Thursday, November 29. 2007
One of my new interests has been rock climbing. A group of us Yahoos try to go once a week. This week marked our seventh expedition. We've been gradually cranking up the difficulty of the climbs.
The rock climbing gym that we go to use the Yosemite Decimal System Class to rate the difficulty of various climbs. The climbs that we do are class 5.
[Class 5] is considered true rock climbing, predominantly on vertical or near vertical rock, and rquires skill and a rope to proceed safely. Un-roped falls would result in severe injury or death.
While the top grade was 5.10, a large range of climbs in this grade were completed, and climbers realized a subdivision of the upper grades were required. Letter grades were added for climbs at 5.10 and above, by adding a letter "a" (easiest), "b", "c" or "d" (hardest). The difference between letter grades is roughly the same as the difference between number grades that are below 5.10. For example: Going from a 5.12a to a 5.12b is just a difficult as going from a 5.7 to a 5.8.
The gym has climbs that range from 5.1 all the way to 5.13a. We all generally started with 5.6-5.7 climbs. 5.9 seemed very difficult and 5.10a seemed unattainable. After going this many times, the group I climb with can do 5.8 and 5.9.
Tuesday, November 27. 2007
I just saw this interesting headline, " Puerto Rican officials probe sabotage of beauty contestant's evening gowns."
Pepper spray failed to deter Ingrid Marie Rivera, who beat 29 rivals to become the island's 2008 Miss Universe contestant.
Pageant organizers said they hope to catch and expose whoever was responsible for dousing Rivera's evening gowns with pepper spray and spiking her makeup, causing her to break out in hives.
Police said Monday they have also opened an investigation into the attacks on the beauty queen.
Rivera was composed while appearing before cameras and judges throughout the competition. But once backstage, she had to strip off her clothes and apply ice bags to her face and body, which swelled and broke out in hives twice.
"We thought at first it was an allergic reaction, or maybe nerves," said pageant spokesman Harold Rosario. "But the second time, we knew it couldn't have been a coincidence."
Rivera's clothing and makeup later tested positive for pepper spray.
Someone also stole Rivera's bag containing her gowns, makeup and credit cards. And a bomb threat forced pageant officials to postpone the last day of competition on Thursday, said Magali Febles, director of the Miss Puerto Rico Universe pageant.
Looks like they take beauty pageants pretty darn seriously down south.
Saturday, November 24. 2007
Today I ventured out to do a little shopping during the infamous "Black Friday" which is the day after American Thanksgiving. Supposedly they have insane sales at stores during Black Friday, so a lot of people try to do a good chunk of their Christmas shopping that day. I happen to live near one of the biggest malls in the area, so I decided to go there for shopping. It's also pretty close, about 2km away. Stupidly, I took the bus, and it took almost 25 minutes to get there because traffic was so bad. It would have been faster just to walk.
When I got to the mall, I saw many police officers directing a huge line of traffic. Finding a parking spot was almost impossible. When I finally got inside, there were more people that usual, but I wouldn't call it crowded. In my mind, I was expecting massive lines of shoppers and many rabid bargain hunting shoppers, but I didn't see that. Maybe it's because I went in the afternoon and the hardcore shoppers already did their pillaging in the morning.
Walking around, I really didn't see any jaw dropping deals. A lot of the sales were fairly typical. Other stores like The Gap didn't even have any specials. Electronic stores had some better deals for big ticket items, but I'm definitely not in the market for big ticket items at the moment.
I bought a few clothes and that was it. Hopefully the fashion police back in Victoria approve of it. In either case, not really impressed by Black Friday.
Oh, and I was asking around why they call it "Black Friday." It's called that because retailers sell a lot of stuff that day, and their finances go back into the black (ie make money), so that's why they call it Black Friday.
My guess is that Black Friday wasn't huge this time around because there's recession talks, so people are probably more careful about their spending. On top of that, the whole sub-prime mortgage problem, and people making higher mortgage payments probably means less disposable income.
Thursday, November 22. 2007
A few weeks ago, I read that Facebook was introducing new social ads. When I looked at the details, I really didn't like what they were trying to do, and noted that it would be the death of Facebook. The most troubling was the new Facebook Beacon Ads which tells all of your friends what you're buying. This is not only a breach of privacy, but it also spams your news feeds. I really don't like the idea of companies using my account as a way of advertising to my friends.
MoveOn.org has declared war on Facebook over these ads, and they've started an organized campaign against these ads.
If a Facebook user who is logged into their Facebook account purchases movie tickets on Fandango, for example, a small box will appear on the bottom of the purchase confirmation page that says "Fandango is sending this to your Facebook profile." Users can opt out by clicking a box that says "No Thanks," but if nothing is done, the box will eventually disappear, and the information is sent to Facebook. When that user clicks over to Facebook, they will receive another note that says "Fandango is sending a story to your profile." There is also the option to click a box below that note that says "Don't show me this again."
MoveOn claims that the notices on the purchase page and Facebook are placed in such a way that the average consumer will probably miss them. "If you don't see those two boxes, you 'agree' to have your private information made public for hundreds, or thousands of Facebook 'friends' to see." [...]
Facebook has not clearly communicated how Beacon works, and its opt-out functions are exhaustive and poorly labeled, MoveOn said. The group is encouraging users to sign a petition that says Facebook "should not tell my friends what I buy on other sites – or let companies use my name to endorse their products – without my explicit permission."
"A lot of us love Facebook—but they need to take privacy seriously," MoveOn said in a Facebook group it titled "Petition: Facebook, stop invading my privacy!"
"Facebook says its users can 'opt out' of having their private purchases reported to all their friends. But that option is easily missed," according to MoveOn. "And even if you do 'opt out' for purchases on one site, it doesn't apply to purchases on another site—you have to keep opting out over and over again."
MoveOn called for Facebook to institute an "opt in" policy for Beacon.
Here's an excellent video that summarizes the new Facebook ads strategy. From the video, it paints a picture that Facebook is doing this out of desperation as they're having troubles finding a business model that makes them money. Does this remind anyone of the tech bubble?
Sunday, November 18. 2007
If there's one thing that I don't miss about home, it's the BC NDP party. I came across a headline from the CBC entitled, " NDP wants women, minorities for next election."
B.C.'s New Democrats have approved a plan to ensure more women and minorities run for the party in the next election.
Delegates to the party's annual convention in Vancouver, passed the controversial plan on Saturday.
The resolution says when an NDP MLA does not seek re-election, the riding must choose a female candidate.
Of the remaining riding nominations, 30 per cent will be designated for women and 10 per cent for under-represented groups such as visible minorities, gays and lesbians.
NDP leader Carole James and most senior members of the party were in favour of the resolution. "This resolution is not about excluding people; it's about including people," James said.
But there were rumblings of discontent from some of the rank and file during an emotional debate that exposed divisions in the party. Some fear the move is reverse discrimination and will bring a loss of local autonomy.
"As a party we should be supporting the best candidates regardless of gender visibility or preference," said one delegate. Another added: " It's discriminating — just as it was discriminating to choose white males always."
Saturday, November 17. 2007
This was one heck of a week at work. We had engineers from all over the world come to headquarters to received training on the platform that we work on. We had delegations from Australia, Brazil, Canada, Hong Kong, India, Singapore, Taiwan, and the United Kingdom. The week started with three days of training, and the rest of the week consisted of planning sessions and hands-on training. It was definitely an extremely busy week as I was in many training sessions, yet I still had work deadlines to meet.
It was really enjoyable meeting some of the foreign engineers in person finally. There's a funny story involving my co-workers finally meeting one of our Brazilian engineers, Fabio, who we've worked with over the internet, but never met in pereson. Everyone at the team assumed he was a Latin American because he spoke Portuguese, and the name Fabio says it all. When he met my teammate Carrie, they had this exchange:
Fabio: "Hi Carrie, nice to finally meet you. Thanks for all the help you've given."
Carrie: "Uhh.... do I know you? Are you from the Taiwan team?"
Fabio: "No. I'm Fabio from Brazil."
Carrie: /blank stare and amazement
Turns out Fabio is Japanese and he grew up in Brazil and the United States.
Our QA, Kai, also had a funny introduction to Fabio. During one of the training sessions, my co-worker Eric gets an instant message from Kai.
Kai: "Hey Eric, have you met Fabio? I'd like to meet him since I've talked to him a whole bunch through e-mail."
Eric: "Yeah, he's in the training session with me right now."
Kai: "What does he look like?"
Eric: "He's an asian-looking dude wearing a blue and yellow shirt."
Kai: "WHAT?!??!?!?"
Eric: "Yeah.... a blue and yellow shirt."
Kai: "NO! Not the shirt, are you sure he's asian?!"
Eric: "Yes."
Kai: "Are you sure you know what asians look like???"
Eric: "I'm pretty sure I know what asians look like!"
Tuesday, November 13. 2007
This is a follow-up post from a blog post I wrote about called UVSS Bans Canadian Forces From Student Union Building. On October 25th, UVIC had their annual general meeting to vote on the military ban. The Martlet (the UVIC student newspaper) has a story about how the vote went.
Students overwhelmingly rejected a motion to ban the military from recruiting in the Student Union Building at the UVic Students’ Society (UVSS) annual general meeting on Oct. 25.
According to UVSS records, 525 students packed the SUB’s Michèle Pujol Room to attend the meeting. The meeting started half an hour late as students waited in line to sign in and receive voting cards.
Roughly 25 people voted in favour of the ban. Had the motion passed, the Canadian Forces wouldn’t have been able to recruit at the annual UVic Career Fair in January because it is held in the SUB.
George Robinson, former UVSS chairperson candidate, spoke against the ban. “For students that wish to protest the war, this is the wrong way to do it,” said Robinson. “By banning any organization that we may disagree with, we are acting against the very purpose of this university.”
Student Serina Zapf agreed. “I’m a human rights activist. I totally understand the issues in Afghanistan. I know about the torture. I hear about these things. I campaign on them,” she said. “That being said, as a human rights activist I believe in a dialogue of voices … I’m excited that our UVSS has a voice and is speaking on issues. But at the same time, I don’t think they need to protest for me.”
|
