Whew!

My first journal entry in February and, in fact, in a couple of weeks now. Due to my new job, my alarm goes off at 5:45. I get in the shower, have a couple of minutes to check my email, then go catch a bus. From there, I get a train, get off at a certain stop, transfer to another train, get off, and get on another bus. When I get off that bus, I have about a 10 minute walk to work. Typically I arrive around 8:30 – 8:40.

Coming home is a little bit easier, because it’s just a single train in that direction. I get home around 7:30 – 8:00, depending on whether I can leave work earlier than 6:00 or not. But that still only gives me a couple of hours to eat, relax, and see Michelle before dropping off to bed. If I stay up late, I pay for it later in lack of sleep. Needless to say I haven’t been enjoying the same “carefree, time-on-my-hands” atmosphere that I had over the past couple of years. Of course, I’m getting paid now so I can’t really complain.

I’m sure that other things have happened that I would normally have commented on earlier. I’ll have to try to remember them for the next time I have some spare time…

Thanks to our subservient political relationship with our Southern allies, Canadians will have some significantly decreased privacy rights in the next little while when it comes to crossing the border.

The States and Canada have agreed that they will begin sharing more personal information about border crossers. This means that American customs inspectors will have access to every Canadian’s income tax records – and that, eventually, there will be a shared database for this purpose. Supposedly, this is to aid in determining who’s got “dodgy” finances and might, therefore, pose a threat in some way. Apparently, you might have some difficulty crossing over into the States if you’re unemployed.

In addition, border crossers are going to be rated on a scale of 1 to 10, based on how much of a possible security threat they pose – with those at the lower end of the scale being considered harmless, while those at the upper end get watched very carefully. The US will also start (this Summer) assigning people “colours” based on this rating. Just as they currently have different colours for different levels of terrorist alerts, border crossers will be coded as green, orange, or red, corresponding to an escalating level of potential terrorist threat.

Of course, nothing is ever mentioned about how much of this increased vigilance will apply to people coming from the States into Canada – only how it will work the other way around. Nor has our government done anything but meekly agree with all of these new conditions.

There’s something wrong when the cure is worse than the illness, and I don’t like the recent trend of America enforcing an ever increasing isolationist policy against any and every non-citizen. (Nor what they’re doing to their own citizens, albeit to a lesser degree.) Being careful and vigilant is one thing – being paranoid and overstepping the bounds of a basic right to privacy under the guise of “protection” is another. I would rather live in a world that was unable to prevent terrorist activity on an occasional basis, than I would in a police state in which terrorism was made impossible by virtue of denying everybody their right to freedom. If we lock everybody up then there won’t be any crime – but there won’t be much to enjoy either, nor will social productivity do anything other than decrease.

I wonder if the next time I try to cross the border into the States the customs agent will stop me, showing me a printout of this journal entry…

After recently announcing that they would stop manufacturing 35mm cameras, Kodak has now said that they will be cutting back their workforce by 12,000 to 15,000 positions over the next 3 years – that’s 23% of the number of people currently employed at the company.

This is all put down to a drop in profits and commensurate restructuring to make the company more viable.

However, I wouldn’t be shopping my resume around in their direction for the next little while – nor would I recommend investing in Kodak stock…

It turns out that that Blaster removal tool I mentioned yesterday only appears on Windows Update for computers which have some kind of trace left on computers of the virus (either having been infected in the past, or actually being infected). Apparently the computer I’ve been using at work recently, from which I discovered this, had been “Blastered” at some point. Which isn’t inconceivable since, for various reasons, I haven’t been running anti-virus software on it.

Of course, this means that while Windows Update is being helpful, it’s also scanning machines for more than just their OS version and patch levels. I hadn’t thought that Microsoft was supposed to be doing that.

I’ve just noticed that Microsoft has added a “Blaster Worm Removal Tool” to its Critical Updates section. You can’t “personalize” away critical updates. But anybody who has any kind of decent anti-virus software has no need of this utility. Therefore, you’re stuck. You can’t tell Windows Update to hide this utility from its list, nor do you need it. Your only choice is to install it – then delete the program files taking up unnecessary space on your hard drive. What a pain.

Apparently, I’ve been typing it wrong all this time. The maker of the canned corn beef (SPAM) claims that there’s no problem using the word to refer to unsolicited email – so long as you do so by “spelling” the word in lowercase.

For years now I’ve been deliverately capitalising it. Apparently, much to my chagrine, I’ve been commiting a faux pas without realising it.

To refer to the food use “SPAM” and to refer to bad email use “spam”. You can read the full text of Hormel’s statement on this issue here.

Consider me chastised. I’ll be using the lowercase version of the word henceforth. (Unless, of course, I should have reason to refer to the food.)

I’m thinking of moving this site’s navigation buttons from the left and right sides of the page to either the top or bottom. Every time I put the site into a narrow window, I often cringe at how things end up being formatted. (Although, despite looking a bit odd, it does all reformat properly.) If I let the left and right columns of text each take up a full 50% of screen real estate, I think it will look better on lower resolution monitors.

I’m still debating where I want the navigation buttons to end up – at the top or bottom. I’m leaning toward the bottom, but I’m not entirely sure. I’ll have to play around with a test page and see how it looks. (I just noticed that the email button brings up the text “Send email to Virgil.” rather than “Send email to Jason.” Oops. Fixing it will have to wait until I’m home from work.) I briefly considered removing the buttons altogether but quickly rejected that idea. There needs to be some kind of navigational theme in place. I do want to include a box of “Interesting Links” at some point, somewhere, and could possibily incorporate the navigational links into that – but I also want to keep consistency between my personal pages and those of Inferno Enteprises itself, and having buttons looks better.

Unfortunately, I fear that if I decide on this switch, I’m going to leave myself open to a world of hurt. You’d think that the design principles I currently have in use for the horizontal display would work just as well for a vertical layout – but I’m not entirely sure of that.

Here’s a recent (and cute) news story from Pulse24:

“Somewhere out there is a creature who was privy to the deep secrets of World War Two from Britain’s point of view. But it’s definitely not writing a tell-all book, or even saying that much. Charlie is the 104-year-old parrot who kept Winston Churchill company during war time. He’s been living at the Heathfield Nurseries for the past 12 years. Peter Oram, who owns the garden centre, is Charlie’s keeper now. His father-in-law sold the prime minister the creature and then took it back when he passed away in 1965. And although Charlie was famous for sometimes screaming obscenities about Hitler, he’s grown a bit complacent in the twilight of his life. “He doesn’t say very much anymore — usually just hello and goodbye. But he does get so excited about music and dances to it. He’s very fit,” said Sylvia Martin, who manages Heathfield Nurseries. Most parrots don’t live longer than 40 years in the wild, but some feathered friends have made it to 110. That gives Charlie some time to learn even more world secrets.”

After having “survived” walking, and waiting for buses and trains, in recent temperatures of -30C without wind chill, I’m almost enjoying myself in the mere -10C of today.

Where previously I might have been wondering if I’d ever get in from the cold alive, I’m now only slightly uncomfortable. In comparison, I actually don’t mind at all.

At some point I need to get a new zipper put into my jacket (it broke recently, and I’ve been forced to fasten it with its buttons only) but, suprisingly, it’s kept me warm enough during the deep freeze despite being fastening challenged. In fact, I’d put a zipper in at this point more for ease of use than for functional utility.

I just read that Kodak will no longer be manufacturing 35mm cameras. Their sales are down, and digital camera sales are up. This could be the start of the end of an era. No doubt other companies will keep making them – but who knows for how long.

I took a photography class when I was a teenager, and actually quite enjoyed working with an old black and white 35mm (and developing the film myself). I think I had a bit of talent back then, and might have gone on to pursue it if things had gone differently.

I’ll have to raise a pint to the old analog devices in fond remembrance.