“The devil’s in the details,” they say, and some time I recently spent with Microsoft’s Surface taptop* demonstrated that to me.
Microsoft very kindly left a full-kitted Surface Pro in my inquisitive hands for a very long period of time so as to provide me the opportunity to experience the company’s post-PC vision. Overall, it was an incredibly positive time. But there are some scratches I have to itch here, so bear with me. Continue reading
As we turned off the Xbox the other day, my son turned to me and said, “I wish we could use all the money we make in video games in real life.”
We’d just pillaged a Skyrim dungeon for a dragon’s weight in gold and were feeling pretty rich with ourselves.
I smiled and nodded at his cute naïveté and mumbled, “Me too.”
And then I paused and thought, “But why not?”
There’s an emerging digital currency called BitCoin, which exists only online and is used to purchase real world goods.
And what do the central bankers of the world really do if not play an extravagant video game involving numbers on a screen? Continue reading
Microsoft was the preeminent name in computers for a long time, with its seemingly unbeatable tag team of the Windows operating system and Office suite.
But that was back in the days when PCs ruled the world, before mobile phones grew brains and tabletmania swept the planet.
These days Microsoft is struggling behind companies like Apple and Google who have spent the last few years redefining the industry Microsoft once owned.
Microsoft still makes its old software standbys for your desktop PC.
But the company is also enriching the total scope of its product range with its own hardware devices and an excellent system of internet-based cloud services. Continue reading
With their parents just minutes away, Greg and Rodrick have to figure out how to fix the damage from their illicit party.
There’s a scene in “Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules” in which Rodrick hosts a party at his house while his parents are away. His little brother, Greg (the “wimpy kid” in question), gets involved with the event, so they’re both complicit in the damage and mess that ensues.
In the morning they find that someone has graffitied the bathroom door. In a rush to cover it up before their parents get home, they swap out a spare door they find in the basement. The problem is: the new door doesn’t have a lock on it.
The two spend the rest of the movie duping their parents into believing that the bathroom door never did have a lock on it.
This situation with Senator Mike Duffy and Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s chief of staff Nigel Wright reminds me a lot of this scene.
The bathroom door is the $90,000 cheque, which Canadians are supposed to conveniently ignore the irregularity of.
The childish antics of Duffy and Wright remind me of the hilarious behaviour of Rodrick and Greg as they desperately struggle to build and maintain a lie.
The senate, then, might just be the toilet, which we all now just want to sit on and take a dump.
Over the years I’ve written dozens of columns about NorthwesTel.
Seriously. Dozens.
Some have been kind. Others… well, let’s just say I’m fortunate not to have been lynched long ago.
I’m honestly surprised that, when I bump into NorthwesTel’s VP of Consumer and Small Business the odd morning at Starbucks, he still greets me politely and exchanges pleasantries (all the while gritting his teeth, of course).
If I were him, I’d probably slug me in the mouth.
Years of critical analysis aside, though, lately I’ve grown bored of the whole NorthwesTel thing. Continue reading
Here's my mental model for how publicly exposed I consider myself when using different types of social media, along with comparable real-world social environments:
There are two ways to look at my scale. The first is: how private do you want to be? The second is: how popular do you want to be perceived to be?
Drones are “unmanned aerial vehicles”, or UAVS.
Drones come in all shapes and sizes, each being designed for one of two purposes: surveillance or warfare.
The two best-known drone models are at the extreme ends of the scale.
The average citizen can use an iPhone to conduct neighbourhood surveillance with the Parrot AR Drone 2.0. This stylish unit packs a flight guidance system and an HD video camera into a form factor about the size and weight of a large pizza.
You can pick one up at The Source for just over $300. (And, yes, that would make a tremendously appreciated gift for yours truly.)
If bombing Al-Qaeda hideouts in Afghanistan is more your style, you’ll have to join the US Air Force or the CIA. It’s only within those organizations that you’ll get the opportunity to pilot the massive, missile-laden $56 million Reaper from the comfort of a base in Nevada
Continue reading
