No Business Naming Things

We went to see The Dark Knight last evening in an effort to keep distracted.  I was expecting a solid film but even I was impressed with it - there is finally a live action Batman film to displace Mask of the Phantasm as the best Batman film.  Anything worth saying has been said elsewhere but I really have to acknowledge Heath Ledger - he is the definitive Joker.  His performance puts to shame every Joker performance before it and I can’t fathom it ever being bettered in the future.  Just wow.

My dad came home to find my mother dead in bed today. We’re not sure what happened. We’re going off to Halifax just as soon as we find out what the arrangements are.

I dont remember my last conversation with her. It was a week ago or so. I was going to call her last night but thought “eh, I can do it tomorrow.”

You can’t always do it tomorrow. If you have something you want to say maybe you should say it today.

So, Rogers has thrown another option into the iPhone pricing ring - a limted time $30/6gb offer.

This price seems pretty close to right for me - I could definitely live with it.  I still can’t swallow the 3 year commitment, however.  Given my history with phones (and iPods) I’m skeptical that I could make any device last 3 years, particularly one with a touch screen.  Throw in a contractless option (or a more reasonable 1-2 year contract) and they’d have me sold.

Uh… interesting timing? It’s almost as if the Large Throbbing Brains at Bell and Rogers started their weekly monopoly conference call like this:

Rogers Brain: “We’re getting hammered in the press for this iPhone thing. This would be a good time for you guys to slip in that SMS policy you’ve been lusting over recently. With the press I’ve been stirring they might not even notice…”

Bell Brain: “My God, you’re a genius! I can get that ivory back scratcher I’ve always wanted…”

I’m sorry, but this is absolutely f’ing absurd. The fact that we pay so much to SEND SMS is bad enough as it is - name ANY other form of communication that doesn’t involve a ROUND TRIP TO MARS that costs $1/kb. With this change it’ll be $2, given that they’ll be screwing us at both ends.

Lets think about this for a second and play with some numbers. I admit this is a naive exercise that doesn’t capture the true volume of data the carriers have to deal with but even if it’s off by a factor of 100 it still doesn’t reflect the severity they’d have us believe. The article I linked to claims that Canadians send 45.4 million SMS messages a day. Let’s assume that every message is as big as it can be, which according to the SMS specification (buried here) is 160 characters. Naively assuming a character == a byte, that means there’s roughly 7,264 million bytes which is just over 7gb. So, all of Canada generates so little SMS traffic that it can be stored on a solid state memory key. THIS is the burden we’re supposed to believe the carriers are struggling to accommodate? Are we really to believe that 7gb of traffic costs $6.8 million a day (45.4m * $.15) to deliver? Let’s put that volume in context: how much bandwidth does your average voice call consume? Something tells me it’s a helluva lot more than 160 bytes.

To sear it from a different angle, use the $2/kb data rate as a benchmark. Suddenly the unpopular supplemental iPhone data rate of $.50/mb seems downright generous doesn’t it?

This is a cash grab, pure and simple, and it’s easily the most sickening one to date from our beloved Canadian telecommunications monopoly. At least we’re seeing some blowback from our political parties - the NDP appears to be on this, at least superficially - they’ve started a petition here.

At this pace I should be disappointed on a weekly basis.

I just got around to playing the PS3 demo of Civilization Revolution and all I have to say is that much like every other Civilization game it’s DANGEROUS.  An hour and a half of my life just disappeared and if the demo wasn’t timed I’m sure I’d be playing until sometime tomorrow.

The experience is very streamlined - a lot of the resource/citizen management you need (or get) to play with in other Civilization games is absent as is tedious road building.  They’ve distilled the experience down to its core and it’s SLICK.

I cannot own this game.  I cannot afford the time.

I should have figured this out before the get go but I cannot BELIEVE how hard it is to find prescription drug information via Google.  It’s nothing but spam.

If you’re at all on the fence about seeing this movie (as I was - I still haven’t gotten over Cars) you need to go see it ASAP.  Not only is it the best Pixar film, it’s the best film period I’ve seen in a very long time.  The first half of the movie with its 5-6 words of dialog were absolutely fantastic and while it swapped out a bit of charm in favour of message once the humans arrived it still ended very strong.

So, the Canadian iPhone price plans have been announced. I’m not surprised in the slightest that Rogers once again decided to fleece their customers - 450MB cap? No unlimited plans? Three year contract?

Behold the power of the monopoly, folks. Sigh. Unfortunately, it’s JUST within the realm of tolerable for me. I need to find a way to talk myself out of it.

I have to admit, my brain doesn’t work in a fashion that’s helpful in navigating legalese. That doesn’t stop the hair on the back of my neck raising at the prospect of bill C-61, however. Along with the regular battery of concerns a new one popped into my head this morning thanks to the forth part of Michael Geists “A Week in the Life of the Canadian DMCA” series. Keep in mind what I said above - I’m not the person to go to for answers to questions like this, but Michael seems to have his head on straight. And what he says in that posting makes me worry about the following should bill C-61 come to pass.

Who will own my tattoos? Currently any custom work I have done is arguably done on commission and I’m free to use photos of them as I see fit. Given the changes Michael suggests in C-61, would this still be the case? Would I be prohibited to use photographs of my own body because copyright on the image is held by the artist that applied it? Of course, this concern is not limited to photographs. Were I to somehow profit from my appearance (not likely) by virtue of celebrity would this be in violation of the act? For instance, would my appearance on television to promote a product be in violation of their copyright?  I can’t help but imagine the fledgling rock starlet who is forced to cover her beautiful sleeves for her first magazine cover shot because she doesn’t own the copyright to her own arms…

It sounds far fetched, but given the change with regard to commissioned photographs I have to wonder.  I’d love to hear analysis of this from someone who knows what they’re talking about.

I just saw the most exciting Facebook status update of all time:

Ken Tizzard is not really surprised that word is getting out … Winnipeg’s Watchmen are back together and will be at the Horseshoe on September 26.

Ken Tizzard was the bassist for The Watchmen.

I am so excited. I don’t even know what to do with myself. If September 26th wasn’t our wedding day I would fly to Winnipeg to see them.

Update: I am going to cry. It’s for one night only.