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musings of mark since 2001

Blogging from a new place while house sitting over the holiday season at a location just down the road from the BBC, and only a 3 minute walk to work now. Very civilized compared to the Mazda Motel, had a pizza out of the oven for dinner and coffee afterwards, doesn’t get much better than that except if I had my own bedroom and bathroom to go with it, and they both do!

Winter is here in full force now, snow during the week and it’s staying in the shady areas too. Won’t be long and the days will be getting longer again, no SAD around here but still miss those hours of light. Have lots of time available to spend on the internet again though, and tonight learning that the ISPs in the USA have been caught by the EFF red handed for traffic shaping.

It’s been long known that Rogers did the testing up here in Canada for limiting certain types of internet packets to go through as fast as others, thereby limiting the amount of electricity they use and extrapolated over gazillions of bits that adds up to some real dollars for bonus time at Xmas for some executive. Even today, BitTorrent and FTP traffic is generally slower than dial up speeds in this neck of the woods using cable for access unless one does a little tunnelling to create their own path along the web.

The days have evened themselves out and into a nice little routine again. On BBC days awake when the first ferry arrives and watch the excitement, then after a stop using their facilities up to the Snug Cafe for a coffee. Talk to the regulars a while and then back down to the Mazda Motel to catch up with the morning news and weather from CBC Radio One on the am dial. Not too much of that, the morning exercise is next with a hike up to the middle of the island.

It’s a very nice walk on Saturday, little traffic which means little noise and smell. Thankfully on busier days walking against traffic means being on the uphill side of a creek the road follows where fumes are fewer. Other days find me on the mainland, taking a hike or connecting the PC that’s in storage to the internet for the day or at the Library, and a chance to at least stay somewhat caught up on the things that must be done.

Close to the Marina, so night time temps are generally a degree or two higher than the freezing or a few degrees below just up the hill to mid-island. When it does rain or snow I stay dry and the heater works well so can be toasty of need be. Overnight the blanket system is a winter configuration, with the addition of a very heavy top that keeps in the heat even on those -30 Chilcotin nights that we don’t get here anyways.

For now evenings are spent usually reading or doing crossword puzzles while listening to CBC radio again which has become an interesting almost substitute for certain aspects of TV. Mainly it’s the “favourite show” syndrome with right now being Randy Bachman’s Vinyl Tap show, but certainly liking most everything else they have to offer.

The New York Times has an article on Amazon’s latest offering, the Kindle. Beyond the notable performance of the reader, is the carrot of (AFAIK, unlimited) wireless connectivity to the internet which is a road that Google has been travelling down for quite some time now, starting with buying up as much dark fiber as possible. Wondering if there is a Google Amazon co branding? Not likely methinks, seeing that Amazon is using it’s proprietary and closed technology to offer every book available in the world instead of open standards, while Google continues to just suck up content in their own way.

Just another small example of the way our culture of fear has eroded common sense and civility.

Chris Heilmann has a good write up on the “Seven Rules of Unobtrusive JavaScript” available now, a must read for those just starting to understand the DOM and good refresher for experts too.