All striking workers are back at work today as CUPE 1975 reached a tentative agreement with the Universities. Not all services have been returned to normal but it seems as though many services are returning to being operational. This comes just in time as many students are finishing their classes and beginning their final exams. The agreement was reached sometime Saturday and further issues are going to be sent to binding arbitration soon. It seems as though final exams will go ahead as normal and next semester won’t be canceled.
Category Archives: General
General items that fit either no category or more than one category.
7 foods you may think are healthy, but aren’t
Pick a fruit, any fruit, and you know it’s good for you. It’s the same with vegetables and many whole grain foods. Everyone should put more fruits and vegetables into their diets. However, some foods have gotten the healthy nod, when they’re actually laden with fat, sugar or both. The link goes through 7 different foods that many people think of as healthy and explains why they aren’t and gives an example of what you can eat as a healthy alternative. The list includes, Granola Bars, Tea Drinks, Pretzels, Muffins, Rice Cakes, Fruit Flavored Snacks, and Frozen Yogurts. I thought it was interesting to see how almost any “healthy” fruit can be picked apart and the bad points brought forward.
Unlimited wireless data for $10/month with Virgin Mobile
Virgin Mobile Canada has recently added a new Tidal Wave plan to their lineup. With this new plan you can get *unlimited data* for $10/mo, when you use their new Samsung m510 EV-DO phone ($179 w/ no contract). After seeing this I have become really interested in this phone/plan. I don’t think I would really need to use the internet that often on the go but for $10 I can get unlimited amounts of it. As well, Virgin Mobile offers streaming television for $10 more on top of the Tidal Wave plan. This is something that could be neat to have but i doubt i would actually use it. So if I do buy a new phone soon I will definitely be looking at the Samsung m510 so I can get in on this unlimited data. It is about time we got some decent data plans in Canada.
The Office: Top 10 Pranks On Dwight
Dwight is one of my favorite characters on the series, and I wish that I could be half as funny as he is. In this Top 10 you have Jim to thank for the majority of the pranks pulled on Dwight. If you have never seen the Office before it is one of the best shows on television right now and deserves to be watched. The show is basically the new Simpsons where you can do anything in real life and have it somehow relate back to a scene in the Office. It is my number one show on TV and I look forward to watching it every week.
Easy 1000 point Boost to XboxLive Gamerscore
I noticed a video circulating around for a new game just coming out. The game is called Avatar The Last Airbender — the burning Earth. The video clearly shows how to get 1000 achievement points in less than 2 or so minutes. THQ should be ashamed of themselves for making such a mockery of the achievements system but I guess this is one way to increase the amount of rentals and possibly sales of a sub-par mediocre game.  Have a look at the video as its posted on Youtube here. Definitely easier than the 1000 points from King Kong.
Google’s $10M Android Phone App Contest
Google has launched the Android Developer Challenge, which will provide $10 million in awards for great mobile apps built on the Android platform. The first round of the Contest will have $5 million in prizes with the winners having to have their projects in by March 3. There will be 50 projects that earn $25,000 and then out of those 10 projects will received additional funds of around $100,000. I hope I can think up some really cool neat idea and try to get it done. It would be really awesome to get paid to program something cool like this. I just need to think up a cool project idea and I’m set.
New Gold Rush (Soaring Prices) Spurs Rush To Build World’s Deepest Mines
South African companies (among others) racing to build new “ultra deep” mines–deepest now at 2.5 miles, where rocks shatter like glass, temperatures are nearly unmanageable and escalating risks to miners are huge. But gold prices are at historic highs…and there’s big, record-breaking money to be made. The mine that is going to be 2.5 miles deep will have temperatures around 55 degrees Celsius. The mine operators are going to have to find new ways to keep their mines cool. As well no cable can be 2.5 miles long so they will also have to find new ways to get people down to these depths. It is truly remarkable how far we are going to extract natural resources from the Earth.
Canadian Dollar Worth $1.10 American
The Canadian dollar today reached up to a new all time high while it was trading today. It was over $1.10 for a bit today before it crept back a bit. The new heights that the dollar has been reaching are very surprising to many people. There are fears that the high dollar will cause a slowdown in the economy as less goods will be exported to the United States and more people are travelling to the United States for shopping. Right now it continuously appears that Canadian retail is ripping off the consumer. There has been some progress recently with stores like Walmart and Zellers bringing American prices across the border. But now with the dollar trading past parity it makes me wonder, why are they stopping with just matching some American prices and not beating them? I suppose it takes some time to work through their inventories and renegotiate contracts with the distributors. Whatever the case, I just hope we aren’t stuck with higher prices in Canada, and the inability to sell our goods to the United States since thats just an all around negative for Canada.
1000s of Retro Magazine issues for free!
The complete retro gamer‘s old magazine paradise listing. Online available freeware old magazines also include: Zero, Mean Machines, C+VG, Amiga Action, Your Sinclair, The One, Compute!, Official Saturn Magazine and many more. Some of the sites are very good and I would fully recommend taking a look at whats available if you are into gaming. It sure is fun to see how they use to think the graphics back in the day were amazing. It brings back some memories of my old magazine subscriptions to electronic gaming monthly, computer gaming world, Nintendo Power, and so on.
University Strike Confirmed for Friday
News Talk 980 is reporting that the University Strike is confirmed to begin right away Friday morning.  This follows the two hour rally that occurred on Tuesday. CUPE, the union representing the workers, says that the University refuses to go back to the bargaining table and this job action is required. School on Friday could be a whole lot more interesting. I expect it will be things as usual tomorrow but if the strike continues through next week I expect some changes at the University. Hopefully people know that everyone is on strike and clean up their messes. It’s almost daily that someone spills their drink someplace and walks away from it.
**update**Â The university has a webpage setup to show how the strike action is going to affect students.