A Collection of Daily Wisdom by Dennis Sylvester Hurd since September 2003.

I took this photo yesterday. Although I promptly uploaded to Flickr, readers who following this blog through RSS or AvantGo most probably won't run over to that site.



I'm getting so much junk there that it's hard to find the gold for all the ore. I seem to scan in spastic fits. There are a bunch of oldies posted. Plus, I wait for good weather to walk around, so insights into the area can be few and far between. Even 'My Daily Picture Parade' can be more boring than life seems.

I did like these liquor bottles in the window of the Met Bar and Grill though. The building is, literally, a stones throw away. They recently renovated and opened for offsite sales on Columbia Street. There are lots of places to buy liquor in New Westminster nowadays. Yet, the town's probably soberer than in days of the Gold Rush.

Labels: Daily Picture Parade, New Westminster

Most visitors who stop at the blog on a normal day are not friends. The majority of those who read my entries arrive by Internet search.

I have a few different ways to access guest information, including the browser page prior to entry on this site. Therefore, it's easy to learn the exact search phrases that have pointed to my eJournal and images. I've learned that basically people have very poor search techniques. Here are some very recent examples:

Google > pictures of hiuen tsang
This person should have selected Google's image search tab and then typed "huien tsang". Quotes would've ensured those names occur together rather than on different parts of the page.

Google > In what state is the Grande Coolee Dam?
Most search engines like Google, ignore common words, so there's no need to form a question. It's just a waste of time. They could have just typed in "grand coolee dam" with the quotes and Google would've come back with the correct spelling. Of course, top-ranked sites are going to contain its location.

Google > pictures of what happened after the mohammed cartoons
This contains both types of errors. Potential researchers should also think of the best places to search. A general search engine isn't the best place to find current events. It'd be better to switch to Google News and search there. If one's searching for general purpose photos, it's smarter to go to a custom site such as www.flickr.com or www.webshots.com.

Oh yeah, there's something else I'd like these people to know. Both MSN and Yahoo have search engines which can return different results; however, they're generally as good as Google's. Give 'em a try too!

Labels: Flickr, Google

On Tuesday, I wrote about my ailing briefcase. Its working-life ends today. The other hinge is now broken. I shall have to find some sort of replacement this weekend.

It saddens me to have to give up something that has been so useful. Yesterday, a few students did point out that they aren't as old as it is. So, I'm starting the process of checking through those oft-ignored, inside pockets. Considering the junk I've been carrying around with me for decades, it's a wonder I don't have the medial deltoids of a steroids-addicted weight lifter.



I pulled out this Bahraini identity card yesterday. It's been there more than fifteen years. This means it travelled to back and forth to work during my entire time in the UAE and the ten years I've been in Canada.

Labels: Bahrain, briefcase, driving

Here's an email I got:

Hi,
I'm planning a trip to Las Vegas. Where have you stayed? I want to be in the thick of things and max the experience.

---

Dennis Sylvester Hurd (Google Mail)
to Don 8:32 am

Hi, absolutely anything on 'the strip' is just fine. In fact
we've not even been since they finished the Skytrain connecting
everything. You'll wear out a pair of shoes anyway. The fun is
walking through all the casinos and looking at everything. Most
hotels are consistently priced .. for example the Sahara or
Stratosphere are cheapest but farthest away. The new Wynn is
close to them but its prices trump even the Bellagio or
the Mandalay Bay. When I am talking about cheap .. depending ..
on the season and days of the week .. I'm talking like $30 only!

We've stayed at Circus Circus but be aware they have crowds
that can have kids in tow. Vegas is now a 'family' destination.
We stayed at the Boardwalk, but it's currently being replaced
with a new building.

www.vegas.com

Ask about any property ... and I can comment.

==Dennis

Labels: Don

I really love my briefcase. It is hard Fiberglas and says Echolac near the handle. Now, unfortunately it is starting to fall apart. There's a hinge that's broken. It's tired and worn and I've had it for what seems like half of forever.

In fact, I cannot remember exactly when I may have purchased it. I think I had it in Bahrain, and I never bought anything of value with inflated dinars. It's possible I got it during the year I worked in Dammam, Saudi Arabia. Or perhaps I got it for my very first job in Kuwait! The briefcase definitely was with me in the 1980's.

My briefcase is useful because it is roomy. It's my desk away from home. At any particular time there may be several dozen markers. a stapler, and ten pounds of paper in it. There are also bits of my past. It has a number of pockets and places inside that I've never cleaned even though I once had a major coffee-Thermos leak. Today, I set the trusty accessory down before going into work. Then, near the door, I saw something on the floor. It picked it up. Honestly, this is a copy of the receipt from 1991 which had fallen out:

Labels: Bahrain, briefcase, Dubai, Saudi Arabia

Yesterday, I spent some time copying half-hour programs from the hard disk of the satellite PVR to my PC. Then I burnt, a number of the programs to DVD. It did seem a shame that they were already in mpeg format but in order to get them onto my computer, they had to pass through analog again. It was not really a quality problem as the results looked just fine. Yet, it would've saved time to copy the files directly rather than have to wait for all the programs to play through in real time.

That's the rub for content providers, isn't it? Copying analog was never considered too much of a threat to the established media industry. A two-hour video tape or 35-minutes of vinyl were easily taped. It wasn't the loss of signal to the next generation that kept copyright infringement at bay; it was the actual length of time that the copying process took! Now even a layman can copy a 2.5-hour DVD in 20 minutes. A whole album in mp3 format can be duplicated in under a minute. I see why some companies are running scared.

The DVDs which I made contain ethnic TV programs from Ontario. The Singhalese (and English) show called Kala Kavaya hosts news and events from the Sri Lankan community in Toronto. As well, they show some current music videos and songs from Sri Lanka. I'm able to pass these along for viewing to those without access to satellite TV.

Labels: PVR, television

I accidentally clicked a link under my favourites list in MS Explorer. I do like how the new beta deals with favourites, but that's an entry for another day. My favourite computer store popped up on the screen. I've already mentioned that when Windows Vista comes out this year, I plan to buy a new hard drive to install it on. I had bookmarked the page with drives. How amazing! Nowadays a 300 gigabyte component goes for $150 Canadian.

I won't go into details to prove I've been computing since DOS. I have already mentioned that my first IBM-compatible came with two 360K floppies and no fixed disk. My first Seagate cost a fortune and could hold 20 megabytes.

We certainly do have the ability to save lots now. There's not much reason to be organized. It's easier to save the junk along with documents. When was the last time I wrote to a floppy drive? Email attachments beat a sneaker-net in the 1990's. Hell, most every photo out of my digital camera is too big to fit on a 1.4 meg. floppy disk.

(This photo was taken with a borrowed digital camera in December of 1999. It was a Kodak which saved on standard floppy disks. The original image was 480 x 640 pixels and about 60k.)

Labels: camera, computers, hard disk, Hardware