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Ode To JunkedCamera.com

JunkedCamera.com is gone. Long gone. And its not coming back. Well its still there, it just isn’t maintained. Brian and I had long said that it may make a return appearance at some point, but I think by now we both knwo its not going to happen. Brian is still shooting a good deal, but not shows anymore, and I rarely touch my camera anymore. That is not something I am happy about. I do plan to start shooting sometime again, and hopefully in the near future, I just don’t know what the subject will be. But I digress, this is to be about the long forgotten website that still costs $9 a month in hosting, although I have tacked a few other websites onto the hosting plan.

I suppose the biggest strength and weakness of the site, is that we could never really tell you what it was. But I can tell you what it did. First and foremost it cost us a minimum of one semester at school -probably more if you ask either of us in a private setting. It cost us thousand of dollars in concert tickets, fast food, gas, speeding tickets, camera equipment, coffee, etc… It never really made us any money. It got us in to numerous shows free of charge. It took us all over the continent, from Toronto to Montreal, to Burlington (VT), to Syracuse, to Rochester, to New Hampshire for some insane reason. Most of those shows were return trips. 10 hours of driving in a single night wasn’t out of the question. It got us free CDs, and on one occasion a trip to Universal Records office in Toronto to pick up tickets (free) and some swag (also free). That was cool. It got us recognized in places we shouldn’t have been known -like having 13 year old girls ask if we were from JunkedCamera. We never spoke to them long, because that could send us to jail. It got our photos printed in magazines, magazine covers, ads, online articles, CD jackets, and probably some other places that I don’t know about. Did I mention we never really made any money off it? But we did get lots of free CDs. It gave us an excuse to see most of our favorite bands, and even more that we disliked, and it generally gave us an excuse to act important.

With everything that it did, we never really knew what it was. It started off as a photo journal of sorts, but never really fell into the photo blog world. It was somewhat more journalistic than that. It did gain reviews at some point, which were crudely written and were basically a way for us to gush about bands we liked, and more importantly rip on bands we hated. More than anything they were a pain in the ass that frequently cause us to delay posting photos. I guess if anything it was a photo gallery of a huge number of bands. We had many offers to have others shoot for it, but we always declined. It was more personal than that, but again, not into the blog territory, because that would have precluded us from seeing bands we didn’t want to see, which we did on frequent occasions. I guess more than anything it was something cool to do, and a fun way to document the idiocy.

At some points it was quite popular. 1000 unique visitors per day wasn’t out of the question. Anyway, it was very fun for a few years, and I can’t say I’m happy its gone, well maybe I am, but I wish I had something to take its place.

Some -and certainly not all- of my favorite photos (I’ll leave out my favorite of Brian’s photos because I am sure they would differ from his opinions):

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Posted by Tyler Posted in: Everything, Personal Life, Photography 5 Comments » December 2007

Peaksaver: Big Brother Genius or Big Brother Lazyness?

My mom phoned me a few days ago asking what I thought about the Hydro Ottawa Peaksaver thermostat. She got a note in the mail asking if she wanted to participate in the pilot program. The gist of the idea is that Hydro Ottawa installs a $250 programmable thermostat free, the catch is that Hydro Ottawa would be able to control the thermostat remotely. They say that they will bump up the temp on the hottest days of the year by a maximum of 1-2 degrees which will ease the load during the peak times. You can get further details in this CBC article.

So all this sounds good right? Perhaps, but I have a few questions.

The first thing I want to know is whether you can override it. The answer is yes and no! When I first heard about this program, I had heard that if you didn’t want the temperature increase you could override it. According to the FAQ that isn’t true. You can’t override the increase, but you can mark yourself exempt from an increase on a given day, but you have to call and request the exemption, and you can only do it for 2 days a year. Not exactly would I call convenient.

My next question is whether you can tell that they have taken control of your thermostat. I can’t find an answer to this effect, but they do say that typically, most people do not even notice that the temperature has been raised. That makes it seem to me that they don’t really want the user to know when its being usurped. That bothers me, I would want to know exactly when its being used.

Based on those two issues, I would say at the moment its not worth precipitating.

On another hand I would like to look at whether this is really a good solution for energy concerns. The answer is NO! This is pure lazyness. This is not dealing with the root causes of Ontario’s energy problems.

There are some simple facts that need to be dealt with. First the cut backs made by consumers cause Ontario Hydro to raise rates, to ensure that they made the same amount of money. Great incentive to cut back right? The next issue is that cutting back does not deal with increasing population growth, and energy needs. What needs to be done is not to control peoples lives, but rather to improve the infrastructure to provide Ontario residents with an adequate grid. Controlling users thermostats doesn’t change the fact that Mr. McGuinty promised to do away with the old coal fired power plants, and did… well nothing.

The simple fact, is that this is an easy solution rather than an intelligent solution. Plans need to be put in place to provide incentive for smart usage:

Provide users with rate freezes provided that year over year energy usage is decreasing
Lower property taxes through the replacement of appliances with more energy efficient models, replacement of old air conditioners with more efficient models, and doing energy conscious renovations to homes -such as new windows-
Improve power grid through creation of new nuclear facilities that can support Ontario’s user needs, rather attempting to control users needs
Increase costs based on peak times, and make information readily available. Your meter should include readings of current dollar per hour, and price per kilowatt.

Doing one or all these things would encourage smart behavior rather than force acceptable behavior. If you really want to make a difference you need people work for you, rather than being controlled by you. Unless of course you’re a fascist…

***EDIT***

I just thought of another potential gotcha. When they raise the temperature by 1 or 2 degrees, is that an across the board change, or to a certain level. As in do they say, everyone’s temp is going up by 2 degrees or do they say that everyone’s temp is going up to 27?

My concern is as such:

Person A: 23 -> 25
Person B: 25 -> 27
Person C: 27 -> 29
Person D: 26 -> 28

So my issue would be that if they simply do an across the board raise in temperature then the person who is already being energy conscious is really getting punished. A better algorithm would be to raise all temperatures to 27 or by 2 degrees, whatever is the smaller change. Example:

Person A: 23 -> 25
Person B: 25 -> 27
Person C: 27 -> 27
Person D: 26 -> 27

Unfortunately I don’t have faith in Hydro Ottawa being that smart. From what I have seen there are still too many unknowns in letting someone else control your utilities.

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Posted by Tyler Posted in: Everything, Personal Life, Politics 2 Comments » December 2007

One Step Back -> Ten Steps Back: Rogers Evil Continues

CBC has written an article quoting Lauren Weinstein in which it states that Rogers is modifying user web-pages. The blog in question is posted here. Its pretty clear from the screen grabs, that Rogers is adding their own message to top of all pages that the Rogers customer downloads, in an attempt to effectively convey their warning in regards to go over a capped transfer limit.

While I have no problem with them attempting to alert their consumers of potential extra usage charges, reading customer data, and modifying web-pages that have been carefully crafted to provide a specific look and feel, by experts in the field, is just plain wrong. Yes Rogers needs to alert you when you are going to go over your usage, but this is once again -after the traffic shaping hijinxs- going too far.

Whoever is creating the ISP service policies at Rogers needs to be tossed out on their ass, because they have no concept of what is acceptable in this ever increasingly privacy crazed world. I am going to read over the Rogers agreement and see if there is any sort of violations in this respect.

Once again, another big NAY to Rogers. Can anyone suggest any good alternatives for an ISP? Bell isn’t available in my area, and Rogers is just going too far yet again.

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Posted by Tyler Posted in: Everything, Technology No Comments » December 2007

Very Tired: A Few Thoughts

Move was completed yesterday. We hired movers, we’re still tired. Go figure.

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Canada Post doesn’t deliver mail in our new area. We are hardly in a rural setting -its a damn townhouse! Why do crown corporations always strive for the worst possible service?

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The dishwasher still works.

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I have been looking at all these GPS phone systems, stand-alone systems. They seem cool, but you start to realize that there is still a huge segment missing. I don’t want to know how to get to address X. I want to know why I want to go to address X. I want a list of restaurants… nigh I want a list of washrooms, and I want those washrooms ratable, and I want to be able to see others’ ratings, and I want to be able to filter by those ratings. Yeah. That is want I want, give me all 4star+ crappers… sorry crappiers.

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Anyone else confused how Hollywood hasn’t capitalized on the 2 girls 1 cup fame? -Two Old Men One Country? Harry Potter: 2 Girls 1 Goblet of Fire? 2 Girls 1 Tin Cup? I mean its just endless…

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Posted by Tyler Posted in: Everything No Comments » December 2007

House Challenges ver 2: I’m Dumber Than A Hose

Yesterday the plug didn’t work. Well it wasn’t that it didn’t work, the problem was that the plug was too big and didn’t allow the dishwasher to fit in.

No problem, got a new plug.

So what was the problem after the new plug was acquired. Water. Water, water, water… First shot through it ran fan, after about 10 minutes, I noticed a small leak at the at the back of the dishwasher. It was the supply line, I pulled it apart and noticed that the rubber o-ring was toast. Got that fixed, and hooked it up again. Turned on the water, and no leaks! Well actually, no WATER!

There was no water flowing to the dishwasher at all. How does that work? Can you tighten a hose so tight that you don’t get water? I don’t think so.

I took the hose off and reconnected it to the shutoff and put the other end in a cup. Turned it on a little bit, and we have water. Interesting. So I hooked it up to the dishwasher again, turned it on full, no WATER!

Once again, I pulled the full deal apart and hooked it only to the water shut off. This time I just took the dishwasher end and stuck it in the sink. I turned it on a bit, and there was water running into the sink. Good news. Then I decided to turn it on full. Rush of water. Clunk. Nothing.

Is my hose broken? Maybe its time to read that giant tag on the hose that says READ ME.

“Flood safe hose. The hose will shut off all water if there is a catastrophic failure at the other connection end. If the water flow exceeds X m³/s then the water shuts off. Turn on slowly.”

Well that makes perfect sense! The hose prevents flow that is too sudden. Great, no damage to my house. Next time read the directions. Directions for a hose? Who would have thought?

Dishwasher works. Hose works. I’m an idiot. Hose is too complicated. I’m really an idiot.

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Rogers isn’t playing oldies radio anymore. I have a problem with one of my phone lines. It probably has a nail through it somewhere. That will go on the Richcraft 30 day list.

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Posted by Tyler Posted in: Everything, Personal Life 1 Comment » December 2007

Rogers Homephone VS. Oldies Radio

I waited. I waited between 8-11 to get my Rogers bundle installed. I knew what I was getting with the internet, and cable. The internet is alright as long as you don’t mind the traffic shaping, the cable TV is brutal -the UI seems pretty much unusable to me- but oh well, a bundle is a bundle. The only unknown quantity in my bundle is the Rogers homephone. I have heard some bad things, and I have some no things. Generally when speaking with phone service, no thing is a good thing, so I was willing to give it a try. Home phone seems to be one of those binary things -it works or it doesn’t.

Somewhere near the middle of the window my Rogers guy showed up and installed everything, in a relatively painless manner. The only challenge was that there was no power outlet near the cable/phone central box. So its set up and it works. Woohoo! We have phone.

[later on that evening]

At this point, I am getting frustrated installing my dishwasher -which I think I have figured out now by the way- I decide to phone my dad and get some advice.

[The phone is ringing]

You can forget all your troubles; forget all your cares, and go

Me: Hey, quick question: How far out should the hinge of the dishwasher stick out?

Downtown — things will be great when you’re

Jeff: Only about a quarter inch

Downtown — you’ll find a place for sure

Me: Do you hear music?

Downtown — everything’s waiting for you

Downtown …. Downtown…

Jeff: No should I?

Me: No… but I sure can

Downtown …. Downtown…

…

At this point I phoned Rogers. Did a few tests, including pluging the phone straight into the phone modem -that worked. So once again tonight I have captain Rogers coming to look at the home phone. If they can’t fix it I’m canning almost the whole deal and getting Bell for TV too. All hail the horrible Rogers Corp!

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Posted by Tyler Posted in: Everything, Technology 2 Comments » December 2007

TylerOnNothing

Been very busy. House closed today, been quite a stress-filled few days. Done now, so its just moving stuff. I should be back to my normal rambunctious self in a few days.