Good Quote

Politics is show business for ugly people.

Liberal MP Carolyn Parrish, while giving her side of the story on Open Mike with Mike Bullard on Monday night.

Ice. Cold.

It was -25°C this morning here in Toronto (it normally drops to -8°C at this time of year). We had a cold snap pass through yesterday; the temperature dropped from 1°C to -16°C in five hours Sunday afternoon.

I walked out my front door this morning to find a river running down my driveway (and mostly freezing before it got to the end of the driveway). Eeek! I opened the garage to find a jet of water coming straight out of the wall; the cold water pipe had come off. I suspect that it came off when I turned the dryer on this morning; the dryer vent runs through the same hole into the garage as the water pipe.

Cravings “Waist Watchers” mini cheesecakes

Update in 2025: This was a very popular post on my blog, with 145 comments from various people in Ontario looking for this product. Unfortunately I cannot easily migrate comments to this static site, and in any case the last comment was posted in 2009.

Also, the company does not seem to exist in 2025.

Update 20060125: Cravings now has their own website: www.cravingscheesecakes.com. There’s even a copy of this blog posting on their message board page. I recommend that you comment on their guestbook instead of this page, since they’re much more likely to respond over there!

Weight Goals

Well, it’s working again; I lost 2 pounds this week.

As I continue to struggle to take off the pounds, people I know are all telling me that I look great, and many of them think that if I lose any more weight I’ll be too skinny. I’m certainly happy; My size is back down to where it used to be years ago (and none of my current clothes fit me anymore :-).

Cheese or Peanut Butter?

I tripped over an interesting rant, written by John Lichfield and quoted by Kasia. In a nut-shell, he observes that:

The US has produced more than 50 kinds of peanut butter. They all taste the same but they have radically different labels. France has somehow managed to create 176 (or 258 or 1,000) different kinds of cheese, all of which are subtly different from one another.

If we are being offered a choice between a cheese-eating civilisation and a peanut-butter-eating civilisation, I am with the cheese-eaters. Post-September 11, US politics — and even US journalism — seems to be going the way of peanut butter. There is room for endless freedom of choice between labels. The contents of the ideas are not allowed to vary.

What’s a Calculator?

In ReidNews, Reid writes

There was a question in Ronnie’s homework today. “Look at the numerals on a digital clock. What can you use to check your adding that has the same kind of numbers?” The answer is supposed to be “a calculator”, however, Ronnie has almost never used a calculator. In fact, I couldn’t even find one to show him.

My house is the same; what’s a calculator? I’ve got two old HP scientific calculators in a box somewhere, but I doubt they still have batteries. On the other hand, I’ve got more than one software calculator on each computer, two palm pilots, and two cell phones; why would I need a single-purpose calculator?

Weightloss: time for a spot check

My weight has been the same three weigh-ins in a row now. I can tell you exactly why, though.

• Firstly, I’ve been a relative couch-potato for the last two weeks. The winter cold is finally getting to me; I don’t want to walk home from the subway, or walk to the GO Train in the morning. I could take long walks (in the underground) at lunch instead, but I haven’t wanted to do that either. So, mini-resolution number 1: get back to walking to/from the train, or go for walks at lunches. Catch up on laundry and housework; that’ll get my activity level up again. To measure this, I’m going to record my pedometer readings again.

Not Reading

James complains that he isn’t reading:

My time has been wasted sitting in front of the tube, or typing on the PowerBook, not with a book propped before my face. This is not good.

I know the feeling. I find that over the years I’ve been reading less and less. I used to be able to demolish at least three books a week; I’m now lucky if I get through one in two weeks. (The book list in the links bar goes back about 6 months right now).

She can read!

Charlotte (the four year old) sounded out “Canada” on a map all by herself at story time today.

She’s the kind of smart that’s going to be capital-T trouble in a few years.

I’m so proud!

A Weight Milestone

I am officially no longer “overweight”! My BMI has dropped below 25 as of today’s weigh-in.

Wee ha! And now, to celebrate: stuffed mushrooms, caesar salad, a large steak, baked potato with all the trimmings, and (of course) cherry cheesecake for dessert. To say nothing of the bottle of wine.

Wow, there’s a fantasy image. That’d certainly push me back over! All things considered, I don’t really want it, either. Well, excepting the cheescake.

Hitting the stress wall

Mark has hit the wall.

Mark’s posting inspired me to scribble down some random thoughts, which eventually turned into this rant.None of this is directed at him specifically; he’s a pretty smart guy! In fact, he’s unplugging for a few days, an excellent idea…

I can’t count the number of times I’ve seen burnout over the years, among family, friends, and others. I’ve hit that wall myself, a time or two, and I know a few people flirting with the edge. These days, my answer is along these lines:

Anti-DRM Lobby Group

Blah blah DRM. I liked this quote, though:

“Hollywood leaders … would have organized the monks to burn down Gutenberg’s printing press, if they were alive during that period of rapid change and innovation,” ITAA President Harris N. Miller said.

From New Lobbying Group Takes on Digital Fight; the IT Association of America has taken a stand against current hollywood-style DRM.

One of my co-workers thinks that none of this will matter, since by 2005 Microsoft will have redefined copyright :-)

Dances with Systems

I found an article: Whole Earth: Dancing with Systems

self-organizing, nonlinear, feedback systems are inherently unpredictable. They are not controllable. They are understandable only in the most general way. The goal of foreseeing the future exactly and preparing for it perfectly is unrealizable. The idea of making a complex system do just what you want it to do can be achieved only temporarily, at best. We can never fully understand our world, not in the way our reductionistic science has led us to expect. Our science itself, from quantum theory to the mathematics of chaos, leads us into irreducible uncertainty. For any objective other than the most trivial, we can’t optimize; we don’t even know what to optimize. We can’t keep track of everything. We can’t find a proper, sustainable relationship to nature, each other, or the institutions we create, if we try to do it from the role of omniscient conqueror.

Influences

Mark has got me thinking again. What do I want my personal website to look like?

When I find interesting things on the web or in email, I like to share them with people I know. I used to send them to a mailing list, whereas now I mostly post them here. I think that’s a regression; more people read chatter than read my weblog. On the other hand, the sets don’t overlap much; The “right” answer, then, is to do both!

The Cost of Lost Passwords

According to an article in silicon.com titled “IT Helpdesks suffering user password hell” (login as guest and search for the article):

Up to 80 per cent of calls received by helpdesk staff are from end users who’ve forgotten their passwords - and with each support call costing organisations around £15, the problem is not as trivial as it may sound.

Yes, it’s a UK study. The study goes on to conclude that what’s required is a fast system for resetting passwords. I maintain that what’s required is better authentication techniques, such as smart-card based keypairs. Sadly, while we’ve had the technology commercially available for more than a decade, we still can’t get vendors to use it.

Snood

According to Greg Costikyan, Snood is the 9th most played game in the world.

Which begs the question, why doesn’t it get the level of awe and respect assigned to th Big Games?

Interesting read. via /.