Monthly Archives: December 2013

TransCanada – TCPL the 1980s – inside story

Posted on by

TransCanada. [http://www.energyeastpipeline.com/home/pipeline-101/ ] Parent company of  TransCanada Pipelines Limited (TCPL), a company operating during the 1980s among others with an oil related division = hence the name TCPL Resources. Calgary 1983. Following the take over of the former Maligne Resources oil company and all of their employees. Initially all, but soon transferring many managers to other outside companies and/or somewhat related companies. Big shuffle. At that time I was one of the employees, and had been part of the systems and computer department, as a senior systems analyst and developer. Also project leader for a number of big computer re-design projects, both hardware and software and complete re-writes. Lots of work. Difficult work, because one of the vices common inside those companies was “the permission to chain smoke” on the job and inside the open floors, thus forcing all innocent bystanders (non-smokers) to inhale those deadly fumes. At the same time expecting them to perform their heavy quota of workload.

Apart from that, it started out nice when TCPL Management came on board. But wait a minute: after couple of years the tables turned in a terrifying and tasteless way. Not only was everybody by that time sick of that cigarette smoking, but also TCPL sent down from their headquarters in Toronto, an “Enforcer”. Tasked with identifying, how many people were supposed to get laid off, kicked out or otherwise harassed on a daily basis, until they knew no better, than to leave anyways.

That’s not what you do with professionals, ‘Mr. Enforcer and Prosecutor’. That is not how you treat human beings, unless you don’t care to be openly perceived as a racist and human rights violator. By 1986 numbers of professionals had been kicked out into the street with a couple bucks remuneration. Our (computer) department, starting first with females and single mothers. But how it was done by the Enforcer was tastelessly unprofessional: Assembling large documents with hundreds of pages of all sorts of lies on some employee (who was supposed to read that ?), and sign some silly legalized (bullshit) document? Which nobody of course did. We just left, in the middle of the (oil industry) recession, trying to find some other job. In Alberta at that time almost impossible. I lost my home, my family got ripped apart and I had to go to Ontario. One thing I got, though, is a number of excellent reference letters from the highest level of Management, testifying to the specifics and the quality of all the projects I had done for this company.

End of story. And now they want to go with their big new Eastern pipeline. Trans Canada. Is this legal ? Of course, it is. As is their treatment of experienced and qualified professionals who happen to be at the wrong place at the wrong time  (meaning “being employed by the wrong kind of company”).

On May 15, 2003, TransCanada Corporation received regulatory approvals to establish it as the parent company of TransCanada PipeLines Limited. Shareholders voted in favour of the change to the corporate structure of the company at the Annual and Special Meeting on April 25.

For background on this issue, please see the letter to shareholders and Q&As from Board of Directors’ chairman, Dick Haskayne and chief executive officer, Hal Kvisle, as well as information included in the Management Proxy Circular.

Advertisement

Grizzly Bear Trophy Hunt

Posted on by

Grizzly Bear trophy hunt – meaning that a bear is being killed and stripped of its pelt, and that more than ever it is the European (so-called) hunters who come to British Columbia, to partake in the (rather liberally set provincial quota for) hunting and killing those animals. [ http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/grizzly-bears-overhunted-in-b-c-say-researchers-1.2417306 ] .  So, what is the point exactly of stripping a bear of its pelt and hanging it up on the wall ? Or do they use the bear pelts as carpeting ? Or do they think that there is a major market for any of its parts ? maybe in China ? I cannot see the point of it, yet. For example, a Norwegian travelling all the way to the most Western Canadian Province, British Columbia, in order to return back home with the skin of one of the most intelligent animals. One of the remnants of a Grizzly bear population that has been shrinking to only pockets in Western Canada.

While the BC government claims that set quotas are scientifically proven (or, should I say “clinically proven” ?), scientists here who study the Grizzly bear population know otherwise. [http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/grizzly-bear-kill-limits-being-broken-across-bc-study-says/article15301716/ ]  And don’t you hate it, when a government agency (these are not professionals or scientists, but politicians with no science or even statistical background), determines how many bears can be killed in one season. Don’t tell me, female bears are also included ? ! And who is controlling the hunt ? Any member of those BC governmental agencies ? Is anybody out there in the cold and the wilds to check if the “right” bear is killed ? [Reminds me of the Right Whale in the 19th and 20th century, who were almost completely exterminated. – http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/north-atlantic-right-whales-hunted-to-the-edge-of-extinction-405848.html ]

For those visitors from out of Canada, don’t touch our bears, leave them be, go hunt your own (people) or animals, whatever they be.

scan0060

Cyber War

Posted on by

The largest agencies that control cyberspace in order to protect against cyber attacks and also collect data, are the NSA (US National Security Agency) under General Keith Alexander, also referred to as “Alexander the Geek”, and Kaspersky, the Russian counter part (Society of Information Security) in Moscow.

Attacks by any dangerous virus on the Internet are not only an annoyance, but can also result in physical attacks on important services and utilities, as Stuxnet has shown, a dangerous virus that had attacked the nuclear facilities in Iran. Others, capable of actually bringing down large sections of public power grids.

Cyber agencies in the United States, such as the NSA, and those in Russia, Kaspersky, in Moscow predominantly spent their resources on identifying serious cyber crimes and attacks, as well as conducting serious espionage.

[ http://i-hls.com/2013/08/global-cyber-review/ ] – on the renewed use of electric typewriters by the Russians. Are we going back in time to make use of old-fashioned tools in order to protect ourselves against some brainless morons, who actually believe they are hyper-intelligent because they found a way to hack into important information networks ? If that is all they can do, then their brain cannot be larger than a peanut.

What is really intelligent is, to find ways and means to counter such attacks. And with all such activities, it is the regular guy users who suffers most by having their e-mails investigated for any potential threats. Reminds me of the time when air travel changed profoundly and turned any little flight into a nightmare, JUST BECAUSE some body or certain groups of extremists created havoc.

In short, anybody signing into the WWW and using or producing any data, is today subjected to espionage. Information piracy is an ever accelerating activity.

As the CEO of Google already mentioned years ago “Google knows at any time who you are and where you are.” (not to be taken verbally). Communicating by mobile telephone is also not an option. Who knows, the electric typewriter thing may not be a real bad idea. Any way you slice it, war must be going on. If people cannot be killed using military weapons, then the next best thing is the ‘virtual kill’. Only one question remains: “why are killers and criminals so revered in society ?” And criminals they are, the everyday hackers.

[ http://list25.com/25-biggest-cyber-attacks-in-history/ ] s.a. LA GUERRE INVISIBLE. L’actualite,dec. 2013.