while you're waiting

While millions of you rest uneasily in anticipation of my new blog, here's a fascinating story via slashdot:
http://science.slashdot.org/science/07/01/02/2156201.shtml

France's space agency has decided to publish in a month from now it's data regarding UFO sightings over the past 30 years. The data includes 6000 sightings over the past 30 years. The story also mentions a United Airlines flight that saw a UFO over O'Hare, which at least 6 UA employees witnessed, which both UA officially denies, and the FAA will not investigate. I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but I can't help but wonder when I read things like this.

In a related topic, Gary McKinnon is a British 'hacker' who penetrated the (disgustingly insecure) NASA and US Dept. of Defence computers in order to prove the existence of UFOs. He does in fact claim to have seen UFOs in JPEGs on the government's servers. What gets me most though is how normal this guy is. If you listen to an interview, he's a smart, regular guy, who found out how weak government security really is, and used that weakness to satisfy his own curiosity. The U.S. government is of course making him out to be this terrorist hacker who destroyed 100s of millions of dollars worth of computers and data, when in fact he did nothing of the sort.

Just to keep you guys up to date, I still plan on working on a new blog, but lately I just can't bring myself to do it. In the meantime, something of equal quality and insight,

this

Reinventing the Will

It's been a slice, of, well something. In what's becoming my annual tradition of reinventing myself, I will be starting a new blog soon, hopefully before Christmas, perhaps after. It will be more focussed, which has been my intent for some time. Unlike my previous blog that needed immediate deletion (see my very first post for details), this one will remain up with a link to the new one.

It's official

Everybody in the world now owns an iPod, including inanimate land formations resembling native chiefs. More info here.

If you haven't purchased my Christmas present yet

I'll take two of these. Not the Rocketman, just his rocket.

Stories like this should be an embarassment to most Canadians, or at least anyone that voted in these politicians.

I've become increasingly annoyed with partisan cheerleading lately. I enjoy reading about politics, and whether you can find an unbiased source of news might be debatable. But I don't trust computer programmers that don't take responsibility for their own bugs, and similarly I won't read media that pointedly fails to lay blame on a deserving party, whichever party that may be.

So instead, I'll stick to topics like this tree, which has captured my attention in the past. It's along the shore of Lake Ontario, which is about a 15 minute walk from my house.

To get there, I walk down Roncesvalles Ave., until it ends at Queen. From there, I walk across a huge pedestrian bridge that goes over the Gardiner Expressway, a former commuting route of mine. This last picture shows you 6 lanes of the Gardiner, and you can just barely make out the 6 lanes which make up Lake Shore Boulevard. So, after crossing 12 lanes of traffic, I arrive on the shore of Lake Ontario.

Most people that have come out to visit me have experienced this walk.