mark's (VFM founder) fave japanese places in town

I’d say your best bet is to go downtown around Robson & Thurlow. From there, three of our above recommendations are within one block: Ebisu, Guu and Aki. They’re all good, authentic, and reasonably priced (dinehere.ca says $10-$20). My top pick would be Ebisu – nicest atmosphere of the three. The other two are a bit claustrophobic by comparison. Ebisu is on Bute just south of Robson, up some outside stairs to the 2^nd floor. Aki is down some stairs on the west side of Thurlow between Robson and Alberni. Guu is on the east side of Thurlow between Robson and Smithe.

Two of Hiromi’s favorites are:

• Ajisai http://dinehere.ca/restaurant.asp?r=190 – sushi, in Kerrisdale
• Aki http://dinehere.ca/restaurant.asp?r=2723 – various types of J food; downtown

This one we both like a lot & often go:

• Ebisu http://dinehere.ca/restaurant.asp?r=2093 – various types of J food; downtown; especially their chicken kara-age

Also very good:

• Guu http://dinehere.ca/restaurant.asp?r=75 – various types of J food; downtown
• Guu with Otokomae http://dinehere.ca/restaurant.asp?r=90 – various types of J food; Gastown
• Hapa http://dinehere.ca/restaurant.asp?r=38 – various types of J food; downtown; cool Tokyo-trendy atmosphere

Two noteworthy inexpensive sushi places outside of downtown:

• Toshi http://dinehere.ca/restaurant.asp?r=399– popular, I’ve eaten there, very good
• Hiroshi http://dinehere.ca/restaurant.asp?r=1444 – highly rated; I haven’t tried it yet

AVOID:

• Stay away from Tojo’s http://dinehere.ca/restaurant.asp?r=2 – overpriced!
• I don’t recommend Black Tuna http://dinehere.ca/restaurant.asp?r=272 in spite of good reviews

Let me know what you try & what you think!
-- Mark

facebook

most of us are on facebook. i just read a lot of research reports, by students i'm TAing, about their privacy policy.

you should all go into privacy settings and tighten up your settings.

* those applications, a lot are stealing your information. remove them.
* turn off newsfeed, so that everyone doesnt know every little thing you do on facebook.
* facebook sells your information and buys information about you from other places. for instance, if you buy a birthday present from some participating store, it will post "bradley bought a gold necklace from so and so" to your facebook acct which will be put on your newsfeed. or it might say "bradley bought a plane ticket to new jersey". you don't want that. and facebook is creepy, so go turn that off.
* also, employers, schools, etc. use facebook to check your profile. they dont need to be your friend to see it. by default if i'm in someones network i can see it. and its not too hard to get in your network. and by the way, why should you want those people to see your profile anyway? go in and turn that off too.
* basically turn it all off.

and as you turn this stuff off, go back once more to make sure its all done, because facebook is really tricky about this too. the UI is intentionally cranky.

most people have their pants down on this one. why? because they trust facebook so much. but why? don't trust facebook, don't trust any of these big companies with this important info. they dont care about you, they care about $$. they world we're coming into, we need to get serious about protecting our privacy.

privacy

this semester i'm TAing computer science 320. nice fun class. students write papers about stuff like privacy, and debate all these important technology related topics like net neutrality and then write a paper at the end.

i must confess, i didnt think privacy was such a big deal. but thats just because i take it for granted.

after you read 30 papers on it, your mind might change too.

but i shouldnt. as an american, i know that bush and the NSA are spying on all network traffic (voice and data). do a web search for mark klein, the geek at ATT who blew the whistle that all their data was re-routed through a secure NSA room, in their building. this kicked off a huge political firestorm, and is a all a big mess. of course, bush is at the heart of it, doing exactly the wrong thing. he should be impeached for this alone.

surely theres not someone listening to my calls or reading my emails, but there's a good chance, that they are being data mined. the technology and algorithms exist. so in a sense, i am being spied on, or at the least may be being spied on. all of course, without a warrant, which is mandated by our constitution.

consider a few facts.............

if you want to talk to your friends and families, you're using one of a few big companies to talk to them. google, verizon, telus, shaw, att. thats a serious vulnerability.

the amount that google knows about me is unreal. (this is a google blog). they have all my email conversations, every one of them. my love letters, all the goofiest things i've ever written about, etc. they also have saved my search history for the past 2 years, if not longer. they know more about me than i know about me. if stalin had access to this kind of information there wouldnt be anyone alive in russia besides stalin himself. this is better than what big brother had in 1984. don't think for a minute that the gov't wouldnt hack them, or that the chinese or whomever else hasn't already. now they want us to put our health records online. yippee!

but it doesnt make sense for these companies to sell us down the river, it would ruin their reputation, could put them out of business, they won't do it. (really they already are, they're all doing it) sure, companies are so rational and responsible. consider enron and all the companies that fell around them due to deep conspiratorial accounting fraud. consider the current meltdown over these stupid mortgages. just consider wall street for a second, and their game of heads i win, tails you lose. the money runners over there, have lots to gain by taking big risks, millions and millions of dollars, and nothing to lose save their job. but they already have millions of dollars and can go across the street and get another job. the incentive over there is to do risky and nutty things, WITH OTHER PEOPLES MONEY. and then if they mess up, the gov't bails them out. why do we assume all this rationality and reasonableness? the free-marketers tell us the market will disincentivize this behavior, but it happens all the time, and in the case of wall street, the market is incentivizing it. we need laws to stop it.

here's another one, the chinese won't sell our debt, it doesnt make sense. but the chinese gov't isnt transparent. iran won't use a nuke (if they get/have one). but the iranian gov't isnt transparent, literally iranians aren't even sure who's actually running it. these gov'ts do nutty things all the time. why assume so much rationality?

similarly, these companies which we trust so much are non-transparent and do nutty and stupid things all the time. why all the trust?

big funding cuts - letter from president stevenson

related facebook group:
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=15210700114

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To: Members of the SFU Community
From: President Michael Stevenson
Re: Budget 08/09

I need to inform members of the community that we have received
information from the Ministry of Advanced Education (AVED) which,
if confirmed in official budget letters, will create significant
new budget problems for the coming fiscal year. Total provincial
grant revenues for SFU in 08/09 will increase beyond those for
07/08, reflecting negotiated compensation increases and targeted
enrolment growth. However, there are significant changes forecast
in funding commitments previously announced and used in budget
planning so far.

Our indications are that there will be cuts to SFU's provincial
grant transferred in 07/08, a reduction in our enrolment growth
previously committed for 08/09, and a reduction in the value of
the grants attached to enrolment growth planned for SFU's Surrey
campus. These are major changes to the previous announcements
from government on which we have depended in planning for board
approval of the 08/09 budget next week. As you know, this
planning has involved a very difficult exercise, requiring a c. $9
million (2.5%) cut to 07/08 budget allocations across the
university. These reductions were required in order to
accommodate market pressures on the costs of new appointments, the
operating costs of new buildings, and inflation in non-salary
operating costs, none of which have been covered by the government
funding formula. The impact of the latest information we have
received would require further reductions of more than $6 million.

The timing of this new information just weeks prior to the start
of a new fiscal year means that most decisions have been made for
new appointments and new admissions for 08/09, with little
flexibility remaining to accommodate new budget pressures. We are
therefore concentrating on intensive conversations with government
in the hope of clarification and relief. At the same time, I have
asked the Vice-Presidents and Deans, and the budget task force
established in the Summer of last year, to consider options for
managing further reductions in the cost of our operations, in
light of the information so far received. I will be reporting to
the Board of Governors and to the Senate, and I will also be
reviewing these matters with all employee associations and with
the Student Society.

I will update the community on the results of these discussions
inside and outside of the university as soon as I am able.

actually i voted for joe

oh well. i don't think there was much difference between then anyway.

however, i am very glad, that we're out of CFS. all those creepy "volunteers" from other schools had me worried. but students figured it out.