Category: Uncategorized

Three years of blogging…

It was three years ago today that I started this blog. And after three years of posting I can honestly say that I enjoy it more now than I did when I began.

A few days ago Darren had an interesting post where he looked a bunch of popular blogger’s very first posts. They aren’t what you’d expect in a lot of cases. My first post was fairly introductory, but that’s because I actually had a different blog for a month before this one got started. Unfortunately, it has been lost (at least I can’t find it anywhere), and that’s why I consider this one the start of my blogging career.

Sounds funny doesn’t it, a blogging career? Well call it what you will, I’m just getting started!

Do spammers get spammed?

Post ImageLarry posted yesterday about the many kinds of spam he receives, including some that could not possibly result in any revenue for anyone. I get some of that too. The most interesting kind I have gotten lately is spam with the subject line “hi mack” or “hi mmale” – they are getting better! Anyway, Larry has a pretty common idea for punishing the spammers:

There are those that advocate capital punishment for spammers. I think we should just sentence them to a lifetime of receiving spam themselves.

I hear this all the time, and it just makes me laugh. I think it’s safe to assume there’s a person behind every piece of spam that gets sent (someone has to turn on the computer in the first place) – we’ll call them the spammer. So why would anyone think that the spammer is exempt from getting spam? I bet the spammers get just as much spam as the rest of us.

Read: Larry Borsato

Simple advice for acting on your software ideas

Post ImageJustice decided to play the “hypothetical situation” game today, with a post asking what you should do if a great idea hits you. I started out writing a comment, but it got ridiculously long, so here’s a post instead. First, I’ll answer the questions Justice included in his post, then I’ll suggest some of my own questions. Not that you need to be reminded, but I’ll say it anyway – I’m not an expert on these matters, so take this advice with a grain (or jug) of salt!

Okay, so you’ve got a great world-changing idea for a software application/business. What now?

Do you even tell *anyone*?
Yes! This is the easiest of the questions to answer. I think you have to tell someone, preferrably many people. You might think your idea is amazing, and maybe it is, but you won’t know until you get someone else’s opinion. Be prepared though, an honest opinion from someone can have you hitting the ground hard.

If/when this occurs to you, what do you do?
Well, tell someone first. Get another opinion. After that, decide if you really want to proceed. I don’t like doing things half-assed, and I’m sure you don’t either, so this is really an “am I all in or not” kind of decision. It’s not quite the point of no return, but once you commit, you had better follow through.

How do you get started?
In the case of software (or most things of a technical nature), you need to help people visualize your idea. That means getting a prototype or mockup or something going as quickly as possible. It’ll help you refine the idea, and it’ll make it easier to attract help later on. If you don’t know any programming languages, I guess you should learn one of those first 😉

Do you quit your job immediately and begin laboring intensely to bring this to fruition?
This is a difficult question to answer. It comes down to opportunity cost I suppose. It really depends on your individual situation. If you can quit your job and still manage to keep a roof over your head and coke, er, food on the table while working on your idea, I say go for it. Be prepared to give up any social life you might have however!

One caveat is to make sure you have something else going on in your life. If all you do is work on your idea, you’re going to burn out. You need to be able to take a break every now and then.

Do you immediately rush out and try to gather every talented and qualified person you know to begin building what you understand will eventually end up altering the world for the better?
In short, no. First, get that prototype/mockup going. Once that’s done, you can think about adding to the team. Here are some of the things you need to consider:

  • A large team can actually slow you down!
  • Waiting too long to bring in other developers may mean they spend all their time learning what you’ve already done before they can become productive.
  • Make sure you’re ready to share the glory if you decide not to go it alone.
  • A small number of people with specialized, complementary skills can be excellent for development.
  • How will you pay everyone?

What other questions should you be asking?
Well, there’s a bunch. Here are some that came to mind for me:

  • What problem am I solving? This one you need to be able to answer right away.
  • Do I want to be rich or do I want to change the world? This will have an impact on how you decide to pursue the idea. If you’re lucky, you’ll get both.
  • If you decide to go for it, will you get a Pareto efficient outcome? Of course it won’t be perfectly Pareto optimal, but that should be the goal. If your family has to suffer greatly for this to work, maybe reconsider.
  • How much is this going to cost me? In dollars, time, etc.
  • Are you prepared to hear “no”? Because you will, a lot.
  • Do you value sleep? You’ll get less and less if you go after your idea.
  • If this becomes a real business, are you ready to give up control one day? You’ll likely need to bring in outside help, investors, etc.

There’s dozens of other potential questions you could ask. Most of them don’t need to be asked right away, however.

So, what now?
I really believe you need to do two things: create a visualization of your idea, and get as many opinions as you can. After you’ve done those two things, you’ll have a better handle on the idea, and you’ll be in a much better position to answer any questions.

Read: Gray’s Matter

All the fish gone by 2048?

Post ImageIn the last week we’ve heard a lot about recent research that suggests fish stocks will completely collapse by 2048. The research, led by Boris Worm of Dalhousie University in Halifax, found essentially that marine biodiversity matters. An article at The Economist explains:

The findings suggest that governments should rethink the way they try to manage fisheries. Marine reserves are common in the tropics, but policymakers in temperate countries tend to focus on one species at a time to control numbers of that species caught. They might do better to spend more time thinking about ecosystems and less haggling over quotas.

I guess I’m what economists would call a “frontier” thinker. Now that we know about the issue, I think we’ll be able to apply our science and technology to solve any potential problems. I am pretty confident that by 2048, we won’t have to worry about disappearing fish stocks.

Read: The Economist

The NHL needs to fire McGeough

Post ImageWhenever Michael McGeough is assigned to officiate an Oiler game, I cringe. Tonight he proved exactly why. The Oilers just lost to the Dallas Stars by a final score of 3-2, but the Stars were helped immensely by the officials in this one.

The first Stars goal should not have been allowed. Roloson was in his crease and was interfered with, which according to NHL rule #78 should have been immediately disallowed. Neither official on the ice made a peep, and the goal was allowed to stand.

Late in the third period, with the score 3-1 for the Stars, the Oilers pulled Roloson and managed to get to within one. Then, with less than half a minute to go, Hemsky scored. This time though, McGeough immediately waved it off, very emphatically I might add. He claimed that Horcoff made a glove pass off the draw. First of all, it’s really not hard to distinguish between a glove and a stick, and Horcoff clearly used his stick. The play was entirely legal. Secondly, McGeough was horribly out of position and could not possibly have had a good look at the draw. Which leads to the question – why did he wave it off?

Because he’s a fucking idiot, that’s why. The play could not be reviewed apparently, and the Oilers were robbed of one, possibly two points by the sheer stupidity of McGeough. I don’t blame the fans for throwing anything and everything on the ice.

Seriously, the NHL needs to review this game and make sure McGeough never officiates again in the league. This kind of atrocious stupidity cannot be tolerated.

Maclean's sucks up to the U of A

Post ImageI don’t know about you, but today I lost all remaining respect that I had for Maclean’s magazine. The annual ranking of Canadian universities came out, and the University of Alberta placed first in the reputational ranking. Kind of suspect, don’t you think, considering the U of A led the charge to boycott the rankings due to suspect methodologies. If there was any doubt about why the U of A and 26 other universities chose to boycott the ranking, I think it’s gone now. Nothing says guilty like sucking up.

If you’d like to see past results, the University of Waterloo has a handy page with all the data – not surprising considering they have ranked first in 13 out of 16 years the rankings have been produced.

For its part, the University of Alberta stands by the earlier decision, though Provost and Vice President (Academic) Carl Amrhein said placing first “certainly feels good.” I guess that’s a fairly diplomatic answer.

Read: Maclean’s

Zune doesn't hate podcasting after all?

Post ImageIt may be true that Microsoft’s upcoming Zune device doesn’t explicitly support podcasting, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t copy a podcast episode to it yourself. In that sense, it’s a lot like any of the other Windows Media based devices out there.

Until today, I was more worried that Microsoft and the Zune would snub podcasting altogether. No mention of podcasting in any literature, marketing, or other materials. No hope for future updates to the Zune to support podcasting. That sort of thing. Today however, Microsoft launched Zune.net and put my fears to rest:

Zap! You’re connected to your best friend and send the new song your band recorded in the garage last weekend. Another friend gets the hilarious podcast your kid brother made at school…

Emphasis is mine. See! They don’t hate podcasting!

Maybe there’s hope for V2 after all.

Read: Zune.net

Minnesota to launch solar wifi network

Post ImageYay for wireless everywhere! Let us all follow the fine example about to be set by Minnesota. According to Web Worker Daily, the state is getting ready to take a major step into the wireless world (via Tris Hussey):

From a state better known for wind chill and the latest in fur-trimmed parka fashion, a plan to create a wireless mesh network with nodes powered by batteries refreshed via solar panels is gathering steam.

The solar panels being used are apparently the same type already being used for highway signs across the country. The battery system is theoretically capable of lasting nearly seven years between replacement. And all the hardware is promised to work even during the dead of winter, through snow and sub-freezing temps.

Canadians take note! This sounds like the kind of technology we need to deploy here in our own cities. Apparently 300 residents are already testing the network (not currently solar powered) and a final decision on the project should be made on Monday.

Wireless Internet access provided by an all-weather, solar-powered mesh network. Awesome.

Read: Web Worker Daily

Dynamic multi-dimensional scrolling in Vista

Post ImageThe launch of Windows Vista is drawing near, so you might be wondering if it is worthy of your hard earned dollars. Ask someone to tell you about Vista, and they’ll likely tell you that it is more secure than XP and has much nicer eye candy. That’s all well and good, but what you really want to hear is that Vista has dynamic multi-dimensional scrolling. No really, that’s what you want to hear. Long Zheng has an awesome animation that compares the scrolling experience in XP with the new experience in Vista (if you’re too lazy to look, essentially Vista does horizontal scrolling for you automagically).

I can’t say it better than Long:

Is it a feature? No. Is it worth mentioning? No. Is it a selling point? No.

Does it deliver a great experience? Yes.

Assuming Vista contains many more of these little gems, you’ll want to spend your money on the new operating system.

Read: Long Zheng

Canada to tax Income Trusts

Post ImageBy now you’ve probably heard that Finance Minister Jim Flaherty announced today a new tax on income trusts. The decision has drawn lots of criticism, especially since it comes just three weeks after BCE proposed the biggest trust conversion in our nation’s history. Telus was another major corporation looking to transform itself to an income trust.

So what the heck is an income trust? That’s been my question throughout all of this. According to Wikipedia:

An income trust is an investment trust that holds income-producing assets. The term also designates a legal entity, capital structure and ownership vehicle for certain assets or businesses. Its shares or “trust units” are traded on securities exchanges just like stocks. The income is passed on to the investors, called “unitholders”, through monthly or quarterly distributions.

Interestingly, the article also points out that they are most common here in Canada.

Anyway, that definition helps a little, but not a lot. When I heard that “BCE wants to turn itself into an income trust”, I thought, “but they are a company?” So if I understand things correctly, they just wanted to save some money on taxes, and becoming an income trust would allow them to do so. And indeed, as the CBC article points out, BCE would have saved itself $800 million in taxes by 2008. That’s some serious dough.

Actually, it turns out the CBC article is more helpful in understanding things:

Trust conversions are increasing in popularity because trusts do not pay corporate tax. Instead, they pay out most of their income in distributions to unitholders, who then pay tax on those distributions at a preferential rate.

Clearly, the government was not happy that it would be losing so much tax money. Existing trusts have a four year grace period until the new tax takes effect, while new trusts face the new rules immediately.

I don’t know if this is a good thing or not. I simply don’t understand things enough to say one way or the other. Certainly the markets don’t like the new rules. My feeling is that companies like BCE and Telus simply discovered a weakness in the laws and sought to exploit it. The government realized it had a problem, and took immediate action. Which one of them is correct? I don’t know. Tax avoidance probably isn’t a good thing for the country, but on the other hand, the companies were not breaking any rules. I can only hope that Mr. Flaherty’s rhetoric about income trusts hurting the economy is true, and not just a statement made up for his own purposes.

Read: CBC News