Category: Miscellaneous

Last night they turned on version 2.0 of their main Creative Commons licenses. The new licenses clarify and refine the initial terms of the 1.0 licenses, and CC has posted good, clear commentary explaining the changes.

On the day of my last exam in the spring semester, I raced home from the university so happy to finally be done for summer. I raced home at 105 km per hour according to the photo-radar bastards, exactly 15 km an hour over the posted limit. Now they want me to pay a cool $90 but I’m thinking of asking for a reduction. Gary shares his ticket fighting strategies and unless I’ll lose more money from not working that day, I’ll probably take his advice.

The “pre-election” spending spree can now become the “election” spending spree, as Prime Minister Paul Martin visited Governor General Adrienne Clarkson and asked her to dissolve the 37th Parliament. Thus setting off a 36 day federal election campaign, ending with the vote on June 28th. This is the first general election for all three of the main party leaders. Slumping Liberal support in polls and a more regional vote should make this interesting. I’m predicating a minority government with the Liberals being the party with the most seats while the NDP and Alliance being on opposite ends of the spectrum fill in the rest of the seats and make sure that nothing is passed.

Anna got the job at the University that she had applied for. It seems like a pretty great job and she is very excited about it. She will be in charge of the Summer Programs for English as a Second Language (ESL) students. It’s similar to something she did working for the college three years ago only this time she is in charge of the whole program. It will be interesting having us both work at the University – I start my New Media Movie Making Camp in July and she started work today.

He hums your favorite tunes. I downloaded Teen Spirit and yeah, Dokaka is pretty good.

As a five-year-old child, Dokaka hummed along with melodies on television, but one day plugged headphones into the TV, discovering that the sounds in his head matched those piping through the headphones. He quickly realized that songs consist of many parts like bass, drums, etc. Within a year, he began to record himself humming.

At 18, Dokaka started drumming in bands, and four years later stumbled upon his childhood recordings, reigniting his interest in humming. He was first heard humming by others when his band’s bassist missed practice, so he hummed the bassline. The band’s singer found the humming catchy and recommended professional recording. Dokaka financed and produced his own recordings and uploaded them to the internet, dubbing himself with the onomatopoeic name “Dokaka” from his drum-derived humming sounds!

NASA has provided 90 second videos of the first 90 sols (martian days) of the Spirit and Opportunity rovers [both are 5MB .mov].

I bought a house in Lethbridge two years ago this September. I’m really happy about the market here in Lethbridge, I think I purchased my house at a great time. I don’t normally like to copy / paste an entire article, but I’m afraid that the Lethbridge Herald isn’t going to keep this story online for long so here it is:

Housing prices rise and sales volumes soar in the Lethbridge region

By DAVE MABELL

Lethbridge Herald

Think you could handle a 35 per cent sales hike this month?

That’s what Lethbridge-area real estate personnel generated last month, as home sales in the city and across the region continued well ahead of last year’s pace. With 282 sales completed during the month — up 35 per cent from the 209 changing hands a year earlier — April sales were nearly $12 million ahead of April 2003.

But Brent Black, president of the Lethbridge Real Estate Board, points out the month followed a trend set in March when the 325 properties sold through MLS listings represented a 58 per cent jump over the same month last year.

January and February were also significantly ahead of the first months of 2003.

“We’ve got a strong, exciting year going here,” he says.

Selling prices are also on the rise, Black points out. In Lethbridge, where 143 homes were sold, the average price rose close to $148,000 last month compared with $138,000 a year ago.

But home sellers in many towns and rural areas reaped an increase as well. And well over half the homes sold — whether in the city or surrounding area — were priced in the $100,000 to $160,000 band.

“Every jurisdiction in our area was up in April,” says Black, either in unit sales or dollar volume.

One of the biggest jumps came in the county of Willow Creek, where five homes sold at an average $144,000 compared with $115,000 a year ago. In Cardston and surrounding county, six homes sold for an average better than $114,000 last month compared with three homes averaging $87,000 a year earlier.

And in the Crowsnest Pass, 14 homes changed hands for an average $109,000 vs. five homes at $102,500 last year.

Other areas reported higher sales with less of a price hike. In Taber and area, seven homes sold at an average $98,000, up from three at $97,000.

In Warner county, it was five sales averaging $86,500 this year; four at $83,700 a year ago.

In Pincher Creek, meanwhile, sales were up (from three to seven) but values were down and the same was true in Lethbridge county towns and rural areas, where home sales increased to 21 from 16.

On a region-wide basis, the board reports the $120,000-to-$140,000 price group was by far the busiest with 60 sales. Next highest numbers were in the $100,000-to-$120,000 group (43 sales) and the $140,000-to-$160,000 group (42 sales).

Along with the new Blogger updates comes Google’s very own “Google Blog“.