larry borsato

Canadian NDP leader Jack Layton supports providing services in Punjabi, the fourth most spoken language in Canada.

Canada alreadly provides services in English and French. So what's the third most spoken language in Canada, and is he planning on providing services for that one as well?

Tip of the hat to Because No One Asked.

You can apparently test drive Google's Android over at T-Mobile, though it doesn't work for me.

Via Lifehacker.

Not from the real UPS though.

I got an email today purportedly from UPS, but the sender address was tek2@rql.kiev.ua, and not ups.com. The subject was "[NO-REPLY] UPS Tracking Number 52672890" and the email said this:

Unfortunately we were not able to deliver postal package you sent on Sept the 18 in time because the recipient’s address is not correct. Please print out the invoice copy attached and collect the package at our office

Your UPS

Attached was a ZIP file. I'm going out on a limb here and assuming that the ZIP file contained a bit more than an invoice. Yet because I was expecting a UPS package I almost opened it without thinking. Of course since I use a Mac than wouldn't have been too much of a problem.

So if you get email from UPS, read very carefully before opening.

Depending on your age, you may not remember that line as a sketch from Saturday Night Live in the late seventies. Who would have thought it would come true.

Melamine. Good for building kitchen cupboards, And a dessert topping.

Honestly, how strange is that headline? Yet that's what I woke up to today:

Parents of a seven-year-old "ratbag" who fed lizards to a crocodile during a reptile park break-in are likely to face civil action.

The boy has broke into the Alice Springs Reptile Centre this morning, feeding ten lizards to the park's crocodile before bludgeoning several others to death.

Seriously, how screwed up is this kid? And just imagine the parents, if this is how their kid turned out.

That's right. I said it. So shoot me. But I have my reasons. Android may let you change everything, but there is something more critical:

But the most important concern for users is consistency -- of user interface, of operation – consistency in how the device works for them. Consistency is far more important than the ability to change everything.

Read the whole thing at The Industry Standard.

From Planet Gore:

It may already be happening. The four major agencies tracking Earth’s temperature, including NASA’s Goddard Institute, report that the Earth cooled 0.7 degree Celsius in 2007, the fastest decline in the age of instrumentation, putting us back to where the Earth was in 1930.

Seems that suddenly, carbon dioxide isn't such a big concern at all.

From today's Financial Post:

Mike Zafirovski, Nortel's chief executive, said in the statement that the company is conducting an exhaustive review to further reduce costs, including the sale of Nortel's Metro Ethernet Networks business.

"It is clear that the business environment in which we operate requires additional immediate and decisive actions," he said. "We are determined to reshape the company to maximize its competitiveness, drive a significant increase in effectiveness and efficiency company-wide."

I seem to have heard this song before. A once proud company, decimated. Just put it out of its misery now.

There's a new update for the Zune available:

In their latest Zune press release, Microsoft also seems to have dropped any pretense of social networking, and instead focused on the device as merely a channel for users to discover and purchase more music. But with more colors and designs. This seems to be a literal case of "putting lipstick on a pig".

You can read the whole article at The Industry Standard.

A friend just sent me a letter that a friend had passed along to him, purportedly written by an Alaskan, attacking Sarah Palin. The letter starts like this:

As an Alaskan, I am writing to give all of you some information on Sarah Palin, Senator McCain's choice for VP. As an Alaska voter, I know more than most of you about her and, frankly, I am horrified that he picked her.

This seemed a bit too convenient to me so I did this quick Google search. Lo and behold, 259 different Alaskan voters seem to have penned the exact same negative thoughts using the exact same words, and that meme has propagated via blogs and email.

Maybe the comments are true and maybe they aren't, but they've certainly lost most of their credibility, and seem like merely another attack. Are the Democrats really that worried?

If you are having problems installing iPhone applications that you've developed on to the actual device, especially this one:

"Your mobile device has encountered an unexpected error (0xE8000001) during the install phase"

and you've rigorously followed the instructions in the iPhone Developer Program Portalto the letter, ignore the suggestion of disconnecting and reconnecting your device.

What you most likely need to do is open the info.plist file for your project and manually enter your iPhone App ID into the Bundle Identifierfield. Apple claims that Xcode does this automatically; it doesn't.

And if you need further assistance, by far the best step-by-step explanation is available at Ralf Rottman's Internet Home.It's unfortunate that Apple couldn't provide that kind of guide.

Everything is working just fine for me now.

A recent study has concluded than drug advertisements on television have no effect on sales:

Drug advertisements aimed at consumers may not be having the effect on sales that opponents and proponents of the practice assume they do, a new study suggests.

[...]

The researchers found no evidence of a spike in sales for two of the drugs after the TV ads started to run. There was a marked increase in sales for a third drug but the effect was short-lived.

"I think that we've shown that the effects are pretty unimpressive for the three drugs we've looked at," said Harvard professor Stephen Soumerai, the senior author.

"Two out of three there isn't an ounce of effect."

In Canada, before you can get a prescription you will need to get an appointment with a doctor, which can often take six days or longer. Then you may actually get a prescription, if that particular drug is approved to be used by the government. However, this would likely not have happened within the window of the study, so I'm not sure how accurate it would be.

But the funniest thing about the article was this comment:

And let's not even talk about whether or not the average American consumer even has access to a doctor, let alone a bad doctor.

I've actually lived in both countries.I had a family physician within five minutes of my home about 40 minutes outside of Boston. And in the state of Massachusetts, nobody can be turned away from a hospital, regardless of ability to pay.

In Ontario, Canada, where I was born and raised, I do not have a family doctor, nor do 4.1 million Canadians. And good luck getting into a hospital here without either an OHIP or a Visa card.

It sounds to me that the average Canadian is the one with the problem.

I'm back after a couple of weeks at the cottage, where we experienced the coolest wettest visit in years. And back to very long grass to be cut.

My latest article on the proliferation of software languages is up at The Industry Standard:

I've been writing software for more than thirty years – I started very young, really – and I've learned several languages, and had to write the same components over with over with each one. An ever-expanding universe of those languages is becoming a drain on productivity.

You can read the whole thing here.

My wife had a car accident the other day. The insurance company's claims people called today to tell her that they were writing the car off.

My wife's doctor has told her to take at least two weeks off. She works with kids in a day care and she just isn't up to looking after them.

The insurance company - State Farm - also called today to tell her that they won't compensate her for any lost wages until she uses up at least seven (7) days of her sick leave and short term disability if she has any.

So keep this in mind before you consider moving to Canada.An idiot ran a red light and hit her. There were plenty of witnesses. He got a ticket and walked away. My wife's car rolled several times and she went to the hospital in an ambulance. This whole thing isn't costing my insurance company a thing. But so far, my wife loses seven sick days at least.

So who's the one being punished for being the victim here?

After my wife's accident I went around the car picking up things that had been thrown from the car. When I went to get here sunglasses I noticed broken pieces of her Nokia cell phone. The phone had obviously travelled quite a distance; I found parts scattered about 50 feet apart. I gathered up all of the parts that I could find and put them in a bag.

When we got home I put everythingtogether and powered it on. It worked just fine. Now that's a dependable product! No wonder we're so happy with our Nokia phones.

On this past Wednesday, my wife was in a car accident. An idiot in a Mercedes E550, on his BlackBerry at the time, went right through a red light and hit my wife. Her 2001 Mazda Tribute rolled a few times, coming to rest down the road on its roof. Fortunately a couple who lived in the apartments at the corner got her out before anything happened.

Her Tribute, though it sustained a few dents and bent axles, was in remarkably good condition (see pictures below). The police and firemen were amazed that she was able to walk away, so it probably saved her life.

So my thanks to Mazda for building such a dependable vehicle.

The CTV headline:

Canadians want tough action on climate: poll

It's pretty much the same at The Star.This is based on a Canadian Press article with a slightly different title:

Canadians want firm action on environment, despite pricey gasoline, says poll

And that is based on a Canadian Press-Harris-Decima poll that asked the following two questions:

Harris-Decima asked respondents to choose which of two statements most closely represented their views:

-"Some people say that the high cost of oil and gasoline is a reason why we should take a slower, more cautious approach to dealing with environmental issues such as climate change, so that we don't drive up the cost of fuel and the cost of living even further."

-"Others say that the rising price of fossil fuels is a reason we must move even more aggressively to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels and find alternative sources of energy that are also less damaging to the environment."

The poll does casually mention "environmental issues such as climate change", but it seems to me that the choices don't say a thing about agressive action to reduce climate change. They specifically mention moving aggressively to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels. The "also less damaging to the environment" seems to be an afterthought. And the answers certainly don't say this, quoted in every article:

The survey indicates many Canadians profess to want environmental actions that push the country toward greener, alternative sources of energy - regardless of cost.

In fact, there is nothing in the questions that asks about what Canadians would be prepared to spend.It also doesn't ask in any way if Canadians want environmental actions. And guess what kids - slapping a carbon tax on everything doesn't reduce our dependence on anything. It just makes it cost more.

So here's the big question. What are we doing, or what is anyone proposing, that we actually do to reduce our dependency on fossil fuels?