might be just as valuable as the 600 word one-pager in a typical magazine article.
  
• Feel free to completely omit any background details on the topic you are discussing, even if it is very recent news. If your reader wants to know more, the answers are just a Google search away.
  

I find it interesting that by modifying the media (from print to screen), that the rules of grammar and writing style get modified as well.

$85,000 phone bill? Shame on you Bell...

Sometimes the cell phone industry is just too easy to slam, as is the case with Bell recently charging a customer $85,000 for their cell bill. As reported in the Globe & Mail:

When their son called Bell Mobility, however, he received more bad news. The bill had since climbed to $85,000 because the company was charging him on a per-kilobyte basis.

In what Bell Mobility calls a “goodwill” gesture, it offered to reduce the charges to match the best data plan available for using cellphones as a modem, according to Bell spokesman Mark Langton. He said the outstanding bill now totals $3,243.

This is of course, absurd. What makes it extra-odd is that these types of stories about cell companies seem to come out with a certain amount of regularity, and makes the telecoms like Bell look very very bad.

All it would take to prevent a PR nightmare like this would be to send a daily text message to customers giving minutes used, data used, and current running total for the month.

But of course, they won't do this, because they love making as much $$$ as they can by tricking their customers into spending more than they know they are spending.

UPDATE: Even the American news over at news.com is picking up on this story. Global humiliation for Bell, they did it to themselves.

Competition for the Canadian Cell phone... finally

Next year Canada will hold an auction for 105 MHz of the wireless spectrum, and 40 MHz of it will be reserved for "new entrants", opening the floodgates of competition.

All I can say is... it's about time.

In addition to this, regulators will force existing networks to share their towers, allow roaming at commercial rates, and other consumer-friendly bonuses.

This blogger has ranted against the Canadian cell-phone establishment on a few occasions. What is interesting to see, is how this auction compares to the upcoming US spectrum bid.

In the US auction, Google is offering to bid on the spectrum simply because they want to open it up to competition (because the more people that use data on cell phones, the more mobile search services it can offer). As a condition to bid, Google tried to push the US government to adopt a number of consumer-friendly regulations for the auction.

The government decided to adopt... "a few" of the measures.

Meanwhile in Canada, the regulators a diving in head first, pushing rules that are way beyond even what Google was trying to push the US to do.

Of course, the environment in Canada is different in the US. While competition in the US among Telecoms is scarce, competition in Canada is non-existent.

With only 3 oligopolistic bedfellows (Rogers, Bell, Telus), consumers are paying the price. The regulators had to do something.

And indeed they have done something. Let the war for consumer loyalty based on service value instead of penalties begin!

Stéphane Dion slashes children... according to the Globe & Mail

I fell off my chair laughing when I saw a headline in the Globe and Mail today:

Liberal Leader says his government would slash the number of children living below the poverty line over five years.

Read it the wrong way and it sounds REALLY messed up.

Why is Stephene Dion slashing children? Why pick on just the poor ones? And why is he going to do it for 5 years!?

What a big mean-ee.

Rogers, Bell, Telus snub Canadians... again.

Yesterday Google announced that they are releasing an open source operating system (sort of) for mobile handsets, called "Android". They are partnering with over 50 handset makers and service providers across the Globe. The system will be open source, making it easy for developers to work with.

The objective of the project is to make the cell phone internet market more "open", kind of like the way it doesn't matter whether you use a Compaq or a Mac to view the web. Currently service providers in North America are HIGHLY restrictive of what they let cell phone users put on their devices. They also try to control all of the data content (ex. Rogers provides music streaming to your and nobody else if you own a Rogers phone. If done right, this could be very good for consumers.

Not surprisingly, all the Canadian Cell phone providers turned down this partnership opportunity with Google. In Canada we still don't have the iPhone, and once again the Canadian Telcos are demonstrating their monopolistic anti-consumer practices by turning down Google's Android.

Fall photos on the map

I FINALLY got out and did a fall photo shoot last weekend. I use Picassa 2 to do most of my web editing, mainly because it's quick and easy.



I was playing around with the "Web Albums" part of Picassa, and found a really neat new feature, you can post your photos on a map! So, I tried it with my fall shots, take a look here. This would be a great way to keep track of vacation photos.

Tipping point for Apple?

Back in June I predicted that this back-to-school season would be a phenomenal one for the iMac, signaling a change from small niche player to the beginning of something much bigger. This week my prediction proved true, as iMac sales grew at a rate (30%) twice as fast as the industry. Half of those sales were to first time iMac owners.

Tim Cook, Apple's Chief Operating Officer stated to the press that:

Students helped account for the surge in Mac shipments, during a quarter that Cook called "the most successful back-to-school season we've ever had."

As of Friday, Apple's new operating system (Leopard) was released. I think that as of this week, Apple's little iMac has reached a "Tipping Point" in the PC industry.

In the business world, the term "Tipping Point" is used to refer to point at which a product reaches a certain level of popularity, and conditions are just right, that what were previously gradual sales begin to take off.

And the conditions are right for Apple, Consider the following:

• Windows Vista owners have played with their new computers, and are either underwhelmed or wildly dissatisfied with the upgrade. They are telling their friends.
• Mac OS Leopard just came out, users will love it (I just played with it for an hour at the Mac store). They will tell their friends.
• With the advent of browser based applications (Web 2.0), the web browser is becoming more relevant that Windows, making switching easier.
• You can run your Windows applications on a Mac.
• Brand awareness is at an all time high, thanks to the iPod.
• As of this week, we are no longer waiting for Apple to release products (the iPhone and Leopard have arrived).
• Microsoft is distracted with the Google threat instead of focusing on it's core business, software.
  
• In the hit show 24, the bad guys use PCs, the good guys use iMacs.
  

If I were a betting man, I would venture to say that by this time next year, the iMac will realize a growth rate 5x higher than that of the computer industry.

There are only two things left that are holding them back:

1. Price - Still really high compared to a PC
   
2. Distribution - It's hard to find an Apple store (In Canada), and the big box stores hide iMacs in the back, keeping the PCs prominently on display

Rogers is trying too hard to be cool

I just received the following text message on my Rogers cell phone:

Rogers msg: What's ur opinion? Tell us w/ Txt Ur 2Cents & dwnld content 4chance 2win a laptop & more! Reply WIN b4 Nov28 4info. 2opt out of mktg msgs reply STOP

Wow, what a load of drivel. Rogers is trying to "be cool" by using SMS shorthand, which is used generally by teenagers as a way to quickly send out messages on a cell phone that doesn't have a full keyboard. It is very cumbersome and time consuming to send out a full message on a cell phone.

The Rogers marketing department on the other hand, has all the time in the world to write out a proper message. It probably not even sent from a cell phone.

I can see in my mind, a bunch of Rogers' "suits" sitting around a table saying "hey, if we use SMS shorthand, maybe the kids will think we're cool, and then they'll pay us more money!"

Rogers, you are over-compensating for something (could be your high prices, terrible customer service, locked phones, etc...), and it definitely makes you more "uncool".

WORLD TO TELCOS: The way to be a "cool" company in today's age isn't through cheesy marketing hype... it's by listening and responding to your customers needs (a la Apple & Google)

Online newspapers missing the point

Have you ever noticed that newspapers that publish their newsprint content online don't publish links in their articles? Take a look at any article in the Globe and Mail and you will see that they refer to reports and facts, but NEVER provide a link to the source (except in their special web-only blog section).

Huh? Haven't we had 15 years to figure out that links are the backbone of the web?

Compare this to a news site that doesn't have a print version such as News.com or even most parts of MSN which will always have an external link to another web page when referring to other reports or statistics. Blogs are usually the best at referring to source material. To the reader, these are the sites that have the most value, because being able to check up on an author helps keep them honest, and the reader can expand their knowledge if they so desire.

Some websites such as CNN or IGN take a different approach, they include links but only to other articles within their site. They never refer to external sites. This removes value from the site, which acts as though it is the ultimate authority and knows all.

No one site on the web will EVER be the ultimate resource for everything, news sites should embrace that and start linking.

Anti-Piracy Expectations

This week Google finally announced some new anti-copyright measures for their video-sharing website, Youtube. In a nutshell, the technology creates a "fingerprint" video clips uploaded by the content owners to Youtube, and then compares them against any new clips uploaded.

The major problem with this approach is that it puts quite a burden on content owners. HOWEVER, it is the most advanced tool available for video protection. Content protection online is difficult, because there are simply so many ways to break the rules. As such, we should expect that content protection mechanisms will be evolutionary rather than revolutionary (i.e., we can't solve this problem all at once).

What's interesting is some of the silly criticisms have been arising about this issue.

Boehm National Legal and Policy Center Chairman (U.S) Ken Boehm made one of the silliest comments I've read...

"We think it's too little, too late [...] Google is the most technologically advanced search engine company in the world and in all this interim time when they could have set filters of some sort in place, they chose nothing rather than something that may be not perfect."

Lets break this arguement down:

• Too little too late...: But then he criticizes Google for doing what would have been even less, but earlier ("some sort of filter"). It's also the most anybody has done to protect content.
  
• Google is most technologicall advanced... : Yes they are, AND they now have the most advanced piracy technology technology. Boehm then uses this as a foundation to critisize Google for using techniques that are NOT advanced (... set filters of "some sort" in place). Huh?
• Chose nothing rather than something that may not be perfect.: Actually, they did choose something, they willingly took down content that copyright holders deemed infringing... and it wasn't perfect.

Seriously Mr.Boehm... there are indeed problems with Googles approach, but a little bit of intellectual honesty would be nice, your arguments aren't consistent.

I think a good idea might be to allow copyright holders to flag videos online that violate copyright, then Google would fingerprint those videos and use them for filtering. In this case, the copyright holder wouldn't need to upload nearly as much content, making the process much less onerous.

Don't believe the beavers

Frank and Gordon, those mildly amusing yet irritating Bell Canada mascots would have you believe they are a fun and consumer oriented company. I recently tried to sign up for Bell home phone and internet, and wow, do they ever have poor customer service.

I spent over a MONTH trying to get subscribe to internet with them, and ran into the following problems:

• I had scheduled SIX appointments with their service reps before they showed up.
  
• Their service reps were scheduled to come "sometime between 9am - 5pm", and couldn't be any more accurate. I waited all day for them at home on a few occasions.
  
• You can't call them after 7:00pm on weekdays, or at all on weekends.
• Their customer service lines are in India, and they are not allowed to do anything helpful. I had a problem with my phone not ringing. When they tried to fix it, they asked me to call my line to test it. But I was on my second phone line with them already. When I asked them why they didn't call me, they told me they (a TELECOM company!) weren't allowed to make outgoing calls.
• After spending 5 "business" days to set up a phone line, then it takes another 5 "business" days to set up internet (for a total of 2 weeks). That's if nothing goes wrong. If something does go wrong, you're looking at a month for internet.
  
• They are more expensive than everybody else.
• I couldn't pick up a DSL modem at a Bell store, I had to get it mailed to me
• My DSL Modem didn't arrive on the day it was scheduled to arrive
  

Eventually I switched everything over to Rogers, because it was such a hassle. Interestingly enough, my DSL modem arrived AFTER I switched to Rogers. Go figure.

So, I've come to the conclusion that Bell Canada is pretty much the worst run company in this country, and I have no intention of EVER purchasing ANY service from them again. I throw popcorn at the screen whenever those stupid beavers show up on the commercials.

Somebody, please make them stop defaming our national animal.


UPDATE (Oct 15 2007): We were supposed to finally get internet set up with Rogers today. It didn't work though, because Bell STOLE the phone account without our authorization and switched us back to them. They actually did this a day after they called us trying to get us to switch back to Bell. Someone please... make the incompetence stop!

UPDATE (Nov 6 2007): I finally am set up with Rogers as my internet provider, but Bell slapped me with $120 bill for service they never provided properly since September... and I was SUPPOSED to have over $300 in credits. I told them I'm not paying, now I'm being "investigated".

How to make millions with the perfect movie

I've been thinking about the business of making movies, and I've come up with the perfect movie... well... at least a movie that will make lots of $$$. I'll take all the things that are really popular right now, and put them together in one movie! It will be called:

Captain Prehistoric Penguin Man - Part Second

• Captain: Because every kid will be dressed like captain Jack Sparrow on Halloween
  
• Prehistoric: Dinosaurs are always cool
• Penguin: The ladies dig penguins these days. This will give the pirate loving boyfriends an excuse to bring their "I love small cute animals" girlfriends to the cinema.
• Man: Every super hero under the sun is getting a movie right now. Even if the movie is really bad (I'm looking at you Electra and Ghost Rider), all super hero movies still manage to make a decent amount of money due to what industry calls the "fan-boy built-in audience".
  
• Part Second: Sequels are cash cows, so I'm just going to skip the first movie and go right to the sequel. Furthermore, its called "Part Second" instead of "2" because that helps differentiate it from all the other sequels (in the spirit of "Hotshots part deux", "Shrek the 3rd" and "X2").
  

It will star Matt Daemon who will have a secret identity, memory loss, and he will beat the tar out of Tom Cruise. The love interest will be Julia Roberts, playing a woman who is strong-willed but eventually shows vulnerability by breaking down into silent, gross-looking tears.

It will also have either a Will Ferrel or Christopher Walken Cameo.

I'll think about the script later, it's not really important. The black suits at Fox Searchlight pictures are going to be eating out of my hand when I pitch this to them. How could I possibly go wrong with such a perfect formula?

Use case this!

Can engineers realistically be expected to think of everything that could go wrong with a system they design? Skype customers seem to think so. This week Skype went down for a few days, and on their company blog Skype offers the following interesting explanation:

The disruption was triggered by a massive restart of our users’ computers across the globe within a very short timeframe as they re-booted after receiving a routine set of patches through Windows Update.

So, essentially, everybody logged on to Skype at the same time after Microsoft made them reboot, and took the entire Skype network down with it. Interesting. This seems like a rather obscure chain of events that would cause a system outage, can Skype Engineers be forgiven for not thinking of it ahead of time?

One of the fundamental activities that any designer (be it software or any type of system) does is to perform "use cases". This basically involves putting a "user" of a system through a number of scenarios to test how they react to the system, and to test how the system holds up.

One of the first "use cases" I remember hearing in about Engineering class was the operation of a surgery laser where if you typed the operation codes in too fast, the safety mechanisms wouldn't engage and instead of targeting cancer cells in controlled bursts, it would fry you something fierce and cause a cancer way worse than what you started with. The argument is made that if the designers had spent sufficient time putting people through expected "use cases", the this would not have happened, thus the Engineers failed.

Could Skype have predicted this situation? They certainly couldn't have tested for it (how do you get 9 million people to log on simultaneously?). The jury is out on this one, but I'm willing to give the engineers some slack... mostly because the service is free, so who am I to complain?

(As a side note, much of the blog-o-sphere finds Skype's explanation too far-fetched to believe)

Rogers' 7 deadly sins of wireless

I recently went through an upgrade process with Rogers, where they signed me on to a new 3 year contract in exchange for a few goodies. While they were very nice to me on the phone, let's get one thing straight, Rogers Wireless in NOT a consumer friendly company.

Lets just get this out there: all Canadian wireless carriers are bad. They do so many anti-consumer activities, it boggles the mind. Since I am a victim of Rogers Wireless, I will use them as my example of choice (but don't look so smug Bell, you've got many issues of your own)

Sin # 1: $35 "set-up" fee
Rogers tried to tell me that they would waive my so-called $35 set-up fee if I renewed with them over the phone, as though I should thank them for this. Since Rogers uses SIM cards, they literally have to do NOTHING when I start using a new phone. I could pop my SIM card into a new phone right now, and Rogers wouldn't know any different. So... what value am I getting exactly from this $35 set up fee? (And no Rogers, I am NOT going to thank you for waiving a fee you should not be charging me in the first place).

The reason they do it: Rogers slaps on the $35 activation fee to discourage you from activating with resellers like Wireless wave and The Source (i.e. little kiosks that you see all over the mall these days). They will miraculously decide to waive the fee if you register with Rogers, which Rogers like because then they don't have to pay the enormous "finders fee" to the kiosks. It's anti-competition, plain and simple.

Consumer friendly solution: No set-up fee

Sin # 2: Locking phones
If you buy a phone through Rogers, it only works with Rogers (unless you may some shady guy in the back of a discount computer store $50 to unlock your phone).

Why they do it: This doesn't even make any sense, because Rogers is the only country wide GSM carrier in Canada, so their phones couldn't work on Telus or Bell even if you wanted them too. So by locking their phones, all Rogers is doing is saying: "Don't move to another country and try to take your phone with you", which is kind of stupid really. One area where it is slightly justified is in the high end phones, where if you were to purchase the phone and then cancel it right away and pay the $200 cancellation penalty, you would actually still be paying less than the sticker price for the device, so this kind of practice is prevented.

Consumer Friendly Solution: Don't lock the phone.

Sin # 3: You have to be a fortune teller
We can buy a 100 minute plan, or a 200 minute plan, etc... and then when we go OVER, we have to pay at a higher rate, and when we go UNDER, we don't get our money back nor do the minutes carry over to the next month. I'm really not sure how they get away with this, because in any other industry, the more you buy, the less you pay per unit, period.

The reason they do it: They know you can't see the future, so they are trying to get you to buy as many minutes as possible, and then scare you into using as few as possible, widening their margins but making consumers angry. Furthermore, having a number of different confusing plans adds the illusion of "choice" to the industry.

Consumer friendly solution: Get rid of this whole "plan" nonsense entirely. Charge based exclusively on usage, where the price decreases the more you use. For example:

• 10 cents for the first 100 minutes
• 7 cents for the next 400 minutes
• 5 cents every minute thereafter

This is simple, understandable, consistent, and makes sense. If plans must continue to exist, make the unused minutes from one month transferable to the next.

Sin # 4: They keep your usage a secret
Rogers is pretty good at telling you at the end of the month how much you have to pay them, just like the utilities do. However, all of the information is kept digitally and accessible at a moments notice, but there is no way to find this information out. How close am I to my 100 minute limit? Have I used to much data? Stories about of people who find out that they used $300 worth of data but had no idea they were doing so. The technology is there to do it, but Rogers refuses.

The Reason they do it: If you use less then your allocated time, they make extra money on you. If you use more, you pay through the nose. Either way, unless you guess the exact amount of time you've used on your plan, you lose, Rogers wins.

Consumer friendly solution: Be able to look up your usage online at any time, and send an SMS message alert to the phone when it's on it's last 20 minutes of airtime for the month.

Sin # 5: Charging for voice-mail AND airtime
If I pay Rogers $5 a month to give me voicemail (they only allow 5 messages), then the only way to retrieve my messages is to call a specified number and spend more of my airtime minutes to check the message. They are double dipping, and completely ripping off the consumer in the process.

The Reason they do it: Oligopolistic greed. If there was real competition, this wouldn't happen.

Consumer friendly solution: Charge EITHER a fixed rate for voicemail, or offer voicemail for free and charge for airtime, don't do both.

Sin # 6: Per minute billing
Lets say the following conversation occurs:

• Jim calls me: "I'm going to see Spiderman, wanna come, its at 7." "Sure, I'll see you at the theatre". Total call time: 38 seconds
  
• Jim calls me again: "I made a mistake, it's at 6:30, better hurry". "Ok, I'm just finishing dinner but I'll be there." Total call time: 22 seconds.
• I call Jim: "I'm going to be late, please pick up a ticket for me". "Sure, no prob man". Total call time: 15 seconds.

Now, the total conversation time was 1 minute and 15 seconds, but Rogers would charge you for 3 minutes. This adds up very fast if you are in the habit of making quick calls. Rogers needs to go back to school to learn to add.

The reason they do it: As if it wasn't difficult enough already to guess how many minutes you've used, it becomes even more difficult when the number of minutes you use is actually more than the amount of time you've talked on the phone! And the less know you know... the more Rogers makes off of you.

Consumer friendly solution: Per-second billing

Sin # 7: Crazy expensive Data Rates
Thomas Purves has posted an interesting chart showing how obscenely expensive our cell phone plans in Canada are, especially when it comes to data rates:

Rogers is 39 times more expensive than New Zealand... need I say more?

The reason the do it: Oligopolistic greed. If there was real competition, this couldn't happen.

Consumer Friendly Solution: Charge a data rate that somebody making under $200,000 a year can afford, then maybe people would start using data services.


Well... Rogers wireless actually has more than 7 sins, but it messes up my blog title if I make more... so I'm going to pretend that it's just seven...

Sin # 7 + 1: Crappy phones:
The good phones are in Asia/Europe, and don't arrive here until years later.

Why they do it: Unlike overseas, the carriers control the distribution channels and bundle phones with plans, taking away your choice. This allows them to wait until the prices for phones are cheaper (for Rogers, not for you). This also prevents you from getting all kind of nifty features that might prevent Rogers from stealing more of your money. An excellent example is Wi-Fi access. Why pay for internet service through the cell network, when you might have access to a free Wi-Fi network at work, home or a coffee shop? If you could do this, less $$$ for Rogers, even though phones like this are available overseas.

Consumer Friendly Solution: Allow phone companies to sell directly to consumers without going through Rogers.


Sound Off: What ticks you off about our lovely Canadian wireless carriers?

The September of iMac?

Apple is now the epitome of cool, but we all know that they are still a small player in the computer market with something like 10% - 15% of the installed computer base. Call it a hunch, but I think that 2007 will be Apple's true breakout year, and that the tipping point will happen in September.

The reasons are simple:

• The iPod is absurdly popular
• The iPhone is absurdly cool (even though it can't reach even close to the popularity levels of the iPod because of it's $500 price tag), and it's coolness will rub off on the Mac brand as a whole
• I (a person who, addicted to the flexibility of the PC, previously swore I would never get a mac, and actively poked fun at those who owned one) am actually thinking about getting a Mac, because I am just plain tired of my PC not working as it should, so I could infer that a lot of other people are thinking the same thing.
• You can now run Windows applications on a Mac, so compatibility has become a non-issue.
  
• September is when School starts.

I would be very curious to walk down a dorm hallway, and see how many new iMacs are in the student dorms, I would put my money on 40% - 60% of all new computers in the hallways being Macs... and if there is a major shift in the dorm rooms, it's only a matter of time before everybody else falls in line.

How to get a Blackberry Curve in Canada

Do you want to get the sleek new Blackberry Curve, but you're Canadian so you can't find it? The curve so far is only available on GSM networks, and Rogers is the only GSM carrier. However, if you go looking for it on the Rogers website list of available blackberries, as of the day of this writing you will not be able to find it.

HOWEVER, that does not mean that they won't sell you one! If you go to the RIM homepage and visit their Blackberry Curve homepage and dig around a little bit, you will find a link that says "where to buy", and will then lead you to a list of providers. Lo and behold, Rogers is on the list! Click through and you will be brought to what seems like a secret page where you can buy the Blackberry Curve from Rogers.

Last Friday I was speaking with a Rogers rep over the phone, and he had never heard of the Curve. I found this quite surprising, as it is the hot new kid on the block. I directed him towards the RIM homepage, where he went and looked at the specs and proclaimed "Wow, that's a pretty neat device, I'm glad you showed me this sir". While looking at the page, I found the "where to buy" link, and proceeded to show the Rogers rep that I could indeed but the Curve from them. The whole process took about an hour, but my Shiny new Blackberry curve arrived in the mail today. Given that you can't even find it on the Rogers homepage, and the reps don't seem to even know it exists, I'm betting that I'm one of the first in Canada (other than RIM employees) to own one. Cool.

Will it blend?

My wife recently posted a blog entry about a little "will it blend" adventure that we had (we mistook a screw for a blueberry and tried to make it into a smoothie). So, this little adventure got me visiting one of my favorite sites, www.willitblend.com, where they successfully blend everything from an iPod to a golf club.

They have recently topped themselves with "will it return" where they try to return a blended video camera. It's one of the finer pieces of home video I've seen in a long time.

Apparently Best Buy made them pull the video from the willitblend.com website. But of course, censorship or attempts to manage your corporate image too tightly only serve to make what your trying to hide even more popular in today's internet age, so here is the video a-la youtube.

Video Camera Part 1 - Will it blend?


Video Camera Part 2 - Will it return?

Top 7 Bad Songs ... and how they fell

There are enduring bands whose music will last forever like the Beatles, U2, Rolling Stones, Nirvana etc... Then there are some bands that reach such an undeserved level of popularity so fast that when the listening public finally realized they've been duped, the music and band disappears forever.

These songs were incredibly popular, but will never be played on oldies stations 30 years from now. Their artists reached such heights, but then disappeared suddenly. Ask a DJ to play it today, and they'll look at you like you've been on a construction site without your hard-hat a few too many times. Here are my top seven:

7. Mmm Bop - Hansen
Kind of Jackson-5-ish, but as soon as one of these boppers hit puberty, it was game over.


6. The Bad Touch (Do it like the do it on Discovery Channel) - Bloodhound Gang
This song dominated the air waves for a very brief period of time with it's one line joke:

You and me baby ain't nothin' but mammals
So let''s do it like they do on the Discovery Channel

Unfortunately, they repeat this refrain 8 times throughout the song, so if it was funny the first time you heard the line, the joke was old by the end of the song. If you heard the song 5 times, you've heard the joke 40 times and would probably just switch the radio station.

5. Jump - Kriss kross
These two kids inspired teenage boys everywhere to wear their jeans backwards...

...who gave up on the idea after trying to use a urinal.

4. If you want to be my lover - Spice Girls
I truly have yet to meet anybody who actually liked Spice Girls, and am convinced that some marketing company just tried to spend tons of money to get them on the radio in hopes of duping the listening public that they had good music.

Their career ended the moment the trailer came out for their "Spice World" movie.


3. Can't touch this - MC Hammer
I think I can put my finger on the moment MC Hammer lost all credibility... see video below



It's so bad it's good.

2. Ice Ice Baby - Vanilla Ice
I think I also found out when Vanilla Ice lost it...



So bad it's good.

1. Hanging Tough - NKOTB (New Kids on the Block)
Ever notice that the acronym for these guys has just as many syllables as the full name? (that is, unless you pronounce it N-KOT-B). Ever girl who was a teen or pre-teen can still name off all five of these guys.

As for when it was over for these gjuys, i'm noticing a pattern here. Note to self: if I ever become a rock star, don't sign a Saturday morning cartoon deal.



So bad... it's just bad.


What are your top "once great/really bad" songs?

Absurd Navigation

You may or may not be aware that Microsoft has released a new version of Office (Office 2007) that dramatically alters the user interface. It is supposed to make it easier to find buried options.

I run MS Outlook 2003 at work, and although I haven't tried 2007 yet, the need for it smacked me in the face today when I tried to do something as simple as uninstall a simple little add-on. I had to go through SEVEN menus. The menu names were as follows:

Tools
-> Options
-> Other
-> General
-> Advanced Options
-> Add-ons

The really funny thing about this menu path is that NONE of the sub menu contain descriptive titles... options, other, general, advanced options!?! Who came up with this ridiculous scheme?

A note to software designers: You should never use a non-descriptive word such as "other" or "general" for a menu, because it just becomes a dumping ground for the many features you haven't thought about how to structure. It will always end in absurdity.