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By Matthieu, 2011-03-09 21:47

Took a ride home on the TTC subway last night, after an (awesome) performance of the Vagina monologues.

Noticed that every station had brightly coloured triangles and circles at exactly the same place in every station. We figured it was either some kind of guide or signal for the train drivers, or aliens trying to teach us geometry.

Turns out they’re nothing special. These were added to help the drivers and guards on the subway find the correct alignment with the platform before stopping, Torontoist explains.

While I’m on the topic of subways…. what is the deal with random trains going randomly out of service or changing directions? Last night our train decided to go out of service at Lawrence station, and the doors on our car managed to get jammed shut while the driver kept telling us to get off the train. I don’t get it, it’s not like our subway system is particularly complex….

Toronto's super-confusing complicated subway system

Also, ever wondered why some station have those cool-looking 60′s style flip sign boxes that say “Next train FINCH”?

Well here’s the answer. Originally the Bloor-Danforth and Yonge/University-Spadina lines were integrated. Every second train departing from Eglinton (then the Northern terminus of the Yonge line) crossed over onto the Bloor-Danforth line. The TTC installed these automatic destination signs, which were controlled by magnetic coils installed inside the subway cars, in order to inform passengers of the final destination of the approaching train.

Further reading and a lot more about the history of transit in Toronto at: http://transit.toronto.on.ca/

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By Matthieu, 2011-02-02 00:36

In an effort to consolidate my blog posts (and create content with minimal effort), here are some items pulled from my tumblr trial run of early 2010.

Bear Cloud (by johncavacas) (via Torontoist)

A fun typing experiment

Here’s a fun game.

Click your address bar, then, as fast as you can, go go goggle.com. That’s goggle, as in swimming goggles.

For some reason shelves full of neatly stacked stationery make me happy.

Hyperbole and a Half: This is Why I’ll Never be an Adult

What a year on Earth really looks like. [VIDEO]

"Knight's Tour". From Wikipedia.

Star Trek: Tik Tok

The G20 is just an excuse for a photo-op and a cocktail party, but we’re not invited. It’s unequal and really drives home the point about who has power in this society. We have a fence, the interruption of our lives, soldiers in the streets and armed helicopters in the sky. On one side of that fence is us, the underlings, and on the other side, the, for lack of a better term, aristocracy. They’ve drawn a line right down the middle of our supposedly egalitarian society, told us to pay for it and they’re getting away with it.

— CBC News – Toronto – G20 exodus will require travel plan: police

We can receive the S. Korean TV signal better than its North Korean counterpart in the Haeju area,” Kim said, “TV sets are pre-tuned by the North Korean authorities to limit the access to TV channels. However, that does not bother us because we can use a stick.” (North Koreans call a remote control as a stick) In the border areas with China and South Korea such as Hwanghae and Kangwon Province, the North Korean authorities try to prevent people from watching S. Korean TV by soldering and pre-tuning TV sets to Chonsun (North Korea) Central TV. Lately, the authorities also attempt to restrict the usage of remote control by covering the sensor with silver paper. However, North Korean people circumvent the regulation. Instead of giving away their remote control to the authorities, they purchase an extra and watch the TV as they please after removing the silver paper. After all, the authorities’ efforts to control TV channels turn out to be futile for those who have remote control TV sets.

— Daily NK – North Korean People Copy South Korean TV Drama for Trade

Bayview village - the last mall with trees ?

found on /.

• user 1: Correction: I did this with FOLDING@home, not SETI. I think SETI isn’t as useful.
• user 2: The aliens have already done all of that protein folding nonsense. Once we make contact they’ll share their technology, making your silly Folding@home obsolete.

The Microsoft Live Platform

Microsoft Live platform (by niallkennedy)

Barack Obama, “Yes We Can”: A PowerPoint Deck | shmula

BP Spills Coffee (via UCBComedy)

Life's Good

Kesha Simpsons Intro Tik Tok HD

Who needs a solitare app when you can just run Windows 3.1

Why Our Civilization’s Video Art and Culture is Threatened by the MPEG-LA

Imagine knowing you’re pregnant, the moment it happens.

Nipper – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Mirror neuron – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Language…

Emma: yeah, pas mal
organized is a weird word…
me: lol
what makes you say that?
Emma: i don’t know, i guess every word sounds funny if you repeat it enough
even just in your head
me: yes it does
like table
tay-bul
lol organized sounds like it could mean separated into organs
Emma: dude, yeah
words are just weird in general
they’re vocal representations of thoughts and ideas….like, they only convey part of what’s really going on in your mind
CRAZY
(i swear to god i am not stoned)
me: hehe
no i think that’s the mark of awesome people
when you can think of trippy shit without having to be stoned
like holy crap, mass times the speed of light times the speed of light IS energy
Emma: hahaha

(related) Waking Life – Language (via SoupDuBubble)

"Baby" Carrot?

Walk on water (Liquid Mountaineering) (via TheUlfG)

Lamebook – » Time for Type

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By Matthieu, 2011-01-30 22:05

Recorded yesterday from my PowerBook G4.

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By Matthieu, 2011-01-30 20:13

Hello. As you may or may not have heard, Canada has approved UBB, that is, Usage-Based Billing for all ISPs. This means the end of unlimited internet for individuals in Canada.

This makes me incredibly angry, because it’s backwards, it’s anti-competitive, and it’s expensive.

“Bandwidth (computing) or digital bandwidth: a rate of data transfer, bit rate or throughput, measured in bits per second (bps)”

I believe it’s fair to charge for BANDWIDTH. i.e. THROUGHPUT. That’s what actually costs money. If these telecom idiots hadn’t overprovisioned their infrastructure in the first place so that they could scam customers for more money, they wouldn’t have to do this to save their asses.

Ever notice how at “peak hours” the ‘net gets slower? That’s because Rogers or Bell or whoever it may be did not bother spending the money to upgrade the fiber to your local hub. In any other business this is unacceptable (taking into consideration interference and other such factors). I have a 100Mbps network, I EXPECT at LEAST 60Mbps out of it.

Once the physical medium is in place, who gives a damn how much data goes through it? It’s not like there’s physical wear on the equipment. Sure there’s maintenance, but like everything else in computing, it makes more sense to upgrade rather than to repair. So why not make network upgrades, and offer higher speeds at higher prices?

Charging for usage is wrong. Plus they’re making up rules while misusing technical terms. =Double angry.

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By Matthieu, 2011-01-28 21:59

Going through my photo library, I came across this curious shot that I took sometime last year:

Now, this looks curiously like the Google Nexus One’s bootscreen doesn’t it?

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By Matthieu, 2011-01-27 20:35

Je participe actuellement à une pièce de théâtre mise en scène par mes amis Charles et Alina. Je ne suis pas acteur, mais quelques uns de mes bons amis le sont.

C’est une comédie genre “Western”, suggérée par la chanson “Rocky Raccoon” des Beatles.

Billets disponibles sur UofTtix.

Poster par peaz.

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By Matthieu, 2011-01-19 20:16

Here’s how to “de-blur” a Motorola MB502 (aka Charm) from Telus Mobility. The process assumes a stock Telus Charm, and a Windows XP system, although tools exist that allow flashing from Linux.

1. Download and install the Motorola phone flashing tools. This means the Motorola USB drivers (get them from MOTODEV) and RSDlite.
2. Download the “deblur” sbf from Motorola (see http://and-developers.com/sbf:mb502 , download BASEM_U3_01.12.4_DEBLUR_SIGNED) and ungzip.
3. Connect your Charm. Enable USB debugging under Settings > Applications > Development. From the notifications menu, make sure the phone is connected for “Charge Only”
4. Run RSDlite, select the decompressed sbf file and flash.
5. The phone will reboot once it’s done flashing. Wait for it to finish, then hold the power button and power down the phone. Remove and replace the battery, then power up the phone again.

Now, at this point, if you’re lucky, your Charm may “Just work”. If you see signal bars and can make phone calls, then you’re in the clear. Set up your APN and you’re good to go. This happened with one of my Charms, but oddly enough, the other (seemingly identical) device just wouldn’t pick up the Bell HSPA network. I did eventually get it working, but don’t remember the steps and now have two working Charms.

If your phone doesn’t pick up the cell network, then please wait for my next post. I will be intentionally bricking one of my phones using the T-Mobile ROM in order to figure out how to fix it.

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By Matthieu, 2011-01-16 00:10

I am currently in the process of cleaning my room. And in two very distantly related events, I came across things which reminded me of the beginning of this decade. 2002 to be exact.

The first was the music video for Avril Lavigne’s “I’m with You”, which I found on YouTube while going about the usual Internet procrastination.

I miss teenage angsty Avril. “Let Go” was so awesome back in ’02. And now we’re stuck with new, “grown up” Avril.

"Grown up" Avril...

The second 2002 artifact is an old Adobe Photoshop 7.0 for Mac CD. Naturally, I figured I’d install it just for kicks rather than continue cleaning, So I whipped out my old 12″ PowerBook G4 (Also from 2002!) and popped the disc in the drive and fired up the installer, only to be asked for a serial number. Now, I have no idea where the documentation or box for this disc are, so I thought “ah crap, I’m stuck!”.

But then, I realized, Google has the answer to just about everything, so why not give that a try. Sure enough:

So I typed it in, and

What do you know, it works! (By the way, I do not condone piracy and bla bla bla. If you really want, I can post a picture of the ORIGINAL Photoshop 7.0 disc. Which I own.)

Those were simpler days, when software was protected only by a string of digits and pirates spoke freely on the message boards, and a short, sassy, Canadian “skater girl” could have international fame.

And this concludes my lame little trip down memory lane.

Edit: Well this is disappointing.

And so was this.

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By Matthieu, 2011-01-12 11:08

$ rsync -WavP src.file dst.file