Today was my first day in Victoria, and what a day it was! First of all, very early morning, but that’s okay as it gave me a chance to cram more into the day. The weather here is awesome compared to Edmonton – nice and sunny, no rain!

After arriving in Victoria, Jennifer, Martin and I went to the Butchard Gardens. The garderns were simply amazing. I have never seen so many flowers, so big, so lush, it was crazy. Even the grass was bright green, very dense, and perfectly cut. I swear the couple people operating lawnmowers we saw were just for show!

Next we went downtown and walked around the harbor. We went for lunch at Barb’s, a fish and chip shop – delicious! I dont know why they ask if you wanted the fish deep fried or grilled, no one I saw ordered grilled. That’s just not fish and chips!

My hotel is not comparable to the one I had in Seattle, but keep in mind that Microsoft paid for the other one. This one is also free, so I won’t complain, but it doesn’t have high speed Internet! I swear it should be a law for all hotels to have Internet access. In any case, I fired up MapPoint and found a cyber cafe 90 meters from the hotel (actually a combination of MapPoint and the Yellow Pages), and it turned out to be an awesome find. Internet access is only $3 per hour!

Tonight was dinner at Milestones, a restaurant somewhat similar to Earls. This particular Milestones was situated right on the harbor, across the street from the Empress Hotel and down the street from the Legislature buildings. Dinner was excellent, and it was awesome to see everything lit up at night.

Tomorrow is a sleep-in day, then the afternoon is free, so I suppose we’ll find something to do! And yes Megan, I plan to visit the chocolate store tomorrow 🙂

So in a few hours my plane leaves for Victoria, BC! I am there until Saturday for meetings and vacation. The meetings are for a website I look after, SLIC Online at http://www.schoollibraries.ca.

Part of my job for the week is to take pictures and cover the happenings, so I will probably have some pictures to post! Oh, and as this is my first time to Victoria, if you have been there and can suggest something I should check out, I’d appreciate it! I am scheduled to see the gardens after arriving, but thats it so far!

So have you heard about the recent outsourcing debates? Is it good, is it bad, will you lose your job? Well if you haven’t its a pretty big issue right now – North American companies are outsourcing work to firms and individuals in the Middle East, Asia, and other places because it is cheaper. Personally, I am in favor of outsourcing as I believe it will allow us to move one notch higher again in the world of international economics.

In any case, this post is about the Church outsourcing. Hey if telemarketers trying to sell you fake savings in your long distance phone plan can do it, surely the world’s oldest and most successful sellers of the fake can do it! Interesting story in the New York Times:

With Roman Catholic clergy in short supply in the United States, Indian priests are picking up some of their work, saying Mass for special intentions, in a sacred if unusual version of outsourcing.

I can just see the lawsuits now…”Man sues church after finding out the sermon he attended was performed by employees in India!”…LOL!

What a game. What a devastating loss for England. After scoring just before half time, England led until right near the end when Beckham failed to convert a penalty kick. Shortly after, Zidane scored on a free kick and in extra time, scored on a penalty kick awarded after a horrible English error.

The only saving grace I suppose was that I picked up some points for the pool I am in. All is not lost however, still enough games for England to make it through. For more, keep an eye on SportsGuru’s blog.

The other sporting event of the day was the Canadian Grand Prix, which Michael Schumacher won. He has now set a record as the first driver ever to win a race seven times. Go Schumi!

If you have read my movie posts, you probably know that I link to the Internet Movie Database a lot. I have always liked this site, ever since the days of “riddler.com” (anyone remember that? probably back in like 1996). It has tons of information, is accurate, fast and clean. It is also owned by Amazon.

Another reason I like it is because I can do stuff like this: I saw the MTV movie awards tonight, and one pair of presenters was Tom Cruise and Jamie Foxx who were promoting their new movie Collateral. What is Tom up to after this movie? Mission: Impossible 3 opens in 2005, and he is also in a new Steven Spielberg movie called War of the Worlds slated for 2006. One of the writers for the movie is David Koepp, who is also in the process of writing Spider-Man 3, slated for 2007!

So there you have it, I just found out that Spider-Man 3 has already been announced. Cool site, eh?!

Tonight was my sister’s graduation…from high school! I can’t believe how time flies. It seems like only yesterday that I graduated and she was just going into grade 10.

This was a big year for graduation in Inuvik, 22 students made it! Imagine graduating with only 21 other kids…kinda scary isn’t it? Hopefully I’ll have some pictures later, but here is my sister’s grad photo!

Well Kim, congrats from me 🙂 Now its on to bigger and better things!

I came across this very interesting article on News.com entitled “Thirty years with computers” by Jakob Nielsen. In the article Nielsen describes what he expects computers to look like in the year 2034 based on his experiences in the last thirty years:

Futurist Jakob Nielsen asserts that home computers will have microprocessors running at 3 petahertz (300,000 gigahertz) that have a petabyte’s worth of memory, a billion gigabytes of storage and a 250-gigabit broadband connection.

Sounds pretty good hey? There is a follow-up comment to the story that says Nielsen gets it wrong, and really, this will be how we define the future:

More importantly, Nielsen is stuck on the PC box paradigm. Looking back at the last 30 years of change in computers, I find it hard to believe that the computers of 30 years from now will even be describable within the paradigm of today’s machines. Chip speed? Gigabytes?

I am kind of in the middle of these two perspectives. Surely computers in thirty years will have some concept of speed, it probably just won’t be called petahertz. Already Intel and AMD are moving away from the GHz naming scheme. At the same time, I don’t think computers are going to get THAT much smaller. There reaches a point where too small becomes unusable by our clumsy human fingers.

We’ll probably get bigger displays and storage like Nielsen predicts, and computers will probably get smaller (slightly) and cheaper. However I think the biggest differences will come in interface. Handwriting, speech, and image recognition will be the dominant technologies. Your computer will recognize your signature, voice and face.

The two places I think we most need a revolution? Easy! Power and materials. Battery power today is absolutely terrible compared with the rest of technology, and it will more than likely undergo a breakthrough in the next 30 years. The second area that needs to drastically change are the materials used for building computers. Silicon? Copper? How about DNA and other nanomolecules! Infinitely more powerful, and most importantly, infinitely cheaper.

I have finished my second entry in the Election 2004 mini-series. This one covers the somewhat touchy topic of spending money on AIDS relief overseas. Leave a comment and let me know what you think! Here’s a small excerpt:

Instead of stealing from the average (Canadian taxpayers) to give to the poor, why not have the rich donate to the poor? I can tell you with complete honesty that I would rather see the Canadian government spend money on hospitals in my city than on poor countries around the world.

Read Episode #2

Welcome to the second episode. I know this one is likely to be a touchy subject for many of you, but here are my thoughts on government and spending money on AIDS drugs and treatment in poor countries.

Basically, my opinion boils down to this – don’t waste money on AIDS overseas. Now I agree that some money should be spent on AIDS research, that is, finding a cure or proper treatment. However, I think that money only needs to be spent at home. Pay our doctors and scientists to work on finding a cure. It is beyond me how spending taxpayers money on AIDS overseas delivers any benefit back to us. Lets say we cure them of AIDS, then what? They are still poor. They still live in dirty, inadequate housing. They still don’t have clean water. (1) If they don’t die from AIDS, they will likely die from something else anyways. That’s harsh, but that’s reality.

Instead of government spending all this money in poor countries, why not lobby to create more organizations like the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation? They are rich people, who will never be able to spend all the money they have. In their short four year history (founded January 2000), the foundation has awarded grants totaling $3,648,344,041 USD on Global Health alone (2). They also donate to Education, a Global Library Program, and more. There are MANY more people who could do something similar (albeit in smaller amounts).

When we talk about giving back to society, that’s the example I think we need to follow. I know the world isn’t perfect, and not all the wealthy want to share, but its something to strive for. Instead of stealing from the average (Canadian taxpayers) to give to the poor, why not have the rich donate to the poor? I can tell you with complete honesty that I would rather see the Canadian government spend money on hospitals in my city than on poor countries around the world. Screw our “international position” for once. Look out for #1!

With that, let’s see how our political parties fare:

Liberal Party – http://www.liberal.ca
According to Martin’s announced platform, his Liberal government would “dedicate $100 million – fully half the funding required by the World Health Organization” for the WHO’s plan to ensure 3 million people suffering from AIDS receive treatment by 2005. Additionally, the Liberals plan to increase their contribution to the Global Fund to Fight HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria by $70 million. Total cost? $170 million dollars. Why do we have to contribute half? Are the other 190 countries in the UN not capable of doing their part?

Let’s compare that to Martin’s plan for health care at home. The platform website includes eleven paragraphs about health care in Canada, yet only the last one offers any sort of financial figures (granted they have a graph showing that health care spending has gone up over time – duh it should as we grow in numbers and the population ages). The Liberals say they “have already committed $37 billion in new money over five years from 2003-04.” They go on to say that they will “do more”. How about taking even HALF of that astronomical amount being spent on AIDS elsewhere and putting it into our health care system? Comparatively, $170 million is nothing against $37 billion, but when benefit is already so hard to come by, why spend any of it elsewhere?
Awarded: 1 Point

Conservative Party – http://www.conservative.ca/
Harper’s platform is very similar to the Liberals in terms of health care spending at home. The party is committed to implementing the Health Accord which consists of $36.8 billion in new funding. One thing I noticed that I find interesting is that the Conservatives plan to clear the drug approval backlog and bring drug approval times in line with the US. I think that is good for everyone.

Their platform does not mention spending on AIDS anywhere. The only reference I was able to find is that the Conservatives will support “patent reform to allow low-cost generic drugs to be sold in Africa for the relief of AIDS and other epidemics.” Sounds good to me as long as the Canadian government doesn’t make up the difference.
Awarded: 3 Points

NDP – http://www.ndp.ca/
The NDP platform for health care at home is a little different than the first two. Layton’s NDP plans to implement the Romanow plan and pay 25% of provincial health care costs within two years. Another interesting part of the platform is that they plan to outlaw the practice of “evergreening” prescription drugs that delay the availability of cheaper, generic drugs. No where in the platform is the Health Accord mentioned.

On the AIDS front, the NDP plan to, like the Conservatives, make generic drugs available to Africa and developing countries. Like the Liberals, the NDP platform calls for a tripling of existing funding for the Global Fund for AIDS. That will bring spending for the fund to roughly $105 million.
Awarded: 1 Points

Bloc Québécois – http://www.bloc.org/
Okay as you probably know, I don’t speak French fluently, let alone read or write it. Armed with a translator however, searching their PDF platform, I was able to determine no references to either the Health Accord or the Romanow Report.

All I was able to understand from their section on International Aid, excuse me, L’aide internationale, is that the Bloc plans to increase the percentage of GDP spent on foreign aid. Specifically they mention nutrition, child welfare, and AIDS.
Awarded: 0 Points

Green Party – http://www.greenparty.ca/
Similar to the NDP, the Green Party health plan includes implementing the Romanow Report. They also have the best platform site in my opinion, as it includes a handy search box! The NDP uses PDF so you can search it, but PDF is too slow for my tastes. Another interesting aspect of their health care plan is that they plan to fund public pharmaceutical research.

Using the wonderful search feature, I found no references to AIDS. Assuming they are more like to tell you if they are spending money on something rather than NOT spending money on something, I think we can assume the Green Party won’t waste money on AIDS overseas.
Awarded: 3 Points

So there you have it! This second episode is more in-depth than the first one, and covers a topic that has always been a sticking point for me. I just don’t know why Canada has to be the country that looks after the rest of the world. Until the next episode, here are the current standings:

1. Green Party – 6 points
2. Conservatives – 5 points
3. Liberal Party – 4 points
4. NDP – 1 point
5. Bloc Québécois – 0 points

SOURCES
1: Impact of Poverty on AIDS in Africa
2: Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
3: Information under each party heading found from their respective websites.

To see my other articles in this series, look here.

Have you ever wondered what a map of Springfield looks like? Well today I came across this very large and extremely detailed map! Don’t you think the Kiwk-E-Mart seems lonely? Lots of good stuff, like the “Three Seasons Motel” and the “Pay & Park & Pay”. Enjoy 🙂

If the image doesn’t appear, you can get to it here.

Read: Scott Hanselman’s Weblog