I’ve been thinking of buying an iPod Shuffle for a long time now, ever since the new clip-style design came out in fact. Although I already have an 80GB 5th Gen iPod, it’s just too big for taking running, using in the gym, etc.

With the weather taking a turn for the worse here in Vancouver, outdoor running is going to take a back seat, so I’ll be on the treadmill or the rowing machine in our gym. There are a number of podcasts which will be perfect for the gym, such as CBC’s Quirks and Quarks and NPR’s Science Friday so I figured now would be a perfect time to stop procrastinating.

Last night I took the plunge, went down to London Drugs and picked up a green one, mainly because Nathan already has a silver one, which would have been the logical choice. Once home, I left it charging overnight, then loaded two podcasts for the walk in to work this morning. I was a bit worried when it refused to play the podcasts, claiming there were no ‘songs’ available, so I left it at home.

A quick check of Apple’s support site revealed that it doesn’t play podcasts in ‘shuffle’ mode, so once I’d set the slider accordingly all was well. The only downside is that the headphone cord is quite a bit shorter than the one on my regular iPod, so I can’t plug it into my desktop at work and kick back in my chair. However, that will be an advantage in the gym, which is what I bought it for anyway, so I can’t complain.

I just got my passport back from the Australian High Commission in Ottawa, with my permanent residency visa inside, so I’m officially allowed to live and work in Australia, and possibly New Zealand, for the rest of my life. Whether that makes me a pseudo-Aussie at this stage, I’ve no idea.

Once I’ve spent two years living there I have the option of applying for citizenship, which will give me the right to vote and access to an Australian passport, though I haven’t decided whether I’ll go down that route or not. They’ve just instituted a really dumb test which you have to pass if you want to become a citizen, stemming from a desire to keep out ‘undesirables’. In today’s Australia that’s shorthand for Muslims, but in the past it’s been Vietnamese, Greeks, Italians, Irish etc.

The logic seems to be that forcing new migrants to learn enough about Australian culture to pass the test will ensure that they integrate better into Australian life, and will therefore be less likely to cluster together in nearby neighbourhoods. It just seems like a flawed plan dreamt up by idiots as a sop to the anti-immigration, i.e racist, element in Australian society. Sure, there’s plenty who claim there’s nothing racist about it, but there’s no argument about white, educated, English-speaking immigrants like myself, just those who are “different”, or “not like us”.

Having said all that, it’s not a problem unique to Australia, with the UK and most of Europe sharing similar concerns, though quite how knowing who Don Bradman is will alleviate the ‘problem’ is anyone’s guess!

Steven Frank has an excellent article which explains exactly why PCs are a total pain in the arse. The whole thing is worth a read. It’s exactly how I feel when asked to come around and help a friend set up their new PC.

The VAIO came loaded with so much shovelware that it took in the ballpark of fifteen minutes just to boot the first time. After the desktop came up, the disk just kept grinding and grinding and grinding, as Norton (60 day trial!) popped up, followed by Trend Micro Anti-Spyware (60 day trial!), a dialog box warning me that my Bluetooth module was not set discoverable (uh, thanks?), a cascade of Sony windows (for which they designed their own window style), the Ask! Toolbar conveniently pre-installed itself into Internet Explorer, some bubbles asking me to set up such-and-such piece of hardware, and, I’m not kidding, an “All Programs” menu in the Start Menu that spanned three columns.

There’s a new look around here. I’ve thrown out the old WordPress and PHP based site and written my own in Rails and added some geo-coding features.

Now, when looking at posts, or photos, you may see a longitude/latitude number pair, which when clicked will take you to the location on the map page.

I plan on expanding this a bit more in the future, so you can pick a point on the map and see all photos within a certain distance etc.

Anyway, enjoy the new digs.

Stephen Fry, yes, that Stephen Fry, has started a blog, and his first post is on the evolution of SmartPhones.

Windows for Mobiles is certainly better than Windows for PCs or, God help us all, us all, Vista, but it is still an insulting offering. The feeling, as with all things Microsoft, is that all design features and functions are there to suit MS rather than to delight, enthuse and compel the user. Compromise, short-cuts, inconveniences, vestigial residues – no one responsible is likely to pat themselves on the back for the design or the s’ware engineering, any more than the architect or project manager of a 60s council flat is likely to point it out with pride as he rides by with his grandchildren. You’re only on this planet once – do something extraordinary, imaginative and inspiring. That’s the difference, ultimately. Those behind Palm OS and the Psion can justifiably be proud of what they did, what they created. WinMob just muscled in on a market they never spotted and they did it in a clumsy, bullying, ugly manner, exactly as they had with Windows before, and exactly as IBM had with the PC itself a decade earlier. Break free, all you corporate software engineers and designers: the excuse that you are under the rule of dullards, greedy share-price number crunchers and visually and ergonomically illiterate yahoos is not good enough. Persuade them. Otherwise we all get a digital environment that’s a vile as a 60s housing estate.

I was surprised just how French Montreal actually is. Sure, I knew everyone speaks French, and are proud of their French heritage, but I still wasn’t prepared to feel as though I had landed in France itself. In comparison to Vancouver, it’s a much older city (about 300 years older), so it has a lot of classical European architecture which is completely missing in Vancouver, and almost all other North American cities. The ethnic mix is completely different too, as there are a lot more North Africans and Muslims than in Vancouver, which I suppose makes sense when you consider the location of France’s ex-colonies. I’d imagine that anyone arriving to start a new life in Canada from the stretch of coastline between Lebanon and Cote d’Ivoire would naturally gravitate towards Québec from a language perspective at least. Add French street names such as Rue Saint-Denis, and suburbs like Verdun… though there are some concessions to Canada’s bi-lingual nature, like Rue University instead of Rue Université

Despite my schoolboy French laying dormant for years, I was able to make myself understood enough to order food and metro tickets without encountering any blank looks! We’d been told that people wouldn’t speak English to us, either because of inability, or a simple refusal, but of course it never happened. Everyone we met was friendly and helpful, and quite happy to talk English, though I still made the effort to start conversations in French. I might even sign up with the Alliance Francaise once I get back to Sydney.

Another thing which stood out is how many churches there were. There seemed to be one every few blocks; the Cathédral Marie-Reine-du-Monde is on one side of Place Canada, with St. George’s Anglican on the other, with construction of both starting in 1870. I also went to Notre Dame Cathedral and took a few photos. An usher had to come over and tell me to take my hat off. I’d completely forgotten, so the years of indoctrination as a kid are clearly wearing off. Mum won’t be too happy though ;-)

Photos: [on foot] – [by bike]

This is an awesome summary of all that’s wrong with the world today: Seven Minutes of Truth.

Via Effect Measure

In the U.S., there are regular arguments about whether or not there should be a mandatory waiting period between purchasing and receiving a gun. Some states have a waiting period, some don’t. In contrast, Amsterdam’s mayor is proposing a three-day wait before you can buy magic mushrooms!

Mayor Job Cohen wants to require the wait period to allow mushroom buyers to fully understand exactly what it is they are purchasing, ANP news agency reported today.

The proposal seeks to prevent impulse purchases and follows several incidents that have occurred in the city involving tourists who have eaten hallucinogenic mushrooms.

I loved my Formula One racing when I was a kid, and used to pester my parents to let me stay up late, or get up early, to watch the far-flung international races. One of my favourite drivers was Gilles Villeneuve, father of Jacques, who died tragically in 1982, shortly before my 10th birthday.

Myself and Jacqui rented bikes yesterday, and decided to ride around Montréal for a few hours. We’d walked around Vieux Montreal on Sunday, so I decided we should take the bikes and do a lap of Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, named in his honour, and site of the Canadian Grand Prix.

The photo above is the Start-Finish line. I’ll post some more photos when I get a chance.

It’s been a couple of weeks since I signed up for the running clinic and things are going pretty well so far. I’ve been running three times a week, anywhere from 6-12km at a time, and the results are starting to show. My cruising pace is now about 5:20/km, which is a step up for me and should mean I have no problem breaking 50mins for the 10K. I’m going to try a run faster on a single run next week, maybe doing 2-3km at 5:00/km pace and see how that feels.

Speaking of racing, I’ve entered the Turkey Trot here in Vancouver, on October 8th, so I’ve 5 weeks left to train. Heading off to Montréal next weekend, for five days holiday with Jacqui and her Mum, will put a dent in the training plan. Maybe I should bring my running gear with me?

I’ve also managed to sort out my running issue which meant that I’d get really sore calves after each run. I’m landing a bit more flat-footed and not so much on my toes, and have stopped pushing off on each stride, instead trying to “peel” my foot off the ground. It’s working so far, even allowing my to run uphill without destroying my calves, though I’ll have to wait and see if it’s going to cause other problems instead. So far, so good anyway.