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October 6th, 2008 - cool new toronto restaurant menu site
There is a new site out to help you find restaurants in Toronto. Like most others it has the standard reviews, maps and phone numbers it also has some menus and its growing daily. The menu’s are look clean and are easy to scroll through. Check out the menu for Mr. Greek restaurant in North York. The website is simple and has easy search functionality. You can use keywords like “tag:” to search for italian places or you can search for “pizza on yonge”. Using the map page you can search for restaurants around a specific intersection, or if you want the link to it just type “sushi at yonge and sheppard”. The sites got great potential. Check the site out at www.fyood.com.
July 8th, 2008 - Bell and Telus to make a lot of money
Bell and Telus have announced that they will both be charging $0.15 an incoming text message starting in August. They are using the growth of text messaging and the load on their networks as the reasoning behind the increase. Apparently, 45.4 million text messages a day in Canada is too much to handle.
I have an older cell phone but the largest text message I can send is 918 characters. If we do some quick math
(918 Bytes x 45400000) / (1024*1024*1024)
we get the “huge” daily volume of 39 GB. Now, lets pretend that all three major Canadian carriers have an equal market share so the SMS volume comes down to 13 GB per provider and 15.1 million text messages a day. Really, doesn’t seem like that much to me.
Let’s see how much Bell and Telus need to make to cover the cost of all of these text messages. Bell and Telus already charge $0.15 an outgoing text message so by charging another $0.15 per incoming they double the revenue from the text messages. That means
$0.30 x 15.1 = $4530000/day
to pay for 13GB of data traveling through Telus’ and Bell’s network.
What makes this justification even more upsetting, is that if we look at the overage charges of the data plans that all three Canadian companies have, this increase becomes even more silly and unjustifiable. Bell charges $12/MB, Telus $8/MB and Rogers $10/MB. That means that under these plans sending a text message would cost
Bell (918 *12)/(1024*1024) = $0.015
Telus (918 *8)/(1024*1024) = $0.007
Rogers (918 *10)/(1024*1024) = $0.009
Based on the above costs per text message then the 15.1 million text messages actually only cost Bell - $226500/day, Telus - $105700/day and Rogers - $135900/day.
So, which number is the true cost? If the increase is really to help cover costs then Bell and Telus will both be going out of business because the data plans are just too cheap. If the data plan prices show the true cost then Bell and Telus will have very nice bottom lines and everyone should buy their stock. I’m betting on the latter.
There is another part to this that really doesn’t make sense. I haven’t heard about any way to turn off recieving text messages on my cell phone and I haven’t seen it on any other phone either. If you can’t control who sends you a text message, how can you be charged for it. One of the articles I’ve read had a quote from a spokesperson stating that if you get charged for spam you can just call Bell and they’ll reverse the charge. Bell’s customer service is bad enough and with the increase in calls it’s only going to get worse. Unfortunately, Rogers, Telus and Bell are the only options we have.
I think that every single Bell and Telus customer should call after the first bill comes with incoming text message charges and tell them that all the texts are spam. Let them go through each one and prove that it’s not spam. Least that this will accomplish will be more jobs for call center reps and slightly higher costs for our wireless providers.
July 3rd, 2008 - google, the little search engine that grew
Once upon a time there was a small search engine called google. The search engine grew and grew and grew until it became the biggest search engine on the world wide web. One day, the once little, now fully grown google, went to the market and sold pieces of itself to the general public at the modest price of $80 a piece. People complained the the price wasn’t quite modest but bought anyway. The pieces of this search engine became more and more desirable as the engine kept growing and more people bought and more people complained. Google then decided to eat up a few other websites and grew a little more, replacing the pieces it had sold off. Then, the search engine decided that it wanted to no longer just be a search engine and it also became an email service. The email service grew out of the side of the search engine and named itself gmail.
Gmail, the email service, didn’t want to grow too quickly because it was afraid of the pains and stretch marks that occur when you grow too fast. It grew slowly at first with only a few people invited to use it, then it grew some more when those invited, invited others. Eventually, the new people invited others and the others invited others and the little email service grew and grew and grew. Gmail, grew into a giant standing head and shoulders above the other email services on the world wide web, and the search engine was happy.
With the joy that the search engine got from gmail, it decided that it was time to grow something else. The next thing that grew were google docs. Google docs didn’t grow very fast and not too many others took a liking too it. None the less, google was happy and some of the others did use it.
Google being happy and enjoying the growth of its different parts decided that it was hunger and wanted to eat something. The search engine looked everywhere on the world wide web for a decent meal. It looked here and there and there and here and then it found the perfect meal. Youtube, was a delicious but very expensive meal costing close to 1.4 billion dollars, however, youtube wasn’t just any meal. It was a meal that could grow. In fact, 12 months before google when looking for it’s big meal, youtube was but a seed. Once the others planted it, it like the search engine, grew and grew and grew. Even after google ate youtube, it kept on growing and since it was in the search engines stomach, google grew too.
At this point much of google was growing. Gmail, the email service, was growing, google docs was growing, the search engine was growing and the meal, youtube, was growing. Google, loved the growth and wanted more. It looked at the others and noticed that they needed help planting seeds. So, the giant search engine, grew google analytics and google web master tools. The others rejoiced and flocked to google analytics. The others let google into there seeds and it told them things. Once the others let the search engine in, as the seeds grew, google grew.
The giant search engine was now growing in all directions. But it wanted to grow more. The others were running out of room to plant there seeds on the world wide web so google created fields on it’s giant mass called google appengine, and the others planted more seeds. The seeds grew and the google grew and the world wide web was slowly filling up. There was still plenty of room of course, but google could not longer grow as fast. The little search engine that grew into a giant wanted to grow more and decided to look for another planet to grow on. It searched and searched and finally found the mobile world. The mobile world was not new but the mobile world did not have a giant as big as google. So, google traveled to mobile on android and the others were excited.
The others flocked and started trying to plant seeds on android but as it turned out the mobile world was not ready for the giant search engine. The others and google had to slow down the growth and google was not happy. And that’s where the story of the little search engine ends for now.
December 8th, 2007 - the leafs suck less all of a sudden
The Toronto Maple Leafs suck, however they’ve won the last four games and now they aren’t quite so bad. Well that’s a lie, they are just as bad but now at least they’re getting lucky. Every team goes through it. The Ottawa Senators are a great team but they are going through a rough patch right now. The leafs are going through the opposite. They are a bad team that’s going through a good patch right now. Last week, all of the media was talking about Ferguson getting fired, and Paul Maurice getting fired. 4 wins later, the media is on the bandwagon. Talking about how the Leafs are playing better. Playing like a team and all that goofy stuff. I think it’s all a bunch of bullshit. The Leafs will be playing better once they get new players. They are just getting lucky right now and that’s all it is. They’ll be a better team once they win Saturday’s game against the Boston Bruins and Monday’s game against the Tampa Bay Lightning.
October 29th, 2007 - leafs back at home against the capitals
What a horrible game. Another example of the Toronto Maple Leafs showing there fans how much they like playing in Toronto. Over the previous two games on the road, against the Penguins and the Rangers, the Leafs showed up and played as a team. They were strong both offensively and defensively, but as soon as they come home they can’t do anything right.
The first 5 minutes of tonights game looked like it could be a close game. The next 55 were a complete blow out. Toskala was pulled in the first period after Washington scored 4 goals. 1 of the 4 was Toskala’s fault but the other 3 were due to sloppy play by the rest of the team. Raycroft didn’t fair much better for the rest of the game. He let in another 3 throughout the game. Again not his fault really. No goalie can stop a whole team without help.
Kubina seemed to think that he was supposed to jump into every single rush. On one of the Toronto power plays, Kubina tired to pinch and instead got bodychecked and the Capitals got a short-handed goal. Another time he tried to pinch and Toskala had to make a great save to stop a breakaway. However, Kubina wasn’t the only one to make mistakes. The only players on the Leafs that could complete a pass were Sundin and Kaberle. The rest of the team just blindly moved the puck around and mostly gave it away. The 7th Capitals goal came off of a horrible passing play between Bates Battaglia and White in there own zone. This game was just a horrible display of hockey. Luckily, the Toronto Maple Leafs are off on a 4 game road trip because I’m not sure that the fans can take another 7-1 blow out.
October 27th, 2007 - online poker is not the same
Poker is an interesting game as is, but when you add the anonymity of the internet, anything can happen. When you play poker at the casino, you’re face to face with your opponent but when you play online you no longer have a face to get your cue’s from. All you have to base your decisions off of are the cards you have and the cards the dealer is showing. It becomes a game of chance just like blackjack. Sayings like “play the player not the cards” fly out the window on the internet. There is no player, at least not one that shows any emotion. There is a person at the other end of an internet connection, sitting at home and writing a blog entry for all you know. People think that you can read into the length of time it takes a player to make there decision online, but that’s only true if you know the player is sitting at the computer and only playing poker. Even then there still the possibility that the network is slow, that the person has a crappy connection or that the poker room servers are running at capacity. There is just too much in between you and your opponent to make any kind of prediction into what they might be holding.
Another interesting thought is, you may not be playing a person at all. Your opponent could be a computer. Basically it could be a calculator that removes the human factor and just counts odds. If you can get decent poker games for your computer why couldn’t someone write a bot to make the most mathematically sound poker decisions for online play? I’m sure it’s happened and I’m sure that people have made good money off of it because Party poker has it in their terms and conditions that these bots aren’t allowed. But we know that people love to break rules, especially ones that are hard to enforce. Would you trust yourself to stay focused more then your computer? I know that I get bored and frustrated when I play and if you pit me against a computer, I’ll probably lose in the long run.
These types of worries don’t exist in a casino or home poker game. In live games you and your opponent are at the poker table and poker becomes more then just odds. It becomes a game of skill and analysis. You take everything that your opponent does and saying in and make your move based on all that information. Poker becomes a mental exercise that is more then just keeping track of numbers in your head.
October 24th, 2007 - leafs defense sucks
I can’t believe how bad the Toronto Maple Leafs defense is this season. Sure it’s a new season and lots can still happen but it’s not looking promising. Last nights game wasn’t as bad as it could have been, largely thanks to Vesa Toskala, but if the leafs defense doesn’t wake up and actually defend, not even Martin Brodeur could help us. At points, it looked like the defense wasn’t even on the ice. Ilya Kovalchuk walked around in the Leafs zone like there was no one there. Kubina looks like he doesn’t belong in the NHL and McCabe is just crap. He shouldn’t even be playing hockey. If hockey had a designated shooter position then maybe, but he shouldn’t be allowed to do anything else, not that he actually does anything else. The only bright spot on the Toronto blue line is Anton Stralman. He a least looked calm on the ice and made a few heads up defensive plays.
The Leafs forwards aren’t doing bad this year. Mats Sundin is playing great hockey early this season and helped last night with his 3 points. Jason Blake put in more effort then the whole defensive unit combined. Blake’s speed is a great asset too. He always seemed to be around the net and was often open. Antropov also did well but I’m still waiting for that injury like every season. Steen could be very good if he just stopped trying to make everything pretty. Seems like he’s always trying to get on the highlight reels.
I have no problem with Paul Maurice, he’s much better then Pat Quinn and he didn’t let Belak play very much. I do have a huge problem with John Ferguson. The Leafs defense has been the same garbage for as long as I can remember and yet we haven’t acquired anyone decent. He seems to think that an NHL hockey team can win games because of the goalie. That’s simply not true. Even the best goalie can’t stop a million shots from in front of the net. But I guess the leafs management knows that they don’t really have to be good to sell out all the seats so I’m just gonna pray for a miracle cause I can’t help but hope that the Leafs get better. They are still my team and tomorrow is another game.
August 28th, 2007 - Olympus Stylus 720 SW
Last Christmas, I got an Olympus Stylus 720 SW digital camera and it’s awesome. The coolest thing about it is that it’s shockproof up to 5ft. I’ve placed the camera on the corners of tables and knocked it down, dropped it and landed with my full weight on it and it still works. The Stylus 720 is also waterproof up to 10 ft which can really impress people when they see you jumping into the water with a digital camera. I took it snorkeling in Jamaica and had the staff there ask about it because they’ve never seen a person go into the water with a digital camera before. It’s much better then the ugly one-time use camera’s that have the plastic around them. The pictures came out really well except that you need to take lots of them because the focus doesn’t always adjust quickly enough with the movement of the water. Here are a few underwater shots I took.
The only thing that you need to remember to do is soak the Stylus 720 in fresh water after use so that you remove all the salt as not to damage the seals.
I had another digital camera before that I took with me on a snowboarding trip to whiteface and after the first day it wasn’t working anymore. In April, I took the Stylus 720 to Whistler for another snowboarding trip and rode with it in my backpack. Even after falling multiple times, using it in the cold on the glacier and dropping it into the snow it was still working and the pictures came out beautifully.
There is a shooting mode on the Stylus 720 called shoot and pick. It allows you too snap away with no delay and then pick the pictures you want to keep. It’s great if your friends are doing something stupid and you know it’s going to end badly. You can just click away and you will capture the moment right before one of them gets hurt. There is also a quicktime video mode that with a 1 gig memory card takes about an hour of video and the microphone is really sensitive.
Some of the other features of the camera are:
- Bright Capture Technology
- 7.1 Megapixel CCD Sensor
- 3x optical zoom
- 15x total seamless zoom
- Digital Image Stabilization Mode
- TruPic TURBO Image Processor
- 28 shooting modes
- Red-Eye fix
- Li-ion rechargeable battery and charger
- Auto-Connect USB
The design of the Stylus 720 is also nice. It’s small but has a fairly large 2.5 inch TFT color LCD screen which is large enough to view your picture and get an accurate idea of the quality. The camera is also thin enough that you can keep it in the front pocket of your jeans. Which is nice when you’re going to a club or just walking around the city. It is a little bit heavier then other digital camera’s but I’m guessing that’s because it’s made to be solid. Overall I couldn’t be happier with the the Stylus 720 and I think it actually makes me take more pictures because I’m not worried about dropping it on the ground or in the water and it fits in my pocket.
August 28th, 2007 - Michael Vicks dogfighting mistake
I’ve been following this whole Michael Vick dogfighting thing and I find it a little ridiculous. The vice-president goes on a hunting trip and shoots his hunting buddy in the face but that seems to have gotten less public outrage then Michael Vick putting two dogs in a ring and letting them fight. I don’t really see why all this is such a big deal. Not to say that dogfighting is ok but there are much worse things going on then dogfighting. Here is just a short list :
- The war in Iraq
- Drugs
- Gangs
- Guns
- Child Abuse
Just a note but isn’t it a little strange that the war in Iraq is a little like Michael Vick putting dogs in a ring and having them fight to the death expect that instead of Michael Vick it’s president Bush, instead of dogs it’s young American and Iraqi people, and instead of a ring it’s Iraq. Hmmmm …. How bad does dogfighting sound now?
In this article from the LA Times it says:
Question: How much time will Vick serve?
Answer: It won’t be known for sure until Vick’s sentencing, scheduled for Dec. 10. Prosecutors are recommending he serve a year to 18 months in prison — up from the zero to six months that first-time offenders usually get for the same charges, because they felt his behavior was “heinous, cruel and inhumane.”
District Judge Henry E. Hudson has said he takes the prosecution’s recommendations seriously, but ultimately he can impose whatever sentence he thinks is appropriate, up to the maximum five years for this charge. He’s also known for being tough.
I agree that Michael Vick should be punished but I can’t get my head around why you would recommend more jail time then the average person would get. The man is a public figure and I’m sure a role model to many young people but he’s definitely done less damage to society then Paris Hilton or Lindsay Lohen have. With there uncontrolled behavior and well publicize substance abuse getting 45 days in jail for a DUI is too little.
Another article from espn.com asks the question:
The question is, will his peers in the NFL, as well as those players in the college and high school football pipeline, learn from Vick’s spectacular mistakes?
I think he already has. I know that he lied off the bat but everybody does, and it didn’t take him a long drawn out trial that he was bound to lose to come clean. To me it just shows that if you mess up and make a mistake, you need to stand up and take the punishment.
Another thing that bothers me, is that we don’t mind watching people kick the crap out of each other but we have a problem when animals do it. If you ever watch UFC or worse yet Pride fighting then you know that we are cruel. We put two men in an octagon or in a ring and cheer as they beat each other senseless. If Michael Vick is going to jail for putting two dogs in a ring shouldn’t Dana White (president of UFC) go to jail for putting two people in the octagon?
August 21st, 2007 - things to see in Toronto
Toronto is a terrific city, there is no doubt about that, however, like most North American cities it lacks the history and uniqueness that cities in Europe offer. Major European cities like London, Paris, Berlin, Vienna, Athens and Rome are filled with history and a unique style that can’t be found anywhere else. In Rome you can’t take a step without looking at some old building that’s been standing for hundreds of years, in Paris you can’t help but marvel at the brasseries and cafe’s on every corner. There are also monuments like the Arc de Triomphe (Paris), Colosseum (Rome), The Acropolis (Athens), Trevi Fountains (Rome), and the remains of the Berlin Wall (guess) that line the streets of European cites.
Toronto doesn’t have many of these types of things. There are no huge intricate fountains, no royal castles, no carefully designed parks commissioned by kings. Historical places in Toronto are limited to Fort York and Castle Loma and not much else. What Toronto does offer, which may not be unique compared to other North American cities but is unique compared to European cities, is size. Not just in terms of buildings but also in terms of space. European cities tend to be tight and compact, the buildings aren’t much more then a few stories tall, the roads are narrow and the cars small. Below is my list of the best places to take visitors from europe.
- CN Tower
- Rogers Center - Better if it’s to a baseball game. Baseball isn’t a well know sport in Europe and the atmosphere is very pleasant
- Harbourfront
- Distillery District
- Paramount Canada’s Wonderland
- Air Canada Center - Leafs game is a great idea if you can get tickets
- Science Center
- Royal Ontario Museum
- University of Toronto St. George Campus
- Kensington Market
- CNE - If it’s going on
- Niagara Falls - I know it’s not in Toronto but it’s worth the trip