The Internet Feed

Like all good sources of information on the internet I shall copy and paste other people’s copy and pasted material.  The cycle of the internet must not be broken.

• Bite-sized Baked Brie (Joy the Baker)
• Smoky Sunset (Greg Kendall-Ball)
• Canada’s Liberal Party Votes Yes To Legalizing Marijuana (digg)
• Use a Wooden Spoon to Stop Pots from Boiling Over (lifehacker)
• These Machines Can Turn Iron Bars Into Silly Putty (Gizmodo)
• Ultrabooks, definition of (lifehacker)
• Ultrabooks is a Meaningless Term (Gizmodo)

(More details and links after the jump)

Canada Votes 2011 – Week Two

From the campaign trail:

• Conservatives like immigrants
• Liberals like their red book
• NDP likes families
• Bloc doesn’t count
• Greens are still mad

So far there hasn’t been any significant errors in the campaign.  The first week has been a lot of rhetoric.  Maybe with some actual policy coming out now we can have some grownup conversations.

(Polling Ref)

• Conservatives: 40%
• Liberals: 30%
• NDP: 17%
• Bloc: 8%
• Green: 4%

The Comics of Peticanoe – Contest!

Many of you will know of the comics of Peticanoe.  For those of you who do not you should immerse yourself in great hilarity. In related news Peticanoe is having a Contest!  You should also go and enter the contest. A free lupin goes to everyone who enters into the contest.

*Note: I will not actually give anyone any lupins.

Canada Votes 2011 – Week One

The writs have dropped!  Canada (or the subset of population that votes (vote!)) will vote on May the 2nd.  Who will govern this great northern nation?  Will it be a majority government?  Or another minority?  Will the Ambiguous Party of Canada get its first seat? – We stand for something!

This week we learned that.

• The Conservatives likes small businesses.
• The Liberals likes students.
• The NDP likes limiting credit card companies.
• The Bloc don’t count outside of Quebec (as per usual).
• The Greens want to debate but won’t.

Do you know who you support? The CBC has developed a web application that will tell you what you want.  They have been pushing it quite hard these past few days.  I encourage you all, especially all of you outside of Canada, to give it a try.  Not only will you find out who you can’t vote for but you will also skew the results.  Messing with online polls is fun!

Current Polling

• Conservatives: 36%
• Liberals: 27%
• NDP: 20%
• Bloc: 9%
• Green: 8%

(Poll Ref)

I made an informative and very accurate graph to help you interpret the trends of the polls.  I encourage you to use this very authoritative graph to make serious and concrete statements and decisions.

Election Stuff

A couple things.

• In Question Period today the Minister who responded to the QB questions was the Minister for Foreign Affairs.  So did Quebec separate while I wasn’t looking?
• Media: Please stop asking/telling us if we, the public, want an election.  First, we have one. Second, it is kind of the basis of our democracy.  Third, your apathy/assumption of apathy of the public only serves to further fuel the apathy.

Election Time!

So it seems that the Conservative budget will not see the light of day.  Every opposition party is not going to support it.  This is an issue since the Conservatives have a minority government and need at least one opposition party to vote with them so the budget can pass.

This situation may have less to do with this particular budget and more to do with the various other things going on in Ottawa these days (like the contempt of Parliament issues).  The simple fact is that this Parliament (government and opposition) is way beyond the point of functioning properly.

The election has not been formally started yet but the campaign has already begun (some could argue that it has been on for a while now).

Conservatives: 34%

Liberals: 28%

NDP: 17%

BQ: 10%

Green: 9%

(Poll Ref)

Hazed Toronto

On my way back to Niagara from Montreal there was a storm in Toronto.  I drove through after the storm came through and then this weird hazed fog thing blanketed the city.  It was really cool.  So I grabbed my camera and (whilst being very careful) took several shots.

I gave them a set in flickr and you can see a few more after the jump.

Time Lapse Montreal Drive

Here is my first attempt at a time lapse video.  The final result isn’t great but I did learn some things.  (1) Increase number of shots (instead of 15 second intervals perhaps 8-10 second intervals), (2) moving makes it more difficult and (3) shooting through glass makes it more difficult.  These are all things that I new already but have been reinforced.  Also investment in a remote camera button thingy would be helpful.

So here it is.  It is without sound currently and is a bit choppy but it is my first one so I have deemed it a success.

The Plan

For a while now I have been wanting to try my hand at time lapse photography. It just seems sooooooo (note multiple o’s indicates emphasis) cool.  The basic concept of time lapse photography is time travel.  You can experience time at a different rate than normal.  That is cool.

I’ve been primarily following these two guides on how to do it.

So the plan is that we are going to follow the path on the map and take a picture every 15 seconds. I’ve set the camera to manual so that there aren’t any settings changes between shots.  The only thing I am unsure about is what ISO speed to set it for. I’m wavering between 200 and 400. (It seems that the lower speed is recommended to reduce the noise and to help transition each shot)

View Larger Map

Here goes nothing….

More Montreal Pictures

I went on a picture hunt today.  The result is some pictures (surprising, I know).

Interestingly my camera has a gps function that automatically encodes the location of the picture. Thus the locations of each shot have been automatically placed on my map in flickr.  Coolness.

Tomorrow I think we (Glen and I) are going to try to do some time lapse photography.  I don’t know if it will work or not.

A few more pictures after the jump.  The set in flickr continues to grow.