The devastation in Haiti right now is terrible.  70,000 people (and counting) are dead, there is no water, no food, and very little in the way of safe shelter or medical support.  It is truly a sad thing, yet perhaps out of all this pain and suffering happiness can result.

Haiti has always been a poor country that was long ignored by the world.  The people suffered through the Duvalier regime and various unstable governments after the dictators were finally ousted.  Yet up until now nobody has ever given a damn about the Hatian people.  Ordinary people, celebrities, nor foreign government have ever taken up the Haitian cause.  It just wasn’t a cause celebre.

Hopefully the world can pitch in and not only rebuild Haiti, but invest in the country.  Put her citizens to work, train them.  Give them new skills by which they can be productive.  It’s the only way that the country has a hope of surviving.  Providing aid is a short term solution.  Investing in the country is a long term strategy that will eventually pay dividends.

Synopsis (from IMDB):  In 1982, a massive star ship bearing a bedraggled alien population, nicknamed “The Prawns,” appeared over Johannesburg, South Africa. Twenty-eight years later, the initial welcome by the human population has faded. The refugee camp where the aliens were located has deteriorated into a militarized ghetto called District 9, where they are confined and exploited in squalor. In 2010, the munitions corporation, Multi-National United, is contracted to forcibly evict the population with operative Wikus van der Merwe in charge. In this operation, Wikus is exposed to a strange alien chemical and must rely on the help of his only two new ‘Prawn’ friends.

This movie is fantastic, and a must-see.  Made for $30 million dollars, it generated over $300 million dollars in total revenue at the box office domestically.  This is not including foreign viewership or DVD/Blu-Ray sales.  The promotion by the distributor (Sony) was very subliminal, and it made the curious want to go out and see the movie.  From there, word of mouth took over.

I did not go to the cinema to see this flick (as is my custom, it is very rare that I go to the theatre), but when I finally watched it on DVD I was blown away.  The movie did start out a little slow, and it took me a bit to pick up the accents (the movie was filmed in South Africa).  I enjoyed how the CGI was done with the aliens, and the storyline itself.

The plot is very similar to real world events, as in what actually happened in South Africa during apartheid.  The whites segregated the blacks into “zones.”  According to the director, that’s where the genesis of the movie was born.

I can see a sequel coming…in three years…District 10…where Christopher Johnson helps his friend Wikus, returning the favor so to speak.

Go watch this movie.  Now.

Oftentimes, I sit back and wonder what the world is coming to.  Not necessarily from an “it’s all going to end” standpoint, but rather a “the more information that we have and the laws that we make” perspective.  Let me point out some examples grabbed from recent headlines.

Ok…airport scanners.  Full body airport scanners.  Shades of the movie “Total Recall” come to mind.  If you want to have some fun peel a big potato and put it in your pants.   But seriously, folks.  All it took was a lunatic with his underwear full of explosives.  I understand the need for airline security, and the scanners do not bother me.  It’s not like all the security people are going to be huddled around it looking at an x-ray of everyone.  The funny thing is that Isreal, a country that has a daily legitimate terrorist threat, has no plans to implement these machines in their airports.

It’s time for a little bit of history.  An Isreali airline has not been hijacked since 1972.  Since then, no attempts have been made.  You have to wonder why…and here is where we get a little politically incorrect.  Isreal is always under fire for racially profiling Arabs.  Sometimes it is justified, other times it is not.  Isreal has no issues singling out Arabs for extra scrutiny prior to boarding a plane (ironically, the hijacking in 1972 was by the Japanese Red Army).  They look at people, as much as the baggage.  People who are nervous, or uptight.  The security is very tight, and not often visible.  Over here, in Canada and the United States, were are trying to use technology to compensate for the fact that we do not wish to eyeball certain races a little more carefully than others.  Now – how to you not justify inconveniencing certain ethnic groups when it comes to saving lives?  To do otherwise in my humble opinion is downright foolish.

Speaking of airlines, Air Canada has been directed to offer “peanut-free zones” by the Canadian Transportation Agency, as people who have peanut-related allergies are now considered disabled.  In as much as I have sympathy for someone who has nut allergy, methinks that this is going a bit too far.  Does that mean that obese people are disabled too, and should be given two seats (for the price of one)?  Of course not – which means that the person sitting beside the abnormally large human is inconvenienced and uncomfortable throughout the entire flight.  What if two fat people somehow have side-by-side seats?  I can see where this is going.  In fifty years the airplane will be broken up into all these little sections for individuals with special needs, leaving no room for the people who do not have any problems.

Speaking of peanut allergies, when did these come to pass?  I don’t ever remember notifications of peanut zones when I was a child.  Eating peanuts in school was commonplace, and nobody had anaphylaxis or required an emergency injection of epinephrine.  I really think that the peanut allergies have been severely exaggerated by way of all the media sensationalism.  I have an allergy to Lysol.  It is not something that kills me when I breathe the air in which it has been sprayed, but my eyes water and my nose runs – both of which cause me discomfort.  Does that mean that when I fly I should insist on a Lysol-free zone in the airplane?  Of course not!  Maybe I’m being a little insensitive, but I have never been much of a fan of multiple special interest groups all looking out for their own narrow interests.

Up next is the story of a teenager in London Ontario who made a homemade bomb.  The story is sad.  He did not want to harm anyone but himself, and thankfully it was stopped before he managed to do himself any harm.  It took police a number of hours to deactivate the bomb, and for safety reasons they had to evacuate thirty homes.  The police chief is placing the blame on the Internet.

This is what bothers me.  If there was no Internet do you think that would have stopped the kid from trying to kill himself?  No!  He would have used a gun, or maybe he would have hung himself.  Using that same logic, does that mean that we can blame the Library of Congress because Saddam Hussein was developing nuclear weapons and enriching uranium (It was in the library that Saddam’s scientists researched and copied (legally) the plans to build a calutron)?  If you want to blame someone (and I do not believe in this case there should be any blame spread around), look at the people around him.  Friends, teachers, family…nobody noticed anything strange?

Regardless, placing blame is something we as a society seem to do very well.  Everyone always wants to place the blame for any problem or situation on someone else.  It reminds me of a quotation out of the movie Rising Sun, a movie where Sean Connery plays John Connor, a world weary ex-cop deeply entrenched in Japanese culture.  The quote is “The Japanese have a saying, “Fix the problem, not the blame.  Find out what’s fucked up and fix it.”  Nobody gets blamed.  We’re always after who fucked up. Their way is better.”  Management 101 – It’s a very simple concept that is all too often not applied.

The Good

Michael Vick straightening himself out…no major disasters or terrorist attacks…

The Bad

Michael Jackson passing on…Tiger Woods’ inability to keep his dick in his pants despite having a wife who is so attractive that I would wager she could turn a gay man straight…The Toronto sports teams, the Maple Leafs, the Blue Jays, and the Raptors, still suck…professional wrestlers are still dying prematurely…

Oh…you mean about me.  Well…for me 2009 was pretty good.  Not too much sorrow this year, but a lot of good and a decent amount of change.  I was able to grow both personally and professionally.  All in all, one of my better years.  I did not travel too much, making a foray or two to Montreal, Niagara Falls, Detroit, Port Huron, and Buffalo, but that’s o.k.  Perhaps this year I will journey further.  I would love to make it over to Europe, to witness some of the culture and the architecture before I get old and my eyes go.  Work is great, home life is great, health is decent (though could be a bit better).  The people that I care about in life are (for the most part) doing well, and that is all that matters.  Would I like to have more money?   Sure!  Who wouldn’t?  But money does not buy happiness (though it could put a great downpayment on it!).

All in all, here’s to a great 2009 and hopefully and even better 2010!

As I mentioned in my previous post, I have installed the latest offering from Microsoft, Windows 7, onto my primary machine.  This machine is my most important machine, and had not been reformatted since the initial Vista installation over two years ago.  However, with the amount of software that has been installed, modified, and uninstalled, the machine was becoming slower than it should be.  I say should be due to the fact that the hardware, despite being two years old, is still cutting edge.  Thusly, I decided to take the plunge.  It bothers me to purchase an operating system for some reason (probably because I think that if you spend the money on a machine, the o/s should be free), but I would rather do that then steal it because I do not like the uncertainty of having it fail when I need it most.  I will have to purchase another copy for my laptop in the near future as well.

Prior to installation, I disconnected all the other hard drives I have in my system lest Windows trys anything funny.  Chance favors the prepared mind.  In so saying that, the Windows 7 installation was easy.  Almost too easy.  Everything was done automatically and I had to go back and make sure that everything was in there.  So far, it is quick…but there is no software on the machine yet.  Its getting there though, slowly but surely.  I have turned off all the “enhancements” because I like the classic look, and I also like to get all the speed that I can out of my computer.  The feel is very similar to Vista and there is not a hard learning curve attached to Windows 7.  In particular, one thing that stood out was the fact that all those horrid, silly, annoying pop up windows that plagued Vista have all but disappeared in Windows 7.

The networking has been streamlined and seems to run much better as well.  I’m not sure what improvements that they made from a technical standpoint – but yes, it works well and it seems like the throughput is much smoother.

One thing that has always bothered me about Windows is the file transfers.  When copying large amounts of data, Microsoft has elected to base the copy time on the number of files, rather than the total size.  For people copying a few files this is not a big deal, but I tend to move hundreds of gigabytes at a time.  It looks like they have fixed this!  Time to break out the party hats.  As an aside, the copying speed has not changed much, if at all (though you cannot expect the operating system to compensate for the speed (or lack thereof) of the hardware).

So far, Microsoft has got it right and Windows 7 could be their best effort to date with respect to an operating system.  I have no problems giving credit where credit is due, because I will also criticize when it is warranted as well.  So – good job Microsoft!

Next up is the codec installation.  I have found that the K-Lite Codec Pack is the best option.  I use the full version (there are standard, lite, and mega versions available) and I have had zero problems with it.  In fact, it has even made codecs work on machines where they previously crashed.  Included with this version is a copy of Media Player Classic.  It is a small piece of software that you can run instead of Windows Media Center.  Because the codecs are all installed properly, everything plays in this tiny little piece of software flawlessly.

After I settled on the codec installation, I installed the AVS4YOU suite of products (some of them).  I’ll give another shout out to this company as well for making an affordable suite of products – that for a small fee ($59.00) – offers lifetime upgrades.  I purchased these products two years ago and I have easily gotten full value for my hard earned dollar.  I will present a formal review of their product suite sometime in the future, but in the interim, if you do any kind of audio/video editing, ripping, or conversion, then this is where you must start.

I installed Nero 7 Burning ROM next.  While Ahead.de’s current offering is Nero 9, I have played with it and have found no discernable difference between the versions from a technical standpoint.  Version 7 simply runs quicker than the newer one.  I do not understand why the installation size changes so much from version to version.   They both do the same thing, and if version 9 does the same things as version 7, they will both run great.  Call the size difference an enigma I suppose.

Continuing on, the Adobe CS3 suite of products was next on my list.  For image and video production, nothing on the market today beats Photoshop and Premiere.  While they can have a steep learning curve attached to them, the investment of time is well worth it.  Some of Adobe’s offerings, such as Encore and Soundbooth, lag behind the competition still.  Others, like Acrobat, are horribly bloated.  Yet all in all, CS3 is a top notch suite that does everything you ask of it (notwithstanding that endorsement, I did not install Acrobat, Encore, or Soundbooth).

Office 2007 was installed next.  I am very familiar with the intricacies of Office, but 2007 is a little different.  Microsoft took the interface in a vastly different direction than its predecessors, so I have a bit of a learning curve ahead of me here.  The jury is still out as to whether or not I like it…time will tell.  If not, I can always install the old version.  The interface is easy, and novice users will like it.  Us old birds who grew up when WordPerfect 5.1 (for DOS) was the universal standard sometimes need a bit of prodding to change out of our old ways into newer ones.

This time, I am doing away with MSN and AOL completely and installing Pidgen.  I have always liked this software and run it everywhere except on my main machine.  That changes now.  I have never been a fan of bloatware and both of those chat clients installed ate up far too much system resources for my liking.  When I first started using them they were decent enough – but as I have squawked about many times, today’s software has become bloatware.  Inefficient coders thinking that the speed and power of the computers these days can cover their errors.  Imagine – just imagine – how fast the computers would run if the coding of today was as super tight as it had to be in years past.  Anyways, Pidgen is small, allows for multiple IM platforms, is simple and easy to use.  It also includes a spell checker!

It is now time to plug in the hard drives that I had previously disconnected.  These include 3 x 500 GB HDDs, 1 x 1.5 TB HDD, and a 4.5 TB E-SATA RAID-5 array.  I am curious to see if the machine takes a performance hit having all those drives connected, though by rights it should be a small one if any.  As they are all SATA 2.0 7500 RPM, things should still run quite adequetely.  One thing I can say though, and all us geeks know it, is that the USB drives perform like a dogs breakfast.  They run slow, and the more that you connect the slower they run.  I have a significant amount of USB drives that I am going to convert over to E-SATA because I do not like the performance hit that they take.

Now that the hard drives are all hooked back up, and the machine is back where it should be, things are starting to feel somewhat more normal.  I.T. guys generally tend to fret when their main computer is in disarray, and I am no exception.  I do not like it and it makes me uncomfortable.  We like a certain order to things.  Now that the computer is well on its way I can turn my attention to some domestic duties.