For those who don’t know, Vivian is playing with my replica sonic screwdriver (gift courtesy Marguerite) while wearing a version of Tom Baker’s scarf from Doctor Who.
More photos on Erin’s Flickrstream.
And a Geek Test
I’m rather disappointed that I didn’t get Discworld.
Your Score: Archform: Beauty
Your world is 53% Sophisticated, 11% Unconventional, and 27% Intense!
You’ve landed in the futuristic world of L.E. Modesitt Jr. (Think Archform: Beauty or The Octagonal Raven). Intelligent and plausable, yet typical and entirely low-key. You probably live on Earth several hundred years in the future. Your society is a whole lot like modern Earth’s, but with its share of differences. You can access the ‘net with a thought because of your nifty nanotech implants. You probably don’t visibly age until the last few years of your life, when organ failure kicks in. If by chance the fate of the world ends up resting in your hands, it will probably hinge more on corporate takeover and less on killing Mr. Bad.
Link: The Which Imaginary World Fits You Test written by Azurain on OkCupid Free Online Dating, home of the The Dating Persona Test
View My Profile(Azurain)
I’ve never actually heard of the works of L.E. Modesitt Jr. Is he any good?
Things That Make You Go ‘Hmm…’
Bell Canada and Rogers Cable are throttling certain types of Internet traffic, turning the distribution of perfectly legal videos and other large files by BitTorrent from quick grabs to long slogs. This prohibition on this sort of large traffic also applies to Bell Canada’s wholesale access to the Internet, severely impeding the ability of Internet broadband resellers to offer bandwidth to its customers.
Now, even as Bell Canada goes under the baleful glance of the CRTC, the company is offering a premium video download service, allowing customers to download specific videos at speeds currently denied to its customers and resellers.
Offering a premium service while at the same time blocking competitors from offering a competitive service strikes me as very much the behaviour of a monopoly. And I think that a functioning capitalist system demands that monopolies be broken up.
Therefore, I recommend that Bell Canada be forced to divest itself of its bandwidth capability, buying said bandwidth from a separate company just like all the other resellers. It’s the only decision that will allow real competition in the marketplace to flourish.
And, Finally…
Somebody needs to slap Sharon Stone upside the head.
“I’ve been concerned about how should we deal with the Olympics, because they are not being nice to the Dalai Lama, who is a good friend of mine. And then all this earthquake and all this stuff happened, and I thought, is that karma - when you’re not nice that the bad things happen to you?”
(Hat tip to Nunc Scio).
What’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. I’m sure Sharon Stone would be appalled that she has inadvertently aligned herself with people who believe that “Hurricane Katrina wiped out a sinful city”. If, that is, she had been paying attention. Which, clearly, she wasn’t.