Explosion kills student at Ottawa school

An 18-year-old student was killed and another was seriously injured when an oil drum exploded Thursday in an auto shop at Ottawa's Mother Teresa Catholic High School.Paramedics who were called to the school in late morning confirmed the 18-year-old, a male, died at the scene.A 17-year-old boy was in serious condition after suffering internal organ injuries from the blast. At least three other students were injured. A drum of oil in the shop is believed to have ignited, causing the blast, according to witnesses. It is not known exactly how the drum exploded, but students from the class said the drum contained peppermint oil, which is combustible when exposed to heat.The school of about 1,400 was evacuated and the students transported to Longfields-Davidson Heights Secondary School.Students and a teacher told CBC News that the school's public address system was down, and the order to evacuate had to be given verbally from class to class.

My Opinion :

This event is extremely tragic, and it is truly unfortunate that something such as this occurred. I find that this is very uncommon and there should be new protocol for Auto shop classes, because there should be no flammable oil around any source of fire. The worst part of it all is the emotional pain that his parents will have to go through for the rest of their lives. I believe this event could have been prevented, but at least three of the four Vitim's are still alive. Schools should begin to be more cautious, especially when working with dangers chemicals in dangerous situations/environments. Overall, this event is unfortunate, and hopefully something like this should never happen again, because it is heartbreaking.

Slave Lake residents face wait to go home after fire

Residents of fire-ravaged Slave Lake will not be allowed to return home for at least a week, possibly two, says the mayor of the northern Alberta town. This is due to the huge fire that happend the other day, which was mentioned in a previous blog post. The entire town, which is relatively small, located 250 kilometres northwest of Edmonton, was evacuated Sunday when wind-whipped wildfires suddenly turned and blazed through town, destroying more than a third of its homes, along with the town hall and government centre. It is truly unfortunate that everyone had to evacuate. Approximately 100 firemen/police are patrolling the town day and night. There are 100 forest fires burning across central and northern Alberta Tuesday — 23 of them out of control and evacuation alerts are in place for more than a half-dozen small communities in the Slave Lake region. Since the fire there have been many relief donations to help rebuild the town to what it once was. This event was truly unexpected and has harmed so much of the small Slave Lake town.

My Opinion :

After recently commenting on this event several events have changed, now the people are not able to return to the homes for approximately 1-2 weeks which is truly unfortunate and harsh especially at this time of year, as school is coming to an end and the weather is brightening up. Thankfully the town is recieving several donations which is very great to hear! I just can't believe how 100 forest fires burned accross Alberta, and I would like to salute everyone who is involved in rebuilding the community and who has stop the fire. Overall it is obviously a misfortune that this happend and it is great to here that the community will soon be up to par within time. Most importantly no one was harmed.

Wildfires cut off Slave Lake, Alta.

The town of Slave Lake, Alta., remained cut off from the south by wildfires early Monday, a day after two out of control blazes forced people to flee and burned out many buildings in the town of 7,000. The highways were blocked for approximately 70 kilometers below the town due to the fire/trees burning, it is reported that they will not be restored until next week. The fire caught almost everyone in the community by surprise, due to the fact that there were 80 kilometer winds that day.
“It has been heart wrenching to see how quickly this wildfire moved and the effect it’s had on our community,” Slave Lake Mayor Karina Pillay-Kinnee said in a statement issued by the Alberta government. Approximately 30% of the towns buildings burned down.
"The town is gone," one woman told CBC News. "There's nothing left. There's places where there should have been houses, and they're gone. We lost everything." Fortunately there were no injury reports.

My Opinion :

I feel that this event is extremely tragic especially in such a small town with a population of a mere 7,000. I find that events like this truly bring sadness to everyone especially those living in the town. Everything was piratically destroyed. These environmental events are occurring more and more throughout the years and I believe that things like this are caused by global warming, which is ultimately because of us. This event almost puts things into perspective as far as we take everything for granted and that things can disappear with a blink of an eye. Overall I feel for the people in this town, and I hope these events bring them closer. They are all truly fortunate to be alive as reports said there were no injury reports.

Nintendo cuts price of Wii

 Nintendo is dropping the price of its Wii game system by $50 to $150 and introducing a new line of cheaper Wii games.Starting May 15, the newly priced Wii system will come in either black or white with a “Mario Kart Wii” game and a Wii Wheel accessory, replacing the previously included “Wii Sports” and “Wii Sports Resort” games.The price cut – the second one since the Wii launched for $250 in 2006 – comes less than a month after the Japanese company announced the console will have a successor next year. Nintendo Co. said in late April it will show off a playable model of the new system at the Electronic Entertainment Expo, which runs June 7-9 in Los Angeles.The company said Wednesday that the “Nintendo Selects” collection of games will come with a suggested retail price of $20. The four games include “The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess,” “Animal Crossing: City Folk,” “Mario Super Sluggers and Wii Sports.” It's the first time “Wii Sports” will be sold separately rather than packaged with the Wii.The Wii redefined gaming when it launched nearly five years ago, expanding video game audience by offering intuitive motion controllers instead of complex buttons. But the Wii isn't as technologically powerful as its counterparts from Sony and Microsoft, the PlayStation 3 and the Xbox 360. Unlike those two, it doesn't offer high-definition images.

My Opinion :

I agree with Nintendo cutting the price on Wii because compared to the other leading game systems Wii has lost alot of its potential customers. I think it is a great idea for them to sell Wii sports seperately because that is one of the main attractions of the Wii. Personally, I only play Wii with groups of people which is its only use and I think that it is good that Wii is relating back to easier/user friendly games such as Mario Cart which we know everyone loves. From a company stand point I believe that Nintendo has made the right decisions, hopefully resulting in a bright future.

Sony offers free games after PlayStation data breach

 Due to the fact that the Playstation Network was hacked and was down for just over 4 weeks users in Canada and U.S of the Playstation Network will get free game downloads and video rentals as a welcome "mat". This doesn't seem like much especially that a network as big as Playstation has been down for such a long time, and truly has disappointed its users. This is why Playstation announced that Network members will be able to download two Playstation 3 or PSP Games for free from the select list during the 30 days after the Playstation Network has come back online. It is announced all its services will be back May 31.  It doesn't seem like alot to many of the users but at least it is better then nothing.

My Opinion :

First and foremost I believe that the Playstation Network should be doing alot more for the users as there Network has been down for over 1 month, which is a huge disappointment to all of its users. Many of the users perhaps switched to xbox because they couldn't handle 2 months of unannounced waiting time. Therefore I believe that the PSN should be offering larger rewards/welcoming gifts for the users including free Gold membership for 3 months or something that will actually benefit the users because the network was down for 1 months and the users should be given more then that. Once again, this is a huge disappointment and hopefully the network will regain its once trustful reputation.

How bin Laden emailed without being detected

Regardless of having no Internet access, Bin Ladin was a profilic email writer who built a painstaking system that kept him one step ahead of the U.S. government's best eavesdroppers. His methods, described in new detail to The Associated Press by a counter terrorism official and a second person briefed on the U.S. investigation, served him well for years and frustrated Western efforts to trace him through cyberspace. The arrangement allowed bin Laden to stay in touch worldwide without leaving any digital fingerprints behind. The people spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive intelligence analysis.
Bin Laden's system was built on discipline and trust. But it also left behind an extensive archive of email exchanges for the U.S. to scour. The trove of electronic records pulled out of his compound after he was killed last week is revealing thousands of messages and potentially hundreds of email addresses, the AP has learned.Holed up in his walled compound in northeast Pakistan with no phone or Internet capabilities, bin Laden would type a message on his computer without an Internet connection, then save it using a thumb-sized flash drive. He then passed the flash drive to a trusted courier, who would head for a distant Internet cafe.At that location, the courier would plug the memory drive into a computer, copy bin Laden's message into an email and send it. Reversing the process, the courier would copy any incoming email to the flash drive and return to the compound, where bin Laden would read his messages offline.

My Opinion :

All i can say is wow! This completely amazes me in two ways. First I can't believe that Osama would come up with something like this which truly proves his true self and how he really is such a bad person. Secondly it reveals flaws in the U.S government and how they wouldn't think of this before him or be able to detect it. The process completely amazes me, and also Osama's desperation is quite disturbing. None the less, at least we found out what he was doing and in the future we will no better to detect it.

RIM recalls 1,000 PlayBooks

 Research In Motion has recalled about 1,000 of its PlayBook tablets due to a faulty operating system — a tiny fraction of the devices expected to be sold this spring but another bump in the BlackBerry maker's shaky transition to a new generation of products. “The number, at about 1,000, is relatively small given expectations for tens, if not hundreds of thousands of units, sold in the coming weeks,” Edward Jones technology analyst Bill Kreher said Monday. This is unfortunate because the company needs to hurry up and compete with other tablets such as the ipad. None the less it is expected that many units will still be sold regardless of this small set back. Kreher said he expects 500,000 PlayBook computer tablets to be sold in the first quarter and a total of two million over 12 months.But Kreher said it's “absolutely critical” that Research In Motion get its upcoming new BlackBerrys smart phones to market without any problems. Like any successful business is important to be flawless as a company in order to make the most profit, as it is extremely important to execute a new product properly. RIM said the majority of the affected devices were still at retailers and hadn't reached customers and involved problems in the initial setup of the device. The recall only affected the 16-gigabyte version of the PlayBook. Through these flaws many have criticized RIM for being too slow to react to the young, yet highly competitive, tablet market where Apple Inc. has a stronghold with its iPad device. This could play as a problem to the new launch of the PlayBook.

My Opinion :

I think that RIM should have sat out on this one as they know that they have to compete with the Ipad Two and should of either not created the product or waited abit to have more attraction to the launch. Unfortunately they had to recall a thousand products which evidently has lowered there reputation. Personally I would chose an Ipad over a PlayBook every day because Apple is just that much better as a company. Overall, RIM made a huge mistake and has to suffer the consequences which could put there product in jeopardy.