An increasingly liberal Canada (decriminalization of marijuana, legalized marriages of gay couples) right next to an increasingly conservative US (Senator seeking a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriages).

Real-time has begun again, I'm going to bed.

I wanted to update last night, but couldn't because Blogger was down.

Now, how about the RIAA?

According to them(pdf), their total number of units shipped went from a high of 1160.6 million in 1999 to 859.7 last year, a 26% decrease, and they say that downloading is a direct cause.

Now, having studied some statistics myself, it's been impressed upon me how easy it is to show correlation, and how difficult it is to show causality. The number above is a correlation, but without extensive research, saying that downloading is a cause is a blatant lie. It took statisticians 40 years to "prove" that smoking caused cancer.

Let's look at some other possible confounding variables:

Different numbers

Looking at some other figures, over the years 1999 - 2002, the actual dollar value only went down by 13.5%, so they were actually making MORE per item. Furthermore, of the 300 million drop in shipments from 1999 - 2002, 107.2 million (cassettes and cassette singles) were from a lack of cassette sales. I don't know about other people, but I don't think I've ever bought an audio cassette of my 13 years in Canada. It's really an obsolete technology, so is it really surprising that 1/3 of their losses are from drops in cassette sales? That's one thing they don't tell you on their press statements.

Economy

Now, the economy over the past couple of years have been horrible. The Dow Jones Industrial index went from a high of more than 11000 to around 9000 recently, a decline of 18%. There have been massive layoffs in many sectors, people have less disposable income, and entertainment is usually the first luxury to go.

Competition

There have been fierce competition from the movie industry for people's entertainment money. They have more advertising money (compare the amount of movie trailers to CD promos), they have more explosions, passion, sex, and even the DVD's come with more bang for the buck, with extra features and director's commentaries. Most CD's are still just plain CD's, although that has been slowly changing.

Let's read between the lines next time.

Our OS is almost done. It's almost time for the trains!

Many people have commented on how I always seem to go out and am never really in the lab, thus real-time cannot be that hard. Well, I spend on average 3-4 nights a week in the lab, usually working from anywhere between 7-9 pm to about 2-5 am in the morning. Then I sleep for 4-5 hours, and go to class. I have a feeling that it's going to get more intense soon with the actual trains, and I have a lot of other stuff on my plate too, what with a project to do in scheduling, a midterm next week, assignments, speeches ...

It's really cold in the lab. I might sleep here if the nights get too hot at home.

Fiasco

So we emailed our prof about groups in my Scheduling class for the final project. We thought that all was fine until yesterday, when he sends out an email with the formed groups, and we're not in the same group. Apparently, he doesn't check his own email account, only the course one.

Last night we went to Club Abstract. Too much dancing. Lauren was Drunk with a capital D. We had to send her home early. But then we ran out of money, so we leeched off Jen's friend for some free hot dogs, and walked home because we couldn't afford cabs.

Happy birthday to me.

Blah

So I went to the lab tonight intending to get some work done.

Instead I spent 3 hours changing my configuration scripts and screwing around with my window manager.

Well, there's always tomorrow.

Best quote I've read so far in Slaughterhouse-Five:

The speaker at the Lions Club meeting was a major in the Marines. He said that Americans had no choice but to keep fighting in Vietnam until they achieved victory or until the Communists realized that they could not force their way of life on weak countries ... He was in favor of increased bombings, of bombing North Vietnam back into the Stone Age, if it refused to see reason.

So it goes.

Way to go Drew.

Got my nifty new passport today. Do I look weird in my photo.

Now I have 5 years to fill out the 19 pages in the booklet.

And note to self: be sure to do some research here before I begin my roadtrip.

Kev or Lauren, go here.

Mystery

So I went to get a new passport today. The passport office in Kitchener is located at the Galleria.

While there, I rode in the elevator with a woman who had on a key lanyard that (inconspicuously) said "Playboy Networks". She got off at the 3rd floor, and I continued onto the 6th.

On my way back down, I got curious and stopped at the 3rd floor. All there was were two steel doors on both sides, with keycard entry, and signs saying you shouldn't put on perfume after this point, or something to that effect.

Once in the lobby, I proceeded to check the directory to see what's on the third floor. No mentions.

My theory: a secret porn lab for Playboy right in the middle of Kitchener downtown.

Oh, and while at the passport office, the clerk made me sign a statement to explain why I needed to get a new passport so soon (mine expires in Jan 04).

I also got a new rim/hub for my bike, and renewed my OHIP card. But I did manage to miss my grad photo appointment. The girl from Josten's was very condenscending and rude. I think I might boycott just out of spite.

Various

We lost bad at soccer today: 4-0. Although everyone played well, we just didn't have enough players. With two in Germany, one in California, Jonny going to Kingston, and Drew on some mystery date, we only had seven people on the pitch (including me as goaltender).

Some poeple just need to set their priorities straight.

Last night I confirmed Benny's story about crazy guy who slept in the real-time lab and thought that another person was sabotaging his code. I met the Jeff who did the supposed sabotaging, although he swears against it. I guess real-time turns people crazy.

I need to do a persuasive speech. I want to do it on copyright infringement, but am having a tough time specifying a proposal (i.e. after the speech, the audience should ...) and narrowing down the topic (I only have five minutes). I need ideas.

Someone is trying to build a cruise missile for $5 000.

I don't seem able to rlogin at school anymore. All I get is emptiness. But ssh apparently still works. Must be something in my .cshrc that's screwed up.

I'd use ssh all the time, but it's really slow, especially if I want to load up graphic apps (like Mozilla).

I don't think I accomplished anything this weekend.

Friday night - hung out with the boys. They were drunk, apparently they've been drinking since 4, I was at the lab. We played euchre for hours.

Saturday - went to the lab for a bit, wrote a random quote generator that hands out quotes from Terminator (our OS shell has a Terminator theme). Watched half of the game at home, and went to Phils. Afterwards we came back to my place, where Robin and I had an argument over symbolism, and Jenn just wanted to sleep.

Sunday - went on a bike ride at the hydro cuts with Matt again. It was very windy, and we got lost, and kept on going in circles. Eventually (after asking locals), we found our way out. Then we had a barbecue with mussels and steak. The mussels were good, and cheap ($2 a pound). Now I need to do some homework. With real-time, I tend to neglect all my other courses. Sometimes I forget that I have three other classes.