Virgin Mobile here in Canada is (i'm guessing) the same idea; they use other carriers' towers, you buy the phone at Wal-Mart.
And seriously (not to be a shill) but their pre-paid service is vastly cheaper than any of the competition where I live (Saskatchewan). I thought the prices were pretty comparable, then I realized the other providers add service and 911 fees on top of the prices they advertise, and charge that much again for call display or voicemail. I pay $20 a month plus $0.10 a minute with unlimited texting, call display and voicemail; it doesn't get much better considering how little I talk. Not sure about their data plans though. I just can't see why people get 3-year phone plans... crazy.

And for web devs, the Web Developer Toolbar and Firebug people. Those guys are total heroes.

Mod parent up! The gizmodo article is fantastic.

My older brother is the design head for the University of Saskatchewan team, the front-runners of the past competitions. Suffice to say they're really excited about it, since this competition has been delayed month by month since about a year ago! It'll be neat to see everything actually all come together.

You can watch a sweet (if cheesy) video about the team on their website.

I'm surprised there isn't more talk of Jamendo on Slashdot. That site is awesome. Ridiculous amounts of Creative Commons-licensed music.

Any ideas that I have are, to a considerable (possibly entire) extent, inspired or formed by the ideas that I've been exposed to prior to coming up with "my own" ideas. Really, when you think about it, can any creator take 100% credit for whatever it is they produce? Take philosophy for example, when someone writes up a book with some new philosophical theory, it's guaranteed that the ideas of philosophers going back centuries contributed to the new work.

Maybe the best example is chord progressions and jazz music. A whole pile of great jazz tunes were based on the chord progressions of songs by old timers like Gershwin - jazz artists would take the exact same chords, write new melodies, and improvise great tunes out of them. Imagine though, if copyright law had included chord progressions - jazz music as an art form would likely not exist. And really, why shouldn't chord progressions be copyrighted too? After all, Gershwin came up with some great ones. But the loss to society and culture would have been severe (although nobody would have noticed at the time). And at the same time, Gershwin when he wrote those chords would have been inspired by the musicians of his time that he listened to. So jazz musicians ripped off Gershwin (and other tin pan alley composers), and these guys ripped off previous composers, and society benefited enormously from all of that.

That's something that's all the more apparent today, since something created in one part of the world can be immediately visible worldwide, and won't be forgotten for years. For culture to grow and thrive, you need to be able to rip off, build on, and be inspired by the artists, creators, and inventors that came before you or are your contemporaries. That doesn't happen nowadays.

Well, maybe paid a little for putting together previous creators' ideas in a new combination. But in exchange, you have to let other people do the same with yours.


Also, a bizarre but fascinating exploration of perpetual copyright and the future, by Spider Robinson: http://www.spiderrobinson.com/melancholyelephants.html

Mod parent up! :) To me, this has always been one of the coolest (and most unique) things about Star Trek. It's cheesy I know, but the conception of a (relatively) peaceful, hopeful future where the heroes were more so explorers and ambassadors and less so warriors - that's really cool. Especially keeping in mind that this was made in the thick of the cold war, where a lot of people thought there might not be any humans left in two decades. That whole concept has kind of been lost in more recent Star Trek ("Enterprise", mostly) and maybe SF in general, which partly makes sense since it doesn't make for really exciting television, that's for sure.

But still. The thought of an optimistic, bright future universe is really something. Props to Gene Roddenberry for being ahead of the curve on that one.

No F-16s for us here in Canada, just CF-18s. Unless they're American, and visiting here on joint exercises.

Holy cow - thanks for writing this! That's really something. I hope the other post (about you being on the wrong site) was being fascetious - consider me among the Slashdotters genuinely interested in what you're saying here. Keep it coming.

Actually, the company that makes it (MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates' space division) was very almostly sold to a US defense contractor last spring. Which would kind of have sucked for Canada's space industry, since that company is basically ...our only one.

So really - back off, get your own robot space arms! : ) Cool, thanks, eh?

A bit of canadian history - in the late 50s, Canada had developed the world's most advanced jet interceptor (the Avro Arrow). When it was cancelled in 1958, almost every single scientist and engineer working on it moved to the States to work on the US space program. The Canadian aeronautical industry never recovered (but at least we can take credit for all the cool stuff NASA did in the 60s!). People really worry that if MDA Space ever gets sold off, the same thing will happen again.
http://www.cbc.ca/money/story/2008/04/10/mdablock.html

Best wishes to your wife. And kudos beyond words to you for putting in that kind of time and care and love.
All the best to you both.