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

I get excited by the potenital but frustrated by the implementation. Let's say I have a file I wish to share with the world. Imagine there are 100,000 people out there who may be interested in it. Rather than having those 100,000 come directly to download from me, I'd rather they all run some specialized software. Then, as soon as a few get the download or even a partial copy, the other 999,998 could start relying on them too. If, by chance, everyone wanted a copy at the same moment, then we could all both download and upload the missing bits simultaneously. Most assuredly some copies would be closer to another recipient than my original copy. In fact, a neighbour on the same ISP might push along the data to them at breakneck speeds. That's the theory, at least.

Even our public broadcaster is trying out distribution this way. At the beginning of the week, after broadcasting on air, the CBC released Canada's Next Great Prime Minister through a torrent. You'll see the BITTORRENT reference and link right on the page. It took a while to link up but right at the moment I'm hitting download rates which are averaging about 140 kB/s.

You'd think as the content would be primarily shared by people on the few broadband carriers in Canada, it'd be a breeze. Most probably Telus started 'shaping' my packets as soon it appeared I was running a torrent. I'm estimating that it'll take half again as long to get hold of the show than actually watch it. The promise of digital is that it be faster than analog. I commend CBC but this will never become a replacement for traditional distribution until we have much more bandwidth with no throttling by Internet providers.

Labels: Canada, Internet, sharing, television

Today, I'll only add a couple of techie things that could nearly go without saying. They involve:

The Windows Vista SP1 Upgrade

My PlayStation 3 Upgrade to V2.2

I updated Vista to Service Pack 1 at least a week ago. I hadn't had a lick of trouble with Vista before the 440 megabyte download and have had none since. With a sufficiently capable hardware, I wouldn't fear advising anyone run the newest OS from Microsoft. The software's bad press may have more to do with people being politically correct (by being anit-MS) than any actual trouble with the code. My update was mostly a non-event except for one fact. After the 45 minutes of installation, the computer didn't start up with the built-in web server online. I do have to add that all the previous configuration data was there, I just needed to open the ISS and click start.



Earlier this week, the other upgrade went without much fanfare as well. Back when I first talked about buying a PlayStation as a Blu-ray player, it was because none of the existing players for sale were ready for the implementation of profile 2.0. In the most recent update, my PS3 suddenly gained this as a new feature. Boy, I'm the first on the block for this one! That means it can access the addition of Internet features on a BD. Since the first release with any interactivity isn't due for another ten days, that's pretty much a moot point at the moment. One useful enhancement is that if one stops viewing a DVD or Blu-ray disc, the player remembers the exact location. Even if one removes the disc in the interim, it'll remember. That's useful, except I generally watch things straight through anyway.

Some people think that upgrading is a hassle. On the other hand, I tend to salute companies who make firmware improvements rather than attempting to sell a whole new piece of equipment for each baby-step forward.

Labels: PS3, software, Windows

Jay got a free, stay-home-from-work pass from the doctor yesterday. We didn't go anyplace though as it was not the nicest day.

I was reading IMDb a while back and noted discussion about Brazil (1985). We were overseas at the time of its release and I didn't think I had seen it. Even if I had it would've been a fuzzy, pirated video-tape copy. I put the movie on the Zip list but found it when at the library yesterday. It was a three DVD set with the 142-minute director's cut being the primary one we watched.



I liked it but I don't know why it arouses such an emotional response from so many. The cinematography was artistic and conveyed several layers of meaning. For example, I liked the scene above where billboards line a highway, so a driver isn't subjected the wasteland beyond. I also spotted the sign which read 'Consumers for Christ' at the mall a not so subtle comment about the society at Christmas. There were lots of short little memorable sequences some of which may have slipped by unnoticed. The cut-for-television version with an alternate happy-ending was included in the box. More than a half hour of the movie was missing from that version but I just wanted to see how the end was spliced together differently.

Labels: movies, sci-fi

We tend to make big deals about numbers that end with a lot of zeros, don't we? The photo above marks the one thousandth daily picture. It seemed like a big deal; therefore the reason for self applause. In actuality, it's in no way more special than 998 or 999. It was taken when I was uptown today.

Back on on the first day of July in 2005, decided that as digital photos don't cost anything, I was going to snap one every day. I figured it be a photo journal of sorts of at least one thing I'd seen or done that day. When I vow to do something, I always try to keep my word. I did so I have.

Labels: Daily Picture Parade, Flickr, flora and fauna, New Westminster, Royal City Mall

I'm thinking about photos today, as I'll mark a special occasion tomorrow. I'll wait until tomorrow's entry to talk about that.

Generally, I love the idea of Flickr. If you are a regular reader here, then you undoubtedly know that already. I am not interested in owning any of the images from my camera. I don't expect to ever take a photo which will make me money. After all, I earn a living by other means. I am pleased to out them all. There's nothing sadder than having a photo languishing in an album in some dark cupboard. Even photos taken on a vacation deserve to run free on the Net.

When part of a Web 2.0 application, others can take my images and provide a new context for them. It happens. We spent around a month in Sri Lanka in both 2004 and 2006. Some of those images have made their way, with blessings into several editions of Travel Sri Lanka. Publishers find it even easier to connect Flickr photos to web applications. For example, today I found this site which has used a few of my images to help describe the history of an ancient Sri Lankan historical site.

Anuradhapura

Labels: Flickr, Sri Lanka 2004

From the time I was brought home from the hospital until the first year I went to college, I lived in the same house. Those eighteen years were the longest I was ever in one place.

After college, I went directly to work in various parts of the Middle East with a few educational breaks in the States. I stayed overseas from 1981 to 1996. During those fifteen years, I worked in five different countries and slept in at least 12 different apartments. After that, upon immigrating to Canada, I rented a place for two years.

It wasn't until 1998 that we bought an apartment in New Westminster, BC. It does indeed seem strange that come this summer, I'll have been in the same building for ten years. I can forsee no changes in where I'm living, unless we were to do something unusual like decide to take a year off and move to Halifax.


I live on the tenth floor of the taller tower to the left.

Labels: feelings, New Westminster

This weekend I got a message from Bret. He's the premiere reason that another buddy, Joel, and I were able to run a summer arcade business in my hometown of Sunapee, New Hampshire. Those were the years right after we'd graduated from high school. Bret was recently asked to write up a story for a locally-published magazine. Of course, in 2008, the request was to record the significance of those activities in a historical perspective. By a strange twist of circumstance we have separately all ended up as residents a few hundred miles of each other but near the other ocean. Bret's email was to ask whether Joel or I had any quotes to offer.

I have, on occasion, difficulty remembering what I had for dinner on the previous evening, so I am skeptical about how much I might be able to add to events of thirty years ago. I did a few searches on the Internet to see if I could locate any photos which would help to remind me of Sunapee Harbor in that bygone era. The only pictures, I could dig up were those which I'd contributed to the Internet myself. I modified this picture which Bret had once taken. It was originally in Kodacolor but all but the yellow dye had faded; therefore, I converted it to black and white.



It shows the most important part of what I can recall. The picture does show a young Joel and me. A significant aspect is that another classmate, Sherry Simms seems to be hard at work with maintenance too. She would not have been a paid employee but was among the others who simply wanted to hang out. During those summers of operation we offered such a place for many of the kids in town too. In those days the school system or town offered fewer programs to occupy youths' time. We were left to our own devices. Luckily, Bret saw the need as a business opportunity. I don't think it was as much about the money as a way provide a fun atmosphere for not only the three of us. We gave many Sunapee residents, who were under twenty, a reason to come up to the harbor.

Labels: Bret, Joel, Sunapee, The Harbor Gameroom