Around 2020 or soon afterward, Moore’s law will gradually cease to hold true and Silicon Valley may slowly turn into a rust belt unless a replacement technology is found. Transistors will be so small that quantum theory or atomic physics takes over and electrons leak out of the wires. For example, the thinnest layer inside your computer will be about five atoms across. At that point, according to the laws of physics, the quantum theory takes over. The Heisenberg uncertainty principle states that you cannot know both the position and velocity of any particle. This may sound counterintuitive, but at the atomic level you simply cannot know where the electron is, so it can never be confined precisely in an ultrathin wire or layer and it necessarily leaks out, causing the circuit to short-circuit. According to the laws of physics, eventually the Age of Silicon will come to a close, as we enter the Post-Silicon Era.

Source ↑ www.salon.com/…

V.c » This is great, my computers will no longer be obsolete after 2 years.

Linden, who retired from the National Hockey League in 2008, announced today he is opening a fitness centre in Coquitlam this winter. Club 16 – Trevor Linden Fitness is scheduled to open in January 2011 in Eagleridge Place at 2635 Barnet Highway.

According to a news release, the facility will be a “welcoming, state-of-the art facility designed for the average person.” The release went on to say the atmosphere will be “friendly, the intimidation factor will be reduced and exercising and getting into shape will be fun.”

Linden plans to charge $15 a month and says it will be the lowest average membership prices in the industry.

Source ↑ www.vancouversun.com/…

V.c » When I heard Trevor Linden had an announcement about his post-hockey player career I was hoping it would be more exciting than this and that it would have something to do with the Canucks, but this isn’t actually nearly as lame as it first sounds. If it was just a ritzy fitness club appealing to Hummer drivers than that would be really lame, but the fact he plans to only charge $15 per month, that is awesome, that is a third the price of a community centre. I hope there is a Club 16 my neighbourhood soon.

We will be the new home for world class sports personalities including Jim Rome, Dan Patrick, Bob McCown and the best of the best ESPN sports insiders.  We will broadcast every BC Lions game, from pre-season to playoffs, and hopefully, all the way to the Grey Cup.  Along with that, you’ll be able to listen and join in the conversation with extensive pre and post game shows for all of the Lions games.  1410 is now the new and permanent full time home for BC lions football in Vancouver, and that starts tomorrow night with the crucial, must win game against the Eskimo’s at BC Place.  If you’re going to the game, take your radio and you can follow all the action as only Rick Ball & Giulio Caravatta can describe it, right here on TEAM 1410.

Source ↑ www.talk1410.ca/…

V.c » Is it just me or did TALK 1410 pull a fast one and change their format over night? I often listen to TEAM 1040 and rarely listened to TALK 1410 but my wife is the opposite. I think it is great that we have another sports radio station in town with a less of a homer focus than TEAM 1040 (although I love the Canuck talk when they are winning) and which syndicates American shows (except for mister pause and repeat, Jim Rome) and broadcasts some of the major sporting events that have nothing to do with Vancouver. But so much for talk radio in Vancouver that is focused on issues that are generally more of interest to women. (Is there another one that I am just not aware of?) The way women talk and talk (at least my wife and my mother ;) I’m surprised the airwaves aren’t filled with talk radio stations that cater to women.

Don’t shoot me. I’ve come to believe that the Harmonized Sales Tax (HST) introduced by British Columbia’s Liberal government was the right thing to do.

It’s hard not to think so, if you take the time to speak with tax policy experts, look at the results of HST in other jurisdictions (most notably Atlantic Canada), and consider that most other provinces are following Ontario’s example by moving to HST.

The opposition can muddy the waters, and consumers can complain that they are getting the short end of the stick, but the truth of the matter is very simple — HST was a good policy move by the B.C. government.

Source ↑ www.thetyee.ca/…

V.c » I guess we will have to crunch the numbers to really know, but this seems like a whopping pile of BS to me. Maybe it will eliminate the paying of tax upon tax that we often pay unbeknownst thanks to the production chain, but this sure reeks of a tax grab to me. A huge list of products and services that have been exempt from PST, but not GST, will now be taxed with the combined tax of 12% known as the HST. Ummm, can you say tax grab. Oh, but because of the savings businesses will get from not having to pay the tax upon tax in the production chain, they will reduce their prices to consumers which will offset the extra 7% tax we will pay at the checkout. Yeah right, nice theory, but what are the chances of that actually happening. Hmmm, anyone interested in bartering?

Protest rally September 19

That’s why I strongly urge you to attend a major rally against the HST featuring former B.C. Premier Bill Vander Zalm, NDP leader Carole James, B.C. Conservative Party deputy leader Chris Delaney, independent MLA Vicki Huntington, B.C. Refederation Party deputy leader Jordan Braun and others on Saturday September 19 at 12 noon outside Canada Place in downtown Vancouver.

Source ↑ www.thetyee.ca/…

Targeted for project: Homathko River entering Bute Inlet. Photo Damien Gillis, Save Our Rivers Society.

Memo to media: time to expose Campbell’s fallacy.

Last week I spoke of the appalling mainstream media in B.C. and how it let Premier Gordon Campbell get away with th murder of our rivers and the ecologies they support. The exception, and a major one, is Mark Hume of the Globe and Mail whose B.C. section, combined with the national edition, gives better coverage by far of B.C. affairs than does The Vancouver (Seriously West Coast) Sun, The Province and Global combined.) I need hardly add that The Tyee encourages full debate on all issues.

I want to make it clear that I’m not asking that the media agree with any or all of the positions I’ve taken. I only ask that they examine the facts plus the motives and actions of the Campbell government with the same thoroughness as, in Vaughn Palmer’s case especially, they brought to the “Fast Ferry” debacle of the last NDP government.

There are three main ways the media can deceive us: By not telling the truth or using half truths at best. By not talking about the issue at all. Or by cherry picking issues and avoiding the dodgy ones. The mainstream media in B.C. does all three.

Source ↑ www.thetyee.ca/…

V.c » If you follow Rafe Mair’s columns at The Tyee you will know that he has been going on and on about the Campbell government selling our rivers to private power and the disastrous effects this will have on our society and environment. I have read many of the articles but I haven’t crossed referenced any of them to check up on the facts but even if Mair is half-right then the media and citizens of British “The Best Place on Earth” Columbia need to get off our apolitical asses and do something about this forthcoming travesty.

Staff wait for the Canada Line train during a trial run on Friday.

Tens of thousands of people are expected to turn out for the opening of the $2-billion Canada Line in Vancouver and Richmond on Monday afternoon.

Riders will be able to take a free ride between 1 p.m. and 9 p.m. PT on the new rapid transit line. The route will provide alternating service between Vancouver and Richmond or the Vancouver International Airport in about 25 minutes — making it Canada’s only rapid transit link from a city core to an airport.

Spokesman Drew Snider is warning people to expect long waits for the free rides, but said TransLink will provide entertainment at some of the stations.

“We’ve got buskers at various stations. I know Bridgeport’s got various entertainers like Rod Stewart and Elvis. There’s going to be line-dancing at the Richmond-Brighouse station,” said Snider, referring to musical impersonators and other talent hired to entertain the crowds.

Source ↑ www.cbc.ca/…

V.c » It is totally awesome that we now have a train linking downtown Vancouver to the YVR airport in Richmond. The first city in Canada to have this infrastructure. It is almost worth the cost of the Olympics just to have this. But why-o-why does it have to have such a lame name such as the Canada Line? Of course it goes with the other poorly named Expo Line and Millenium Line skytrains. You tell me where those damn things go, can we not use geographical based names so people know which skytrain goes where?

Some people in Vancouver are wondering, as the marijuana capital of Canada gears up to host the 2010 Winter Games. The silver and white torch, when lit, reminds them of a marijuana cigarette, giving new meaning to the games’ motto of aiming “higher.”

“It’s white, there’s the fire, and there’s its irregular size that’s wide in the middle and thin on both ends,” said Jonathan Mercier, 27, a tourist from Montreal. He’s not surprised that the torch is being dubbed the “Olympic toke.”

…

Comedian Jimmy Kimmel, on his late-night television program May 21, poked fun with a doctored photograph purportedly showing gold-medal swimmer Michael Phelps smoking the torch. Jim Rome lampooned the torch in a commentary on ESPN television May 21.

Source ↑ www.bloomberg.com/…

More Info ↑ www.vancouver2010.com/…

V.c » I missed this one when it first came out, but it is too good for me not to post here. Apparently 80 people at Bombardier worked on this thing and not one of them realized that this torch design was more representative of the Marijuana Olympics than the Winter Olympic Games. Ouch. Anyway, if you are an entrepreneurial pot-smoker (or is that an oxymoron?) then perhaps you can come up with a product that ties in the olympic torch and pot smoking paraphernalia and sell it here on the black market. You could probably even come up with some sort of cross-promotional strategy with your local pot dealer who will undoubtedly be extra busy during the Olympics.