Brian Hampson - Life and Other Things

Looking for somewhere to send your kid to Camp this summer?

We’re the place - NorthPointe Outdoor Adventures

We’re based out of Vancouver, but our camps are up on the sunshine coast, in a beautiful setting - Camp Byng.  We also do trips to kayak, and hike the area around Gibsons and Sechelt.  We cater to kids 10-15 and it’s a ton of fun.  If you have any doubts, feel free to leave a comment and I’ll get back to you!  We’ve got a camp starting July 12, 2004 and we’ve got a bit of room still.  I think it would be cool if my blog actually brought in a client :) 

You may also have heard our commercials on News1130 - pointing you to http://www.campvancouver.com/  Either way, check out the site, and drop us an email to be sure to guarantee a space.

Obligitory TV Shopping network addin:  “Buy now and receive a free set of Ginsu knives”  (for the humour impaired - you are NOT going to get a free set of Ginsu knives - duh!)

Some 14yr old kid got dragged around the ocean by a 53lb bass, while he was fishing from his kayak! 

Thanks to Metafilter for the link

PCWorld is running a 5 page article on “busting PC Myths”  It’s interesting.  I certainly can’t say that I agree with all their statements.  Some comments are out in left field:

If you don’t periodically run your laptop batteries down to zero, you’ll lose battery life.

This belief stems from a syndrome that plagued old-fashioned laptop batteries–the bulky nickel cadmium variety. With those batteries, performance degraded if the battery wasn’t periodically discharged fully. (If you use a NiCd-powered laptop, discharge the battery every three months.)

Newer laptops use lithium ion batteries that have no memory, says Isidor Buchmann, the founder of Cadex, a Canadian manufacturer of battery chargers and analyzers. They don’t need to be discharged to maintain their life, he says. Lithium ion batteries prefer a partial rather than a full discharge. Nonetheless, every 30 charges or so, you should run them down to zero. This measure isn’t to preserve the battery but to recalibrate the fuel gauge–the indicator on the laptop screen that shows how much battery juice and time remain.

Well, if it ISN’T true, perhaps they can explain why we have laptop batteries that are dead after only one year of being mostly used as plugged in devices? 

I’m not even going to touch the “pulling the plug doesn’t hurt your PC” comment.  Yikes!

I’ll leave the others to you you to decide.  Your thoughts?

Thanks to Endgadget for the link

This is WAY cool! - Bend it, wrap it, tie it.  Live Wire is usable lighting.

Thanks to Kevin Kelly for the link.

Starbucks - the coffee store that’s on just about EVERY street corner in Vancouver and Seattle, and apparently even in the United Arab Emirates (whodda thunk it?) is giving away Frappucino samplers on June 30, 2004.  Free!  Cool!  Only at the North American stores unfortunately

Thanks to Tony for the link!

Well, I’m just plain exhausted!  We had a 3 day St. John Ambulance “Standard First Aid with Wilderness” course this past weekend and it was “Go Go Go!”  Friday night we went from 5:30 to 10:15 doing CPR for adults, children and infants.  My arms were sore from the chest thumping…what a work out! I hope I NEVER have to give CPR - it’s brutal work.

Saturday and Sunday were outdoor learning - Hot and sunny, with bugs, and all the goodies while we worked to remember all the basics of scene management, primary surveys, secondary surveys, immobilizing, comforting, transporting.  Our instructors were firemen with the Vancouver Fire Department, and had great first hand knowledge of the kinds of things that happen out there.  

On Sunday, we had “live” scenario testing - our patients were done up with makeup and some nasty injuries.   I, at one point was made up to have a deep gash in my forehead with blood oozing from it.  Quite realistic, and it achieved its purpose - it threw off the train of thought for my rescuers.  Shook them up a bit.  Good.

This time taking the course is my 2nd.  It certainly doesn’t hurt to take it twice.  (St. John apparently suggests that you take it every 3 years)  This time I attended with 6 of our scouts, and other scout leaders.  It was good working with people I knew.  There wasn’t the uncomfortable aspect of working at close contact with strangers.  It was also good to see our scouts learn, and take charge.  We really ARE building the leaders of tomorrow.

Now it’s back to work!

The “Pocket Inbox” on the PocketPC is “limited” to say the least.  The lead developer for it, is taking suggestions for changes.

Now’s your chance!  Be heard!

Netcraft has a good write up about this little exploit called “Download.Ject” that “reputable” servers are apparently spreading.  You see, they’ve been infected via a hole that was supposed to have been patched when the “Sasser” worm came out.  I still think that the net positive from applying an MS patch far outweighs the potential prolems that people appear to encounter some times.

PEOPLE - PATCH YOUR COMPUTERS!  DO IT NOW, DO IT OFTEN, DO IT AUTOMATICALLY!

We’ve seen the AV trigger on a PC here - it shows up as infected .gifs and .jpgs  Symantec calls it “Trojan.Horse”  - I’m guessing a generic name until defs come out calling it something with “Ject” 

Read the articles - inform yourself!

Softpedia article: http://news.softpedia.com/news/2/2004/June/8728.shtml

Infoworld article: http://www.infoworld.com/article/04/06/25/HNmspushesxpbeta_1.html?source=rss&url=http://www.infoworld.com/article/04/06/25/HNmspushesxpbeta_1.html

BBC article: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/3840101.stm

MS’s Security page: http://www.microsoft.com/security/incident/download_ject.mspx

Netcraft’s article: http://news.netcraft.com/archives/2004/06/25/iis_exploit_infecting_web_site_visitors_with_malware.html

Symantec’s Page: http://securityresponse.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/download.ject.html

[Later]  They’ve apparently shut down the Russian Server from which infected servers were grabbing the code… see: http://news.com.com/Web+site+virus+attack+blunted/2100-7349_3-5248279.html?part=rss&tag=5248279&subj=news.7349.5 for full details.

This fellow has made a mission out of visiting all of the lower 48 states, to see what “America is”.  He’s got some interesting photos, but what really makes it, is the commentary.  It’s quite a humourous read.  He writes about the people he meets, and I can imagine being there, and thinking the same thing.

I stopped by thinking, “I’ll just read a quick little bit”, and found myself reading the whole thing.  Very interesting

Thanks to Metafilter for the link

There’s a 5 year old boy in Berlin that can hold 7 pound weights with his arms extended.    Many adults can’t do that!  The “New England Journal of Medicine reports the finding in it’s June 2004 issue. This little tyke has a mutated gene that now doesn’t stop muscles from being produced.  I suppose this will put a whole new spin on the term “muscle-bound”.  Freaky stuff - I suppose he’ll be handy when dad can’t find the Jack to change the flat tire

Thanks to AP via Yahoo! for the story

They’ve been reroofing our townhome complex for the last couple of weeks.  It’s been not too bad, other than a dumpster on the road, and having to watch for old roofing nails everywhere.

Today, they started on our part of the complex at about 0630.  Oy Vey!  It sounded like an army was doing drill on my roof!  I got up to go shower, and realised that with the skylight in the bathroom, it’s probably a good thing Mrs. DragonSpeed is away for the week.  I was tempted to lean out my window and say good morning to guys 30ft in the air, just outside my bathroom

When I went down to feed my cats, I thought I’d lost one again.  No, Taffy was just hiding, as the sound of raining cedar shakes was a bit much for him.  Arggh.  With the work being done on or building, I’ve been relegated to parking out on the street, and all my hanging pictures and clocks had to come down, AND I have to close all my windows. 

I don’t know if you saw the temperature or not in one of my past posts, but now I have a handy way of cooking all my food, without using the Barbeque or the oven.  I can just leave it sit on the counter, it should easily reach oven temperatures with all the windows closed

Well - it’s for the better, or so I’m told.  We’ll see when it’s all done. 

So, the missus flew off to Toronto today, for 5 days.  Bachelor life again.  I had to get up at 0600 today to get her to her ride for the airport.  I’m beat.  It’s going to be hard to make it through the day.  Sleep….come to me!

On a more positive note, it’s our Scout Group’s (40th Marpole - Vancouver) year end picnic tonight.  I’ve been a Scout Leader now for 13 years.  Wow, time flies!  That means that the kids that were scouts when I started will be 27 now.  Hmmm, let’s hope they ended up going down the right path.  If, for whatever reason any ex-scout of the 40th reads this, please comment, I’d like to know what you’re doing now.

Oh, and the heat just keeps on keepin’ on.  Urrgh.

I’ve just been informed about a site called TinyPic, which does exactly what TinyURL does.  Shortens down your link to something easily copied, pasted, etc.   And it will take the image from your PC (Resize to less than 250K would be good - Its resizing algorithm warped my pic a bit)

For all you fishermen trying to show off your fish, people trying to sell Ebay items, simply people that need to share a picture with friends that don’t have a server, this is great.

Also, there is a weird “Top Links” section, for images that have been most linked.  Why this exists is beyond me.  Of course it’s self fulfilling - top listed link gets checked by more people than lower, and hence exponentially climbs up the list.

So…how do these guys make money (or simply survive)?  Not really sure. Then again I wonder how tinyurl.com does it too.

Thanks to Metafilter for the link

So, here’s mine, based on Brad Wilson’s list, and someone named “Lisa“

Google for your home state or province, using “You know you’re from ” - grab the FIRST LIST and BOLD the ones that apply to you.  Here’s what I found.

You know you’re from BC when…

1.You know the provincial flower (Mildew)
2. You feel guilty throwing aluminum cans or paper in the trash.
3. Use the statement “sunny break” and know what it means.
4. You know more than 10 ways to order coffee.
5. You know more people who own boats than air conditioners.
6. You feel overdressed wearing a suit to a nice restaurant.
7. You stand on a deserted corner in the rain waiting for the “Walk” signal.
8. You consider that if it has no snow, it is not a real mountain.
9. You can taste the difference between Starbucks, Blendz, and Tim Horton’s.
10. You know the difference between Chinook, Coho, Pink, Chum, and Sockeye salmon.
11. You know how to pronounce Squamish, Osoyoos & Nanaimo.
12.You consider swimming an indoor sport.
13. You can tell the difference between Japanese, Chinese, Vietnamese

Someone has taken it upon themselves to help correct the unwashed masses and their common mistakes.  There appear to be many.  I’ve been caught on one or two of them in the past.

Thanks to Metafilter for the link

This is nice…  HUGE (38 MB), but nice

Vancouver and area is going through a heat wave.  It’s been Smokin’ hot for the last two days, and we’ve got at least one more to go!  It’s STILL 21 degrees at the airport, and they’re RIGHT on the ocean.  Those of us more inland are still melting!  For the week of really hot weather we get each year, it makes me wish we had an air conditioner!

Currently (2300 PDT)

According to a Reuters news article, a judge in Kobe’s trial has ordered that ATT Wireless is to turn over ALL text messages sent and recieved on the phone of the former boyfried of her accuser.

Did you read that part -

ALL text messages sent and recieved on the phone of the former boyfriend of his accuser.

That means that ATT Wireless HAS all text messages on the phone!  All you GMail paranoid types out there (Sarah?), try this on for size.  You send someone SMS, via whatever means, and their carrier keeps it for perpetuity for God knows what purpose, perhaps PATRIOT ACT checkups?  Marketing?

Yikes!

Engadget has a nice summary of the situation

2004-06-21 Update: According to the guy who designed the SMS systems for Sprint and Cingular, they DON’T keep message content around.  Apparently Cingular is almost impossible to catch a message, even in transit. Good Sprint and Cingular, Bad ATT

Finally, I’ve found out how to get GPS coords into pictures, and link it all together.  This means that all those pictures I have taken lakes, and back roads etc can have an actual geographic location, which will help me remember much better than DSC004561.JPG ever will

Thanks to Engadget for the link

Yes, the British TV series SWAG (Guy Ritchie), which uses hidden cameras to bust idiots stealing things (Good!) has had all their cameras stolen from an editing room (Bad!!!) Perhaps they should have had an episode set up in their own office?  Doh!

Thanks again to Engadget for another one.