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Showing posts from August, 2012

What does "radio" and "television" mean to you?

I was invited by eMail to join CBC's InCanada Panel , which included a series of questions. They asked about radio and television networks and my viewing/listening/reading habits. I didn't know what to say as they didn't define the terms as clearly as I think they need to in order to get the information they need. For instance, when asked about television I gave an estimate of video I watch on a television screen. Later questions spoke about viewing on set-top boxes, but included that as Internet which suggested the estimates I gave were wrong. A few months ago we dropped Cable TV, with most of my viewing already being via DVD's, Netflix, or other online content. I purchased an ATSC tuner and aerial for a television we have upstairs, and other than the watching I did when I set it up I haven't watched it. That tuner sits there for that case when we might want to be watching something on a "live" broadcast (some emergency or event like we saw in Sept 1

Having no drivers license a source of pride

Yesterday I was called about a story a CBC Television journalist was doing on car-free living in Ottawa. This was a follow-up story sparked by Ottawa city Councillor Katherine Hobbs giving up her car after going car-free for a few months. While my wife drives, so there is a car in the household, I do not drive it or have a drivers license. I consider myself as (or possibly more) car-free as those who don't have a car in the household, but who have memberships in car sharing services like Vrtucar . There will always be exceptions to the general rule for a car-free person, but we are all people who as a general rule don't drive. When I was a teen in the 80's, it was a matter of laziness. I couldn't afford a car, and didn't have the motivation others did to get their drivers licenses anyway. I had a 365 (as they were called in Ontario in those days) learners permit a few times, but never bothered doing the driving test. In the 1990's I met up with some more po