Category: Miscellaneous babble

Finally received the first round of reviewer comments on the paper I submitted to JNMT. Most of the comments were style related and a couple of fixes to the units listed in some of the tables. Nothing major. Just need to figure out how to adjust the way figures are numbered and indenting on section headings in TeX. One commenters went on about how there were so many more factors involved in RIT than what was covered in my paper. Although he brought up a few good points, it just seems like the reviewer missed the entire point and I just don’t feel it’s a valid criticism of my paper.
So now I’ll be busy figuring out how to make the required revisions, writing up a cover letter addressing the reviewer comments and submitting the revised paper.

MGM’s officially announced that there will be two Stargate: SG1 movies coming following the show’s last season on the Sci-Fi channel. Based on the synopsis for the first movie, it sounds like the currently Ori storyline is going to be wrapped up with the movie and not with the end of the current TV season. No indication yet on when the movies will be coming out or where on TV fans will be able to see it.

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc. (MGM) announced today the extension of the hit Stargate SG-1 franchise with two movies based on the popular series. Titled Stargate: The Ark of Truth and Stargate: Continuum, the movies will both be made available to the television universe and home entertainment marketplace by MGM.

“Stargate: The Ark of Truth”

As SG-1 searches for an Ancient artifact which they hope can defeat the armies of the Ori, they learn more Ori ships are about to be sent through the supergate to launch a final assault on Earth. Daniel discovers that the artifact, the Ark of Truth, may be in the Ori home galaxy, and SG-1 embarks aboard the Odyssey to find it, and pre-empt the attack. The IOA has a plan of their own and SG-1 ends up in a distant galaxy fighting two powerful enemies.

“Stargate: Continuum”

While SG-1 attends the execution of Ba’al, the last of the goa’uld system lords, Teal’c and Vala inexplicably disappear into thin air. Carter, Daniel and Mitchell race back to a world where history has been changed: the Stargate program has been erased from the timeline. As they try to convince the authorities what’s happened, a fleet of goa’uld motherships arrives in orbit, led by Ba’al, his queen, Katesh, (Vala) and his first prime, Teal’c. SG-1 must find the Stargate and set things right before the world is enslaved by the goa’uld.

I was listening to CBC Radio and heard there’s a show coming on tonight called The Greatest Canadian Inventions. It would be cool to watch if only I had access to CBC, but alas, I’ll have to settle for checking out the list of 50 great Canadian inventions on the website. There are quite a few items that I never would have guessed were invented by Canadians. For example:

• The electron microscope, developed at U of T
• The electric wheelchair
• The caulk gun
• The electric oven
• Every fighter pilot’s favourite accessory, the G-suit
• Instant mashed potatoes
• The light bulb was invented by a pair of Canadians, who then sold the patent to Edison
• Zippers

Check out the list. Lots of neat interesting facts.

While the haul from my little box of coins wasn’t nearly as big as Mike’s, I did manage to net about $120, which was about twice what I was expecting. Taking a cue from Mike, I also decided to take the dough in the form of an Amazon.com gift certificate from the Coinstar machine. Getting all that change counted took me about 15 minutes or so feeding it through the little slot. I can’t imagine how long it took Mike to get his haul counted.
With the dough and a couple more Amazon.com gift certificates received courtesy of my sister, we got the wife a pink Pioneer Inno XM radio receiver. Just waiting for it to arrive now.

The home phone still gets a lot of telemarketing calls, mostly from the phone company and the credit card companies we deal with. On the caller ID they usually show up as a toll free number without any name associated with it. We hardly ever answer the home phone anymore anyway.
Today I thought I’d run a few of the numbers through Google to see what came up. Stumbled on a very interesting site, whocalled.us, that tracks all kinds of numbers that people submit, and allows people to comment on the numbers. The top of the web page says

The phone is ringing, and I don’t recognize the number,
All Caller ID says is, “NAME UNAVAILABLE”.
Please help me figure out who is calling and what they want

The home page has a list of phone numbers ranked by the number of calls, number of comments and the states that were called most. You just enter the phone number and up comes a list of dates that people reported a call from that number. Usually one of the comments will provide a clue as to who the caller might have been. There’s also a Google Map showing where calls were reported from.
Kind of an interesting site, but there’s no indication of who’s behind it or any other ‘About Us’/’About this’ type of information.