Once upon a time, Charles A. Lindbergh – yup, that Lindbergh – was a passenger on one of the first 747 jets flying to Europe from America. Don’t know who that is? Read on.
When the plane was airborne and everybody was relaxing, the pilot announced they were honoured to be flying with Lindbergh. He didn’t mention anything else about Lindbergh.
Of course, if you know a little about history, you know the name. Lindbergh stood and nodded at his fellow passengers. When he sat down again, he had trouble fastening his seatbelt.
A flight attendant noticed this, stepped up quickly, and buckled the belt closed. Then, without missing a beat, she asked, “Is this your first time flying, Mr. Lindbergh?”
It being the start of school, we thought we would mention this small bit of history.
Speaking of school – “A hundred times every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life depends on the labour of other men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the measure as I have received, and am still receiving,” said by Albert Einstein, speaking of standing on the shoulders of giants.
That’s education of any kind for you. Students – pay attention in all your classes.
Here’s another thought for you, courtesy of America’s National Security Agency, our friendly ‘spooks and spies’ down south:
Turn off your Smartphone at least once a week. Not just let it go to sleep. Actually turn it off.
The idea behind this is if you leave your phone on all the time, spyware and evil viruses can work away behind the scenes, trying to crack your passwords or eavesdropping all the time hoping to catch something valuable.
Turning the phone off often makes them have to start all over again whatever they were up to, if indeed you have somehow been infected.
In news about high-speed internet, your correspondent noticed his neighbour installing a new Xplornet satellite dish.
Since we are also an Xplornet customer, we asked the tech what kind of speed the new dish should get.
“Probably about 50 Mbs download, maybe five or so up,” he said.
Which, if anybody has been paying attention, is what our federal government calls “broadband speeds.” Well, actually, 10 Mbs is supposed to be the upload speed.
If have also been paying attention, internet speeds the past year or so everywhere have been climbing steadily. Xplornet is on satellite in rural areas.
Back at home, after the chat, we checked our own speeds on both Xplornet and our second service Rogers Nokia rocket hub. Rogers runs off cell phone towers.
We might have an old plan with Xplornet, but we got 22.12 Mbs down, and 1.28 Mbs upload. This was at 4.20 p.m. last week on Wednesday. Right beside it, Rogers cranked in at a blistering 90.03 Mbs down and 5.66 up. A second go at Rogers had the speeds at 56.96 down and 5.47 up.
All our tests were on speedtest.net so you can check your own speeds with whomever you have service. In our case, either service costs about the same. In our case, about $120 or so per month.
One thing for sure is, when we are streaming any movies, it’s been a long time since we had buffering.
You can also check this week’s story on Northern Fibre fibre optic service.
A High Prairie citizen, who wants to remain nameless, says that Town of High Prairie got “a really good deal” when it paid for what is called the Sage Report.
The report was supposed to be an investigation into Code of Conduct rule breaking by two High Prairie town councillors. Although it isn’t known if all the bills are in, High Prairie taxpayers have so far ponied up about $43,000 for their report. Plus meeting and travel expenses and time spent on the whole thing.
The good deal? Well, the same company, SAGE analytics, charged the Alberta Village of Andrew, population about 400, $74,000 earlier this year.
“See! Good deal, eh?” our citizen chirps.
But cool your jets sir. The Andrew municipal inspection was a review of the entire village operation. It identified 42 problems, and made 26 recommendations. Problems were identified ranging from “financial reporting, assessment, taxation and tax recovery, municipal bylaws and policies,” and even preparations for council meetings, recording of minutes and more.
Municipal Affairs said they got a letter from the village responding to the report. It says the village did not dispute any of the finding or recommendations. It also says the village has “expressed a clear intent to address the findings.”
In High Prairie, the councillors investigated say the whole thing was a “waste of taxpayers’ money.” The rest of High Prairie council?
No comment is yet received.
And our citizen? Well, one way of looking at this is, with 42 problems, Andrew taxpayers paid about $1,700 per problem. High Prairie’s two so-called problems? $21,500 each. So, still a good deal, sir?