Really? Seriously? I posted a chat transcript over on tumblr (just because it’s so much easier to post there than on wordpress). So I’m not a geek!  So I’m told. Too cool. Check it.

Part of the fun of getting presents is the surprise. Facebook, aparently, hates Christmas according to Vallywag. Their privacy invading beacon “service” is spilling the beans on everyone’s christmas present. I’m just waiting till someone buys an engagement ring online their partner finds out. Here are some stories from the article: 

• “Oh my gosh, my cousins entire christmas shopping list this week was displayed on the [Facebook news] feed. thats so messed up. This has gotta stop!” — Tasha Valdez from Michigan
• “I bought some shoes and a dress on Overstock.com and was shocked to see it on my news feed the next time I logged onto facebook. The next day I had several people come up to me and comment on the things I bought. It was really creepy. I wonder what would have happened if I had bought underwear?” — Rachel Hundley
• “i found out what i was getting for Christmas from my sister…sadness.” — Annie Kadala from north Carolina
• “I made a purchase yesterday for my wife for Christmas…When my wife logged onto Facebook, there was an entry in her news feed that I had bought a ring from Overstock. It had a link to the ring and everything. Christmas ruined.” — Sean Lane from Massachusetts
• “I saw my gf bought an item i had been saying i wanted … so now part of my christmas gift has been ruined. Facebook is ruining christmas!” — Matthew Helfgott

There’s also a great poll on the site, the results so far: 

Some great news was just announced on Michael Geist’s Blog:

Industry Minister Jim Prentice has just announced that the government will put in place measures as part of the forthcoming spectrum auction to encourage greater competition within the Canadian wireless market. Prentice acknowledged that Canadian wireless pricing is too high, particularly for data. Accordingly, they will set aside a significant chunk of spectrum - nearly 40 percent of the auction - solely for new entrants and mandate tower sharing.

Of course this is legislative but combined with the $15 post I made a few days ago we could really be seeing the start of a large change in the Canadian wireless industry, one with less gouging and more choice! I think I’m going to faint.

I’ve been up since 7am and was planning on doing work until I had to go to the gym/class. Class is at 2–it takes 10 min to walk to the gym, 1 hour to workout, 15 min to shower and change, and 30 min to get to school. I use this to calculate what time to leave home *everyday* and I’ve never miscalculated until now. For some reason, today I calculated I had to leave at 1:00. It didn’t dawn on me that this was a blatantly incorrect calculation until I was at the gym starting to change into my workout cloths. Arg!

At least I had enough time to catch the subway (where I am right now) to make it to school on time.

I feel like I’m in backwards land… Are the big carriers actually competing!? What? 

Sure, Rogers might be pulling out the $15/month plan, but apparently Telus is stepping up with nearly the same deal. Just like the new Rogers plan, you get unlimited BIS e-mail and BB Messenger usage on their Pearl for $15/month. Telus one-ups Big Red, however, with unlimited web browsing too, so not only does Telus have a better plan than Rogers, but they also have the shiny new BlackBerry 8130 to waggle in front of customers.

Of course this is only available on the Pearl so they can try and make sure that businesses continue to get the shaft and why not just say unlimited data in general? I mean e-mail+browser covers most of it… the only thing really missing are other messaging clients (e.g. google talk) and things like news readers (RSS). Hopefully these moves spark some more competition and get them to actually give us a catch all unlimited data plan/net neutrality on handhelds and bring Canada out of the wireless stone age.

I’ve been writing about DRM for quite a long time. It’s interesting to finally see some big signs of its use ending:

In response to declining music sales in the UK, the Entertainment Retailers Association (ERA) has called for the music industry to put an end to DRM. The organization—which represents retailers who sell music and DVDs—blames draconian digital copy protection technologies for the slow growth of the digital music market. 

Consumers are increasingly dissatisfied with copy protection systems that erode fair use rights and impose limitations on where and how content can be used. To make matters worse, market fragmentation has led to the emergence of incompatible DRM formats which often confuse consumers and leave them wondering whether or not the content they buy will work on all of their electronics devices. That makes file-sharing more attractive for some consumers.

 Now the real question is, how long before the industry finally caves?

So a buddy of mine lives in London and was chatting with me on his BlackBerry at noon (my time) on his tube ride home. His answers stopped for quite a long period but that’s not unusual given that he’s on the tube. Anyways, finally I get a message saying: I just got searched by the cops as a suspected terrorist.

Gah?

Let me see… that guy is  typing on his BlackBerry during rush hour and [insert blank] he’s gotta be a terrorist.

At first I thought they had to have probable cause type laws in the UK but apparently it’s more police stateish than I thought: 

Section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000 allows the police to stop and search anyone in a specific area.   

Before Section 44, the police could only stop and search individuals if they had ‘reasonable grounds’ and certain criteria were met. That is no longer necessary, and we have seen Section 44 powers used against anti-war, anti-weapons and anti-capitalist protestors.  

Now there don’t appear to be any stats on how effective this is in actually stopping terrorists vs stopping protestors vs stopping BlackBerry users. Lets just hope that this law is actually effective and not just a way to anger me. I’m guessing it’s the latter though.

Giving Tumblr a chance. Going to see how things go. Tumble blog. Tumble Feed. This blog will still be used for bigger posts or posts that you probably want to comment on but aggregated into the tumble blog.

I was just watching a bit of TV as a break and caught some of I Robot on Space. I just started giggling because it reminding me of an old Joke in GW: I did not Capsize him! HA! PURE GOLD!