Data

I thought sarcasm was a western phenomenon. I caught it even though it doesn't translate well into text. For example the episode of Simpsons when Homer placed a letter in the suggestion box at work that said, "No more apples in the vending machine Please!!" Burns knows it is Homer's letter and reads it aloud. The amusing part is that Burns believes Homer is such a simpleton with poor grammar that he meant to say he wishes a refill of apples.

Why does this art form remind me so much of the style used by indigenous people in Canada? Of course that's a rhetorical question. I watched that 3 hour video of David Bull you had linked. It gave a good idea of what it takes to create one of these. These would be popular at crafts shows around here and you can use you're imagination and create anything you want.

Don't even joke about free trade agreement guy. The Liberals of Canada may actually want Trump to surrender the NAFTA agreement and replace the U.S. with China. As Trudeau discovers the ways of the world it is going to be Canadians who suffer from his acquiescence with China. To date, the negotiations with China have been a complete disaster. Justin's family is close friends with the Castro family and has publicly displayed admiration for China and Iran specifically for their dictatorship. He also shares similar beliefs with Barack Obama in regards to their anticolonial marxist dreams for their respective countries. Canada's new ambassador to Beijing John Mccallum kicked off negotiations with China in April 2016 using Justin's strategy for negotiations by saying yes to whatever China wants in advance. He said, "Within 24 hours of arriving in China I was invited to present my credentials to President Xi Jinping and I conveyed a message to him from our prime minister which can be summarized in 3 words more more more" A month later McCallum reveals that human rights abuses in China are not even up for negotiation anymore but justifies it by braging over the amount of money Chinese tourists spent in 2015. In September 2016 shortly after Trudeau's arrival in China, he learned of his new nickname given to him. The name "Trudeau" sounds like the mandarin word for "potato". At some point they changed this to "Little Potato". I don't have much faith in our trade negotiator when the other party uses an undignified nickname for him and he seems fine with it. After this Justin went to Hong Kong and raised concern about China's human rights record, but in the same sentence went on to criticize Canada for it's indigenous peoples abuse. This resulted in China running a media article about the Prime Minister criticizing Canada for our past abuse on indigenous people and further weekening our leverage. In early 2017 Trudeau went against the recommendations of the Department of National Defense, Canadian Security Intelligence Service as well as the US Department of Homeland Security and gave away our top secret military laser technology, putting us and our allies at a military disadvantage. In November of 2017 the Prime Minister infuriates world leaders and embarrasses host nation of Vietnam when he failed to show up for a crucial meeting to salvage the Trans Pacific Partnership. Later this month when he visited China again under the pretense that they would talk about free trade, Trudeau got snubbed and the trip ended in a waste when he left without our Canadian detainees and no trade deal. Trump claims there is a trade deficit of $71 Billion with Mexico and a "pretty good trade deficit with Canada. They were saying WE have a surplus with Canada, I said no and I like the Prime Minister very much, Prime Minister Trudeau, nice guy, good guy, I like him. Trudeau was wrong though because he was not including lumber and energy. With those categories, he claims the US has a $17 billion deficit with Canada. To me I would predict that Canada will sooner allow Chinese telecommunications companies to start in Canada, possibly British Columbia, before a U.S. company gets a foothold.

It's not so much the idea of capitalism as much as Canadians are desperate for some type of competition between the cable companies because they have a monopoly over all communications and the CRTC has always been cozy with the governments. This is generally a bipartisan issue but some are so frustrated that they toss around the idea of allowing US companies a chance to compete for Canadian subscribers. This would quickly take subscribers from our current providers because of the higher value service but on the other hand this can also become a slippery slope for a sovereign country to partake in. Cutting the cord and canceling service seems to be the only thing that has an effect but many Canadian are too docile to bother complaining. As for an FM antennae, I have run coaxial cable on to the roof so it is in clear view of the transmitter or sometimes just in front of a window and got good reception. I figured you're cables ran to a vhf antennae on the roof to receive analog over the air channels. These VHF antennae are built with the same attenuation that FM radio uses so they may coexist.

The Movie Network and HBO Canada are packaged as a bundle and they show on our bill as $18.00 / month. So for cable cutters or anyone who is only interested in watching Game of Thrones as they first air for example, need to purchase a cable plan as well as the Movie Network / HBO package which cost about $48.00 / month cad.

HBO is not available in Canada, even through Amazon Prime Canada. Bell owns the rights to this and they will not license it to any competitors. The builder of you're house installed coaxial to every room so the owner could run a set to any room as well as using it for an FM antennae. It's a contemporary way of providing data transmission and because there's 15 of them, they also had the foresight to future proof their needs.

The USA has an aging infrastructure, specifically the last mile where it transfers from the cities fiber optic to the copper line which traverses from telephone poles to underground tubes. It's the same thing in Canada. The cities and provinces have helped subsidized the cost of these fiber tier 1 lines running across the southern parts of Canada but many buildings are still using copper coaxial. Our population density is considerably lower so we can still achieve adequate speeds. I made a mistake. We do have an equivalent to HBO Go in USA, called HBO Now and all the shows are available. What hasn't changed is that you need to purchase a basic cable package before you can log into the streaming app which comes out to at least $48.00/ month before tax. HBO has never been all that interested in expanding to Canada because the number of potential subscribers is not a very enticing prospect also, the CRTC won't allow a US cable company to provide services here but it doesn't even matter since Bell Canada is more than willing to overpay for access to HBO's properties and ultimately Bell Canada uses this exclusivity to leverage subscribers. This is where our cable providers are hedging their money. They find new content, buy the rights in Canada and then force you to buy from the cable company.

OpenMedia helped sway the crtc in 2016 mandating the Canadian television providers to offer a skinny package for cable television service. The idea is to get some channels for no more than $25.00 / month with the option to add individual channels. The immediate problems are; 1. Current subscribers who already have a medium to fat packages would see an increase in cost if they were to add the channels they already have today. 2. These skinny packages have almost nothing of value. For instance out of 21 channels, 7 of them are french and out of those, 3 are government propaganda radio. 3. We have 3 news sources in Canada; CTV, CBC and Global. CBC is a state funded left leaning news media. CTV isn't terrible but they were built years ago on government hand outs and I believe Global has always been entirely private. Worst part about these options are that they are the national versions and no option to watch any of the local community versions. The U.S. has HBO Go which gives full access to HBO's past and present content for $15.00/ month but if Canadians want HBO they have to purchase a basic cable plan and then add HBO Canada. There is no access to old content although Game of Thrones will show on time which I believe is the only thing people wanted the last 7 years. Our cable boxes allow us to sign in to Netflix as well as record television shows. Lets do some math. Lite MaxTv $25.00 Hardware rental $5.00 HBO Canada $18.00 $48.00 without tax Netflix is $9.00 basic, $11.00 for two screens, $14.00 for 4K Let's just choose basic. Add internet. Options; 20 Down 5 Up = $58.00/ month 40 down 10 up = $68.00/ month 80 down 15 up = $85.00/ month Let's choose the first. $48.00 + $9.00 + $58.00 = $115.00 + 14% tax = $ 131.10/ month

This seems like a loaded question which will only incriminate myself further but I will attempt to convey my perspective. First, there is no value if you love sports in Canada. The real pirates are the media companies and the crtc. If you follow only you're most local hockey teams then you will need to purchase the Sportsnet package, the rest of the teams are blacked out. To get access to the rest, then you need to purchase Rogers NHL Live who would otherwise blackout you're local teams. If I bundle my internet with these sports channels I save a few bucks but it's already $130 month before tax with only 1 reciever. I enjoy baseball when I have the time. Sportsnet takes care of the Blue Jays games but if you want to follow other teams, you need to subscribe to MLB TV for about $140 annually which is cheaper than having it bundled to my cable plan. The Movie Network and HBO Canada are $18 month which many people want. The rest of the channels I never watch. There is also no option for what we call "conservative" news in Canada, in fact the only channel I can think of is Fox News in New York but the CRTC has banned it long ago and it has almost no interest in Canada. For the record though, I do subscribe to MLB but for hockey I just take the easy and cheaper path of watching illegal streams.

I use internet protocol television. I make a donation of $75 US to my international associates and in return they provide me access to their servers. The service is good for 1 year and I get access to 95% of the U.S. channels as well as other countries. This service works on android boxes although it does take more effort to get working and needs to be maintained more often. In fact almost all the complaints of no service are from android boxes. I recommend purchasing a mag 254 set top box from infomir. The support for it is universal and I almost never need to reboot it. Everything else I download through torrent the following day with my PC. For sports I use Sports Devil on Kodi and for NHL I use NHL Reddit streams on the PC or on one of my spare laptops. The mag box would be ideal for a bedroom, spare room or living room. It comes with it's own television guide similar to a satellite dish and you don't need to update any of this stuff and it's not any more difficult to bugger than a cable box. Netflix would compliment the box well.

What about So-Poor-Oh? It may be popular with the unemployed and trailer trash.

A while back I had asked if there was any literature regarding the launch of the Nintendo Entertainment System. I was told the NES never became popular to the American public until 1987. Considering the official American release was in the fall of 1985 I figured there had to be something out there. By late 1984, the Famicom had already sold millions of units in Japan, shadowing the market 9 to 1. Knowing the collapse of the videogame industry left by Atari and Coleco, the retailers and the press stateside told the public that videogames were only a fad and home computers were going to be the future. At the Winter Consumer Electronics Show held in January 1985 in Las Vegas, Nintendo’s booth demonstrated Rob the robot along with other peripherals such as keyboard and data cassette along with the base unit calling it a Advanced Video System to avoid being dismissed as a video game only toy because of the industry crash in America during the last 2 years. This is the brochure they gave to attendees at the Nintendo booth. Brain Breaker of Nintendo Age has provided the only known photos from this booth. Between February and June of 1985, there are currently 6 different sources of media coverage. The Summer CES of 1985 was held June 3rd in Chicago. Nintendo had dropped many of the expensive peripherals and began to focus more on what was eventually released to the American public. The official American release was in late October 1985 but only for select markets. New York first, then Chicago, L.A. and San Francisco in early 1986. These photos were taken late 1986 but they were built for FAO Schwarz Oct 1985 release. They are the only known photos of this display. Steve Lin was one of the first customers during this period and he has recently discovered some public relation materials and order forms he had and scanned it for preservation. He also scanned the results of a survey Nintendo released in January - February 1986. In the May 1986 Issue of Computer and Videogames they review the Deluxe NES set as well as the current popular games. Edward Semrad wrote a column for The Milwaukee Journal on Saturdays. On August 9th he wrote his opinions on the NES and again the following weekend which were quite unfavorable. Nintendo would make another appearance at summer CES in 1986 but nothing is available besides this Ad they created for it. Edward who would later go on to become a senior editor for Electronic Gaming Monthly must have either succumb to the charms from the growing 3rd party games arriving from the orient or he was influenced by the mass hysteria growing on the street by children of all ages despite the attempts from the media to block the success because by December of 1986, he was beginning to favor the lunch box shaped magic box. In 1987 the Nintendo Fun Club News was published and this year Nintendo really learned how to market their golden goose. There was a scarcity for the system as well as the games. It was word of mouth at this point and that mouth was hungry for more of Nintendo. C&VG issues from 1987 are missing although I suspect they will contain more literature on the NES. The Milwaukee Journal once again casts light on the NES in January 17 1987 with columist Edward Semrad. Nintendo returned to the winter CES in 1987 and not much is know except this official trade ad. Edward soon wrote about it on June 6th 1986. 1988 became easier to find NES coverage with Electronic Game Players and Nintendo Power. By 1989, the mainstream realized that videogames were here to stay in America. From what I remember kids used to go outside and play. They loved the clean air and excercise. The day kids discovered the Nintendo Entertainment System and especially before 1990, instead of going outside, looked forward to going indoors and playing their Nintendo. Kids would be driven to disobey their parents and stay up till 1 AM on weeknights, 4 AM on weekends. I watched an episode of 20/20 from 1988 that interviewed children who owned the NES and felt as though I was looking in the mirror. ***Credits*** Milwaukee Journal, Author Edward Semrad https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=jvrRlaHg2sAC&dat=19860809&b_mode=2&hl=en Steve Lin, San Francisco California https://twitter.com/stevenplin/status/660502774182907904/photo/1?ref_src=twsrc^tfw&ref_url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.techtimes.com%2Farticles%2F102129%2F20151102%2Foriginal-nintendo-entertainment-system-press-release-includes-some-surprising-statistics.htm Frank Cifaldi, Game History Org https://gamehistory.org/nes-launch-collection-1985/ Brain Breaker, Nintendo Age, Jan 1985 CES Exhibit http://nintendoage.com/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=5&threadid=148124 Contributors to Game History Org’s “The NES Launch Collection” , Google Drive https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0By3fjn1rWdp3Sk81a3FpLUpVSVU

Yes Pai wants to repeal the 2015 reclassification applied to broadband providers because it is based off of legislation from the 1930's which were never intended for modern day broadband and internet providers. Added to this, the pile of new regulations added in the 80's, 90's and 2000's only complicate the process of regulating the industry effectively. The real issue here is not about whether the FCC wins or loses rather, the FCC could use the same power to regulate internet service beyond broadband. The new goal of the FCC is to take a different approach to regulating providers and internet in America by focusing on actual abuses of market power while continuing to support the basic principles of net neutrality. One particular issue in court right now is the AT&T / Time Warner merger. AT&T being the owner of DirecTV while also being one of the largest fiber optic providers and Time Warner owning some of the largest content studios including Turner Broadcasting. So far the justice department has said that AT&T/ Time Warner will need to sell DirecTV or Turner Broadcasting before this deal can go through, something both companies don't want. I think these companies need to be broken up in this case because if this new conglomerate owns both the fiber optic cable as well as controlling the media content being created, this will negatively affect the industry and the users.

The repeal of Title II regulations in 2015 was not a handout to ISP's. It was set into motion in the 30's to regulate Bell telephones from controlling the entire market. It was also a law designed for public utilities such as electricity, railroads and water and never designed for something dynamic as broadband internet. In fact the Obama era FCC decided to classify broadband as common carriers in 2015 so as to simplify the means of enacting net neutrality which resulted in regulation becoming worse rather than better. It also had the unintended consequence of shielding broadband providers from the FTC's authority over online privacy. Futhermore, implying that chairman Pai has colluded and conspired for what I would assume in you're mind would be power and financial rewards is a baseless claim. Pai has consistently supported the basic principles of net neutrality: ISPs should not be allowed to block specific legal websites or devices, intentionally slow some traffic to benefit others, misrepresent their network management practices or otherwise behave in conduct long-considered anti-competitive in American law. Right now 6 companies own about 90% of the media business in US: News Corp, Disney, Viacom, CBS, Time Warner and Comcast. Only 7 companies own the internet backbone in the US. They are UUNET, Level 3, Verizon, AT&T, Qwest, Sprint and IBM. Many people purchase their internet access from smaller ISP's who purchase their bandwidth from the larger companies. I have long supported change.org's goal of keeping the larger companies from dictating to these smaller ISP's how much speed, how many gigabytes of data they allow and most importantly how much they have to charge. These have been long hard battles through the years and alot of them have been won although it is not over.

I have been an active supporter of change.org who advocate against governments and telecommunications making misinformed decisions regarding fair use of internet infrastructure on behalf of citizens. I’ve learned through this organization that the only way to have you’re voice heard in Canada and USA regarding the FCC and CRTC is to have money as well as signatures when you go up against opposing lobbyists. I feel like most people for lack of a better description are ignorant towards topics including internet service providers, telecommunications, cable/satellite providers, copper wire, fiber optic, 4G and everything else that is a derivative to this technology. It’s easy to look at you’re cable bill and cellphone bill and internet bill and say this is highway robbery, these guys are crooks, we pay a premium invoice and in return get inferior service. I don’t have all the answers. How the hell would I know what the results are going to be in however many years? If I had to guess, I would say political parties will continue to spread misconceptions about each other based on what side of the spectrum you are on and everyone in between will continue to get wiped out. In all honesty, I don’t believe calling congress will have any useful affect. We are going to have to step forward whether we like it or not and in the future we will arrive at another crossroad, being wiser then we were before.

The cheapest cellphone plan where I live is $30.00 month with 200 daytime minutes unlimited text and unlimited evening and weekend. For $40.00 month you get unlimited picture and video messaging unlimited local and long distance which is what I have. If you want internet access on your phone, they are sold to us in "buckets" in a manner akin to trough feeding for hogs. 1 GB / $15 5GB / $20 10GB / $30 15GB / $40 20GB / $60 35GB / $110 50GB / $160 The cheapest home fiber internet package available to me offers 800 GB month at 20 MB down 2 MB up and costs is $63 per month. The US cellular carriers at the moment offer unlimited data which depending on the carrier, offers between 23 and 28 GB's per month before getting bumped to the lowest data priority on the tower and suffering 3G speeds (850 KB/s) during peak hours. (between dinner time and midnight) They also limit tethering to 10 GB / month before being reduced to 3G speed. Verizon Wireless, besides being hated for customer service and unpopular business practices, offers a plan called Beyond Unlimited which allows 15 GB of tethering at 4G and unlimited at 3G and is the only carrier with a plan allowing the connection of a laptop to it's 4g network. With a laptop on 4G for 28 GB and at least 3G unlimited after that it becomes an interesting deal. This would be my choice as a cord cutter. $85 US Beyond Unlimited plan $20 US Laptop fee Instead of $75 Cad My home internet $75 Cad cellular data plan In US currency I pay $118 dollars for cell phone and home internet compared to $105 for Verizon Beyond unlimited cellular plan. As cell phones get better I would imagine the $20 laptop fee will be eliminated by competition or the hotspot tethering rules will change in favor of the customer. The problem in Canada if you want to "cut the cord" is that rather than paying the cable company $200 bucks a month for channels, you instead have to pay multiple other content providers such as Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, black market IPTV and face the increasing cost of internet while more and more popular shows like Game of Thrones, Silicon Valley and the Americans are prohibited from streaming services in Canada. In the case of HBO shows such as Game of Thrones and Silicon Valley, I would need to subscribe to a cable company's CRTC mandated $25 "skinny package" for basic programming as well as the $20 Movie Network which includes HBO Canada.

The Telecommunications Act of 1996 was a major reform to the policies allowing giant corporations to buy up thousands of media companies around the world. This was all bought and paid for by corporate media lobbies with 97% support from the house and congress. In 2002 President George W. Bush’s FCC decided that Internet providers are not common carriers and that the FCC has authority over the ISP’s. In 2008, the FCC found that Comcast had violated the agencies net neutrality policy statement by slowing bitTorrent traffic but the FCC lacked the authority to enforce changes. President George W Bush enforced the Net Neutrality regulation on Comcast. In 2010 the FCC introduced the Open Internet Order which re-interprets section 706 of the 1996 Telecommunications Act allowing broad sweeping authority. This was tied up in litigation with Verizon until courts dis-approved it in 2014. In early 2015 the FCC approved a Net Neutrality Rule for Open Internet which is often credited to then president Barack Obama. The FCC now reclassify Internet Service Providers as carriers under Title II of the telecommunications Act, which treats them as public utilities. The FCC can now set rates, open access to any other competitor and become more involved in regulating the industry. Ajit Pai the new chairman of the FCC under the Trump administration was nominated by Barack Obama to the FCC in 2011 and reconfirmed by the Senate in 2012. He has now decided to overturn the 2015 Net Neutrality Rule for Open Internet and replace them with guidelines. Pai believes that regulation is unnecessary and will slow investment and prevent innovation. Over-regulation has already happened to net neutrality in Canada. Canada prohibits and enforces carriers from giving free data to their customers for specific content because it violates net neutrality by giving favors to certain services. If the ISP gives away a subscription to Netflix but charges for the data, this is okay but if they give you Netflix and don’t charge data, then this is in violation of net neutrality. When Canada banned zero rating, USA did not. Instead T-Mobile began giving priority for their video services and to compete, Verizon, AT&T and Sprint responded with unlimited data plans. Now USA has unlimited data plans and Canada does not. This over-regulation could have unintended consequences.

I would like to reflect on one of Nintendo's most beloved mascots the one and only Luigi Mario. That's right Luigi and Mario share the same last name Mario. Luigi began his life with Nintendo as the counterpart and younger brother of Mario. Usually, Luigi was demoted to being the player 2 in games like Mario Brothers 1, 3 and Lost Levels and completely left out of classics like Super Mario World and Mario 64. I look at Luigi's history and see a man who wants so badly to live up to his older brothers achievements but is mostly repressed by his character flaws. Look at one Nintendo's official canon side story titled Super Mario Bros: The Great Mission to Rescue Princess Peach in1986. After being summoned to the Mushroom Kingdom, an elderly hermit explains how the Princess has been abducted by Bowser. He assigns the task of rescuing Peach to Mario while telling Luigi that all he has to do is just tag along and if he wants he can just keep any gold he finds as a reward. The avarice consuming Luigi becomes so strong that it more often places the brothers in peril rendering Luigi an unneeded squire for his older brother. In Paper Mario of 2001, and for anyone who discovered Luigi's hidden diary in the basement are made aware of the deteriorating mental state of Luigi. If the player inspects the basement of the Mario house they will find a hidden diary belonging to Luigi. Like any diary, it contains a mix of daily experiences, thoughts and emotions. In the case of Luigi's diary, some people are amused by the resentment Luigi bears for his brother while others find this moderately concerning. In Super Paper Mario 2007, Luigi is imprisoned at Castle Bleck and brainwashed into aiding the evil Count Bleck by disquising in a costume as Mr L. Luigi is a humble, shy reticent person so it is my belief that once his identity becomes obscured by this alter ego of Mr L, another part of Luigi's sub conscious is exhibited as a character who is a brash, over confident narcissist. It is well known in the Mushroom kingdom, Mario's woman is Peach and Luigi's woman is Daisy. Look at examples such as NES Open Tournament Golf 1991, Mario Party 5 2003, Mario Party 8 2007 and the sports titles. Going all the way back to Daisy's 1st appearance in Super Mario Land from 1989 and looking at Nintendo's offical canon magazine Super Mario Kun there are examples of Mario and Daisy having a romantic affair. Like in the 1994 Keanu Reeves / Sandra Bullock movie, Speed, Jack says to Annie at the end, "I heard relationships based on intense experiences never work." Annie responds, "Okay, we'll have to base it on sex then." It is shown here that Mario is grandstanding for his his new flame, Daisy. Peach is clearly upset and throws a mushroom at Mario's head. At least in the early days, Peach and Daisy were rivals and it is seen here that Peach is clearly jealous of the attention Daisy is getting. In Mario Party 5 and 6 Nintendo made a multiplication table of teamates so as to illustrate the relationship between corresponding players. Look how Mario and Peach as well as Mario and Daisy appear to be good matches but Luigi is only a match with Daisy and Peach is more like his sister. Mario Party 5 and 6 Mario Party 8 Luigi has sure gotten more famous since he debuted in his first smash hit Luigi's Mansion 1 and 2 and in recent years being included as a default playable character in many Mario action platformers. I also want to see a Luigi's Mansion 3 on Switch and maybe a re-imaging of Super Mario Bros. 2. I only know what has been revealed about Mario and Luigi over the years and you can draw you're own conclusions although it is my suspicion that Mario may at least be partly responsible for impeding the development of his younger brother. Watch what Mario does during his brother's victory celebration in Mario Power Tennis from 2004. Mario just can't stand the idea of his younger brother getting more than him.

I intended to include Mario Party on my list but forgot and I figured since Microsoft owns Rare, Nintendo would likely not come to a collective agreement regarding royalties, especially with Rare only games like Perfect Dark and Jet Force Gemini. Goldeneye was to N64 that Final Fantasy 7 was to Playstation. Nintendo will have to pay the dues to both Rare / Microsoft and MGM for the James Bond License but worth every penny to include this influential game with the system. Even though Donkey Kong is a derivative of Rare's Banjo series, I feel Donkey Kong is the stronger intellectual property. I also left mature rated games off the list because this toy is supposed to be played by children as well as adults. If not then I would have for sure got at least one Turok game.

If and when Nintendo decides to sell the N64 Classic Edition, they will have to overcome 2 hurdles. 1. The original N64 controller. Nintendo could recreate the controller as accurately as they did with the SNES Classic controller although players will have to once again deal with the problematic control stick. Nintendo could re-engineer the stick to be more durable and it would be great to preserve the original feel of the control but this may add to the cost. 2. Although Nintendo 64 was known for having great party games and fantastic 1st party games, we cannot forget the absence of quality games from 3rd party developers as well as the Microsoft acquisition of Rare. The overall library of N64 is shadowed by the past 8 and 16 bit generation, still I have made a list of 26 games which only include 1 Rare game and one LucasArts game. What games should be on this console?

The season of Samhain is upon us again marking the end of harvest season and the beginning of winter. What is known as Halloween in America is actually an important date from ancient Gaelic times found in the earliest Irish literature. This date traditionally marked the time where a society would celebrate the past leaving a piece behind, while crossing the threshold and becoming a new person or identity. The Rites of passage explains this rather well. There are three phases to the rites of passage; 1. Preliminal rites - This stage involves a metaphorical death where the person being initiated will leave behind something which signifies breaking an old practice or routine. 2. Liminal rites - This is where the person being initiated actually passes the threshold. This phase must be understood by all people in the group and be approved by the master of ceremonies. 3. Postliminal rites - This phase is where the person rejoins the group with their new identity. This celebration was originally only in Ireland, Northern France, and Scotland. The English and Dutch protestants did not associate themselves with these pagan rituals. It wasn’t until settlers arrived in America that children started “trick or treating” and costume parties were customary. These costume parties were originally used to ward off ghosts and other evil spirits and over time the celebration became attached to horror movies. I would like to share some movies in which I feel would be in the spirit of Halloween, particularly this year. Feel free to add you’re own Halloween related stories and suggestions. Feast II Set in a small town somewhere in the desert of Arizona, a family of mutants decide to overcome the townfolk. Even though these mutants are very simple in nature, they eat, they poop and they fornicate, they have a huge advantage over the humans in town. Their speed, strength, size, and hearing are all superior. Part 1 of this trilogy introduces the family of mutants and the humans are left to survive the ceaseless barrage by any means. The first movie stands alone and so does the second one but if you watch the second one, be prepared to watch the third one after because there is no break in the film. This whole trilogy was absolutely hilarious and preposterous. Characters were introduced like comic book superheroes even if they are not so favorable and it tries to sell itself to the audience as thoroughly amusing. Some of the coolest characters get completely destroyed by the mutants in a matter of minutes after they are introduced while other characters just never seem to die. Wolf Creek 2 We have a movie based on real cases of hikers being abducted in and around the outback of Australia. Redneck bushman Mick Taylor is the kinda fella that would extend the Austrailian hospitality, whether it’s a couple backpackers or simply a tourist having a bit of car trouble, Mick would always offer his survival skills. There is one major problem with this guy though, and it is the fact that he uses this benevolence as a means of deception to lure these people to their disastrous end. Mick was no ordinary bushman rather he was a tribalistic denizen who has for some reason become displeased with strangers visiting his homeland. He feels these people think they are buying a ticket to some type of theme park or something. People just walk in arrogantly, feel entitled enough to just take from their surroundings and leave a trail of shit behind. Human Centipede Dr Josef Heiter, a retired surgeon specializing in the separation of conjoined twins, feels more apt at surgically rejoining creatures together again. Inspired by the inhumane experiments conducted on victims at the Auschwitz concentration camp during World War II and the lunacy of writer and director Tom Six, the first part of this trilogy sets the stage for the rest of the series. After a failed attempt of unifying three specimens by way of surgical gastro unity to satisfy his sadistic need to invent a unique type of living animal to be used as his pet, Dr Heiter learns from his first miscalculations and decides to begin again using three different subjects which he captures in the wild. The first movie ends where the 2nd movie begins although a new dimension has been added to the story. A mentally deficient man who lives with his mother has been abused emotionally, physically and sexually by his father and is now further abused by his mother after his complaints lead to the incarceration of his father. In the second film, the disabled man becomes obsessed with the original movie and lashes out upon his family and environment. Like the first movie, the man pursues his predilection to the fantasy of joining mammalian subjects by means of surgical operation between the two opposite exterior sphincters found in all mammals. By the time part 3 was made, the movie had gone from being banned in many countries to a cult following of horror movie buffs. Unlike the first 2 movies the 3rd installment no longer tries to take itself seriously and conservative but rather becomes a carachature of itself. I found the third movie to be a satirical comedy horror which continues adding to the franchise and is a movie which one does not forget.

I have an update on my results regarding this latest torrent dump of 1338 magazines recently released. I converted all the Comic Book Reader files to PDF complete with an embedded index using Adobe Acrobat Pro. I looked for easier methods of converting the files and found that Comic Rack is capable of converting an entire directory automatically. Unfortunately, the DPI is reduced to 150 from the original. This is likely because the feature is considered a premium in Acrobat Pro and if free programs like Comic Rack do it for nothing then it would be considered money lost. With all magazines in one folder on a mechanical hard drive, I opened Acrobat and clicked Edit > Preferences, in left pane select “Search”. In right pane I changed the default “Maximum number of documents returned in Results” from 500 to 2000. I then selected “Fast Find” to decrease subsequent search times as well as changing the default “Maximum Cache Size” to 10,000 MB and close. Now I press Ctrl + Shift + F to open Advanced Search. I select “All PDF Documents in” and then browse to the directory where the magazines are stored. I searched for the word “computer”. Search time was 5min and got 33,127 results. The second attempt is 42 seconds. I searched for the word “the”. Search time was 1:43 and got 1.83 M results. The second attempt was also 1:43 I learned that you can speed up searches when there is a large number of PDF’s by creating an IDX file. This file will contain a full index for entire catalogs of PDFs. To do this I had to enable the tools first. Select View > Tool Sets > Manage Tool Sets > Edit. In this new window, in the left pane under “Choose tools to add”, select “Document Processing”, Click on “Manage Embedded Index” and select “Add to Quick Tools Toolbar”. Also add “Full Text Index with Catalog” and save. On the home screen, select Tools > Document Processing > Full Text Index with Catalog. In the new window select New Index, give it a name, add the directory where the magazines are stored and select build. This took about an hour for me. Make sure these files are in the same directory as the magazines. After you create the IDX file, open advanced search again, ctrl + shift + F. Select “More Options”. Under “Look In”, select “select index” and then the search term you are looking for. Now my searches have been sped up tremendously. Searching for the word “computer” took 5 seconds with 33,127 results. The word “the” took 1 min with 1.83 M results. The reason the word “the” took 1 min and not 5 seconds is not because it takes so long to find each instance rather, it takes time to organize 1.83 million instances in the search windows and have the ability to jump to the location.

I took 27 magazines which are already a PDF in Philly's new torrent. They were Amiga through Micro User. I ran the OCR tool and embedded an index for each of these 27 files and saved them to a SSD drive. I then searched these 27 magazines with 3 different words and used a stop watch. I searched for the words, "coin", "the", and "computer". Each search took 2 seconds or less. If I assume all magazines take up to 2 seconds and apply it to Philly's torrent of 1337 different magazines then these words will take 99 seconds to find in 1337 magazines. I'm currently embedding the 2nd half of the PDF's found in Philly's torrent. I'm curious how accurate my estimate will be after adding more magazines to the search cue. I disagree with being able to search the magazines. People often ask if anyone remembers a certain instance in a magazine, they give us an approximate year and we can do a search. I would also like to search for magazine game reviews and citations of future games the writers promote. Sometimes hardware and games get mentioned once and then become vaporware and besides this I would just be more interested if I could control what I'm looking for.

I'am using Acrobat Pro X1 and converting part 1 of Philly's torrent from PDF to a PDF with OCR text recognition. I never got any graphical anomalies although, like you said, advertisements are hit and miss as well as covers. What I have learned about Adobe's character recognition is that Images need to be deskewed, letters need to be at least 20 pixels in height, 300 dpi is the minimum recommended scan resolution, and lines of text need to be close to horizontal. Backgrounds color is likely going to contribute to pages not being OCR'd. With the high standard Retromags has for it's scans, we are a gauge for the potential of all other OCR programs out there. It would be so easy to run a batch on all the magazines if they were in PDF and correct me if Im wrong but most are in the CBR format and would need to be converted to PDF and then run the Acrobat OCR tool. Microsoft One Note and Evernote are both capable of character recognition of raw picture files such as CBR. Just extract the folder out of CBR and they work but I haven't done a whole lot of investigation into this yet. It would be nice if somebody could just search all the magazines like google searches the web and then have a list of results. Google drive and archive org have these features but the quality is downgraded and Retromags should be getting credit for this.