The Love of the Game.

The NBA season has been incredible this year. Absolutely incredible. If you are a fan of basketball, you already know this. I think there are two big reasons why.

Number one, the level of talent in the NBA is off the charts right now. There haven't been any expansion teams to dilute the talent in recent years and it seems there are good players on all the teams, with the elite teams having a 3 or 4 all-star caliber players. Kobe, Odom AND Gasol! Nash, Amare AND Shaq! Nowitzki, Howard AND Kidd! Boozer, Kirilenko AND Williams! Pierce, Allen AND Garnett! Incredible teams, which have the star power reminiscent of the basketball in 80's.

The second reason is the (hand checking) rule changes that have really opened up the game for a faster paced, offense oriented game. The game itself is exciting to watch as players race for fast breaks and good point guards are able to get into the paint at will. Good thing Toronto has two top tier PG's :) Plus, the fact that I can actually watch the games I want is a big bonus.

As an aside, my fantasy basketball playoffs start this week. I had high hopes for my team this year, as I had the #1 spot late in the season, but fell to 5th in the last weeks. It's been really competitive this season, as the top 8 teams all had a chance at placing #1. My approach this year was to not punt categories, so I had to look for guys with low TOs and high %s. It was working for most of the season. But now, with only 3 days left in the 1st round playoff, I'm behind 6-2. My #1 player Marion has decided to sit out (there is no way he's sitting if he were still on the Suns). My amazing waiver pickup, Jose Calderon, gave up the starting job to TJ this week. These two things screws my team up completely. Sigh, another year, another dismal finish. At least I had some balls to pull of some trades this year, unlike most years. Next year will be my year.

There are so many other reasons to love the NBA right now. I read this article about the current state of the NBA and agree with every single point. Give it a read, if you are a true NBA fan. There's not much say beyond what's in the article, so in conclusion the NBA is where amazing happens:

Bell pwns ISPs

Last week Bell started to throttle all traffic on their network, including wholesale traffic sold to independent ISPs. This means TekSavvy is screwed. I used to think there were laws that prevented this from happening, but it doesn't seem to be the case. Having open networks encourages competition, which is good for the consumer. It also encourages faster adoption of technology, and in Ontario's case, I think it's worked quite well. I don't have any numbers to back up this claim, but I think Southern Ontario is very highly connected, because of availability and price. Even talking to my sister, who says very few people in NYC have personal connections, even though it is widely available there becauce of the population density. She says most people use text messaging, instead of IM, because of convenience and price, whereas it is opposite here.

Now I can only hope for the CRTC to change the rules, and that will take a long time and might not happen because of government lobbying. Honestly, I think Bell can create a market for this, because there is demand. I wonder if they considered charging even more for bandwidth during peak times. This would be sold through 3rd party ISPs who could provide it to customers who desired this. The pricing would have to be high enough so that Bell would have enough money so that they could reinvest this money into their networks to grow it and handle the extra demand. And for me personally, I don't mind paying higher prices for unrestricted bandwidth. I'm not even against paying higher prices for broadband to compensate artists, much like how blank CD's are taxed.

Anyway, I also wanted to comment on how much I like Ars Technica. Pandemic recommended it to me, way back, when it was a much smaller site, so props to him. In the mean time, Ars must have gotten funding from somewhere, because now the site is vastly improved. Better, because the quality of writing has remained high while adding breadth in coverage and intelligent analysis. They don't just report the news, but also provide analysis, which makes them the undisputed first place to get my tech news. Recently, I've grown to dislike Slashdot more, because of the increasingly lower signal to noise ratio, the lack of quality analysis and the heavy bias.

In conclusion, I want network neutrality and if that ever happens, I'll hear about it from Ars Technica first.

Rock Band on Wii

They finally announced Rock Band for Wii today. I wanted to get Rock Band as soon as it came out last fall, but since I don't own a PS3 or Xbox 360 I was SOL. So I patiently waited for this announcement. I even held off buying Guitar Hero III, since I wanted to know if the guitars would be compatible with Rock Band. The answer seems to be "we hate consumers, fuck no".

I had a chance to play it this weekend in a party setting (as opposed to in the store, like a loser, which I've done...several times) and it's pretty fun. It really excels in a party atmosphere, except it seems like singers are hard to find. Drums are really fun as you can really wail, which is satisfying, although tiring. Also, it seems lot of people don't like hard rock songs or are not familiar with them, but for me, it's my preferred music genre.

But now it looks like I might not end up getting it after all. Nintendo once again fucks up the online component. There will be no online play and no downloadable content. The big thing here is the no downloadable content. I've been mostly "downloading" music, but with Rock Band I would actually buy (many) songs. But since I can't and the only system I own is the Wii, I'm SOL...again.

They try to push Rock Band as a platform, and I think it's a good idea. I think buying music for Rock Band is reasonable and something I would buy. Most of the songs are $1-$3 dollars and they release new content weekly. I can forsee future albums being released in music stores and the Rock Band store simultaneously, so that not only can you listen to the music, but also experience it.

Anyway, I'm not sure who to be pissed with, Nintendo, Harmonix, Activision or all of them. None of them are getting my money.




(Unless I buy a PS3 or Xbox360......)

A video Keith would enjoy

Keith, I thought you might enjoy this:



Am I right?

Barack Obama's Speech on Race

Recently there has been a lot of controversy about comments Obama's pastor have made. I don't think it's such a big deal, but the media is making it to be. He responded with a speech about race relations that may decide the outcome of the presidential primaries. I think there is so much potential in Obama as president, as a leader who is able to cause change for the better. Listen:









Here is the full transcript if you prefer reading instead of listening.

Hong Kong Impressions

I visited Hong Kong six months ago and I haven't blogged about my trip, except for, obviously, the food pictures. I have a few thoughts about Hong Kong that I wrote down soon after returning, but never got around to posting and I'll share them now.

The most noticeable difference is the sheer number of people. I thought New York was densely populated, but Hong Kong is denser by several orders. Everywhere you go, there are crowds and crowds of people, which doesn't even compare to a busy weekend in Toronto. Imagine a popular festival or crowded event at Nathan Philips or Dundas Square and then imagine if it was like that all the time all over the place. That is what Hong Kong is like.

A lot of people means a lot of pollution. The air is noticeably worse in Hong Kong, and I can't imagine how much worse Beijing can be. It's unavoidable that packing so many people together in such a small space will result in pollution. But at the same time, having such a densely populated area enables them to have a good transit system. And it's not only goverment sponsored, but since so many people ride transit there are private companies providing competing services. Although I didn't have a bad experience on the private buses, I wonder how the public transit is regulated, because I had the worse public bus driver in my life. I was literally falling out of my seat onto the ground because the driving was so rough. Regardless, people in Hong Kong don't need to drive and rely on pulic transit. Plus, I heard that there's a 100% import tax on cars. No wonder HK immigrants buy expensive cars when they come to Canada....it's already discounted 50%!

What makes the pollution worse is the really hot and humid weather. As many of you know, I prefer hot weather and I'm deathly afraid of the cold. I visited near the end of August, when it is still in the hot season, but I didn't mind so much except for the humidity. The toughest part is dressing for the indoors; buildings all blast the A/C, meaning dressing in shorts is too cold for me indoors. The craziest thing about the HK natives is that many of them are wearing sweaters in the middle of summer. It could be 35 degrees out with 100 humidity and people would still be wearing sweaters!

Maybe when they sweat through them, they'll just buy a new one. That is not a joke. The clothing industry is completely different in HK. Maybe because it's so hot, all the clothing is very thin and seemingly of lower quality. It is also much cheaper in price than Canada. This means there is a culture where people can buy clothes just for the current season and toss it next season. It also means people are "more fashionable" because they can afford to keep up with the latest fashions. From a Canadian perspective, I wasn't interested in the cheap clothing because of the low quality, and clothing with acceptable quality had similar prices to Canada anyway. I did find one store I liked, G2000, and the advantage in Hong Kong is that they hem the pants for free or a small nominal fee.

Even though I personally didn't have a great time shopping, Hong Kong really is a shopper's paradise. Everywhere you go is basically a mall. The whole subway system is one large mall. And right beside all that shopping is the eating. Everywhere you go, there is food to buy. There are the 7-11's on every block selling everything you could want, the fancy restaurants on the upper levels of every building, the street eat stalls that are now mandated to be on a piece of property and not just on the street, the plentiful dessert places advertising their sweet delicacies to passerbys, the casual cheap diners constantly packed with people and loud chatter, the bubble tea hangouts, the bakeries which draw you in with their smell, the list goes on and on. Hong Kong people eat out for every meal. That is their culture. Their living quarters are too small to cook, and the food that you can buy is so cheap it is not worth cooking yourself. Plus all these places to eat are just an elevator ride downstairs away. You can find lunch for $2 CAD and dinner for $3 CAD if you wanted. Now I understand why Hong Kong people don't know how to cook (sorry, broad generalization which I know is not true, but it has some truth to it).

Cheap, plentiful and convenient food should mean a large waistlines. This is not the case. Most people in Hong Kong are quite slender, especially the females and especially when compared to North America. I loved the desserts over there, partly because they were new to me and partly because they were so refreshing in the heat. What I did notice is that the whole city is plastered with advertising (even more so than New York) and a lot of the ads are for slimming products. I can only assume that it's a good business there. But a better reason is probably that their portions are smaller and there is less emphasis on overeating - AYCE style.

Anyway, Hong Kong was fun to visit and it was by far the most urbanizied place I have ever been. It's a paradise for eating and shopping and the attraction of the city is the city itself. A few of you have gone recently, are there right now, or will be going soon. Any thoughts?