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| Martin Streek has died? | Tuesday, July 7, 2009 00:44:29 |
I'm seeing a lot of buzz from 102.1 The Edge staff on Twitter and on looking at his Facebook stream, Martin has one last message saying; "So...I guess that's it...thanks everyone...I'm sorry to those I should be sorry to, I love you to those that I love, and I will see you all again soon (not too soon though)... Let the stories begin."
Then there's a whole lot of rest in peace messages pouring in. As one of the only celebrities in the news that I've actually met, this one actually means something to me. Gotta find out what's what.
A couple well written memorials by Martin's friends...
Alan Cross
Fred Paterson
Tuesday, July 07, 2009 00:47:41
Ian writes:
No sooner did I post this that I received a message from one of the on-air staff. Martin took his own life early this evening. Very sad news indeed. He will be missed. |
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| Get With It | Monday, May 25, 2009 08:07:14 |
I recently had a back and forth with someone who was having trouble accessing our web site at the office. It seems that they were using Internet Explorer 6.0 and it was very slow to load and then when she viewed it in Firefox 1.0 it was faster and viewable. I told her that all of the updates to these browsers have made them faster, more secure and more reliable. She got back to me and said that she would not update because the of the agreement terms she has to agree to to use the updated browsers compromise her security because they allow the software developer to gather information from your computer.
A little information is a dangerous thing. The agreements for software, especially open source variants are designed so that they protect the developers in the event that the user submits an error report and personal information is included. This way if that information is submitted to the developer in a bug report, the user has been warned that they may be passing sensitive information to the developing company and it's programmers. That's the farthest stretch I can possibly think of to what she said and even then, just don't send any error reports. It's not like browsers phone home and say; "hey Mozilla, Dr. Judy Freeman is using your browser to do her banking, here's her card number..."
The only other way, I can think of that would make her claims make sense is anything in the terms of service about information submission, making it the responsibility of the user to submit information to the correct people on the web, basically protecting the developer from you submitting your information to a phishing site and having your identity stolen.
By not updating your computer, you're more likely to have it become a drone in some botnet somewhere and then all of your information is up for grabs.
There are hundreds of people who speak legalese and when they get into browers they read word for word everything in these agreements. If there's anything outrageously unfair in them, within moments, they've shared it will all of the big blogs and security gossip columns and all of that trickles down to the end users. Within a few days of changing their terms of service to say that in the event that you delete your account, Facebook wouldn't be necessarily deleting your information from their servers, all hell broke lose and they had to change the agreement back.
I feel an enormous sense of well-being by trusting people who know what they're reading word for word, instead of me perusing the agreement and getting a basic understanding of what's being said, watching my back when it comes to terms of service. Just click "I agree" and get on with your day. |
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| How to geotag your photos with a Garmin Training Center recording | Monday, May 18, 2009 19:01:19 |
First step, synchronize your camera's time to your Garmin watch. I have Garmin 405 for marathon training and this is an excellent second use for it. I'm sure this would work with any other product that syncs up to Garmin's Train Center program. Start recording your walk, roam or run for those true blurry cam moments.
Once you get back to your computer and sync up your activity into Garmin's Training Center, right click on it and Export it. This will save a TCX file on your computer.
The best geotagging program I've found is GPicSync and just download and install that. (via @twodimes)
Now you'll be left with a circle peg/square hole problem, because GPicSync can't read the TCX file, so you have to convert it with GPS Visualizer. Simply browse for your TCX file, select GPX as your output type and then press the convert button. On the following page you can copy/paste or just right click on the output file to save your GPX file.
Browse your folder full of images, and your GPX file and then put in your UTC offset (without the zeros, so -4 for (-0400 EDT). Click the Synchronize button and then your folder will be navigated, and your GPS data will be added to your images and by default they'll be backed up incase the whole process cocks up. Then you can view them in Google Earth or you can put them in your map on Flickr. By default Flickr protects the EXIF gps data but if you have photos you'd like to share on the map, click on the show on map button and it will automatically put them on your map where you plotted them.
Today I shot this one right here. |
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| No Three Strikes | Thursday, April 9, 2009 08:06:42 |
A great quote which sums up a lot of people's frustration with the French Three-Strikes Law which would allow copyright holders to cut the internet connection for many people in France without any real investigation.
From this article shared by @Glinner
| In the past week, I've only used the internet to contact my employers around the world, my MP in the UK, to participate in a European Commission expert proceeding, to find out why my infant daughter has broken out in tiny pink polka-dots, to communicate with a government whistle-blower who wants to know if I can help publish evidence of official corruption, to provide references for one former student (and follow-up advice to another), book my plane tickets, access my banking records, navigate the new Home Office immigration rules governing my visa, wire money to help pay for the headstone for my great uncle's grave in Russia, and to send several Father's Day cards (and receive some of my own).
The internet is only that wire that delivers freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, and freedom of the press in a single connection. It's only vital to the livelihood, social lives, health, civic engagement, education and leisure of hundreds of millions of people (and growing every day).
This trivial bit of kit is so unimportant that it's only natural that we equip the companies that brought us Police Academy 11, Windows Vista, Milli Vanilli and Celebrity Dancing With the Stars with wire-cutters that allow them to disconnect anyone in the country on their own say-so, without proving a solitary act of wrongdoing. |
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| Chuck Lorre Vanity Cards | Monday, December 15, 2008 22:36:53 |
Brianne just paused the end of the Big Bang Theory to read the Chuck Lorre Vanity Card, man those things are funny. And if you watch TBBT you'll easily imagine the Sheldon character spouting off those lines. Awesome. |
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| Deer hits runner | Monday, November 24, 2008 11:35:36 |
Lots of big events this weekend; Tom and Lisa's wedding went off without a hitch and one of the guys I run with got hit by a flying deer!
So I get back from our lovely room at the Old Mill and while we were hunting and gathering (shopping at Zehrs) I checked my email and Roy sent me the weirdest message. Apparently while they were just getting started running yesterday morning, a deer tried to jump a car but didn't make it and it and ended up flying into Stuart. Fortunately he was okay but the deer didn't make it. I had to hear his story so he sent this message to our runners mailing list:
The run had just started, and the group was running up Kortright past Preservation park, and starting up the hill. I was half looking at the ground, keeping an eye on my footing, trying to avoid the ice on the sidewalk and the other runners feet around me. I heard Shannon cry out "Deer", looked up and saw a large brown object in the air. The next thing I know, I am sitting on the ground and see a doe a few feet away from me struggling to get up. The animal managed to get up and ran across the street into the bushes. Unfortunately the animal did not survive.
Apparently the animal was running across the street, but a car was coming down the road. The animal tried to jump over the car, but got clipped by it, and bounced into the air and headed towards me.
A 911 call was placed, and an ambulance came to check me and the driver of the car out, along with animal control to take care of the deer. Other than a scrape on my shin, smaller than a dime, a slightly twisted ankle, and probably a little bruising, I am feeling fine. I just developed a new excuse to get out of a run, and will probably be the reason for a new clause in the liability waiver for the Running Room.
My New Year's resolutions should probably include either 1) Avoid flying deer when running, or 2) Improve my catching.
Stuart
This amazing story is now making it's way around the odd-ball news story columns...
Guelph Mercury | Cable Pulse 24 | UPI.com
My only complaint is that they keep calling him a jogger. They say the difference is that running hurts and if you ask me, getting hit by a deer qualifies as pain.
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| Ow! My Groin! | Sunday, October 5, 2008 16:49:45 |
 Okay, my groin doesn't hurt at all, but it's a great Simpsons quote. My knee is actually the problem. It hurt a little bit yesterday and then today, about halfway through my run this morning it just started to hurt a whole lot. I couldn't walk, I couldn't run but I could stand quite comfortably. So after moving along, I was able to run back to the car at the Running Room and as I was running back and felt the injury explain itself. My iliotibial band (or IT band as they call it in the running world) on the right leg was rock hard as opposed to the left leg which was tight, but not over-flexed. When the IT band gets tight it pulls your knees out of line and when you run like that, you hurt them. It took one of my friends out of the running for her first marathon and it seems that it's going to be an issue for me in my recuperation from mine. I guess the next steps are to start massaging it with ice and get an IT band roller, then to start doing more on the bike to flex the inner thigh so that the outer thigh can be a little more balanced in it's strength. Sucks to be in pain though, I just got used to being able to handle stairs again. |
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| The IT Crowd Series 3 | Saturday, October 4, 2008 09:19:05 |
Last night we were having a conversation about how we hadn't heard anything about the new IT Crowd series yet and for the last two years the episodes were aired in September so we thought we weren't getting anything new. However, this morning I awoke to a message from the Facebook group with a series of one liners from the taping of the second episode last night. Rumours say it's due to be aired November/December this year. Maybe we'll get a Christmas special? Only time will tell. Can't wait! Apparently staying tuned to Linehan's blog got me nowhere because I don't read every detail. He did post a message yesterday but it had his signature speech bubble in it (meaning he's just looking for comments) and I just ignore those posts. I guess I have to start using Google Reader for comprehension.... |
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| RSS Update 'n Stuff | Friday, October 3, 2008 16:31:19 |
It took almost all day, but I've got all of my major sites with ongoing news set up with proper RSS feeds and I've fixed the bug that's been bothering me for a long time now. When users have pre-written content in Word and they paste in into a textarea field on the web, the encoding is wrong so when they mash the save button, the quotes and apostrophes are placed in the document in their native format (like this: ’) instead of the normal ASCII where there's only one character for the quotes. Once I finally had time to put my mind to it, the whole thing came together quite nicely. I found all of the character codes for the characters which appear as question marks in Firefox and Chrome and blocks in Internet Explorer then I just used PHP's str_replace to replace them all in the strings that come out of the database.
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<?php
$msfind = array(chr(150),
chr(146),
chr(145),
chr(147),
chr(148),
chr(151),
chr(133),
chr(149), # bullet
);
$msreplace = array("-",
"'",
"'",
"\"",
"\"",
"-",
"...",
"-",
);
print(str_replace($msfind,
$msreplace,
$textfromdatabase));
?> |
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So once that was all pretty, I made the RSS hints on the headers of my main pages so that people can subscribe to those feeds (and actually know where they are).
 For those of you who are keeping score at home, by the way, my marathon finishing time was 4 hours 10 minutes and 2 seconds (chip time). It actually took me 5 minutes from the time the gun went off to get over the start line, which is why the photo shows me at gun time. The day was warm and for my first marathon, I'm really quite happy with my time because all things considered, I did a good job and I've left myself room for improvement. If the weather was like the last couple of days, heat wouldn't have been an issue, but that's how life works right?
We're having a wrap-up meeting at the Fat Duck to celebrate our first marathon tomorrow, so I'm looking forward to that. Then in a week, my lovely wife and I off to Italy for 10 days!
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| My Marathon Info | Wednesday, September 24, 2008 23:39:11 |
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| My Name: | Ian Service |
| My Race: | Marathon |
| My Number: | 1666 |
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Sunday is the big race that I've been training for all summer long, The Scotiabank Waterfront Marathon! I'm getting really excited. Only one more training run left and a lot more carbs to absorb to give me the energy to finish in my goal 3 hours and 45 minutes. Since it's my first marathon, (first race actually) I'm not too sure how well this will go so I won't be heart broken if I miss my goal time. I think as long as I finish under 4 hours I'll be really happy with my time, other than that it's going to be the time to beat for my next marathon in Ottawa in May. (That's right, I've already picked my next race (Around the Bay) and my next Marathon.
Here's the race info that they sent out for those who are coming down to cheer me on...
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LIVE Results
Once again www.sportstats.ca will provide the LIVE tracking of all participants in the Marathon and Half-Marathon. Splits will be at 10km, 21km, 30km and Finish line for the marathon and 10km and finish for the Half-Marathon.
LIVE SMS Text Messaging
New this year, you will be able to track participants in the Marathon and Half-marathon via text messaging. For $2.99 you can track 1 participant to up to 3 cell phone numbers. Splits will be at 10km, 21km, 30km and Finish line for the marathon and 10km and finish for the Half-Marathon.
Click the following link to sign up now for this service:
http://sms.eventsonline.ca/sms/crs_scotia/index.html
Where to watch your loved ones:
#1 Recommendation : would be on Bay Street from Queen Street south to Wellington
#2 Recommendation: We have 11 Neighbourhood Cheering Sections with live Entertainment, food and much more! Check out our website for more information on exact locations:
http://www.torontowaterfrontmarathon.com/en/nc.htm#map
#3 Recommendation: There is also limited space on the Nathan Phillips Square walkway above the Start and Finish line- get there early to claim your spot- with 14,000+ participants and all their family there to watch, it will fill up fast!
Where to meet your loved ones after they have finished:
We will be having a Friends and Family Zone located on the south side of Nathan Phillips Square. We will have flags set-up and you will be able to meet your loved ones underneath their letter (Bob Smith, wait for him under the "S" flag) |
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