<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<rss version="2.0"
	xmlns:content="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/content/"
	xmlns:wfw="http://wellformedweb.org/CommentAPI/"
	xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/"
	xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom"
	xmlns:sy="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/syndication/"
	xmlns:slash="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/slash/"
	>

<channel>
	<title>bales.ca &#187; Coming Apocalypse</title>
	<atom:link href="http://www.bales.ca/category/coming-apocalypse/feed/" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml" />
	<link>http://www.bales.ca</link>
	<description>Cameron's family website</description>
	<lastBuildDate>Sat, 13 Jun 2009 14:30:58 +0000</lastBuildDate>
	<language>en</language>
	<sy:updatePeriod>hourly</sy:updatePeriod>
	<sy:updateFrequency>1</sy:updateFrequency>
	<generator>http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.1</generator>
		<item>
		<title>Why are Cordless phones so bad? &#8211; especially Phillips</title>
		<link>http://www.bales.ca/2008/02/26/nasty-phillips/</link>
		<comments>http://www.bales.ca/2008/02/26/nasty-phillips/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 27 Feb 2008 03:40:54 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>cameron</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Coming Apocalypse]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Technology]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[phone]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[review]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.bales.ca/2008/02/26/nasty-phillips/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Maybe it&#8217;s a test &#8211; how bad can cordless phones be and people will still buy them? We had some Cordless phones &#8211; they were Panasonic &#8211; They drove Sandra a bit crazy, but they were quite good. Then there are these: When we moved we needed Cordless phones with 3 handsets &#8211; we now [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Maybe it&#8217;s a test &#8211; how bad can cordless phones be and people will still buy them?  We had some Cordless phones &#8211; they were Panasonic &#8211; They drove Sandra a bit crazy, but they were quite good.</p>
<p>Then there are these:</p>
<p style="text-align: center"><a href="http://www.bales.ca/wp-content/uploads/2008/02/cd4453b_37_webimage370_ban.jpg" title="Not so good Phillips Phones"><img src="http://www.bales.ca/wp-content/uploads/2008/02/cd4453b_37_webimage370_ban.jpg" alt="Not so good Phillips Phones" border="0" height="275" hspace="5" vspace="5" width="370" /></a><a href="http://www.bales.ca/wp-content/uploads/2008/02/cd4453b_37_webimage370_ban1.jpg" title="Not so good Phillips Phones"> </a></p>
<p>When we moved we needed Cordless phones with 3 handsets &#8211; we now have 3 floors, and I wanted <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DECT">Dect</a> phones so all the Wifi in the neighborhood wouldn&#8217;t interfere with our phones.  We found a great sale on some Phillips phones (the poetically named <a href="http://www.consumer.philips.com/consumer/en/ca/consumer/cc/_productid_CD4453B_37_CA_CONSUMER/Cordless-phone-answer-machine+CD4453B-37&amp;compare=true" title="Phillips DECT answering machine/chordless phone">CD4453B/37</a>). These phones are SUPPOSED to have a long battery life &#8211; 150 hours of standby and 12 hours of talk &#8211; Sadly not even close &#8211; I followed the instructions on charging the batteries fully and letting them drain fully the first few times, I try not to leave them on the charger if they don&#8217;t need charging&#8230;  Sadly they need charging every second day, and if you put them on Speaker phone they will often die with no warning &#8211;Even if they still have 2/3 bars showing on the charge indicator- they you have to go around the house looking for a phone that still has some charge.  I may try buying different rechargable batteries to replace the ones that came with them &#8211; but maybe that&#8217;s throwing good money after bad.</p>
<p>Why would anyone want different Cordless phones to have different memories on them?  You need to program each phone seperately, teach each one how to get messages from the invisible answering machine, teach each one a good phonebook &#8211; yes you CAN copy phonebooks from phone to phone, but to do that you need to have all of them in one place, and hit some keys on each on &#8211; yes I really want the phonebook to come to the other phone.  The memory belongs in the base so you don&#8217;t have any of this insanity.</p>
<p>The UI on these things is crazy too.  Most anything you want to do requires lots of keypresses &#8211; and now I&#8217;ve lost the reciept and I&#8217;m stuck with them.  Of course it could be worse &#8211; I could have gotten the next model up which looks and feels more like a relay baton than a phone.</p>
<p>Lesson: Don&#8217;t expect much from Cordless phones, don&#8217;t trust brand names, keep receipts.</p>
<p>Recommendation: buy something else if you can.</p>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://www.bales.ca/2008/02/26/nasty-phillips/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>5</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>That looks fun, but I&#8217;ve seen it now.</title>
		<link>http://www.bales.ca/2006/09/25/that-looks-fun-but-ive-seen-it-now/</link>
		<comments>http://www.bales.ca/2006/09/25/that-looks-fun-but-ive-seen-it-now/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 26 Sep 2006 01:12:14 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>cameron</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Coming Apocalypse]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[movies]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.bales.ca/2006/09/25/that-looks-fun-but-ive-seen-it-now/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Just watched a trailer for Eragon. I&#8217;ve been seeing Eragon at bookstores and thinking it would be cool to read, then I saw that it was a movie and thought that would be neat too. Sadly the trailer takes a 2 hour movie and distills it into 2 minutes. Where is the mystery and need [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Just watched a trailer for <a href="http://www.apple.com/trailers/fox/eragon/">Eragon</a>.  I&#8217;ve been seeing <a href="http://www.alagaesia.com/">Eragon</a> at bookstores and thinking it would be cool to read, then I saw that it was a movie and thought that would be neat too.  Sadly the trailer takes a 2 hour movie and distills it into 2 minutes.  Where is the mystery and need to see the full length movie there? Oh well, it has John Malkovich, so it may be worth it.</p>
<p>The best trailer ever was for &#8220;Dirty Rotten Scoundrels.&#8221;  Nothing to do with the content of the movie, everything to do with the spirit of the movie.</p>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://www.bales.ca/2006/09/25/that-looks-fun-but-ive-seen-it-now/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>3</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Cuts &#8211; Video player that lets you share EDLs</title>
		<link>http://www.bales.ca/2006/09/25/cuts/</link>
		<comments>http://www.bales.ca/2006/09/25/cuts/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 26 Sep 2006 00:17:18 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>cameron</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Coming Apocalypse]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Technology]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.bales.ca/2006/09/25/cuts/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[I just found Cuts today. It&#8217;s vapour at the moment as far as I can tell, but the promise is to be able to mix and mash video up by sharing cut lists (EDLs &#8211; Edit Decision Lists). This way you need the original video, and the cut file to see it the way I [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>I just found <a title="Watch your movies in a new way - your own." href="http://www.cuts.com/">Cuts</a> today.  It&#8217;s vapour at the moment as far as I can tell, but the promise is to be able to mix and mash video up by sharing cut lists (EDLs &#8211; Edit Decision Lists).  This way you need the original video, and the cut file to see it the way I intend it.  This is low bandwidth, and possibly high creativity. It is a bit like a post I used to have on my site about a &#8220;Fantasy DVD player.&#8221;  I&#8217;ll have to dig that post up if they seem to want to patent this.  I hope it is cool.</p>
<p>More:<br />
Today in the <a href="http://imdb.com/">IMDb</a> I read that this was possibly a &#8220;<a href="http://imdb.com/news/sb/2006-09-26/#4">legal way to censor movies</a>.&#8221; Boring. Part of the message of YouTube is that MashUps are interesting to lots of people.  Making video mashups easy and low-bandwidth is super interesting.  Splicing in the &#8220;deleted&#8221; or &#8220;alternate&#8221; scenes from the extras on your DVD is interesting.</p>
<p><a href="http://home.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/index.jsp?ndmViewId=news_view&#038;newsId=20060925005764&#038;newsLang=en">Cuts Press Release</a> &#038; <a href="http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/fn/4211502.html">AP Article</a> -Sept 25, 2006.</p>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://www.bales.ca/2006/09/25/cuts/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>3</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Gymboree doesn&#8217;t want our money.</title>
		<link>http://www.bales.ca/2006/09/10/gymboree-doesnt-want-our-money/</link>
		<comments>http://www.bales.ca/2006/09/10/gymboree-doesnt-want-our-money/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sun, 10 Sep 2006 14:00:13 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>cameron</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Coming Apocalypse]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.bales.ca/2006/09/10/gymboree-doesnt-want-our-money/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Cassie&#8217;s Daycare/Junior Kindergarten is going to uniforms soon.  It seems odd to me that four year olds will be wearing uniforms.  We just found out this week, and it is supposed to start in a couple of weeks time. Yesterday we spend a bunch of time scouring stores for navy bottoms and white tops.  It [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Cassie&#8217;s Daycare/Junior Kindergarten is going to uniforms soon.  It seems odd to me that four year olds will be wearing uniforms.  We just found out this week, and it is supposed to start in a couple of weeks time.</p>
<p>Yesterday we spend a bunch of time scouring stores for navy bottoms and white tops.  It is an interesting challenge finding preschool sized uniform type clothes.  With reccomendation from the school we found lots of good stuff at Children&#8217;s place, a good amount of stuff I found at Giant Tiger, but early research sent us to Gymboree to find some stuff &#8211; nope &#8211; it&#8217;s all gone &#8211; try the website.</p>
<p>Sandra tried the <a href="http://www.gymboree.com/">Gymboree</a> website and found some great stuff, sadly she was able to get stuff into her shopping cart, but was not able to actually buy anything using Safari.  Sandra fought with it for about 20 minutes.  I suggested Firefox, which allowed her to get further, but again stopped her before checkout.  She fought with the site for another 10 minutes and eventually got it to take her money.</p>
<p>Searching for School uniform wear online takes you to lots of sites that want your school ID so they can sell you exactly the right stuff, but it is hard to find places to sell you navy bottoms and white tops.</p>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://www.bales.ca/2006/09/10/gymboree-doesnt-want-our-money/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Boot Camp.</title>
		<link>http://www.bales.ca/2006/09/04/boot-camp/</link>
		<comments>http://www.bales.ca/2006/09/04/boot-camp/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 04 Sep 2006 23:25:35 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>cameron</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Coming Apocalypse]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Mac]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Technology]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.bales.ca/2006/09/04/boot-camp/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[I&#8217;m using Boot Camp 1.1 at work &#8211; I&#8217;m supposed to use my MacBook in WinXP most of the time I&#8217;m in the office. I&#8217;m a Mac Expert, and I need to be able to support Mac OS 7 all the way to 10.4, on the Windows side we support XP. Since XP is where [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>I&#8217;m using <a title="Boot Camp at Apple" href="http://www.apple.com/macosx/bootcamp/">Boot Camp</a> 1.1 at work &#8211; I&#8217;m supposed to use my <a title="Apple MacBook" href="http://www.apple.com/macosx/bootcamp/">MacBook</a> in <a title="Microsoft Windows XP" href="http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/">WinXP</a> most of the time I&#8217;m in the office.  I&#8217;m a Mac Expert, and I need to be able to support Mac OS 7 all the way to 10.4, on the Windows side we support XP.  Since XP is where I&#8217;m weaker, I have to use it at work.</p>
<p>Thankfully, my boss is frugal and when he saw that our companies standard Windows Laptop would cost us about twice as much as the MacBook I got the choice was clear &#8211; Cameron gets a MacBook.  Admittedly the Windows Laptop would have had a bigger screen, a docking station, and an external monitor, but I&#8217;m very happy with the MacBook.</p>
<p>I&#8217;ve used Boot Camp 1.0.1, 1.0.2 and 1.1  like most people I couldn&#8217;t tell the difference between .01, and .02, but 1.1 was a lot better &#8211; in the MacBook I have an abbreviated keyboard &#8211; no windows delete key &#8211; just a Mac Delete/Windows ? key. That made hitting <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Control-Alt-Delete">control-alt-delete</a> (to log into the network) problemmatic.  Windows has an alternate keystroke for getting the task manager up (force quit) &#8211; Ctrl-Shift-Esc, but without a real extended keyboard I could not hit control-alt-delete to log in until Boot Camp 1.1.  It is now fn-ctrl-alt-delete.  Right now Boot camp just works &#8211; choose on boot what OS to use (hold down option key to pick &#8211; similar to multi-booting lots of Linux/Win machines)  and it happily is OS X, or Win XP.  At work I have an IT department to make sure the firewall, and Anti-virus software is working.</p>
<p>The problem I&#8217;m still having with Boot camp is that sometimes when I re-boot it comes up with the wrong time &#8211; usually off by 4 hours &#8211; I&#8217;m guessing it has something to do with OSX and XP storing the Time zone differently so the computer gets confused.  I haven&#8217;t cared enough to really detail when this problem happens.  On the windows side I have a boot script that double checks that the time is right if I&#8217;m at the office, In OSX &#8220;use network time&#8221; usually fixes me up.</p>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://www.bales.ca/2006/09/04/boot-camp/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>1</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Working out.</title>
		<link>http://www.bales.ca/2006/08/25/working-out/</link>
		<comments>http://www.bales.ca/2006/08/25/working-out/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sat, 26 Aug 2006 02:11:30 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>cameron</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Coming Apocalypse]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Ottawa]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.bales.ca/2006/08/25/working-out/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[You may never believe it. I&#8217;ve been going to the Gym almost every workday for more than a month. I&#8217;ve been taking Cassie to daycare for just after 7, and then I have about an hour for workout and shower before I have to head off to work. Weights 3 days a week, and cardio [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>You may never believe it.</p>
<p>I&#8217;ve been going to the <a title="St. Laurent Complex Community Centre." href="http://www.ottawa.ca/residents/parks_recreation/facilities/st_laurent/index_en.html">Gym</a> almost every workday for more than a month.   I&#8217;ve been taking <a title="Flickr photos of Cassie" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/cbales/tags/cassie/">Cassie</a> to <a title="St. Laurent Academy" href="http://www.st-laurentacademy.com/">daycare</a> for just after 7, and then I have about an hour for workout and shower before I have to head off to work.  Weights 3 days a week, and cardio 2.  I guess everything Mike and Mark taught me didn&#8217;t go to waste &#8211; I&#8217;ve remembered a fair bit of the proper technique.</p>
<p>Cardio kicks my ass.  I&#8217;m enjoying the recumbant bike, but I know I should be using the cross trainer.  I tried the cross trainer one day and had to give up after 5 minutes, then I tried to finish up on the bike, but had to quit after just 6 more minutes &#8211; ARGH.  I&#8217;ve tried the other way around &#8211; 20 mins on the bike and then I can do 7 on the X-trainer.</p>
<p>I complained a bit today at work that I didn&#8217;t seem to be getting anywhere &#8211; I&#8217;m staying at the same weight on the machines &#8211; althought cardio is a bit better.  My boss said that one of his trainers told him &#8211; &#8220;it took you quite a long time to get chubby&#8230;.&#8221;</p>
<p>Foolishly I didn&#8217;t do a lot of measurement baselines before I started so I&#8217;m a bit blurry about how I&#8217;m doing.  Current goals are all about getting to the gym consistently and I&#8217;m very happy so far.</p>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://www.bales.ca/2006/08/25/working-out/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>First Comment Spam</title>
		<link>http://www.bales.ca/2004/08/03/first_comment_spam/</link>
		<comments>http://www.bales.ca/2004/08/03/first_comment_spam/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 03 Aug 2004 21:12:19 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>cameron</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Coming Apocalypse]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false"></guid>
		<description><![CDATA[I got my first comment spam on the first, and was able to delete it on the second. It was, of course, to a porn site.]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>I got my first <a href="http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&#038;lr=&#038;ie=UTF-8&#038;safe=off&#038;q=blog+comment+spam&#038;btnG=Search">comment spam</a> on the first, and was able to delete it on the second.  It was, of course, to a porn site.</p>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://www.bales.ca/2004/08/03/first_comment_spam/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Ad pollution in Space</title>
		<link>http://www.bales.ca/2004/03/11/ad_pollution_in_space/</link>
		<comments>http://www.bales.ca/2004/03/11/ad_pollution_in_space/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 11 Mar 2004 11:59:00 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>cameron</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Coming Apocalypse]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false"></guid>
		<description><![CDATA[A Russian inventor has patented ads in Space. The general idea is to create artificial constellations of reflective satellites. It is unclear if the satellites will move the mirrors to change the message, or if the satellites placement relative to one another will be the way the message is changed. Getting satellites arranged, and staying [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>A Russian inventor has patented <a href="http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&#038;cid=562&#038;ncid=757&#038;e=10&#038;u=/ap/20040310/ap_on_hi_te/space_ads">ads</a> <a href="http://www.interfax.ru/e/B/0/28.html?id_issue=9678684">in</a> <a href="http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/03/11/1412230">Space</a>. The general idea is to create artificial constellations of reflective satellites. <!--break-->It is unclear if the satellites will move the mirrors to change the message, or if the satellites placement relative to one another will be the way the message is changed. Getting satellites arranged, and staying arranged will be a very interesting task since geosynchronous orbits only happen over the equator. Robert Heinlein Predicted years ago that someone would paint an iconic logo onto the moon &#8211; <a href="http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=100114&#038;cid=8531270">his idea</a> was to use rockets to spray carbon dust over the surface of the moon.</p>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://www.bales.ca/2004/03/11/ad_pollution_in_space/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
		</item>
	</channel>
</rss>
