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Matthew

Personal

Adding a Google Calendar event using Google Forms

For a long time now I have been trying to find an easy way for the volunteers under my command to submit vacation requests.  I searched high and low for a PHP scheduler but nothing suited my needs.

I the realized that google had a calendar API which would allow external forms to add events to my calendar, but sadly this didn’t pan out either till I found out that Google also had its own form generator.  But sadly again, doing searched on how to add an event to Google Calendar from the form turned up either useless or empty.

I did manage to find a script that came close to what I wanted.  …

Personal

817 days on the Island

It has been quite a long time since I submitted a report, the last one being Day 364, December 31, 2012…  So I believe its long overdue.

It is now day 817 on “The Island”,  almost 117 weeks… just over 2 years… A long time for an Ontarian to be out of his natural habitat.

The natives here are restless, there seems to be two factions fighting against each other; the rebels and the separatists.  Sorry for the poor use of a Star Wars reference, but you have to admit, it fits perfectly to the situation.  Us Anglos versus the French, although to say they are French is to insult the true French, instead I will use the term they prefer to call themselves: The Québécois.…

Personal Rants

Quebec in termoil as the Provincial Elections rapidly approach.

The last month has seen quite a few controversies here in Quebec. However this didn’t start a few weeks ago, I believe what is happening now started 2 years ago when Pauline Marois took office with a vision to solidify Quebec into her own vision of sovereignty. It started when she put a lot more funding into the Office Québécois de la Langue Française (OQLF), which resulted in “Pastagate” where someone complained that the word Pasta was not a French word and that it should be replaced with pâtes.

The approach Marois was taking to strengthen Quebec’s language laws resulted in several cases like Pastagate which went against the actual charter.…

Personal

Texas Scientists Given Green Light To Use Sex Offenders For Medical Research

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So the Texas Congress has passed a new bill giving researchers permission to use the most violent, predatory, repeat sex offenders as guinea pigs for research. I am not so sure this is a good idea…

Now don’t get me wrong, I am not being sympathetic to these evil doers, I just believe that the only injection they deserve is that of the lethal kind.
Maybe I am being a bit too paranoid, or maybe I have watched to many superhero/sci-fi movies, where someone is trying to make a super soldier, they inject some bad guy with some super serum believing that there is no way on earth that anything could possibly go wrong, only to have something go drastically wrong… Said inmate now has super (insert ability here… let’s use “strength” for this example), can no longer be detained, breaks free from where ever the lab may be, and wreaks havoc on the world…

Only this isn’t sci-fi anymore… Texas is now sending hundreds of violent sex offenders to a specialized medical research facility… where they will undergo medical experimentation and testing…

Now before this bill was passed, medical testing at the human stage was done in groups where if you qualified for testing you would be paid a nice sum (Here in Canada you could get paid upwards of $3000 for a 2 week monitored stay).…

Personal

Fukushima radion to hit west coast by end of April 2014

Late last year I posted my thoughts about Fukushima, sadly admitting that I hadn’t recalled hearing about it till then, despite the tsunami taking place in 2011… Sadly the affect the destroyed nuclear power plant has still yet to be fully determined.

Scientists predict that in less than 2 months the radioactive debris from Fukushima will hit the west coast of the States and Canada. That part is inevitable, obviously, I mean think about it, millions of gallons of radioactive waste being drained into the ocean, eventually those radioactive particles will reach the world over… However what astonishes me, is that neither the Canadian government, not the US government see it as being a issue.…

Personal

New to me: Google “Auto Awesome”

If you follow my blog, you would know that I recently got myself a new phone.  The Google Nexus 5 to be exact.  Now the differences between the Galaxy Nexus (my original android phone) and my current Nexus 5 by LG are slight and almost unnoticeable.  The first of which is of course the new Nexus 5 runs Android KitKat (4.4) where as the Galaxy Nexus stopped at Jelly Bean (4.3) due to the manufacturer of the chips hoping out of the mobile game – Thank you for that Texas Instruments (link to article).

Two of the most notable changes when I first turned on my phone was that the default Gallery app had been replaced by Google Photos and Messaging had been replaced by Google Hangouts.…

Android Personal Technology

Rooting the Nexus 5 (The easy way)

Nexus-5-Press-Image-001-1280x874As my original Samsung Galaxy Nexus now has a Multi-Crack Screen I decided to upgrade to the latest and greatest.  Now the LG Nexus 5 may not be the best top of the line phone that’s out there, as the Galaxy S4 and other latest tech phones do have a bit higher rating, however nothing can beat the Nexus 5 when it comes to being PURE Android.  It’s the reason I only get the Google’s Nexus line of phones, they are 100% Pure Android.  This means no Manufacturer or Carrier “BloatWare” and no special proprietary customizations.

And as with my previous Galaxy Nexus, the first thing I did when I fully charged my Nexus 5 and upgraded it to Android Kitkat 4.4.2 (KOT49H), was root it.…

Personal

Lack of posts at Considered Normal as of late

Normally I try to get one or two posts a week (try being the key word), however my concentration has move towards a join project between my brother, Christopher Koster of Ice Web Solutions Inc. and myself, former owner of Fire Web Solutions Inc..

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My brother and I are working on another blog/news site called “Digital Fingerprint“. As of the time of this post we are still working on populating it and creating our own content, but within in a few weeks we are looking at pushing posts to different social media networks.

So if you are wondering why there is a lack of posts going up, that is the reason.…

Personal

What the…. Stop F@#&ing with the Theme!!!!

If you were on the site today, more than likely you would have seen one of several themes I have been trying out for my site. The one I am at now seems to be the one I am going to stick with, for now. Seems every few months or so I get tired of the theme and want to upgrade to something better. You may have seen that I did this last week as well, but the theme I really liked had some flaws when it came to comments, namely that it would cut most of it off as you view replys to a reply’s reply….…

Rants Technology

Taken from The Verge: Should a robot decide when to kill?

Taken from The Verge
Late last year I posted an article about a 6ft, 330lbs robot that was built to save us.  It was to partake in the DARPA  trials in December, along with several other robots.  The article, based off of some info I found on Reddit, covered my views of how easily the DARPA Trials could be a front for more sinister means.  The trials would include several tasks for the robots to complete including navigating deteriorated landscapes, entering buildings, and driving vehicles.  This was to simulate situations that a robot may encounter during a rescue mission.  However, once you add a gun into the situation, the robot could be come combat ready, where these tasks would also come in handy.…