Like the USA did in 2007, Canada is investigating the real estate listing service and filing to make changes to allow more access to consumers and more choice in types of real estate services. When the changes were made south of the border, the real estate market really opened up for new entrants and costs became much lower for people listing their homes. Hopefully we will get similar changes and choices.
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In the latest issue of LCBO’s magazine, they highlighted a number of wines that have received a rating of 90 or above. Half of the selections are under $25: Argentina
Australia
California Chile
South Africa
France
Germany Italy
Spain
The TTC quietly released the beta version of it’s trip planner a few days ago. I’ve tried it and it seems to be pretty accurate. Give it a shot if you’re taking the TTC somewhere and need to find out a route. Engadget did something very interesting today. They turned off comments on their blog. This reverses a trend that’s been happening for the last few years. What started in the blogsphere and forums has been rolled out to almost every major news outlet in North America. All the Canadian national newspapers and TV stations allow “comments” on their stories from users. Most of the sites have been redesigned to get these comments a lot of screen real estate. I find the comments utterly useless. The anonymity afforded by these systems bring out the worst in people. Most of the major outlets have to strictly moderate the comments, and it’s extremely rare that any comment at all is worth reading. While I’m glad Engadget turned off commenting, they’re still committed to it and are going to turn it back on after the cooling off period. I’m hoping that the comments sections of the major outlets get less prominance and they’re reliance of them to increase traffic to decrease. Have a spiffy Solid State Drive (SSD) in your computer. Take these steps to optimize it’s performance – and it all starts with Windows 7. This TweakTown guide offers 8 pages of advice on how to squeeze the most performance of these drives. Unfortunately, early adoptors probably have SSD’s that do not support the TRIM command that will prevent drive performance from degrading over time. The collective internet wisdom is so far unimpressed with the iPad. It strikes me as a cool toy but not a very visionary device and nothing that many of Apple’s competitors couldn’t copy and improve on. Asus, Acer, HP, Dell – All of them had existing tablet plans which they are slow playing while they waited for the iPad announcement. Expect a slew of tablet announcements in the coming weeks. I except these tablets to have many features missing from the iPad: accepting external storage (USB or SD), pen/stylus input, “open” operating systems and lower price points. Expect them to come in many sizes from 5″ to 12″. Microsoft and Google – The OS divisions of both companies may be able to capitalize on some Apple’s missteps. With Windows 7 capable of running on a Atom processor and Android far more advanced than it’s horrible 1.x versions, they may finally be in a place to come up with an iPad alternative. Microsoft is going to have to rely on Windows 7 not Windows Mobile. Jailbreakers and Unlockers – As I type this a legion of hackers are working on the iPad SDK looking to be the first to hack it. No wonder geohot is letting others do the PS3 hacking. MCN just posted a video of the BMW S1000RR compared to the Japanese litrebike competition.
(this post is also titled, why I must justify purchasing this knife) Butchering your own meat from a primal cut is not new. In fact it’s done in small towns with local butchers for quite some time. Toronto chef Ryan Donovan has started having demostrations of how to do it and this hopefully starts a trend. Already you can buy whole loins of beef from Costco to make your own steaks, this just allows even more freedom. Squeemish? All meat has to come from animals…
The Internet is allowing home cooks to share their recipes, techniques and their love of food. I’ve been following Maangchi for quite some time. Her simple and authentic Korean recipes are great and the videos provide lots of great instructions. Maangchi, authored by ex-Torontoian Emily Kim, got an article written about her in the Globe and Mail, and now her popularity has exploded, with even interviews about her back in Korea. My pork bone soup in the picture is based on a recipe on Maangchi. I haven’t posted music to my blog in over a year. I love this track: |
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