The downside of Facebook.com chapter two · Monday June 9, 2008 by colin newell
I wrote this over a year ago: Facebook.com is a website solely devoted to data mining – extracting your personal information and selling it to the highest bidder – you are giving up your privacy in exchange for a place to deposit every miserable detail of your McLife.
Some tangible reasons why people are drawn to Facebook.com:
-you really need to catch up with that kid that had a crush on you in Grade Six
-you really need to kill the kid that bullied you in Grade 3
-that 19 year old student teacher had a thing for you in 1974 and now that you are all grown up, it’s time for a follow-up
And for this you are willing to publish your birth date, place of employment, social insurance number, preference in Vodka, etc.
God speed friend, God speed.
And yet today, in June of 2008, we are investigating Facebook.com because of the obvious…
Canada’s privacy commissioner is investigating allegations that the social networking site Facebook.com may be illegally collecting personal information such as telephone numbers, birthdays, and instant messaging addresses without authorization.
Hello. Hello. Read the freaking fine print. Facebook.com has you by the DNA from the word go and all you need do is read the user agreement.
Getting Canada’s privacy commissioner involved with this nonsense is a waste of time. I mean, why not spend those government dollars on some more meaningful study… like why Dog’s bite, why Nun’s always have an evil glint in their eye and why there are signs like “Piercing & Tattoo’s while you wait”?
On a more ironic note – yesterday while waiting for my dear Mom-in-law and wife to finish a round of shopping at the Fairfield Thrifty Foods I watched a guy and a gal who had just met over Thrifty Foods sushi on a sidewalk table… interact, flirt, smile, touch and, get this… exchange Facebook creds. Surprisingly, the pretty Girl (Fiona) from Australia spent more time laughing and touching the guy – a slightly younger dude who heralded from a French farming community in Saskatchewan – he had a French last name starting with B but I was not paying that much attention to him. She was confident, older and Worldly wise. He just looked goofy and spent too much time imagining her naked.
And I did all of this with my ears… without the internet connection…
Try it sometime. Turn it off. Tune it out. And use what God gave you… to participate in the World around you.
Gas Price Rant #14 Trimac trucking delivers more bad gas pains · Monday June 9, 2008 by colin newell
Victoria B.C. area gas prices rise to $144.9 this morning.
I am stunned.
Repeating what a relative told me on the weekend… he is an insider in the Petroleum distribution industry…
“On lower Vancouver Island, Trimac Trucking brings in the Gas and Diesel to all the stations… they are a one source supply for fuel in the Victoria area… It is a monopoly. There is an electronic system called Viper that auto-dials all the local gas stations with a digitally synthesized voice stating what the gas price will be that day…“
Trimac is simply the trucking company that delivers the goods… no more or less.
The product distributor calls the entire shot… hence the instant message and hence the simultaneous price increases.
Yesterday I noticed that the price of a Mexican avocado doubled to $1.89
That is one of the signs that we could be in for very hard times.
Meantime, gas and oil producers, their executives and investors will be living like Kings.
Food on the table #3 - Argh Billy - you ever taste High Liner Fish · Monday June 9, 2008 by colin newell
With the price of fuel spiraling like lead-shot at a Dick Cheney hunting party, only the most oblivious among us have not figured out the impact this is having on food distribution.
Food riots.
It is amazing what people will do when they or their children are hungry.
Get used to hearing about it.
I heard something in passing about Canadian food legend, Captain High Liner.
They sell fish sticks… but that is not all.
Quite a few of their products are processed in China… flown all the way to China for filleting and then back to you… to feed you better.
Let’s here it from them directly: Link
WHY DO SO MANY HIGH LINER PRODUCTS SAY “PRODUCT OF CHINA” – WHY DOES SO MUCH HIGH LINER FISH COME FROM CHINA?
Very few of our products actually come from China. In fact, only 2 (Tilapia and Shrimp) out of 13 major seafood products sold by High Liner are from that country. All High Liner wild fish are caught in international waters where they are frozen within hours of being caught. The fish is shipped to China, where it is filleted (cut) and packaged. For filleting, the frozen fish are slightly “tempered” to allow the fish to be cut.
WHY ARE THE FISH NOT CAUGHT AND FILLETED IN CANADA?
- Chinese processors have built state-of-the-art processing facilities to meet the growing demand of the global market. This has given them a greater buying power that allows for better-priced seafood.
- High Liner uses China to cut some of our fish as it helps to keep our costs in line. This allows High Liner to provide competitively priced products to our consumers. Research has shown that we all want the highest quality products, yet at the best price possible.
- The majority of Canadian fish and seafood companies use China to process and/or fillet their fish.
Wow. Right. We want cheap fish! Yea.
As aviation fuel becomes liquid gold I am imagining that local fish processors might be getting more work… very soon.
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Big Brother Air travel rant #3 fuel prices surcharges hassles argh · Friday June 6, 2008 by colin newell
If I was an aviation executive, partner, employee or investor in the year 2008, I would not be sleeping much right now.
My seemingly endless nights would be filled with a tedious and unbearable sequence of cold sweats and gut wrenching anxiety attacks.
Because air travel is now approaching a perfect storm of utter chaos.
Guess the written language above (not what it says…) and win a prize!
when you figure it out – e-mail me
Fuel prices could double within the next 12 months.
Air fares now have almost doubled in the last year. Example: I was poking around the internet for some return flights to Portland Oregon from where my wife and I live…
$1600 return for the two of us. For a 300 mile flight.
Granted I had not checked one of my personal favorites – Horizon and Alaska Air… that netted return fares of about 800$ for the 2 of us for a long weekend – not including food or a place to rest our heads.
We are flying to Hawaii this Christmas – and those prices are rising faster than an untethered weather balloon.
And get this. Domestic flights in the U.S. are down 41 million trips… over the last 2 years if I read the report right.
Travel to Canada from the U.S. is down 65% over 2 years ago.
And that was prior to many of the fare increases.
So what was that about?
Well – Americans are sick and tired of the hassle of air travel, sick and tired of the TSA, sick and tired of the presumption of guilt, sick and tired of the shake down, sick and tired of the illogic, sick and tired and frustrated and frightened of speaking up about any of the above for fear of the small room, the bare light bulb and the questioning matron snapping her glove as she/he preens for the strip search.
Americans don’t like to be pushed around – and I witnessed too much of it first hand after 2 years of travel after 9/11… before I became too anxious to travel south of the border… for fear of being one of 700,000 on the FBI’s and Homeland Securities No-Fly list
One of my more dim-witted friends actually said…
“The terrorists have won now haven’t they?”
Uhm. Hello. The terrorists have not won anything. The business of security and the U.S. administration has won the task of scaring the crap out of us and keeping us at home… with our heads semi-permanently buried in the sand.
In North America we have spent billions of dinar securing ourselves from an almost invisible and non-existent threat – remember what I said about the killer bath-tub in an earlier post?
Too many people are not traveling enough. They are not spending money. Airlines are shrinking faster than a wool vest on a hot tumble dry. And those that do travel are being treated like a beleaguered and badgered holiday camp queue for the loo – except in this line-up there are more fees than a chartered bank checking account… and after you stand in a cryptic and endless assembly named, however ironically, platinum, green, blue, or First Class... for an hour and a half, scanned with a chest x-ray’s worth of microwave radiation, berated for trying to sneak on an 8 ounce tube of Colgate tooth gel, forced to drink a sample of your own tepid breast milk, frog marched across a fungi ridden floor while your shoes pile up at the end of a conveyor belt littered with lap-top computers and strangers sweaty overcoats… you are allowed to board your 35 minute flight – packed in a aging steel tube with less breathing room than a Green Day mosh pit.
Airport security teams are now being trained to be piracy police… to poke through your i-Pods, laptops, gidgets and gadgets… without your permission… and god help you if you speak up – which supports my whole point.
Perfect storm.
F*ck. F*uck F*uck F*ckity F*uck.
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