In the last month, I’ve seen both Cuba and Iraq criticised on American television news for their state-sponsored celebrations of their government and leaders. The term state-sponsored is used as an insult – you know, those backwards countries where the government throws parties for themselves?

Then, this week, the CBC is all over the Golden Jubilee, which is, as far as I can gather, a state-sponsored celebration of the Queen in England. Every country does this.

I realize there is a big difference between England’s celebrations and those in Cuba and Iraq (and I’m not suggesting that Cuba and Iraq are similar either – except maybe in the eyes of the U.S. administration). The most obvious example of this difference is that those who criticise the British Monarchy aren’t thrown in jail. Also, there is a fundamental difference when a democratic government celebrates itself – since a democratic government represents the people, in theory, the people are then celebrating their own government.

Still, I find it remarkable how we in the west (and I include myself in this) are able to hold such obvious double standards.

Thank you for reading my amateurish political opinions.

As I was poking around the Apple History, trying to sponge up as much of my new heritage as possible before my iBook arrives, I stumbled across an anecdote concerning Apple’s 20th Anniversery Macintosh. It was a pricey beast at around 10,000$ but somebody wrote in with this bit, making it all seem worthwhile:

… it started at a retail of $10 K. But what this included was that a limo would deliver the Mac to your house, and a man in a Tuxedo would set it up for you… Not bad for $10 K.

Don’t they do stuff like that at Saturn?

Netscape 7 has materialized. I watched somebody try to install it, and it crashed after trying to force support of AOL’s ART format and RealPlayer onto him. Bad first impressions.

I asked Google’s new Glossary for the definition of god (an appropriate question). The first response:

Obviously, this is an impossible word to define. After all, to “define” a thing means putting boundaries around it, and God is Infinity, the very absence of boundaries.

See other cool rumblings at Google Labs.

Sooner or later somebody’s bound to win this. It has snowballed up to an estimated 34 million dollars now, and I have a 1 in 10,000,000 chance of winning a slice of 60% of it. I bought two instant picks with Tag.

The last largest Jackpot ever awarded was to a 21 year old in Ontario back in 1997. That one was a pot of 21 million dollars. This one should beat it. The big ones only ever seem to be won by one person. $16.6 million was awarded to a single person too, back in 1996.

So, I am a person. I am nearly 21. I think I’ve got this one in the bag. I guess my point is, if I win, you’re all getting coffee mugs.

I suffer from a condition that makes me sneeze when exposed to grow-lamps or the sun. For years people tried to tell us sun-sneezers that we were allergic to pollen and it was a coincidence that we sneezed outside. But we all knew that the sneeze started in the eyes somehow, we felt the sneeze trigger in our eyes.

I did a little research into this, and some scientists gave it an official name: Autosomal Dominant Compelling Helio-Ophthalmic Outburst Syndrome. I can put that on my resume.

Apparently one in four people are affected by ADCHOO (get it?). I’ve only ever met like 3 people with it. Steven claims to sneeze when he combs his hair.

I’m in the market for a refurbished iBook for school next year. And I’ve been weeding through offical Apple dealers comparing prices and deals they offered. I had a lot of questions to ask too, I was impressed when my first question (“will you ship to Canada?”) was answered in 4 minutes from one place. That was great. I was happy, and asked a few more questions, they were pleasant to deal with and helped me out. Then they sold out of the model I wanted (I think it was already sold out, the site just wasn’t updated, they since updated it when I asked).

So I went to the Little Mac Shoppe and talked to the friendly staff (I think his name was Dale), and they let me play with an iBook (and the coolest damn USB-lightbulb I’ve ever seen). I saw on their site that they rented Macs, but it was too expensive for somebody just trying to see if they got along with OS X.

I decided to continue my efforts via the internet, and I was disappointed that when I emailed questions to them, I didn’t get replies within a day, and then in two. I understand if they can’t have somebody sitting there watching the inbox all day, but I would have expected them to check at least once a day. That sort of turned me off as a customer. Even though no malice was intended (as I said, my real-world visit was great) the email cold-shoulder made me and my business feel unwanted. Maybe this is how 8 year olds on ICQ who got my contact feel when I don’t get back to them in the first minute and they begin wondering “why do u hate me rob?? a/s/l?”.

So I’m remaining hopeful that somebody will read my question about whether or not the LMS is able to hook me up with a tasty, factory refurbished G3/600 iBook.

UPDATE: After speaking with the good Mac people, we’ve determined that there is a strange technical issue that is keeping me from getting mail them right now. They tried to be prompt, but the Man had other ideas. Furthermore, they have expanded their ways of being contacted to use some IM methods too. Cheers.

My passion for those wacky plastic bricks was rekindled a few months ago. I’m sure that most people have a fond memory or two about time spent with Lego. There is something so satisfying about the slight resistance, then click of two tiny bricks. Not to mention the enormous pride of completing a project, whether or not you used the instructions. I investigated a little bit and found many facinating places created by the online Lego communty.

The first of these, was BrickLink. Originally BrickBay, the name had to be changed when somebody noticed the similarity between the two. This place is an amazing resource for any avid builder. You can pick a little store that somebody who catalogued all thier Lego set up, and fill your boots with anything you need.

This leads me to my next discovery, the LDraw project. These dedicated people are in the process of (and have taken a good chunk out of) entering every Lego piece in existance into a library that can be used by various CADs (my favorite is MLCAD), and so you can build your own things virutally. That’s totally not as fun as hands-on. But you have access to way more bricks, AND, you can always order your pieces up if you do something genial. It’s also great for home-brew kits and instructions.

The last spot that amazed me was a community server to hold pictures of people’s work, Brickshelf. I have trouble finding good stuff by just browsing the site head-on, but I did follow this link to a crazilly well-done StarWars piece.

In closing, I’d like to say that the plural of Lego is Lego. Not Legos. Wierd kids said that. Don’t be wierd.

Today, for the third time in my life, my bicycle was stolen. It wasn’t an expensive bike, and I hadn’t been using it much, but it was mine.

People seem to think it’s your fault if something is stolen from you and you hadn’t protected yourself from theft. If your bike or car is stolen, but wasn’t locked, it’s your fault. Bullshit. I should be able to leave the keys in my unlocked Jaguar if I want. It doesn’t make it any less of a crime to steal it. My unlocked or unprotected item is no less mine.

This might sounds like a naïve rant rather the usual smart and insightful thoughts you find here on aov. Fair enough, I’m just mad because someone stole my bike. However, the way that a small minority of deviants can hold the rest of us hostage relates to technology in an important way. Think of the resources that are spent (or wasted) on security – entire industries are built around it. Working with software developers, I see features and capabilities of software greatly limited by security concerns every day.

Even now, Bill Gates has ordered his company to shift the focus from new features to better security. Of course, because there are those who exploit any potential flaws, we welcome better security in our software – we all lock up our bikes. However, we shouldn’t accept this as inevitable, even thought it is exactly that. It should sadden us every time we go out of our way to protect ourselves from those who would exploit our weaknesses.

To the person who stole my bike, I hope you rot it hell.

Pardon my anger. Thanks for humouring me. If I bummed you out or annoyed you, check out the classic Kids in the Hall skit, Open Letter to the Guy Who Stole Bruce’s Bike Wheel – of the funniest things ever on television.