Rites of Spring #29 Andrea and Colin whip up Scratch Spaghetti Sauce · Sunday May 30, 2010 by colin newell
Meat and Veg
350g lean ground beef
350g lean ground pork
1 large yellow onion
1 stick celery minced
1 carrot grated (adds sweetness to the sauce)
2 1/2 cups sliced mushrooms (white or brown)
3 26 fluid ounce Tins of tomato sauce
2 small Tins (6 fluid oz.) tomato paste
Spices
Salt and pepper to taste
2 Tablespoon dried parsley
2 Tablespoon dried oregano
2 Tablespoon basil
2 Tablespoon Italian seasoning mix
3 small Bay leaf
In a large pot (heated to medium) brown the ground beef
and pork for about 10 minutes.
Add the chopped onion and brown for 5 minutes
Add the minced celery and grated carrot – stir 2 minutes
combine tomato sauce and paste – stir to mix
add the 2 1/2 cups fresh mushrooms
Add spices and bay leaf – bring to boil, reduce to simmer
for 1 hour.
Serve with any kind of pasta, garlic toast and a glass of your
favorite red wine.
Rites of Spring #28 Technology of our undoing - broadband over power lines · Saturday May 29, 2010 by colin newell
My day job is in multi-media design, modernization, implementation and blah, blah, blah…
…in the educational environment. In my case UVic.
(so)Give me a classroom or lab with a black board and a piece of chalk and I will give you video data projection, infinitely variable lighting controls, high speed internet, web-casting and sound so crisp you would swear it’s live.
because in the year 2010, it’s easily to learn when you have all the tools.
And this applies to the home as well.
I have a PC workstation for audio production and a MacBook Pro for doing the stuff I am doing right now… a very high speed internet connection… and Wireless-N that I do not even use. I like my cat-5 wiring if at all possible. It is secure… and it’s reliable as gravity my friends.
I also like keeping my bits and bytes contained within copper cable if possible. Not adverse to wireless… as long as it’s wireless-N or better. Which is secure as heck after all – low power. It’s safe. And nobody gets hurt, right?
Well, there is something that has come down the pipe (more popular in Europe than here) that is scaring the crap out of me – not for what it does to people or creatures – but what it potentially takes away from us… our ability to communicate.
It’s called broadband over the power lines or BPL and it uses house wiring for distributed ethernet. God knows who designed this stuff. It has the capability, ironically, of seriously interfering with existing digital radio and TV and old style AM and FM radio – impeding our ability to communicate with each other and enjoy our high tech lives. Now that is genuinely ironic wouldn’t you say?
The boxes (shown above and sold at COST-CO) are made in China and they are shit. Some colleagues and I are investigating an interference report from the area around Beacon Hill Park in Victoria – some 4 city blocks wide! And it is likely one of these little peckers (shown above). From some of the intelligence that we have gathered, people are buying these units at COST-CO and then returning them shortly thereafter – not because they don’t work… because they do – but because they are difficult to set up.
Wireless-N is tried, tested and true – sets up easily and does not interfere with any domestic or terrestrial radio or data services.
Now imagine that you neighbor down the street buys one of these boxes and your audiophile set-up is screwed… or your HD TV is now replete with interference lines or inexplicable odd behavior – and don’t think for a second that because it’s digital it is immune to interference – cause it ain’t.
So think about this: One device (shown above) and 4 city blocks wiped out.
How wiped out? I listen to CFAX 1070 AM in Victoria and the offending box (or something like it – we are not exactly sure it is this particular unit) actually interferes with a 10,000 watt radio station.
This should concern us.
Rites of Spring #27 Billion dollar G8-G20 security boondoggle · Friday May 28, 2010 by colin newell
Canadian security warlord and dweeb Ward Elcock (photo at right) is the bureaucrat who is spending nearly a billion (of your) tax dollars worth of security for the G8/G20 summits and, to hear him explain it..
“Hyuk, that’s money well spent, Hyuk, hyuk, nyuk…”
Say what?
“Protecting world leaders (from nasty hippy protestors) “requires a lot of people and people are expensive,” Ottawa’s nerdy security czar told The Globe and Mail in an gushing interview.
No.
Here is what really adds the dollars to these events: Security resellers…
Take a product (like a security officer or policeman) that we are paying for or have paid for already – and out-source it to a company that normally supplies us with security products but marks up that service by a factor of 10 or 100.
Example: A mall cop or community police constable might cost 12 to 35$ an hour.
Contract a “security supplier” to provide this service and they hire the McCops and “resell” them to us for upwards of $1000 an hour. The “reseller” pockets the difference and you line the pockets of the “reseller”
Another great example of this is an “unnamed” community in Canada that is having troubles with its mega-expensive trunked police communication system – that never seems to work. The supplier (who will remain nameless – they are a trans-national telecom with billions of dollars in sales) sells an accessory product for this communications system to a reseller for $49 and the the communications-security subcontractor resells it to the bottomless pocketed police force and ultimately to a beat cop for $499. It is a great scam. And in this way, these mysterious costs sky-rocket.
Remember the term “Golden Toilet” seat that costs $10,000 in a government stores system? This is what we are talking about. It’s pure pork barrel and pure boondoggle.
With no end in site.
He denied allegations of profligacy (wasteful excess), saying that Canadian taxpayers have to understand the logistics of deploying thousands of federal agents.
Also, he said, other countries lowball their own costs.
“Nobody has written a blank cheque,” he said of Canadian spending.
No. He has written a blank cheque and signed our name to it.
Ask yourself this: Why are we re-paying for RCMP officers? Yes, there is overtime but this is an event that needs less than a weeks security.
Think about it… because you are paying for it.
Rites of Spring #26 From Seed to Cup fundraiser - Black Stilt · Thursday May 27, 2010 by colin newell
On Thursday, June 3 The Black Stilt Coffeehouse will host an event to help
raise awareness of, and funds for, coffee farm families and, in particular,
sport and education programs for the children. Funds raised will be
distributed through the Oughtred Coffee Trust.
Black Stilt will offer special fundraising purchases which will include its
photo-journal book, From Seed-to-Cup: A portrait of great coffee and its
limited-edition Rio Negro coffee.
One free cup of Rio Negro coffee will be offered to everyone who purchases a
product fundraising item.
Hillside location: 1633 Hillside Avenue Hours: 7:00am-8:00pm (250)
370-2077
Jubilee location: 1769 Fort Street Hours: 7:00am-6:00pm (250)
590-8230
“We want to make a positive impact in the lives of the people who work so
hard to bring us our wonderful coffee,” says Dave Crothall, Black Stilt’s
owner and barista.
“We traveled to Costa Rica to learn all we could about our coffee and came
away with new-found knowledge about the people. It strengthened our
commitment to be a leader in promoting and educating our customers about
ethical coffee.”
To this end, The Black Stilt, in conjunction with Oughtred Coffee and Tea,
has written and produced a high quality photo-journal book. It tells the
story of the process and the people in ethical coffee’s remarkable
seed-to-cup journey. The book has been manufactured with wind power and
100% post-consumer waste recycled paper (FSC certified).
Rio Negro – of which there are only 80 lbs available – is a Rainforest
Alliance coffee of which Crothall is particularly proud. “It’s a first for a
barista like me to be able to share personal stories with customers about
every step of this ethical coffee’s seed-to-cup journey, and how it has
helped, not harmed its farmers and its environment.”
“The third wave of coffee has been around for awhile,” explains Crothall.
“Now people want to know that they coffee they are drinking is positively
impacting the countries of origin.”
The Black Stilt Coffeehouse, established in 2005, is a triple-bottom-line,
carbon-neutral company that leads by example with what is needed to create
healthy, sustainable communities. Additional information can be found at their website –
www.theblackstilt.com
