Jason's Notes About Stuff

Progressive versus Conservative .  Us versus them.  A battle waged in the media every day. But how many people actually know what these words mean ?  People certainly have strong stereotypes that come to mind. Here's some dictionary definitions to help out. Progressive: "Promoting or favoring progress toward better conditions or new policies, ideas, or methods." Liberal: "Favoring proposals for reform, open to new ideas for progress, and tolerant of the ideas and behavior of others; broad-minded." On the opposite end of the spectrum, we have: Conservative: "Favoring traditional views and values; tending to oppose change." Conservative: "Strongly favoring retention of the existing order." So basically, Progressive = Change , and Conservative = Don't Change . This is why the "Progressive Conservative" party name never made any sense.  Somebody just stuck two words with completely opposite meanings together. Meanwhil...

Did you know that nearly 100% of drivers involved in accidents don't think it was their fault? This is perhaps not shocking, but what might surprise you more is that nearly 100% of them are wrong! Most accidents are completely preventable , if you just follow advice from a good driver training program. The "T-bone" Primary Fault: "T-bone-ee" mis-judges distance of (or doesn't even notice) oncoming car and turns left in front of them Common Excuses: "They came out of nowhere!" Cars do not randomly appear from spatial vortexes.  It was barreling towards you the entire time. "They were speeding!" If you could tell they were speeding, you sure as hell should not have turned in front of them. Primary Prevention: Don't turn in front of cars unless you damn well know you're going to make it! (duh) Secondary Fault: "T-bone-er" ran head on into a car that turned right in front of them!  Never a good idea. Secondary Prevent...

As software moves into maturity, it becomes a delicate art to add features and fix bugs without screwing up stuff that already works. I've worked on three 10+ year-old, massively-sized projects (CorelDRAW, Microsoft Access, and ERDAS Imagine) and let me tell you -- the older the code base, the tougher it gets. In very mature projects, maintainability starts to become more important than optimization, and the prevention of introducing new bugs can trump fixing old ones.  You’ll even see libraries where they decide to keep old bugs in place , since consumers up the chain rely on the buggy behavior. If you’re a programmer, it's important that before you change any function that is used elsewhere in the system (a "core" function), you check each and every place it is called and understand the implications of your change.  If there's any doubt, you need to either step through, or ask someone else who is more familiar with that code. A safer alternative is to write a n...

I'm tired of hearing Canadians complain about our healthcare system.  You know what?  We do have to wait longer for some types of treatment -- but not usually anything life-threatening.  And you know what else?  That's life.  Resources are expensive, limited, and in Canada, they're allocated based on urgency of need. I had to go to a clinic here in the States for a minor issue that I've visited several Canadian clinics for in the past.  The experience was nearly identical!  They had the same advice, and the same treatment.  The setup was similar.  I swear even the posters on the wall were the same. However, there are a few major differences.  See if you can spot them. The Canadian Experience: Realize you have a problem Go to walk-in clinic Present your health card Wait (1-2 hours) Get treated Go home  The American Experience: Realize you have a problem Call insurance company Explain problem Get pre-approved and record claim number Go to walk-in cli...

People are getting busier and busier, and it is becoming somewhat of an art to actually get people to read and respond to emails. Here are some quick tips to make the experience better for both the sender and receiver: Make emails as short and concise as possible. Important: Write a concise, relevant subject line! Separate your short sentences into paragraphs with a space between them. If you are making multiple points, or asking multiple questions, put them in a numbered list .  Better yet -- write separate emails with different subject lines. Make sure it will fit on one screen of a typical email program. (a lot of people don’t like scrolling) Use bold and highlighting to draw attention to the really important parts. Edit your emails multiple times, and cut out unnecessary words and sentences. If your email requires a response, try summing up by asking one simple question at the very end of the email. People are great at writing long, rambling emails, but sel...

What are the facts? Total health care spending per person / year: USA: $ 6,717 USD (46% government = $3,089 ) Canada: $3,678 USD (70% government = $2,574 ) Fact: Americans pay almost twice as much per capita for health care even though 1/6 of their population lacks coverage . Fact: The US government already subsidizes health care, and already spends more per person than Canada. Fact: Of the 27 richest nations on the planet, the US is the only country without universal health coverage. Fact: 16% of the US population (45 million people and growing) have no health insurance at all and are basically screwed if they incur a critical injury or sickness they can't sue for. What's up for debate? The overall quality of health care in the two countries has been widely debated, but the overall consensus -- of all scientific studies based on measurable data and facts -- is that the quality is roughly comparable. I've written an article over at Google Knol exploring some of t...

I've recently been looking for an apartment to rent this summer, and have been amazed to find how useless the local newspapers have become! In the days of old, classified ads were the only place you'd ever look if you were renting an apartment. This also used to be a major revenue source for papers. I remember back when the Internet was all shiny and new. Smart people said that newspapers would either have to embrace it or be made obsolete. Well, it took over a decade, but it looks like the matter has been decided. Some papers have been able to transition to the online world, but a lot haven't. Their classifieds business has been taken over by sites like Craigslist and Kijiji. There are probably blogs out there getting better advertising revenue than the average local newspaper. (I have no stats to back that up, but I'd still bet on it) Newspapers will probably be around for as long as the Baby Boomers are, but I can't see Gen-X and younger having much need for ...