Aye! I installed Akismet a while back in an attempt to deal with some of the comment spam issues here. Since I’ve installed it, it’s dealt with over 5000 comment spams. That’s bonkers. I don’t get it. Are people clicking spam links?
I get asked a lot why it’s called DemoCamp/BarCamp etc. I have no clue and this may contain garbage but here’s how I understand it:
Ricardo Semler, writing about what’s left once you reach the realization that mission statements and credos are bullshit:
“Quite a lot, starting with what we stand for, the way we do things, the facts on the ground, the we are perceived, and the satisfaction and success of those involved. In other words, judge us by what we do, rather than what we say we do. Judge us by standards drawn from a peaceful, civilized, cooperative, and humane society of equals..”
I wish I’d written that and like to think that somewhat describes what we’re up to at boc. Sure it’s hi falootin stuff but so what?
PS, I have some istockphoto credits that are expiring hence the unrelated image. Check out that guy’s shadow, I think he’s Australian?
This is just plain cool….Paris just launched a bike sharing program with 10,000 bikes. Why aren’t our major cities doing something truly innovative like this? Sure I haven’t seen it in practice but I love the idea of coming out of Union Station, paying a buck or two to get a bike that I ride to my destination and return to the drop off point there.
“Customers can pick up a bicycle from one of 750 self-service points. If no bikes are available, renters are directed towards a well-stocked point nearby. After identifying themselves and providing credit or debit card details, users can take out a bike. A day pass costs EUR 1, allowing users as many rides as they like, provided each trip is less than 30 minutes. An additional half hour is EUR 1, with prices climbing for additional time used; the pricing model is aimed at encouraging quick turnover. Bikes can be returned at any service point. Once all 1,451 are in place (end of 2007), the nearest service point will never be far off — one every 300 metres, which means they’ll be 4.4 times as densely distributed as metro stations. The number of bicycles will also be doubled, bringing the total to 20,600.”
I mentioned this one earlier. They sent me an email this week with a sweet deal that times out end of this month. Part of the deal is based on volume, ie every 3 people we register then we get a 4th free.
So I’m looking for people who want to attend this. If you’re in then contact me asap and we’ll make a trip of it and share the volume deal amongst us.
I’ve been meaning to get a decent music player that supports Ogg format for a while now. Apparently Apple doesn’t have a need to include support for a free and open format like this, hmmmm…. Had they done that I wouldn’t have looked further than my local Apple store.
Alas I had to go out and see if anyone in the world makes digital music players besides Apple. In the end I’m thankful of Apple’s decision not to support an open format because it forced me to look for alternatives which in the end landed me a player I like a ton more than the apple options available. It’s a bit scary that I wouldn’t have looked further than the Apple hype if not for this.
In the end I landed on the S10 from iRiver. I had to buy it through Amazon, who actually provided it through a 3rd party vendor, who wouldn’t ship it to Canada so I had to have it shipped to my sister’s place in LA.
It’s not much bigger than a postage stamp, almost weightless(17.5g) yet features a full colour screen with their slick squeeze the edges navigation system. It’s 2GB, which is plenty for me, and includes some surprisingly useful features such as an FM tuner, alarm, and a voice recorder.
One the damn cool ways they achieved this is with the hardware interface. There’s no USB interface on the actual player. The only plug-in thingy is for your headphones. How did they pull that off? Technically I have no clue but I do have a guess.
My first thought was can an old school headphone jack do everything usb can, including move data etc? I think not.
iriver includes a usb adapter that goes from usb to headphone jack. If you look closely at the headphone plug you’ll see there’s a few extra rings on it. A standard headphone jack has two plastic rings, 3 metal portions. The included iriver one has 3 plastic rings, 4 metal.
So my guess? They’ve expanded and created they’re own headphone jack by adding another conductor. Come on now, that’s just plain old clever isn’t it? They own both ends, the female in the player, the male in the adaper, so why not? As long as their female continues to function with older, more dumbed down, male headphone jacks then why not spruce it up? (wow, that’s an interesting sentence out of context).
Caveat, I have no idea what I’m talking about and clearly had too much time to sit and stair at the provided adapter on a recent train ride. If my wife ever reads this I will be called names.
Just a reminder to anyone paying attention, our second democamp runs this Wednesday evening. If you’re coming out, please add your name to the attendee list on the wiki.
Just a reminder, this isn’t a BarCamp where everyone must participate so come out, have a beer and a 1/2 priced burger and just lurk. There are a few demo spots left so contact me if you’d like to demo.
How did you spend your Canada day? The cast iron main in the floor of my basement cracked last week so I spent the first day of my long weekend breaking concrete and fixing plumbing. Love owning a home! These little keyboard tappers aren’t used to hard labour.
A Canada Day round of shinny in shorts more than made up for it!
I finally got around to buying a small UPS. It’s silly how reasonable the prices are now. This Belkin 900VA was $86 at tiger direct. I think I’m getting old because I find myself having to resist the urge to say “I remember when simple power bars were $60”.
These are heavy so the shipping costs were a tad high. I did a quick compare to see it picking one up at staples would be cheaper. Unless I’m missing something, the exact product is $176 at staples. In that light, shipping was quite reasonable.
Why am I posting crap about batteries……sad times…How could this get any more sad? There, a picture of said battery….
We just bought ourselves another house so we’re officially in the landlording business. If you know anyone looking to rent a 4+ bedroom house in the best hood in downtown Guelph then contact me now!
