Life and How to Live It

Curt Schilling = Superman?

2008-06-24T11:02:00.004-04:00

I caught this gem from ESPN this morning. Curt Schilling had shoulder surgery yesterday to repair his right biceps tendon and labrum. He hasn't thrown yet this year, and this surgery will insure that he doesn't pitch for the rest of the season. What astonishes me is that he wants to pitch again next season. In case you don't know, he will be 42 years old next year. I don't know about you, but if I had season-ending shoulder surgery at that age, I'd strongly consider hanging up my cleats. If he does pitch again next year, it just might be possible that Curt Schilling is Superman.

Mixed Feelings on Carbon Tax

2008-06-19T14:57:00.004-04:00

As expected, Stephane Dion today unveiled some of the details for the Liberal Party plan to implement a carbon tax, which they are referring to as a Green Shift. I'm a fan of the carbon tax idea, I just wish it was implemented by someone less pussy-footed than Mr. Dion. Predictably, the Conservative Party is launching an ad campaign against the idea, to the dismay of tree huggers everywhere.

So what is a carbon tax anyway? According to Wikipedia, "A carbon tax is a tax on emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. It is an example of a pollution tax, which some economists favor because they tax a 'bad' rather than a 'good' (such as income)." This sounds like a good idea if we want to clean up the environment, even if the Kyoto Protocol is dead in the water. The idea is to tax polluters based on the amount of carbon dioxide they are responsible for, starting at $10/t of CO2, rising to $40/t in the fourth year. This is a good thing: people will have to pay more for products that have higher pollution side effects, and they will choose to buy things which are less taxed, and thus cheaper.

The Conservatives are referring to the tax as a "Tax on Everything" and, truth be told, it pretty much is. I mean, our entire economy is based on burning coal, oil, gas, and burning those things puts carbon dioxide into the air. So this is basically a new tax on everything. Some things will be taxed more heavily than others, depending on the way they are produced and distributed. That's the whole idea of a carbon tax: encourage companies to pollute less by taxing them proportional to their pollution.

So Mr. Dion is proposing a new carbon tax, which will increase the cost of most of the things we buy. Stephen Harper is decrying it as just another tax grab, which is what it appears to be. The Liberal response is that the tax will be "revenue neutral", and they back that up with plans to reduce income taxes:

* Reduce the corporate tax rate by 1%
* Reduce the small business income tax by 1%
* Reduce the lowest personal income tax bracket rate by 1.5%
* Reduce the second- and third-lowest personal income tax bracket rates by 1%
* Introduce some other new tax credits and supplements

Fantastic. So we can shift taxes from income (a "good") to pollution (a "bad"). There's just one problem. Mr. Dion just can't sell it. The man lacks any sort of conviction, so all Mr. Harper has to do is sneer and say that the Liberals are just creating a new tax to fund their program spending promises and the people will believe it. Even I believe it, and I'm personally a fan of carbon taxes (see paragraph 1). I would be more apt to believe Jack Layton than Mr. Dion in this case, and that is frightening. In the end, this is a political issue, and Mr. Dion is a poor political leader.

Just one more thing. Mr. Dion doesn't seem to be completely forthcoming. In response to allegations that the carbon tax would increase the price at the gas pump, he was quoted as saying: "This price is a world price and these [oil] companies are making a lot of profit, so we don’t expect an increase at the pump." Sorry, Mr. Dion, but that's just not the way it works. Sure, the oil companies are making billions in profits, but in case you haven't noticed, the companies that distribute it at the pump are already being squeezed out of business. Increasing their costs is going to result in either (a) increased costs for consumers, or (b) more distributors going out of business, or (c) a combination of the two. My money is on (c). In my opinion this is the way it should be, but I wish that Mr. Dion would stop pretending that it will be otherwise.

Did I Miss Something?

2008-04-14T21:16:00.003-04:00

Did I miss something, or when did we, the television viewers of the world, decide that it was okay for the networks to cover a quarter of the screen with advertising during the programs that we are trying to watch. I mean, I understand that advertising is a big part of television. Some go as far to say that the the customers of television are the advertisers and the product is the viewer, and I can go along with that.

All that aside, enough is enough! I already pay way too much to get my sports, Simpsons, and Jeopardy! On top of that, over a quarter of the time that I spend watching programs is filled with commercial advertising. On top of that, we deal with product placements and the like, some subtle and some not so subtle. Now I find that more and more time is spent watching advertising over top of the programming. This is stuff that actually covers up the thing I am trying to watch. I don't get it. Even worse is the fact that these are almost always of the form "On Now ... " and "Later ..." things that aren't even paid for by advertisers. Now why would I want to stay around to see what's on later if it's going to be covered by more advertising? Isn't this defeating the purpose? Maybe no one really cares. We've become so trained to look around advertising that we are unfazed when it is there in our faces.

I want my TV back!

Crazy Spam

2008-04-10T17:28:00.004-04:00

Is it just me, or is spam going crazy these days? I am using Google to manage my mail, so I don't really have much concern about spam. Their filters are very good at catching most spams, without too many false positives; and they give me tons of storage space so I don't need to worry about deleting it.

My spam is automatically deleted after 30 days. When I first set up my mail account last year, I would get somewhere around 2000-2500 messages in that period of time before they started getting deleted. Recently, I have noticed that the numbers have been climbing higher and higher. I now have 8010 messages in my spam box, and I have no idea why.

Carbon footprints

2008-03-25T12:44:00.003-04:00

I was browsing the New York Times today, and I came across this interesting column: "Are We Ready to Track Carbon Footprints?". The idea is that people need an appropriate nudge in the right direction in order to reduce their carbon footprint. People are notoriously poor at planning for abstract events somewhere in the future, especially when we don't even understand the situation. Something like climate change is something that is difficult to see, understand, or deal with. I particularly liked this commentary in the middle:

A study in California showed that when the monthly electric bill listed the average consumption in the neighborhood, the people in above-average households significantly decreased their consumption.

Meanwhile, the people with the below-average bills reacted by significantly increasing their consumption — not exactly the goal of the project.

That reaction was avoided when the bill featured a little drawing along with the numbers: a smiling face on a below-average bill or a frowning face on an above-average bill. After that simple nudge, the heavy users made even bigger cuts in consumption, while the light users remained frugal.

What we need is a way to deliver the message to people when they are consuming more than their fair share, as well as a way to give people a pat on the back when they are doing something good for the Earth.

Take our house. Although I know how much electricity we use at our house, and I have a vague idea of what the average is for the entire city, I have no idea how that compares to other households in our demographic, and I also don't know whether we are doing a good or bad job with our energy usage. I feel that we've done a lot to reduce our energy consumption, but it has been mostly low-hanging fruit. I'm always looking for ways to do more, but there are limits to the level of inconvenience I am willing to live with. I might be more encouraged if the system had more feedback built in.

I'm ready for spring already

2008-03-22T10:00:00.002-04:00

Nathan and William shovelling snow together
Originally uploaded by Tim Coleman

William and Nathan were outside playing in the snow the other day, and I think that it's about time that we have some spring already. Except for the brief warm spell in January, it's been a pretty long winter here. The snow is slowly melting, but there are more cold temperatures in the forecast, and snow coming again this week.

Enough is enough! It's time for some nice weather. My bike should be tuned up this week, and I want to go for a ride.

Where has the time gone?

2008-03-17T10:41:00.001-04:00

Yay! Can I eat it now?
Originally uploaded by Tim Coleman

It's amazing to think that Nathan is already two years old. Two years! Where has the time gone? I miss the baby boy that we had, and now he's a full-fledged toddler (although he talks like a preschooler). I still can't get over the fact that William is three (almost four!), and now Nathan is on his way to that age as well.

Time marches on, and we just have to remember to enjoy all of these moments because we only get to go through them once.

To the Woman I Met at the Mall on Friday

2008-02-25T10:39:00.001-05:00

You don't know who I am, and we will probably never meet again, but I hope that you are able to get the help that you need. I met you on Friday afternoon at the entrance to Conestoga Mall near the bus terminal. I had just gotten off a bus to do some shopping. You were obviously in distress as you reached out to take my arm and asked me for help. You were staggering and stumbling and I tried to do the best I could to support you.

Outwardly, you seemed to be a kind, older woman, and at first I feared that you were having some sort of physical attack. As we walked down the main hallway, I realized that you had been drinking a lot. That is not the kind of thing I expected to find 5 o'clock on a Friday afternoon at a busy shopping centre. As we walked, your talking was mostly incoherent, but it seemed that you were going through some sort of crisis; I surmised that you had been drinking as a means of coping, but I can't really pass judgement. We arrived at Guest Services safely, and Security was able to help you to contact a family member.

Even though I'm sure you'll never read this, I hope that you were able to make it home alright on that day, and I hope that you are able to deal with whatever problems you are going through. I'm glad that I was able to help you in some way that day.

Regional Transportation Master Plan

2008-02-21T12:29:00.004-05:00

Last night I attended a workshop related to the Waterloo Regional Transportation Master Plan (RTMP). For those who don't know, the Region of Waterloo is trying to come up with a plan for what to do about transportation for the next couple of decades as part of something called Moving Forward 2031.

I must say that I am very impressed. We have come a long way since the last plan in 1999. Transportation is now seen in a very holistic way. It's more than just cars; transportation is about cars, bikes, pedestrians, transit, trucks, and so much more. Roads aren't just ways to get cars between home, work, and Wal-Mart. There are so many opportunities for roads to build communities, and they do a great deal to affect our outlook on life.

The main point of the workshop was to get input from residents on a number of questions related to transportation. There was a lot of interest in making it easier and nicer for people to walk, take the bus, ride their bikes, in addition to driving their cars. Of course, the topic of big-box stores came up, but I think that comes up in just about any public forum. I realized last night that what we really need is more integration of different types of development; it's very difficult to do anything here without a car, and I have limited shopping opportunities between my home pod and my work pod. The other thing I got out of the workshop was the understanding that there are a lot of other people out there that feel the way that I do.

Cars have come first for a long time in this area, and they will continue to do so for the foreseeable future, but pedestrians, bikes, and buses don't need to be second citizens. The transportation planning that is going on is really trying to address these concerns, and I am very excited about what we are doing here in Waterloo. And that's a very good feeling.

I encourage those who live in the region to attend one of the other two workshops taking place. Last night's was in Waterloo, but there are two more, one in Kitchener and the other in Cambridge (Events Schedule).

Thursday, February 21, 2008
Regional Administrative Headquarters
150 Frederick St., Kitchener

Thursday, February 28, 2008
United Kingdom Club
35 International Village Dr., Cambridge

Apparently I can blog via e-mail

2008-01-31T21:30:00.001-05:00

So, uh, as if I didn't have enough goofy things I could do with my BlackBerry, I can also blog on the go. If I had a cameraphone I would be set.

http://www.blackberrycool.com/2006/01/11/001265/

Sent from my BlackBerry.

One of these things is not like the others

2008-01-29T09:09:00.001-05:00

I checked my gmail this morning when I got into work. Lo and behold, I had a message from Amazon.ca telling me about the wonderful purchases that their computers had decided, in their wisdom, that I would be interested in. I usually delete these messages without really looking at them, but something about this morning's caught my eye.

What purchases have I made that would indicate that I would possibly be interested in buying Britney Spears' new album? Furthermore, how does that even fit into this list? Let's take a look at the others:

Meddle: I do actually own a couple of Pink Floyd albums, so I can see where they're going with this.

An album from The Killers. While I don't actually own anything from them, I believe I have an album or two on my wish list.

Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End. I actually own this one, so it's time to let Amazon know that.

Drastic Fantastic. I haven't decided, but I think I like KT Tunstall.

In Rainbows. I downloaded this one back in October, and I have been happy with it. Definitely worth the three or four pounds I paid for it.

Jane Eyre. I think I have this book as well, but it might be lost in the bookshelves (or boxes) at home.

Cexcells by Blaqk Audio. I haven't heard of this, but it sounds interesting. Maybe I'll go preview (pre-hear?) it on iTunes. Whoa! It sounds like Depeche Mode ... if they sucked. I think I'll pass.

The point is, with the exception of the last item, these are things that I either own or would be interested in owning. And the last one does make some sense; I think that recommendations are best if they broaden your horizons to something new and interesting, that you may not have heard before. Unless you've been under a rock for the last year, Blackout does not meet those criteria. In fact, I have absolutely no idea why Amazon would even think that I would be interested in purchasing this digitized piece of garbage. I'm even less interested in purchasing her latest album.

I guess that everyone makes mistakes sometimes. Even computers.

William has a real bed now

2008-01-24T15:16:00.001-05:00

Here is the final product
Originally uploaded by The Coleman Family

Yesterday was a big occasion for William. We finally got a "real" bed for him. Since he moved out of his crib, almost two years ago, he has been sleeping on a single mattress on the floor. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that, but it just seems better to have a real bed frame.

We ordered a bunk bed set for the boys last week, and it came in yesterday. William was very excited, and I must admit I was as well. I was a bit wary of a box that was Made in Vietnam, but the bed looks just fine, and it seems quite sturdy.

The thing that struck me the most was memories of my own childhood. I had a very similar bed when I was a boy, and in fact I had it until I finally got my own place. It was a bunk bed too, and me and my brother shared it for a while. It was the same colour, and was also made of wood, although it had metal slats where William's has wooden ones. I miss being a kid, but at least I can experience it vicariously through the boys.

Yes, I got a Mac. Deal with it.

2008-01-21T14:04:00.001-05:00

Those of you who are not in my immediate family may not be aware that, yes, I have gotten a Mac. I may now continue my quest into fanboyism.

It's been almost a month since I got the Mac and retired my Linux PC at home. Guess what? It's awesome. Admittedly, any 2007/2008 vintage PC would blow the doors off the eight year old wonder which was our home computer. But few of them would be as aesthetically pleasing. Also, few of them would come with the sort of software that Mac users take for granted.

I admit it, I love the Mac. For those who care, it's a 20" aluminum iMac with the 2.4 GHz Core 2 Duo. I upgraded it to 2 GB of RAM (it's tempting to get more with prices the way they are right now). It's fast, it's small, the display is beautiful, and it makes me more productive.

A lot of the stuff I use the home computer for is related to photos, a bit of document authoring/editing, and games now and then. iPhoto is an excellent way to manage my photo collection. I managed to import all of my photos from the old computer and burn them to DVD the first day I had the computer. I haven't managed to do that on the Linux machine in about six years. Previously, I had a website on the home computer with our photo galleries. I'm in the process of transferring photos to Flickr. I can't be bothered maintaining a web site, especially when Flickr is there 24/7. I purchased a pro account on Flickr for $25, and I'm going to purchase the FlickrExport tool from ConnectedFlow when I get the money together.

I'm playing around with iWork '08, and I think it's going to be great for documents. The templates that come with it are fantastic, and it's very quick and easy to work with. Again, I'll need to scrape together $79 to register it, but it's still far less expensive than Microsoft Office.

Did I mention the power consumption? I haven't hooked up my meter to it yet, but I know it's going to use a lot less power than the Linux PC that it replaces. That machine used about 150 W of power, 24 hours a day. Since I'm not going to be hosting the web site anymore, and since the iMac has a functional sleep mode, that will be a lot less. Sleep takes about 3 W, but even when the machine is running it takes less than 100 W. The old PC used about $10/month of electricity. I'm looking forward to seeing a nice reduction in my energy bills.

Finally, I'm not much of a gamer, but I have been enjoying Civilization 4. A lot.

Receiver has lost satellite signal

2007-11-18T15:26:00.000-05:00

My only reason for hating Star Choice has to do with this error message which appears on my satellite receiver: "Receiver has lost satellite signal. Signal re-acquisition is in progress. Please wait." The problem is that this error message appears randomly, a couple of times a week. It does not go away, no matter how long I wait. Also, tantalizingly, there is no actual problem with signal reception because I can still see action (in today's case, the basketball game) behind the error message, and I can still hear the audio.

What is most annoying is not this error message. It's obviously a hardware failure of some sort, and Star Choice doesn't build the hardware that they sell. What annoys me is that I have contacted Star Choice twice, and Denise has once. Their solution is to reset the receiver. Guess what? I already know that resetting the receiver will make the problem go away. Until two days later when the same failure happens again. And guess what else. I don't like sitting on hold for half an hour with Star Choice each time this happens while I wait for someone to tell me to reset the receiver. Today, I decided that it was the last chance and I was going to have to get a replacement before the warranty ran out. Now I have a 60 minute wait on the phone (I'm not actually going to stay on the phone that long). Come on, guys. Just replace the thing already and make me happy with Star Choice again. As it is, I'm only staying with you because the other guys are worse.

What a week!

2007-10-09T12:33:00.001-04:00

The last week in my life has been, frankly, insane. First of all, Denise was out Wednesday and Thursday nights. Secondly, Nathan was in the hospital on Friday. Thirdly, I went for a road trip with William for the weekend. These three things together make me hope for a return to normalcy soon.

Denise was out for a couple of nights last week, and it has been happening a lot in the last couple of weeks. For those who don't know, Denise is a Tupperware consultant, so she is out evenings selling Tupperware to people who want to buy it. She likes to go out and associate with humans that are over three years old, and I can't blame her for that. It adds a bit of stress to my evenings, which have been busy of late catching up with work that didn't get completed during the day.

Then, on Thursday, Nathan was sick. At bedtime, he started breathing very, well, strangely. It seemed like some sort of congestion, but he was working extra hard to breathe. I put him down to bed around 8 pm. He woke up at 10, and was with me until after midnight, when Denise came home. Between the two of us, we passed him back and forth until we were able to take him up to bed at about 4 am. When we got up at 7, he was still the same and we decided that enough was enough and we took him to the hospital. Michelle, a friend of Denise's, was very kind and took William for the day. They even went to Herrle's and he had a great time. It turns out Nathan had croup. We spent basically the whole day at the hospital, but the steroid that they gave him seemed to do the trick.

We had plans to go up north to Redbridge (near North Bay) for the weekend, both for Thanksgiving, as well as for my Grandma's 70th birthday. Since Nathan wasn't really going to be up for a six hour car drive, William and I decided to go together. And I couldn't believe how well-behaved he was. He sat through the car ride, had some snacks and a nap and he couldn't have been happier. He didn't even mind the two hour grind from Highway 169 to Barrie. I even discovered that he likes the Beatles, which came as quite a surprise to me. Unfortunately, I only had one Beatles disc with me, and even Abbey Road can become tiring after a while.

So, after all that, is it any surprise that I'm happy to be back at work today?

We are the Champions

2007-10-01T11:42:00.001-04:00

William is a very strong-willed little three year old, and I've had a lot of challenges with him lately. Now that Denise is out at least one evening a week, we're having more "guy nights" around the Coleman household. It's really great being with the two of them, but William's ears have a tendency to stop working properly once Denise is out the door. It doesn't help that it's usually getting close to bedtime when he becomes less responsive.

A couple of months ago, I came up with something that seems to help at least some of the time. William enjoys to watch a show called Wonder Pets. He especially likes that they work together as a team. So we came up with our own team. Whenever he isn't co-operating very well, I remind him that we need to work together as a team. It doesn't work all the time, but it does work some of the time, and that is certainly better than nothing. I can only assume that I had been listening to Queen that day, because the name of our team is "The Champions". He loves it!

This past weekend, when we were together in Wellesley (Denise was at the K-W Home Show for the day), I came up with a few "rules", or things that good teams (naturally, the Champions) do:

Champions listen to each other,

Champions share with each other, and

Champions help each other out.

I think these rules cover the majority of situations from which conflicts arise. Now if I can just convince William to follow them, we'll be set.

Why I'm down with MMP

2007-09-27T22:56:00.000-04:00

This fall (actually, less than two weeks from today), there is an important decision to be made at the polls. No, it's not the choice between the PC Party and the Liberals. That's a six-of-one-half-a-dozen-of-the-other kind of decision. No, I'm referring to the referendum on election reform in Ontario, specifically about implementing a mixed-member proportional (MMP) system. Regular readers (yes, both of you) will know that I already wrote about this last month, but I've had some more time and given it some more consideration.

I've decided that I'm in the "yes" camp on this one, and really it's in all of our best interests to vote that way.

When I wrote about this before, I was pretty wishy-washy. My chief complaint about it was that it would increase the number of members in the house, and that would cost more dollars for Ontario taxpayers. The main advantages are better representation and a fairer chance for smaller parties to take part in the Legislature.

I have come to the realization that there really aren't enough members in the Legislature any way you look at it. I shouldn't be complaining about MMP increasing the number of members in the Assembly. I should be complaining that we need more members in either system. Once I came to this realization, I didn't really have any reason left to support the first-past-the-post system.

Please vote "yes" on the referendum, and enact real change in government.

Being a responsible adult

2007-09-23T18:07:00.000-04:00

A few days back, I set my Facebook status to say that I was "a responsible adult". Yesterday, I got a message from my aunt asking:

Hey Tim what did you do wrtong that you feel you need to let us know you are a responsible adult??????

This post is a partial answer to that question. Of course, I haven't really become a responsible adult, but I feel closer to being one.

Last week, we had our third meeting with Dan, a very nice financial consultant who works for Investors Group. We have been in contact with Dan since late in June, but in the last six weeks we have actually been making plans. Our (okay, my) initial reason for contacting Dan was to set up an RESP. For those who don't know what that is, it's a "Registered Education Savings Plan". This is basically an investment for our children's education if they decide to go to school beyond high school. It's registered so that we can receive the CESG (Canada Education Savings Grant), which is a government program that basically adds a grant on top of our investments.

In addition to talking about RESPs, Dan also got us thinking about life insurance. So, not only do we have a savings plan set up for both the boys, but we also have insurance for the two of us. Add that to the RRSP that we already have, and I feel like a responsible adult. Well, at least financially responsible. As for any other meaning of the word, you'll have to ask my wife.

Eliminate bike taxes? I don't think so.

2007-09-06T10:10:00.000-04:00

This morning I read Bill Bean's blog on TheRecord.com, and I must say I agree with his opinion on a Liberal campaign promise to "eliminate the provincial sales tax on helmets under $75 and on most bicycles". Whoop-de-doo indeed.

My daily commute takes me through 7 km of Waterloo streets, braving traffic on busy Fischer-Hallman Road (thank goodness for bike lanes) and Columbia Street (unfortunately no bike lanes there). Instead of eliminating sales taxes on bikes and helmets, how about putting those funds into increasing safety for riders? Public education, more bike lanes, improved legislation are all things that could be done with this tax money. Instead, it becomes a way to buy votes for the next election.

Image Hosting

2007-08-29T08:54:00.000-04:00

I've been hosting my images online for several years now and it's nice to be able to share pictures with family anywhere at any time. I am currently hosting the images on my home computer over my ADSL connection at http://gallery.epenguin.org/, using Gallery on Apache.

This solution has worked out alright, but I am looking for a change. The disadvantages of the solution are:

Speed: Everyone should know how narrow ADSL upload bandwidth is, and how easily it is saturated.
Reliability: While my ISP is quite reliable, my computer is not. At almost seven years of age, I can safely say that my PC is over the hill and gaining speed. When it goes down, the photo site goes down.
Energy: I am trying to be more conscious of my energy usage these days, and a PC running 24/7 just to keep a photo site running for occasional access is a waste of energy.

Of course, there are also advantages:

Control: I have ultimate control of how everything looks and feels.
Fun: I have fun tinkering with stuff and seeing how it works.
Personalization: I have my own vanity domain, and it is nice to be able to give people a short URL to type into their address bars.
Cost: Although I have increased energy usage, I don't have any hosting fees. I'm not sure which one costs more.

Candidates I am looking at are Flickr, Picasa Web, .Mac, and hosting through someone like GoDaddy.

The reason I am interested in .Mac is that I am planning to buy a Mac in the near future, and the iPhoto integration that I have seen is really tempting. Of the image hosts, I think that this is the only one that gives true domain redirection capability. That is to say, people could type my vanity URL into their address bar and get redirected to the site without using frames or anything. Unfortunately, I'm not interested in paying over $100 per year to host my images somewhere.

Picasa and Flickr are similar, but Flickr seems to be more popular. Flickr Pro gives you unlimited everything for under $25 a year. That's a much nicer price. To use either of these options with my domain, I would need to use the WebHop service that I have available from DynDNS. It basically wraps the site in a frame. It's a bit cheesy but it does work; I already redirected a temporary domain to my Flickr site. If you want iPhoto integration, there are tools for Flickr and Picasa, but you need to pay for the Flickr one. Flickr also seems to be integrated better with the whole social networking phenomenom which I am trying to become a part of.

Finally, there are web hosts. GoDaddy is my registrar, so I would probably be interested in going to them as a web host (not to mention the fact that they are pretty cheap). But, in my mind, this means more work. I don't want to maintain a site at all at this point. I just plain don't have the time, and it's not worth it to me. I may be swayed, but I think it's a bit of overkill for what I need.

In short, I have no idea where to go with image hosting. I'm leaning toward Flickr just because it seems to be the best connected. Yeah, WebHop is cheesy, but who is really going to notice or care? The FlickrExport tool for iPhoto is only $25 after all, and even that is just an unnecessary frill.

Moved to Blogger

2007-08-24T09:49:00.001-04:00

I started posting stuff last month on WordPress, because it seemed like a nice place to put my blog. As I mentioned in one of my other posts, I have recently started using Google Apps, and I remembered about this Blogger account that I created three years ago. Since I can easily point my domain (www.timcoleman.com) to a Blogger blog, it only made sense to start posting here instead of on Blogger. That domain name is much nicer than trwcoleman.wordpress.com.

I copied and pasted my posts from WordPress here. It was really easy. I will try to blog here from now on.

Why I don’t like the upcoming referendum

2007-08-16T09:48:00.000-04:00

I received some information about the upcoming Ontario election scheduled for this Autumn, and it reminded me why I'm not happy about the referendum that will be included. The referendum is mostly about whether Ontario should continue with a first-past-the-post system, or change to a mixed member proportional system. Now, I'm all in favour of proportional representation. I think it gives a fairer representation of the people's desire than a first-past-the-post system, and it allows a broader mix of parties in the Legislative Assembly.

Here's how it's supposed to work (from Elections Ontario):

In each electoral district, one vote would be used to elect a 'Local Member' using a First-Past-the-Post system. The candidate with the most votes in an electoral district wins.

The other vote would be for a political party. Votes for parties will be used to determine the number of 'List Members' each party gets. This is the proportional representation part.

Sounds pretty good, right? You get to vote for a local member, and there are some extra seats that are selected by popular vote. Well, here's the thing. There are 90 seats to be selected as local members, and 39 seats to be selected as list members. That's a total of 129 seats, which is almost as many as the 130 seats that existed before the PC Party was elected in 1995. The Legislative Assembly current has 103 members. So, if this measure were to be implemented, an additional 26 seats would be added to the house. After the latest pay raise voted in by the Legislature, a member of provincial parliament (MPP) earns a salary of $110,575 per year, before benefits. Over a four year term, this change would cost over $11,000,000 in salary alone! There are also additional costs in benefits, expenses and pensions for the additional members.

So, we are left with a choice between the existing system, which doesn't give a fair representation, or a proportional system at the cost of millions of dollars. If we vote against a proportional system, how likely is it that we will be asked again? If we vote for it, how likely is it that the number of members will return to the level that we see today?

Wow, Google Apps is really really cool!

2007-08-08T09:47:00.000-04:00

I have been thinking lately about how much of a pain it is to run my own mail server. Well, it really runs itself, but it's annoying that I have to rely on my computer being on all the time, and my Internet connection being up all the time. The latter isn't a problem (my ISP is pretty reliable), but the former is becoming more and more of an issue the older my computer gets. I'm also interested in energy conservation, and the next major hurdle there is figuring out a way to not run my computer 24/7.

Enter gmail. I was just browsing around last night, and I found something about Google apps for your domain. I have had a gmail account for some time now, but I don't use it because it has a long and awkward name, and I already have my own vanity domain. I didn't know that I could transfer my domain e-mail to gmail, and it would work just the same as it does now. Just the same, except for the fact that Google handles it, and I can access my e-mail over the Web from work. Up until this point, I would read my e-mail through ssh, using mh as my e-mail client. From home, I can use POP3 if I want to even bother downloading the e-mail from Google.

Wow. It was incredibly easy to set up, and I can get my e-mail from anywhere without having to connect to home, or even having my home computer on. I'm going to try it for a while before transferring e-mail for the other domain over to gmail. If all goes well, I could reconfigure her e-mail client to get the mail from Google and she wouldn't even notice! I probably won't do that though, because that would involve messing around with her e-mail settings, and she would probably be annoyed about me doing that without letting her know.

Now I really want a Wii

2007-07-16T09:47:00.000-04:00

Since last year, I've been talking about how I would like to get a Wii. Usually, I end up saying that I'll consider it when the price drops. With the continuing lack of availability of the console, and demand outstripping supply, I find it hard to believe that there will be any sort of price drop in the near future. Definitely not before this holiday season. At the same time, I have seen what will probably push me over the edge to Wii fandom: Guitar Hero III.

I saw this beauty on Wii Blog, and I couldn't contain my excitement. But since the game is going to cost around $100, I think I'd better buy the console sooner rather than later. I've just finished paying for my new hardwood flooring, and my pay should be going up thanks to reaching my CPP and EI premium ceilings for the year, plus I should be getting a small bonus next month. All of that should allow a little bit of room in the budget for a new console. Now what would William and Nathan think of that?

William turns 3

2007-07-10T09:44:00.000-04:00

Yesterday was my son's third birthday. I can't believe that he is three already. I was looking at some old pictures from the last few years and I was remembering when he was as small as Nathan is now. Then I was remembering when he was small enough to cradle in one arm. Now, the only time I hold him in one arm is when both kids are refusing to listen to me and I need to carry them somewhere quickly. Usually it involves kicking legs and a bit of screaming.

What's he going to be like when he's in school? When he's a teenager? When he's an adult? I don't know. I can only hope that he turns out to be a good person and that the world is still a safe place to live in.

This whole parenting thing really changes the way you look at the world. All of a sudden there are so many things you need to protect your children from. There are also so many adventures in store, trivial things that you don't really think much about become so much bigger when you have small children. I took William out fishing on Saturday; we only went for a few hours, and we were sitting out in the open, but it was still a ton of fun. Of course we didn't catch anything (his line didn't even have a hook on it), but we did get closer to each other. I can't help but get a bit sentimental about all the moments in a day that are firsts for him. I will remember them for the rest of my life.