Mirabel 101

If you were reading Canadian newspapers in the 70s, you know this already.

A current thread at Metafilter is covering this white-elephant of public works projects, while agreeing that the 1970s probably marks a golden decade of graphic communications. The airport cost a ridiculous amount of money, and was an utter failure, as the thread shows.

However, no one on the thread pointed out that if you take the map of the expropriated area and rotate it to the left by about 50°, its an unmistakable image of a robber. Not only was Quebec unparalleled in corruption those days, they even made it look good.

Introducing: Yodie

A land where there's no iTunes and the Beatles are still together

http://thebeatlesneverbrokeup.com/

Read the full story at http://thebeatlesneverbrokeup.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1&Itemid=53

How do we know it's true? From the FAQ, you can use this gem as an example of circular reasoning.

1. Hi, I'm Nathaniel and I just read your article. How can you prove that this tape isn't just a really nice cover band of The Beatles? - Nathaniel

A: You bring up a good point Nathaniel, though during my discussion with Jonas about music and the music industry, I learned that in his world there were no such thing as cover bands, something about an ultra strict copyright and musicians were only allowed to play music they wrote themself.

RP: "These are the terrines of our lives"

See http://montcarte.umbrela.com/2009/10/21/these-are-the-terrines-of-our-lives/ for all the inspiration you'll need for your next Sunday brunch.

I needed something to keep the blog alive. BTW I found that link at
http://montcarte.umbrela.com/2009/10/21/these-are-the-terrines-of-our-lives/

Yep, it's nice to be able to use full links and more than 140 chars. Now back to your
usual social networking thing...

Passwords: to show them or hide them?

In reference to http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2009/06/the_problem_wit_2.html:

People have gotten worked up this week on whether programs should show passwords as they're being typed or not. The following is idle speculation, as to what's going on now...

Typing passwords is so 1970s. Researchers at Microsoft are toiling away as we speak, rescuing the shards of the failed SongSmith project. Given that most machines of the last decade are capable of decent voice recognition, we know they still aren't perfect. But the SongSmith group noticed that when people sing to the computer, they leave an easily identifiable, unique fingerprint, even allowing for variances, including colds. The main purpose of the SongSmith video was to get us used to the idea that it's no more unusual to sing a few bars in a public place as it is to type or talk on a cell phone.

So all together now: 0-2-1-3-4

Typical Canuck fan

Why no posts lately

If you haven't noticed, most of my posts here have been on the short side, unlike the lengthy word bombs I drop even less frequently on my work blog. It turns out that twitter is great for this kind of thing, twitpic even more so when there's an image attached. So if you've been missing those things, you'll find plenty of them at twitter/@ericpromislow

Hey Tibor, it's throwing season again.

What's wrong with Satellite Radio

Last fall we installed a new deck in the car with a USB hub
(I want to call it a "tape deck", but the installer guy
said "what's a tape?"). Not only do the CD and USB readers
both do MP3, but they also let me easily skip over folders.
And with the $15 8GB stick I bought at a Boxing Day sale
(that price will look laughingly high next year, won't it),
I can put the equivalent of two DVDs worth of songs on it.

How long is that? As an experiment I put the Rolling Stone's
500 top songs on it, and it took up about 2GB. At an average
of 3.5 minutes/song, that's close to 30 hours. So let's say
that stick can hold 120 hours of audio -- and unlike a CD,
when I get bored of something, I can delete it. Which I did
with the RS tunes -- turn on a classic rock station, and
chances are you'll hear one of those songs. I think I can
get plenty of satisfaction without hearing that tune again,
as earthshaking as it was in... 1964.

The net provides a wide source of interesting, freely available
audio. Chances are pretty good I'm not even going to have a
chance to listen to everything I put on that stick, especially
considering I do most of my traveling on my bike. But when
I first heard satellite radio in a rented car in San Diego
in 2004, I thought it was pretty cool. Now the concept strikes
me as obsolete.

Net-enabled car radio.... that's something else.