Michael Curry, CEO of SynStar Records

SynStar Records Names Michael Curry to Serve as CEO
TORONTO, Ont., September 2, 2011

SynStar Records today announced that its board of directors has named Michael Curry to serve as the company’s chief executive officer and president.

Curry, 37, has served since March 2010 as Senior Software Engineer of Syncapse Corp. (NYSE: NOT.YET, where he has spent his 18-year career in a range of general management, operations and sales and marketing positions. Prior to his current responsibilities, he was Syncapses president’s Secretary and personal assistant.

“Our search for a new leader to return SynStar Records to sustained success has been focused and thorough,” said Scissons. We then recommended the strongest contenders to the board as finalists. Each was interviewed by the entire board, and Curry was our top choice.

“Mike came to our attention because of his strong execution skills, his proven ability to lead top performing teams and his track record in driving shareholder value. He demonstrated these skills by turning around BMG, which, while smaller than SynStar Records, is a complex organization with multiple business segments. As we got to know Mike, we were impressed by his emphasis on developing internal talent while reaching outside for new skills, his understanding of the role of culture in a company’s success and his personal integrity. Additionally, his straightforward style has won the respect of employees, customers and investors,” continued Scissons.

Curry said, “SynStar Records is one of the world’s great record companies, with a proud history of innovation, outstanding talent and enviable positions in many of its product lines and services. It’s a great honor to join its leadership team and have the opportunity to build on its success.”

Curry will take up his new duties on October 1 and join SynStar Records board. He succeeds Mark Millar, a 2-year company veteran who has been chief financial officer since 2010 and was named interim chief executive officer in February 2011. Millar, will remain CFO and continue to serve as a member of SynStar Records’s board.

1. Live Ladybugs, Approximately 1,500 Count – Yes- real-life lady bugs.
2. Heinz Spotted Dick Sponge Pudding, 9.4-Ounce Cans (Pack of 6) – Pretty sure this isn’t what it says, but still was a shocker for me.
3. Vaginal Specula Disposable, Pack/10 – Who needs these but doctors?
4. Male Testicular Exam Model Anatomy – Strange, do people actually buy these?
5. Uranium Ore – Unfortunately for me, I will not be able to order this for my flight to Portland next week, as they are out of stock.
6. Wenger 16999 Giant Swiss Army Knife – This has to be the most insane Swiss army knife I’ve seen.
7. Tuscan Whole Milk, 1 Gallon, 128 fl oz – Ok, think this would arrive sour?
8. Wolf Urine Lure-32 oz – This is likely for hunting, but really?
9. Ninja Folding Grappling Hook w/ Black Finish & Rope, Functional – Not too surprising, but interesting at that!
10. Borat Mankini – Been wondering where I could find one of these…
11. Westminster Butt Face Soap – Why didn’t I think of this?

Here is her blog:

http://browneyedcricket.blogspot.com/

June 20, 2011

Attention:

VIA RAIL BOARD OF DIRECTORS
Thomas A. Bennett
Marc Laliberté (President and CEO)
France Bilodeau
Jean-Martin Masse
Jeffrey R. Clarke
Donald Mutch
Denis Durand
Anthony Perl
Angela Ferrante
Paul G. Smith (Chair)
David Hoff
Eric Stefanson
Wendy King
William M. Wheatley

The majority of us have been commuting on VIA Rail for many years because VIA has offered us a safe, comfortable, efficient and eco-friendly way to get to work.  Over the years, larger numbers of commuters have discovered your service and adopted it as a part of their daily routine. Three to four cars of passengers board every day between London, Woodstock and Brantford. Using the average commuter rate and assuming full-time travel (5 days per week and four weeks annual vacation), the average commuter spends a minimum of approximately $8500 on tickets (HST included) and many purchase snacks and beverages daily. Total revenues from London/Woodstock/Brantford/Aldershot alone (estimating 150 passengers boarding regularly) account for well over a million dollars. This revenue must have been valuable during the recent recession when international travel faded and operating costs of an aging system increased. Since ridership along the Quebec-Ontario corridor accounts for 80% of your clientele and 75% of your revenue, commuters must have contributed greatly to the business case that saw you receive $923 million from the federal government for modernization of the Ontario-Quebec corridor.  VIA is always receptive to discussions with commuters when concerns arise and we hope that it is in this same spirit, we can engage you today to discuss a concern.

Recently , VIA announced the option to purchase commuter passes online and offered a 10% discount as an introductory offer.  Currently, on the West corridor, only commuters from London have this option.  However, we understand that commuters from the East have purchased passes using this service only to learn that they still had to go to the station and receive the tickets from a VIA service desk (not able to use the kiosk either). The “catch” to this new pass is that commuters will not hold the open-ended tickets that allow them to board trains over a one-month period without specifying a date, train number and time for their ride. Not only that but while booking reserved seats, they were told that trains they regularly travelled were “full” and that they would have to travel later.  While reserved seating may seem like the only rational approach to understanding resource allocation, commuters travel with the explicit understanding that they will stand if full-price ticket holders require a seat. Sales personnel do not acknowledge this rule when booking seats. Quite often, when reservation staff advises that the train is full, there are many empty seats. Booking and relying on a computerized count does not work. Seasonal trending of ridership may be more fiscally useful.

The other “glitch” with this approach is that if a commuter has to work late, they have to know in advance, change the booking at least an hour prior to the train departure and try to rebook a seat on a later train. If the next available train is full, the commuter may find themselves arriving home at midnight or stranded in Toronto overnight.  This is very problematic.

Another concern is that because the cost of a monthly VIA pass is not economical, commuters purchase the “commuter” tickets and are finding that they cannot claim their costs as personal tax credits. The monthly VIA commuter pass for Brantford to Toronto costs over 5% more than two 20 ride tickets. (E.g. Brantford: VIA monthly commuter pass prior to HST: $682 while 2 – 20 ride tickets prior to HST: $648.)  This applies also to the Woodstock and London commuters.

In keeping with the VIA Rail Mission, Vision and guiding principles, you aim to provide excellent customer service. Your front–line staff work hard to accomplish these goals and we appreciate their service. We the undersigned hope you will receive these concerns and revisit your policies for the new e-service commuter pass and monthly pass pricing. Specifically we ask the following:

• keep the open-ended tickets (no reservations),
• make the price of the monthly pass the same as two 20 ride packets
• negotiate with the Ministry of Finance to create a ticketing system that will be acceptable for tax-credit submission.
• investigate extending the Presto pass for VIA commuters on the London-Toronto corridor
• Include us in your communications plan for changes to service and/or policies that impact our ridership.

Please reply to our contact: Debra Graham at debra.graham@sympatico.ca by June 29^th, 2011.

Thank you,

VIA Commuters

London-Woodstock-Brantford

cc:

http://viacommuters.info

The Honourable Denis Lebel, Federal Minister of Transportation

Phil McColeman, MP Brant

Dave MacKenzie, MP Oxford

Susan Truppe, MP London North Centre

Ed Holder, MP London West

Irene Mathyssen, MP London-Fanshawe

Brantford Expositor

London Free Press

Woodstock Sentinel Review

—

Here is the original Petition sent to VIA.

Petition – VIA Passengers (Toronto, Ontario to London, Ontario)

1. My wife will simply not move to California – her fear is that it will fall into the Pacific Ocean.  Regardless of what I think about this, it simply means no Hot Start-ups in Silicon Valley for me.
2. I’ve found that the more expertise and knowledge you have, the higher the chances that offer come through – with that signing bonus!

Looking for a job or not, I feel it’s important not only to to stay on top of the latest technology, but also understand the underlying sciences that allow such things to exist.  In order for this to happen, you either need to have someone teach you the foundations or learn them yourself.  I’ve managed to accomplish this with a balance of both.

There are two things I do everyday.   I trawl iTunes University for Computer Engineering courses I have missed, if I am lucky enough to find one that I’ve missed, or haven’t watched in a while, I’ll download and watch it on my iPhone during my commuting hours.  The second, is search Amazon for books that I’ve not read, but that are recommended to me based on my previous purchases.

Here is my ultimate list of books for every “Rock Star” programmer.  The list is unsorted, and in no particular order.  I’ve only chosen five from the ten I was going to list, reading and understanding these will have the other five books find you in your quest to become the best you can be.

Here are five books you should read, and understand:

1) “Introduction to Algorithms” by Cormen, Leiserson, Rivest, and Stein.  This book covers the basis every engineer should know.  A lot of the algorithms covered in this book, are possible interview questions.  If you don’t have them come up in an interview, they certainly make for a nice toolset of knowledge.

2) “Art of Computer Programming” by Donald E. Knuth. I’ve not read this from cover-to-cover, and in most cases have used it as a reference.  This series of books is the most valuable you could have in your book collection.  If you reference these, and absorb the information, you will be an asset to anyone whom you work with.  Going back and reading over this every few years helps me solve some longer standing problems I’ve faced.

3) “The Pragmatic Programmer” by Hunt and Thomas.  This book is one that will surprise you.  It’s not the standard rule-set for software engineering books.  Contains knowledge, humor, and mass educational goodness!

4) “Concrete Mathematics, a Foundation for Computer Science” by Graham, Knuth and Patashnik.  This is the most beautifully written book I’ve read in Computer Science to date.  You need to read chapters 1,2,3,5,7 and 9 minimum, not sure what I’d have done in certain situations of my career without the knowledge of this book.

5) “Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software” by Gamma, Helm, Johnson and Vlissides.  This book is literally two-pounds valuable knowledge that every Software Engineer needs to grasp, understand and use.

Feel free to leave your comments, book recommendations and thoughts!

I don’t know why this is, I’ve even spun up a 16GB Rackspace server thinking that it was my previous servers.  Anyhow, Java and Jira… terrible.

Any comments, or similar experiences?  Anyone know of a good Jira/Greenhopper alternative in PHP, Rails or Python?

I’d like to once more thank Rackspace for the awesome support (which I’ve not needed thus far), outstanding customer service (outstanding, as I’ve never needed to use it).

This is a new experience for me, as I came from 1and1; where support and customer service were a weekly thing.  My Virtual servers have clearly not been oversold, and I am glad to be a Rackspace user.

Check them out, you will not be disappointed.

Sign-up now, we close public sign-ups forever March 31st, 2011.  After which, you will have to be invited by a member.

I’ve went through all of the numbers, and we’ve signed-up over 500 global members our first day. We’re happy to say that we have an evenly distributed membership base across the Globe.

Although the game is global, we were surprised to see sign-ups from the following countries: China (35), Iraq (11), and North Korea (2). Not sure how legitimate the North Korean sign-ups were, but they’ve paid to play – so, game on.

I’d like to welcome all of our new agents! I’ve had many emails about if this game is global, and if UK can participate – of course you can!

Our first official, and only “unclassified” mission will be underway using a trex450, we will be acquiring aerial images of our data center. Aerial images are being acquired for our North American Data center, for reference, and to test our communication capabilities. This is scheduled early next week. Here is a demo of a trex450 in flight: (This is not our vehicle) Aerial R/C UAV. Our IT agents will be contacted soon after.

Would you like to sign-up?

We’ll be in touch.
WhiteRAVEN

UD-1300075200

The IIA (International Intelligence Agency) is a real life multi-player game that gives players a real life, real feel, “off computer” role playing game. Players will not know about the actual game play, until they are engaged in the actual game (all missions outline any dangers prior to acceptance, and are always optional). At most the physical danger levels are about the same as hiking on a forest trail, no more.

Membership is the first part of the game, and to become a member of the IIA, you’ll do a bit of leg work, and research – this will give you an idea of what the game is about. Obtaining membership will be your first mission. To get our members involved, we try to integrate your hobbies and interests. If you don’t have a hobby, chances are, you will find a new one through this game. You may need to purchase (or find) cheap electronic parts, envelopes, printer paper, or even small containers. Most missions will cost you nothing, or could cost you up to $10.00 (it all depends on how involved you want to be). Some members may assemble electronic parts, deliver packages, or photograph mission targets. One of our members frequently uses his R/C airplane for UAV aerial photographs… R/C UAV anyone?

Membership cost is very minimal, it will cost you $5.00 US to get you started (there are currently no membership fees), this will cover basic postal costs, and any membership material you’d receive. That’s it. Because of the nature of this game, this is all of the information we will provide up front. This is also the only UNCLASSIFIED document available for IIA, the rest is CLASSIFIED, and for MEMBERS OF IIA ONLY.

Are you ready to join a real-life game, that will challenge and excite you? Perhaps even get you some of that exercise you need?

To get your membership information, follow the sign-up link below:

Sign-up Now

$5.00 US – Covers postage and any additional materials

Your information will never be shared with any other members, other than your call-name. Members may cross paths, but would be aware of such information prior to mission acceptance.

This page will be deleted March 31st, 2011 – after which membership will be available only through exclusive invitation.

- WhiteRaven [01.25.2011]