I recently came across these:

The darkest hour in any man’s life is when he sits down to plan how to get money without earning it.

– Horace Greeley

I promise to keep on living as though I expected to live forever. Nobody grows old by merely living a number of years. People grow old by deserting their ideals. Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up wrinkles the soul.

– Douglas MacArthur

A friend is somebody you want to be around when you feel like being by yourself.

– Barbara Burrow

Some people like my advice so much that they frame it upon the wall instead of using it.

– Gordon R. Diskson

I also just took this very fun and nerdy test:

You scored as Deep Space Nine (Star Trek). You have entered the dark side of the Star Trek universe. The paradise of Earth is far from you and you must survive despite having enemies on all fronts. But you wouldn�t have it any other way because you thrive in conflict and will know what needs to be done to take care of those around you. Now if only the Founders would quit trying to take over the galaxy.

Your Ultimate Sci-Fi Profile II: which sci-fi crew would you best fit in? (pics)

I just came across this news byte (ha ha, byte) about the EFF’s case against AT&T. I’m pretty happy:

According to allegations first raised in the New York Times, AT&T allowed the NSA to install traffic monitoring equipment in its San Francisco and other facilities across the nation. With the equipment in place, the NSA is able to sift through large numbers of phone calls in the US. The government argued that airing the allegations contained in the lawsuit would harm the national security interests of the US.

Judge Vaughn disagreed, saying that if the government has been truthful in its disclosures, divulging information on AT&T’s role in the scandal should not cause any harm to national security. And if it hasn’t been truthful? “The state secrets privilege should not serve as a shield for its false public statements,” he wrote. “In short, the government has opened the door for judicial inquiry by publicly confirming and denying material information about its monitoring of communication content.”

I’m glad the courts finally stopped one of the get out of jail free cards the Bush administration has been handing out like candy on Halloween.

On an entirely unrelated note. I recently watched these lectures. Pretty entertaining and interesting if you know anything about computer architecture or what teaching Computer Engineering/Science is like in University. A great quote:

Information hiding is all very good, but students need to have some information before they can start hiding it.

Dr. C. Ravishankar

In conclusion, I’m very happy with my membership in the IEEE Computer Society. Computer geeks of the world, go sign up!

I’m quite surprised by the level of security needed to get into just about any building (condo and office): multiple doors requiring an access card (or equivalent) just to get in; elevators that only work with access cards; and big huge cage doors that say to me “f**k off!”

It’s also a little surprising to see signs on a few parks (e.g. small field with a baseball diamond and a few trees) saying that no one is allowed in the park between 10pm and 6 am.

Yesterday I went to “Telus Science World” and saw the lego exhibit. Very cool. I then had a 2.5 hour lunch by the water:

If you weren’t aware, I’m in vancouver right now. I’ve been pestered by a certain someone to blog about the city. Here is my oh-so-uninformed-opinion-after-being-here-a-few-short-days:

1. It is really pretty here. Proof:
   
2. People seem to focus a lot more on quality of life here. I’m told that just about everyone skips out of work on Fridays in the Summer.
3. There’s got to be a big labour shortage here. I’ve seen lots and lots of ads looking for people–skilled and unskilled.
4. Related to number 3, Poverty/homelessness seems to be a huge issue here. For a city its size there are a huge number of homeless people. Here’s a picture in what would be considered the ghetto:
   I heard that the city is planning on shipping the “undesirables” out of town for the Olympics–go Vancouver, way to solve that problem. Ugh.

So I’m enjoying myself here. Off to Calgary on Friday. TTFN.

Today we got a big huge Enron sized shredder at work. I just found it funny that investor swindling is the first thing that came to mind when I saw it.

In other news, my widget is up to #4. I just found a small bug though, should probably fix it soon.

Note: I have no actual knowledge that my company is swindling investors. I’m just stating that big shredders cause me to think of Enron.

If I can read it, I can record it. From slashdot.

What a piece of work is a man!
How noble in reason!
How infinite in faculty!
in form, in moving, how express and admirable!
in action how like an angel!
in apprehension how like a god!

The author just lost a little credibility. If he wanted to say this with conviction he should have quoted Picard.

Hopefully the author redeem himself in the rest of the book.

Update, 20 min later: Nope, the book fell flat on its face. I can’t even read it anymore. The author brings up the stat that U.S. students aren’t fairing well in standardized tests vs. students in other nations and uses this fact to support his thesis. About 20 pages later—apparently relying on the reader forgetting the eariler statements—he attemps to show that the standardized test scores he refered to eariler are not a useful mesaurement.

I love Ottawa on Canada Day. Great party.

I also love Zaphod’s. Great bar. I have to find an equivilant in Toronto at some point (anyone know of an equivilant?).

It was good to see a few old friends. Although I missed a lot of people this weekend (Erin, Sabrina, and Richard are the first few that come to mind). I might be going back to Ottawa next weekend though.

Special thanks to Ryan/Andrea for helping make this a rocking weekend.

On a side note, the widget is now #10.