Stephen Pate

Ebony Bones - South by Southwest 2009

2009-03-24T17:02:00.001-03:00

Ebony Bones - South by Southwest 2009, originally uploaded by kk+.

We moved.

2009-02-15T09:12:00.003-04:00

Our new site is

NJN Network

Better than ever before.

Please change your links. It's better - you'll like it.

Thanks, Stephen Pate

Seagate fesses up, offers fix

2009-01-19T07:44:00.004-04:00

Seagate has admitted the unusually high number of problems with its Barracuda 1 TB drives, Barracuda 1 TB 72000.11 drive failures on Jaunuary 16th, 2009. The word got out and back to Seagate at warp speed. After initially ignoring the problem, they promised a firmware fix and data recovery services according The Register, who first reported the story. "The company will provide a free firmware upgrade for those affected by the problem, and if you've lost data thanks to this firmware issue, it will provide free data recover services as well." Link to Seagate to see if your hard drive is affected or read the Register story here. All's well that ends well.

When is Windows 7 coming?

2009-01-18T11:41:00.008-04:00

And should you care?

By Stephen Pate
January 18, 2009
with reports from ZDNet and PC World

Of course you should care. We all like something new and Windows 7 promises to be new. The release date is rumoured to be late 2009 according to PC World but Microsoft is officially saying 2010.

There are Windows 7 Beta's flying around and some people say it's faster than XP and Vista according to tests on ZDNet. How much faster? Twice as fast but then speed isn't everything.

Other people at ZDNet hate the changes since they like the old interface, even before Windows XP.

Love it or hate it, faster or slower - Windows 7 will dominate operating systems and our computing lives from 2010 onward. That is until Windows 8.

Windows 7 or Vista, should you wait?

2009-01-17T06:26:00.013-04:00

By Stephen Pate
January 17, 2009

We hate change and resist it with a passion. Now that the word is out about Windows 7, the articles are everywhere: should you wait for Windows 7, get Vista or try to keep Windows XP? CNET has a user story which is interesting if not instructive.

Of course you should upgrade to Vista. Why not? You heard it had bugs? For a generation raised on technology it's hard to believe we are so stuck in the past.

Here's a stunning revelation: every operating system since the beginning, since Noah pre-released Ark 1.0, had bugs and incompatible drivers, devices and programs. That's the nature of technology. New things are better, hopefully, but always different and usually a bit of trouble. There is one law I've learned: you can't go backwards in technology or life. Try driving your car backwards to the store, work or Toronto.

Everyone online and friends told me to avoid Vista and for the first time in my life I listened. When I bought two computers with Vista, I wasted time trying to revert to XP which is a great operating system but out of date. I got my copy of XP on 9/11 which is sort of weird but it ran out of steam eventually, like George Bush always talking about terrorists as if life didn't move on. Wi-fi connections with Vista are much simpler for example.

HP ought to be shot for not updating their drivers to Vista sooner. They did this once or twice before and it reflects their muddle, lack of profit or stubbornness. It also gives their competitors a window of opportunity to take market share. Try a new printer manufacturer like Lexmark, Canon or Dell. HP aren't the only or best printers on the market.

I use Sonar for audio recording and the bulletin boards tell you to stick with XP which is a crock. So we ran around trying to prop up Sonar on old XP boxes. Then Cakewalk upgraded Sonar, not Vista, to use Microsoft's new and better audio drivers. Wow, Sonar works much faster with less latency. The lesson is Microsoft and the other manufacturers are in a competitive race to improve technology to meet our demands for faster, cheaper and more. When they make a leap forward, run with them. Should Microsoft have kept patching XP forever? Why?

Up until a few years ago, I liked to work at the beta stage for Windows, each and every version. It was exciting. We learned a lot and felt cool to keep ahead of the pack. I installed lots of trouble but none of that killed me and since people were paying me to be in the know that paid off.

And the silly talk didn't start with Vista: it's been the same right back to Windows 3.0. Oh, don't install that or you'll go blind. Windows NT? No stay with Novell. Windows for Workgroups? No that doesn't work which was a lie because we had a WFWG system at work and one at home.

Naysayers are everywhere in life, even in technology. A lot of them write for magazines and feed on fear. Here's my decision grid on when to upgrade:

- Like to try new things and learn from experience - beta stage
- Need some new feature or productivity - when released, you need and can afford it
- Somewhat nervous - wait one year or Service Pack 1
- Run a major IT network - at least SP 1 or 2
- Own a typewriter - stick with DOS

Stephen Pate was introduced to an IBM 360 in 1970 and it was love at first sight. In 1980 He founded Island Computer Ltd, a systems integrator, and Aquilium Software, an international water and electrical software developer, which he took public. He has been writing about technology since 1981. He has had a long term working relationship with Great Plains Software and Microsoft including participating in the world wide launch of Windows NT. When he has the time, he loves listening to complete Italian operas. He is a musician, songwriter, journalist, social advocate, business person and collector of life's experiences who spends too much time on the computer.

Don't put down your credit card for plasma yet

2009-01-16T16:48:00.004-04:00

The word is Plasma is going almost gone with LCD's getting better each month. The real reason is manufacturers can't make money on plasma at the lower price points.
Plasma is still better at sports and deep black but c'est la vie.

LCD vs Plasma in 2009

Stephen Pate

Barracuda 1TB 7200.11 drive failures

2009-01-16T16:40:00.005-04:00

The Register reports 1 TB Seagate Barracuda drives are failing at abnormally high rate. Back up back up back. There is no posted fix.

Stephen Pate

Bluetooth bye-bye and none too soon

2009-01-15T06:26:00.004-04:00

By Stephen Pate

A new tech standard endorsed at CES (PC World) promises to replace Bluetooth which has been too long promising and too little doing it. Yahoo Tech reports

"TransferJet wireless capability is getting closer to reality. The technology, which is being developed by major camera makers Sony, Olympus, Canon, Kodak, Nikon, is intended to make it easier for to transfer your images between devices wirelessly. Now Toshiba is getting behind the wireless standard showing off a laptop here at CES that uses the technology."

"Toshiba's demonstration included a laptop with the technology embedded in its palm rest, and embedded into a mobile internet device from Toshiba Japan. Take the camera, rest it on the palm rest, and it will automatically sync your files over to your laptop's hard disk drive. The device needs to be within 2mm of the transfer area."

Sounds cool to me. I've supported Bluetooth for years and find it totally useless except for drivers who want to pretend they are Men in Black.With the major camera makers onside, we should see it available by next Christmas.

Motorola cell biz going almost gone

2009-01-15T05:54:00.006-04:00

By Stephen Pate
with stories from Phone Scoop and Bloomberg

Motorola, the original handset manufacturer, is getting read to exit the biz. Phone Scoop reports they may be laying off half their workforce.

"Phone Scoop has learned that Motorola's handset division is expecting a large round of layoffs as soon as this week, according to someone familiar with Motorola's plans. The layoffs are confirmed to be significant and may amount to 50% of the entire handset operation."

That would be no surprise to me: my last Motorola RAZR is a case of unfinished engineering. The software to sync with Outlook never worked no matter how hard I pushed support. If you pick it up on your hand, as opposed to your mouth, the ringer can be inadvertently turned off.

Bloomberg reports 4,000 layoffs for the struggling cell mfg.an. 15 "(Bloomberg) -- Motorola Inc., the second-biggest U.S. seller of mobile phones, cut an additional 4,000 jobs as consumer demand languishes under the strain of the recession."

The recession is a precipitating event. The reality is Motorola lost their way when competitors had more than human engineering behind their phones. They were easier to use in today's connected world.

I've been using Motorola phones since those bricks back in the 1980's. I had a cool voice activated car phone in 1988 that would respond to "Call Home" with a robot voice. The StarTAC was a revolutionary small phone that re-defined how small a cell phone could be. My brother who worked for Siemens was responsible for product development of the StarTac screens and early development of the color plasma for cell phones.

Motorola knows technology but what they don't understand is how to write software that is easy to use. Samsung, Nokia and other phone manufacturers have less arrogant development teams that are not living in the past like Motorola. Their reaction to the bad software problem on the RAZR told me three years ago they were history. Snooze you lose in this market.

iTunes Songs Don't Have DRM, But They Contain Your Email Address

2009-01-15T05:49:00.002-04:00

from the two-steps-forward-one-step-back dept

From TechDirt

Apple got a lot of press last week when it announced that it was going to remove the DRM from songs it sold through the iTunes Music Store. That's a great thing in itself, since it removes the barriers legitimate customers faced in playing back music they purchased on the device of their choice. But details are coming out, and it's not all good news: the songs are watermarked (via Slashdot) with the email address of the iTunes account used to purchase them.

This is certainly better than DRM, but it's still not great. The biggest issue is that it links files to a particular consumer -- which will likely lead to the RIAA using the watermarks to attempt to "prove" that people actively shared songs and sue them. It seems inevitable that the label cartel will attempt to use the marks to inflict liability on users if music bearing their email address appears online. Which is great, until a person's iPod gets stolen and the music ripped from it, or a friend grabs music off of somebody's hard drive without their knowledge. The RIAA's legal strategy has been based on flimsy evidence; removing the DRM but adding watermarks simply gives them another way to "prove" people shared music they purchased online, even though the marks won't actually prove anything.

Funniest post of the week

2009-01-14T19:21:00.003-04:00

Cabinet

Once again I have been passed over for a Cabinet post. Just what is it that I’m doing wrong?

Peter Rukavina

Web 2.0 is a sucker deal

2009-01-14T19:19:00.002-04:00

When I was 13, someone paid me $10 to write 350 words per week for the Halifax Mail Star. It was a record review column where I gave my teenage opinion on 4 new albums a month: rock, country, jazz and pop.

Most of my life, someone paid me to write or promised to pay me. I've written on theatre, arts policy, technology, business consulting, poetry, short stories and journalism. I've written for newspapers, magazine, journals, for hire, and for the web.

Somehow with Web 2.0 and social media, creative people have gotten suckered into providing content for social media sites for nothing.

MySpace, Facebook, YouTube - the whole bunch of them are making money off creative people who post their work for free. Those companies are making money.

What changed the rules, as in you work you get paid?

This won't last long or the creative quality of the content is going south.

DRM is alive and well at Apple

2009-01-12T20:20:00.003-04:00

By Stephen Pate
January 11, 2009
with story suggestion by Tech Dirt

While DRM is moving off iTunes music, Apple is still protecting video and proprietary systems like iPod with DRM. DRM or digital rights management makes it harder to download music and ruins CD's even if you've paid full price.

You hate it. I hate it. Everyone hates it except the big labels, content providers and Apple.

Deeplinks reports the whole story Apple Shows us DRM's True Colors

In fact, an inventory of Apple's remaining DRM armory makes it vividly clear that DRM (backed by the DMCA) is almost always about eliminating legitimate competition, hobbling interoperability, and creating de facto technology monopolies:

* Apple uses DRM to lock iPhones to AT&T and Apple's iTunes App Store;
* Apple uses DRM to prevent recent iPods from syncing with software other than iTunes (Apple claims it violates the DMCA to reverse engineer the hashing mechanism);
* Apple claims that it uses DRM to prevent OS X from loading on generic Intel machines;
* Apple's new Macbooks feature DRM-laden video ports that only output certain content to "approved" displays;.
* Apple requires iPod accessory vendors to use a licensed "authentication chip" in order to make accessories to access certain features on newer iPods and iPhones;
* The iTunes Store will still lock down movies and TV programs with FairPlay DRM;
* Audiobook files purchased through the iTunes Store will still be crippled by Audible's DRM restrictions.

DRM only slows down sales of products and frustrates novice users. Hacks are easily available online.

Facebook hacked, private info compromised

2009-01-12T18:39:00.005-04:00

By Stephen Pate
NJN Network
January 11, 2009

Over the past week it became clear that Facebook has suffered a major security breach.

Several people are reporting getting wall post messages but nothing is posted to the wall, such as

From: Facebook (wallmaster+etywsqae@facebookmail.com)
Sent: January 12, 2009 5:15:15 PM
To: subneb@ (hotmail.com subneb@hotmail.com)

Sarah commented on your status: "Always wanted to try viagra or cialis? Now is your chance..Free"http://www.fortmurk.com

It appears email addresses have been stolen from Facebook and setup on another server to execute the spam sales pitch.

SC Magazine for Security Professionals says the wall hack spams the user email accounts from Facebook and recommends users not click through the link.

We tried the link and it appears to be a pill pushing site which could be a prelude to a trojan attack. The spam artists have foiled Facebook's security so far and are said to be sophisticated.

The rogue Facebook application is suspected to be Secret Crush according to Facebookadvice.com

A new and more virulant wall post has been sending pictures of child torture to Walls, More Facebook Spam … Don’t Click This!.

Be careful. Re-set your password and push Facebook email to your junk folder. Do not use the same password for Facebook and other sites since the hackers can see what they want on Facebook apparently.

Facebook faces new challenges everyday besides running out of cash. Will they survive?

Where is the best hamburger?

2009-01-08T10:43:00.004-04:00

MacDonald's, whoa did the price go up!

By Stephen Pate

The humble hamburger just got the heist when MacDonald's upped the price recently to over $8 with taxes for the Angus burger meal.

Wendy's is only slightly behind them with new higher pricing.

The poor girl at MacDonalds tried to tell me the price was the same. I've had a MacDonald's hamburger too many times not to be a connoisseur on quality and price.

I wouldn't mind paying more if the staff were getting something close to a living wage, north of $10 per hour. That is not the case for PEI's wage slaves working in fast food joints.

So cheap and quick is only quick now. Just quick and greasy.

None of the fast food hamburgers is a great meal.

My favourite hamburger in town is at Baba's on University Avenue where it's something less than $10 and more than I can eat. Real meat, great fries (or rice if you are sensible), some veggies and they serve beer. Cedar's serves the same thing but the atmosphere is wrong for me.

Tell me what's your best hamburger and why? Anywhere in the world will do.

No snow job

2009-01-04T15:45:00.004-04:00

Another day in June, CBC Photo

By Stephen Pate

We are not writing stories about the weather. Too many writers without a thought in their heads are writing stories about weather all the time. You can search Google for weather stories until your brain is numb and then watch "Survivors".

We think weather only clutters up a story. Does it really matter to music if the night was dark and cloudy?

The chances are 100% that the night will be dark and cloudy isn't that far behind.

My characters are angry because an elephant is standing on their foot. Or their lover just slept in a threesome with the librarian and their best friend. Or the guitar string broke while impressing the salesman at a music store with "Stairway to Heaven".

Sunny, windy, rainy and snowy - of course it's snowy for the love of Peter Paul and Mary. It's winter time and we live in Canada.

How can snow be news except for some person who just moved here from China or Dubai? For them, snow might be news since Richard Brown told them about the Garden of Eden on PEI.

So here's our weather for the next three months: cold days and nights, with wind sometimes heavy and snow sometimes white.

The sun will shine from 7 AM to about 5 PM. If you can't see it, take an airplane ride: the sun is always shining above the clouds.

Paste this on your morning coffee cup, bathroom mirror, computer screen and front door.

When in doubt, stick your head out the window. You may be pleasantly surprised by warm, calm and sunny weather. Or not.

We'll report the weather again in April. You will have saved days of your life and hours of insipid conversation by not worrying about the weather until then.

Later on this spring, when the weather improves, look for our new book: Weather and whether or not you can change it.

We are printing only 1,877 copies for the immigrants who made Robert Ghiz and his friends rich with their PNP money.

Don't mange merde even from the Fascists at Facebook

2009-01-02T14:40:00.010-04:00

Web 2.0 Fascism

By Stephen Pate

My dad taught me never to take shit from anyone. Talk about an independent streak.

That was a pretty brave thing for him to teach a little crippled boy since everyone has to mange merde most of your life.

That streak of independence, a poor man's Cool Hand Luke, has stuck with me. Cool Hand Luke combined inebriation with ne pas mange merde. He continued to act inappropriately and generally doomed himself.

Thus my variation on the theme is don't take shit but keep yourself out of trouble, sort of a high wire act.

I'm been reasonably successful at relationships, jobs, career etc. until the coup de gras at which point I walk away, fight or get even.

As you might gather, I'm not a joiner. I'd rather quit the JW's, Rotary or any other body into group-think. I'm into free think.

Friends have been importuning me to re-join Facebook. I do miss the fun but I don't hang around with Fascists. While we think of Mussolini and Hitler as Fascists, the term has become synonymous with "exercise of strong autocratic or dictatorial control" (Merriam Webster Online Dictionary)

Facebook is the Web 2.0 version of Fascism. Actually, there is a lot of Fascism on Web 2.0.

Have you read those agreements you sign to get free this or that on the web. They can take your personal information, sell it to anyone or use it anyway they like and you can't do diddly.

I knew this in the back of my mind and Peter Rukavina's article reminded me that Facebook was not a nice company.

Then they started hassling me. Wrong move. I don't menge merde from anyone. First sending messages to all my friends was bad. Then sending to 500 was bad. Like true Fascists, Facebook won't let you know the limits so you have to guess if you're driving too fast on the 401.

At the last 200 messages was too many. So one day I sent 1,200 and watched them panic. Disabled. Well I'm already disabled so that was no threat! I laugh at your stinkin' rules.

There is a real Fascist story below that event but I'll save that for another blog.

So all my 1,200 Facebook friends, RSS this blog or send me your email address.

Mine is stephen_pate@hotmail.com and has been since Hotmail opened. I've got tons of gmail accounts but I love Hotmail. So basic - if you're not in my email list, bingo you're spam. What could be easier?

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6BeawBIzhc]

Stay free and I will remember you.

You'll see me hanging around
Singing on a street or in a bar
Laughing with my friends
Keeping free but never far
Always there and always caring
I'll remember you oh yes I will.

@copyright 2009 Stephen Pate

The dime

2009-01-02T09:44:00.018-04:00

By Stephen Pate

Lessons in life can come from unexpected quarters and people you wouldn't suspect. I learned honesty not from the bible as my mother wished but from a humble woman named Rose Llewellyn.

Rose Llewellyn was from Antigonish, Nova Scotia. In 2002 after she died, I discovered that her sister was married to one of my cousins.

Rose was married to Dick Llewellyn, a radio engineer on the the Baffin, a research ship with the Bedford Institute of Oceanography.

They lived in Edmonds Grounds in Armdale, Nova Scotia. Edmonds Grounds was a family estate across from the Horseshoe Island beach, at the foot of Quinpool Road.

It's called Spinnaker's today and all the old houses are gone. The anchor from the Mont Blanc flew 3 miles in the air and landed there during the Halifax Explosion. We used the anchor as first base playing scrub baseball.

Mont Blanc anchor blown to Edmunds Grounds Armdale NS by the Halifax Explosion

I knew Dick first because he was teaching me radio electronics when he was ashore.

Joe Lewin, one of my best childhood friends, came from Antigonish to live with them when his mother got sick. We chummed around for many years until Joe moved back to Antigonish.

We didn't go the the same school because Joe, Rose, Dick, and all my cousins on my Dad's side were Roman Catholic. He went the the Catholic school.

My mom was a Jehovah's Witness so we went to public school. Despite my mother's warnings about Catholics, Joe and I hung out fishing, swimming, boating, playing cowboys and Indians and all those things boys do.

I spent a lot of time sitting at Rose Llewellyn's kitchen table, eating cookies and listening to Rose talk about life. Even when Joe was back with his mom, I would visit Rose. She was my second mum. When Dick came home from sea, he would be a second dad to me teaching me all about resistors, capacitors and DC electronics. He helped me build my first radio from a kit.

One day during school lunch Rose asked me to go to the IPC Store and pick up a few things for her. I liked the job because she would tip me 5 or 10 cents, even if the walk was hard for a kid wearing a leg brace.

So off I went through our secret path in the pine woods, across the school yard and to the IPC store where the Purcell's Cove Road meets the Herring Cove Road. When I got back, Rose counted my change as she always did.

"You have ten cents too much," she said.

We counted it again and sure enough the girl at the store had given me back too much money.

"We can keep it," I said.

"No, you better take it back," she insisted.

"They will never know," I protested.

And then the final word came "Do you want ten cents to stand between you and heaven."

Now JW's believe you didn't go to heaven. My mother had also taught me that Catholics and the Pope were the next thing to the devil as in liars, thieves, fornicators and drunks.

Here I was Mr. Goody-Two-Shoes, holier than thou, JW boy being taught a lesson in honesty from a Catholic. This was a moral and religious quandary that shook me to my boots.

Gulping down my pride, I turned on my heels and trudged back through the woods, across the school yard where the kids were lining up for class, past the principal who gave me a dirty look and into the IPC store.

The girl didn't thank me or reward me and the Heaven didn't open up to angels singing on high about my honesty. I went to class late and got a detention.

I just knew that Rose Llewellyn was the most religious and honest woman I'd ever met and she was a Roman Catholic.

Rose taught me two lessons I've never forgotten.

One - right wing Protestants or any religion for that matter don't have the franchise on morality and honesty.

Two - don't let a dime get between you and heaven.

Visions of sin, Bob Dylan

2009-01-02T07:54:00.005-04:00

"Dylan's Visions of Sin" by Christopher Ricks is a thick tome of 500 pages that is one of the better courses in songwriting you can read. Dylan is one of the most prolific and successful song writers of the last 50 years. He has influenced every corner of modern music. What influenced Dylan is a more inportant and useful question.

Ostensibly the book is a dissection of Bob Dylan's songs categorised under the seven deadly sins; however, the sins are metaphors for Ricks on the human condition. Dylan's songs reflect the good and bad of man's existence. Much like the Buddhist dharma's are the yin and yang of human emotion, seven deadly sins have seven heavenly virtues that Rick's applies in a scholarly approach to Dylan's songwriting.

"Sin" also a good title hook to entice the reader to purchase and read a longon the title page was attractive. So was the author's pedigree: Ricks is an the editor of the "Oxford Book of English Verse" (OBEV) and is a professor at Oxford University.

I have owned OBEV since university. People steal my OBEV and I buy another. He has also written on some of my favourite poets like T S Elliot, Keats, Tennyson, and A E Houseman. Why is he writing about Bob Dylan?

Let's get past cliche put-downs of Dylan like the canard he can't sing, you like his songs but he can't sing, you like his singing but his looks stink, or he isn't a poet, etc. ad nauseum.

Bob Dylan is the single most influential singer/songwriter to hit this planet ever. He copied everyone before him and added to it his own genius. What kind of a genius steals from the Bible, Shakespeare, Milton and TS Elliot with impunity?

Without Dylan there would be no Bruce Springsteen (a pale imitation), John Prine, Neil Young, no anybody who is doing what music is about today - relevant songs that the singer wrote himself.

When I listen to Dylan's progeny it's painfully clear they think Dylan authorized guitar accompanied introspection. Most of their lyrics are mundane, prosaic, and forgettable.

He has written 500 plus songs over 5 decades many of which define how we have felt along the way. If you want to see an artist in the middle of self-recreation, check out one of his concerts. It's like Picasso re-painting his paintings over and over.

Ricks is a proponent of the "close reading" of poetry. How close? Very close - you will go on wonderful trips where he compares "Not Dark Yet" from "Time Out of Mind" to Keats' "Ode to a Nightingale" line for line. After you digest that he points out how Keats was inspired by Shakespeare's "Sonnet 73."

I would love to have Rick's grasp of poetry and literature for he also brings in Becket and others. Word for word, line by line he draws out the beauty and significance of Dylan's work.

The popular press and pundits are constantly judging Dylan: such is the lot of an artist. It reminds me of the people who critiqued Van Gogh (too much yellow and blue) or Gauguin (who are those naked natives). You can tell Ricks is impressed by Dylan during every period of his artistic career.

Ricks makes you appreciate Dylan, even in his missteps, as the great artist he is.

This book is not an easy read. I guarantee if you like poetry, are a poet, or songwriter it will hold your interest you.

My songwriting has improved from a single read. I've got to read it again, I should say study "Visions of Sin" song by song, instead of trying read to get to the end.

There are other scholarly books on Bob Dylan: this one is my favourite for its emphasis of poetry and song structure independent of the music.

Staying upbeat despite all

2009-01-01T06:17:00.001-04:00

By Stephen Pate
PEI Disability Alert
January 1, 2009

Being a social advocate is not the easiest job. You are constantly prodding a reluctant government and society to change.

What keeps me going is the progress we have made in just a few years. Certainly the recent passing of Kay Reynolds and thinking about her life's work spurs me onward. She and others who worked tirelessly for the benefit of others are examples to us even after they pass on.

We have made great progress even in the past two years. When I tried to get anyone interested in the $1 million cutback in disability support spending in 2006, there was nothing but a wall of indifference. Today people are discussing disabilities and other social issues regularly in the paper and in public. Yes the Liberal government has tried to deep-six disability reform but they will not succeed. Ghiz will be gone and we will have significant reform.

Two years ago, people tried to belittle my letters to the Guardian an Graphic about disabilities and seniors without wheelchairs. Today, those are recognized social problems. Poverty is moving from a charity case to a problem we can solve.

Government corruption is no longer a backroom story: it's headlines and even story of the year with the PNP Immigrant Scam. The December 27, 2008 story in the Guardian Deal over Internet angers Liberal got the public talking with 57 comments that discussed underlying issues such as 1) the need for more open tenders, 2) political patronage and 3)corruption and deceit in the Ghiz government. It was a decent discussion of the social and governmental ills I have been writing about for two years.

I was encouraged by the level of discussion and the number of people who used their real names which rarely happened in the past. Islanders are getting fed up with the corruption of the Ghiz government and taking the leap to open and fearless criticism. Especially encouraging was I didn't have to make a single comment to keep it moving along.

So despite the fact we don't have seniors in the Disability Support Program, nor has the cutback been returned, nor has UPEI put accessible parking back on campus, we are making progress. We will solve these and other problems.

I take little credit for what is happening. Consider the 22,000 people on PEI with disabilities who live through their pain and challenges. Consider too the tireless caregivers, parents, spouses, friends and helpers who make their lives bearable. These people are saints.

Some people thank me for being an advocate with emails and one-on-one comments. Other people take it on themselves to tell me to bugger off.

On New Year's Eve an old friend decided that Old Ang Syne need to come at 5 PM. According to him, he was already over the 0.8 reading.

First he showered me with faint praise for the good work I do then gave the example of the person I should be. Apparently someone had accomplished more in 10 short years than all the other social advocates on PEI and they had a NICE personality.

After supper he called back to continue the thread until my migraine was out of control. Such is life.

This I take with a grain of salt since I am a nice person and get along with more people than I can even remember. If I wasn't social, my work would be impossible.

However, after someone who is abusing the poor, the disabled or the otherwise disenfranchised refuses to help, change or even acknowledge the problems at hand, well I do put them on my public exposure list. And that's the way it works.

You know I have a disability which is characterized by fatigue so you might wonder how I get all the writing, research, videos and everything else done. Sharon Cameron, deputy minister of Social Services and Seniors asked me that question, perhaps hoping to discover my Achilles Heel.

Well, I'm not telling you will tell you a story!

At about the worst time in my life, in the middle of a family crisis and when walking had become next to impossible I said to my lawyer "I apologize for being so slow."

He replied "You get more work done in a few hours a day than ten new associates all week. I could use you."

That's not a boast, just a promise to not quit until the work is done. If you would like to help, don't hesitate. Volunteer to help someone today and any day.

Jesus said "The harvest truly is great, but the laborers are few: pray you therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he would send forth laborers into his harvest." Luke 10:2

Everyone can be a worker for social justice and make PEI a truly beautiful home for all. This is not Stephen Pate's cause: it's belongs with all of us.

As we begin 2009, we will renew ourselves and work to accomplish good work.

Happy New Year.

The early influence of Harold Pinter

2008-12-26T12:20:00.013-04:00

The world notes with sadness the passing of the great British playwright Harold Pinter. Personally, Pinter was an early influence that I intend to renew.

My exposure to him was only through movies. Fortunately Halifax has a strong British culture. One could see almost all of the great British and foreign films with only some diligence to the Sunday art cinema at the Hyland Theatre.

The Servant, Joseph Losey (director), Harold Pinter (writer), Dirk Bogarde and James Fox

My first Pinter film was "The Servant" with Dirk Bogarde, Sarah Miles and James Fox, a darkly immoral film to my mind at the time. Pinter was the writer from a book by Robin Maugham. I was so intrigued by the plot, character development and cinematographer I saw it numerous times. Losey framed emotionally charged scenes, like the one above, as reflections which was visually arresting.

My second Pinter film, which he wrote, was a noir tale "The Caretaker" which epitomized Pinter for me. Starring Donald Pleasance, Alan Bates and Robert Shaw. The movie felt like an play with an interior view bounded by walls. The outside shots were out of place and seemed another world. The characters were dense, evolving and often outside the morals of a young boy. The movie was intriguing and expressed the existential and socialist philosophy of post-war England.

The Accident, Joseph Losey(director), Harold Pinter (writer), Dirk Bogarde and Michael York

My next Pinter film, his second with Joseph Losey, was "The Accident" with Michael York and Dirk Bogarde. Again Pinter excelled at subtle character development with understated British dialogue. The vacuous lives of the protagonists gave the movie an empty feeling contrasted with the sumptuous color of the British countryside. Even on second viewing, the tension and characters held me yet I wanted to leave the film to avoid the impending tragedy.

My last Pinter film was "The French Lieutenant's Woman" which I could have skipped. It felt like an update of A Man And A Woman without the music. It never engaged me in the plot or the characters.

I'd like to see the Servant again.

Nobel-winning playwright Harold Pinter dies at 78

2008-12-26T11:57:00.007-04:00

Harold Pinter, the young playwright

By PAISLEY DODDS, Associated Press
Thu Dec 25, 9:44 am

LONDON – Harold Pinter, praised as the most influential British playwright of his generation and a longtime voice of political protest, has died after a long battle with cancer. He was 78.

Pinter, whose distinctive contribution to the stage was recognized with the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2005, died on Wednesday, according to his second wife, Lady Antonia Fraser.

"Pinter restored theater to its basic elements: an enclosed space and unpredictable dialogue, where people are at the mercy of each other and pretense crumbles," the Nobel Academy said when it announced Pinter's award. "With a minimum of plot, drama emerges from the power struggle and hide-and-seek of interlocution."

The Nobel Prize gave Pinter a global platform which he seized enthusiastically to denounce U.S. President George W. Bush and then-British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

"The invasion of Iraq was a bandit act, an act of blatant state terrorism, demonstrating absolute contempt for the concept of international law," Pinter said in his Nobel lecture, which he recorded rather than traveling to Stockholm.

"How many people do you have to kill before you qualify to be described as a mass murderer and a war criminal? One hundred thousand?" he asked, in a hoarse voice.

Weakened by cancer and bandaged from a fall on a slippery pavement, Pinter seemed a vulnerable old man when he emerged from his London home to speak about the Nobel Award.

Though he had been looking forward to giving a Nobel lecture — "the longest speech I will ever have made" — he first canceled plans to attend the awards, then announced he would skip the lecture as well on his doctor's advice.

Pinter wrote 32 plays; one novel, "The Dwarfs," in 1990; and put his hand to 22 screenplays including "The Quiller Memorandum" (1965) and "The French Lieutenant's Woman" (1980). He admitted, and said he deeply regretted, voting for Margaret Thatcher in 1979 and Tony Blair in 1997.

Pinter fulminated against what he saw as the overweening arrogance of American power, and belittled Blair as seeming like a "deluded idiot" in support of Bush's war in Iraq.

In his Nobel lecture, Pinter accused the United States of supporting "every right-wing military dictatorship in the world" after World War II.

"The crimes of the United States have been systematic, constant, vicious, remorseless, but very few people have actually talked about them," he said.

The United States, he added, "also has its own bleating little lamb tagging behind it on a lead, the pathetic and supine Great Britain."

Most prolific between 1957 and 1965, Pinter relished the juxtaposition of brutality and the banal and turned the conversational pause into an emotional minefield.

His characters' internal fears and longings, their guilt and difficult sexual drives are set against the neat lives they have constructed in order to try to survive.

Usually enclosed in one room, they organize their lives as a sort of grim game and their actions often contradict their words. Gradually, the layers are peeled back to reveal the characters' nakedness.

The protection promised by the room usually disappears and the language begins to disintegrate.

Pinter once said of language, "The speech we hear is an indication of that which we don't hear. It is a necessary avoidance, a violent, sly, and anguished or mocking smoke screen which keeps the other in its true place. When true silence falls we are left with echo but are nearer nakedness. One way of looking at speech is to say that it is a constant stratagem to cover nakedness."

Pinter's influence was felt in the United States in the plays of Sam Shepard and David Mamet and throughout British literature.

"With his earliest work, he stood alone in British theater up against the bewilderment and incomprehension of critics, the audience and writers too," British playwright Tom Stoppard said when the Nobel Prize was announced.

"Not only has Harold Pinter written some of the outstanding plays of his time, he has also blown fresh air into the musty attic of conventional English literature, by insisting that everything he does has a public and political dimension," added British playwright David Hare, who also writes politically charged dramas.

The working-class milieu of plays like "The Birthday Party" and "The Homecoming" reflected Pinter's early life as the son of a Jewish tailor from London's East End. He began his career in the provinces as an actor.

In his first major play, "The Birthday Party" (1958), intruders enter the retreat of Stanley, a young man who is hiding from childhood guilt. He becomes violent, telling them, "You stink of sin, you contaminate womankind."

And in "The Caretaker," a manipulative old man threatens the fragile relationship of two brothers while "The Homecoming" explores the hidden rage and confused sexuality of an all-male household by inserting a woman.

In "Silence and Landscape," Pinter moved from exploring the dark underbelly of human life to showing the simultaneous levels of fantasy and reality that equally occupy the individual.

In the 1980s, Pinter's only stage plays were one-acts: "A Kind of Alaska" (1982), "One for the Road" (1984) and the 20-minute "Mountain Language" (1988).

During the late 1980s, his work became more overtly political; he said he had a responsibility to pursue his role as "a citizen of the world in which I live, (and) insist upon taking responsibility."

In March 2005 Pinter announced his retirement as a playwright to concentrate on politics. But he created a radio play, "Voices," that was broadcast on BBC radio to mark his 75th birthday.

"I have written 29 plays and I think that's really enough," Pinter said . "I think the world has had enough of my plays."

Pinter had a son, Daniel, from his marriage to actress Vivien Merchant, which ended in divorce in 1980. That year he married the writer Fraser.

"It was a privilege to live with him for over 33 years. He will never be forgotten," Fraser said.

Best and worst Boxing Day Sales

2008-12-24T10:00:00.004-04:00

When I was younger a Sale seemed like a spontaneous event. Then my ex-wife worked for Sears in the purchasing department. Tbey were planning sales for a year in advance, including picking the items to "put on sale".

Boxing Day Sales have become a big part of the Christmas selling season. Stores like Sam the Record Man in Toronto made them a must go event. Door crasher specials are still fun for the young and vigorous. I like mine on the web.

One of the worst Boxing Day sales is audimidi.com who are normally savvy web vendors.

Ten...Nine...Eight...aM's Countdown Sale Starts December 25!
We're kicking off the countdown....take 10% off your order on December 25, 9% off on December 26, 8% off on December 27, and so on. Act fast- the sooner you use the coupon the more you save! Offer expires December 31, 2008. Use coupon code COUNTDOWN08. Exact discount dependent on time and date of order placed.

A whopping 10% discount and it gets worse every day. Pass.

The best site is Future Shop.

They have been mailing me flyer announcements for days, telling me to get in the queue. You get your choice from 6 different flyers: web only or in store, Boxing Day only, all week, etc. Future Shop flyers are html or flash and each item has more info, buy or wish list choices. Everything is convenient and easy to find.

There are fantastic bargains in-store but the web ones are decent as well.

Future Shop will do tens of millions of dollars in business this week because they put the time and effort into making it easy for their customers to spend.

Gibson Dark Fire, if you need the ultimate guitar

2008-12-24T06:20:00.002-04:00

By Stephen Pate

Gibson's ultimate got-to-have for Christmas guitar has arrived, well sort of.

The new Gibson Dark Fire guitar started to trickle out from the factory mid-December.

Of course it's gorgeous. Rrrrrgh!

The Dark Fire one-two-and-three up's last years hot Robot Guitar with a new faster robot tuning system that tunes all 6 strings at once.

Tuning and tone is controlled by a user programmer MCK button with more custom tuning pre-sets and custom along with tone variations. The toggle switch dials in more or less of the tone presets.

There are 3 pickups: Burstbucker 3, bridge piezo, and a new P90H.

The body has been re-chambered to increase sustain. Forever? apparently almost with the guitar-to-computer hook-up.

The Dark Fire comes with a computer hookup, Ableton Live 7 and Guitar Rig 3. If you like Ableton, it's easy. Guitar Rig allows you to create a virtual rack with emulation for many famous guitarists. Extra cool. There is also a midi hookup which isn't quite clear - the guitar is not midi pickup equipped.

They are in such limited supply, it's hard to say what the Dark Fire will cost - looks like $3,500. See eBay (watch out- Gibson only warrants original purchase from a dealer)

Robot Guitar owners like moi are being offered an upgrade which could be interesting. I do love my Robot.

Check out the user video

or Harmony Central - the official video

Harmony Central video

Whatever happened to the days when you dreamed of owning a Les Paul Custom Black Beauty?

Lennie Gallant in Rustico Dec 29

2008-12-22T09:29:00.008-04:00

Lennie Gallant will be appearing in Rustico on Monday December 29th, 2008 at St. Augustine's Church. Lennie will be accompanied by Sean Kemp, his longtime violin player.

I attended the Un Noel Acadien concert for the first time in 2003 and it's always been a very special part of the holiday season for me.

Lennie Gallant is one of the Island's favourite sons and a world touring singer songwriter.

With Gallant on the bill are Meaghan Blanchard, an up-and-coming singer songwriter and award winning pianist Jeremy Gallant. Other performers include Caroline and Jeannita Bernard, Angele and Christine Hashie Rix.

Tickets are still available at 963 3252 or at Gallant's Clover Farm 963 2000. The performance starts at 7 pm.