I've been using Linux since about 1998, when I started my first "real" job at PCI Geomatics. At the time, most of PCI's workstations ran a version of Red Hat Linux. The standard setup revolved around FVWM and Emacs.
I don't really consider myself Canadian.
Of course, that's kind of a lie. It does say "Canada" on my passport, so there's that. If you ask me about my nationality, I'll say I'm Canadian. If you mistake me for an American, I'll politely correct you. I mean, everybody's got to be from somewhere, right? And I'm from Canada. So I guess that makes me Canadian.
Over the last couple of years I've put together what I consider to be a fairly impressive home bar, and I've spent much of that time experimenting with various cocktails.
There are people in my social circle for whom mixing drinks is a bit taboo. When I say that I use Calvados) or Cognac in a cocktail, the first reaction I usually get is "What a waste!"
Have you ever wondered why the separation of church and state is good idea?
I'm assuming, of course, that most everyone in my immediate social circle actually thinks it's a good idea, though since I read about that fiasco involving the mayor of Saguenay, this assumption is perhaps on shakier ground than I would have liked.
I can never seem to blog in a timely manner. Lots of things in the world happen which I feel are deserving of comment, but my comments always seem to come a few months after the fact.
Take that recent Daniel Tosh incident, for example. He makes a rape joke during one of his routines, gets heckled by a female member of the audience for it, and then proceeds to suggest (jokingly, I can only assume) that some males in the audience rape her in retaliation.
I started this blog 4 years ago, got a few entries in, and then promptly shut the whole thing down when it got overrun with spam. I have now resurrected it, using a new version of YAWT written in python which, for lack of a better name, I shall call YAWT 2.0.
In the past, I've commented on France's ban of the niqab, noting in passing that the distinction some people make between religion and culture (emphasizing, for example, that the niqab is a Middle Eastern cultural tradition rather than a specific Islamic law), is irrelevant to question of whether a woman has the right to wear whatever the hell she wants in public
I'm a bit late to the party on this one, but last year France started fining women who wear the niqab in public, in defiance of a recently passed law banning religious face coverings in public. From the article, other countries (Belgium, Italy, Denmark, Austria, the Netherlands and Switzerland) are planning similar legislation.
Debates about the relative merits of Toronto versus Montreal are rarely level headed. Each city has its champions and its detractors and, unfortunately, the loudest are often the least objective, having only ever lived in one city or the other, but not both.
I've lived in both, for extended periods of time, so I feel I'm in a better position than many to dispense some useful observations on Canada's two largest cities.