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I don’t think I’ve ever touched on politics in the blog, but since net neutrality and usage based billing are pretty big issues in the online community, I think it’s rather fitting.

If you’ve been watching the news in Canada, you’ve probably seen the recent outrage over UBB. At this point the CRTC has delayed implementation while they look at the issue again. Unfortunately, the quotes I’ve read from the head of the CRTC sounded like they came directly from Bell.

If you haven’t been watching the news, basically Bell asked the CRTC to pass something called “usage based billing”, and they did. Bell claims that it’s because a small percentage of users are using the majority of the data. What UBB does is set a low cap on users, and force them to pay DOLLARS per GB when they go over.

What Bell didn’t say of course was that the true goal of UBB is to make it insanely expensive to watch Netflix, YouTube, etc. That way, people won’t replace their Bell TV/Satellite with Netflix, an Apple TV, etc. Very few people have replaced Bell TV/ExpressVu so far, but the number’s growing as the internet continues to grow, and online video services get better and better. Bell’s concerned, because right now they don’t have any real competition in Canada, so they can charge whatever they want for their TV packages. As we move forward and more content becomes available on the internet, it’s probable that in 10 years, nobody will have Satellite/Cable TV and will instead plug their TV into their internet connection and watch TV through a price-competitive provider.

UBB stops that before it happens. If it’s too expensive to watch TV online, people won’t do it. Bell’s leveraging a monopoly in one market (internet access) to keep a monopoly in another (television). It’s anti-competitive.

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There’s a pile of other collateral damage caused by UBB. The tiny bit of ISP competition that Bell has is forced to adhere to UBB pricing (against their will), which means they can’t offer unlimited packages, which means they’ll lose that competitive edge and will be killed off. Digital distribution methods like Steam, Apple’s app store, and heck, even Windows updates are going to be problematic in Canada. You’ll never be able to use an online backup service for your pictures/videos unless you pay through the nose for the data transfer, so if a fire takes down your home and you didn’t burn your family pics/vids to a DVD and store it offsite… well say goodbye to years of memories. Those are just a few starter examples.

Really, the largest-growing medium in the world is the internet, and this makes sure it stagnates in Canada.

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Anyway, that’s my take on it.

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For Mr. Angus’s take (the NDP’s digital affairs critic), watch the video below. Yes, the sound quality’s rather poor, but Charlie Angus (NDP) really has a grasp of the issues. I found him to be quite likable too. A good quality to have as a politician, no doubt.

Ironically, he admits he’s not a “techie”, but for a non-techie, the guy really *gets* it.

I don’t know about you, but I want this guy representing us in our next government.

If you’ve tried to get the Civ 5 achievement that requires you to start 5 Golden Ages as Darius (Persian), you may have found that it bugged out. You start dozens of Golden Ages, but don’t get the credit. This is particularly annoying if you played Persia specifically to get it.

Looking around, quite a few people have encountered the bug (Civilization V seems to have suffered quite a few in the achievement system). Since it should be one of the easiest nation-based achievement to get, and only 2.2% of people have it, well… it seems it’s hit quite a few people.

There’s a common belief  that manually triggering golden ages causes the bug. Incidentally, that’s the one that seems to make the most sense.

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In any case, what worked for me was as follows:

• Start a game as Darius. If you’ve been “robbed” by the bug before, you may as well play on the easiest difficulty (Settler).
• When you receive a “Great Person” (Great Artist, Great General, Great Scientist, Great Engineer), DO NOT use them to trigger a golden age.
• DO NOT take policies that directly affect golden ages. Don’t take Rationalism (it instantly triggers a 5-turn golden age). Don’t take Piety (policy to reduce happiness needed to start a golden age, trigger for 5-turn golden age).
• DO NOT build the Taj Mahal (instant golden age) or other World Wonders you believe might interfere.

It’s possible that only 1 of these is the culprit, but unless you enjoy trial-and-error (or enjoy playing as Darius/Persia), don’t take anything that triggers a golden age. To be on the safe side, I also avoided wonders/policies that reduce the happiness needed to trigger a golden age as well.

Basically, make sure golden ages happen on their own, as organically as possible. If you place an emphasis keeping your empire really happy and avoid the potential bug triggers, it’s pretty easy to obtain.

I recently took a look at some Air Purifiers for use in a room that’s moderately smoked in.

I’ll be clear. I’m not allergic to anything I know of except mosquito bites. If you’re reading this because you have allergies, it’s not going to help you. If you’re breathing smokey air, it might.

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A couple problems with air purifiers, and how I was looking to avoid them in the purchase:

• Noise levels. Most air purifiers have low/medium/high settings. Manufacturers explain these very poorly, so I’ll explain them better for you.Low usually means that the sound level might be bearable. Some people might be able to sleep through it, but many won’t. Medium is for people who have already lost a portion of their hearing. High is the speed necessary to meet the CADR levels on the box, but is loud enough that it’ll bother you even if you’re in another room. There are exceptions, but they’re few and far between.To alleviate this problem, I planned to use the Low setting on whatever purifier I chose. This meant that although the room in question would probably suit a CADR of 40 or so, I looked for models that were rated considerably higher.
• Replacement filter costs. I wanted to eliminate them completely. This meant either going with a washable filter, or a lifetime filter. This avoids the problem where you spend more on the filters long-term than the unit itself actually cost, as well as the pain of finding filters for a model once it becomes a few years old.

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The first purchase was a “Honeywell Tower Air Purifier”. If I find the manual I lost, I’ll update this with a model number.

However, it looks like the picture you see on the right.

Since I stole the image from Canadian Tire’s website, it’s only fair to provide a link:

Honeywell Tower Air Purifier
Product Number: 43-5008-2

It currently costs $149.99. When on sale recently, it was about $100.

It has a washable filter, but it’s not a TRUE HEPA filter. It looks to be an ionizer-style. The filters are pretty easy to clean. If you look at the little indented “handle” at the top of the picture, it’s basically a matter of pushing a button and pulling that handle up. The entire assembly slides out, containing the pre-filter and 2 main filters.

The pre-filter is just a screen. It’ll stop larger objects from getting inside – tiny bugs, cat hair, and anything else large-ish that might otherwise manage to get sucked in. A quick rinse with water is all this thing needs if it starts getting plugged up.

The 2 main filters push out of the assembly (a top and bottom filter). Again, these appear to be ionizer plates made primarily of a solid material. It’s done in a grid formation – tiny hollow squares that collect particles which have been electrically charged as they pass through.

I can certainly vouch for the ionizer filter working well. After 12 days, I gave the filters a cleaning in the sink, and the sink was full of brown dirty water – the brown stuff being all the smoke and other junk in the air that the plates had collected.

Air was noticably freshened while the unit was running. It removed smoke from the air (and much of the smell) really well. It made a huge difference.

It was continue reading…

I picked up Civ 5 on the day of release. I haven’t been much of a Civ player since the original game, but some of the previews looked good so I thought it might be worth a look. Now that I’ve finally beat the game on every difficulty level, it’s time to put my experiences into words.

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Overview

Here’s the short of it.

The game uses Steam. Buying a retail copy saves you from having to download the entire game and gives you a nice large physical chart, but you’re still using Steam to play it. A couple plusses are that it follows your Steam account, and also opens up the ability for achievements through Steam. Downside is that if you’re not a fan of Steam as a method of DRM, you won’t be pleased.

Movement is now hexagonal. It feels more versatile, and was probably necessary due to the combat change listed next.

Combat has drastically changed. Units (with few exceptions) no longer stack, which means no more pain-trains of units. In many ways, this makes for a more tactical style of play, and is something I really enjoy. You now have to consider continue reading…

I recently did some benchmarks which can be found here and here.

After a lengthy period rendering a scene, I’ve made a few observations:

Mac vs Windows with Maya 2011

I can’t really give any comparisons when it comes to speed (they seem to be roughly equal), but Apple’s Mac OS is really impressive in the way it lets you multi task while a render’s going at full tilt. I’ll put it this way: If you’re on a Mac, you can still use it while the render’s going – I wouldn’t try playing a game by any means, but web browsing, sifting through images, and even encoding are all possible. If you’re using a Windows machine, it’s effectively unusable while rendering – even trying to open an image can take a few seconds (even on a 6-core machine), and forget about having a responsive interface any time all cores are maxed.

Essentially what I’m saying is that if you’re looking to buy a daily-use machine that will also spend gads of time rendering, you’ll want a Mac. On the other hand, if you’re buying a machine that will render and do nothing else, either will be fine (although you’ll probably get the most for your money running a Windows machine with an AMD processor). Note that RAM is pretty important and I’d go with a minimum of 8GB.

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Cross-OS usage of scene files (Windows and Mac)

If you utilize the proper process for project folders (setting the folder) and make sure you reference any images/etc using a relative path, you should have minimal issues.

However, if you leave the project as the default one and reference imag continue reading…