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  • dear Facebook. I’m not a hacker, just blind.

    written by

    james

    I was going through Facebook on Jess’s behalf earlier, seeing as her machine would probably die if she tried to use it over there and well, I was here doing other things anyway. Apparently, they have this new security feature put in place–if one can call it a security feature. Apparently, if you’ve not logged in to your account on that computer, you get to jump through a series of convoluted hoops just to get to the point of saying “by the way, yes, I own this account”. One such hoop involved identifying people who were tagged in a specific set of photos. Not a problem if you spend all your time on Facebook, or can see, but a right proper pain in the royal ass for folks who don’t or can’t.

    Unfortunately, it doesn’t give you–or doesn’t make readily apparent, anyway–an option to bypass this supposed ID varification check when you’re logging in from a new computer. Which means we got to spend an hour sitting here while she, being the most sighted one of us at an impressive not very, squinted at the photos presented and tried–usually with absolutely no verifiable results–to identify/recognise folks being shown to us. With no way to bypass it and try something else, and a need to wait an hour or so for it to let us get in again, we eventually just decided to say to hell with it. Fortunately, after we managed to get done what needed doing.

    Now, I get the whole security thing re: trying to make sure folks are authorised to actually have access to the account. But folks, we’re either totally or nearly totally blind over here. You’re showing us pictures. What in the hell are we supposed to do with them? And, just for the record, I was perfectly authorised to access the account in question–just not authorised according to Facebook. Meanwhile there’s enough of a back door that I could actually do what needed doing without being authorised according to Facebook, thus rendering whatever security checks they were trying to have, um, rather pathetically useless.

    Hey, Facebook? I’m not a hacker, honest. I’m just blind. Thank God, really–you didn’t exactly make it difficult. Just irritatingly inconvenient. And I’d still like to know the logic behind flashing random photos for folks to stare at, like they’re gonna remember most of them. I don’t even remember half the things I’ve probably been caught on camera doing and I’ve been accused of having a good memory. So. yes. Please, stop failing. It’s bad for you.

    Also: Accessibility? What accessibility? On Facebook? Surely, you Gest. Devs, design smarts. Get you some. It should not take me guessing to change a semi-simple setting. Only you would think otherwise. Again, stop failing. It’s bad for you.

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  • Surprise, you’re engaged!

    written by

    james

    Folks will be aware Jess has been here since Saturday. what many aren’t aware of, at least until now, is what happened within 24 hours of her arival. More specifically, it became very official that she’d be stuck with me for about as close to forever as she could tolerate. On saturday afternoon, I officially asked her to marry me. And, surprising everyone except the two of us, she said yes. Effective as of then, we’re officially one step closer to that fateful dive off the deep end.

    We haven’t set a date yet, but at least now we can start more seriously talking about it. The majority of the week thus far has escentially been mostly made up of doing just that–I had no idea just how many people actually end up getting told these things. So far, we’ve made and received quite a few phone calls on it, not to mention sharing the news in person. By the time she goes back she’ll probably be sick and tired of talking about it–just in time for the folks she hasn’t told yet to catch sight of the ring.

    I had the ring picked out a couple weeks in advance, a bit before she finally purchased the ticket. I wanted it to be a surprise not just to her, but to family/friends on both sides of the equasion. So I was pretty much doing everything in secret at that point. That was probably the hardest part–talking to her and avoiding saying what I really wanted to say when she asked if anything eventful happened that day. But, shocking the hell out of me, I actually somehow managed to do exactly that. And keep it quiet amongst the non-immediate family–something ordinarily nearly impossible to do on account of info travels fasater than a wild fire in california on a bad day.

    The rest of the week thus far was pretty low key, in comparison. Had a barbecue on sunday at the parentals’ place, for a combination of cellebrating all three month-end birthdays–mine, my mom’s, and the sister-in-law’s. The engagement became officially official there, when the parents, brother and sister-in-law all got a chance to gawk at the ring. And I was cautioned away from making the same mistake my brother did. Fortunately, that particular mistake can’t be duplicated so I’m safe in that department. Yesterday was equally low key–we stuck around the apartment, flaked out, enjoyed various degrees of lazy, had pizza brought in from the local place of awesome, cracked open the vodka and had our own, personal type engagement party. That lasted until 7:00 this morning, before we grabbed 4 hours’ sleep. the rest of the day, dead as it is, leads us to the announcement here.

    This is something I know we’ve both been wanting for a while, so the decision to do it over the weekend was probably the easiest decision I’ve ever had to make. I suspect the rest of this week will probably be devoted to spreading the news even more so–hint: it’s up on Facebook if anyone’s interested. I suspect the next couple weeks, at least for her anyway, are going to consist of telling everyone else back home who hasn’t already heard yet. And thhe foreseeable future? It will probably consist of marriage/wedding plans. As for right now? I still have some evening time to spend. And I think I’ll spend it trying to get a little more used to this whole newly engaged thing. On the bright side, we already know the family approves. On the not so bright side, the poor girl may end up suffering further brain damage as a result. But, she’ll survive. Either that or we’ll be taking up refuge in someone’s basement until the insanity passes. Whatever this ride ends up doing, it’s gonna be a hell of a lot of fun. At least, it’d better be. I demand it.

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  • In which Greyhound fails at life. Again.

    written by

    james

    So. Some folks already know, and others are about to. Jessica’s presently on her way up here for a week. She left at 20 minutes to 2 this morning, intent on catching a 6:30 connection. There weren’t enough warm bodies going to toronto, so they had to send another bus. That other bus was supposed to be right behind them. They waited in Buffalo until pretty close to 5:00 or so before finally crossing the border. Which, escentially, means no 6:30 connection for Jessica. Fortunately, that doesn’t put too bad a dent in our plans–we can just leave to pick her up 2 hours later. But now, she’s stuck catching a 9:30 bus to Ottawa from Toronto, which means by the time she gets here, she’ll have been on the go for nearly 16 hours. And that’s assuming we come directly here. Factoring in the fact she’s been awake since yesterday morning, and I probably wouldn’t want to be her body right now. Hopefully, the trip she’s taking at 9:30 doesn’t break. In the meantime, Greyhound, please stop failing. Thanks.

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  • The G20 should adopt this attitude more often.

    written by

    james

    For all the screaming and crying about a lack of abortion funding in Canada’s family planning proposal, looks like that group that’s about set to clog up most of Toronto has finally reached what you could call an eleventh hour agreement. And, surprise surprise, they agreed with Canada. Well, sort of.

    Meanwhile, Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s maternal health plan will get the green light from the world’s most powerful economies, despite earlier criticism from family planning advocates who complained that no specific funds were allocated for abortion.

    Instead, the G20-funded project will allow each nation to allocate the funds as they wish, which opens the door for abortion funding by countries which deem it necessary, Fife reported.

    “Each nation will develop their own plans,” he said Thursday night, adding that Canada will pump $1 billion into the plan.

    Hey, if the G20 adopted an attitude like that about other things–hello, stimulous versus cutbacks–we’d actually have something resembling progress going on here. And less of a need for the G20. Okay, file that under “when hell freezes”. Next?

  • Have some wicked nifty cool. And an earthquake.

    written by

    james

    We felt this while out investing in things of a grocery related nature. Apparently, the center of the earthquake was about 50 KM northeast of Ottawa–in other words, right in between Ottawa and Pembroke. We didn’t feel a whole lot–kind of like the mall we were in just sort of twitched a little. Windows were rattling, but nothing went flying or anything. We very nearly considered just getting the hell out of the mall. We were surrounded by glass, with concrete cielings, so if it was anything more major than that, the parking lot would have been a hundred times safer.

    There’s a rumor floating around that it was felt as far down as Detroit, and into New England. Toronto’s supposedly had several evacuations as a result–as has Ottawa, according to the linked article. Twitter’s alive with speculation of at least one aftershock, but if there are any, they didn’t reach us up here.

    We survived the earthquake intact and relatively as sane as we were before. The most exciting part was convincing some of the folks around us that yes, you did, in fact, just witness an earthquake. Spending three years on Vancouver Island has its advantages. Who says you never find anything exciting while running a simple arrand?

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  • And once again, a restaurant gets threatened because the parents don’t want to say no.

    written by

    james

    Parents, when a restaurant pushes out commercials advertising x toy with y meal, and you don’t want your kid(s) anywhere near that restaurant whether they’re giving out that specific toy or $150, do you:
    1. Tell them no and stick to it, telling them exactly why you’re keeping them as far away from that restaurant as humanly possible
    2. Tell them no and that’s it, falling back on the old classic “because I said so”
    3. Eventually switch from telling them no to giving in and taking them to that restaurant to shut them up
    4. Tell them you’ll take them to that restaurant after they do x for you
    5. Organize a consumer group and sue the restaurant for having the nerve to include a toy in that meal

    If you said 5, I’d like to introduce you to this group, who’s decided to threaten McDonalds with exactly that.

    “McDonald’s marketing has the effect of conscripting America’s children into an unpaid drone army of word-of-mouth marketers, causing them to nag their parents to bring them to McDonald’s,” Stephen Gardner of the Center for Science in the Public Interest wrote to the heads of the chain in a letter announcing the lawsuit.

    The centre, which has filed dozens of lawsuits against food companies in recent years, is hoping the publicity and the threat of a lawsuit will force McDonald’s to negotiate with them on the issue. The group announced the lawsuit in the letter to McDonald’s 30 days before filing it with the hope that the company will agree to stop selling the toys before a suit is filed.

    Ah, but it’s not really about the toys, says the article. It’s about those nasty marketters who’re forcing those poor kids, who’re then forcing those poor parents to drive to McDonalds so they can stuff their faces with crap that even on their healthiest happy meal isn’t exactly overly healthy.

    The fast food company made a pledge in 2007 to advertise only two types of Happy Meals to children younger than 12: one with four Chicken McNuggets, apple dippers with caramel dip and low-fat white milk, or one with a hamburger, apple dippers and milk. They both meet the company-set requirement of less than 600 calories, and no more than 35 per cent of calories from fat, 10 per cent of calories from saturated fat or 35 per cent total sugar by weight.

    CSPI argues that even if those Happy Meals appear in advertisements, kids order the unhealthier meals most of the time.

    Nice switch, folks. So now it’s a health thing–that just so happens to be focused on whether or not the chain happens to be selling a toy with those particular meals they’re claiming kids shouldn’t be allowed to have. And yet, they still virtually ignore the fact that it’s not up to the restaurant to parent these people’s kids. Oh, wait; no they don’t. They just gloss over it.

    Michael Jacobson, executive director of CSPI, says it’s the parents responsibility too, but he equates the toy giveaways to a door to door salesman coming to a family’s house every day and asking to privately speak with the children.

    “At some point parents get worn down,” Jacobson says. “They don’t always want to be saying no to their children. We feel like an awful lot of parents would be relieved if this one pressure was removed from them.”

    News flash, folks. Sometimes, parenting sucks. I’m not a parent and even I know that. Saying no to your kids is part of life. If parents are under that much pressure over a 2 dollar toy in a 5 dollar happy meal, I’d really hate to see what kind of pressure they’d be under when the kids stop looking for the toy in the happy meal and start looking for the car they just saw on TV instead. Are they going to start suing car manufacturers if they start doing something like giving away free MP3 players when you buy a certain model car? Which could, quite likely, start happening what with certain models now able to actually store music locally on their own physical hard drive. Are they going to start suing Wendy’s, because you can get a soft drink with your meal for the same price as a thing of milk?

    You can’t legislate good parenting, folks. And you can’t enforce it in the courts, either. Not if you’re enforcing it against people who aren’t even responsible for the parenting of your kids. End of the day, you chose to drive to McDonalds with your kids. You chose to let them order the burger, fries, coke and whatever else their little heart desires. No one forced you to do it.

    I wrote this post back in May about advertisers, their marketting strategy, and whether or not they’re ultimately responsible for you deciding to buy a particular product. As I said in that entry, all the advertiser’s doing is letting you know what’s available. You’re the one deciding whether or not that thing that’s available would actually be useful/beneficial to you. The same can easily be said for this situation as well–McDonalds advertises what it calls a healthier happy meal. Parents know this. If they absolutely must take their kid to McDonalds–and I firmly believe no one’s forcing them to even do that–if they want their kids to eat healthier, it should be their responsibility to make sure they actually do that. I’d argue the first step in that would be to not go to McDonalds, but if the parents are feeling that unavoidable pressure, part of parenting is actually, you know, teaching your kids which, of the current options, is actually better for them. If you can’t seem to do that, then I seriously question whether you should even be parenting. You certainly shouldn’t be suing a restaurant chain because they’re not doing the parenting for you.

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  • Oh, goody. Taxi prices are on their way up in Pembroke.

    written by

    james

    If I ever get an opportunity to meet Dalton Mcguinty in person, remind me to drop kick him square in the face. Another casualty of the HST in July? Pembroke’s taxi services, who’re about to stick an additional 8% on their already a little tiny bit insane price tags. Keeping in mind the last time I used a taxi to take a 5-10 minute drive from here to the parents’ place and back it cost me just about twice what it was supposed to. Suffice it to say, I haven’t used one since. And, suffice it to say, I won’t be using one in the immediate future unless I absolutely have to.

    Since most people who take taxis do it because they very often can’t drive from here to there on their own and slightly less often have no one else who can, and since a common reason people can’t drive from here to there on their own is because they can’t aford to purchase/keep up payments for/constantly put gas in a vehicle, you’d think Ontario’s–and BC’s, for that matter–government would be trying to make it just a little bit easier for folks who aren’t making twenty thousand plus to make their limitted income last just a little bit longer. That would be a big fat no on that one. Well, the fantasy was nice, anyway.

    Ontario’s liberal government: squeezing every cent the feds haven’t already squeezed out of you since way too damn long. Is it election time yet?

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  • On Quebec: even Jean Chretien gets it.

    written by

    james

    No matter what you’re opinion of Canada’s twentieth prime minister, you have to admit, the man’s got a huge point when it comes to giving Quebec its own special snowflake status within Canada’s constitution.

    “The first time around, it didn’t pass and it didn’t change much,” he said. “The second time it did pass, and it didn’t change much either. Add them together, we talked a lot and not much changed.”

    Kind of makes you wonder what certain folks are smoking, thinking the third time around will change a whole lot else, doesn’t it? Someone really should make sure the Bloc Quebecois gets that memo. Hey, Jean? I think I found a new job for you. Call me for details.

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  • I think I can see a patern in the slowly increasing volume of spam comments.

    written by

    james

    Or, as an alternate title, why I should consider sleep rather than caffeine to get me through the night. I’m noticing, though it may just be a horrible coincidince, that the more spam comments I pick up over here, the more likely I am to actually attract something vaguely resembling legitimate trafic to the blog. As a case study, I looked at a sampling of statistics gathered so far–specificly, today’s to this point. And, assuming most spammers still prefer to use methods that don’t actually involve anything sophisticated–like, say, javascript–in their work, I discovered that to this point, I’ve picked up 4 trash comments and 3 actual, legitimate, supposedly non-spammy visitors. Likewise, over the course of the last we’ll say two weeks, I’ve amassed a total of 245 spam comments. Over the course of the past month or so, Google’s tracked about 200 actual, supposedly legitimate folks coming to the blog via one method or another–mostly via direct visits right now.

    Now, I’m hardly the kind of blogger that’d attract massive amounts of visitors, so this is probably not a very accurate or telling sampling, but this is what happens when I’m randomly curious. If gaging spam rates was all it took to tell how much attention your blog was getting from people in general, this would be just way too easy.

    But, because I started this thing on random curiosity, I’m going to extend my curiosity to others. If you maintain a blog that allows you to track trafic in some way, shape or form, I’m wondering if you’ve noticed a similar increase in spam comments relative to actual legitimate trafic that hasn’t yet tripped the spam trigger. Or, has the level of spam comments tended to differ from the increase in trafic? If you’re up for it, toss a general opinion on this–based on experience or not, your choice–in the comments. Inquiring minds want to know.

  • Google Voice is now available to everyone; just not outside the US.

    written by

    james

    I’ve always thought being able to call and/or text with someone in the US from Canada without Rogers taking its cut would be absolutely awesome. Or, for that matter, calling the said someone for free from Canada without handing over mass amounts of cashola to Bell. Google Voice was going to be the key to doing that. Except for one very minor, yet very annoying detail. It’s never been available in Canada. Now, today, they’ve dropped their invitation only beta, and still are only available in the US. By the time they become available in Canada, we’ll probably already have our own equivalent service–that’s been done before.

    Google, you’re awesome–when you’re not trying to annoy me with random tributes to Pacman. This idea you have for managing multiple phones with one number is equally awesome. Now, kindly be even more awesome and actually let me use it. Trust me, we can handle it. The CRTC may not be able to, but we never really cared about them anyway.

    Google voice is available for general public consumption. Just not outside the US. Let’s work on fixing that, shall we?

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