Jason M. Hanley

Why get a private pilot's license?

2009-11-04T23:59:00.000-05:00

I just started my private pilot's licence (PPL) training here in New Zealand.

Flying a plane is something I've wanted to do for a long time, but never seemed to manage to have both the necessary time and money simultaneously.

So besides the obvious fun factor, why would anyone want to get a PPL?

Well, just like a driver's license gives you the basic freedom to rent or own a car and drive it on public roads, a pilot's license gives you the freedom to rent or own a plane, and fly it in controlled airspace.

Instead of driving to a vacation destination, you can head to an airport or flight club, and rent a plane for the weekend. In addition to being faster, it can also be a more scenic, and possibly even less stressful mode of transportation.

As a bonus, my New Zealand PPL will be easily transferable to a Canadian license when I return.

Manulife CoverMe insurance isn't worth it

2009-11-02T20:48:00.001-05:00

As a small business owner, I have no dental or extended health coverage. So a while ago, I decided to sign up for a Manulife CoverMe policy.

Their policies appear to be priced well. The website is nicely done, and the sign up process is entirely online.

It gives you the feeling that they really have their stuff together.

The problem is that as soon as they get your money, the experience goes sharply downhill.

It looks like they invest all of their funds and effort into marketing and getting people to sign up, but as soon as you need service, you're SOL.

Their claims process is straight out of the 1980's, requiring you to snail mail or fax a sheet you need to fill out by hand. You would think they could have managed some sort of electronic method.

I was able to easily set up automatic payments from my credit card online, but when I needed to cancel these payments, I had to phone twice, send two different faxes, and they still deducted two extra payments after cancellation.

Manulife really needs to work on the overall customer experience before offering a direct, online insurance option. For the time being, I think you're probably better off buying a policy from a competitor, or through one of their resellers.

Is skipping dinner healthy?

2009-10-12T14:09:00.012-04:00

It's Thanksgiving time in Canada, so what better time to write about how eating affects your health.

Depending on what and how much you eat, big holiday dinners can add up to 3000, 5000, or even 7000 calories -- several days of your caloric needs in one sitting.

In fact, in North America, dinners are usually the largest meal, and it's quite easy to consume your an entire day's worth of calories just at dinner -- nevermind the other meals and snacks you had during the day.

So if you're looking to cut back, lose a bit of weight, and cut down your belly size a bit, the logical place to start might be the last meal of the day.

But is it healthy?

This topic is a highly controversial one, and like most topics, there are good scientific studies backing up both sides of the argument.

The traditional school of thought is that it's best to eat many small meals constantly during the day. This is thought to prevent cravings and avoid binging. The problem is that this tends to work better for active people -- which most people aren't. The other problem is that people tend to vastly overestimate what a "small" snack is and end up eating even more than normal.

More recent studies suggest that there is actually a benefit to short-term fasting, or at least drastically reducing caloric intake for periods of time. Apparently fasting may help with insulin resistance, and reduce inflammation.

I found a good summary of two recent studies here: http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/12/26/the-risks-and-rewards-of-skipping-meals/

The thinking behind this is that the digestive system needs some time to rest and heal itself every so often, and doesn't get a chance if you keep packing in the food 24/7.

You make have heard the old saying "Eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince, and dinner like a pauper." I've been following this advice lately and found it gives me pretty balanced energy during the day.

I've also experimented with fasting and found that I can easily go without food for 24 hours, maintaining full energy and mental clarity -- as long as I drink lots of water. The water is really important, since you generally derive a lot of your daily water intake from food (even bread is about 50-60% water). You need to drink much more when you're fasting. I suspect often times when people think they're hungry, they're actually just thirsty or dehydrated.

There are obviously a lot of factors involved, but my personal leaning is that periodic caloric restriction or fasting is better than eating tiny meals and snacks constantly. In the end, however, the science is split, and a lot of it just comes down to calories in and calories out.

Exercise more, eat less, and make sure your food is nutrient-dense -- go for fresh fruits and vegetables, 100% whole grains (don't get fooled by "multi-grain" crap), and non-saturated fats.

Avoid "comfort" foods -- usually nutrient-void dense carbs and/or sugar. That's a sure way to pack on the pounds. And don't eat when you're bored or watching television. Go for a walk instead!

Finally, in my opinion, feel free to skip dinner or just have a light snack at night, but then, make sure to have a substantial, nutritious breakfast the next day -- not just a muffin or granola bar (both of which are essentially "empty" calories).

I'd love to hear additional thoughts and comments about this -- especially links to related research study results.

Have a Happy and Healthy Thanksgiving! :)

Mobile Phone Watch Review

2009-09-21T16:02:00.004-04:00

Yesterday (well, today in North America) around noon, my birthday present to myself arrived. Direct from China, a mobile phone watch!

I had reserved expectations, considering it was fairly cheap, but I must say I've been very impressed by the capabilities so far.

It comes with a wireless Bluetooth headphone clip, capable of playing stereo music and two-way conversations. It's even smart enough to pause your music when there's an incoming call, then resume it when you hang up.

Now, I did come across a bit of a glitch with the Bluetooth (USB and Bluetooth are so ubiquitous, and so flakey). It seems that when the AVCTP protocol (which lets you control the music player via the control stick on the clip) is active, the sound gets choppy and distorted. However, if you disable that (which isn't really needed), everything seems to work smoothly.

The interface is a touchscreen that can be controlled:

Using your fingernail -- surprisingly, you can do about 90% of what you need this way.
Using the side buttons to scroll, select, cancel etc.
Using the tiny little pen stylus, tucked in the armband. This is best for entering text, as the onscreen keyboard is super-tiny.

It has a camera that takes still photos and videos. Quality is comparable to an average low cost phone. It also plays video files in MP4 and 3GP format. I found a program called VIO that will take any video and convert it to a suitable file.

This is to be my primary cell phone while I'm here, so I'll follow up down the line with a long term review covering reception and battery life.

So far it seems to be a fun little toy :)

How many mediocre programmers does it take to...

2009-09-14T23:59:00.001-04:00

How many mediocre programmers does it take to replace a good programmer?

The answer is: Trick question. No amount of mediocre programmers will ever replace a good one.

Let's say your good programmer has a "productivity factor" of 1.0. We'll take this to mean that he or she gets 1 "unit" of productive, production-ready software shipped per day.

The reality is that even an average programmer might not have a positive productivity factor. If you look at their productivity over the long term, it might actually be something like -0.1 or lower, meaning that overall they cause more work for others than they actually complete themselves. They basically just slow the good ones down.

Furthermore, every programmer you add to a project adds overhead -- both in communication and complexity of the code. So adding two mediocre programmers is even worse than adding just one.

Software development is an extremely complex discipline that requires above-average performance across a very diverse set of skills: Mathematics, logic, communication, design, aesthetics, and more.

Of course, Fred Brooks knew this back in 1975 when he wrote The Mythical Man-Month, but we can always use a reminder every so often.

Ripping people off makes them angry

2009-08-21T15:03:00.009-04:00

When will companies learn that ripping customers off is not a viable long-term business strategy?

For instance, a bunch of cell phone companies have a little-known "must give 30-days notice" policy written into their terms. So if you call and cancel your service today, you have to pay them another 30 days for absolutely nothing. Seriously. Check the fine print.

Meanwhile, banks keep adding random service fees that you never hear about until after they show up on your statement.

Instead of retaining customers with reliable service, they lock people in with long-term contracts and insane cancellation fees.

These companies dream up 15-page "terms of service" agreements specifically designed to trap folks into craftily-worded contracts, pay hidden fees, and provide no recourse when they fail to provide the product or service they're supposed to.

Executives plot ripoff schemes and scams, then let their accountants loose to cook the books, spreading the money across a thousand shell corporations so they don't have to pay any tax. They need that money to bribe government officials and regulators instead.

Lately though, I think people are starting to wise up to this abuse, and there's going to be a backlash.

Scammers beware: Angry mobs (even "virtual" ones) can be pretty destructive to the bottom line.

If you're in one of these businesses, you may want to get back to the whole "providing a reliable service for a fair price" bit instead of trying pick every last cent out of your customers' back pockets.

Finding a home half-way around the world

2009-08-09T19:00:00.000-04:00

What did we do before the Internet?

For all the spam, scams, and general junk out there, it still amazes me what you can do via the net.

Moving half-way around the world is all of the sudden less daunting when you browse for house rentals as if you were there.

Google Maps Street View (not yet available in Canada) also lets you zoom in and basically take a walk around the neighborhood to see what it's like.

You have to admit -- the Internet is pretty cool sometimes.

The cat and the string

2009-08-02T19:00:00.000-04:00

No matter what mood they're in, or what has happened in the previous 5 minutes, if you dangle string in front of a cat for long enough, it will chase it.

Even the laziest, most stubborn cat in the world will eventually give in.

They can't help it. It's hard-wired.

We humans still have a bunch of behaviours that are hard-wired in a similar way.

The difference is that we can consciously think about and modify them -- if we choose to.

That's what separates people from animals -- the ability to override obsolete, deep-rooted instincts based on logic and learning.

So next time you say to yourself, "I just can't help it," remember that you're not a cat -- you can make whatever choice you want.

No technological progress in 40 years

2009-07-26T19:00:00.002-04:00

I was recently watching a series called "Ancient Inventions". It is hosted by one of the guys from Monty Python and is reasonably entertaining and informative. It was amazing to see how many things were invented thousands of years ago, completely lost and forgotten, then re-invented recently.

It got me thinking about all of the technological progress we've made in the past couple hundred years. There have been a number of amazing inventions that have changed the world, like trains, planes, cars, radio, telegraph, telephone, and many others.

But what world-changing inventions and technologies have surfaced since the 60's?

Computers? Ha. That's 1930's technology. The microwave oven? Mobile phones? 1940's.

Solar cells? Fibre optics? That was way back in the 50's.

But what about the Internet? Nope. We were online in 1969 -- 40 years ago.

What life changing technology has been invented since then? It starts getting really thin. Liposuction. Viagra. The iPod. Yeah, truly innovative.

Other than some dabbling in genetics and nanotechnology, all we've done in the past 40 years is make a lot more of the same crap cheaper, smaller and faster.

Maybe there's a ton of really exciting stuff "just around the corner" but I'm getting a bit impatient.

I think it's about time to wake up from our little 40-year nap, and start making some progress.

Canadian Mobile Phones: Getting the Least for the Most

2009-07-24T12:00:00.003-04:00

So today I received my Fido bill and noticed a new charge called "Other minutes." I was confused since I have a 150 minute plan and only used about 60 last month.

I phoned in to customer support on my cell phone to inquire about the charge.

The rep wasn't really sure, and had to put me on hold a few times to look things up, but guessed this was due to calls made "out of my zone."

Now, I have a grandfathered plan from years and years ago (Sprint Canada before it was acquired) and I never used to have a "zone."

Ever since Rogers acquired Fido, they've slowly (and without notice) modified my old plan to bring it in line with the current plans, which cost more and give you less.

The hugely ironic thing: Just as she was starting to explain to me exactly my "zone" was -- the call was dropped.

So I went to my online banking and paid the bill. Even if I wasn't leaving the country in a month, what could I really do? Switch to a new provider? Ha! Then I'd have an even worse plan.

This is the Canadian mobile market in all its glory -- worse quality, less features, less minutes, and more dropped calls -- for an ever increasing cost.

New site: buymystuff.com

2009-07-16T19:00:00.002-04:00

Last night I gave the first public demo of my new site -- http://buymystuff.com

What does it do? It's basically like having an online garage sale that people can browse 24x7.

"But Jason...", you ask, "How is this any different than than Craigslist, Kijiji, or newpaper classifieds?"

I'm glad you asked! Those services are generally set up to let you post one item in one category for a short duration. For instance, if you're selling a car or a house -- buymystuff.com is not the best place.

Instead, this site is designed to let you go through all that miscellaneous stuff in your closet, garage or basement that you want to sell but haven't bothered because it's too much hassle.

Or, if you happen to be moving, and have a whole ton of stuff you want to get rid of at once, this is the perfect way.

List everything once on buymystuff.com, then let it do all the work for you. Perhaps a few months from now, someone on the other side of town will be looking for that old card table you've been trying to get rid of, and happily give you 20 bucks for it!

Now, please keep in mind it is still a bit rough around the edges. We're still working on a pretty design, and there might be a few intermittent glitches as we add new features.

But other than that, it's ready right now for you to go to your closest, garage, or basement and start listing all the stuff you'd like someone to buy!

I'm looking forward to seeing all the items added, and hearing your suggestions and feedback.

Try it out now! :) http://buymystuff.com

New Zealand and running a virtual company

2009-07-08T20:00:00.002-04:00

It's official! All of the paperwork for a one-year working holiday trip to New Zealand is now complete. Melissa and I will be leaving September 1st, and returning August 2010.

I'll be continuing to operate my web development company -- Syllogistic Software Inc. -- while I'm there. We have invested a huge amount of time and effort into "virtualizing" the company.

With clients in Toronto, London (Ontario), Vancouver, and Waterloo, plus employees in Kitchener, Montreal, and elsewhere, communication is paramount.

Our infrastructure spans the Internet, including a full virtual PBX phone system with multiple extensions and IVR via Trixbox. All company email, shared calendars, and documents are hosted on Google Apps. Source code is managed by Subversion.

The heart and soul of the operation is handled by an internal application we wrote, called simply the "Project Management System". This allows precise, simple collaboration between clients and programmers and ensures that no request ever falls through the cracks.

It is now finally possible for someone with a laptop and Internet connection to collaborate and run a software development business as effectively in one place, as just about anywhere in the world.

Exciting times indeed!

Side note: Much thanks to Tim Ferriss for helping to inspire this vision.

Banned Companies List

2009-07-05T20:00:00.000-04:00

I've often referred to my "banned companies" list. This is a list I keep of companies that have caused me sufficient harm that I refuse to do business with them.

A few companies have been put on the list and then taken off again, usually because they improve or enough time passes.

However, two have done me sufficient wrong to earn lifetime bans:

Rogers: These anti-competitive frackers have screwed everyone for so long that they have their own popular hate site: http://www.ihaterogers.ca -- That alone says something. My personal vendetta is for them cutting off my Internet years ago for "using too much bandwidth" back when they I had their "unlimited" plan.

Apparently they thought they could advertise "unlimited", then make a limit -- but not tell you what the limit was, or how much you had used -- just that you used too much and that you should cut back some amount, or your service will remain suspended -- with no refund.

Yes, this was really their policy back in 2003. And since then, they've just become worse and worse -- charging more money and offering less bandwidth and service. In 10 years, they've singlehandedly pushed Canada from being #1 in the world for broadband access to almost dead last. That's right, thanks to Rogers, Canadian Internet access is worse than some African countries.
CIBC: These jerks are the worst of a bad bunch -- the big 5 colluding Canadian banks. Aside from being involved in major shady deals like Enron and subprime mortages, they really pissed me off back in 2001 when my student loans became due. I had two loans -- one through the Ontario government, and one from the Federal government. Once I graduated, they both became due and I received two separate notices with the balances owed, which I promptly paid. What I didn't know was that through some sort of adminstrative procedure (supposedly due to how the program was administered) a portion of my Ontario loan had been split off into a separate account.

Even though I had faithfully updated my contact information over the years, this split account somehow managed to get outdated contact information associated with it and they apparently couldn't contact me to let me know it was due. So they let this separate account accumulate interest for a full year (almost exact to the date) and then sent it to a collection agency. The collection agency magically manages to find my up-to-date contact information right away, and informs me that I owe them the original balance plus 1 year's interest plus a collection fee.

Just an adminstrative screwup? Perhaps -- except that I heard the exact same story from several other students. Nice little scam they had going there, "losing" people's contact information for a year.

So that's my "banned companies" list. Only two at the moment, but they're both really, really awful. I'd encourage everyone to seek alternatives wherever possible. You've been warned.

What stresses you out?

2009-06-29T12:00:00.000-04:00

They say some of the most stressful things in life are:

Starting a new job
Moving
Major relationship changes

Maybe I'm weird, but these aren't even on my top ten list. Sure, there's some stress involved, but they're all well within my control, and that makes them seem manageable.

The things that tend to cause me the most stress are the ones that are beyond my control, like:

Traffic/construction/accidents
Long checkout lines at stores
Things not being ready/complete when promised

Am I really strange, or do others feel the same?

What stresses you out?

Conservation or Economics?

2009-06-25T18:00:00.000-04:00

There seem to be more and more calls to conserve and "save the environment" these days.

Now, I'm all for efficiency. I hate to see unnecessary waste, and I love nature. I pick up my trash. I own the most fuel efficient car in its class. I do what I can to keep things nice.

The environmentalists have one thing right. We can't continue to consume resources at our current rate. Something needs to be done, but I don't understand the current approach of advertising and trying to "shame" people into conservation.

Appealing to morality works in some cases, but it has absolutely no effect on the worst abusers -- corporations.

The only reasonable way to affect this behavior is to adjust costs or make laws. So instead of subsidizing cheap, dirty energy, money needs to be forcibly redirected and invested in new research and technology.

"But we can't do that! The economy will crumble, and people will lose jobs!"

Fine, keep relying on cheap, dirty coal/oil/natural gas forever, and see what happens.

Yes, people will lose jobs in some industries. But jobs will be created in others.

In the meantime, I'm going to keep driving to buy groceries when it's raining, and I'll leave my kitchen light on at night -- even though they both "waste" energy.

Why? Not to be a jerk, but because I refuse to be bullied into acting irrationally by some environmental marketing campaign.

Individual/personal energy use is a drop in the bucket compared to industry and agriculture.

I'll "do my part" when it makes good economic sense to do so.

Rogers' infrastructure still sucks after all these years

2009-06-22T20:00:00.000-04:00

I've had the displeasure of using Rogers cable Internet at two different places I've been staying recently -- one in Guelph, and one in Breslau.

I remember back in the day (2003-ish, the last time I had Rogers myself) I had occasional, but persistent problems with one major thing -- any time I had a large outgoing transfer happening, all of my incoming transfers went slow and flaky.

For instance, my telnet connections will stay connected for hours -- until I send a big (10-15MB) upload through via FTP. Then it drops the connection.

Or if I do a big Subversion commit, all of the sudden all my DNS lookups start failing. This is something I remember from years and years ago, that they still apparently haven't fixed.

For the longest time, I thought this was just a problem with cable modem technology, so I bought Bell DSL and was reasonably satisfied (until they started capping and throttling, that is).

However, when I was in Texas, I had Time Warner cable Internet and I have to say that it was excellent! The speed was better than Bell's DSL, and I never had trouble with simultaneous incoming/outgoing transfers.

As far as I know, the underlying technology is nearly the same -- which leads me to believe that Rogers' problems are just incompetance, or more likely, laziness. With the lack of competition in Canada, people only have a choice between crap, or crappier.

By the way, I love how this site: http://www.ihaterogers.ca/ shows up on the first Google results page for the search "Rogers".

Different ways to spend $2,000

2009-06-17T19:00:00.002-04:00

For $2,000, I could buy:

One LG 47" LCD TV: http://www.futureshop.ca/catalog/proddetail.asp?sku_id=0770HDS0010121815

Or, all of the following:

Flight from Toronto to Los Angeles
Flight from Los Angeles to Fiji
4 days/3 nights in a resort in Fiji
Flight from Fiji to Auckland, New Zealand
13 months of world-wide health insurance (excluding USA)

That's right, everything above totaled only $1998.19, including all taxes, fees, etc. That seems like a really good deal somehow.

Driving in stop and go traffic

2009-06-14T19:00:00.001-04:00

Driving to Toronto one evening, I was very annoyed with how traffic was moving, and decided it might be therapeutic to rant about it. Here is the raw, unedited (but slightly censored) result:

People need to be taught how to drive in stop and go traffic. For some reason, people think that the most efficient way to drive through stop and go traffic is to accelerate as fast as possible, and then slam on the brakes.

And then, accelerate as fast as possible again, and then slam on the brakes all over again.

Now, countless studies have shown that the most efficient way to move traffic is actually everyone going at the same speed in a nice smooth, fluid manner. And, slowing down when you see the car in front of you slow down, and leaving enough space in-between the cars to act as a bit of a buffer.

And in fact, if people drove like this, you wouldn't actually have stop and go traffic. You would have always going traffic, just going a little bit slower.

But people insist on this, and they cut in and out of lanes, and then speed up and go thirty kilometers per hour -- for a second -- and then slam on the brakes and stop.

F#@!ing idiotic. Anyways, somebody has to teach people that that is not the right way to drive.

This is my first attempt at embedding audio in a blogger post, so I have no idea how it will work. Supposedly if you are reading in something like Google Reader or Bloglines, an embedded player will show up automatically.

If that doesn't work, you can download the audio directly here: http://jasonhanley.com/mp3/DrivingInStopAndGoTraffic.mp3

Great to see that people are doing!

2009-06-09T12:59:00.000-04:00

I have been in touch with lots of people regarding my previous blog posting, and I'm very impressed to see that a lot of people are indeed aware of the problem, and actively working toward solutions. In fact, Michael Geist, who has been speaking and writing about this for much longer than I have, recently spoke in front of a Senate committee and explained things in very simple, precise manner. Here is a great excerpt (emphasis added by me):

"The truth is that there are ways, if we had unlocked devices and had a more open space, we would encourage this innovation without the gatekeepers that we see. Fundamentally, that is what we see taking place here. Certain gatekeepers exist in the chain; sometimes it is the device manufacturers; often — particularly in Canada — it is the carrier themselves who set limitations on what can come into the marketplace, precisely because it is to their competitive advantage to do so. We do not have enough competition to counteract that at the moment.

Who is to blame? I think there is plenty of blame to go around. We have the CRTC — to be honest — asleep at the switch, particularly on this wireless issue; they have not been involved at all. On net neutrality, for example, a complaint was brought against Bell Canada’s activities. They found for Bell in a manner that just last week was appealed asking for a reconsideration, noting that the CRTC itself has acknowledged in public statements that they may not have had all of the facts. Even when they do get engaged, the perception is that they may be overly cosy with some of the companies that they regulate, so there is ample reason to lay some of the blame at the CRTC.

It is not just the CRTC, however. I think we can blame the Competition Bureau as part of this. It was the bureau that, when we had two providers in the GSM space — Fido and Rogers — allowed a merger of those two services to go ahead, taking away the only competition we had in the GSM space and leaving us with just the one provider.

We can look to governments. This is not a partisan issue because this falls under both the watch of when we had Liberal governments and now, more recently, Conservative governments. In both instances, they let broadband task force reports sit there. There has been no digital strategy for Canada for more than 10 years now, while we see other countries move ahead more aggressively. I think we can look to all of these players to say that they have let us down, quite frankly.

The results are in the independent statistics. You can certainly get lobby groups or association groups to come in and spin the numbers any way they like, but if you take a look at statistics from the independent people — groups such as the OECD that no one will question — the numbers do not lie. We are falling behind other countries, and Canadian consumers know it intuitively. I suspect many of you know it, based on the experience you may have had just last week when you had a chance to compare what they have in Europe to what we have in Canada."

The full transcript is here: http://www.parl.gc.ca/40/2/parlbus/commbus/senate/Com-e/tran-e/47244-e.htm?Language=E&Parl=40&Ses=2&comm_id=19

Keep it up everyone. We have a lot of work to do to reverse the damage done over the past decade!

Stop talking and start doing!

2009-06-07T14:22:00.000-04:00

People love to talk. It's in our nature. We're social creatures.

At some point, however, if you want to get anything done, you have to stop talking and start doing.

There is a big conference in Stratford this week called "Canada 3.0." One of the major sponsors apparently has something to do with the recent government spend of $10 million plus to "stimulate" things through creation of some sort of "Centre of Excellence for Commercialization and Research (CECR)."

The stated purpose is to "create jobs, improve the quality of life of all Canadians and strengthen the economy for future generations."

This is all fine and good. Every project needs a high-level/brainstorming phase. The problem is that there doesn't seem to be many (any?) specific goals about how this is all going to work.

You see, there are some severe, systematic problems in Canada that tend to destroy innovation in the early stages. Let's have a look at some pretty graphs.

In 2000, Canada was leading the way with broadband penetration:

Can you spot the difference in the 2006 graph?

Similarly, back in 1995, Canada was among the leaders in mobile technology:

But by 2005, something had changed:

Canada is behind many nations that have small fractions of our GDP. Keep in mind these are plotted logarithmically. So, for instance, Israel's mobile reach is more than double Canada's rate.

If you think these charts are scary, head to www.gapminder.org and run the animations. The most alarming thing is the speed at which we've been overtaken. I'm sure the more recent data will look far bleaker.

And don't give me the old "Canada is so big" argument. Most Canadians live in large, densely populated cities, just like everywhere else in the world. Plus, we used be to way ahead, despite our huge land area. And Russia is just as big and vast as our country, yet they have nearly twice as many cell phones per person.

Why have we fallen behind? Because the government has been asleep at the wheel, letting a few private corporations bleed everyone else dry charging premium rates for old, obsolete technology.

They have no incentive to invest in R&D, because there is no competition in the mobile phone or broadband internet categories. Meanwhile, the government keeps passing laws and making rulings to help these companies expand and protect their monopolies, killing any incentive for new or even existing international companies to take them on.

This is really freaking basic economics, folks. High-school economics. Maybe first year college.

If we want to "create jobs, improve the quality of life of all Canadians and strengthen the economy for future generations" it's going to take a hell of a lot more then some "center" with no clearly defined purpose.

Instead, let's allocate a couple bucks towards enforcing the Canada Competition Act, which supposedly "contains both criminal and civil provisions aimed at preventing anti-competitive practices in the marketplace."

Let's bust up these old cartels that are cutting off the oxygen supply.

That's the only way we'll have even a small chance of keeping pace with the rest of the world.

So please - at some point in the near future, stop talking about "ways to innovate", and start doing something to make it happen!

Progressive versus Conservative

2009-05-22T10:36:00.000-04:00

Progressive versus Conservative. Us versus them. A battle waged in the media every day.

But how many people actually know what these words mean? People certainly have strong stereotypes that come to mind.

Here's some dictionary definitions to help out.

Progressive: "Promoting or favoring progress toward better conditions or new policies, ideas, or methods."

Liberal: "Favoring proposals for reform, open to new ideas for progress, and tolerant of the ideas and behavior of others; broad-minded."

On the opposite end of the spectrum, we have:

Conservative: "Favoring traditional views and values; tending to oppose change."

Conservative: "Strongly favoring retention of the existing order."

So basically, Progressive = Change, and Conservative = Don't Change.

This is why the "Progressive Conservative" party name never made any sense. Somebody just stuck two words with completely opposite meanings together.

Meanwhile, there are some (mostly talk radio hosts) who work very hard to convince the public that:

Conservative (aka. Republican) = Small government, low taxes

Progressive (aka. Democrat) = Big government, high taxes

I'm not sure how this misconception started, but it is about as far from true as it can be.

In fact, Conservative politicians, by definition, strive to keep government more or less the way it is right now -- which is not small by any means.

Progressive politicians are the only ones who promote significant governmental change -- be it bigger, smaller, or different in other ways.

To sum up the topic, here's a not entirely accurate, but still cute little video I found when looking up dictionary definitions:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6nWIGarTCj4

Car Accidents... Aren't!

2009-04-17T14:12:00.000-04:00

Did you know that nearly 100% of drivers involved in accidents don't think it was their fault?

This is perhaps not shocking, but what might surprise you more is that nearly 100% of them are wrong!

Most accidents are completely preventable, if you just follow advice from a good driver training program.

The "T-bone"

Primary Fault: "T-bone-ee" mis-judges distance of (or doesn't even notice) oncoming car and turns left in front of them

Common Excuses:
"They came out of nowhere!" Cars do not randomly appear from spatial vortexes. It was barreling towards you the entire time.
"They were speeding!" If you could tell they were speeding, you sure as hell should not have turned in front of them.

Primary Prevention: Don't turn in front of cars unless you damn well know you're going to make it! (duh)

Secondary Fault: "T-bone-er" ran head on into a car that turned right in front of them! Never a good idea.

Secondary Prevention: Keep your foot over the brake and plan an avoidance when approaching an intersection with cars waiting to turn left.

The "Rear-end"

Primary Fault: "Rear-end-er" hits the car in front of them because they didn't stop in time

Common Excuses:
"It was snowing/raining/slippery!" Yeah, so drive according to the road and weather conditions and leave some extra space.
"They stopped too quickly!" Umm, NO -- YOU stopped too SLOWLY.

Primary Prevention: Always leave enough room ahead of you for an emergency stop, given current road and weather conditions.

Secondary Fault: The "Rear-end-ee" probably DID stop fast -- likely because they weren't paying enough attention.

Secondary Prevention: Avoid distractions (phone/texting/emailing) while driving and always look far ahead so you can anticipate problems before they "come out of nowhere."

Those are just two examples. There are many more.

So everyone -- please, pay attention and take responsibility when you're driving, because if you are involved in an accident -- it's probably, at least partially, YOUR FAULT!

Software Development: When Change is Bad

2009-04-10T00:26:00.000-04:00

As software moves into maturity, it becomes a delicate art to add features and fix bugs without screwing up stuff that already works.

I've worked on three 10+ year-old, massively-sized projects (CorelDRAW, Microsoft Access, and ERDAS Imagine) and let me tell you -- the older the code base, the tougher it gets.

In very mature projects, maintainability starts to become more important than optimization, and the prevention of introducing new bugs can trump fixing old ones. You’ll even see libraries where they decide to keep old bugs in place, since consumers up the chain rely on the buggy behavior.

If you’re a programmer, it's important that before you change any function that is used elsewhere in the system (a "core" function), you check each and every place it is called and understand the implications of your change. If there's any doubt, you need to either step through, or ask someone else who is more familiar with that code.

A safer alternative is to write a new function that caters to your specific needs. This may seem wasteful at first, but it actually pays off in the long run. This is because it usually makes for less complicated logic in the function, and simpler dependency chains.

Adding additional parameters and conditional branches in an existing function can introduce subtle changes that cascade to other parts, causing subtle bugs that are difficult to track down, and even harder to fix.

That said, there is a time and place for refactoring, but it needs to be done carefully. It should be done independent of other changes, and be extremely well tested.

Automated testing and regression tests help fight this war, but coverage is never 100%.

I've found it's often better to err on the cautious side and try not to break things in the first place :)

The real USA healthcare experience

2009-03-28T17:30:00.000-04:00

I'm tired of hearing Canadians complain about our healthcare system. You know what? We do have to wait longer for some types of treatment -- but not usually anything life-threatening. And you know what else? That's life. Resources are expensive, limited, and in Canada, they're allocated based on urgency of need.

I had to go to a clinic here in the States for a minor issue that I've visited several Canadian clinics for in the past. The experience was nearly identical! They had the same advice, and the same treatment. The setup was similar. I swear even the posters on the wall were the same.

However, there are a few major differences. See if you can spot them.

The Canadian Experience:

Realize you have a problem

Go to walk-in clinic

Present your health card

Wait (1-2 hours)

Get treated

Go home

The American Experience:

Realize you have a problem

Call insurance company

Explain problem

Get pre-approved and record claim number

Go to walk-in clinic

Attempt to have them bill the insurance company directly

Often have them refuse to bill insurance company directly

Wait (15-30 minutes)

Get treated

Go to cashier

Pay bill out of pocket (cash, visa, mastercard)

Get full detailed receipt for insurance

Go home

Fill out claim form

Fax or mail claim form and detailed receipt to insurance company

Wait for payment in the mail (1-4 weeks)

Optionally argue with insurance company about non-payment or co-pay amounts

Deposit reimbursment cheque (assuming they pay)

Can you see the difference?

I only had about 1/4 the wait time in the US clinic. The visit (which only lasted about 15 minutes) cost about $100, which I put on my credit card.

Meanwhile, I had to spend at least the amount of time saved in the clinic fussing around with stupid insurance paperwork.

But here's the big difference. While I "jumped the queue" and enjoyed quick treatment for my minor, non-life-threatening problem, millions of middle-class Americans suffered through their illnesses, got sicker, and some of them probably even died. Why? Because they had little or no insurance and simply couldn't afford it.

How to get people to respond to email

2009-03-14T19:43:00.000-04:00

People are getting busier and busier, and it is becoming somewhat of an art to actually get people to read and respond to emails.

Here are some quick tips to make the experience better for both the sender and receiver:

Make emails as short and concise as possible.

Important: Write a concise, relevant subject line!

Separate your short sentences into paragraphs with a space between them.

If you are making multiple points, or asking multiple questions, put them in a numbered list. Better yet -- write separate emails with different subject lines.

Make sure it will fit on one screen of a typical email program. (a lot of people don’t like scrolling)

Use bold and highlighting to draw attention to the really important parts.

Edit your emails multiple times, and cut out unnecessary words and sentences.

If your email requires a response, try summing up by asking one simple question at the very end of the email.

People are great at writing long, rambling emails, but seldom seem willing to read, understand, take action on, and reply to messages they receive.

If everyone started following a few of the above tips, we all might just understand each other a bit better :)