Canadians pay one of the highest mobile phone rates in the developed world. This is due to an oligopoly by the triad (Bell, Telus, and Rogers). The OECD says that Canada is 29th out of 30 countries when it comes to cost.

The government has realized this and is now opening the market to competition.

40% of the spectrum will be reserved for new entrants, who would have the right to rent towers from the incumbents at reasonable costs.

According to Jeff Robbins, Moshe is now a verb.  Something can be "moshified"!

Cool! 

Here is another scam. This criminal claims that he is a contractor for the UN in Baghdad, Iraq, and that he found $65 million US dollars, and want help to move the money. 

From    Michael <amark215@yahoo.com>
reply-to    mix215@yahoo.com,
date    Nov 25, 2007 5:19 PM
subject    Can I Trust You ?Wait Your Reply   
   
   
Greetings,

Google has donated $10,000 USD to the Drupal project as part of Summer of Code for 2007. Students who participated got a total of $90,000.

As a mentor for the 3rd year, I got a T-Shirt. Just like the previous two years, it arrived just in time when snow is starting to fall in Southern Ontario.

For the second year in a row, the T-Shirts are black. In 2005, it was dark navy blue.

Here is the front of the T-shirt.

And here is the back. Looks like a face from a Sci-Fi movie (Tron?)

According to a study by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, Canada's top 1% earners -- families that earn $266,000 or more, paid 30.5% of their income in taxes. Canada's poorest 10% -- families earning less than $13,523 paid 30.7% in taxes.

The full study can be viewed in Eroding Tax Fairness (PDF).

The study proposes some controvertial methods though, such as making capital gains tax the same as income tax. 

Just like Egypt is having an economic boom that leaves out the poor, Reuters has an article describing consumerism in Saudi Arabia caused by the rise of oil prices from $10 per barrel to $100 in less than a decade.

As the rich get richer, the gap between them and the poor widens, and inflation takes its toll on them the most.

In October, the World Bank dubbed Egypt as "World's Top Performer". It rose fast to the 126th place.

Figures for September released by the Egyptian government said growth is at 7.1%. Egypt's revenue rose as oil prices have risen, and as oil rich neighbors poured their revenue into Egypt. Foreign investment in 2006 was $5 billion, more than India.

What are the results? Rolex, BMW, and Mercedes ... Luxury items are being bought by the upper class.

Last month, there were reports that Comcast is sending forged RST (reset) packets for BitTorrent file sharing, hence hindering users who use this protocol.

Now, the local newspaper, The Record, has an article about how a local company, Sandvine, supplied Comcast with the technology to do what it is doing.

Sandvine's sales and stock price have been doing well of late.

If there were help desk in Medieval Europe, what issues would they have to handle?