Sunday, April 29, 2018

Where to buy cannabis in Canada

Where to buy pot, marijuana, cannabis and weed online in Toronto and Montreal?

Locations to legally order cannabis online in Toronto are:

  • 770 Gardiners Road, Kingston
  • 2480 Gerrard Street East, Toronto
  • 570 Harbour Expressway, Thunder Bay
  • 304 Stone Road West, Guelph

The city of Montreal announced that the first four locations to buy pot are located near Metro stations. Societe Quebecoise du Cannabis STM locations are at

  • 970 Ste-Catherine St. W.
  • 9250 Boulevard de l'Acadie
  • 6872 St-Hubert St.
  • 830 Ste-Catherine St. E.

As well on the Metro stations:
  • Berri-UQAM
  • Jean-Talon
  • Radisson
  • Lionel-Groulx

Licensed dispensaries to get weed in Vancouver

The Kamloops shopping centre has a licensed marijuana store, also a dispensary on Granville Street to also get oils and seeds. Leaf Compassion at 950 Yates Street in Victoria will also provide cannabis in dried or fresh form.

Cannabis for sale in Quebec

The Société québécoise du cannabis (SQDC) handles all legal sales. You can either visit their dispensaries, see above, or order cannabis online on their web page and have it delivered. You have to produce an ID on delivery if you look younger than 18 or 19 years.

Since 1997, cannabis, pot and marijuana in Canada has been regulated by the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act. According to this law, unauthorized possession, trafficking, possession for the purpose of trafficking, production, import and export are considered illegal. The penalties are different depending on the offense. However, the law leaves a lot of power to the judges who impose the sentence.

Rules

Cannabis was banned in Canada in 1923 by federal law to that effect, but the use of cannabis for medical purposes was first permitted in 2001. Following an effort to decriminalize Jean Chrétien in 2003 with Bill C-38, Liberal Party Leader of Canada Justin Trudeau made the legalization of cannabis a key part of his platform during the federal election campaign.
Nevertheless, the use of cannabis for medical purposes is permitted by the Regulation respecting access to cannabis for medical purposes. It allows the consumption and cultivation of cannabis for users holding a prescription from a Canadian doctor. These individuals can not be arrested for cannabis use in accordance with the doctor's instructions.
The possible legalization of recreational cannabis was debated in 2017 for possible application on October 17, 2018. The law allowing the recreational use of cannabis has been adopted by the Canadian House of Commons in November 2017. It was concluded that on October 17, 2018 sales if cannabis would be legal.

Legislation

For production, the penalty is up to seven years imprisonment. For importation, the penalty is life imprisonment. For possession for the purpose of trafficking and trafficking, the penalties are life imprisonment if the quantity is greater than three kilograms and five years if it is less than three kilograms. For simple possession, the penalties are a maximum of five years imprisonment if the amount exceeds thirty grams and a maximum of one thousand dollars fine or six months in prison for less than thirty grams.

Under the age of 18, offenses are governed by the Young Offenders Act, the penalties depend on the offenses, but they may include alternative measures, community work, fines, custody of different durations, and a criminal record. Having a criminal record can make it very difficult or even impossible to leave the country. In addition, he may penalize the offender during a job selection process. On the other hand, the criminal record of a minor is normally (as the case may be) erased when the age of majority reaches 18 years.

A political party operating at the provincial level in Quebec, Bloc Pot, aims to legalize cannabis.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announces in his 2016 policy speech the upcoming legalization of cannabis, becoming the first G7 country to do so.

Monday, April 16, 2018

The Walking Dead season 8 finale Wrath

After a not so exciting season 8 the finale with the episode title Wrath finally ties up plots developed over the season. And has an epic fist fight between Rick and Negan. Rick wins by slitting Negan's throat, but tell Siddiq to save him, sending Maggie into a breakdown. The last words of this episode has Rick, writing a letter to Carl. That Carl at the end made it possible for Rick to win out against Negan.

Rick and young Carl

The most interesting part for me is why and when Eugene changed his mind, fabricating bad bullets for the Saviors. He seemed so convinced he had a better life with them. Was it Rosita changing his mind in the previous episode? That is what Eugene mention. Or was it his plan all along to infiltrate the Saviors to have Rick win at the end? That didn't become clear. I wonder if this will be solved in a future episode.

Anybody has any idea or insider information, please comment.

Wednesday, April 11, 2018

2018 FIFA World Cup Russia



The 2018 FIFA World Cup Russia (Russian: Чемпионат мира по футболу Россия 2018) was the twenty-first edition of the Football World Cup. Football is called soccer in the United States Of America and Canada. It was held in Russia between June 14 and July 15, 2018, being the first time that an Eastern European country organizes the championship.

In the final match France defeated Croatia with 4-2. France secured the the World Cup trophy for the second time since 1998.

Watching free FIFA live stream

A TV live stream might be provided by local TV stations to watch all or selected matches. If no free streaming services are available you can use video publishers like YouTube or Netflix which offer live streaming for their customers. There might also be third party companies offering TV streaming over the internet for the FIFA Worldcup.

Committee decision from 2010

FIFA decided that the 2018 World Cup venue would be chosen in conjunction with that of 2022 at the meeting of the Executive Committee of the organization, held in Zurich, Switzerland, on December 2, 2010. The FIFA World Cup 2026 will be held in the three countries of the United States, Canada and Mexico. Making it the first time a FIFA World Cup is held in more than one country.

FIFA World Cup trophyAccording to the system of continental rotation implemented by FIFA, the member or associated associations of CAF and CONMEBOL were banned from participating in this bid. As a result, Russia officially submitted its candidature alongside those of Japan, South Korea, Australia, Belgium-Netherlands, England, Spain-Portugal, the United States and Qatar. Finally, Australia, Japan, South Korea, Qatar and the United States withdrew a few months before the decision to focus on the 2022 election.

In the first round of the vote, England reached two votes, the Netherlands-Belgium won four, Spain-Portugal reached seven and Russia won nine. As the necessary majority of twelve did not reach, England was eliminated because it was the candidate with the least support and a second round was necessary. Here Russia got thirteen on the seven that the Iberian pair received and the two that received the Belgium-Netherlands candidacy.

After the election, Vladimir Putin, the then Russian prime minister, said that "Russia 2018 will be fantastic" and planned the construction of new stadiums and the presence of "the highest quality standards". On his part, Blatter made the official trip to the selected country and assured "that there will be a wonderful cooperation between FIFA and Russia". Russia confirmed twelve stadiums in 11 cities for the World Cup: Yekaterinburg, Kaliningrad, Kazan, Moscow, Nizhny Novgorod, Rostov-on-Don, St. Petersburg, Samara, Saransk, Sochi and Volgograd, which will host all 64 World Cup matches.

Of the twelve stadiums designated, only two were fully completed at the time of their election as headquarters, which had to be remodeled so that they could host the matches. Another, the Spartak in Moscow, was inaugurated in August 2014. The others, including the Luzhnikí in that same capital and with capacity for 81,300 spectators (main venue and the largest stadium), began to be built in later years.

As a way to reduce the distances, times and costs of equipment transfers, only cities that are in the European part of the country (the most densely populated and developed) were chosen, with the exception of Yekaterinburg, which is located in Asia just east of the Ural Mountains.

Matches

Portugal vs Morocco (Group B)

Uruguay vs Saudi Arabia (Group A)

Iran vs Spain (Group B)


Thursday 21 June

Denmark vs Australia (Group C)

France vs Peru (Group C)

Argentina vs Croatia (Group D)


Friday 22 June

Brazil vs Costa Rica (Group E)

Nigeria vs Iceland (Group D)

Serbia vs Switzerland (Group E)


Saturday 23 June

Belgium vs Tunisia (Group G)

South Korea vs Mexico (Group F)

Germany v Sweden (Group F)


Sunday 24 June

England vs Panama (Group G)

Japan vs Senegal (Group H)

Poland vs Colombia (Group H)


Monday 25 June

Uruguay vs Russia (Group A)

Saudi Arabia vs Egypt (Group A)

Spain vs Morocco (Group B)

Iran vs Portugal (Group B)


Tuesday 26 June

Denmark vs France (Group C)

Australia vs Peru (Group C)

Nigeria vs Argentina (Group D)

Iceland vs Croatia (Group D)


Wednesday 27 June

South Korea vs Germany (Group F)

Mexico vs Sweden (Group F)

Serbia vs Brazil (Group E)

Switzerland vs Costa Rica (Group E)


Thursday 28 June

Japan vs Poland (Group H)

Senegal vs Colombia (Group H)

England vs Belgium (Group G)

Panama vs Tunisia (Group G)

Thursday, April 5, 2018

Retro consoles

The modern retro gaming revival with retro-consoles and dedicated consoles started around 2001 with some Jakk's Pacific TV games. 2004 saw the Atari Flashback. The same year the C64 Direct-to-TV was released. A joystick modeled after the Competition Pro joystick with some 30+ games built-in, then the C-One. But it really kicked off in the 201X with for example the Nintendo Classic Mini from 2016, the C64 Mini from 2018 as well as the Atari VCS, formally known as Ataribox.

Don't get me wrong, I love retrogaming. But I would not go with any of these. Well may be the Jakk's Pacific, as it doesn't claim to be any computer. And the C-One at least had a 6502 clone as hardware. But in my opinion most are just software emulators with a modern CPU (usually ARM), running on Linux in a fancy box. And like in the case of the C64 Mini not even have a functioning keyboard. You can instead go with any emulator, like VICE, running it on your modern PC. That is free of charge.

It's okay for me though to recreate an original main board, add the vintage CPU (or a modern clone) and other support chips to a new retro console. Even add some logic to handle USB for an external keyboard or joystick and an HDMI jack.

Saturday, March 31, 2018

Tesla - SpaceX - Elon Musk



Tesla, Inc. (stylized as T☰SLA, formerly Tesla Motors) is an US-American company located in Silicon Valley, California, designing, manufacturing and selling electric cars, such as the Tesla Roadster 2, components for the propulsion of electric vehicles and battery storage systems. The CEO and founder of Tesla is Elon Musk.

The core of the company is in the engineering of the propulsion system of the electric vehicle that includes battery packs, motors, power electronics, gearboxes and control software, allowing all components to form one system. The modular design allows to reuse components in different models of Tesla and other manufacturers. The system is very compact and contains far fewer moving parts than a heat engine. Tesla Motors uses three phase induction motors that incorporate a copper rotor and copper windings optimized to reduce resistance and loss of energy. Tesla developed fundamental patents for its manufacture.

Tesla vehicles contain many processors to control safety and power functions. Tesla Motors builds the firmware of many processors with algorithms that control traction, vehicle stability, acceleration, regenerative braking, the state of charge of each cell of the battery pack and security systems.

SpaceX

SpaceX (or Space Exploration Technologies Corporation) is an American company working in the field of astronautics and spaceflight. Founded on May 6, 2002 by the billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk, it is one of two private contractors to whom NASA has awarded a freight contract to the International Space Station.

SpaceX designs, builds and markets Falcon 9 launchers, the Merlin engines that propel them, and the Dragon cargo ship and its manned version. The Falcon 1 launcher was the first launcher of the company is no longer in service. After three failures in 2006, 2007 and 2008, the first successful Falcon 1 launcher was launched on September 28, 2008, which then put the Malaysian observation satellite RazakSAT into orbit on its fifth flight on July 13, 2009. The space cargo ship Dragon launched by a rocket Falcon 9 is part of the supply program of the International Space Station. SpaceX employs more than 4,000 people primarily in California, also has two launch facilities on the Cape Canaveral base (the SLC-40 and 39A pads), one at Vandenberg Air Force Base (the SLC pad -4E) and another is under construction in South Texas at Boca Chica. SpaceX also has a test bench for its engines in Texas.

Thursday, March 29, 2018

Canada plastic bag ban

The City of Montreal is banning thin plastic bags. The law was put in place on January 1st 2018, but merchants were given time until June 5th of the same year to actually follow it. After that harsh penalties would rain down on those ignoring it. Interestingly after the whole of Canada discussed this plan in 2016 only Montreal emerged as the only city enforcing it. I suppose not even her suburbs do, let alone other cities in Quebec.

But does this make sense? Of these bags, the conventional plastic bag banned in Montreal is the one that has the least impact in the category of disposable bags, while the thicker plastic bags and Paper bags ar always allowed, are overall more polluting.

Let's not forget food wrapped in plastic. Like bread, cookies. You might need one plastic bag to carry 5 to 10 articles usually wrapped in plastic from your grocery store. Thus a plastic bag ban only reduced the waste by about 10%. Many bags you take from the cashier are bio degradable. Suppose that means in the landfill they just degrade without harming the environment. If so, why ban them?

Sunday, March 18, 2018

Stephen Hawking 1942-2018

Stephen William Hawking, born January 8 1942 in Oxford, died March 14 2018 in Cambridge, was a British theoretical physicist and cosmologist.

Stephen Hawking was a mathematics teacher at the University of Cambridge from 1980 to 2009, member of Gonville and Caius College and researcher distinguished from Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics. He is known for his contributions in the fields of cosmology and quantum gravity, especially in the context of black holes. His success is also linked to his popular science books in which he discusses his own theories and cosmology in general, such as the bestseller A Brief History of Time, which remained on the list of Sunday Times bestselling records for 237 consecutive weeks.

Illness and continuation of this work

As soon as he arrived in Cambridge, he began to develop the symptoms of early amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, a motor neuron disease that almost took away any neuromuscular control. During his first two years in Cambridge, he did not stand out, but after stabilizing his illness and with the help of his doctoral tutor, William Dennis Sciama, he is pursuing his doctoral thesis. He reveals that he did not see much interest in obtaining a doctorate if he were to die soon. Hawking later said that the real turning point was his marriage to Jane Wilde in 1965, a linguistics student. After completing his PhD, Stephen became a researcher at Gonville and Caius College in Cambridge. The study of singularities, a recent physical and astronomical concept, allows the researcher to develop different theories, which will later lead him from the Big Bang to black holes.

Private life

Jane Wilde Hawking, Hawking's first wife, took care of him until 1991, when the couple split up. They had three children: Robert (1967), Lucy (1969), and Timothy (1979). 1999 Jane Hawking published a memoir, Music to Move the Stars, detailing her own long-term relationship with a family friend with whom she will later marry. Hawking's daughter, Lucy, is a novelist. Their eldest son, Robert, emigrated to the United States where he is married, and had a child, George Edward Hawking. In 1995 Hawking married to his nurse, Elaine Mason, who had already been married to David Mason, the designer of the first version of Hawking's talking computer. In 2004, several reports are published. reports involving Elaine in mistreatment cases against her. In October 2006, Hawking filed for divorce from his second wife.

Research

Hawking's main areas of research were cosmology and quantum gravity. In the late 1960s, he and his friend and colleague from Cambridge, Roger Penrose, applied a new complex mathematical model, which they created upon Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity. This led Hawking to prove in 1970 the first of many theorems on singularities, such as theorems capable of providing a set of sufficient conditions for the existence of a singularity in space-time. This work has shown that, far from being a mathematical curiosity that only appears in particular cases, the singularities are rather generic in general relativity.

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