senatorhung's pad
ramblings of an information troubleshooter
ramblings of an information troubleshooter
zaba daba do !
Monday, 20JUN2005:link of the day: a search engine for personal information:
found my old houston address on here, along with my old phone number and my birth month and year. if you've ever lived in the u.s., try it yourself to see what info is widely available to data brokers and potential identity thieves. the background check can be purchased for $20 u.s. and promises:
20 Year Address History - Current Telephone Numbers and Addresses - Bankruptcies - Legal Judgments - Current/Previous Home & Property Ownership - Current/Previous Addresses - Names and Addresses of Relatives - Current and Previous Roommates and Neighbors - Liens etc.more commentary in this article from wired.
the governor general sat in my chair !
Tuesday, 21JUN2005:well, one of the chairs from my library. to make sure the furniture didn't get misused, i took it upon myself to go to the high school for the afternoon to sit in on the akitsiraq law school convocation. twas a very nice ceremony, with justice beverley browne and elder lucian ukaliannuk receiving honourary degrees. the governor general gave a warm speech that was well-received.
too bad that no one bothered to ask me about the lighting setup. they only had 2 of dave's light stands, each of which had 1 bulb out of 4 pointed at the grads / distinguished guests seated on bleachers at the wings. since the other 3 bulbs on each stand were lighting the folks onstage (along with the backstage lights), there was nothing left to light the walkway, so during the procession and recession, the paraders were in murky darkness. the high school spotlight alone would have made a huge difference. maybe they just wanted to discourage photographs until after the ceremony ?
when the ceremonies finished earlier than i had expected, i snarfed down a few free oatmeal-raisin cookies before wandering back down the hill to close out the office day. afterwards, jordan and i played another match of chess. i had done well initially, and even managed to get up a piece, but he had cornered my king and was within either 1, 2, or 3 moves of swooping in with his queen for the mate.
for once, i took the time to analyze a couple of moves in advance and figured out that i had only a single move that would give me a one move breathing space before mate. i used that one free move to take a pawn with my queen, hoping that jordan was so preoccupied with the checkmate that he wouldn't see that i had also covered the square his queen would have to move to, in order to mate me the next turn. and he fell for it.
after that, his bishop and rook were distracted by my pawns while my rook and knight mated his king in the last rank. ah, sweet victory. my record with jordan is now 1-6-1. when i mentioned the match to chris later at the akitsiraq convocation supper, he expressed interest in getting in on this action, so we may have to set up an ongoing tourney.
the list of the 2005 akitsiraq law school grads:
- Lillian A. Aglukark
- Madeleine Alexander-Redfern
- Siobhan Arnatsiaq-Murphy
- Henry Coman
- Palluq Susan Enuaraq
- Sandra Kunuk Inutiq
- Constance K. Merkosak
- Sandra Omik
- Aaju Peter
- Eveline Qajaq Robinson
- Naomi Wilman
bewildered with the world ??
Thursday, 23JUN2005:1. bruce schneier discusses the nature of t.v. news and its cultivation of a culture of fear in the may issue of his crypto-gram security newsletter:
One of the things I routinely tell people is that if it's in the news, don't worry about it. By definition, "news" means that it hardly ever happens. ... When something is no longer reported -- automobile deaths, domestic violence -- when it's so common that it's not news, then you should start worrying.2. lawrence lessig relates how oppressive IP costs are driving brazilians to embrace open source software and a corresponding philosophy of open source culture.
Remixing uses the fruits of someone else's creativity. There's no guarantee that it does any favors to the work that is remixed. There's no requirement that it treat the work respectfully or kindly. ... Remixing is how culture gets made. The acts of reading, or criticizing, or praising, or condemning bits of culture are how we create things. This is true whether culture is commercial or not: you cannot limit remixing to things in the public domain. In our tradition, we have been free to remix, whether the stuff remixed is copyrighted or not.3. steve martin on his writing process
My process is, I get inspired to write the first couple of sentences and I just keep going with it. I try to think about where the next bit is before I stop. Then I'll stop at a natural place, either because I'm tired or because I get distracted. And then the days go by and I know that my mind is like churning and churning and churning and churning, and then I'll go back and it comes out freely. I don't mind waiting until it does come out freely. interviewer: Do you feel guilty while you're waiting ? No, because I believe when I'm not writing -- and when all of us aren't writing -- we're thinking.4. bewildered by purported airport security measures that are merely window dressing ? you're not alone. watch these 2 proceed thru the metal detector gates ...
friday face-offs
Friday, 24JUN2005:had another go-round with jordan at chess. even tho he was up a piece, i had the initiative, but somehow neglected to move my queen when it was threatened by his bishop. this deflated my whole grand scheme to get past his defensive network of pawns and he beat me soon afterwards. i spent much of the rest of the afternoon preoccupied with how i might have done better ...
in the evening, greg hosted a potluck gathering of folks to help send off david and emilie who will both be leaving town next week. my culinary contributions were some jalapeno pepper pops and some veggie spring rolls, compliments of the cooler section at arctic ventures. after the eats, greg hauled out some paints and creative visions were enacted on balloons, sheets of pad paper, and faces.
after i left greg's, i headed over to todd's to watch the final rounds of their poker knockout. patrick beat up todd and jonathon to come out the overall winner. after jonathon left with his 2d place winnings, todd, patrick and i had another 3 sessions of winner take all, and i won the final face-off to break even for the night.
music makes the world go 'round
Saturday, 25JUN2005:ah, the days of blissful sleeping in begin once again. alas, i had to get up with the alarm at 3, but there was good cause, for i needed to get ready for my radio d.j. debut! i wandered down to l'association francophone to sit in on tom's last 'soundwaves' show for the summer. he showed me the ropes and next week, i'll begin filling in his timeslot until he's back in september. i think that i'll mostly be using stuff from my mix cd's, but i'll play it by ear.
afterwards, i showed tom my setup at home that i used to record 'audio missile defence' for malcolm and sara, and that i will also use to record my shows. he vowed to come back to raid my cd collection for material when he restarts his show in the fall.
when he left, i began to get ready for the multicultural coffeehouse at the high school tisi. when i got there, michael and andrew were still working on the sound check and i noticed that the spotlight was quite narrow on the performers on stage. i checked with heather and she was very happy to accept my offer to run home and grab a few of the music society gels to try to spread the light a bit more.
i was able to get that sorted just as the music started, with emmanelle and marcel performing at their final coffee house before leaving town next week. i kept adjusting the spot and trying to back it off to try to get the light beam to cover as much of the width of the stage as possible.
maddy, sylvia and celina provided an amazing performance of three-person throatsinging with jeff providing them with drum accompaniment. other notable performers of the evening included alysa, greg, molly, ghislain, peter, fauna, lauren and sultan.
the show closed off with a performance by 'ivory hail', returning inukshuk high school alumni, whose set included covers of pink floyd and the foo fighters. the first coffee house that hasn't been cancelled by a blizzard in 5 months was a smashing success.
i hit the legion afterwards and played a single game of pool before hanging out with olivia, sara, dan, becka, mike and greg. i also found time to wish lisa an early happy birthday - it wasn't too hard to track her down, as she was wearing a balloon over her head all night.
First Post (27FEB2005) Previous Week Next Week comments Most Recent Post