Your UPS battery backup may be killing you

Posted on March 28, 2010 by Stephen Pate

Sulfur odor from a UPS battery back up is dangerous to your health

APC XS900 UPS suflur odors

Using a UPS batter backup for your office or home office computer comes with the health risks from exposure to hydrogen sulfide and sulfur gas. Ignoring the risk can cause throat irritation, headaches and even death. In my case it gave me a sore throat that led to the worst cold in years.

From power outage to me outage

I’d been using battery powered interruptibility power supplies (UPS) at work for decades. I thought nothing of buying a new one two weeks ago. I hooked it up and Windows 7 immediately recognized it as a UPS and added a monitoring icon in the tray. Within only one day, we had a power spike and dropout that killed everything but my desktop. It seemed like a wise purchase.

I noticed a sharp sulfuric acid smell that grew stronger each day. It wasn’t the rotten egg smell. It was sulfuric acid. I checked the UPS, which uses sealed lead-acid batteries. They weren’t leaking. I emailed APC the manufacturer of the UPS.
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Passport to Land of the Well is Revoked

Posted on March 28, 2010 by Stephen Pate

We are all one nanosecond away from a disability. One in seven Canadians will develop a disability in their lifetime.

Mia Farrow as Daisy in F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby

“Susan Sontag said we all carry two passports: one for the land of the well, one for the land of the ill,” Mia Farrow noted. “Any minute, the passport for the land of the well can be revoked, and you’re in another land entirely.”

We are all one nanosecond away from a disability. One in seven Canadians will develop a disability in their lifetime. It could be from an accident or from an illness.

When I was young I thought disabilities came from diseases like polio (mine). I considered the sporting or other accidents that created paraplegics or quadriplegics a sad waste of young lives. Yet they happen, along with a vast array of medical and accidental incidents to create disabilities.

What can one do, other than be careful and eat your veggies?

Carry the best disability insurance you can. Make sure it covers beyond the normal 2 years from the disabling situation. Insurance companies love to sell their policies as all-inclusive until you need them. Then the fine print says two years and out. Never leave your employment while disabled: go on disability leave first. Usually, you must be employed at the time of disability to be covered.

We need a better safety net for those with disabilities. Too many people are affected to ignore it as somebody else’s problem. It is coming and the time appears to be sooner than later. Continue reading →

Phil Collins can’t drum anymore

Posted on March 28, 2010 by Stephen Pate

Nerve disability makes picking up the sticks a remote dream in the future

Phil Collins

Phil Collins is back to singing because he can’t drum anymore. His hands won’t hold the sticks let alone perform complex drumming patterns. At the young age of 59, Phil Collins has a disability.

Collins had been the lead singer and drummer of Genesis, a soloist and collaborator with many musicians including Eric Clapton. He has a long time musical partnership with Peter Gabriel. Collins hits include You Can’t Hurry Love, Sussudio and In the Air Tonight.

Years of poor posture on a drumming stool is blamed for damage to the nerves in the spine. The vertebrae damaged the nerves permanently.

“There isn’t any drama regarding my disability and playing drums. Somehow during the last Genesis tour I dislocated some vertebrae in my upper neck and that affected my hands. After a successful operation on my neck, my hands still can’t function normally. Maybe in a year or so it will change, but for now it is impossible for me to play drums or piano. I am not in any distressed state—stuff happens in life.”

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Justice denied for Nortel disabled pensioners

Posted on March 27, 2010 by Stephen Pate

If the partial settlement wasn’t bad enough, the court has rejected that deal as preferential over other debt holders while politicians ponder

Nortel pensioners and their supporters rallied on Parliament Hill Thursday. Photograph by: Pat McGrath, The Ottawa Citizen

The inequity of a legal system that can reward executives with millions of dollars in bonuses while forcing pensioners with disabilities onto welfare was backed by the Ontario Super Court as the Nortel $57 million pension agreement was thrown out.

In a previous story we reported the views of Nortel’s pensioned employees who lost their benefits as a result of Nortel’s bankruptcy. Nortel pays bonuses to execs and pittance to retirees and disabled.

That agreement which only lasted until the end of 2010 has been thrown out by a judge as prejudicial to other creditors. Once again the legal system has prejudice the employees in favor of executives and bankers.

While the Harper Conservative government talks and promises to reform Canada’s pension system, they are marking time with no laws that could save these employees. This is a travesty in Canada that the recession and it’s aftermath has made urgent. The Tories fiddle while Canadian employees take the heat.

The Opposition NDP and Liberals could force the minority government’s hand on this issue. Is their talk supporting pension reform mere political rhetoric, just another bluff from Jack Layton and Michael Ignatieff?

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Has Consumer Reports crossed over to the dark side

Posted on March 27, 2010 by Stephen Pate

After decades of decrying false advertising CU Reports web site is now playing that game

Come for information get a pitch instead

I got an email telling me to check out Consumers Reports blog for ratings on new computers.

Consumer Reports used to be one of the most trusted names in rating products. These days they have slipped into bait and switch on the web.

Let’s say one thing clearly: Consumer Reports published by Consumers Union is the reason we have much of our consumer protection and environmental regulations today.

Their subscriber funded magazine took on GM over unsafe cars along with Ralph Nader, pollution with Rachel Carson of Silent Spring.

They rated every consumer product from paint to blenders to automobiles. Millions of people based their purchases on how a product was tested and rated by Consumer Reports. I loyally subscribed since the 1960s and saved all those magazines for “research purposes.” Continue reading →

Helium Balloon amazing space photo

Posted on March 26, 2010 by Byline

Cheapest satellite launch costs $50 million but he only spent £4000

Pictures from space with a digital camera worth a few hundred quid

A father-of-three from Huddersfield has captured images of earth from space using a weather balloon.

Starting in October 2008, 38-year-old Robert Harrison filled 12 High Altitude Balloons with helium and launched them 35 kilometres into the atmosphere.

Having wrapped a digital camera and Global Positioning System device in loft insulation and linked it to computer software on the ground, he was able to track the balloons’ progress.

He said: “The first time I saw the pictures, I couldn’t believe it.”

The rare images caught the attention of experts in the field and it wasn’t long before Harrison received a telephone call from NASA. Continue reading →

Ring Them Bells Bob Dylan video

Posted on March 26, 2010 by Stephen Pate

The lines are long fighting is strong and they’re breaking down the distance between right and wrong

Ring Them Bells Bob Dylan

Updated March 3, 2012 – This performance is from Live at The Supper Club November 1993

Although the song is deeply religious, it took Dylan until 1989 long past his Christian period to write it.

Ring Them Bells is featured on Oh Mercy, his first collaboration with Canadian producer and musician Daniel Lanois. Oh Mercy is a gem of a CD with every song growing better over time. It is also on The Bootleg Series Vol. 8 – Tell Tale Signs: Rare and Unreleased 1989–2006. Continue reading →

Wheelchair Dancer – Audiences and Disability Ghettos

Posted on March 26, 2010 by Byline

Disability is there upfront and central; no one can escape or avoid its presence

Wheelchair Dancer – I am always amazed that we have an audience. Performing at home is one thing; we’ve been there for years — had time to build a base, form a community. Performing in a different town, in a different place is makes me wonder: who wants to see us perform? Who funds a dance company like ours? Who brings us to your town and why?

These questions haunt me as I read the following article: an interview of crutch-master Bill Shannon about being a performer at the Paralympics. The title is, I think, intended as one of those journalistic plays on words:”Performance artist resists ‘disabled ghetto’:Disability not a crutch for skateboarding dancer,” but to me the conjunction of these ideas is meaningful.

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People with disabilities more prone to poverty

Posted on March 26, 2010 by Byline

The story you won’t see on CBC Charlottetown but it’s the same story on PEI

Laurie Helgason

CBC Winnipeg – For many Manitobans there is a link between living in poverty and living with a disability.

Laurie Helgason, who requires a wheelchair after an unfortunate gym accident, believes there is a link between poverty and disability as employers are reticent to hire those with extra needs.

“All of us have the desire to do something with our lives,” said Helgason. “But when you go to an employer with a disability he automatically thinks cost ‘what will it cost me to employ this person.’”

“When an employer starts to look at cost instead of people, people with disabilities lose out,” she said. Continue reading →

Black Dub w/ Daniel Lanois: The Birth of Bellavista Nights

Posted on March 25, 2010 by Stephen Pate

New Lanois Black Dub film available

This is classic Daniel Lanois. He is wringing those mysterious tones from his guitar with fingertips. It’s compelling, hypnotic with the sky moving in panorama behind him.

“A new film is being uploaded to share with the world. It showcases some new developments on the visual side of things. You can see it on YouTube. It is available for purchase as an HD download with the audio track and photo for only $2.99 on blackdub.net ” They are using Topspin for fulfillment which gives you options outside of iTunes but it would have been easier if it on iTunes Store.

On his website, he has some free downloads or you can drop over to Blackdub.net for some more fan stuff and tour videos. If you want him to come to your city, he’d like to know. More videos after the story break. Continue reading →

Lady Gaga hits 1 Billion views

Posted on March 25, 2010 by Byline

She’s sassy, she’s sexy, she’s a totally weird dresser and people love Lady Gaga

Lady Gaga

From Music News.com – Lady Gaga videos have been viewed online more than one billion times according to analytics company Visible Measures.

Gaga has become the first artist to measure more than one billion views, based on combined stats for her three videos ‘Poker Face’, ‘Just Dance’ and ‘Bad Romance’.

‘Poker Face’ is the big one with 374,606,128 views followed by ‘Bad Romance’ with 360,020,327 views then ‘Just Dance’ with 272,941,674 views.

The combined tally gives Lady Gaga a total of 1,007,556,129 views as of this week for those three clips alone. Videos follow the break as always. Warning – they contain sexual content and partial nudity.
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