www.simoncollier.ca

It appears that our quality local press may be credited in a future Oxford English Dictionary as being the first printed press to use the word/phrase “meh”.

It’s super that we put ourselves on the literary map like that.

Here is the article with more details.

I learned this interesting little tidbit last week at a security seminar on a brand of firewall I use: Facebook photos are not secure.

Yes, you have to logon to Facebook to see someone’s photos, but here’s the caveat: ANYBODY can see one of your photos if they have the direct link to it, and they have a Facebook account.

Assuming you’re not already friends with Bonnie, follow the link below. You’ll be asked to logon to Facebook, but then you’ll be able to see it – even if you’re not Bonnie’s friend, and she didn’t authorise you to view it.

Try clicking this to see for yourself!

I picked this photo because I think it’s a great shot, and Bonnie has a similar shot on her blog so hopefully she considers it public domain. (The link will not give you access to the rest of Bonnie’s profile.)

The moral of the story? Even a “locked” profile has no way to protect those photos if there’s someone on the inside friends list passing out URLs!

“Trying to predict the future is a mug’s game. But increasingly it’s a game we all have to play because the world is changing so fast and we need to have some sort of idea of what the future’s actually going to be like because we are going to have to live there, probably next week.

“Oddly, the industry that is the primary engine of this incredible pace of change – the computer industry – turns out to be rather bad at predicting the future itself. There are two things in particular that it failed to foresee: one was the coming of the Internet, which, in an astonishingly short time, has become what the computer industry is now all about; the other was the fact the century would end.”

- The Independent on Sunday, November 1999

A few years ago the Canadian government decided that all immigrants required a Permanent Resident card to travel in and out of the country. This change of policy happened quietly and immigrants like myself found out mainly through word of mouth. (Why word of mouth? Why a whole new card? I suggest the database of immigrants was lost. Any well orchestrated project like this should otherwise include letters sent to every immigrant in their database. They should, after all, have had our personal information.)

The process of getting the card was as tedious as any other government beurocratic process. Multiple pieces of ID were required, along with the record of landing and social insurance. Naturally this is required to be done during the day, in person, downtown Edmonton. It’s a good thing most immigrant workers have flexible work hours or can afford time off work. (Oh, wait… That’s not quite true.)

The card was pretty interesting: It had every security feature I have ever seen in an ID card incorporated into it: swipe information, hologram, microprint: It was beautiful, and impressive.

After working through the steps required to obtain a Permanent Resident card, there was little doubt in my mind that the U.S. was being ridiculous in saying Canada is a safe haven for terrorists. To me, the process seemed thorough, tight and irritating enough to put off any would-be bombers.

After a while I decided to go ahead and apply to be a “real” Canadian. I filled in my Citizenship papers, had someone very official stamp them, took my offensively easy Citizenship exam, and was (months and hundreds of dollars later) sworn in as a Canadian. They handed me a little Canadian flag, a copy of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and my new Citizenship ID Card.

A fucking laminated piece of paper with my photo pasted on.

If I was a terrorist, I wouldn’t try and fake being a landed immigrant… I’d fake being a Canadian Citizen!

I have found it weird for some time that The Government requires us to pay $6.95 per month on top of our mobile phone bill for “System Access Fees”, but does not have that same requirement for non-contract phones. Well, now I know why.

The Government haven’t needed us to pay that in well over a decade. The phone companies decided to keep charging us though. (Maybe they just forgot to take it off?)

Now there’s a class action lawsuit against Telus, Rogers and Bell for “unjust enrichment”. I have no idea if that’s an argument with merit, but I think the publicity has to be a Good Thing.

I’m happy I’m with Virgin.