Jared McAteer’s Blag – jaredmcateer.com

From: YRG Workout
Arthur Boorman is 5′8” 297 pounds and 47 years old. Arthur’s has 3 kids, 5 cats and works over 70 hours a week as a special educator where he teaches kids and adults with learning disabilities. In Arthur’s youth he was paratrooper with US Army. After 14 years of service and well over 500 jumps he was ready to retire. That’s when he got called up for the first Gulf War. Unfortunately Arthur was sent home early from that War “permanently” disabled. Allowing his injuries to dictate his life, he gained more and more weight until it eventually threatened his life. Something had to change, so Arthur tried YRG. He listened to the inspirational CD that Dallas Page included with the order entitled “Own Your Life”. Arthur began his exercise program, changed his eating habits and took control of his lifestyle. In 10 months he lost 120 pounds. His braces and crutches have been retired. He went from needing straps and a chair to achieve the YRG positions, now he teaches them. Arthur is an inspiration to all that know him, press play on the video that chronicles his journey, and let him inspire you too! [ed: cleaned up the text some]

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Popularity: 64% [?]

So I bought an enclosure for old ATA HDDs to help my friend get some files of his ancient computer that blew up. When I got home I decided to see what was on 3 old HDDs that I had laying around. A lot of memories were found within, pictures, old projects, videos, etc. Amongst the flotsam and jetsam I came across the following gem. It was an internal commercial used by Telus back when I first started working there circa 2003. It was horrible then and it’s horrible now, a lot of laughs were had at it’s expense. I don’t remember the whole story but I believe it was some film student working as a telemonkey in one of the centers that was drafted to make this video. I’m not saying it was his fault, because the source material wasn’t great to begin with, but the matrix/mission impossible motif was absolutely campy and the “rap” was down right edutational. I bet the guy does his best to not acknowledge this dark point in his professional life and I would not blame him.

Technorati Tags: Telus, Commercial, Internal, Funny

Popularity: 43% [?]

Since the election is coming up I think it’s important to remind everyone of Bill C-61, the copyright law introduced by M.P. Prentice at the end of the spring. It is a draconian bill meant to appease the American lobby in Canada (CRIA among others.)

Take a look at the following scenarios and see if you’ve ever done something like it.

Scenario 1:

Jim and Josee live in a Calgary suburb together with their three children Stephen (age 16), Rona (age 10), and Diane (age 4). Jim is the chief librarian at the National Energy Library, while Josee teaches media and communications at a local high school.

This post focuses on Jim. Soon after he arrives into the office on Monday morning, he is contacted by a researcher located in the field who asks him to track down an article and to email an electronic copy as soon as possible. Jim finds the article, scans and sends it via email. After work, he drops into the local HMV and purchases a DVD copy of the movie Juno. At home, he transfers a copy of the movie to his video iPod for viewing on an upcoming business trip.

If the Canadian DMCA becomes law, Jim is a criminal.
source: A Week in the Life of The Canadian DMCA: Day 1

Scenario 2:

Rona is a huge American Idol fan, faithfully watching each episode and buying CDs released by former contestants with her savings. Last January, Jim set the family’s PVR to tape and retain each episode to allow Rona to watch how the contestants progressed. That night, Rona records an Internet-only broadcast of American Idol highlights on her personal computer. She also asks her brother Stephen to transfer songs from her newest CD to her computer. The CD is copy-protected, but Stephen uses a circumvention program to transfer the music files.

If the Canadian DMCA becomes law, Jim, Rona and Stephen are criminals.
source: A Week in the Life of The Canadian DMCA: Day 2

Scenario 3:

In the morning, Josee teaches a class on media in the digital world. The class is conducted in a distance-learning classroom and includes both her students and students from a school in Edmonton using Alberta’s SuperNet network. This is the second year that she has run the course and she is using the same lessons, which include extensive copies of articles for course materials. In the afternoon, Josee teaches a communications class, making use of a website that features a copyright and an “all rights reserved” notice. A student in the class presents a research assignment that features short excerpts from a DVD copy of the movie Broadcast News and passages that are cut-and-pasted from an electronic book that contains a digital lock. Josee is a big Calgary Flames fan. The Flames are playing that night with the game broadcast on pay-per-view. Josee has a dinner commitment, but decides to buy the game and record it with her PVR to watch when she gets home.

If the Canadian DMCA becomes law, Josee is a criminal.
source: A Week in the Life of The Canadian DMCA: Day 3

Scenario 4:

Diane, who is four years old, is a huge fan of the popular TV character Dora the Explorer. For her birthday, she received four Dora DVDs. Given Diane’s habit of scratching them, her dad has begun to create backup versions. That day, Diane brings home her kindergarten class photo, which was taken by a local photographer. Josee digitizes the photo and sends a copy to Diane’s grandmother.

If the Canadian DMCA becomes law, Diane is a criminal.
source: A Week in the Life of The Canadian DMCA: Day 4

Scenario 5:

Stephen is a big music fan. Tonight, he is going with his girlfriend to see his favourite band in concert. He has purchased every CD issued by the band. To get ready for concert, he downloads a live version of one of his favourite songs that was released commercially in Europe (it is not available in Canada) that he finds on a file-sharing network. The song is downloaded to an external hard drive that he uses to store his music. While on the network, one hundred songs on the hard drive were available in his shared folder for others to download, though none were. At his girlfriend’s request, he also copies three of the band’s best songs onto a CD to play during the drive to the concert. He gives the CD to his girlfriend as a gift.

If the Canadian DMCA becomes law, Stephen is a criminal.
source: A Week in the Life of The Canadian DMCA: Day 5

All of these scenarios were created by Dr. Michael Geist is a law professor at the University of Ottawa, he’s an expert in Copyright law.

Technorati Tags: Copryright, Prentice, Harper, Industry, Canada, Bill C-61, Conservative, Election, DMCA

Popularity: 59% [?]

Looking for a solution to Visual Studio 2008’s Intellisense’s poor performance while editing large HTML documents I came across an awesome discovery. You can extend the intellisense to include jQuery (well any framework provided you have it properly documented.) This is awesome because even though I love the new Ajax Control Toolkit in VS.NET 2008 it just doesn’t hold a candle to jQuery and it’s plethora of plugins.

To gain this functionality, first grab the intellisense stub from InfoBasis’ jQuery Intellisense Header Generator, or as I lovingly call it, Ijihg. [Direct Link]

Add it to your project and then the really easy part, drag the file into the javascript file(s) you wish to enable jQuery intellisense on, or you can type in the reference manually

You should get something looking like:

And that’s all there is too it. Once you begin coding intellisense will pick up jQuery and make your life a little bit easier. Here’s a couple screens to give you an idea of what you can expect:

Technorati Tags: Visual Studio 2008, jQuery, intellisense

Popularity: 60% [?]

Minister of Industry Jim Prentice recently introduced the Bill designated C-61 into the house of parliament here in Canada. The bill for every intent and purpose is a clone of the United States’ DMCA with extra draconian clauses tacked on for good measure. Prentice and party are doing their worst best to try and put a good spin on this horrible bill but not too many people are buying it. Both the NDP and Liberal parties have overtly criticised the bill. Copyright experts such as Michael Giest and Howard Knopf have pointed out until they are blue how this bill is wrong, the public spoke out, yet Prentice proceeded anyways. We can only hope his fate is parallel to the last couple folks that tried to push the American agenda.

I’m beginning to rant and that’s not what I want, I started this article to bring to your attention some work done by a fellow named Felix G.; he put together a document showing exactly how the Canadian Copyright Act is going to be affected by this bill should it pass as it currently stands. If you have the time and legalese interest to read it, it’s a very chilling outlook.

If you don’t feel like sorting through the Copyright Act you can also check on the same page linked above, a side-by-side comparison of of Richard Stallman’s Right to Read and the new bill. The scary thing is that almost every prediction of the worst case scenario outlined in Right to Read would come true in.

Popularity: 65% [?]