4 sec | f/5.6 | 55mm
When I was younger and got hurt, my mom would apply tiger balm to everything that ached. If I fell and scraped my knee, tiger balm. If I got a headache, tiger balm. If I cut myself in any way, tiger balm. Growing up, I thought this thing was a miracle worker.
The HST bill was recently passed to combine the two taxes for Ontario. And no, I do not mean Hubble Space Telescope but the Harmonized Sales Tax bill. This means that everything will cost more because it will combine the GST and PST and apply the 13% tax on almost everything. The things that were exempted from the provincial sales tax will now be taxed under this bill. The government says that raising taxes will help create over half a million jobs within the next decade because it will save business millions if not billions of dollars. If it saves business money, who’s to say that they’ll pass on that savings to the consumer?
The way this helps business is that they don’t have to pay taxes on things that they purchase. In the process of making a product, each step is taxed. The company that harvests the raw materials sells that material to the next company but taxes them in the process. The company that uses the material to create the product sells the products to the retailers which is also taxed. And finally the retailers sells the product to the consumers which gets taxed again. What the HST does, I think is eliminate all the taxes that the businesses are charging each other when there’s an exchange of materials and supplies.
So if these savings are not passed on to the consumer, of course we’re all going to be outraged. Companies are in business of making profit so I don’ think they’ll be nice enough to give us a discount. Lately, I’ve been seeing prices go up not down. For example, the price of gas will now go up because there will be an additional tax on it. Services like barber shops where you didn’t see taxes before will now be taxed. But from what I hear, there may be some things that might be exempted. Coffee might be one of those things but I can’t confirm that.
Although it looks pretty bad on the consumer side, personally, it might have some advantages. Along with the introduction of the HST there is a tax cut for personal income. Individuals could see a tax cut as high as 10%.
Nobody likes to pay more than they have to but hopefully the tax cut will help balance things out. This legislation won’t go into effect until July 2010 so we won’t have to worry about it for the first half of the year. Whatever the outcome is, I’m going to have see if I can offset a few things financially.
1/250 sec | f4 / 26mm
This is William’s Coffee Pub, a new hangout for me when I go out for coffee. It’s located at the harbour front by the Marine Discovery Center. The area is very quiet and looks almost deserted because all of the yacht has been put away.
This is my ‘95 Mazda Millenia. As you can see, it’s slowly starting to fall apart. I’m hoping to get my new one on the road soon. My dad has been working on it for a while. He changed out the supercharger but it turns out that the exhaust might be faulty as well. So I’m saving up for a new engine.
The kitchen sink has been broken for a while. I’m not sure how it happened but it appears that it rusted to the point where it just broken. From the looks of things, fixing it didn’t appear to be a hard job. From what I could tell, it was just a matter of removing the old strainer and installing a new one. Of course, it helps if you have the right tools.
I recommended to my roommate that she use the sink as little as possible but if she needed to use the sink, I recommended not letting the dish pile up. If you use a little bit of water, it’ll be fine because the new pipes that I temporarily installed would catch most of the water. But if she lets the dish pile up to the point where she’ll be running the water for a longer time, it’s going to leak. But of course, she lets the dish pile up.
Once I cleared the sink of all the pots and pans, I got to work. First, I tried to remove the old strainer by remove the nut. Unfortunately, the nut didn’t want to unscrew itself. As I was turning the wrench, I kept slipping and nothing was moving. I got so fed up with the wrench not working that I eventually tried to pry the strainer off. I got this smart idea to use a flat head screw driver to pry the old on off. I managed to get part way through until I decided to give the wrench another go. This time, I properly adjusted and secure the wrench to the nut. It turned it counter clockwise and finally it budged.
Here’s what the old pieces looked like. You can see where it broke off. I don’t know how long ago this part was installed but if it rusted that much, it must have been installed when the house was built. It’s a trend in this house where metallic things crack.
A few weeks back I purchased the strainer and the pipe from Lowe’s but unfortunately, I didn’t have the tools to install those pieces. I was going to use an adjustable open ended wrench but it wasn’t wide enough which is why I had to go out and buy one. I had to go out and buy an adjustable slip-nut wrench from Canadian Tire which cost me about $15. There’s a good chance that I’ll probably use it a couple more times but for now, it’ll serve its purpose.
The new pieces that I bought do not require the use of the adjustable wrench to install. Everything could be tightened by hand, it was that simple. So if these pieces ever break, I can remove them without any tools.
Once everything was installed, it was a matter of testing it out and making sure that there were no leaks. So if you don’t see any leaks then everything is honky dory.
My girlfriend and I have been talking about vacation spots for the last couple of weeks. I haven’t really given it much thought because my main purpose of going to Hong Kong was to see her. Where I go after that wasn’t that big a deal. But now that I think about it, there are a few places that I would like to visit so I think I’ll take a few minutes (or hours) and get a list of places that I would like to visit. This way, it’ll save us time when it comes to thinking about where we can go. The list started out at fifty but that was a bit too much so I was able to condense it down to twenty five. So in no particular order, here are the twenty five places that pop into my head.
A coworker told me that Italy is probably one of the most expensive countries to visit. Even though they use the Euro as their currency, you could probably get something in Germany cheaper than you can get it in Italy. But I’m not too worried about the cost of the trip. I want to visit Italy for the sites, culture and the food!
I was close to the Grand Canyon but I didn’t quite plan out the trip properly otherwise I could have stop by the Grand Canyon while I visited Las Vegas.
The following were on my list initially but I had to take them out because I’ve already been there. I started this list long before I visited those places but I never got a chance to finish the list until now.
I have a roommate who is behind on a lot of things and doesn’t make enough to afford the cost of basic living. I’ve done the math for her and worked out how much she’s able to make from her job at Walmart and I don’t think she can afford to be living under the same roof as me. I try to help out when I can but because she’s behind on rent and utilities it is causing me to be behind on my monthly bills. I think she should seek help before things get worse but I can’t tolerate this any longer.
It’s human nature to do what it takes to survive. A lot of people these days are not in that mindset. I think that kids these days are not aware of the kind of life style that their parents or grandparents had to go through. Life in 2009 is not the same life back in the pre-90’s era. Life was hard for my parents but look at where they are now. We were lucky to leave a third world country and find a better life in Canada. My parent didn’t have anything when we first arrived. If my memory serves me right, all I recall them taking from Cambodia were pots and pans. Once we arrived in Canada, I recall both of my parents working. Since then and now, my dad continued to work while my mom stayed home. He’s currently not working full time but he is finding odd jobs here and there to make ends meet. I wish that I could help out more with their bills so that my dad doesn’t have to work so hard but right now I can’t afford to help.
My roommate isn’t paying her share of the bills so I have to cover her part but I can’t do that anymore. I have my own bills and my own life to worry about. I can’t take care of someone else, especially not someone who doesn’t deserve my help. I’ve tried to help her out by giving her tips on her financial problems. I’ve even given her some slack on the rent but right now, she’s jeopardizing me and causing me to be behind on some things.
As it stands, she cannot afford to live in this house because she can’t afford the rent and the utilities. I’ve told her that if she’s having a problem with rent money, to let me know so I can prepare for it. She’s been here since April and not once has she told me that she’s short on rent. She has missed a few payments and now owes me at least a month’s rent and it’s getting close to being two month’s rent. I’ve told her that rent is due when she gets paid but for some reason, I have to constantly ask her for rent money.
If she’s able to afford the cost of rent for the month, she can’t afford to pay utilities. We split the gas and hydro bills in half but I don’t think that should be the case. I’m hardly ever home so I don’t use much of the electricity. When I’m at home, the only thing that I’m using is the computer. I hardly turn on any of the lights when I was living by myself because I didn’t need any other light source. The light emitting from my LCD was all that I needed. On the other hand, she likes to turn on all of the lights. I came home today to find the porch light, the foyer light, the living room light, the kitchen light and the light in her bedroom on. I’ve told her before that all of these lights do not need to be on at the same time. I don’t think it’s fair that I’m paying for half of something when I don’t even use half of it. It’s almost getting to the point where I’m going to tell her to pay for whatever she uses which is probably about 75% of it.
Sometimes, being the nice guy has its disadvantages and right now it seems like I’m being taken advantage of. I don’t think any other tenant has it as good as my roommate because most landlords would probably flip if their tenants were behind on rent for more than a month. Pretty soon, I’m going to have to play the bad guy to make sure that things are straightened out because all of these late bill payments are stressing me out. I’ve tried helping her out by giving her the phone numbers of provincial financial support programs but she’s not budging. I can’t help her if she’s not willing to accept the help. If she doesn’t smarten up, she’s got to go and there’s nothing that I can do that’s going to help her any more.
1/500sec | f3.5 | 18mm
This is JD’s new ride. Soon, it’ll be pimped out and made into a Nerdmobile.
I am currently taking an IT ethics and law class Saturday afternoons at McMaster. It’s one of the courses that I need in order to get my Bachelor of Technology degree. From my first impression of the first day, it sounds like it’s going to be an interesting class. The profession did a good job at getting everyone in the class involved in a discussion. It got me started thing when we started a little discussion on what’s right and wrong. It turns out something that might be considered wrong can be right depending on how you look at it.
There’s something that I’ve been thinking about lately which revolves around ethics. It’s the act of connecting to an open wireless signal. There are two sides to this debate. One side will say that you’re stealing while the other side will say that you’re just borrowing. The two acts sounds like they’re on total opposite sides of the spectrum but once you get the debate started that line can become very thin. The difference between right and wrong comes down to the ideology of the individual.
I would like to argue the idea that accessing an unsecured wireless signal is not theft but gaining access to a secured signal is theft. For the sake of argument, let’s assume that the signal is wide open. Would you still consider that theft? I don’t think it’s theft.
The signal is wide open for anyone and everyone to use. There are no signs or warning that says “Private signal! Stay away!” It’s an unsecured signal and it’s there for the taking. The signal is being broadcast for everyone to see. If the owner did not want anyone else to connect to the access point, they should have made an attempt to secure the signal.
For example, when you’re driving around in your car, you tune into a radio station. That FM signal is being broadcast from some location and a specific frequency. Anyone who knows that frequency can tune in and listen to everything that is being said over the air. You’re not stealing that signal are you? No, I don’t think so. The hardware is only as generous as the person who configures it. If they did not configure to enable secure then it’s pretty much an open door policy.
If the wireless signal is unsecured, you’re technically asking for it to be used. A computer connecting to a wireless access point is not going to know that it’s against the law to connect to an access point which doesn’t belong to the owner of the computer. The computer simply searches for a nearby access point, requests access and connect. If the wireless route grants access to the computer, you’re in.
Wireless routers have been around long for people to know the importance of securing their signal. Buying a router, plugging it in and browsing the internet without taking further steps to secure the signal pretty much says, “Come on in and make yourself at home.”
I think in the end, ethically it’s wrong and therefore yes, it is considered stealing but at the same time, the access point is there and it’s just sitting there waiting for a connection. Again, like I’ve said before, it’s a fine line between the two and any justification can lead you to any side argument. It comes down to what you as a person think about the matter. Personally, I don’t think it’s stealing if the access point is broadcasting and unsecured. If I found $20 on the sidewalk, I am not going to waste my time trying to track down the owner to ask if they wanted it back.
What say you?
