Archive for 'General'
Plane on fire at the Toronto Airport
August 2nd, 2005. Published under General. No Comments.
About an hour ago a plane went off the runway at Toronto’s Pearson International airport. There isn’t a lot known about the situation right now, but it was an Air France flight landing and went off the end of the runway. It is currently on fire and there is no news on any injuries to the 200 estimated passengers.
I’ll update this post when I hear more news, but right now CBC and CNN are just showing live pictures of the plane burning and haven’t been able to give any more information aside from the quick bit that I just wrote here. CNN is getting the Airline and Plane type wrong though, but it is an Air France plane.
Phil
[Edit: There are reports of passengers being taken to the hospitals nearby and they have had one passenger on the phone call in. They are also saying that there is an indication that there were no casualities which is great news]
[Update: There were 43 injuries and no deaths, the CBC link should have the up to date story]
Grampy, we miss you already
July 6th, 2005. Published under General. 1 Comment.
On Monday July 4th 2005 my grandfather, Harold A. Renouf, passed away. I’m not really an eloquent writer so I will repost his obituary here, but he was very special to me and to my wife. He is one of the most amazing and inspiring people that I have ever known and I already miss him.
RENOUF, Harold Augustus, OC, LLD, FCA – died peacefully July 4, 2005, in Halifax.
A graduate of Dalhousie University with a degree in commerce, Harold was a leading member of Canada’s business community. He was a partner in the accounting firm HR Doane and Company from 1942, serving as chair of the firm from 1967-1975. In 1974-75, Harold was president of the Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants. During his years with HR Doane, he undertook a number of significant briefs, including the Nova Scotia Provincial Municipal Fact-finding Commission that reshaped and modernized the structure of the province’s towns and cities. He was sole commissioner for the Royal Commission on Gasoline and Diesel Oil Pricing in 1968 and was commissioner for the Royal Commission on the milk industry in 1967, which brought out in him an unexpectedly whimsical fondness for dairy cattle.
He left his accounting practice in 1975 to serve as the Atlantic region’s commissioner for the Anti-Inflation Board, moving with Dorothy to Ottawa full-time to become the Board’s chair from 1977 to 1979. From Ottawa, he and Dorothy moved to Montreal where he served as the newly formed Via Rail’s chair from 1982-85. In 1985, he retired and returned to Halifax, attending to his varied private business interests, serving on boards and splitting his time between Nova Scotia and his winter home in Sarasota, Fla.
Brilliant, with a logical and clear-headed approach to any task and an iron-clad sense of ethics, Harold became a valued advisor to many prominent businessmen and politicians from Frank Sobey to Pierre Trudeau. For his many acts of public service, he was made an officer of the Order of Canada, awarded the Commemorative medal for the 125th Anniversary of Confederation, named to the Accounting Hall of Fame at St. Mary’s University and awarded the Queen’s Medal as well as the Queen’s Golden Jubilee Medal.
Harold loved the challenge of his work but he loved his family still more. He was happiest puttering around his Pictou Landing cottage or his Sarasota home surrounded by family and friends. We, for our part, loved being around his quick wit and quiet strength. Harold’s was truly a life well-lived. He had a profound impact on many and all of us touched by him will miss him. In lieu of flowers, a donation may be made to the Nature Conservancy of Canada, Sandy Point campaign.
Another poker tournament…doing fairly well
May 3rd, 2005. Published under General. No Comments.
I signed up for a freeroll tournament at Party Poker tonight…unfortunately I got tied up finishing my taxes and forgot about the tournament until about an hour after it had started. I was still alive when I logged in, but was down to about 400 chips (I think they started with 2000). Fortunately my very first had was wicked and I almost doubled up, then I had a good string of hands and made a few good plays at stealing the blinds and got myself back into a healthy spot.
After a while I was going strong and had an above average stack, but never much more than above average. I think I made good plays this time, made some good calls, got all in when it made sense and stole some pots when I saw the opportunity. Not too many bad moves this time, but I think I have a far way to go before I am comfortable with my play. I am far to streaky a player right now.
The tournament had 2486 participants and I finished 62nd. No money, but a decent finish for that number of players I think, especially since I missed the first hour.
Oh, and I busted out with 2 pair (A9) and the guy drew a straight on the river. Guess I should have taken that straight draw more seriously, but he called a huge bet to get that hand so I think he made a bad call and got lucky. Or maybe I made a dumb move; I know I felt dumb afterwards ;)
Phil
Open source is like Hotrodding?
March 24th, 2005. Published under General. No Comments.
Larry Osterman has an interesting blog post today about how Open Source development is like Hotrod car tuning. I’m sure that will evoke a lot of Open Source advocates to leave some scathing remarks on his blog, but I think it is an interesting point of view. Ultimately the quality of the product (Open Source or Commercial of the Shelf) comes down to the talent and experience of the developers and project leads/managers and the depth of their knowledge about the product.
Phil
Is Microsoft a “they” company?
March 22nd, 2005. Published under General. No Comments.
Fred posted an entry today on his blog about how Apple has become a “they” company. I would certainly agree with that based on:
- how they are treating bloggers
- their insistence on using only iTunes
- their insitence that no one develop cools apps for the iPod
- some of the underhanded business they are trying to pull with licensing the “Made for iPod” badges.
But in that entry Fred also states:
Microsoft is the poster child for a “they” company.
I don’t think that is true. While it certainly was true at one point Microsoft seems to have made a very big shift in it’s views on community and has started trying to become a “we” company again. I am not trying to say that just just because there are 1500 bloggers at Microsoft they have become a “we” company, I think that the push to help people develop communities around Microsoft technologies is where that effort is shining. I know that I’ve been following along with the blogs of a couple of Microsoft Canada employees who do the Technet events and they are actively out there talkng with the ITPro communities around Canada and trying to do anything they can to help people out. Channel9 is also a great example of this and although all of this may not be prevalent across the whole company it certainly seems to be spreading around.
Also, having people like Betsy Aoki around is another great step in the right direction.
Phil
Note: Yes I do work at Microsoft now, but I am not posting this with any inside knowledge of anything. This is purely my opinion and was actually an opinion I had formed before joining Microsoft and was one of the reasons I was very excited at the opportunity to work here.