Calgary is the 14 priciest city for downtown parking, and the number 1 in Canada! It has reached $453.38 per month!

Even Toronto with all its high cost of living is at $336.25 per month, and Montreal is $280.62.

Back here in Kitchener/Waterloo, it only costs $116.94.

Via CBC.

The mobile market in North America is badly fragmented, due to
different carriers using different technologies (CDMA vs. GSM), different frequencies for different companies (AWS, 2100), and locking of phones to the carrier.

This fragmentation strengthens the stranglehold of the carrier on the customer, who has a higher barrier switching from one company to the other.

Industry lobbyists still call for more balkanization of the market, by adding more frequencies, against standardization.

As the G8 wraps up in Huntsville Ontario today, the G20 is starting tonight with a dinner by the Canadian Prime Minister.

Protest organizers have started a Get Off The Fence! protest by working people, with a heavy dose of far left terminology. The site runs Drupal, with a link "open source technology" in the footer linking to Drupal.org.

The protests are already turning violent, with at least two police cruisers being torched so far.

There was a 5.5 magnitude earthquake at 13:41 (less than an hour ago).

I was sitting on the sofa, and felt it rock back and forth. Because I had people working in the basement, I thought they were doing something and did not think about it much then.

Only later it was on TV confirming that it was indeed a quake.

An Associated Press article about Belgium, Belgians vote on future, united country in doubt drew some parallels of the Quebec separatist movement and their relationship with Canada.

This is misinformation, fearmongering and industry lobbying at its worst.

The Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association (CWTA) is alleging that carriers need more radio waves, because consumers are using more bandwidth and have more connected devices than ever before.

Toronto issued a heat alert as temperatures are expected to reach 30C today.

Unlike WINDMobile which operates in the AWS spectrum, Mobilicity operates on the standard frequencies used elsewhere in the world for GSM.

While Ontario suffers a heat wave for three days in a row, Calgary is expecting a snow storm with 10 to 20 cms!

A new study in the USA shows that life expectancy for Canadians is more than in the USA. The study measured health-related quality of life (HRQL). The HRQL for people over 40 years is better in Canada. The health adjusted life expectancy (HALE) for a 19 year old was 2.7 more years in Canada than in the USA.

Two cited reasons are:

a) Universal health care in Canada

b) the higher degree of social inequity in the USA

Here is the abstract, and here is the provisional PDF.