Jason M. Hanley :: Custom Software Developer

Health Minister Tony Clement says sodium is a bigger health threat than artery-plugging trans fats. “It’s almost become a silent invader of our food supply and only now are we seeing the consequences of it.” - canada.com

Dr. Graham MacGregor of the U.K.-based World Action on Salt and Health (WASH) says that reducing dietary sodium would result in “the biggest improvement in public health since clean water and drains.” - dietians.ca

“You hate to always point the finger at fast foods, but if you tend to go and get a meat and cheese breakfast sandwich on bread, you’re probably consuming about 1,800 milligrams of salt,” Sally Brown, CEO of the Heart and Stroke Foundation - ctv.ca

The Centre for Science in the Public Interest estimates that as many as 15,000 Canadians a year are dying annually because of excessive salt consumption. - theglobeandmail.com

For the longest time, Google Maps’ super-high-resolution images were only available in large city areas, like New York, Toronto, etc. I noticed recently, however, that Kitchener-Waterloo has it now.

I can actually see my car parked at my building. I can also tell that it was taken before May (when the large tree at the bottom right was taken down by a storm) in the summer (all the trees are full and green) and that it was early morning (from the shadows).

I wonder if this has anything to do with Google opening up a larger office in Waterloo soon.

There’s a great little article over at What’s the next action about how to make an effective To-Do list. If you don’t find making lists effective, it might be because you’re doing it wrong!

Some of the key points are:

1. Use verbs: Everything on the list needs to be actionable, which generally means it should start with a verb.
2. Be specific: If an action isn’t specific enough, it’s easy to defer it since you don’t really know what the “next action” is.
3. Group by context: Group your tasks by context. (at the computer, on the phone, running errands, etc.)
4. Focus on “next”: Filter out everything except the very next task for each context.

Tim Ferriss (author of the 4 Hour Workweek) recently posted a great list of “stressful and common habits that entrepreneurs and office workers should strive to eliminate.”

My two favorites:
1. Do not answer calls from unrecognized phone numbers (I never do)
4. Do not let people ramble (I almost always answer personal calls with “Hey, what’s up?” and business calls with “Hi, what can I do for you?”

This makes me mad. The recently released CRTC Telecommunications Monitoring Report highlighted how lack of competition in the cellular phone market is leading to increased profits year after year. From the report:

“The telecommunications industry’s earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) increased from $12.4 billion to $13.1 billion, a $0.7 billion or 5% increase. The increase was due to the mobile phone service providers, whose EBITDA increased from $4.4 billion in 2005 to $5.6 billion in 2006, a $1.2 billion or 27% increase.“

Most of the Canadian market (95%) is served by a group of three providers — Bell, Rogers, and Telus. None of them really compete, as their plans and pricing are nearly identical, and far more expensive than other G8 countries.

There’s no easy solution to this problem. Foreign competition has been introduced on several occasions, but subsequently crushed by the “big trio”. Sprint introduced very competitive mobile service back in 2003. They were acquired by Fido, which was then acquired by Rogers. Prices (and their profits) have been increasing ever since, while prices in other countries have been steadily falling.