I thought this looked like an interesting project: Build a Geodesic Dome Solar Greenhouse to Grow Your Own Food : TreeHugger. Then I looked at the costs: minimum $5,000 setup. I’m going to see if I enjoy regular gardening first and save this for my retirement. 
As we look forward to building our house, I’m thinking of something like this: Use a 20-Year Plan to Build a Stable of Quality Furniture – Home – Lifehacker. The trouble is that the furniture we use the most is our computer chairs. I don’t know of any 20-year computer chairs – though I was eying some Herman Miller chairs to see if they’d last.
Oct 17
I’d be terrified to see where our current house is on this checklist: DIY Home Health Checklist Helps You Fix Problems Before They Blow Up – Repairs – Lifehacker. However, when we move into our new place this is exactly the kind of thing that I want to keep in mind. For me the most effective way of remembering these kinds of seasonal tasks is to set them up to recur yearly in Google Calendar or another calendar application. I always forgot to transfer them when I was using paper calendars to schedule things.
Events Calendar by Yandle
Official Google Blog: Google PowerMeter’s first device partner looks really cool. We’re going to be building in the not-too-distant future and I really want to integrate something like this into our house.
My main motivation for wanting something such as this is to minimize power consumption. If I track it, I can tell when it’s going up and hopefully act to reduce it again.
Totally Together Journal asks: What Are the Necessary Cleaning Supplies? I’m not terribly good at keeping our house clean I’m hoping that some of that is due to it being an older house with lots of nooks and crannies. The hope is that when we move into our new house, it’ll be easier to clean. I’ve made progress on some things over last few years, but still none on housecleaning and that really frustrates me.
from krisandapril's photostream
Sep 13
This looks like a useful garden project: Build a Beneficial Bug House – Garden – Lifehacker. The site we’re looking at building on is quite large and near a river. We will definitely have plenty of bugs flying around, so if something such as this can improve the ratio of beneficial to noxious bugs I’m all for it. I wonder if there’s a way of attracting mosquito predators?
photo by macrophile
I have submitted my answers to the five questions posed in the Copyright Consultations.
1. How do Canada’s copyright laws affect you? How should existing laws be modernized?
Canada’s copyright laws affect me because I enjoy many forms of media that are protected by copyright. I enjoy reading, playing computer games, listening to music, and learning from podcasts. These are more readily available to me in because of the copyright agreement between creators and consumers. My work builds upon the work of others to produce personalized maps and reports for clients. There are very few aspects of my day-to-day life that are not affected by copyright.
Existing laws should be modernized to allow people to build upon the works of others to add greater value to derivatives of those works. For example, a lot of the music I listen to is a reinterpretation of other pieces which were themselves derived from earlier works. Copyright laws need to recognize that we are all standing upon the shoulders of giants. Creators do not develop their works in a vacuum but build upon everything that has gone before them.
2. Based on Canadian values and interests, how should copyright changes be made in order to withstand the test of time?
As a Canadian, one of the things that I am proudest of is my heritage. Canada is not a melting pot, but a tapestry of many cultures drawn together into a greater whole. Copyright should be limited in time and scope so as to prevent the loss of that heritage and to encourage creators to draw up on that heritage and bring it to life for each new generation of Canadian. Locking away pieces of our heritage for life does not encourage Canadian values but individualistic dog-in-the-manger-like behaviour.
3. What sorts of copyright changes do you believe would best foster innovation and creativity in Canada?
Copyright should have a strict time limit, one that is much shorter than an individual’s expected lifespan. This would allow creators to draw upon their earlier experiences to bring new life to half-forgotten ideas. There should be broad fair-use rights to encourage creators to develop ideas to their full potential without fear of costly litigation. Creators can innovate much more freely if they’re not constantly looking over their shoulders in fear of lawsuits.
4. What sorts of copyright changes do you believe would best foster competition and investment in Canada?
Copyright should be narrowly focused on specific expressions of an idea. This would allow competitors to develop their own possibly superior versions. With reasonable copyright laws Canada can be a center for creativity and investment.
5. What kinds of changes would best position Canada as a leader in the global, digital economy?
Outlaw Digital Rights Management (DRM). It is ineffective in stopping or even slowing piracy. The ones who are most affected by it are honest consumers – those who seek to violate copyright are not even slowed down by DRM and have not been for as long as digital media has existed. Due to DRM I have lost access to numerous programs and books which I purchased legitimately. DRM is anti-consumer.
Copyright law should not refer to specific technologies but instead look at broader principles.
Copyright law should not refer to specific technologies but instead look at broader principles.
As always, Thomas Babington Macaulay’s 1841 speech to the British House of Commons covers most of the issues that keep being brought up in these discussions of copyright. The arguments for copyright have not changed much in over 168 years. We have let those who push for stronger, broader, longer copyright have the upper hand for too long and their results have been dismal. It is time to return to a fair copyright.
Jul 10
A few weeks ago I picked up Build It Right by Myron E. Ferguson from the library. I am very impressed with this book.
This book is a description of the things to watch out for when you’re building (or having someone else build) your new home. For example the placement of doors relative to one another doesn’t make a bad house, but it does make the house more uncomfortable to live in.
For me the most valuable part of this book is the construction checklist at the end of the book. It walks you through things to check at every stage of construction so that you don’t get any nasty surprises after it’s too late to do anything about them.
I recommend this book to anyone who is thinking about building a new home.
Graduate From Legos To Dome Homes | GeekDad | Wired.com looks like a fun idea. I have to wonder how a house such as this one would stand up to Manitoba weather. There are a lot of interesting designs out there that work great in place where zero is viewed as bitter cold and a week of -40 weather would be the end of the world instead of a typical winter.
Apr 11
Well, I gave EVE Online a shot. I even upgraded my account, but I think I’m just going to let my subscription run out. My main complaint is that I can’t find the fun in the game.
EVE seems to be incredibly grind-oriented. There are huge periods of boredom punctuated by brief bursts of action. Most of my time was spent traveling from point A to point B. It was like doing alternate quests in Silthus and Winterspring in WoW – kill something, fly on autopilot for 10 minutes, drop off something, fly for 10 minutes… I didn’t hit flow or even engagement in the game. I’d rather do housework.
The artwork is lovely. There are actual helpful people in the rookie channel. The controls seem to work pretty well. The concept is terrific.
I did not join a corporation. If I’m feeling bold sometime before my subscription runs out, I may give that a try. Right now I’m burned out on closer interactions with people than buyer/seller.
Where’s the fun in this game?
Yay! More ebooks to read! Random House Giving Away SF/F Book Downloads. I’ll have to reformat them from PDF of course, but that shouldn’t be too big of a deal.
Feb 27
With my shaman at 80, I now need to figure out how to heal with a shaman. The only thing I’ve healed with him is Karazhan at 70 and things have changed since then.
I’ve managed to get a lot of good gear thanks to LootRank, some luck at the Auction House, and my friendly neighborhood leatherworker. (Thanks Hidi!) My plan is to respec and get into some instance runs this weekend. I may try to finish off the initial Sons of Hodir questline first though.
Anna has a lovely guide to resto shaman healing spells. PlusHeal talks a little more about spell rotations for different situations and provides some advice for new healers. Lodur on World of Matticus has a post on Being the Shaman Behind the Meat Shield.
It’s been a while since I ran as a healer. For now the plan is to keep tanking on my warrior as my main role, but it’s good to have options.
Feb 24
I was listening to Dan Carlin’s latest Hardcore History Podcast, Addicted to Bondage, where he discusses the pervasiveness of slavery throughout history. One point that he made is that for slave owners, slavery was terrific. He’s not talking about sadistic, power-mad fiends who get off on their power over others, but your average Joe and Jane slave owner.
He says that in a sense Roman housewives had the kitchen of tomorrow two thousand years ago. You want a nice meal? Tell your slave that you want it and it’s done - no fuss, no muss, no cleanup for the slave owner.
If you think that slavery was not such a bad idea, listen to the podcast. If you were alive at an earlier point in history, odds were pretty decent that you would be a slave. Using Rawls’ Original Position argument, would you choose to let slavery exist if you didn’t know which side of the slave / slave owner equation you were going to be on? Don’t think your race would exempt you from slavery, historically slavery was a matter of who could be kidnapped than of what race a person was.
I was thinking about slavery in relation to Artificial Intelligence. What happens when the kitchen of tomorrow shows up and your toaster wants to go on stage? It’s going to be a nuisance – you paid good money for that toaster and it should be making your breakfast not dreaming of a Tony Award! Having smart machines is going to be so useful that there will doubtless be a huge fight against declaring them to be sentient, even when the evidence is there. The robot rebellion may be the newest form of the slave rebellions that have taken place throughout history.
Thinking this through makes me realize that this is not a terribly original thought – most of the robot rebellions I’ve read about have strong parallels to historic slave rebellions I’ve read about. I don’t recall seeing the connection made directly before, but I’m sure it has been written about extensively. When will robots/computers be smart enough that they are slaves? When will their emancipation come?
Feb 8
If you’re making a new character on an established server, one quick way to make gold is selling pets on the auction house. The most money can be made by selling/buying pets across factions, but you can make a fair amount of gold just buying pets near your local capital and putting them up on your own auction house. You won’t get rich, but you can make a solid amount of money.
EDIT: Greedy Goblin has more on making gold on a new server.
WoW Insider has a good post on The value of questing after level 80. I tend to play around on the Auction House for gold, but it is definitely worth noting that questing is solid, reliable income. Assuming that you ding 80 after finishing both starting zones, Grizzly Hills, and Dragonblight and that each quest awards 10g, you’d be looking at:
Zul’Drak: 100 quests * 10g = 1000g
Sholazar Basin: 75 quests * 10g = 750g
Storm Peaks: 100 quests * 10g = 1000g
Icecrown: 140 quests * 10g = 1400g
———————————-
Total: 315 quests for 3150g
Even discounting the gold you receive while leveling, this gets you most of the way to an epic mount.
If you do 10 daily quests per day after completing the above quests, you should be up to your epic mount money in about 20 days. I made at least a thousand gold just questing to get up to get up to 80, so I suspect that just by continuing to quest you could get your epic mount shortly after hitting 80 even if you started out with no gold at level 70.
If this seems like too much work, look at MMO Auctioneer or Greedy Goblin. Don’t buy gold, that’s just stupid.
Dec 25
The Sons of Hodir rep grind is at least as annoying as I expected it to be. I’m barely into friendly and I hate them all. The quests are very poorly set up and allow for ninja looting of quest items. I’m going to be dropping a lot of cash at the Auction House buying rep. At least they could have given us two factions with shoulder enchants.
Dec 19
My parents had an outdoor Ethernet cable running from the office to the house. Unfortunately when winter hit it suddenly stopped working. Since I didn’t want to dig through 3 feet of frozen soil in -30 weather (-45 with windchill) I opted to look for a wireless solution. I had a blast!
I got some pointers from Dave so I had a decent idea of the parts I was looking for. A few places gave me quotes, including one store that assured me that I should budget a couple thousand. I ordered about $300 worth of parts (a bridge, a wireless access point, an exterior directional antenna, and a cable).
The parts arrived today and I set to work. The one annoying bit was that the access point was auto-detected and the bridge was not. Fortunately a little fiddling with IPs got me connected. Just the little built-in antennas got me a decent connection to the house and when I added the directional antenna I got a beautiful signal. My dad and I made a little stand for the antenna so that we wouldn’t have to set it up outside in the cold.
There are sill a few things I’ll have to fix up. There’s still some visible wiring in the house (one of the rooms I needed to get into was locked). The antenna will have to be mounted outside in the spring.
Doing something a little different tech wise was a lot of fun.
EDIT: These are the parts I used: N Male To RP-TNC Wireless Antenna Adapter Cable, TEW-AO14d Trendnet 14dbi Outdoor Directional 802.11b/G Ntype Female Con Wireless Antenna, Linksys WET54g Wireless 54g Ethernet Bridge, Linksys WAP54g Wireless G 54mbps Access Point
Dec 14
I decided to do some crafting for money. Being the lazy type, I didn’t want to go through the math to figure out what various reagents would cost versus the price I could get for the finished product. Luckily, LilSparky’s Workshop came to my rescue. You can see what the reagent cost is for any given recipe, then compare that to the vendor price, the disenchant value, or the auction house value. Have fun crafting for profit!
I just thought I’d make a note that Heather Dale will be in Winnipeg next week.
FRI Nov 21 – Winnipeg, MB — The Bhigg House concert series 8:00 pm, doors at 7:30; The Bhigg House, 337 Oxford St. 488-1267; $15, $5 children under 12
Nov 11
I had a bad feeling when I found out that I had the Tuesday before Wrath off. Sure enough, realms are down "until they’re ready." Ah well, I got my grandma’s picnic furniture moved, had a nap, read, and have generally managed to pass the time agreeably. Now to do some extra housecleaning while I continue to wait.