As everyone knows, Rogers announced their lackluster iPhone plans not that long ago, and were immediately criticized by most Canadian wireless customers as being far too expensive. In addition, the lack of an unlimited data plan, a feature that Bell and Telus have for some of their phones, is also fairly disappointing give the web-based nature of the device.

In response to the data rates, RuinediPhone set up an online petition asking Rogers to change their data rates. Since going live nearly a week ago, they’ve amassed nearly 36,000 signatures, and have been featured on several mainstream news segments.

John Biehler recently posted a great article on how Rogers may actually be starting to listen to these various complaints. The main wireless provider in Sweden also recently revised their iPhone data plans to include an unlimited data option, mostly to appease customer complaints. I actually don’t think Rogers will do something similar based on their history, but I’m obviously hoping they do.

So, where does all this leave me? The thing is, I really don’t want to pay $100 a month for 3 years, even as much as I want the iPhone. Had it come with an unlimited data plan, I might have considered it. Given that most of the plans leave much to be desired, that there’s no unlimited data plan, and that Rogers requires a 3 year contract (something I told myself I’d never sign again), I really have no choice but to vote with my wallet. If you want to protest Roger’s iPhone plans, I suggest you do the same.

The other day I walked into a wireless store and picked up a cheap Solo phone with no contract. It’s no iPhone, but it’ll cost me about $40/mo, and should be all that I need. I would love nothing more than to be able to huck it in the garbage in July and pick up the 3G iPhone, but for that to happen Rogers will need to make a few changes to their plans. Given their history of gauging customers, I’m not so certain that they will, at least not unless they have fairly disappointing sales figures in July. So we’ll see.

Like I said above, if you are against Roger’s pricing and policies regarding the 3G iPhone, then the best thing you can do is not walk into a store next week and buy one.

If you have made a decision regarding the iPhone, I’d love to hear it here.

I’ve always been a big fan of four day work weeks, or better yet, working at the rate which you are most productive. That’s why I have always gravitated towards jobs that don’t have fixed hours. Where I currently work, I really don’t have a fixed schedule. If I wake up early, I’ll stroll in at 8:30am. If I have a rough night sleeping, nobody cares when I stroll in at 10:30am. Given that flexibility, I’ll often do a bit of work at home during the evenings when I’m listening to music or whatever.

Utah recently announced that they are switching their government employees to four day work weeks. A four day work week has a lot of advantages. First, it gives people every Friday off to spend time with their families, or catch up on errands. Second, since you’re already at work and have already commuted there, it just is more efficient to work a few extra hours while you’re there. Also, as the article points out, it means less money spent on gas and reduced pollution.

Some people probably won’t like a 10 hour day, but I imagine most people would gladly work a few extra hours to get every Friday off. I know I would.

You know, I have about $7000 worth of camera equipment. That represents a large portion of my disposable income and is something I buy because I enjoy photography. I put most of my images on Flickr so that others can use them in blog entries or whatever. The only constraint I have is that I ask that people respect the Creative Commons license on the photos and not use them for commercial purposes.

I probably send one or two emails a month to websites that are in clear violation of the CC license for my photos. I received a Flickr email from Jay over at JayBanks.ca a while ago saying that he used some of my Flickr photos in his gallery and asked me to take a look. Given that his website is obviously targeted towards selling real-estate, I politely asked him to take them down. He then argued that that particular portion of his website wasn’t commercial, even though the rest of the website was. I obviously disagreed.

The last email I got from Jay a few weeks ago said the following:

Hi Duane,

Thanks for writing. We are very careful to only use Creative Commons photos.

We are not actually using your photo commercially, as the photo section on JayBanks.ca is not commercial. We do not buy or sell photos in any way for profit. We are only using the photo on its own in the photo section and not as an illustration for any article. And in line with your wishes and with your license, we will keep it that way.

We are thinking about doing a book of Vancouver photos - also non-commercial but with copies going to contributors - but before proceeding with that project, we will asking for permission as well as print quality files.

We are about to improve our attribution with links (we have to upgrade the CMS to do so), so there will be a link back to your flickr account for people who want to see more of your photography.

If you have any suggestions on how to improve our photo section for other flickr CC sharers please let us know. We are working actively to make things better.

It was fairly clear I did not want my image used on his site, and that I believed it violated the CC license.

I received another email from Jay yesterday that said the following:

In the meantime, I have added a direct link back to your Flickr photostream from the image. I will be honest with you: I wouldn’t want to remove this great shot from this strictly non-commercial part of my website. It’s just too beautiful to get rid of.
But of course I don’t want to upset you, so if you insist I remove it, I’ll do so.
But please check it out once again with the CC link and let me know.

I made it pretty clear I wanted it taken down a few weeks ago. I headed over to Jay’s website this morning to take another look, and low and behold, what do I find on the front page?

You know, it sure looks a hell of a lot like one that I took last year:

It’s one thing to argue that a portion of your website is non-commercial while the main site is commercial, but advertising a photo contest on the main page of a commercial website is obviously intended to generate traffic for the commercial portion.

I tried to resolve this in back channels, even though I feel I shouldn’t have to waste my time on it. But to be honest, I’m tired of people thinking they can just lift whatever image they want. In terms of the one on the front page, there’s no attribution, it’s on a commercial site, and I believe I don’t allow derivative works. Plus, there are various “Images Copyright By Jay” text blurbs on the main page where it’s hard to tell which images they appear to apply to. Clearly I still hold the copyright to my own images. And in fact, if you use a CC licensed photo and do a derivative work, you have to keep the same CC license as the original.

Why is it that people feel that can just disregard the license on photos whenever they see fit? What makes it worse is I’ve already asked that they be taken down. I’m seriously considering switching all my photos to “All Rights Reserved” at this point. I’m tired of dealing with stuff like this.

Birkenhead Lake, last summer

At the Matthew Good show the other night I ran into a good friend of mine from high school. We ended up chatting and drinking beers over at Doolin’s after, and it was great to catch up. Rob and I became friends back when I was working at Bonanza when I was 16, and I haven’t talked to him in a few years.

Birkenhead Lake, photo by wenno on flickr

It turns out that both Rob and I are on vacation this week with not a whole lot to do, so we decided to head up to Birkenhead Lake tomorrow and just chill out over a few beers. Birkenhead was the biggest surprise of last summer, and it’s one of the nicest campgrounds I’ve been in. It’s close to Whistler, and it boasts huge campgrounds with a nice glacier fed lake. So it should be a great couple of days.

I got home from Canada Day tonight and spent a bit of time on IM chatting to people. My friend Jeff, who is one of my best friends from high school, was online so we ended up chatting for a bit. Despite living only a few blocks apart, the sad thing is Jeff and I rarely get to see each other due to both our crazy schedules.

I found out tonight that Jeff is moving to Victoria with his wife Michele and his daughter Maya. To be honest, while I want the best for them, it made me feel bad that I’ve been out of the loop so long with them that I had no idea they were moving away in a few weeks. I’m going to make some time to head over and spend some time with them before they leave.

All the best guys.

I do the odd post from time to time on health issues and current research I think is interesting. About a year ago I posted an article discussing how caffeine seems to have a negative influence on the body’s insulin signaling, which ultimately affects blood sugar levels in the blood. What this ultimately means is that caffeine might be a major contributing factor in the obesity epidemic, since high insulin levels in the blood promote the storage of fat and make it difficult to burn it.

Here’s a recent 2008 study that investigated the effects of caffeinated coffee and decaffeinated coffee on the body’s insulin and glucose systems. Why I think it’s interesting is that it’s one of the first studies that I’ve seen in a while that used coffee as the source of caffeine instead of caffeine pills.

BACKGROUND: The ingestion of caffeine (5 mg/kg body weight) and a 75-g oral glucose load has been shown to elicit an acute insulin-insensitive environment in healthy and obese individuals and in those with type 2 diabetes. OBJECTIVE: In this study we investigated whether a similar impairment in blood glucose management exists when coffee and foods typical of a Western diet were used in a similar protocol. DESIGN: Ten healthy men underwent 4 trials in a randomized order. They ingested caffeinated (5 mg/kg) coffee (CC) or the same volume of decaffeinated coffee (DC) followed 1 h later by either a high or low glycemic index (GI) cereal (providing 75 g of carbohydrate) mixed meal tolerance test. RESULTS: CC with the high GI meal resulted in 147%, 29%, and 40% greater areas under the curve for glucose (P < 0.001), insulin (NS), and C-peptide (P < 0.001), respectively, compared with the values for DC. Similarly, with the low GI treatment, CC elicited 216%, 44%, and 36% greater areas under the curve for glucose (P < 0.001), insulin (P < 0.01), and C-peptide (P < 0.01), respectively. Insulin sensitivity was significantly reduced (40%) with the high GI treatment after CC was ingested compared with DC; with the low GI treatment, CC ingestion resulted in a 29% decrease in insulin sensitivity, although this difference was not significant. CONCLUSION: The ingestion of CC with either a high or low GI meal significantly impairs acute blood glucose management and insulin sensitivity compared with ingestion of DC. Future investigations are warranted to determine whether CC is a risk factor for insulin resistance.

In short, caffeinated coffee caused insulin to raise in the blood about 30-40% higher than decaffeinated coffee. Obesity typically goes hand-in-hand with a condition known as insulin resistance, which is where the body becomes resistant to the effects of insulin and the pancreas is forced to excrete more to do the same job. This eventually leads (according to the current wisdom) to a burn-out of the pancreas (since it can’t keep up with the body’s insulin demand) and type-II diabetes. Caffeinated coffee contributes (in this study) to a decrease in whole body insulin sensitivity by about 40%. To put that into perspective, exercise causes the body to become more sensitive to insulin, but only to the tune of 10-20% increase in sensitivity. So as you can see, the effects of caffeine on the body’s glucose and insulin are fairly shocking.

I’m still waiting for a study that looks at soft drinks in this capacity as well, both diet and sugar filled. Given that both contain large amounts of caffeine, I suspect there will eventually be a link between diet sodas and difficulty losing weight (or ease in gaining weight).

I read an article about five years ago that paradoxically predicted that the cause of obesity would turn out, once the dust had settled, to be dieting. So far current research is on the way to backing him up.

Whenever I think of Canada Day, I am always reminded of the few years I spent in Ottawa. Out there, Canada day is a day-long party, where they basically shut the downtown core down and let everyone mingle, get their face painted, and for those of you of legal drinking age, have a few street-side beer. At the end of the night there was always a big concert on Parliament Hill.

So by comparison, Canada Day in Vancouver is pretty tame. Last year I got together with some friends and had a few pints in various locations around the downtown core. This year, I don’t really have any plans, but will probably sneak out at some point and take a few photos.

For all of you heading out to enjoy some friends and partake in some events, have a great Canada Day. Happy Birthday Canada!

I found this useful deep-cycle battery FAQ that included a rough voltage level chart which helps you determine how full your deep-cycle battery is:

While I haven’t blogged about it, I have a small solar panel setup on my patio which provides enough power to run a few lights in my living room each night for a few hours. This information lets me know how charged the battery system is. Right now my battery is at 12.75 volts.