Wikipedia "blackout"

So Wikipedia decided that today it would make itself (the English part anyway) sort of unavailable for 24 hours, to protest some piracy bill that the US govt is considering. Well, it's hardly a blackout when it's so easy to bypass. Just press Escape!!

(It's also still available on mobile devices, and also on your computer if you disable Javascript, so it really, really isn't a blackout.)

Allow me to clarify.

Going to the Wikipedia home page still works no problem, so you can still use the search box. Or perhaps you're following a link from another website or from a Google search result.

Well, the Wikipedia page you want does actually load, but it then proceeds to forward to their blackout page shortly afterwards. All you have to do is stop the loading process before it starts forwarding to the annoying blackout page. So, as soon as you run the Wikipedia search (or load a Wikipedia page from an outside web page like Google search), just click the stop button in your browser. Easier yet, press the Escape button. If you're too slow and see the blackout page anyway, hit F5 to refresh and try again.

Maybe some Internet connections are so insanely fast that there's no time to cancel the forwarding once your desired content is loaded, but it works well for me.

Thanks, Wikipedia, for not truly blacking out. I'd be rather lost without thee.

2012 already

Hmm, a new year already. And not a blog post in months! Looking at 2011, I see I posted more than in either of the previous two years. Of course, slightly better than dismal is still pretty dismal... also, about a third of 2011 posts covered one single holiday! For shame...

Perhaps I'll do better this year. And perhaps not.

In just under a month, Carrie is off to Costa Rica for work. And in just over a month, I'll follow her there for a little sunshine break. (Not that there's never sunshine in Ottawa, but I rarely end up outside to actually enjoy it.)

We've conned talked another couple into coming as well, so we'll have a boatload of fun (and hopefully something to write home about).

Time to dust off those old español lessons!

My Tassimo coffee maker

A couple of years ago Carrie bought me a wonderful birthday gift: a Tassimo single-cup coffee maker. It allows me to drink coffee in the morning without having to look up online how to use the very complicated regular drip coffee machine wasting space on our counter. (When the quantity "cup" is mentioned, it may refer to the official baking measure, or to the amount of water to feed the machine, or to the post-brew amount of coffee produced. Ridiculous; I didn't take home ec. in high school, so pardon me for just not getting it.) Besides, I need only one coffee all day, and that's hardly worth firing up the big brewer for.

The invention (or purchase, rather) of a hassle-free one-click machine is definitely an improvement. You buy pods with barcodes on them so the machine knows exactly how much water to add to create your beverage. (Note to self: remember to use a mug large enough to hold the size of coffee about to be produced.)

Anyway, this was all great when I first had the machine. There were a number of coffee (or tea or hot chocolate if that's your cup of, um, tea) flavours. My favourite happens to be café crema, with a package of 14 pods costing $5 at that time. That $0.36 a cup, quite an affordable habit at about 6 coffees a week.

Well, I'm not aware of any coffee pod crisis happening in the world, but lately prices have gotten ridiculous. Average price now for a package is $7.50; that's a 50% increase in three years!! Of course some retailers are nowhere near that mark: Sears will let you buy in bulk at a rate of $9 per package... that's just sad.

So I figured there must be a place to still get them cheap. After some searching I found them on sale at Future Shop (online only) for $7/pkg, but if you buy 3 the 4th is free. That puts the price at a very reasonable $5.25. Combine that with free shipping and no tax, and I've got 12 packages coming in the mail for under $63. At one coffee a day, that will last me half a year! Take that, Mr. Horton.

As I know some of my readers have a Tassimo, I thought I should share. The tip, not the coffee!

111111

Happy 11/11/11 11:11:11!!!

When's the next time such an event will occur? In 2022 I guess.

Oh, and happy Remembrance Day (almost forgot the 11AM moment of reflection, except in Ottawa one might be reminded by the sound of aircraft or gunfire.)

By the way, this is the only time I will tolerate the writing of the date as depicted above. Today it doesn't matter which unit is the day or month or year. What really bugs me is when people write 09/10/11 or even 09-10-2011. If you think you know which number represents the month, you're probably wrong. When will people start using proper standards already? Hello ISO 8601.

I deal with a lot of computer files, and the date is often included in a filename. For the files to end up in correct alphanumeric order, the year should come first, then the month, then the day. Is that really so unnatural an order? I don't go around saying that 03:12 means 3 minutes after 12. Likewise dates should be shown with the broader units first. Oh, and use 4-digit years already; the 90s are over (but try telling my wardrobe that).

One day the world will conform... I just know it.

End rant. Happy 2011-11-11.