Daily updates – Page 81 – a sibilant intake of breath

Re-encrypting WiFi

Unfortunately, I had to shut down my open wireless network experiment. That is because I found three people within the span of two days who were both (a) criminal and (b) very stupid.

One thing to remember: if you are going to use open wireless networks to download illegal things, make sure you aren’t sharing your entire hard drive in read/write mode. Not only will the person running the network get wise to you without even needing to sniff packets, they will be able to remotely eliminate your ill-gotten files before banning you from the network. If they were so inclined, they could do much worse things to you.

I suppose I could set up a captive portal system using something like ZoneCD – thus providing scope for well behaved neighbours and passers by to use the network. That would, however, require acquiring and setting up a computer between my DSL modem and WAP. Since the two are presently integrated, the expense and bother would be even greater.

As is so always the case, a few bad apples have made it necessary to discontinue a good thing.

Back from Montreal

Emily and I passed a most enjoyable weekend in Montreal, with ongoing Just For Laughs Festival events punctuated by tasty food and visits to the fine arts museum, botanical gardens, and ‘Insectarium.’ The last of those is especially worth a look, for those with a bit of a scientific or naturalist bent. The giant beetles are impressive, and the colony of leaf cutter ants is especially immersive – largely on account of how it is not contained by glass.

I haven’t spent an appreciable amount of time in the city since I was at l’Universite de Montreal for the French Language Bursary Program in 2003. Now that my youngest brother is starting university at McGill in September, I am hoping to spend more time in the lively and entertaining metropolis.

[Update: 8:45am] Here is Emily’s account of the weekend.

Mutating Scrabble

As it stands, I think that Scrabble favours spatial and numerical abilities a bit too strongly, while not doing as much as it could to highlight and exhibit vocabulary and anagramming skill. In response, I propose two minor rule changes, one fairly trivial and one much more game-changing.

First, when a player has a word challenged, it is necessary that they be able to provide a correct definition for it, as well. If the word is in the chosen dictionary and they are right about what it means, it remains on the board and the challenger misses a turn. If the word placer fails either test, they must take back the tiles and forfeit their turn.

Secondly, double and triple word and letter scores are disregarded. This makes creating long words with rare letters more valued than normal.

A fair bit of experimentation will be required to determine whether these rules actually improve the game in the manner desired. Thankfully, there should be a fair bit of scope for that, since Emily and I are now equipped with a board.

Four Cuisine bistro, Ottawa

I visited the Four Cuisine bistro on Preston Street for dinner tonight and enjoyed it thoroughly. While there was only one vegetarian main course available, it was a very pleasant curry with saffron rice. The non-vegetarian options were appealing and varied, with an especially broad selection of seafood options. Also recommended are the chevre stuffed peppers, cheesecake, and Arrogant Frog Ribet Red Shiraz. The restaurant is elegant, but not stuffy or pretentious.

The number of customers seems to vary widely by night, so reservations on Friday and Saturday nights are recommended. Given how it is located just a few blocks from where Bluesfest, it might complement a day of concert-going nicely.

Full disclosure: a good friend of mine works as a server at the bistro.

Slick tires

While road bike style tires create less friction as they move across the pavement, it is worth remembering that they perform poorly in some situations. For instance, when a crowd has gathered atop a bike path in order to watch a Blues Festival show for free, prompting you to try riding beside the path instead. It is then that you might get a rude reminder that 110 psi + slick tires + any surface that is loose or slippery + tires not perpendicular to the ground = spectacular deviations from the normal arrangement of bike, rider, and pavement.

Miraculously, while my digicam managed to tear through my pocket as it abraded across the pavement, it seems to be only cosmetically damaged. The flow of daily photos should continue.

P.S. Incidentally, it seems my front wheel and/or front v-brake is bolloxed. As such, cycling shall be discontinued until repairs are complete.

[Update: 7 July 2008] The good people at G.M. Bertrand repaired my brake and tire for free, further deepening my conviction that they are the best bike shop in town. They also adjusted my shifters, gratis.

B.C. Climate Action Dividend

Since I filed my 2006 taxes in British Columbia, I was eligable for the $100 Climate Action Dividend that accompanies their new carbon tax. It was an unexpected thing to receive, since I have been a legal resident of Ontario for almost a year, but welcome nonetheless.

The question is: how could I spend $100 in a way that would yield the most climatic benefits?

Transport: I don’t drive and am trying to avoid flying to the greatest possible extent. Within the Ottawa-Montreal-Toronto area, I travel by bus, train, and bicycle almost exclusively. There don’t seem to be too many opportunities here.
Home: I have been replacing light bulbs with compact fluorescents as they burn out, but could take the plunge and replace them all at once. The oil furnace and poor insulation in my flat are big problems, but they are the property of my landlord and cannot be meaningfully improved for $100 anyhow. I suppose I could offer to contribute towards an efficiency improvement of some kind.
Food: I am already a vegetarian, but spending the $100 on local organic produce would probably have some small carbon impact. That said, it is possible that the net carbon impacts of local food in this area are actually greater than those for some imported choices. Food calculations are very tricky.
Carbon offsets: For C$100, I can buy about 8.3 tonnes worth of offsets from Native Energy. They offer methane capture offsets, which are much more credible than forestry offsets, but there will always be questions about whether the gasses were captured specifically because of your payment, or whether the capture would have happened anyhow.
Donations: I could give some or all of the money to a political or non-governmental group that is having a positive impact on climate policy.
Books: While buying books about climate change science and policy will not directly lower my emissions, they may help put me in a better position to help aid the transition to a low-carbon society.

Do people have any other ideas?

Canada Day photos

For Canada Day, The Globe and Mail asked readers to submit photos of some of their favourite places in Canada. Of the four I submitted, three ended up in the final slideshow: one, two, three.

A Leave of Absinthe

The final Ottawa production of A Leave of Absinthe was certainly entertaining at times, but it somehow failed to rise to its potential. Perhaps fittingly – in relation to a play about drunk people entertaining one another – the actors seemed to find themselves a bit more entertaining than they actually were, at least most of the time.

Much was made of the three supposed stages of absinthe intoxication, though they did not actually end up seeming terribly distinct. Some of the cleverest bits of the performance centred around wordplay, the more engaging character vignettes, and the ongoing interactions of the four actors with a large doll that played a focal role. In particular, the trouser-wearing lesbian character managed to play off an entertaining seduction of the inanimate figure.

In the end, perhaps the opportunities for celebrating absinthe with a sober audience are limited. Alternatively, it may have been that the show lost a bit of its vim as it progressed through the festival.

Wooster Sauce

When it comes to an incompetent master / manipulative servant comedy (Blackadder, Yes Minister, etc), one generally expects at least two actors to be involved. Wooster Sauce defies this expectation, with John D. Huston playing master, servant, and all other characters together. His versatility is impressive, though you cannot help but lose some of the comedy and drama that would arise from a two-actor interaction.

Huston works his way through a series of anecdotes, with Wooster narrating the first half and Jeeves narrating the second. The characters are skillfully sketched and the vignettes entertaining. That said, the humour is more of the type intellectually appreciated than of the type that induces open laughter.

The show seemed to be among the most popular in the Ottawa Fringe, so people in other venues should be advised to get in line early. That is doubly important if other people stage it in a large and flat-floored room, as was the case here this year.

Teaching the Fringe

Keir Cutler’s Teaching the Fringe is an entertaining hour-long monologue, consisting of the elaborate rebuttal of a letter of complaint written by a woman who attended one of his previous shows. While her comments probably didn’t necessitate such an extensive response, amused audiences will be glad they did.

Cutler manages to express his contempt for the position of the complainer largely through self-deprecating humour. He also uses indirect reasoning to make fun of the weaker arguments. While that may not sound like a compelling show, the premise serves as a fine platform for Cutler’s expressiveness and pleasing verbal style. The gradual process of deconstructing the complaint through humour is particularly gratifying to anyone who has thrown some work of their own into the public domain, only to experience mystifying and half-unhinged responses.

The show’s only truly flat moment arrives with a series of jokes about 9/11. It wasn’t really that they were insensitive, they just weren’t funny. Their painless expulsion would render the performance amusing from start to finish.

Those in Ottawa have two more chances to see it and, judging by some of the autiobiographical references therein, it seems likely to tour other Canadian cities.