Ever seeking the opportunity to play around with 3D technologies - for that day long into the future when I write killer games  for prople a quarter my age - I decided to have a look at Google's "SketchUp" package, intended for creating 3D objects within its Google Earth environment.  The package is released and the "Google Earth Community" is pretty good about creating buildings and architecture for cities all over the world, although the folks at Google have obviously decked out a number of American cities in 3D already, as one sees when using Google Earth 4.0.

Anyway, SketchUp has other applications for us C# developers.  Potentially.   No, my first searches for a tool that reads or maniuplates .kmz files (the file format Google Earth and SketchUp use) but thanks to their Open Source Software (OSS) approach to the KML file format, one can easily build a C# app that does read these files and output 3D graphics.

How?  Well, for starters, .KMZ files are actually .ZIP files which contain .KML and other support files.  So, all one need do is leverage an API (Applicaiton Programming Interface) for ZIP files, and then pulling out the .KML file content from there should be a sinch!  At that point, the .NET support for 3D graphics proramming and DirectX should have you well on your way to creating your own 3D engine that usees KML.  Why is this useful?  Because SketchUp is a tool that already lets you easily (and I mean really easily) create 3D objects for your environment.

I didn't have time this weekend to create any wee demos for release here, but it's on my "todo" list for an attempt in the next few weeks.  Of course, there's projects at work demanding my attention, and those have a nasty habit of derailing these little endeavours of mine...but that's life. ;)

• Look who wants to hook up - Forbes.com

Also this past week, more takeover talk from one big giant.  Although it continues to amaze me that Microsoft takes such keen interest in successful companies that don't seem all that keen on using its products.  Facebook might not, in my view, deserve the attention though.  Its success is largely predicated on simply being first to market and switching everything over to ASP.NET isn't likely to change or improve the situation for the start-up as competitor sites quickly close the gap.  Does this strike anyone else as more of a fad than a real fundamental change in how the net draws users online?

Add to this the fact that Facebook is largely ad-free at the moment (and doesn't look anything like MSN groups, with ads everywhere), and what you have a recipe for a pretty huge failure.  Just because Yahoo's doing it hardly means it's worth doing...

• Crazy blogger on the loose....again - CNet Should Abandon Him!: reader comment from ross613 - CNET News.com
• Why Microsoft must abandon Vista to save itself

There aren't many opportunities these days to pull me into a good 'ol fashioned Internet "flame war".  Oh, I admit, there was a day long ago when I'd cease upon the opportunity to hone my cyber-wit.  But the point behind doing so has proven increasingly elusive as the Internet went 'mainstream'.  Particularly with the raw volume of forums and participants turning the Internet into a multi-terrabyte trash-talkathon of spam-punctuated fornication and falsehood.  Instead of heralding a new era of user-empowerment and techno-democracy with a limitless, free exchange of ideas, it's reduced the pre-dot-com analogy of the paper blizzard into a Googlesque cyclone where the value of information has grown exponentially in relation to how hard it's become to find anything amidst the deluge.

Maybe that's why an article this past week citing Windows Vista for its compatibility issues and apparent flaws stood out so.  What would otherwise have been quickly dismissed as another inane rant by a know-nothing, opinionated dot-columnist somehow got picked up by one of the Internet's most respected technology journals - CNet's News.com.  So laden it was with techno-bigotry and anti-Microsoft, pro-Mac/Linux/anything-but-Bill-Gates spin that I almost swallowed my tongue by the time I got through the first paragraph.  And after this future anchor of Fox news had finished triumphantly arguing that Vista sucked so much, the only rational solution was to pull it from store shelves - well, I had to write a response, as follows:

Abandon Vista? Is this guy nuts? And just *how* pray-tell would Microsoft go about doing *that*?

If there is something that would make the situation any worse, it would be the software giant up and towing the line of these Mac-prostrating armchair feebleminds and their numbskull advice somehow winning the day and undermining what gains have been made and integrated into Windows. To adopt a luddite mentality, and pull the product would also deprive the majority of users who have the system and use it in favour of a vocal minority that can't or won't upgrade simply because they feel they shouldn't be compelled to.

Well, hate to say it, but no version of Windows, MacOS nor any other technology invented is going to forever remain compatible with new hardware going forward. I am willing to concede the point (and readily) that MS probably did not consider the 'real' lowest common denominator in testing Vista for compatibility, but, again, how this equates with "pull it off shelves now" baffles me.

Next time CNet gets a reporter to offer up opinions on what a terrible thing Vista is, would you mind terribly finding someone who has a clue what he's talking about? Perhas someone with some real technical knowledge about Windows who can competently state whether its really superior to XP beyond giving us a hugely subjective re-statement of sales figures.

Of course, I wasn't alone in my view, which was actually pretty remarkable since CNet is generally less than pro-Microsoft in most of its editorials.  A goodly number of other respondents found the article as uniquely shocking both in its prominence in the CNet blogosphere and simply for how frightfully stupid its author (a columnist named Don Reisinger) sounded.  It's likely the raw hit count and infamy of this article will guarantee this clown another spot in future editions of the CNet News Blog, but the effect should really be the opposite, based on the response.  Time will tell if CNet will help stem the tide of poor online journalism in favour of driving up the hit counter for advertisers.

• ottawasun.com - National/World - Facebook to the rescue!

Should I take back what I said this week concerning Facebook?  Not at all - and a story this week lauding the social networking site to which I and a whole lot of others have been sucked into over recent months illustrates why.  While praising it as the vehicle by which a potentially rabies-infected woman was found, the story didn't mention that Facebook's privacy and security features would generally have made this kind of search quite impossible.

They were just darned lucky the woman in question kept her profile public.

Facebook still needs to revamp privacy and security features so that harrassment isn't quite so easy; so that people don't fall victim to "anonymous" attacks using its service.

• globeandmail.com: Greens hold their own debate

Tonight there was a televised debate between all 3 major parties competing for votes in the province's October election.  I've been at odds over where to cast my vote, which is more the norm as I age.  And I'm finding myself ready to cast my vote for a party I'd have thought I'd never see myself voting for: the NDP.

Canada's socialist party tends to be very left of centre, politically, environmentally conscious, and favouring government intervention in the economy along with a smattering of social engineering across the mandate.  This isn't really my politics - but there's a problem.  The Conservative (right of centre) party is favoring extending full funding to culture-based private schools, which I think is extremely divisive.  I myself went to a "culture-based" private school while growing up, but it got all of its funding from fund-raising and donations.  It was not funded with public money.  So, I don't really understand why it should be funded publicly here.  Especially when there are numerous programs screaming for money already - and I just don't see how this can do any good, or how it can avoid causing the provincial treasury to hemorrhage even more money.

My traditional vote goes to the centre (or maybe slightly right-of-centre) Liberal party.  But the leader is an outspoken liar and needs to be removed from office at all cost.  I'm left with either the NDP or the Green Party.  And this latter choice was still on the radar, until I caught this quote from the leader on the page linked at the top of this entry:

"The planet is more important than humans...Until we figure that out, we're nowhere."

What the hell?  Okay you granola-crunching idiot!  And if there are no humans left to appreciate the planet or value its importance as being one way or the other, where does that leave us?  Between nowhere and nothing?  Moron.

I'm not voting for some tree-hugger who's either willing to put the welfare of Earth's environment over that of humanity, or an environmental talking-head who isn't listening to his own speech.  And so why should I?  Earth is just a planet.  There are lots and lots of planets in the universe, and likely lots of them have life just like this one.  Plus sentient life, and its welfare, is going to always register as something a lot higher on most scales of morality than the welfare of rocks and trees because humans can experience pleasure and pain, an infer pleasure and pain through abstract realizations of the world around them.  (While I don't believe this means we can dump toxic waste willy-nilly into any nearby dolphin-filled bodies of water, it's simply nonsense to suggest that the environment takes a priority regardless of attention to the welfare of people.)

One could argue, rationally, that the welfare of environment and humanity go hand-in-hand almost always so why not vote the crackpot in anyway - he may govern competently despite having made a dogmatic, ill-thought remark.  I admit, it might come to that - so starved of choice as I am this election.

But not yet.

I'll wait and see if there are any more serious gaffes during the campaign.  It may be I have to vote strategically if Tory's neocon craziness turns out to be worse than McGuinty's lying.  Tory came precariously close last week to advocating creationism, which is about as crazy as worshipping clay idols and championing the legal rights of earthworms (perhaps a less well-known article in the Green Party platform).  Hopefully, it doesn't come to that.

I complain about this city a lot.  A lot more than even many fellow citizens; and this is a city with a lot of people complaining about it already.  There's good reason to, although my complaints with it stem from a surprising, almost apartheid-like segregation of anglophones and francophones (thanks in part to the geography of the Outaouais), city politics that are, at best, bizarre and being Canada's federal capital, federal politics that are, at worst, pathetic.  But humanity and good Samaritans suddenly appeared out of nowhere when an old man was suddenly accosted with a flurry of rude insults and spitting in food he was carrying by another random, middle-aged hoodlum, probably "of no fixed address" - meaning the Shepherd's of Good Hope shelter less than a block away.  It was a scene that greeted me as I biked home from shopping in Ottawa's Byward Market near where I live this afternoon.

At the corner of Cumberland and Clarence Streets shortly before 2:16 p.m (when my cell phone indicates the '911' call was made) I arrived to see the initial altercation, quickly turn violent when another man got out of his yellow hatch back, seeing the incident with the 1st elderly man got out of his car to intervene.  This resulted in the assailant turning violent suddenly, stricking the man from the car 3 or 4 times about the head.  As he fell to the ground 8 or 9 passers by (myself included) came from all over the busy intersection to pull the homeless man off the guy from the car.  During the effort of separating the two men, I decided it would be best I call '911' and I ended up giving a play-by-play to the operator, who'd eventually suggested (wisely) that I put a little distance between myself and the homeless man.

Those who remained to help the victim of the assault had to be pretty brave.  The homeless guy was appearing extremely irrational - literally frothing at the mouth mad, and sounding both puzzled and upset that so many people were taking issue with his assault of the guy from the car.  He seemed to be asking why he should stop when the other guy hit him first (which isn't want happened), and generally confused.  It seemed likely he was on drugs - perhaps a methamphetamine induced rage....tough to tell.

Regardless, within 2 or 3 minutes, police were on the scene and within 5 minutes 3 OPD units were present taking statements from the crowd, and arresting the homeless man turned assault suspect.

Quite an exciting afternoon.

What surprised me was my own response in a way.  10 or more years ago, I wouldn't have hesitated to treat the homeless man to a round or two about the face from my own fists to gentle him down some.  Not because I'm a violent fellow, but because I believe in justice and minimizing harm - actively.  At the moment, I'm not in any physical shape to conduct myself that way with any probability it would turn out well, and I found myself hesitating for a few seconds to take in the scene before deciding the best course when, again, earlier in life the pause to consider my action would have been much shorter.

I guess I'm getting older...and maybe wiser, or more cautious anyway.

A policeman took my statement today and advised there was a small probability I may be queried further about my testimony and statement.

I'm sick of Facebook - in a way I don't get fed up with things very often.  But Facebook in particular.  For a social networking site, it has to be one of the most passionately anti-social places on the Internet.  Take this recent experience, which epitomizes the kind of dialogue I end up having with what I call the "random crybaby":

As you can see from the discourse above, all I've done is ask the fellow to identify himself, which not only yielded the reply you see following my initial response (to some cryptic request I can't even remember or find, thanks to Facebook security) but also saw him "block" me following his sending the message.  He claims he was trying to reach me as a fellow fan of "Resident Evil".  What that means, I don't know...but I get really annoyed by Facebook's security features when they favour this kind of "screw you for not paying attention to me" type message.  A "note" posted to my profile on Facebook sums it all up:

"I'm getting sick of this place - and I really haven't the foggiest idea why it's so popular. The only reason I ever got an account here to begin with was that virtually everyone I know from every corner of the planet asked me if I had an account. But, all that's happened since coming here, is I've found cliques of pretentious cyber-groupies adding one rediculous applet after the other to their page - and giving me notice of it, along with random crybabies messaging me with some cryptic and/or silly note (again wrapped in the body of some wonky applet-bound text thing I can't begin to figure out) getting all mad and using the harraser-has-the-advantage security features of this place when I have the audacity to ask who the hell they are, in case I might know 'em!"

And Bruce Lee Turner, God forgive him, isn't the only soul of his kind.  I'm no saint - and I have my limits for place that is such total social disarray as this site is.  Give me a site where adults can converse with each other - as adults - and instead of layer upon layer of paranoid anonymity, let people that message you be compelled to at least withstand a reply.  Either that or delete all the messages user A sends to user B the moment user A blocks user B - so user B doesn't feel like he just had the proverbial phone hung up on him!

Oh, and not to be petty about it Mr. Turner, but to you I say: grow up!

•  Slashdot | CRIA Admits P2P Downloading Legal in Canada

Heheh - this is another case of the entertainment industry (or at least Canada's entertainment industry moguls) tripping over their own arguments.  If, as the above-cited Slashdot article has it right, the very levy that same industry argued 20 years ago (quite passionately too, as I recall) to exact on any blank tape, and subsequently any blank CD sold in Canada is now qualifying as a possible admission that all media can be permissibly copied without further penalty in Canada.  And so now that USB drives and, more importantly, downloads to iPods can't practically be made subject to that same kind of "per-unit-sold" tax, resulting in millions more unearned dollars ending up in the coffers of signing agents and other vultures, they wanna change the rules.  Again.

When are these fools gonna finally learn that you can't sue yourself into success and that it's time to find business models that adapt to changes in technology?  This ridiculous and baffling luddite philosophy they seem to want to pursue - restricting how technology can legally be used to listen to music and video is nothing less than the textbook example of hammering the square peg into the round hole!

Unfortunately, that alone isn't going to stop this army of idiots from trying to build a legal framework in this country that will do little more than create a horribly unequal game of fat cat-and-mouse with university students "stealing" the music, hoping to never get caught and sued and industry moguls never sharing the love, hunting down anyone found to be running so much as a windows file share detectably on the Internet.

It's said and, I say again: STOP THE INSANITY!!!

I wasn't even expecting to start browsing torrent sites at this early point trolling for new episodes of favorite programmes (note the non-admission of any wrongdoing in that, law enforcers / policy-makers) not expecting to actually find anything and, to my surprise, Atlantis has already got two episodes posted to virtually every torrent site still active.  (Notably absent from the list this year is TorrentSpy, which signed an agreement with Satan the U.S. entertainment industry to eliminate alleged pirate movie and TV show torrents from its trackers.)  And needless to say, there are a lot of places on the net outlining details from the show, all to very loud howls of "spoiler" and "this is wrong" - even from a number of fans of the show who are opting to wait for the September 28th air date.

Speaking of which....

**** SPOLERS FOR FIRST TWO EPISODES OF STARGATE ATLANTIS, SEASON 4 FOLLOW ****

The noteworthy thing about the plot is that, at one point, the city, left hurtling out-of-control through space by an incident at the end of Season 3, encounters an asteroid field.   There are several issues with this that come immediately to mind:

• even a city the size of Atlantis is infinitesimally small in the vastness of interstellar space; even without knowing the stellar density of the Pegasus galaxy (which I happen to have plotted on a star map near my desk), it's safe to say that if Atlantis came out of hyperspace at some random point in transit between Lantea (the world Atlantis was originally on)and its original destination, the odds of it finding itself in another star system would be extremely remote,
• add to that, even within a star system, an object the size of the city hurtling at some random trajectory, just passin' through coming into contact with another planet or even, say, an asteroid belt would be exceptionally remote, and
• given that contact with an asteroid belt were to be had - the field of asteroids would typically not be quite as dense as was depicted in the episode - particularly at the outer edge of the belt, where the city was "fortunate" to be passing thorough.

The above graph depicts the approximate density of asteroids at points throughout the asteroid belt (measured as units of semi-major axes in relation to the Sun).  1 AU = 149 597 870.691 km (±0.03 km), so each 0.005 AU = 747 989.353455 km.  Dividing this number by 140 asteroids establishes the number of asteroids per every 1 km of space (on average).  Not sure what the margin of error is at that point, perhaps someone would like to add that value, given the numbers presented above.

In the episode, "jumpers" are depicted flying through a dense field of what McKay describes as "building-sized" rocks.  Indeed, the field is so dense that the city is apparently menaced by many of these rocks impacting its width, which couldn't be more than, let's be generous, 10km wide?  Just to put it in perspective, our own asteroid belt, here in the Sol star system, at its most dense point averages 1 asteroid for every 5, 342.78 km.  In short, your average run-of-the-mill, back-home asteroid belt isn't going to need a fleet of "jumpers" armed with a practically inexhaustible supply of missile-drones of the ancients to shatter hundreds or perhaps thousands of building-sized chunks of rock out of the way of a 10km-wide flying city that happens across it one unlucky day.  Were a field of rocks so dense to exist, it would likely accrete into a larger planetary form within a few thousand years.

In fact, I'd really appreciate it if sci-fi shows just started steering clear of episodes where ships of any kind are menaced by Kuiper Belt objects or asteroid belts because an increasing number of us sci-fi fans also are interested in, well, science and might know these things, offhandedly.  Oh I admit, I had to look up the actual density of the asteroid belt on Wikipedia, but I did already know that it was quite sparsely populated taking city-sized objects into consideration.  All the same drama could have been as readily achieved by placing a single asteroid in the path of the city.  This too, would have been extremely unlikely - although the writer involved could have said this random chunk was itself part of an asteroid belt and that would be fine.

In short, if I'm stuck with Atlantis as being all the sci-fi I have to watch until Battlestar Galactica comes back on in January 2008, then I'd appreciate the writers actually making some effort to understand the phenomena they're writing about first.

Wouldn't you?

Have any of you run into this?  You're looking for something at microsoft.com- say an archived video of something related to Windows XP - and lucky you, you found it!  Triumphant that you've finally dug through the labyrinth of links and buttons to reach your goal, you click the last link to take you tot he download site and you get an error page like that says:

"We’re sorry, but we were unable to service your request. You may wish to choose from the links below for information about Microsoft products and services."

Of course, this is followed by a relatively unhelpful menu of some 200 subsections off the main site at microsoft.com.  Frustrated, you give up - swearing allegiance forever after to the throngs of those who disdain microsoft for being large, for being a corporation, and for still not having the organizational skills to update the links on their website when content is reorganized (which seems too often in the first place).  Right?

Well it is to you fellow searcher that I offer this little tip I picked up - and it deals with content principally linked to download.microsoft.com.  In the sample scenario I'm about to use (which closely resembles that which I engaged in this afternoon), I discovered one could "cheat" and paste part of the old, broken link into the newer standard download URL to find what one wanted.

Prior to the re-org of Microsoft's developer support site (MSDN) a couple years back, the download URL took the form:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/release.asp?ReleaseID=42535

This followed a pretty simple system (based on legacy ASP technology) that any developer could imagine the code for.  The ReleaseID matched a key to another link that displayed the download detail page for the item in question.  And this is exactly the link you'll find for the sample content item I'm using; an MSDN video on "threading" in .NET (see the link on this page under "Offline Viewing Download", 300K).  Being a developer myself the thought occurred, well, what if the newer logic still supported the old ReleaseID values? I took a look at the new (current) URL format for downloads used by the Microsoft download site:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=689AA9A5-4945-446F-BF98-08F7EB55D4D4

Here, ReleaseID has been replaced with the newer FamilyID and the old integer value with an alphanumeric sequence we nerds call a GUID.  The obvious question was what if details.aspx, like its predecessor release.asp had kept on supporting ReleaseID to maintain backward compatibility from (at least some) older pages?  So I typed the following into my browser's URL bar:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?ReleaseID=42535

After a couple of automatically redirected web pages later, the updated URL suddenly appeared along with the expected title at the top of the download detail page: "The .NET Show: Code Optimization - 300K".

Now all of this begs the question, "why haven't the links all been updated throughout Microsoft.com", to which the answer is undeniably, oversight.  Certainly, some links were updated following the re-org years ago - otherwise nobody could find anything, and I have found most of the stuff I look for at microsoft.com, notwithstanding the odd incident with older material like this.  The most likely explanation is that it takes a good deal of CPU time, parsing and research to review hundreds of millions (if not trillions) of links across webfarms stretching all over the world reliably.  And, given the complexity of such a task, a few links here and there got missed.  The best one can hope for is to tell Microsoft about it and expect that it'll be added to the queue for a fix by webteams involved with updating site content all the time.  I'm told that Microsoft might not respond in timely fashion to every request, but that virtually every bit of feedback sent to the company is examined at some point.  (Which has been my experience.)

Hope this little tip helps others in their search through Microsoft's broken links....

• CBC.ca | The National | Your Turn

Dion, not an unknown face, yet still unfamiliar to Canadians over 6 months after assuming the Liberal Party leadership.

Stéphane Dion could be excused for many things.  But he isn't likely to be, unfortunately.  He found himself cornered last night on CBC's The National news programme on the question as to why he hasn't visited Afghanistan as his main political rival, prime minister, the Right Honourable Stephen Harper, has on several occasions.  And tonight in The National's "Your Turn" segment where viewers' letters are selected and read aloud, one viewer from the Conservative heartland of Calgary seemed to find it hypocritical that Dion could criticize Canadian involvement in Afghanistan while not having actually been there to see it with his own eyes.

Dion defended his sticking around in Canada this past summer by saying he'd been about the country "getting to know" Canadians better (probably since the media's been criticizing him for being a largely unknown figure on the political scene).  The question posed by The National's anchor, Peter Mansbridge, seemed to criticize Dion for not travelled to Afghanistan while politicians from many other countries that have contributed troops to the mission, like The Netherlands, have visited frequently.  The suggestion being that Dion (and other liberal MPs) should have added this to the itinerary before now. The trouble with that analysis is that it presupposes that actually being in Kandahar will somehow give the Liberal party leader some kind of special insight that researchers and advisers can't.  And the fact is that even with Stephen Harper's first-hand experiences in the war-torn country, he really hasn't contributed much personally, nor subsequently have his visits substantially altered any of the decision-making or policy around the mission.

So why the hell is it so important that Dion spend time there?

The short answer is, I just don't know.  It might boost morale slightly among aid workers and the troops were Dion to visit, but little else could hope to be achieved.  He probably reasoned that trying (albeit largely in vain) to make the Canadian public better-aware of who he is as a person and what his politics are was a better use of his time than booking a flight to Kandahar in August.  Ironically, it might have served his purposes better to do so because the reality is the media would surely have followed him and this is a man that desperately needs more time in front of a camera than behind a barbecue.  Although he must surely realize he's not going to "reach" Canadians one burger at a time, he doesn't seem to be doing the right things to improve either his image or familiarity.  And time is passing....an election could be around the corner.  I want the Conservatives defeated before they can implement C-60 (the Act to eliminate the right to create or use P2P software in Canada) among other misguided legislation.  And that can't happen if the Liberal party leader finds his english too weak, or his judgement about how to improve his image somehow impaired.

Especially when all one needs to do is compete with Harper's image - sure it can't be that hard.  Historically Canada votes in LIberal goverments to begin with, which should give Dion the advantage...

• Resident Evil: Extinction - Official Site

Resident Evil has been a passion of mine for nearly a decade (if not more) now.  And it's sad to think that the latest movie depicting the Capcom original game might mark the end of Hollywood's dramatizations of this saga.  Capcom too appears set to "cap" the series with a finale title set to the tagline "the downfall of Umbrella".  Are we looking at the end of yet another rich sci-fi dynasty?

I for one - apparently alone in my thoughts on such things (as I am with the upcoming season of Battlestar Galactica ending that series too) - would hope that baseless worry over the "dilution of the name" is overcome by naked avarice and perhaps a desire to continue feeding those hungry for good science fiction entertainment.  Indeed, one can't help but feeling a little starved with the loss of Stargate SG-1, not to mention no Star Trek series about for the first time in 20 years - taking stock of it all, we're in a bit of a drought here and there's lots of room for sequels.

Already there's a bit of a disappointment with the release of Extinction: to Jill Valentine this time around.  Her role isn't properly reprised in the storyline until well after the time frame depicted in the movie, so it's appropriate in a way.  But God I loved that actress and her attitude.

Again, all the more reason to give Resident Evil and Umbrella - one more go after this.

Fingers crossed....

(Review to come next week.)

• Google street view may be illegal: Canada

Canada might not get Google's 'Street View', thanks to the Privacy Commissioner's take on the Privacy Act.  According to Jennifer Stoddart, 'Street View' "does not appear to meet the basic requirements of knowledge, consent, and limited collection and use as set out in the legislation."

The wonderful thing about the law (and the terrible thing too) is that it's subjective until rulings are eventually made on case matter which establishes precedent.  At least, so it goes in Canada.  And I don't think there's been a case like this ever.  So me, having as much a valid read of the Act as our dear Privacy Commissioner could take "limited collection" to mean "limited collection of the individual" as opposed to indicating quantity of that collection, which appears to be what Stoddart is taking the law to mean.

So what we have here, and right on the heels of Elections Canada's Chief Electoral Officer being accused of trying to make the law say what he wants, the exact same phenomenon from another senior bureaucrat.  Fundamentally speaking, almost nobody cares whether their picture happens to end up on Google's service.  And even if they do, Google offers to remove the image anyway.  Stoddart argues that people might not be aware their image is on the service - in which case I'd again suggest, they won't care - 'cause they don't know and there's reason to care, is there?

Furthermore, there is quite a volume of case law regarding the right of journalists to take images of public spaces which could quickly come into play here if Google, goes that extra mile it shouldn't be asked to, and files a lawsuit against the Privacy Commissioner over any ruling prohibiting such collection and publication of data.  In effect, what Stoddart will be doing is inviting litigation at taxpayer expense over her own personal read of the law, very likely lacking both legal insight and counsel.

What bureaucrats should be doing is their job.  They should not be abusing their authority to do any more than implementing the most reasonable reading of the law as it is today.  Stoddart, by even asking Google to respond to "her concerns" has already corrupted her purpose in the federal service and should resign.  Such actions discourage Google from pursuing its business goals in Canada - and that's a slight not only on Google, but on every Canadian both because of the service Google could offer Canadians and because the erosion of liberty of one erodes the liberty of all.

Here's hoping that failing the righteous resignation of this failed civil servant, she gets proper counsel and acts on it so sanity prevails in at least one federal office.

It was an average morning as I began work at my software job - at Canada's largest software company - Cognos Inc., in Ottawa, ON (Canada).  It was a time of change for the company; a new 17-floor expansion to it's main campus on Riverside Dr. toward the south end of the city still had that "newly-constructed smell" that accompanies the gentle release of mild toxins with freshly-laid carpet.  The new building also featured a new cafeteria with a huge big-screen TV along the west wall, which was turned onto the news channel.  As I went downstairs to get my 2nd cup of morning coffee, a small crowd had gathered around the screen to witness an evolving horror: an apparent plane crash into one of the two towers of the World Trade Center in New York.

The commentators were abuzz speculating about whether this was an accident or the result of a hijacking.  And I had to do a double-take as I watched the coverage....as a second plane crashed into the other of the two towers.  Stunned shock followed for nearly 30 seconds as all anyone could do is stare at the spectacle, and the quickly emerging realization this was a very-well organized attack.

News was spotty, and, cynically, I mistakenly concluded that it was pointless to let this interrupt my day completely as the second plane hitting the towers likely marked the end of the incident.  But it didn't, of course.  Shortly after arriving back upstairs, news hit the floor that The Pentagon had been hit as well.  News of a fourth airline crashing would reach us by the end of the day, although by then there'd been too many distractions to get much work done and everyone went home with an acute sense that we'd all just seen history unfold.

I think back on that historic day with the same foggy recall that accompanies all the other historic days that have preceded and followed; I know where I was, and who I was with - although there's little doubt that day six years ago was one of the more pivotal days in my life.  9/11 marked the end of a chapter in my life; I'd soon after this leave Cognos behind, encounter a series of medical problems (mostly solved now) and hit a "bump" in my career that took some work to get over.

Although I doubt we'll see any more planes hitting buildings today, it almost feels like we're overdue for another "historic" event.  Not that I'm in any hurry for one.  It almost seemed impossible we'd see another similar sequence of events in the first years after the World Trade Center attacks, but now that more than 5 years have passed...I'm starting to worry about the fact bin Laden has yet to be found, and the likelihood he'll eventually figure out a way to outsmart all the extra measures that have been undertaken since 9/11.  And if not bin Laden himself, thanks to the Americans, there's a huge, unseen army of disciples organized into sleeper-cells all over the world ready to try and clear the bar of terror he raised.

The effort to erode civil liberties seems to have reached a plateau if not started to crumble somewhat.  It remains my view there are way too many tax dollars being wasted on hiring police who aren't willing or, thanks to unions, able to do the fundamental work required to make our cities safer.  But no politician gets elected saying he wants to downsize the police force.  And it's too hard to get a passport, not that it should be necessary for Canadians to enter the United States - another result of 9/11.  Airports still aren't secure, despite millions being misspent on increasing security there.  That needs to be fixed too.

Hopefully the emergency response systems and procedures actually work the next time there's an attack of similar scale on the United States.  And hopefully, too, there's a President in-office who actually does more than just sit there for seven minutes, stunned, before acting like he is the President.

I hope that somehow, somewhere there are lessons learned from that day six years ago - because it doesn't seem obvious that we're really there yet where our safety and the security of our society is concerned.

• CBC News: the fifth estate - Among the Believes: Cracking Toronto's Terror Cell

Terrorism in Canada.  The very notion sounds almost unbelievable in such a tolerant, multicultural society - perhaps the most tolerant society in the world.  Yet it almost happened on a scale to rival the events of the "9/11 attacks" in the United States six years ago.  The CBC has produced a documentary outlining what was behind the attack, and who, which aired on it's "Fifth Estate" investigative news programme this past week.  And what comes out of it is yet another unsung Canadian hero: Mubin Shaikh.

At one point in the documentary, Shaikh reaches a realization that he explains a number of Muslims (albeit perhaps a tiny minority) fail to during the recruitment process by terrorist organizations.  That the God he believes in (which, as outlined here earlier is the same as the Judeo-Christian God, i.e. the God of Abraham) not only doesn't condone the killing of innocent people - that "to save a single human being is the same as saving all of human kind".  What a wonderful idea!  And it's a reminder that whether you worship God as a Muslim or as a Christian, ours is a God of peace.

Although Shaikh goes into some detail about how seductive the recruitment process in this case was, it nonetheless remains a bit mysterious to me how this fundamental truth about Islam and Christianity could be corrupted to the point of mass murder.  And it's not due to any failing on his ability to describe that process.  I just don't get it - even if I try really hard to put myself in the shoes of a Muslim youth, seeing all the terrible things going on in the middle-east and elsewhere in the world, perpetrated by the United States government.

But we all, as Canadians, owe this fellow and another whose name as yet remains unknown, a great deal of thanks!  Hopefully, someone nominates him to be a Companion of the Order of Canada or something in the weeks and months ahead for his service.

• Trudeau voted worst Canadian in 'unscientific' online poll

Also under the heading of "Trudeau" tonight.... What the article above fails to mention, as all online polls do, is the fact that it's very, very easy to write scripts to automate voting and thus skew the results.  As a programmer, I can think of several ways to do this, depending on how a poll or survey is put together technically.  And none, save for those which compromise anonymity, can be deemed as having results with any validity.  Since anonymity and "random selection" of control groups in polling is a fairly central concept - no web-based poll I now of can be deemed as anything more than completely biased and without any merit.

Indeed, the Internet will never be a good place for truly accurate polling to occur.  So - the right conclusion to have about Internet-based polls is "they're pure nonsense" and no conclusion can be derived form them.  Why the CBC or any legitimate media organization would care to report on, much less sponsor an online poll is, to me, a mystery.

• CBC: Mulroney Slams Trudeau for lacking moral fibre

I just about fell off my chair when I read this today!  Mulroney is attacking former Prime Minister Trudeau on lacking "moral fibre"???  Talk about throwing stones in a glass house!  What about opening up a constitutional debate that nearly destabilized, divided and ruined a successful 1st world democracy - in the name of aggrandizing one's own historical role and because he started believing too much in his own press about being "the great negotiator"?

As the CBC article reveals (and as my own grandparents reminded me during their lives in accounts of World War II), there was no knowledge, nor even the suspicion of concentration camps existing until nearly after the war was over.  At the time, there was a good deal of quite justifiable shock on the subject.  And certainly, Trudeau - whatever views he may have held as a youth - was no anti-Semite either during his period of demonstrations against Canada's early involvement in the war (as was common, and even the view of the majority in Quebec at that time) or subsequently.  This is an old critique of Trudeau that was dredged up during his early political career and it never stuck.  And with good reason - it was a very petty, weak criticism!

Trudeau, the architect of Canada's current constitution - which includes the Charter of Rights and Freedoms - was, in fact, one of this country's greatest prime ministers. This critique by Mulroney is nothing more than a bitter ex-politician, jealous of both the subsequent adoration Trudeau elicited and the pinnacle of prestige Trudeau's legacy holds in Canadian history, is seeking to dislodge and, in effect, to tarnish that record of distinction with a sleazy, baseless accusation that was properly retired after the appropriate degree of public scrutiny nearly 40 years ago.

Mulroney's own legacy would have been less tainted if he'd kept his own mouth shut and not put on such a shameful display of pettiness and raw envy today.  Indeed, his remaining time on this Earth would be better spent apologizing for his own litany of errors and gaffes than maliciously trying (in vain) to put himself up on a pedestal at the expense of a great man, dead for years - and who can, after all, no longer defend himself even were such a defense necessary.

Fortunately it isn't.  And what apparently Mulroney finds so difficult to swallow is, that deep down - he probably knows it.  He knows there won't be the throngs of Canadians lined into the foyer of the House of Commons and all the way down Parlliament Hill - nor the extraordinary outpouring of grief that occured upon Trudeau's death - when Mulroney's time with us is up.  There won't be the same eulogizing of his accomplishments and of his place in the hearts of Canadians with his passing, as there was with Trudeau.  And there won't be the memory of him fixing Canada's constitutional woes single-handedly, as he'd sought to do, and presumed he could do.  For Mulroey it's a little too much to bear apparently - and even I have to admit I feel a little sorry for him.

But certainly not because I really give a damn about his legacy at all - because he's a Prime Minsiter of Canada, the "Right Honourable Brian Mulroney"; and unlike many of his peers he's grown no wiser with age.

I recently had the good fortune of being sent on a bit of a sabbatical led by a renowned author and team leadership mentor, with specific insight into software development processes.  I've never been part of this kind of event before, and - frankly - I'd been skeptical of the value of such things.  But I think I'm becoming sold on the ideas  brought forward by Jim McCarthy.  In part, because of his wealth of personal experience, which includes a good deal of experience working for and with Microsoft (from the early, early days of the company), is just so vast - it's like the guy has actually been anywhere I've been and will likely find myself for at least several years more in my career.

The exercises at the event - referred to as a "bootcamp" - are aimed at helping one work better with one's own team, and expanding both confidence and the envelope within which the individual finds achievements possible.  They also help establish direction through exploring the ambitions and desires of each team member.

I don't feel it appropriate to get into too much detail, but there are several books by him that outline the relevant ideas.  But as with any experience - there's nothing compared to living through it.  Given the choice between reading about these ideas and being apprenticed through them by someone like McCarthy, I'll take the latter.  But if you don't have that opportunity, and are involved with software development, you can't go wrong taking a peak at this book on the subject (also by McCarthy).

On an anecdotal note - this fellow is a living treasure of experience about Microsoft and Bill Gates.  His résumé includes a term as Marketing Manager for Visual Studio 1.0 - a product that would eventually overtake Borland's environment as the preferred tool for software development on the Windows platform.  (And yet, no Wikipedia entry for this fellow yet....go figure.)

• ABC News: Space Race Rekindled? Russia Shoots for Moon & Mars
• CBC News: Spurned by NASA, Russia Plans Own Moon Base

What this "spurning" by NASA entailed, we'll probably never know.  But it's not hard to speculate that NASA might find another space race with its old cold-war adversary useful.  What's not useful is the inevitable adversarial attitude that occurs politically being exacerbated by a new space race.  So - is a space race good or bad?

Overall, I think we should probably be spending appreciably on extraterrestrial research because, overall, there appears to be plenty of evidence that the technological advances which result invariably imrpove the condition of humanity, and our understanding of the universe.  Too often, politicians come along and dogged by those who think the world's problems will be solved organically by kind-hearted human beings spending on feeding the poor and healing the world's sick with the technology we've managed to amass already, cut spacefaring budgets year after year.  As any NASA administrator since the Apollo missions will tell you - it's an uphill battle, filled with pyrric victories to get any funding at all for space exploration as it is.

A space race can help solve that problem.  Unfortunately, harnessing the nationalism and fears of a few million Americans will help get Orion launched and a moon-based settled.  It would be preferably that human beings were more naturally curious about their universe - enough to have the vision to see the benefits of space exploration on its own merit.  But it would also be nice if our civilization was a peace-loving sort so all those billiions (or is it trillions) being spent on weapons and defence were spent on healing the sick and feeding the hungry.  Sadly - that's not what humanity is about, so in a select few cases there's but one inevitable conclusion: the ends can justify the means.

The lessons learned and other achievements made getting to Mars can help solve these other problems and perhaps contribute to peace by giving us a perspective that's larger than our own little world.  At least that's the hope - and why should that hope by any more or less valid than that for peace on earth, feeding the hungry or healing the sick in any case?

• ABC News: How a Mars Probe Died

The title of the above article should be "How a third of all Mars probes die"....what is it with NASA & Mars, anwway?  If it's not hurtling probes into the Martian atmosphere causing them to burn up due to a mistake between metric and imperial measure (the Americans really need to finally go metric like everybody else), then it's an engineer, or a team of them, that cause some fatal accident.

Oh I know - it's hard work.  Believe me - as a software developer, I'm only too conscious of the ease with which one can issue commands to a machine with unintended effects.  But by the time you spend $377 million getting the thing developed, launched and in-orbit - you'd hope processes would exist to eliminate these kinds of little accidents.  Especially when there are so many of them that have happened previously.

Add to this that such problems don't seem to plague the JPL when running probes out to Jupiter or Saturn...and it just makes Mars seem all the more mysterious.  I mean, imagine if Cassini suddenly went silent just after launching its Huygens probe down to the moon Titan.

Maybe it's the number of probes being sent to Mars.  After all we haven't filled Jupiter's sky with "the Jupeiter Surveyor" and "Ganemeade rovers"...not yet anyway.  Mars is inevitably one of the most studied planets (next to Earth) in the solar system.  It invites more probes becaause - well - we're more interested in it.  But even so, one can't help but wonder why Mars is such an accident-prone place.

One more question that got left unanswered by the article: wasn't the now dead Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) being used to help communicate with the rovers on the surface?  There was mention in another, earlier related article that the newer Mars Reconnaisance Orbiter (MRO) was used to try to take long-distance images of the failing MGS but failed.  Will MRO take on MGS's duties in NASA's deep space network?  Will there be any impact on the other missions to the red planet?

These questions weren't addressed in either article...despite otherwise decent coverage from ABC's website.