OPEN ACCESS AND KETONE FRAGMENTATION
Verizon wants a federal appeals court to overturn the FCC's open access requirements for next year's 700MHz spectrum auction. Read More... I been been following with great interest the FCC's plan to open up spectrum at 700 MHz for auction and public safety following the discontinuation of over-the-air analog TV signals in 2009. The licensed spectrum having better penetration than cellular phones means that consumers in the States will get that fabled third pipe for internet access (in addition to DSL and cable). This will hopefully provide far more competition and lower prices, and make high speed internet available to a broader cross section of Americans. Including actually, where I used to live in Michigan. The FCC has been considering for sometime now the rules for the auction and exactly what they will be selling. They were presented with four "open" requests. The FCC was asked to require that the successful bidder allow open leasing (any company could lease the spectrum wholesale for innovative use), open networks, open devices, and open applications. These rules would mean that you could sign up for service and use whatever programs or devices to connect with it, so long as they are compatible, similar to how WiFi is now. The FCC decided to mandate open device access and application use, but declined the other two. However, the telecom industry is very interested in preventing these rules from happening for a number of reasons. For one, any additional pipe into the home is another source of competition, something any monopoly provider would like to avoid. In addition, the company that has now filed a lawsuit aginst the FCC to enjoin them from implementing the regulations has a history of forcing customers to use only Verizon provided equipment on their wireless network and limiting applications to ones they specifically approve of (and charge for). Guess the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. It seems to me AT&T (Ma Bell) claimed that customers should only be allowed to rent a telephone from them. We all know what a disaster it was when they were forced to allow customers to buy their own... Given the sorry state of broadband in the US, here's to hoping Verizon loses. I ran out to the Mill Creek ravine the other night. It's getting colder here and so I actually had to use sweats for what they were originally intended for. Once I got going and my blister numbed up though, I found it was a remarkably pleasant run. The Mill Creek is buried in a little used park somewhat in the center of the city, and so I didn't see any other people in the immediate vicinity. With a splash of color starting to hit the trees, and spectacular view of the downtown over Saskatchewan Drive, I had a good time.
STAMPEDING FOR THE FINISH
I love the colors in this shot. The photographer has done a wonderful job with the washed-out look in addition to an inspired composition. It looks almost... wistful. I have now finally begun what I am almost certain is my last semester as an undergrad at the U of A. Of course, never say never, but I am fairly determined to wrap this degree up and move on to bigger and better things (that pay). Still, I am somewhat enjoying my last run around the track. For one, my courseload is difficult, but not as large as it has been in some years. Plus, it's my last run around the track and I plan on making the most of it. Last night I went to the first Pro sports game that I have ever been to. It was a Canadian league, but that's close enough. Saw the Eskimoes play the Calgary Stampeders... and lose. That said, the tickets were given to me, and it was a pretty close game. All in all, a pretty neat experience and certainly one I would be more than happy to repeat in the future. I got some good use out of a set of binoculars that my grandparents bought me years ago for a birthday. I had not realized how many mini-games and the like that they run while doing the game for all the people in attendance. Blogged with Flock
23 MEETS ALBERTA DAN
For how uneventful the summer was earlier, I have certainly made up for it here near the close. I just capped off the month of August with a friend of mine who drove from Michigan to visit. He characterized the drive as being "long and boring", but I suspect he's just being picky. In any case, we had a pretty good time while he was up here. We wound up going out for Indian food, cooking a pork stirfry, and watching Firefly. I wouldn't trade it for the world, but I was pretty tired by the time he left. I still had to work while he was out here, so I traded leisure time for sleep
CAFFEINE, EXERCISE MAY HELP WARD OFF SKIN CANCER AND COOKING HOT JULY
Reuters - Exercise and moderate caffeine consumption together could help ward off sun-induced skin cancer, researchers said on Monday, but cautioned against ditching the sun screen in favor of a jog and a cappuccino.
SUMMER AT ITS FINEST
It has been long since I last posted, and perhaps for good reason. It's been a weird month. My luck hasn't been running exactly strong the past few months, and so I naturally spend the last couple of weeks in convalescence. The picture above was taken a day or two before my surgery. But I haven't been back on my bike yet to revisit the scene. It shows just one of the dedicated pedestrian bridges in the city In any case, the weather has been beatific of late. Up until very recently, I have been enjoying my biking and running through Edmonton's park system. I am hoping to get back there again very soon. One of the more enjoyable aspects to Edmonton's summers is that they usually do not get above 30° C, and they sport high amounts of daylight, at its peak, that means there are 17 solid hours of daylight here. That's really not half bad. We pay for that in December.
FROM 0° TO 30° IN A WEEK
Yes, it has been a rdiculously long time since I last posted, and I am going to try to get back in the habit for my faithful readers. Last week I was in Kannanaskis (south of Calgary) for a CRC chaplain's conference, where much to my dismay, I woke up the the picture you see above. And as luck would have it, white-water rafting is pretty much non-refundable. So I went white-water rafting on a day that was also more than appropriate for downhill skiing. It was a pretty sweet experience, and I have to say, the view down a mountain river (in this case, the Kannanaskis River), was stunning.
SHORT INTERLUDE: NONPAYMENT
To take a brief respite of the state of the world as seen by myself, I'd like to do a quick status update. As March winds on, I had become somewhat convinced that I managed to put one over on the old U as I withheld my tuition payment. Not really so much out of malice, but due to my typically cash-strapped nature. No campus thugs showed up to remove me from my classes, and as yet the nastiest thing I have gotten were a few letters reminded me of my overdue status. However, as one must do when they are missing a few required credits, I logged on tonight to register for a few fall course, only to find that I had been completely blocked out of the registration system due to a hold on my account. “Et tu, Brute?—Then fall Caesar”. Ah yes, they vanquished me. I caved and with a 0% intro APR on a credit card I had snagged for just such a purpose, I cleared my balance. Of course, itś not all roses and honey, I still have to pay that back, but luckily, I have about half of it ready to go when I get my tax refund. The rest, well... Perhaps I'll put up a donation button on this site. Our wayward hero is continuing on with the rest of the semester with a vengeance. I have 6 chem lab reports all in various stages of completion to be submitted by this Friday, a full lab writeup for another class, a term paper for yet another class, and a midterm all within little more than a week. Thankfully, I have little need for sleep or nourishment in the 21st century, or as least my professors believe that I do not. I defy them, sleeping 5 or so hours a night. Quelle rébellion...
PART 1: A MALLEABLE EARTH
Over the large course of human history, we have generally thought of the world as being a fairly constant, eternal, immutable object, as a whole. And as we have journeyed through the centuries, I believe that has become something of a great misconception. Increasingly we have taken on the responsibilities of gods unto ourselves, terraforming vast swaths of land and seas to suit our fancies. By unlocking the power stored in hundreds of millions of years of the Earth's photosynthetic activity, and harnessing the very power of the sun itself, we have been able to create weapons and machines that surpass any of our ancestors wildest dreams or imaginations, save perhaps that of Jules Verne. As we have become "gods", we have grown powerful in technique and ability, defying even death itself in our power to heal. This has however not changed who we are fundamentally as a species, and so we use the weapons of terror against each other for idealogical or other needs as we always have, dismissing the fact the consequences have only been magnified. At one point, an emperor had the power to declare dominion over his people, but we now have power to declare dominion over creation itself. Perhaps at once point Rome could have leveled Carthage, destroying its every structure, but now we can make it uninhabitable by any man or beast for tens of thousands of years. And so we have. Oh yes, our power and appetite for destruction is unrivaled. Witness the devastation of the 20th century in which modernity brought the terror and horror of concepts like genocide, made possible by computers, or atomic weapons made possible advanced physics and engineering. And even now, we witness the change of a climate cycle which has been with us since the dawn of humanity. And storms now wrack our coasts and millions die from droughts. We build our tower of technology to the very heavens and defy God or Earth to intervene. How long will it take us to realize that we are not gods?
COFFEE ADDICTION AND GLOBAL BOILING
As a friend of mine and I were discussing this morning, I am addicted to coffee. However, I am accepting of that fact at this point, and to wean myself off the habit would cause unnecessary pain and anguish at this point in the semester, and thus, I am pressing on. It's not all bad of course, Tim Horton's annual contest is on right now, and with my sleep schedule, coffee helps keep things somewhat sane. Besides, as any addict worth his salt is aware of, I can quit at any time... Being at a research university and particularly enrolled in the sciences, keeps me more than informed about scientific issues facing us over the next century. As my mother seems to think, that means I frequently bring tidings of doom and foreboding. Disregarding how unwelcome that is at any given moment, I would like to take a moment to stress that while unpleasant, they are accurate statements. Specifically, I think we need to take a good, careful look at how we use energy on a daily basis. While I, too, have grown used to and comfortable with the basic amenities in life like cross-continental air travel, using my fridge as a convenient form of air conditioning, and substituting my shower for a hot springs, I think we need to reassess what kind of effect this is having on the environment around us. Most of my faithful readers are aware by now that I am staunchly conservative, and yet I think that this issue needs to be tackled regardless. Most of the scientific data collected from the world around around us paints a painfully clear picture of where our world is going, and that is certainly not to a Utopian society. I think of it more as a dystopia. Being a biologist, I notice articles in the paper like 70% of bees not returning to their hives and think that we are on a decidedly bad path. As I heard the other day, 10 of the hottest years ever on record were in the last 14 years. I don't think it takes a rocket scientist, or indeed even a biologist, to figure out that there may be a problem with that. To my friends tired of my constant harping, however necessary I think it to be, I am planning the next set of articles as a general statement of the world as it is at the beginning of the 21st century.
MANHUNT IN THE OLD STOMPING GROUNDS
Sheriff: Torso of Mich. woman found (AP) AP - A fugitive suspected of killing and dismembering his wife fled Saturday to a state park almost 300 miles from their suburban Detroit home, authorities said.