Welcome to Nest

I just got a Nest Learning Thermostat on the weekend. We've wanted one for a long time. It's a pretty high tech device. It is supposed to intelligently learn the habits of the household, and adjust the temperature accordingly. That seems like a great idea during the Canadian winter. In our house, no one is home for much of the day, so the temperature doesn't need to be at the same level than in the morning and evening. Same goes for when we're sleeping. Of course, there have been many thermostats over the years that you could program, but this one self programs, and perhaps can do it better than I could.

The Nest Thermostat that I have mounted in my living room.

Now to be fair, you can manually enter a schedule, and I already have, since I know that at night, I can turn the temperature down. But I'm waiting to see how Nest adjusts to our habits and begins to adjust the temperature accordingly during the daytime. If it truly works, I expect that it will automatically start setting itself in to "Away" mode for most of the daytime hours, since both me and my wife are at work. That's certainly an opportunity to save some money.

On the one hand, I am definitely not the first person to use Nest, so I believe it should probably work just fine, but I also know results can vary. So for now, it's just a wait and see situation. I've only had the thermostat for two days. No matter what, it's a pretty cool device. I'm a guy who likes gadgets, and I am really interested in affordable home automation going mainstream. Therefore, this product is right up my alley.

PS. As a side note, the same company has also announced "Nest Protect" as of today. It's an intelligent smoke detector, and apparently also works with your Nest thermostat. I will have to write about that another day.

Jumbo Glacier Mountain Ski Resort

B.C. approves Jumbo Glacier Mountain ski resort

The CBC quotes NDP Leader Adrian Dix:

"The government has made its decision presumably to try and gain political benefit but the economic, environmental and community interest is being abandoned here."

Sometimes it's hard when you are pitting nature against economic growth. It's clear that the development will bring a lot of jobs to the area, not just at the resort, but in the nearby communities. Their hospitality industry will grow exponentially, and will likely bring money for developments that the residents will benefit from.

As a snowboarder I obviously have a biased view here. I like the idea of a year round ski resort for sure, and that's something that will make this development unique.

I share the residents' and the environmentalists' concerns to an extent though. I hope that between the developer and the government, we can have this resort built with the least amount of impact on the  wildlife.

More Money for the Police?

Police want more cash, mayor wants more efficiency

Gordon Kent from the Edmonton Journal writes:

Much of the police increase covers inflation, wage increases and the full annual salary of officers hired partway through this year, but there is also a proposal to add 29 officers along with 13 sheriffs and paramedics.

Public Safety is definitely a major focus for me. I think Mandel is right that the police need to be more efficient, but we need to make sure they have access to the resources they need.

During the last couple of years, seeing our murder rate climb has been disappointing to me, and I'm sure many Edmontonians. We want to feel safe in our city, and not just in our own subdivisions, but everywhere we go.

There's plenty more to be done in crime prevention as well, but our police are the front line, and we should support them.

Obama FTW

Well it looks like Obama will get 4 more years. Obama got 303 electoral votes compared to Mitt Romney's 206. Technically there's still 29 electoral votes to be assigned from Florida, but the race was so close there that the numbers haven't yet been confirmed.

Interestingly, Obama also carried the popular vote in the country, but only by a slim margin. Obama got a total of 60,481,241 votes while Romney received 57,678,067. For a while last night, CNN was projecting Obama as the winner, but the popular vote still favoured Romney. What's interesting is that Obama won by a large margin when it comes to the electoral votes, but clearly, based on the actual number of votes, The United States is actually quite divided.

However, I've said it in my previous post, and I'll say it again. Obama is the right decision. In the last four years, there has been steady improvements in the American economy. He's accomplished an unprecedented amount of health care reform, and he's ended two wars. In his second term, it looks like he's going to continue working on the economy, while tackling the immigration issues that plague the United States. By the end of his 8 year presidency, I think Obama will have a legacy that his nation can be proud of.

Why the US Election Matters to Me

Obama, Romney pull out the stops in last weekend of U.S. campaign

In just two days, Americans will go to the polls and decide who will be the next president of the United States.

It's interesting as a Canadian to watch from a distance. It's also arguably important that we pay attention as well, because I think most Canadians have a stake in this as well.

For example, it's clear that the American economy affects ours, and has a global impact. In 2008, when the American economy crashed, it didn't take long for ours to suffer. The effects are still being felt globally, with some nations, especially in Europe, that haven't even begun to recover.

As an Albertan especially, you might think I would lean towards Romney. He has said time and time again that getting the Keystone Pipeline project completed, and importing oil from the oil sands is a major priority for him. This would bring a huge amount of money in to our economy, but for me, it's not the biggest factor. We will always find a market for our oil. The demand is not fading.

I think that if I could vote in the American election, I would be voting for Obama. He's taken a broken economy and has been able to make a partial recovery, even as globally many nations are not. The unemployment rate has declined since he took office, he's helped to save the automobile industry, and the big one for me, he's brought in much needed health care reform. It's my feeling that if Americans give Obama 4 more years, he will be able to finish what he started, and set up the United States to be stronger than they ever have before. And by extension, Canadians will be better off too, as our relationship with our most important ally strengthens.

New bylaw could bring suburban garages to mature neighbourhoods

New bylaw could bring suburban garages to mature neighbourhoods

ELISE STOLTE writes for the Edmonton Journal

Critics argue streets lined with large, front garages makes a community less friendly for pedestrians, as driveways interrupt treed boulevards and otherwise continuous sidewalks. Homes stand further back from the street, and windows are hidden by the garage walls.

 I think the notion that front garages make a neighbourhood less pedestrian friendly is misguided. There are plenty of neighbourhoods with front garages. In fact, that is almost exclusively the type of housing that is being built today.

I go for walks all the time in my neighbourhood, and I don't find it inconvenient, scary, or anything else when I'm walking in front of someone's driveway. Obviously you have to remain aware for people who may back out of their driveway, but typically they are going much slower, and you have more notice than if you were crossing a road.

The other argument, of course, is that front driveways obscure the character of a house. This might be true to some extent, but then again I've even seen some pretty nice garages too. What I do find to be ugly is in the older neighbourhoods where they have detached garages behind the house, and alleyways  mazing through the community, basically creating a secondary road system. Most alleyways are disgraceful. They aren't taken care of by the city as well as main roadways, and the neighbours don't care as much either. After all, it's just the back of their house. And don't forget there is a safety risk here as well. Motorists go speeding through alleyways, sometimes trying to take shortcuts, and if I'm a pedestrian walking in an alley, I had better be on the lookout.

Space

Image from http://www.freeimageslive.com/

Today, a man named Felix Baumgartner jumped from a space capsule roughly 127,000 feet above the earth. It was called the Red Bull Stratos project and it set a new record for skydiving. Of course, when you get up that high, it's not really considered sky diving anymore. It's Space Jumping!

While impressive, this wasn't on the same level as other human achievements in space like landing on the moon. But it does show that we are seeing a renewed interest in space, mostly because the U.S. government is letting go of some control, and letting private enterprise in to the mix. This is a huge step, and in the end with NASA's limited resources, it will allow us to discover more about space, and let more people experience space, than ever before.

In fact, today's stunt was only a very small part of this new trend. We now have a private company, Spacex, making deliveries to the International Space Station. Soon they will even be transporting our astronauts back and forth. Don't forget about Virgin Galactic, which will soon be taking "space tourists" for rides just beyond the stratosphere.

I think it's logical to assume that within my lifetime, I will have the opportunity to go to space if I want to, and it will become reasonably affordable. That's very exciting, and I can't wait to see what happens next!

Check out the link below to see some highlights: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHtvDA0W34I&feature=plcp