http://www.albertarecycling.ca/public/data/documents/ACF4D.PDF
That, my friends, is a PDF.

That, Dear friends, is a PDF of a scanned in document…

That, loving friends, is a PDF of a scanned in FAX document.

Annoying as this concept of a scanned in fax, served up to the public as a pdf is, it’s this bit of content that bothers me more. The Alberta Goverment might consider talking to someone who has actually used a friggin’ computer before they draft Levies on them. Here’s the part I love the most… but it’s all great.
_______________
Laptops/electronic notebooks $5.00
CPUs (including keyboard, mouse, cables, speakers) $10.00
Computer Monitors (LCD and CRT) $12.00
_______________

If you’re going to tax me for this stuff, at least you could learn WHAT THE GODDAMN COMPONENTS ARE CALLED. here. I’ll help. I’ll give you pictures.

THIS is a CPU (Central Processing Unit)

THIS (ignoring the monitor… I hope that’s not too confusing for you.) Is NOT a CPU, it’s a “Computer” or a “Tower”

Now that that’s out of the way, let’s examine further. LCDs and CRTs are the same price ($12) and Laptops are only 5 bucks. “What’s wrong with that?” you might ask. Well For starters… CRTs have Way more lead in them than LCDs. CRTs are actually physically dangerous (there’s about 100lbs of pressure inside the monitor you’re using right now.) so they can explode if you’re hauling them around and they jostle off the forklift. CRTs are huge capacitors… so if you don’t discharge them as you’re disposing of them there’s actually enough juice in them to kill you. plus, CRTs are comparatively huge, and just generally take up a lot more space at the recycling facility. So I’m thinking LCDs should be commanding a lower levy than CRTs.

Hmm… Maybe they should have talked to some of the Recycling people before they enacted this too? Ya Think? Naaaaah.

What’s this about laptops you say? Well… there’s an LCD IN your laptop… so, what I’m fuzzy on… how do Computer bits (CPU as you call it) PLUS the LCD in one unit translate to LESS money than the Computer “CPU” OR an LCD individually?

I dunno… I’m like fuming mad right now… I should probably stop typing. These posts are always disjointed and hard to follow because I’ve got a million things to say and I don’t take the time to slow down and think how to phrase each complaint.

-dean

Transmeta has a new cool-running chip. I don’t know about you, but I think “Efficeon” is the best name of anything ever.

-Dean

You can meet the coolest people at the egg park.

I went down to the Kinsman park with the intention of snapping a few photos to make a Red/Blue 3D photo of the Pysanka, just for laughs.

This dude off to the side walks up to me (sporting an olympus-5060) and says “Do you have a slidebar?”
Dean: no i don’t, would be nice though, Figured out what I was doing right away did you?
Dude: I’ve got one in my car. Yeah, I kinda guessed with the incremental shifting
Dean:Sweet!
Dude: (pulls out this beautifully hand-crafted ballbearing slidebar) “here’s my $20 DIY creation” Didn’t want to pay the $100 or so they charge for the commercially available one.
Dean:That’s pretty slick…. Where’d you come up with that?
Dude: Well…. When you’re an unemployed physicist you have a lot of time to fiddle…

Ian was his name. His Daughter was really cute, Steph was playing with her while we fiddled with photos of the egg. I think I’ll try again sometime when the wind isn’t making the egg spin all over, as it likes to when it’s windy. I’ll post the 3D-ized photo I made later when I get it together.

If you have 3D red/blue glasses laying around… here’s a photo. if not…

-dean

Scott Johnson made a crack that I should try to find Area 51 with google Maps…

http://maps.google.com/maps?q=groom+lake,nv&ll=37.248802185058594,-115.806884765625&sll=36.518555,-115.561924&spn=0.09441375732421875,0.12685775756835938&sspn=0.127029,0.120678&t=k&hl=en

So I did.

As novel as that is, if you scroll down and to the left a little, you find this

http://maps.google.com/maps?q=groom+lake,nv&ll=37.138938903808594,-116.0544204711914&sll=36.518555,-115.561924&spn=0.09441375732421875,0.12685775756835938&sspn=0.127029,0.120678&t=k&hl=en

Nuclear test site. That’s quite a chunk of real estate they’ve pocked up.

and since we’re on the topic, here’s the trinity ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinity_site ) site

http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=33.676615,-106.475286&spn=0.038710,0.051413&t=k&hl=en

-dean

2 days after Motˆrhead and my ear’s still ringing a bit. Hooray for the loudest band on earth. Boo for me forgetting my deci-dams.
And yet… as loud as it was, I still couldn’t quite make out what lemmy was saying half the time. Way to go red’s amazing PA system.

Actually, a few weeks ago, this was the conversation.

Scott: DUDE! Motˆrhead is coming!
Dean: I’M THERE! providing it’s not at Red’s.
Scott: DAMMIT!

But then Scott won tickets so we went anyway.

Oh well… it was fun despite Reds being the worst. venue. ever.

-dean

They rolled out a new mini-hummer that gets Vastly superior gas mileage… at 20 miles per gallon. if 20 miles per gallon is vastly superior to the bigger hummer, I really wonder how bad it was. Apparently the answer, is a brand new hummer, in tip top condition, burning at maximum efficiency gets 9 miles per gallon.

http://www.wftv.com/automotive/4379372/detail.html
http://www.wftv.com/automotive/4392244/detail.html

Can you imagine getting 9 miles per gallon?

That translates to about 2 kilometers per liter. So, just to drive to edmonton from veg it would take you 50 litres of gas. at the current price of gas around here 88.9 cents a litre. It would cost $44.45… one way. Never mind in the more metropolitan areas where these hummers are usually found where the gas prices are way higher.

Given the trend towards bigger vehicles, I think it’s no longer a question of whether humanity is basically good or basically evil… but more a question of whether they’re basically stupid?

-dean

on the left is the achreage I grew up on. and on the right is my house in veg.

the light blue patches are winter satellite photos of the snow I think.
Google hasn’t officially rolled out this feature so a lot of stuff doesn’t really work. but it’s fun to look at for now.

here’s vegreville

here’s a roadmap of vegreville.

here’s tofield. look at that lake. so pretty.

the U.S. Satellite maps are a lot more detailed.

-dean

Ray (my dad): What do you think of our little operation?
Dean: What operation?
Ray (points)

Dean: Sweet! where’d you get that rig? ebay?
Ray: Nope, Dale’s Auction. $2 I figure for two dollars if we don’t score some maple syrup I’m willing to eat the losses.

(this was a week or two ago, so there’s still snow on the ground in the photo)

-dean

Scott won tickets to Motorhead and Corrosion of Conformity for monday. He’s takin’ me.

Radio Guy: “at what event did motorhead Play an exlposive show A) at…”
Scott: “Dude, you can stop right now Cause it was wrestlemania XXI”
Radio Guy: “that’s absolutely correct!”

awesome awesome.

-dean

Here’s my wrap-up of today’s news stories on CBC’s the National.
________

The pope is still dead,
Royal Wedding tomorrow,
The pope is still dead and People from canada remember that pope dude,
Lord of The Rings is being made into a Musical,
The pope is still dead and Italians think the new pope should be italian.
Gomery Inquiry stuff happened.
________
Could… uhm… could you maybe have 3 stories about the Gomery inquiry instead of 3 stories about the fuss surrounding a freaking dead guy?

Funerals are retarded and I hate them, don’t have a funeral for me.
(ok, not ALL funerals are retarded. http://edition.cnn.com/2005/SHOWBIZ/books/04/05/hunter.thompson.ap/index.html talk about putting the FUN back in FUNeral.)

Weddings are lame, I hate going to them, but at least they make more sense than funerals because they’re an excuse for people to have parties (which I tend to avoid.)

Musicals are totally gay… but that’s alright. If I lived in toronto, I’d probably go watch Gollum sporting a straw hat, Cane and doing his best rendition of Fit as a Fiddle and ready for love.

The Gomery Inquiry. http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/groupaction/index.html I like how this is a huge freaking scandal here and they’re talking about pulling the Minority Government it’s election time! trigger here. That’s not to say I’m not as pissed as any of my fellow Canadians. But this sort of stuff happens south of the border all the time and people just sortof shrug their shoulders at it and say “that’s politics”. Canada>U.S.A
___________
Seriously though, does anyone know what I actually have to do to donate my body to science after I die? Is there some paperwork I have to do or something? got a link for me?

-Dean