Home again

After spending a week in the hospital for treatment of yet another hiccup in an already-difficult health care regime, my father came home yesterday. Like so many grown children of my generation, I strive to remain involved despite the fact that I live far away. We call daily, and we struggle to divine the meaning of the words he and my mother choose to share with us. But there's only so much that can be shared over a cable.

It's not easy being sick. Nor is it easy being an immediate family member of someone who is.

As we look forward to all the promise that a new year holds, I hope we take the time to appreciate the meaning of the phrase, "As long as you have your health." We take it for granted when we have it, then curse its loss after the fact. That's human nature, I guess.

If only we appreciated it while we had it. Then perhaps we'd try harder to hold onto it for just a little bit longer. And we'd prepare better for the inevitable day when the phone rings and everything changes. I wish I were better at this. Maybe in 2006 I'll learn the secret.

Welcome home, Dad. Be well.

Narnia rap

Saturday Night Live long ago ceased to be a beacon of our pop culture direction. I risk widespread disdain by saying it is no longer the factory of tomorrow's major comedic talent, nor is it the same favored Saturday night entertainment destination that it once was.

When I was a kid, however, it was an event to stay up late to watch it. If we were lucky enough to make it all the way through, we often ended up rolling across the floor, doubled over in pain from laughing so much. Many of the characters and sketches became personal cultural icons and happy memories of a time when great comedy was still a valued form of art.

These days, SNL is more like a 90-minute exercise in waiting for something funny to happen in between the 6-minute commercial breaks. In an age where Jon Stewart has pushed the envelope of funny intelligence on television, SNL seems a bit quaint and lacking in comparison.

Still, it is capable of hitting one out of the park on occasion. To wit, this recently-aired rap tune that parodies the Chronicles of Narnia. Here's the link. Crank the volume, and enjoy.

Your turn: What other old SNL - or related sketch comedy - favorites lurk in the dark corners of your personal cultural dustbin? How might we find them?

Kids' candy - leaded or unleaded?

News just in from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) that it will be tightening the amount of lead allowed in children's candy.

[Carmi pauses to shake his head and bemusedly mutter a three-word obscenity starting with "what the..." There, I'm over it. I'll continue.]

I simply want to know who allowed lead in kids' candy in the first place? What other noxious stuff is going into their - and our - food?

Please let me know if I'm the only one who finds this somewhat - OK, extremely - disturbing.

Giving lawyers a bad name

I'll apologize in advance if you're a lawyer.

The Boston Globe last week ran a piece entitled, BlackBerry: A high-tech ball and chain for lawyers. A partner in a law firm sent an e-mail insisting that lawyers should keep their BlackBerry devices on all the time - evenings, weekends, and even vacations.

Nice guy. Makes me want to work there. OK, I'm kidding. Sounds like someone who truly contributes to the advancement of humankind. Or maybe he's just a tool.

Your turn: Have you ever worked somewhere where leadership made unreasonable demands on employees? How did you respond?

A rare image

When I need to know that all is right with the world, I find myself looking at images like this. These little folks who look strangely like me are a constant reminder that my wife and I are two incredibly lucky people.

The only gift I could ever ask for is right here.

Your turn: What are you thankful for?

The physics of Santa Claus - Redux

Just before Christmas last year, I posted a scientific analysis of the rotund red-suited guy - The Physics of Santa Claus - to Written Inc. In the interest of a new annual tradition, I invite you to click the link and re-read what has rapidly become a seasonal classic.

Your turn: Got any other holiday funnies to share? Either post 'em in a comment or drop me a link.

(And if you're celebrating this holiday, I'd like to wish you the merriest Christmas imaginable. No, I didn't wish anyone a generic happy holiday or season's greeting. I said, "Merry Christmas." I meant it, PC-zealots be damned.)

Internet killed radio's star

It’s no secret that I like to listen to music while I write. It helps me focus on the task at hand, and it keeps folks from interfering with my work. I know it sounds anti-social, but it’s the only way to keep my output up. The alternative is to stay at home and work by myself all day. But that can be somewhat career limiting over the longer term.

So when the MP3s and CDs I brought from home started to pale after the zillionth listen, I began looking for new sources of music.

Pandora seems like a funky solution to an ages-old problem. Log in, give it an artist or song, and it builds and plays a playlist that should match your listening taste. You can create as many different streams – called “Stations” – as you wish. It’s part of something that Pandora calls the Music Genome Project, and it allows listeners to listen to music the way it was meant to be heard: without amped-up ads for discount mattress warehouses and car dealerships.

There’s a paid, ad-free version. But I’m cheap, so I registered for the no-cost, ad-supported one. Listening to the same song over and over is somewhat problematic – they want you to sample, then buy, after all. No worries: the sound is excellent, and I’m being introduced to artists I never knew existed. Definitely ranks high on the cool meter for folks who hate what commercial radio has become and are looking for an alternative.

Drawbacks: I shudder to think what this would do to a mobile device, and I feel sorry for network admins who might soon find themselves managing rogue audio streams. But such is life on the road toward multimedia nirvana.

Your turn - a 2-parter

• Feel free to share any thoughts on cool tools you’ve come across that make work easier, or easier to take.
• Do you think Internet radio, satellite radio and all its brothers (sisters?) will kill commercial radio as we know it? How can conventional terrestrial, commercial radio (regular AM and FM stations) compete?

Quoted - UPI

More media coolness: United Press International has incorporated my perspective from this week's press release into a write-through entitled Wireless World: Premature predictions?

The tagline on the writer is pretty interesting:
Gene J. Koprowski is a Lilly Endowment Award winner for his columns for United Press International, for whom he covers networking and telecommunications. E-mail: hitech@upi.com

Cool!

Which begs the question: Why am I enjoying this so much?

This explains Rudolph's red nose

If you hang around long enough, you eventually see it all:

Drunken Santas go on NZ rampage

In retrospect, I always had my doubts about the jolly red guy when I walked past him in his little village in the middle of the mall. Now my lifelong suspicions have been confirmed.

Your turn: Do drunken Santas threaten the future of the Santahood?

I'm on TV

My surreal life continues. The interview that aired on Report on Business Television last night is now available online. If you've ever wanted to see me on television - or at all, since I realize I'm a bit of a disembodied writer to most folks - now's your chance.

The interview page is here: http://www.robtv.com/articles/rob.tv/2. The show was broadcast Wednesday, December 21, 2005. Just click on the Play link below the graf to auto-load the media player. My interview runs from about 10 minutes into the 60-minute package, and lasts a touch over 5 minutes.

Your turn: If you're familiar with Research In Motion, I'd be interested to hear your perspectives on this case. If you're not, feel free to share your thoughts anyway.

Quoted - BlackBerry refuses to die

I've waded back into the Great BlackBerry War of 2005 with a press release on the U.S. Patent Office's latest decision to reject the remaining patent claims by NTP.

I know that this is a terribly dry topic for most folks. But it means that BlackBerry devices are somewhat further from the brink of shutdown than they were at this time last week.

The press release is entitled U.S. Patent Office Ruling Frees Wireless Sector, Signals End of Frivolous Lawsuits. I'm somewhat opinionated this time out: I guess I'm tired of patent trolls hijacking the IT agenda.

Frightening update: I'm scheduled to be interviewed live on television by Report on Business Television (ROBTV) this evening at 7:10 p.m. Eastern. The hit will be rerun tonight at 11 p.m. (ish). I'll post a link to the streamable file once it's on their website. OMG.

Another frightening update (9:20 p.m.): The interview went really well. I don't think I embarrassed myself too badly. It was quite the experience, and I look forward to doing it again soon. The interview will be available for streaming from the ROBTV web site at this address: http://www.robtv.com/articles/rob.tv/2. It's not up now, but it should be available by tomorrow. More soon...

Your turn: Do I deserve a BlackBerry for Chanukah? How about a Treo 650? Bueller?

The agony of the feet

This is what happens when you coop kids up in booster seats for too long.

(Draped over Noah's shoulder is his beloved blanket. It goes everywhere with him, and brings him comfort when the world spins a little too quickly for a five-year-old. Looking at this picture makes me wish I had a blanket, too.)

Party...carefully

Now that we’re right in the middle of office party season, I’m sure we’ve all had ample opportunity to witness the consistent ability of colleagues to leave their sensibilities at the door before they proceed to embarrass themselves and threaten their future careers. To wit:

• Young man has been employed as a low-level employee for a whole week. He loads up on wine early in the evening, then introduces himself to his new colleagues by draping his arm around their shoulders and lecturing them – with slurred speech and brewery breath – on why he loves being a part of the team.
• Young lady (oops, now I sound like my father, but I digress) shows up alone, plastered into a dress that wouldn’t be out of place on a Vegas street corner. Spends her time eyeballing co-workers who took the time to come with dates. Said dates don’t look too pleased.
• Longtime employee takes off his tie, wraps it around his head Bruce Willis style, and proceeds to show us all why he’s such an excellent dancer. Maybe when he’s sober. But right about now, he looks like an idiot.
• Ex-employee shows up either hammered or stoned – sorry, I’m no expert in these matters. Gives the “I love you” speech to some, and the “you b---h, you got me fired” diatribe to others. Is eventually ordered off the premises, and thankfully hasn’t shown up in those crime summaries in the newspaper.

I like to use the CLM acronym to describe these. It stands for Career Limiting Move, and it amazes me how, year after year, people continue to make the same laughable – or maybe not so laughable – mistakes. It would be easy to say it’s because of excessive alcohol consumption, but someone’s gotta make the boneheaded decision to head down that road in the first place. Stupid is as stupid does.

The Boston Globe ran a great piece on this over the weekend. Entitled, Caution: Employees celebrating, it may save some grief for those who still understand that even office parties have rules that should never be broken.

Your turn: What's your worst office party story?

More testing needed

On my way home from Boston a couple of months ago, I came across a departure screen that didn't look quite right. I had to laugh when I realized that JetBlue's systems integrators missed this one.

I hope their coding for the airplanes themselves is a little more evolved.

Faces in the stone

Some pictures are mere snapshots that are taken quickly, viewed quickly, then added to the growing visual anthology of my photographic life.

Others are decidedly different in that they kind of evolve over time. It's not that the photographs themselves actually change. Rather, they might be inherently complex or initially cryptic in their composition, and as such do not fully reveal themselves on first viewing.

So I set them aside and come back to them periodically in the hope that time will give me a somewhat different perspective on the original result.

Most of the time it just gives me an excuse to look at older work and enjoy it again. Sometimes, I see things that I totally missed soon after I first took the shot.

I captured this image three months ago. Initially, I wanted a picture of bricks. I took a bunch, and they didn't do anything for me. But now that I look at this particular composition, I swear I'm seeing faces in the crumbling facade. There's something about the surfaces to the immediate right of the big crack, toward the top of the middle brick. I can't quite put my finger on it...

Your turn: Can you see anything in this picture? (Click on the photo to load the high-resolution version.)

Publish Day - Ink Blog - yet another drunk driver

The leadup to the Christmas/New Year/[insert policitically correct holiday reference here] season seems to raise the profile of impaired driving-related stories. I sense that we see more of them, and the ones that we do see are more likely to be printed closer to the front page or run toward the top of the newscast.

This one's no different. The story of Charly Hart's latest conviction was a doozie. This guy's been drinking and driving for longer than many of us have been alive. And despite dozens of convictions and at least one death, he continues to get behind the wheel. Amazing - and frightening.

His latest sentence - six years in prison - is believed to be Canada's stiffest penalty to-date for a drinking and driving offence that did not result in injury or death. Either way, my gut tells me to watch myself in six years (or actually, less than three the way things work in this country, but I'm digressing) because people like this don't seem to ever learn.

Sadly, the law-abiding citizens among us are the ones most likely to pay the price for these idiots' inability to take responsibility for their own behavior. No one ever said life had to be fair, after all.

Your turn - a 2-parter:

• How can society ensure repeat-offenders like this one are never allowed to threaten others again? What's the answer?
• Do you have your own experience with impaired driving (either side of the coin)? How has this issue touched your life or the lives of those you know?

Drunk drivers threaten us all
Published Saturday, December 17, 2005
The London Free Press

Advocates against drinking and driving got some good news this week when Watford’s Charly Hart was sentenced to a six-year jail term for impaired driving.

The bad news is Hart’s been drinking and driving for 35 years, he’s already been convicted in connection with one fatal accident, and he’s been convicted nearly 60 times, including 39 verdicts for drunk driving and related offences.

Call me naive, but a justice system that allows this degree of blatant, serial lawlessness to continue doesn't make me feel remotely safe.

How many other Charly Harts are out there? How many times will they be turned loose to threaten the lives of the rest of us who have already gotten the message about drinking and driving? How obscene must the list of offences become before society hits its breaking point and decides to fundamentally change the way these people are dealt with?

It’s something I wonder about every time I buckle my kids into the car. It’s something I wish Mr. Hart would think about as he finally receives the punishment he so richly deserves.

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Publish Day - Ink Blog - officer down

It's hard to say anything unique when a young police officer is gunned down on the job. It happens with such alarming regularity that we're almost numb to it by now.

The city where I grew up, Laval, Quebec, has never experienced it. Until this week. Even though it wasn't a technically local story, I felt it had universal impact, that no matter where we live, we all rely on police forces that we largely take for granted. Until something like this happens, of course.

Wherever you may live, I hope that after reading this you'll thank an officer as well. It's easy to see that these folks truly are heroes.

Your turn: I hope you'll share a positive experience you've had with an officer. I'm sure we've all benefitted from their help at one point or another.

Constable's death a tragedy for us all
Published Friday, December 16, 2005
The London Free Press

Laval Police Const. Valérie Gignac was 25 years-old when a single shot from a high-powered rifle ended her life on Wednesday.

Gignac was the eighth Canadian officer to be killed in the line of duty this year, and only the second female officer to be shot in Canadian history.

Statistics do little to mask the tragedy or set things right. She was pursuing a career of helping others. Helping someone in need cost her her life.

I grew up in Laval. My parents moved there because it was a place where things like this didn’t happen. But they do, and no place is immune.

Think of what it must take to risk your life every time you head out to work. Police officers, even in seemingly genteel London, Ont., are willing to sacrifice it all so that the rest of us can lead our routine lives.

If you see an officer today, take a moment to thank him or her for taking that risk on our behalf each and every day.

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Publish Day - Ink Blog - Fire!

Today's column is all about priorities. Or the fact that sometimes it seems as if government doesn't know how to set them.

London's north end has grown so fast in recent years that fire protection services have not kept pace. Response times up here - yup, I'm a northerner, too - are well below provincial averages, and firefighters have been raising the alarm for years.

The city has studied the issue for as long as we've lived here, but shows no signs of actually moving ahead with building a new fire hall.

Sure, it's a seemingly trivial local issue. But it ceases to be trivial when the safety of your family is at stake. I thought lighting a little fire of my own might help matters along.

Fire hall delays put people at risk
Published Thursday, December 15, 2005
The London Free Press

Our city is playing with fire.

While London’s north end experiences tremendous growth, the city has failed to provide adequate emergency services to the area. Consequently, wait times there are dangerously elevated.

It’s old news that the area needs a new fire hall. While we all appreciate the city’s diligence in pursuing the lowest-cost solution – namely, a temporary house-style facility on Trossacks Avenue – numerous delays are raising the temperature for residents who must live with the additional risk.

Ideally, critical emergency services should anticipate urban growth – not lag far behind. It’s time to take the money budgeted for a full-sized fire hall on Fanshawe Park Road and just build it.

The province has announced that as of March 1st, 2006, all homes must have at least one working smoke alarm on each floor.

If you live in north London, you might want to go smoke-alarm shopping a little early, since you’ll need all the additional protection you can get.

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Quoted - Microsoft resignation

I keep popping up in all sorts of fun places. I was interviewed for a piece in IT World Canada about the sudden resignation of Microsoft Canada's President and the appointment of his successor. The article, entitled New chief, new prospects for Microsoft Canada, was published today.

Here's what I said:

Over the past year, Microsoft has been "making a lot of noise" about putting more resources into partner programs, said Carmi Levy, senior research analyst Info-Tech Research Group in London, Ont. With his track record, the new Canadian chief would be effective in enforcing that.

[Snip]

Levy said Sorgen's initiative in establishing the Microsoft Certified Solution Provider Partner Program at Microsoft's South Central District makes him the ideal candidate to lead the software company in further building relationships with Canadian partners.

"This is a very strong sign for the company that they are going to continue in this direction and they really do value who they do business with as they drive products into the market," the analyst said.

[Snip]

Simplifying its licensing structure is also another area where Sorgen should focus on as he takes over the reigns at Microsoft Canada in Mississauga, Ont., said Levy, adding that many companies are still struggling to stay on top of their licensing situations.

He said Microsoft's Software Assurance (SA) – a software maintenance program – is a great step in that direction, but the software company needs to "continue that significantly because licensing still remains an area of confusion for many companies."

"Microsoft has started (improving its licensing structure) over the last year, but there is huge opportunity to educate its client base on proper licensing, simplifying how its offerings are structured and on keeping that educational volume up so the level of confusion continues to come down," said Levy.

[Snip]

Another area that Sorgen could focus on in 2006 is establishing the company's position as a services-based company. This remains to be the biggest threat to the future of the software company, said Levy.

He said Microsoft has merely played catch-up while its "more agile" competitors have already established leadership in Web services applications, developments and deployments in recent years. "Microsoft needs to move very quickly here to establish its own position in the market."

The Info-Tech analyst acknowledged, however, that the company has started to recognize this threat and have made some strategic movements toward responding to it.

He cited Microsoft's recent announcement on its new Web services offerings, such as Windows Live and Office Live, speak well of that realization.

He cautioned, though, "in 2006 and beyond, Microsoft needs to cohesively deliver on this strategy," and how Canada plays in that strategy will soon be in the hands of its incoming president.

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Publish Day - Ink Blog - Carmi swears

I have always had little patience for people who pre-judge me even when they've never met me. They'll make assumptions about my behaviors and motivations based strictly on my ethnicity. They are rightly classified as racists, and they're very good at manipulating the system to support their destructive activities, at using a democratic society's freedoms to protect themselves.

But I've got a pen, and even though I fear raising the anger and attention of some of these people, my greater fear is if I don't write about people like this, I worry we'll all forget how insidious their influence can become. After all. termites don't go away from underneath the floorboards if we ignore them. So for today's column, I thought I'd lift up the floorboards and leave no questions about where I stand.

I even used profanity - "bastard" - a first in my writing career.

Your turn: Where do you stand? What do you do when confronted with such out-and-out hatred of others? Do you hold back out of fear of reprisals?

Free speech a lame defence for hatred
Published Wednesday, December 14, 2005
The London Free Press

Imagine if your neighbor took issue with the colour of your skin. If he published hate-filled material on the Internet and routinely encouraged anyone who would listen that you and your kind should be extinguished from the planet.

What should you do? Ignore him because he’s a crackpot? Invite him in for tea? Call the police? Is there even a right answer?

As a human-rights tribunal in Toronto finishes hearing the case of Londoner Tomasz Winnicki, the rest of lawful society is challenged to decide how to deal with those who toss hate-filled grenades before retreating behind the tired defence of free speech.

By Winnicki’s definition, I’m a Jew bastard who shouldn’t be allowed to live.

By my definition, Mr. Winnicki’s views serve no viable purpose in an otherwise civilized society. Canada should have no tolerance for intolerance of any kind.

People such as Winnicki are entitled to their pathetically held beliefs. Those they attack are equally entitled to bully them back into the dark hole from which they came.

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