Opposing Signal

a 4 way light

Today while driving home I witnessed some pure brilliant driving skills. Yup, it was at a 4 way stop. I don’t know about the readers here, but I consider 4 way stops pretty easy to figure out.

One of the nice things that I like to see at a 4 way stop, is that if it makes sense, the opposing lanes can both go at the same time, as long as neither of them are turning left.

Well today a guy in a BMW in front of me gets to the stop line. After the cross traffic goes he starts out into the intersection, but rather slowly. There are no turn signals, and he looks to be going straight through.

The oncoming driver then decides he is going to go. Just as the oncoming driver starts, the BMW guy slams on his brakes and comes to a complete stop in the middle of the intersection, and mouths off to the oncoming driver (he also threw in a couple choice hand gestures). The oncoming driver has a few choice words as well.

The way I see it, the BMW guy definitely should have used a turn signal to let everyone know what he was doing. Also, the other driver should have waited a little longer before starting to really ensure he knew what the BMW guy was doing. Both of them fail the 4 way stop test!

Taco Notch

I headed over to La Fiesta for lunch today. For the record, the 2 soft taco combo is pretty close to enough for 2 people. Add a third taco and you would be there. Yum! It is close to work, and usually pretty quick on the service. Their food is top notch, and for the price, you get huge portiona. Today was the first time I had tried them for lunch, and faced a hefty wait. Never seen that for dinner though.

Starting Pump

my truck in happier times

Damn truck. It is starting to show its age a little. There are a few rattles, squeaks, clunks, and odd noises every now and then. But it has always been reliable.

Today I dropped it off for routine maintenance, which I knew was going to be an expensive one. I got the call right at lunch. The water pump needs to be replaced. :jawdrop:

Crap. That sucks. Big time. This more than doubles the already large bill I was expecting.

Susceptible Services

an experiment with the wrong parameters

OK, this guy has an interesting experiment going on (and yesterday he succeeded). He has a gmail account, and he wants to test the spam filters. He has asked everyone to sign up his email account for spam, to any mailing lists, and to advertise it on many webpages in an effort to collect as much spam as he can, and to see if he can fill it with spam, and how long that will take.

From his May 25th posting:

I’m beginning to think that a vulnerability to email floodings is going to be Google’s biggest weakness when it comes to email. 999 messages could do a lot of damage to someone’s email account, especially if they all contained attachments (the messages I received did not). What is Google doing to protect its Gmail users from mail bombs? I’m not sure, and they’re not likely to tell us due to security concerns. It may block some such attacks behind the scenes and we are not even aware of it. However, I would argue that this is one area where Gmail must have 100% accuracy if it is going to remain a viable service.


Now, I like his experiment, and I am sure many people are interested in the results, but you know what? Everyone is susceptible to mail bombs. Hotmail, yahoo, canada.com, etc are all susceptible to them. My domain is too. How should software determine what is a mailbomb, and what is not? 10 emails in an hour? 100? All the email with the same sujbect? I think it would be difficult to build a spam filter to detect a mailbomb. Build a filter, and the senders will get smarter. Some people have already proven that it is possible to defeat Bayesian filters, and they were supposed to be the spam saviour.

I think Gmail is only mildly interesting, and I don’t necessarily want an email address with them. Why do I want my 1 GB of email on someone else’s servers? The answer is I don’t. I don’t trust any of these “free” services with anything that I consider mission critical. That is what my personal computer is for.

The trickle down effect is interesting too. I have heard rumblings that some of the free email services will be upping their mailbox limits. All this because GMail exists (but isn’t even publicly available yet).

Diagonal Blocking

danger!

This lady takes the cake for aggresive driving.

Sue and I were heading out to the Tsawassen ferry Sunday afternoon. A red light stopped a group of cars, and I was in the left lane. In the right lane there was a mini van, then a chick in a black Honda Civic Sedan.

The light goes green, traffic starts off, we get up to speed. The mini van is a little ahead of me, but I am gaining on it. By this point we are all doing at least 90 km/h, if not more.

Chicky, who is apparently in a big hurry, decides I am not passing fast enough, floors her little 4 cylinder, and does a diagonal pass from the right lane to the left lane between my truck and the mini van. There must have only been a few feet on either end of her vehicle.

I was not impressed, so I honked at her. Sometimes I wish I had installed a large air horn to scare the crap out of people. I could see the chick just shrug as if she didn’t understand why I was laying on the horn.

A little while later there is anothe red light. She is in the left lane with another sedan in the right lane, and just after the light, the right lane ended. When the light goes green, she guns it. The sedan also takes off, and matches her for the most part, but then when she was barely in front on of the sedan, she moves right and cuts him off. Sedan-dude, not liking her so close switches to the left lane. Chicky sees this and starts to move left, but only goes halfway so she ends up straddling the line, and blocking the sedan!

It doesn’t end there though. There is yet another red light. The highway is 4 lanes by this point, so, Chicky does the turn right, cross the sidestreet, jump back on the highway.

As we are all approaching the ferry terminal, I see here once again cut someone off. Then we go to pay to get on the ferry. She pulls up to an empty kiosk. I pull up behind someone (not her), they pull through, I pay by credit card, then take off. She is still paying !!?!? Crazy chick.

Doesn’t end there though.

Once the ferry docks in Victoria, she has totally changed. While driving down the highway, she is doing less than the speed limit, and when stopped at lights she appears to be putting on makeup so that when the light goes green, she doesn’t move, and she holds up traffic.

I just don’t get the crazy antics on the Vancouver side. They certainly didn’t help her. Crazy chick, your licence has just been Revoked!

Sheba the Warrior Puppy

Sheba the wonder puppy

Firday night Sue and I went to Vancouver to visit with her mom, and her mom’s new black lab puppy (Sheba)!

Oh so cute, cuddly, and fuzzy!

She is a sweet little dog that (so far) is really well behaved. She likes her crate for eating in, but is becoming a little reluctant to sleep in it. She runs around in the grass and whips that stubby little tail of hers around.

She likes to chew on sticks, is already retrieving a little, and loves to sleep on peoples feet. Such a sweetheart.

If you are interested, here are some more pics.

Pushy Foundation

X marks the charity

Here is a rant that has been brewing for a while. I was pushed over the edge last Thursday night, so here it is.

Telemarketers. Annoying, interrupting, persistent, rude and pushy.

Last night I faced the worst of them. The Canadian Liver Foundation. They called, I answered, the lady started her spiel, and right away I said I had no money to donate right now.

The lady replied that they weren’t looking for a donation right now, and continued talking. As she was babbling away I heard her mention she was looking for $200. Once again, I told her I had no money to donate right now. Again she said she wasn’t looking for money right now, and asked if two weeks from now was better. 😕 No it wasn’t.

I cut her off to tell her that I don’t give money to people over the phone. I despise telemarketers, and refuse to encourage their behaviour by giving them money. She launched into a diatribe on how it was the most effective way of communicating with people (getting into their wallets really). I said again, that I had no money to give.

She relented and asked that if she sent a pledge form for $60 would that be better? Again, “No, I don’t have any money to give you at this time.”

She tried another tactic. This was their 35 year anniversary. Could I spare $35? All together now: “No, I don’t have any money to give you at this time.”

Now she was just getting pushy, so while she was talking I just said, “You interrupted my dinner, and I must get back to it. I am hanging up now.”, and I did.

The stupid part is that as a child I was taught to not be rude. Hanging up on someone while they are talking is rude, and I don’t like to do it, but the telemarketers prey on that. They just keep talking no matter what I say. The only recourse left to me is to hang up. I know that the people I talk to on the phone are just trying to do their job. They may not want that job, and may be doing it because they really need money.

However, I still maintain that I do not give to charities that cold call me trying to hit me up for cash. There is only one charity that I give to, and they did not call me, I pledged money to them. The only other charities I support are Big Brothers/Big Sisters, and the Canadian Diabetes Society, both of whom pick up clothes. They simply say they have a truck in the area, and want to know if I have something for them to pick up.

Anyway, back to my rant. If I ever were to consider donating to the liver foundation, this eperience has certainly turned me off of them. I vow to never give them money EVER! Too pushy, too annoying, and they have no respect for me.

Normal Excuses

Bike to work week – Day 4

I came out lame today. I went to bed a little later than normal last night, the cat kept me awake for what felt like half the night, then I woke up at 6 and couldn’t get back to sleep. When I did get up, my throat was all scratchy, and in general I felt like poo. It was also pretty windy today.

I decided not to ride. I felt a little bad for not riding, but I had to go home at lunch, and I didn’t want to push myself while I am feeling sick. Lame excuses I know. Anyway … tomorrow I will ride.