Buying the right laptop 2016

There!  It's September and marketing folks prefix or append "back to school" to products in order to make their purchase necessary at this time of the year.  One product that is very relevant these days is a Laptop. 

I have a Dell INSPIRON 15. It takes up a large space. Carrying it is similar to weight lifting. Once powered on, irrelevant processes run, advertising Dell software and services. Despite a 64bit AMD processor it doesn't scale. And it has a loud fan.

I am thinking of retiring the old dude!

"It's all about the specs!"  The Best buy representative said. "When shopping for a new laptop it is best to compare specs of the laptops in one's price range."

I have a $1000 budget. My ideal spec would be:
> Intel processor, preferably i5 or i7,
> No less than 8GB of RAM,
> Less than 1.5kg
> No less than 8 hours of battery life
> A quiet keyboard
> Doesn't heat
> Equipped with USB, (preferably 3.1), HDMI, and Ethernet ports
> Not bloated with pre-installed useless software

ASUS X540L comes with two Intel i7 cores, 8GB of RAM, less than 2kg, USB 3.0 and is $749.99 CAD on Best Buy's "back to school" sale.

I bought and trialed run it yesterday, and I am returning it today.

On this computer there is no visual aide to indicate Caps Lock is on! Typing is a painful task of many backspace/erase keystrokes, e.g. the page up/down keys are not co-located with the arrows.  It comes pre-installed with crapware.

The only thing this laptop has going for it, is its sharp display. Pity, I cannot keep the NVIDIA graphic card!

I will trial run a Lenovo next!  Meanwhile, my old dude is staying.

The Midwife of Venice, Roberta Rich

Roberta Rich says the story came to her on a trip to Venice, when visiting the Jewish ghettos she imagined life of the Jewish families arriving from Northern Europe, Spain and Portugal, and settling in these neighborhoods in the 16th century.   Hannah Levi, her protagonist, lives in the ghetto.  She is a mid-wife, married, barren, and known to deliver babies by witch craft. The witch craft refers to her birthing spoons, she invented by hinging two spoons in the center, and practiced delivery with them, by pulling an onion out of a chicken belly.  Her reputation has spread to the Christian neighborhood. 
The desperate Conte Padovani needs a heir to stay in charge of his estate, and to keep it safe from being blown by his younger brothers.  His pregnant wife has been in labor for two straight days, has lost a lot of blood, but there is no sign of the baby yet.  The Conte comes to Hanna hoping that she agrees to help deliver his baby despite it being against law for Jew to deliver a Christian baby.  What will Hannah do?  Hanna has a lot at the stake.  She has to consider the people living in the ghetto.  If she can't deliver the baby or if something happens to the baby or the mother, she along with the rest of her people will suffer from the consequence of breaking the law.  At the same time, and only recently her husband's on board a ship was attacked and captured by the Knights of Malta.  He is now in their custody and sold to one of merchants of the island as a slave.  She needs money to buy Issac's freedom.  

This book is an easy, entertaining read. 

Persepolis, Marjane Satrapi

Stories like Satrapi's are common and have been told before.  Like Satrapi many were old enough to remember but young enough to really make sense of the events of 1979 Iranian Revolution.  And a few have written about it, Daila Sofer. It seems to me that there is demand to hear about the events of those years; books written on the topic are popular in print and yield lucrative business for film adaptations.  So, more of the same keeps popping.  The question that has come to my mind more than once is had the authors of these books not been part of this historical event, would they be writers today?
Perspolis is yet another one of these stories that belongs to the same "genre".  It tells a story of a girl, the author, who lived the events during and after the revolution.  Her story, like the rest, is dominated by her experiences of those years which is shaped by her family's social status.
What I am trying to say here is, this book doesn't offer anything new, if you have read September's of Shiraz, for example.
The only unique thing is it is illustrated. The illustration however make the story and the characters in it more colorful.

Nanjing Requiem, Ha Jin

The book chronicles another dark moment in history of humanity. In this one: Japanese soldiers attack and take control of Nanjing, the capital of China during 1937-38. Their actions towards every living being in the city is beast like. They slaughter, rape, torture anyone almost willingly, without remorse, with no conscious. And so it doesn't come as a surprise when a group of missionaries from around the world are there to contrast the evil with goodness and humanity; it's the Yang to the Yin. In the center is Ms. Minnie Vautrin, whose life is devoted to the Women's College, Jinling, she helped co-found. She is there to protect and be the voice of people who have been abandoned by their government. Her story of fighting the fight that is not hers inspires!
The book is classified as a novel. The fictional story is largely based on research of Ms. Vautrin's memoirs. The writing is to the point, says it as it is. The story touches on the emotions, the anger, and the sadness only briefly. Nanjing Diaries is a better suited title for this book.

Huawei Y6

Huawei is an Android phone; specs are here.

I use Android base phones only.  And I have had the opportunity to have many, because I leave them behind and despite having my contact information appear on the lock screen, so far I have never got back any of my phones that I left behind.  Thanks to Android's Device Manager feature, I quickly do a remote erase.  As a result my data has not been compromised so far.

Last time I lost my phone, I decided to buy cheap.  Huawei had the lowest price tag, $150 CAD.  The specs, I have included a link to above, and the customer reviews were OK.  Here is what I (dis)like about this phone.

I dislike the preinstalled apps: on the phone Y6's Calendar, Messenger, Fitness, and Browser.  These use too small of a font with  white back ground and blue borders, not an eye appealing design. The Browser opens with an error, "can't log in", but if you are stubborn like me and you type a URL anyways, it redirects you to the site!  The Calendar is not integrated with MAP so the locations of events appear as text only, and won't open up in any map or GPS like device.  The Messaging stacks up the conversation threads.  Although new messages appear in Messaging APP, after I installed and made Google Hangout  default APP to receive send SMS messages, but the status of message, read/unread, is out of sync.

There are two buttons to adjust the volume.  These are situated next to the power on|off button on the side of the phone.  Unfortunately, these only work when the phone screen is unlocked.  It's poor UI design to require entering the password in order to perform a function, adjusting the volume, that is not a security threat.

The Dialer gives the false impression that you can add new contact during the call.  However, the "Contacts" on the Dialer just takes you to the step by step process of adding information for all fields; note I used this functionality during the call, once done, I had no idea how to close the contact screen, and resorted to the phone "Back" button to go back to the Dialer.

Huawei  Y6  Phone Manager scans phone to provide option to optimize Application and Security optimization.   I tried both automatic and manual optimization neither one provided a clear indication on how it benefits. While NEXUS phone tries to put the phone user in control of customizing for Power and Security, Huawei Y6 takes control over the phone.  Huawei developers think that by nature of calling an APP smart, they can safely assume the APP knows better than the phone owner what's best!!


The traffic manager is useless to me.  My old phone gave me the option of setting and tracking my data usage during the billing period.  This phone only provides a line graph of use at discreet point in time.  My old phone also had the capability of setting quota, and would give a warning when the usage was close to the quota.  Huawei's traffic manager is useless to me!

These preinstalled APPS: Mirror, FM Radio, Flash Light, and lock screen, maybe useful and interesting to use one day.

The battery life ranges between 8 - 10 hours for me, so far.  I try to close all APPs after use.

With 1.1 GHZ CPU, the performance of opening some APPs, e.g. Lumosity, Google Sheets and or Docs, is really slow.

To get the phone screen to react, it requires a knock, as opposed to gentle tap.

Overall, my experience with this phone, has not been the greatest.  It's true you get what you pay for.

The snip from an article related to Huawei's new venture to have its own "Android Alternative" agrees with my observation of slow performance of the existing phones.

Like most smartphone manufacturers, Huawei has designed its own skin, or customized Android look. But that skin is often referred to as an iOS ripoff, and its UI layer is heavy with background processes, which slows the phones' performance.

The Marriage of the Opposites, Alice Hoffman

Set in the island of St. Thomas occupied by Danes, the story of Camille Pissarro, the French-Danish, impressionist of 19th century is overshadowed by perhaps too detailed story of his mother Rachel Pomie Petit Pizzarro.

The only daughter of a well respected, and well off merchant of the Island, Rachel learns from her father reading, writing and math; something that not very many Jewish girls are encouraged to do. Despite the fact, that she could never inherit, she learns to read the ledgers. Her youth is spent reading the books in her father's library and dreaming of living in Paris. As she reaches the marriage age, she finds it very difficult to fall in love. In fact, she doesn't believe in love. Her marriage to an older, widowed merchant, arranged by her father doesn't come as a surprise. Rachel realizes her softer side as the second Mrs. Issac's Petit. She has had a bitter relationship with her mother, so she is surprised to find an adoration for the three children of Mr. Petit.  Rachel's story is one of defiance of customs and traditions. The least of her worries is what others think of her.

Jacob Abraham Camille Pizzarro is the third of four children Rachel had with her second husband Fredrick, the nephew of his first husband who came to St. Thomas to take over his uncle's business.
Jacobo took three days to be born and cried all the time. He was his mother's favorite child, but Rachel never showed affection to the boy. He went to the all black school, because they were out cast from the Jewish community. (The side story of Rachel's love for and marriage to Fredrick, her first husband's nephew, as well as their effort to legalizing their marriage and registering their children in the book of names --is an interesting side story). Jacobo doesn't excel in his education, but shows interest in drawing. To parents who want him to work in the family business, this comes as a big disappointment, so they send him to a boarding school in Paris to acquire more practical knowledge and skills!

Although the author glosses over the "artist" creating his "art", I was fascinated by Pissaro's use of lively colors as described in the book. This quote from the Wiki captures how I felt when I read about him in this book.
"The brightness of his palette envelops objects in atmosphere ... He paints the smell of the earth."[9]:35

The title of the book is very confusing, as if the author changed her story but forgot to change the title!

Septembers of Shiraz, Dalia Sofer

 Set in Tehran after the Pahlavi's were toppled by the people's revolution, we are introduced to Issac Amin. He is a non-practicing Jewish jeweler. He comes from humble beginnings; his hard work and passion for jem had brought him riches and fame. On a non-descriptive day he is arrested by the revolutionary guard, and taken to jail in blind folds. In the pages that follow we are told the reactions, and stories of those who are impacted by Isaac's arrest. His wife who tries her best to hold the fort, keep matters in order and her daughter safe, but finds herself ill prepared for both and leans on the housekeeper on many occasions. His daughter who given her young age and due to her mother's shortcomings trys to take matters of rescuing her father and many others in her own hand by stealing documents from her friend's house, whose father works for the revolutionary guard. His housekeeper, and her son; who have been treated and paid fairly over the years, but still question and despise the large income gap between themselves and the Amin family. Isaac's parents, brother and sister who are more concerned with their affairs than Isaac's disappearance. And Issac's son who is studying to become an architect in New York, and seems only concerned about his change in status from a rich to a poor boy who now has to earn his living and his place in society. All this is happening while Issac is given the opportunity to think his life through and put it in perspective in jail. His cell mates and people he comes in contact with during the daily recess are nothing like him. They are communists, or Islamic socialists who were amongst the masses shouting "Down with Shah" not too long ago, but since their ideology differs from the winners are put in jail and made scared of making any claim to the government.
I neither liked the story nor the writing. The story lacked substance. It was washed down to appeal and end quickly. The characters were sloppy. The only thing I sort of liked was the conversations, and events of the jail. The interrogation sessions were descriptive enough to make my hair stand on end. The conversations were interesting because we had pro- & anti- Shah in the same place trying to make sense of it all, and to have them see eye to eye on some matters was a job well done.
The writing was simple, and switched to Farsi in parts of dialogues; this switch made the culture of the characters ambiguous.

How do you socialize?

Around December time frame, my friend and I decided to put our heads, and hearts together to write down all the obstacles to socializing.  We felt since our move to Toronto, many years ago, we still lacked the close, tight knit circle we could call upon to get together, gossip, have fun,  or ask for guidance, or help.  We were wondering why?  Is there something in the climate, literally?  Toronto is too cold.

Since then, I have been thinking and paying attention to hit or miss opportunities to socialize.  Here is my observation so far.

Socialize means different to different people

In my mother tongue we have many different words that describes the action of people getting together not to do business, although it is always a welcome outcome.  Meeting with people is a very important part of my culture, it happens all days of the week, and starts with a phone call, which almost always ends with a date for a meeting, the same day or in a few days.  It's simple, and effortless to get together.  The host then may decide to extend the invitation to other like minded connections, friends, and or family.  Depending on the time and day, these people may or may not show, but it is almost certain that most will show and the event is a go.  No one turns down an invite without a good reason. 

Preparing for the get together itself is extensive.  There's always a host and guest relationship, even if the get together is in a public place.  Most people prefer to have people over  their home, however.  The host always goes beyond the means to put on the best dressed table in front of the guests.  The word "show off" is used often in the after-party conversations; as the party is so extensive that resembles a show of some sort! The guests are there to be entertained and have a good time.  Everyone plays host at some point in time; some do this in a round robin fashion.

Going or throwing a party is a necessity of life in my home town.  Therefore folks prioritize socializing ahead of every other task.

There is a consistency, and in being consistent you get to know the people over time: their name, the name of members of their family, where they are from, what they do, their marital status, their hobbies, their sense of style, and their sense of humor.  The connection is established gradually.

This is not the case in Toronto!  It seems parties thrown by individuals, at least the ones that I have directly and indirectly been part of, is rare.  The more common one is when an organization steps in, and organizes one, every "guest" contributes the fee, and the organization arranges the logistics, entertainment, and food based on the theme.  I have been to a few of these, and felt like I am in one of those lottery ball machines, where people attract or repel after a few minutes of conversation about random topics.  If you are left with one person, there is either an awkward silence, or a series of one way questions on: nationality, marital status, and job, sometimes education.  Conversations are occasionally shallow.  Everyone is aware of all the social biases, there are so many of them; and avoids starting or steering the conversation in that direction.  In this kind of settings I consider myself lucky, if I see the same face twice at the same or follow on parties.

People have busy schedules
I said it is effortless to set a date for a social get together in my home town.  Well, this is not the case in Toronto!  It seems like people need an extra 7 days in a week and an extra 24 hours in a day, to be able to contain their work, life, and social schedule.  It's painful to find a date that works.  It goes back and forth, with email, text, phone call, for weeks, if not months to find a date and time to get together for an hour over coffee in a coffee shop!  I almost feel people are sabotaging themselves and denying themselves of all the fun to be had.

Socializing is not just a past time
It's a fun past time. If you socialize with like minded people you sure experience its impact on your mood.  It reduces stress, because either it distracts or provides a medium to vent.  It creates opportunities to help and be of help at times of need.  I know that I can never have enough friends!


These are my observations so far.  I will come back to it as I gain more insight into the topic using my and those who'd be willing to share experiences with me.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Rebecca Skloot

In 1951, a doctor at Johns Hopkins Hospital took a specimen for culture from a cervical tumor that belonged to Henrietta Lacks, a then 31-year-old African-American woman, without informing her that he was doing so, or asking her consent, as is now required. While Henrietta died pretty quickly after her diagnosis, her cells stayed alive and continued duplicating, hence they were dubbed immortal. Pretty soon, the cells were commercialized, produced, packaged and shipped to where there was demand. Science had found a reliable supply of human cells that it could use to test, and experiment with. Many of such experiments were conducted on Henrietta's cells, the most significant one: the test to prove the polio vaccine is effective. Although contaminated, being cancerous, they became the center of many more scientific advances. Later on, the cells tested positive for two strains of Human Papilloma Virus, which confirmed the results of Professor Harald zur Hausen research connecting HPV to cervical cancer.
The Lacks family found out about Henrietta's cells, in a casual conversation between one of Henrietta's daughter in laws, who is a patient aid at Baltimore hospital, and her neighbor who is a cancer research scientist. With very limited education, it was very hard for the family to grasp the true meaning of their mother's cells being living.
The book tries to bring these two stories together, and I think while there is good effort made, but the result is not very satisfactory.
While I enjoyed reading about HeLa; learning what they are, their significance to science as well as medical ethics. I felt confused when the author switched to talking about the Lacks'. She kept all the details of her finding them, connecting with them, and befriending in the book. Which made these chapters verbose. The family's hardships after Henrietta's death due to HeLa are truly sad! It deserves to be narrated pure and simple, and not to be murked by the author's pursuit of it.

Nexus, Ramez Naam

It was only a matter of time; I started reading the first of Naam's trilogy, Nexus, couple of months after I finished the last book in the series, Apex! Whereas, I had made up my mind about the main characters' past life, in Nexus I read Naam's version. The most striking difference, was Samantha Cataranes'. I would have never guessed she had such rough childhood, and by nature of living that life she had become a fighter. Of all characters in Naam's book, and Naam is a prolific character creator, Sam is the one I like to follow the most. She is neutral, and has the least to gain from investing in, believing, or promoting the human brain augmentation technology. She is making up her mind, as events unfold, and present her with evidence to take side.

 After reading two of the three books, I still have not made up my mind. That if intervention in evolution is unavoidable; and that, it is only a matter of time that we become one with technology; should we embrace it and make it available to all, regulate it, or squash it?! Naam's Nexus and Apex, doesn't want to, or doesn't know how to take a clear stance on this. What it does take clear stance on is violence is necessary, that many will perish. In the end there doesn't seem to be a clear winner --only a power shift. One thing is very clear, regardless of which category Naam's character fall in: normal-, augmented-, trans-, or post- human, they are all easily manipulated. They can easily become slaves of other's ideas and motives!

[IBM High Level Assembler Language for z System-HLASM] No Active Using - ASMA307E

If you are here because you have hit ASMA307E error, then I suggest to generate a listing file, by using HLASM option LIST.  Study the section of the assembler source that has been identified as not having "Active Using".  If you don't see a meaningful "Active Loc" then it could be due to discontinuity introduced in your CSECT.  In my case a DSECT caused the section I want addressable to become orphaned, OR it could be due to code_size being greater than 4K between the USING statement and the symbol being addressed.

• Solution_For_Discontinuity:  Move that section to the CSECT with Using statement, OR insert the CSECT statement before the orphaned section.

Example:

• Solution_For_Code_Size_GT_4K: check out Base Register in assembler (1), (2), and (3) at Jens Elbaek Blog, System Z Assembler

Going from Paris to Ris-Orangis

The best way to get to Ris-Orangis from Paris, is via Taxi I was told .  Not so true.  Firstly, it is costly, especially, if you have to do it every day, back and forth for four days.  Secondly, it is boring.  There is lots to see on and outside of the public transit --and if there is not, one can sleep, read or listen to music.

A 5-days pass for zones 1 - 5 costs 67,40 € (2015, October).  And from anywhere in Paris you can get to Gare Du Nord or Les Halles Stations where you can catch RER D train operated by ROVO South (Sud) to CORBEIL ESSONNES.  I caught this at 7:42 AM and was in Ris - Orangis at 8:20 AM.

There was no cab at the train station, to my surprise.  So, I had to try my French in getting the point across to the attendant at the train ticket station, who kindly made a call on my behalf.  The taxi however arrived in sooner than the expected 15 minutes.  I tried my French again on reserving a taxi for tomorrow but I gathered from what the driver said, I have to call again tomorrow.  By end of the week the attendant at the train ticket station will either avoid me or we become good friends.  I certainly hope for the latter to happen!

Going back to Paris, I took RER D train North (Nord), at 5:31 towards VILLIERS LE BEL GONESSE ARNOUVILLE, operated by VUPE, from ORANGIS BOIS DE L EPINE, a different station that the one I arrived in the morning, and got to Paris around 6:10 PM.

There are many trains going through the same station, but they go one at a time :), so for the information about the next train approaching are on the monitors, this includes time of arrival, and all the stations the train stops.  This is truly a source of reassurance. However, if the system is down,  monitors showing a blue screen, it's best to know the train information, timetable, and operator from a previous time, basically get on the train that arrives at that time, and listen to stop announcements, those French statements starting with: Prochain arret ....., to ensure you are on the right one.

The following two websites are source of reference for planning to visit Paris and/or Paris and the vicinity.
Paris and suburbs: http://www.ratp.fr/
France: http://www.transilien.com/

Ward Islands, Toronto Islands

If you are looking for something to do on any given day, and you happen to be in Toronto, head down to the Toronto Island Ferry port, and get a RT ticket for $7.25 (subject to change, fees are based on 2015) and travel to Ward island. 

The Rectory Cafe

Center Island is a popular destination, and with the Centerville Amusement park, water fountains, and the bicycle and boat rental stores it makes total sense that the line to that island is always the busiest.  But Ward has its own beauty --it's more mature, and more reserved.  You get off the ferry, and there is no sign or anything else to direct you or inhibit you from going in any direction.  But, if I may suggest you may head towards the lake and start walking west toward the Center island.  It's a lovely walk and doesn't take too long.  Along the way, watch for the sign (on your left) for The Rectory Cafe.  Don't think of leaving if you are hungry and there is a line; it's worth the wait, and the staff is quite accommodating and seats hungry clients quickly.  The Salmon and Steak there are cooked to perfection.  In the summer time, when we visited, August 16, there was quite a charming jazz musician singing beautiful tunes.  It was a whole experience.

There is plenty to do after lunch.  Continue with the walk to Center Island and explore the eastern point of the island via a rental boat or a bicycle.

Apex, by Ramez Naam

APEX, independent of what led to it, (events of Nexus and Crux), builds a story based on connection of minds through the NexusOS. Through this soft layer one human mind can feel and see the other's. In addition Nexus OS enhances the natural ability to think, learn, memorize, problem solve, and focus.

It is year 2040, and unrest is a dominant and recurring theme; the government of China, India, and USA are involved in secretly boosting their power position by enhancing NexusOS while publicly denouncing it.

In US, post a series of suspicious deaths of high ranking government officials, leaked government documents show it's involved in crimes post-human's are accused of committing.
In China a post-human, Su-Yong Shu, has been tortured so badly that has led her to create a cloned software that when activated will set the path to destroy all human life on earth.
In India, government officials bribe Chinese scientist to get a hold of part of the AI technology behind Su-Yong Shu.

Where there is evil, there is good. And in this story, the goodness comes into play quite often to defeat the bad. It's the author's belief that only compassion and peace can stop war and devastation.

What stood out for me, were meditation and concentration and how he used them in his story. It inspired me, to think what if? What if peace could be reached in the world if those of us who believed in it meditated?
However, I would have appreciated a bit of out of the box thinking for the governments of the imaginary year of 2040. Intentionally or inadvertently the political part of the story closely follows the happenings of past couple of decades.

The Paris Wife, Paula McLain

Paula McLain has penned a novel based on the story of Ernest Hemingway's, American novelist (1899 - 1961), first marriage.  He meets her, Elizabeth Hadley Richardson, (1891 - 1979), at a mutual friend's boarding house in Chicago.  Between them there is an ease.  They fall in and out of conversation, and speak to each other about dreams and aspirations without any expectation.  Hadley, that's how she is known to her friends, is from St. Louis, and Ernest, Hem that's how amongst so many other ways, his friends call him, is from Oak Park.  Not that the location they are from matters; it is just a fact stated in the novel which attempts to be as much true to the original story as possible.
 
They correspond after Hadley returns home.  Ernest's letters is about his desire to establish himself as an author; not love letters.  He has heard aspiring writers go to Europe to be discovered.  One of his letters to Hadley begins like this, "Still thinking about Rome but what if you came along --as wife?"

They get married.  And move to Paris --instead of Rome-- she loves him, he is exuberant and vibrant. He sees in her the goodness truth, Hadley is good for him, is good for his writing.  Each lacks what the other offers.  It seems to be a perfect match.

Their life in Paris, despite Ernest's meager salary working for Toronto Star, is not too shabby.  They drink, socialize and travel well.  A big part of the book is about their trips to many different cities.  The most notable ones are the ski trips to Schruns, Austria and the bull fighting in Pamplona, Spain.
These trips strengthen his craft.  She is there for him, every step of the way, with little or no demand; her happiness is an extension of his.  Their friends, mostly the literary type, Gertrude Stein, Mike Strater, Ezra Pound, Scott Fitzgerald, and .... say Hemingways know how to do marriage.

But even the strongest marriages and the most understanding couples can be teased.   What Hadley does to keep him is unfathomable; but in the end she has to let him go. 

Ernest moves back to the States as an established author with his mistress, Pauline Pfeiffer.

If I had been interested in Hemingeway's marriages and affair I would have picked up "Moveable Feast".  I may still do that, because Paula McLain's novel, The Paris Wife, made me interested in the artist and the city in a whole different way.

A good read!

Persian Pickle Club, Sandra Dallas

As I was reading this book, I kept wondering about living back in the 1930's. I sure was not going to like it, or I sure was not going to like the version Dallas painted by chronicling the story of Persian Pickle Club. Quite a peculiar name for a club of ordinary women from all walks of life. There was definitely nothing specifically "Persian" about this club. Interestingly Dallas (in)advertently didn't let on the bond amongst the club members --so the end came as a surprise to me.

Being a part of the Pickles was an honor and attending the gatherings was the thing to look forward to in lives of these women who were otherwise (not so) busy with the chores of a sluggish farming season due to lack of rain --at least this was the case for Queenie Bean the narrator.

So, what happens when a new inductee to the club, not by choice but by association to another member, turns into a reporter and assigned to report on a local crime. Well, solving the crime is more important to Rita Ritter than being accepted to the club --this could be fine so long as the club doesn't have anything to hide.

Interesting read, written in old fashioned, supposedly 30's style language. At times I had doubts about whether Dallas was being true to that era, however I read someone's review on GoodReads who assures this indeed is the case, Jim Butler says: "Trust me, Sandra has done an awesome job of describing the people and the period in the flint hills area outside Topeka. One should read this book to truly understand our mid-American heritage and character. The plot is just a vehicle to get to that knowledge."

Mont-tremblant in April

You can get to Mont-tremblant ski resort by air too, but we decided to take the road.  There are a couple of options for flying there.

1. Fly to Montreal-Trudeau airport and take the shuttle, operated by Autocars Skyport, to Mont-tremblant resort.
2. Fly to Mont-tremblant airport and take the shuttle from the airport to the resort.

But if you decided to take the road, then prepare for six hours of straight, or nine hours of driving with breaks.  Most of the drive is in Ontario and on route 401 East.  Unless there is a an accident, the Ontario portion of the route is pretty straight forward.  If you get in a situation of abrupt halt and backed up traffic due to road construction or accident, it is best to look for the best way to get to, County Road 2 (formerly Highway 2), that runs in parallel and merges with 401 west of Brockville.  As for the Quebec portion of the route, I can only say --stay alert and pay attention to the signs!

We had a rental car, and although most of the route was in Ontario but had to pay $5 extra per day for permit to drive in the province of Quebec.  Tallying all the cost of renting, parking and filling up the tank of the vehicle we save $100 (per couple) over the price of air travel to this destination.

Booking hotel stay, ski lift, ski equipment, and spa in advance saves one up to 30%.

We stayed in Mont-tremblant Westin resort with special advance booking rate for the Starwood Preferred Guest members of $229 a night + $15 daily charge for parking.  I used the hotel gym and utterly enjoyed my indoor walks through the scenic forests of New Zealand and Germany on the treadmill.  The other nice thing about this hotel was the fire place in the room.  There was a well equipped kitchenette in the room which could have made up for the not very healthy and very expensive restaurants if we had taken our food with us.  The local supermarket has limited choices and is expensive.  Having said that dining at Maison De La Crepe provides an opportunity for a healthy start to the day. 

Maison De La Crepe, 113 Kandahar, Mont Tremblant, QC

Miss Vitamines $11.33

The hills were covered with mix of man made and natural snow --which was more wet than powder.  But compared to skiing in Ontario even this was superb!

The South side of Mont Tremblant, the "trembling mountain." The summit is at  875 metres (2,871 ft), which makes it one of the tallest peaks in the Laurentians. [source: Wikipedia]

Visiting Montreal on Jan 1

Montreal Piere Trudeau airport is one building, all domestic and international flights depart and arrive here.  It is very convenient to navigate.

On the ground floor of this building, exit 27 [if you are paying attention to the numbers printed at each], is where the airport - down town bus, 747 AEROPORT P.E.-TRUDEAU / CENTER-VILLE, stops.  There is a ticket machine close by, where you can buy a day pass for $10, and pick up a 747 bus time table which has a map of metro from the information desk close to the exit.  The day pass is valid on the airport-down town bus as well as on metro, and all other buses operated by stm.  Most Montreal sights are accessible by public transit.  [I bought my ticket on the bus, I paid $10, exact change in coins.  But unfortunately, my ticket didn't scan at any of the metro station.  I went to the stm customer care, Service a la Clinetele, at the Berri-Uqam station and got a new day pass issued for me.]

There is metro station a short walk distance from the 747 bus' first stop, Linonel-Groux.  Taking the metro is faster than staying on the bus, I think, to down town, the Saint-Laurent station.

Now, since it was Jan 1, I had prepared a list of places that are open.

Notre - dame Bascillica - Roman Catholic church, Gothic Architecture, with a beautiful chapel in the back [110 Notre Dame street, metro: Place-D'Armes]  Jan 1 schedule morning mass, open for visitors 12:30-4:00 PM.

Bonsecours Basin Quays of Old Port [Ville Marie, metro: Champ-de-Mars] Skating rink admission: $9.00 Skate rental, $6.50+tax, themed music everyday in winter starting at 6PM, rink maintenance at 2 PM and maybe other times during the day, Jan 1 schedule 10 AM - 10 PM.

St. Joseph Oratory - Roman Catholic church - its dome the third largest in the world, Renaissence Architecture, escalators or taking the steps as a pligrimage to the chapel, overlooks the city of Montreal's Mount Royal Park. [3800 Queen Mary Road, metro: Cote-Des-Neiges]

Universite-de-Montreal, opened in 1878 with less than a hundred students in theology, medicine and law. [metro: Universit-de-Montreal]

I utterly enjoyed visiting all the places above; the city was clean, quiet and ready to welcome its visitors on Jan 1st.

Map of Montreal metro, run by stm.

The Imitation Game

A burglary at Professor Alan Turing's house reported by one of his neighbours prompts the Scotland Yard to dig deeper into his life.  The inspector becomes suspicious of the victim instead of the suspect; he forges a signature to obtain military records of Alan Turing, but to his astonishment there is none, the envelope is empty.  The irony is that the movie about Alan Turing's life is as empty as that envelope appearing in the movie.

The let down of this movie, for me, was its glossing over the Turing the inventor and his invention*.  It lacked knowledge and substance.  Instead of celebrating the life of a man who invented the first machine that can "think", the audience left the theatre feeling sad and sorry for him.  Thank you very much Black Bear and Weinstein company for taking the life of a 20th century inventor and turning it into nothing but a sorrowful story. Now we all feel sorry for Alan Turing; he was chemically castrated to avoid prison and took his own life with cyanide at the age of 41 because he was a homosexual.  

The movie did have a climax, however, and that was when the team realized they can't use the decrypted Enigma code. I could hardly breath at that moment.  These men had just solved the biggest problem of the 20th century, yet they could not use their findings to save lives, because it meant turning the clock back to the beginning; more mathematics and statistics were needed to determine how the information should be used.

The movie benefits immensely from brilliant, talented cast.

Benedict Cumberbatch, Alan Turing

Alex Lawther, Young Alan Turing

Keira Knightly: Joan Clark, Matthew Goode: Hugh Alexander, Allen Leech: John Cairncross, 

1. *A Turing machine is a hypothetical device that manipulates symbols on a strip of tape according to a table of rules. Despite its simplicity, a Turing machine can be adapted to simulate the logic of any computer algorithm, and is particularly useful in explaining the functions of a CPU inside a computer.

Should speaking the official language in public places become law?

These days the streets, trains, malls, shops, grocery stores, coffee shops, banks, in short all public places are so crowded.  Looks like the entire inhabitants of the city are making an attempt to be out and about.  There is so much noise, people in groups speaking loudly on the train, in the street, and pretty much everywhere. In midst of the hustle and bustle it's hard not to notice the variety of languages,other than one of the two official languages, French, or English, spoken.

Perhaps it is the convenience, and/or the peace of mind that prompts the choice of language.  Convenience that the language equips with all that is necessary to impress, express all the details of a narrative, and peace of mind that the words spoken is privy only to the individuals it is intended for.  If English or French are not spoken as widely as one would expect, it is perhaps because they cannot satisfy these needs.

 But what is the implication of such a choice?  On the surface it doesn't seem to have any [implication].  After all a conversation in a public place should be worthy only to its participants, and noise to the rest; the expressionless faces of non-participants is evidence of their indifference.  Even businesses hire people from many different ethnic backgrounds to be able to claim we-speak-your-language to encourage doing business with them.  Another variation of the same topic is the store signage printed in languages other than the two official languages, implicitly employing and serving a select ethnic group.


Toronto remains a mosaic of many languages. In 2006, forty-seven percent of the population had a mother tongue in a language other than English or French.

If we encourage, or ignore this trend, Toronto will not be one city, instead it will be hundred different cities within one city.  There won't be one Toronto, but a Chinese Toronto, an Italian Toronto, a Portuguese Toronto, a Russian Toronto, in short a Toronto divided amongst many visible minorities.  As a government thrives on having a majority, Toronto will also benefit from having a majority of its residents speaking either English or French fluently.