Foiling the Snoops

Those little terrors, Liam, Jane and Heather were here on the weekend. "Can we go up to your room?" they asked upon arrival. I knew they didn't want to play the sousaphone, watch TV, use the internet, build things with Lego, borrow some books or do any of the other diverting things one can do in my monster bedroom. They wanted to snoop around.

To the untrained adult eye, they seem like sweet, innocent children. Fortunately I know them to be the nefarious busybodies they are. They will find anything in your house that you want to hide. They found almost all the chocolate that had been carefully hidden throughout my house. So far I have only managed to find two chocolates following their rampage.

They will also find things you didn't know you should hide. You can try to distract them by leaving puppets out for them to play with, but long-time readers will recall that on their visit last summer, they were all abuzz that I used the "wrong" gender of deodorant.

I was ready for them this time.

Uses for Binder Clips - Hallowe'en

Have I ever mentioned that I lead a charmed life?

The latest proof of this came yesterday when, not one, but two beautiful women came to my Hallowe'en party sporting binder clips as part of their costumes.

Perhaps you are thinking this could happen at any Hallowe'en party, and you are correct. However, in this case it was no accident. Each of these women, independently and without consultation asked themselves "What would David Scrimshaw want?" and came up with binder clips as the answer.

They were absolutely right. Of course.

The world would be a better place if more of you, before doing anything, asked: "What would David Scrimshaw want?"

(And for the record, guests at the party who and came up with "fishnet stockings" as an answer were not necessarily wrong.)

Links:

The mutually-adored Megan's take on the party

My Flickr set of party photos

Introducing Astronaut Love Triangle

Back in July, Megan revealed that I had bought a keyboard "for a mysterious new project". That project was the evolutionary new musical group Astronaut Love Triangle.

We are all still basking in the glow of the adulation we received at our debut performance in Little Lepreau, New Brunswick, and looking forward to our next genre-bashing coup, perhaps as soon as next month at Sally's Salon.

Links:

• Astronaut Love Triangle Blog
• Video: Roberta Bondar: not a nut job

Yes, that's right, I'm a Lawyer

Lee Seshagiri, David Scrimshaw, Krista Scobie and Adrian Scofield applauding the people who helped them get to the Call to the Bar. Photo: K. Shore

I've had two full work days as a lawyer now. Underneath my name on my email signature it now says "Counsel". Yesterday in the Small Claims Court, Justice Tierney recognized me so I didn't get to introduce myself. But after I introduced my client, I said, "you can note me as counsel."

I've been giving out legal advice left and right. Examples: "Read the whole contract!" "Don't get caught!" and "If the officer who gave you the ticket shows up at your court date, plead guilty with an explanation."

After the ceremony on Tuesday, some of the new lawyers already had their documents framed. I expressed surprise and Mom explained there was a booth set up where they were getting it done and she'd seen parents ripping the envelopes out of their children's hands and taking them right over. "I imagine it is not inexpensive," I said.

"That's right," she said. "I figured you had a a bunch of binder clips at home to put them together."

Webshots Album of Photos taken by K. Shore

Dave's Excuses

It is Wednesday night. I stopped working before 7pm tonight and I did not stop at the Manx on my way home. No, I cycled right here. I put some clothes in the washer. I ate some leftovers. I checked my emails. I looked at the TV listings and determined that nothing is on that I need to watch. I played Mumu (a disappointing 435). And now I am creating a Blog Posting.

Yesterday, the organizing book review had the lead in the poll with 5 votes, but since then there have been two votes for "An explanation of why Dave hasn't posted in so long".

This is fine with me because I haven't had time to give the book the attention it deserves.

I haven't posted in so long because:

1. I have 67 unanswered emails that should be dealt with before posting here because every one of those emails could be from one of you readers of my blog who is right now thinking, look he has time for this nonsense, but no time to reply to my thoughtful email.
2. At the end of every year for many years now, I have done a review of major areas of my life and thoughtfully crafted attainable and measurable goals and resolutions for the new year. I have not done that yet this year and should do it before posting here.
3. There is a new computer game in my life. It would be too embarrassing for me to reveal anything else about it.
4. I have been working very hard. Lots of trials and settlement conferences this month to prepare for and conduct, no time off over the holidays. [Milestones: (a) Completed an entire trial, didn't get everything I asked for, but it mostly went the way I argued it should even though the justice of the peace found me confusing. (b) Successfully opposed a lawyer's motion to dismiss one of my cases and won - tip: "that would be a try-able issue" is a magic phrase in this situation. (c) Successfully moved for an adjournment of an appeal while a local lawyer who is often in the news opposed the adjournment - tip: being completely ignorant of the case is extremely helpful in this situation.]
5. I had a cold this past weekend.
6. Phil loaned me two tapes with Battlestar Galactica episodes. Plus Space TV showed the opening mini-series.
7. I discovered Carl Schroeder. He is a terrific sci-fi writer who has written one book with bona fide space pirates (Sun of Suns), and two others that are close enough to count (Permanence and Vesta).
8. I've actually spent some time with other human beings since the holidays started.
9. Among last year's resolutions was: "Clean out the basement" This was the second or third year it was on the list without being performed. I should be working on that instead of blogging here.

Nominated? Moi?

The Ottawa Xpress is have their annual Best of Ottawa Readers Poll and my blog is nominated! Oddly, the poll form doesn't hotlink to the nominated blogs. So here they all are: Dial 6-1-3_ (music) rob mclennan's blog (lit) The Blog of Amanda Earl (lit/personal) Matilda (personal) Asteroidea Press(personal) David Scrimshaw's Blog (personal) Humanyms (personal) John W. MacDonald's Weblog (personal/photo) Through the Broken Viewfinder (photo) OnVertigo (photo) Space to Live (photo)

Breaking News: I just met Mag Ruffman

I don't want you to be too envious about where I work, but I just scored a free lightbulb, a free Bridgehead coffee, and I met Mag Ruffman. Here are my top 5 reasons that it's too bad Mag Ruffman is married to someone who is not me:

1. She is a licensed contractor and owns her own tools.
2. She might not be afraid of bats, but even if she is, she could make a bat house for them.
3. She is very funny. (Did you see the episode of her show where she put the caulking around the bathtub?)
4. She is involved with good causes like Habitat for Humanity.
5. She's a hottie.

On the other hand, if she married me, she'd probably run out of things to do around the house in a couple of years, get bored and divorce my sorry ass.

First Appearance

I had my first appearance before a judge today. Asked for an adjournment on consent in Small Claims Court. Was very nervous about whether I said enough and when I should stand up and sit down and all that. How nervous? Let's just say that several hours later, M&Ms were melting in my hand, not in my mouth.

But don't worry, I got my adjournment.

A Dream Accomplished

The Maple Leaf Brass Band Goes Folk

If you know me well or if you read this blog regularly, you know that I live a charmed life. The latest proof of this is that I will be at the Ottawa Folk Festival this coming Saturday with a performer's pass.

It is a dream come true.

If you have a dream that seems impossible, come to the folk festival main stage at 5pm and see how it can be that someone who plays the alto horn can wind up in the most unlikely of venues.

The Band goes Folk!

My World Cup Team? Who else?

Most World Cup years I need to go through a complicated process to decide what country to cheer for. Ideally, I look for: (1) Underdog status, preferably a "less developed" country; (2) Relatively good human rights record; (3) Reputation for friendliness and (4) Ability to throw a party.

But this year, Ghana, my favourite country that isn't Canada qualified. No need for consulting any reference materials.

On Saturday, they beat Czechs, 2-0! Massive upset!

Is it just a soccer game? Here's what my friend Steve Tetteh wrote from Accra in an email to a few of us who used to live in Ghana:

Warm Regards from Ghana. I've never, in my life, felt this good to be a Ghanaian. Victory over the Czechs was so sweet and it shows what determination can do in the life of man or a nation.

The oneness shown by all -- that we belong to one country, no religion, no tribe, no class, no nothing, only Ghanaians and Africans and human beings -- celebrating victory was so emotional. I hope it continues this way to the next stage. I pray that this approach will form the basis for a change in attitude of Ghanaians to life.

Tomorrow they play the United States, a country that would not score well on my list.

My Good Luck with Bicycles

When I first moved to Ottawa, I had a policy of only owning bicycles that people gave me free when they didn't want them any more. This saved me money, not just on the bicycles, but on the locks. I never worried about anyone stealing rusty, lime green or pink women's bikes.

Another feature of the free bikes was that it took more work to ride them and thus I got more exercise from using them.

Eventually, I began to see that there were disadvantages to free bikes:

• They're not really free. A tune-up runs between $25 and $40; fitting a bike out with lights, reflective tape and carriers is another $50. (Never mind the additions for a fully-tricked out bike.)
• Sometimes you take a cab because you just don't want that much exercise to get somewhere.
• Having your chain fall off and get jammed in the chain guard every time you go somewhere so that you have to travel with a wrench is another thing that will make you take a taxi.
• Bicycle thieves will eventually steal even the most sissy and wrecked looking bicycle.

So when Susan G offered to sell me her Schwinn CrissCross for $125, I took it. And became a convert to good bikes. The Criss Cross rode like the wind. One year in mid-December, I found myself biking to Vanier on it.

The next fall I was taking it home on the O-train and started talking with another guy with a bike. I told him I'd like to start cycling through the winter, but not on the Schwinn, I needed a bike that I wouldn't mind getting salty. "I've got a mountain bike I'll sell you for a hundred dollars," said the guy. It turned out that Murray fixed bikes in his spare time. I went by his place and wound up taking home a Kuwahara.

The Kuwahara took me through four winters. The first time I had Bert tune it up, he told me it was worth $300 easily. But this winter, the chain broke for the third time and the guys at Pecco's told me after the second time that the gears had become so worn, that if I had to replace the chain again, I'd have to replace the gears too. That's one of those repairs you have to question on a bike you paid $100 for.

So the Schwinn became my late-winter bike. It's not quite the smooth, beautiful ride it used to be. I've been thinking I'll make it the winter bike and get myself a new summer bike maybe after labour day from the bike rental place at the Chateau Laurier.

Of course there are always contests that award bicycles. On Friday at the Bridgehead, they had a ballot box for Oceans Fest with a little quiz about the environment. I filled it out while Jim, Keane and John C mocked the Oceans Fest and me. (They mocked the Fest because Ottawa has no ocean, me for wasting my time and really, I think they just like mocking.)

Does the run-off from Ottawa's storm drains get treated? "No", I ticked.

I was puzzled by the question "Are blue whales endangered in the St. Lawrence River?"

The lads informed me there are no blue whales in the St. Lawrence. John is a professor of marine engineering and used to be a first-mate on oil tankers that ran from the Great Lakes down the St. Lawrence and up around the coast into Hudson Bay. He should know, right? So I ticked off "no", because if there are none and they should be there, they're extirpated, and if there are none because they aren't supposed to be there, they're just endangered somewhere else.

Here is my new bicycle. It turns out that blue whales swim right into the estuary of the St. Lawrence and World Ocean Day was declared in Rio de Janeiro, not Killaloe, but I got all the other questions right, which was "exceptional" and I won the grand prize.

The bike is an Ottawa. Raleigh custom builds it for Kunstadt Sports who donated the prize. I was offered the choice of the Ottawa or the Bank Street, and picked the Ottawa because, as everyone knows, red bikes are faster. My Ottawa is smooth and beautiful and rides like the wind. I told the nice woman who called me last night that I'm going to become a big booster for Oceans Fest.

In other Great Victory news, I scored a 1089 in MuMu yesterday. I believe that is a world record.

Graduation

I must say, it's impressive how well organized the people are who run the UofO convocations. Makes for a well-run graduation ceremony. The university gave Dalton McGuinty (Premier of Ontario) an honorary doctorate and in return he gave us an inspirational speech.

It wasn't actually as inspiring as the speech our classmate Adam Patenaude gave us on Saturday night at the Grad Gala, but Doctor McGuinty was brief. Everyone was happy about that.

How brief was he? I didn't have time to colour in the pipe organ or the UofO Crest on the podium.

Smiling because it's over

One More Exam

Here I am handing in my Equality Law paper at the Common Law secretariat. The last paper required for my LLB.

Yesterday I promised no more critters, so I thought I'd give you an excerpt from my insightful and seminal work:

Auton and Wynberg – Section 15 and Autism: No gains for substantive equality

But who would believe that the day after I promise no more critters there would be news stories about:

• Upcoming awards to four life-saving dogs, one of whom is a cancer-sniffin' doggy! [story]
• A kitty in Germany who saved a baby's life [illustrated story]; and
• A tailed frog and a two-tailed lizard in Malaysia? [story with genuine pix]

But seriously, this is no longer a blog about cute little animals. One exam between me and the completion of my studies.

DMZ = Zero

As I type this, my DMZ and my inbox are both empty!

If you've not been a fanatical reader of this blog, you might have wondered about the DMZ graph in my sidebar. It tracked the number of emails in an Outlook folder I created to put all the messages overwhelming my inbox. [My original post describing the DMZ concept is here]

I'm having a lot of fun looking at the empty email folders.

Philosophy Link: Hazem sent me an interesting article from the Independent on the importance of the study of philosopy today. It's a good reminder about what we should be trying to get from our educations and I like the summaries of various philosophers they've attached. [Learning about life: What's the point of philosophy? (Discuss)] Excerpt:

Philosophy's aim is to encourage independence of mind and a critical ability to sift good things from bad things. Many of the problems that beset the world arise from unreflective acceptance of dogmas, which prompt knee-jerk reactions and polarisation of views. Obviously enough, a little more reflectiveness would go far to making the world a better place.

I'm not losing a housemate, I'm gaining a Privacy Activist

Kudos to Dave T for noticing a big privacy breach on the Rogers website and drawing it to the attention of ace reporter Jim Bronskill. Dave's been on a real high this weekend, but as Phil G says, "he gets that way when he's going after 'the man'". Here's the whole story as it appeared in one of the papers. (If this copyright violation bothers anyone, I'll take it down.)

January 13, 2006

Privacy glitch allows easy access to cable-TV subscribers' info By JIM BRONSKILL

OTTAWA (CP) - Viewers with cable-television services like the Hustler channel or Red Light District TV might be a little sheepish about their neighbours knowing. But the Rogers Cable website has long allowed anyone with Internet access to find out which packages and specialty channels - including several adult services - the company's customers enjoy.

The ready access to such personal information is "completely appalling and unacceptable," said Anne-Marie Hayden, a spokeswoman for federal Privacy Commissioner Jennifer Stoddart.

The commissioner's office is looking at initiating a complaint into the matter, which would trigger an investigation under the national privacy law governing businesses, Hayden said.

"Because it does potentially reveal very personal information, the choices that people make - these are personal."

A Rogers executive acknowledged Friday the site could be abused. "And so we have asked our website team to shut down this feature," said Taanta Gupta, vice-president of communications.

"I just couldn't believe it," said David Taylor, an Ottawa business analyst... "It is really wild..."

With a few computer keystrokes, The Canadian Press easily found details about the cable packages of NDP Leader Jack Layton, current and former cabinet ministers, the head of Canada's spy agency, a big-city mayor, the chief of a metropolitan police force, a former Supreme Court chief justice and the editor of a major newspaper.

The Rogers website was designed to help customers order additional services by first checking their existing packages. But it also allowed anyone with a subscriber's name, phone number and postal code - often readily available from other online databases - to check up on that person's cable services.

"I just couldn't believe it," said David Taylor, an Ottawa business analyst who moved recently and noticed the easy access to personal information while looking up cable packages on the Rogers site. It is really wild how, right now, anybody can go to that site and find out about their neighbours or noted people if they just know a few basics that are all in the public domain."

Rogers Cable serves almost 2.3 million homes in Ontario, New Brunswick and Newfoundland. In addition to basic cable channels, Rogers offers the majority of its customers an array of specialty and digital services.

A privacy policy note on the Rogers website says it has "reasonable security measures in place to protect against loss, misuse and interception by third parties." Under the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act, businesses must ensure individuals' personal data is protected by security safeguards.

Hayden said the privacy commissioner had not received any complaints about the Rogers site. "But when we heard about it, it's something we found completely appalling and unacceptable," she said. "The situation is something we're extremely troubled by. And we have brought the matter to the attention of Rogers."

The website feature was meant as a "customer-friendly exercise" that enabled people to quickly change their service package, said Gupta. "And I guess nobody thought at the time of what the risks might be," she said, adding the page on the site has existed "for a couple of years." Gupta said Rogers was unaware of the privacy implications of the feature until the issue was pointed out to the company Friday. "I'm just thinking of an opportunity for somebody to find out about somebody else's account. So that's why we'll shut it down."

Hayden said the privacy watchdog's office is generally concerned about whether Internet sites that allow customers to conduct transactions require adequate proof of identity. "We know that this is an issue - the issue of online authentication, so it's something we're studying more broadly as far as industry standards go."

The cable privacy episode comes just weeks after word that associates of terrorist group Hezbollah had cloned the cell phone of Ted Rogers, chief executive of Rogers Communications, parent of the cable company. Cloning involves replication of a phone's number and special security code, allowing a person to make unauthorized calls.

{from Canoe.ca}

Further kudoes to Jim for working terrorism and "cloning" into a story in which the most dangerous thing would have been somebody famous with a porn channel. Not that they did find anybody with the Playboy or Hustler channel, but they might have.

The Desk: Clean Swept

Before

After

Thank you, George!

A couple days ago I mentioned that I should be writing about tribunal accountability. It's actually the topic of my major paper. It's not a bad topic for a guy like me. On the law side there are finicky issues of independence of the tribunal and what the standard should be for the particular tribunal I'm interested in. Then there's all this stuff about data collection, statistics and reporting. Yes, the field of expertise that bought me the ScrimChateau. One little problem I've had is that while I had found a good set of materials on tribunal reform from the early 90s, I wasn't finding anything recent. I'd go to my various search engines and type in "tribunal accountability", "tribunal independence", and "tribunal funding" and get nothing. Then I'd switch "tribunal" with "administrative court" and do the same thing over again. Nothing. Then again with "Commission". Perhaps you can see how discouraging this could get. Then I thought I'd get a little background on why there's a perceived need for accountability mechanisms from the tribunals. So I typed in "Radwanski". And I now have four recent articles that say exactly the kinds of things that I need them to say. Thank you, George. I may even find a way to put your name in the title, maybe: "Tribunal Accountability and Independence: Remembering Radwanski" Links: CBC News: Radwanski apology doesn't stop MPs finding him in contempt of Parliament The Radwanski Affair: Excellent summary with timeline and "lessons learned"

Quiz Night: On the Podium

One of my proudest moments in first-year law was when Adam Patenaude asked me join his quiz team. "I'm justing putting together some guys for the CLAIHR quiz night. Scott said you might be interested."

"Sure," I said, "That would be fun." We both acted like it was no big deal.

I protested when Adam told me he and the others liked my name "Scrimshaw" so much they were going to name our team "the Scrimshaw Tide", but he ignored me.

That first year, our team had some rough patches. There was a big fight over the biggest country in Europe which boiled down to the issue of whether Russia is in Europe or not and if it is in Europe, is the part of Russia in Europe bigger than Germany? We went with Russia, the judges went with Germany. I had a personal humiliation when I pushed for the Congo as the largest country in Africa rather than the judge's pick of the Sudan. What made it worse was the team went with my answer. "He lived in Africa," said one of them. It's true, but I didn't do any surveying while I was there.

Still when they announced the top five teams we were surprised we were not among them. Obviously we'd placed sixth.

In Second-Year, Adam put the team together again. After consultation, he went with the name "The Scrimshaw Redemption: It's a Story of the Human Spirit". (Fortunately they had not instituted the lightning round that year, or it would have cost us points simply to get the name all down on paper.)

We started much stronger. Placing in the top 3 in the first round and winning the second round. But then the tide turned. It seemed many people took exception to the lack of diversity on our team, specifically that we had no women. Also, when Margot's team won a round and we reacted appropriately, the judges reacted as though we were a group of Don Cherry poster boys.

After that every call went against us, and again we placed sixth. (By inescapable inference.)

We went back this year shaken. Two of our old members were out of town, unable to join us. Each of us in turn found ourselves being threatened with expulsion from the team. "Even you could be cut, Scrimshaw," Adam told me. "We've already got your name."

But then Adam pulled us together. Scott's cousin came to town, a 4th-grade teacher who knew the longest river in Canada and the names of the 4 main characters on the facts of life. Another woman also agreed to be on our team. Not just any woman, but one who wasn't afraid to go to the judges and argue for our team.

Round after round went by. We had a good number of right answers. We were robbed on a few. But no first place rounds. "We must be coming in second every time," said Adam.

We didn't believe him until the final results were announced. "Scrimshaw III: Back in Training" in third place. Yes, the Law Review team and some other team came ahead of us.

But not Talitha's team. Or any of the other 3rd-year teams. Ha.

Following the triumphant performance of his team, Quiz Captain Adam Patenaude issued this statement:

As team Captain, I take full credit for our podium-placing.

Years of experimental unity-building exercises and despotic leadership have paid off in spades.

Link: National Sports of Canada Act