Abandoned Stuff by Saskboy

Does the price of Microsoft Word make you want to pirate it? Instead of going illegal, you can go legal and get Open Office which reads and writes Word .doc files. I’ve been using it for about 3 years, and it even reads Corel Word Perfect files, Power Point, and Excel files now. You can’t beat the free price, and it works perfectly for most people. It’s no more difficult than Microsoft Word.

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Wooden computers? There’s enough puns in here to choke an ox. For those who remember the wood ‘ol days in computing. There wasn’t enough mention of wooden pier to pier technology, for naval computing.

Here’s a new business model:

1. Release basic yet popular system

2. Wait for people to modify it

3. Copy their modifications and system development for free
4. ???

5. Underpants

6. Profit!

First off there’s a new anti-rape tool called RapeX. It will be available in a few months, and it could very well change the number of rape incidents in places where it is well known to be in use. It was supposed to be out now, but had been delayed.
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Find true north even in the daytime without Polaris the North Star to guide you. Link via Digg.com

Also on Digg was: Message in a bottle found on lake.

Defective By Design has organized a massive protest against DRM June 23, 2006. DRM will hurt artists who make the mistake of using it, and it will make your personal enjoyment of music, video, and software decrease if legislative protection is given to its implementation. Sony BMG learned the hard way that DRM costs them money, after they were sued and settled in the United States after installing DRM rootkits onto people’s computers with ther copy-controlled music CDs.

There is a number for Toronto, so if you’d like to protest, sign up and leave a polite and to the point voice mail:

“Hi, my name is __ and I buy music, but will not buy music if it has DRM. Thank you for your time.” *click*

Taylor Field, named after Mr. Taylor (who else?) from the Roughrider’s distant past, is getting a new name from corporate sponsorship. The potash giant Mosaic, whose name will be familiar with people that noticed the miner-trapping accident at K2 outside of Esterhazy last Winter, is paying to put their name on the historic stadium.

See Taylor Field in panoramic goodness from the practice field.

My relative, Great Uncle Karl Klein of Lafleche passed away today June 22, 2006. I have several memories of my Uncle Karl, and the most vivid as a kid is shared by many of my schoolmates. Karl was invited by Wood Mountain School to speak about his military time served on the Atlantic Ocean during World War II fighting the Nazis. I think everyone found it interesting, but Karl was so enthusiastic about telling his stories, that he lost track of time and talked past 3:30 PM when the busses were ready to take the kids home. He had been a school teacher, so was no stranger to a gym full of kids itching to be dismissed.

His wife Agnus had passed away several years ago after being on oxygen for a few years, and I don’t know his family too well except for the times I saw them at family gatherings at his house for Christmas or other times in the year. A really friendly bunch of people they are, it was always nice visiting. It’s sad, that’s another home that I grew up visiting as a child, and I will probably never set foot inside it again. And if I do, there won’t be the familiar occupants to greet me, anyway.

I unfortunately won’t be able to attend the funeral, but I have no doubt that Uncle Karl will get a sendoff, from his Canadian Legion buddies, worthy of a Canadian Hero who served our country bravely in the last World War.

Wired.com shows how to make a Firefox extension, for those budding programmers out there.

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Get help with Linux from other people in realtime at Qunu.

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And off the topic of computers, is Softball. Posting the event notice as a favour:
There’s an NSA Co-ed Provincial Slo-Pitch Tournament in Moose Jaw on June 30th, July 1, and 2nd. Call Crystal for more details at 306-692-5608

New (sub)Urbanism: The Copyrighting of Public Space

The Bean in Chicago is surrounded by gaurds designed to stop people from photographing a public display of art, in a public park. Gotta love free America, eh? What will they think of next? Charging people to take photos next to a shiny metal cup.. oh wait. But Stanley or Grey’s Cups are not public property, paid for by taxpayers, or stored in a public park. Just what is Chicago thinking by banning photos with one of it’s tourist attractions? Is it so the aggressive homeless I encountered while there can shove postcards of it into your hand and you might feel you actually have to buy some?