Search Engine with Minister Peter Van Loan

This is one of those extremely important things you should hear.

Minister Peter Van Loan telling us we have no reason to expect any online privacy.

mp3

Canada Day Week!

Looks like it'll be a good one!

Graphically Grammatical Gumboot

That might not make sense, but captain John "no blower" Horn plugged my favorite blog into Wordle. What came out is a great thing:

Studying what you Loath

This one goes out to everyone hating on their studies, especially those in distance courses with no imposed structure other than a big nasty deadline at the end.

I'm the kind of guy who needs structure to my studies or I veer off-course pretty darn quickly. It doesn't help that I don't impose structure on my choice of studies – I pretty much just choose things I'm either:

A. Interested in (broadcasting)

or

B. Not any good at (geology)

This tactic has landed me certificates and diplomas in tangentially-related fields, but without a career-focus I have yet to complete a degree despite having racked up 6 years of full-time post-secondary and 3 more part-time while I work.

Cost of studying would be a concern, but now that I work in the educational sector my employer foots the bill as long as I don't abuse the system too much.

In any case, I love me some learning, so I tend to sign up for at least one part-time course per term.

This term I thought I'd go for a B choice, something I should know but don't - financial management. And heck, why not start with the intro course and take the second level all at once.

Big mistake, I hate it.

More than that, I loath it. I'd rather eat broken glass than work with T-accounts and journal entries. I'd rather volunteer at a be-punched-in-the-face centre than adjust a trial balance. Don't even get me started on closing entries and the accounting cycle or I'll puke all over this keyboard. I hate it with wasp-stings to the eyeballs kind of hate, that jerk that just cut me off while I rush to the checkout kind of hate, that parent yelling at their cute-as-hell baby kind of hate.

You get the picture.

The result of all this hate is that I've put off the assignments to the point where I'm freaking out a little about how the hell I'm going to complete them in time to schedule my exam before the deadline.

The moral of the story? As far as I can figure is that if you're about to invest a significant amount of time and energy into something it should damn well be something you don't hate.

And, trust the nice lady in Student Information and Enrolment Services when she says you're overdoing it.

And and, lyryx sucks unless managed well. Transposing a textbook into an awkward online format isn't “enabling e-learning” it's a waste of time.

The most important thing you'll read today

Be cool. Enjoy some insight instead of suffering through old-media's premature postmortem.

Cyrus Farivar's recommended reading - Iranian Election Aftermath.

Walking in Burnaby

The weather has been great and I've been working on not working during my spare time. I guess that would be actually keeping my spare time spare.

What it's really meant is I've been able to really squeeze the most out of spring with a bunch of walks with my wonderful wife.

My favourite place for a wander in Burnaby right now is Burnaby Lake. It's a great place, and a perfect time of year, to become lost in wonder and to just be, and be cool with nature.

This gosling, he’s just being, and he’s cool with nature.

Be like the gosling.

Take some time to enjoy the beauty of the world. The real world, not all that stuff we do to justify or escape our lives. Be aware. Properly aware.