Picture, if you will, a minigame in a unreleased Penn & Teller video game. In this game, you are driving a bus from Tuscon, Arizona to Las Vegas, Nevada at 45 mph ... in realtime. It takes eight hours to complete a full run, for a single point. You can't pause the game, and you can't just hold down a button, because the bus veers to the right, forcing you to occasionally make a correction.…

Some big news in the Canadian tech industry this week was the advent of the Amazon Kindle in Canada. I've mentioned my mad love for the Kindle previously as well as my discomfort with Amazon's approach to tethered appliances. So, now that the Kindle is finally available here, will I be getting one?

The short answer is no, not right now. Technologically, I think the Kindle is an amazing device that uses some…

My copy of Windows 7 Home Premium arrived on Friday. On Sunday night, I began doing some housekeeping on my computer to prepare for the upgrade: I uninstalled programs I was no longer using, cleaned up unnecessary files, defragmented, etc. To finish it all off, I decided to finally delete that 10 GB recovery partition Dell put on my computer when I bought it. I've never used it and probably will never need it, so…

Tonight Stargate Universe premiered, and I wanted to share my thoughts on it. However, I feel guilty blogging about a television show when I haven't blogged about arguably more important matters, such as life.

With a month behind me, I feel good about the school year so far. I only have four courses this year: Introductory Analysis, Partial Differential Equations (PDEs), Introduction to Mathematical Probability, and Speculative Fiction. Three math courses and an English course.…

The war drums are sounding once again, and another election looms. The Liberals, led by the accomplished but detached Michael Ignatieff, are channelling Twisted Sister and are calling Prime Minister Harper out. But Harper says that Canadians don't want an election.

So what?

I don't want to take yucky-tasting medicine, but I do it anyway so I get better. I don't want to pay more than $1 per litre of gas, but I do…

More Reasons to Love the Guild

I've already preached my love for The Guild, a webseries by talented comedians and actors, including Felicia Day. Well, even as they work on a third season, they've released a fantastic music video:

Who Said Math Can't Be Fun?

Well you were wrong, whoever you were. Mathematicians from Carleton University and the University of Ottawa modelled different responses to a zombie apocalypse and concluded that the best…

Major spoilers ahead.

Torchwood Day Two was even better than Day One, and so far Day Three has topped both of those combined. Davies successfully manages to raise the stakes in each successive episode, which can only mean a massive climax on Friday night. I can't wait!

Day Two was definitely Gwen and Ianto's moment to shine. Jack blew up at the end of Day One, so with him (temporarily) out of the picture, Gwen…

As much as I am in love with the technological achievement that is the Amazon Kindle, I have to chastise Amazon and the producers of other eBook readers for what I see as a step backward.

You may have heard last week about Amazon deleting books off Kindles. This is worrisome because--as Jonathan Zittrain explains--it emphasizes how much you don't own what you "buy" from Amazon or any other company that digs its claws…

Monday signalled the beginning of a week of mass mayhem, Scotland versus England humour, and alien threats to the security of our planet. Yes, I'm talking about the American and Canadian premiere of season 3 of Torchwood, aka Torchwood: Children of the Earth. If you've been living under a rock for the past year, this is a five-part miniseries format change to accompany Torchwood's move to BBC One.

For those of you…

Two weeks ago to this day, I broke my favourite mug. I was heartbroken.

I don't like calling myself a materialist, but we all place sentimental value on certain items when they become important to us. Up until two years or so ago, I rotated among three or four different mugs for my tea--yes, mugs. "Cups" are for prats and amateurs. Hardcore tea-drinkers drink tea by the mug, and the really hardcore tea enthusiasts…