In some cases, however, I haven’t had a choice. One of our sons attended university in Washington state. That meant that for five years, I had to travel back and forth, picking him up and dropping him off. As often as I could, I arranged the trips so I could avoid the horrendous lineups at the Peace Arch border crossing, one of the most notorious in the country for waiting times. If that meant leaving at 5 a.m., so be it.
One time, when I had no option about when we left, we got snarled in a three-hour jam-up at Peace Arch. It was a Saturday morning, the worst time to go. As I sat there stewing, I’d watch the odd car drive down the near-vacant Nexus line, and I’d curse myself. For years, I had been saying our family needed to get Nexus cards, especially given how often we travelled to the U.S. Finally, in my son’s last year at school, we went through the interviews and got our golden tickets to border freedom. And as happy as I was at the time, I couldn’t help thinking how stupid I’d been to wait until my son was almost finished school before getting it.
I was reminded of my idiocy recently as I read stories about the chaos anticipated at Canada-U.S. border crossings this summer. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has already begun cutting employee hours and is expected to furlough 5,000 staff next month, all because Congress and U.S. President Barack Obama couldn’t reach an agreement to cut federal spending. This triggered automatic spending cuts.
Officials at U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) are already predicting waits up to 50 per cent longer at major airports and at some of the busiest land crossings. Think about that: A three-hour lineup at Peace Arch is now, quite possibly, going to be a five- or six-hour lineup. I can’t imagine there are people desperate enough to want to do that. But I suppose the lure of a bargain will make people do just about anything.
If you’re thinking about applying for a Nexus card as you read this, well, there are problems there as well. A process that can now take several months is expected to take even longer because staff cuts will reach into that area of border services as well. So it’s unlikely to help you before the end of the summer.
Beyond the life-wasting factor associated with long border lineups, there are real implications for trade. Canada does about $500-billion in trade annually with the U.S. and a lot of it flows through the borders. In 2010, it was calculated that nearly 29,000 trucks crossed the Canada-U.S. border daily. Canadians take more than 39 million trips to the U.S. every year, while Americans return the favour more than 20 million times.
Recently, I moved back to use my rural abode set on 500 acres as a home office after two years of sharing a factory space with my manufacturer and inventor partner. It was getting too busy, noisy and dusty there.
But handy. Because since the industrial estate was only about 30 minutes from the nearest regional city, we had a landline, ADSL and 50 GB of internet data access a month for a reasonable rate.
Being assured that the new wireless modems would enable me to work from the home office – another 30 minutes further away – I took the plunge. There is no ADSL available; no NBN (and no word available about when), so wireless is the only option.
I am now paying twice the dollars for less than half the data allowance. I started on 8 GB and used it up within two weeks because I had underestimated completely how much info is sent via video, and how many different sites to which I upload stuff to keep my social media happening. I’ve never really had to add it all up before.
The modem is tucked into the corner bedroom nearest this spot and in theory should beam its five bars into the rest of the space so all my devices can connect. And usually it does.
But it feels like there is just not enough wireless to go round, despite the fact that my nearest neighbours are three kilometres away.
Yes, this is a rant and, yes, I am feeling very frustrated. But at the same time, this article is a word of warning to the wise; those who would love to enact a sea or tree change and are quietly confident that the internet network of Australia will support them in this endeavour.
The 4.99in Super AMOLED display is gorgeous. It has a Full HD, 1,920x1,080 resolution with a high pixel density of 441ppi. While that's certainly impressive, the HTC One has the same resolution but a smaller screen, so a higher pixel density of 468ppi and the Sony Xperia Z has the same size screen and resolution, so has a matching 441ppi. What's important is that on all three phones everything looks pin-sharp and there's no danger of spotting individual pixels.
It’s worth noting that you can't directly compare the Galaxy S4 to LCD-based Full HD handsets, such as the HTC One. This is because Samsung continues to use a Super AMOLED display with a PenTile pixel arrangement. Simply put, this means there are only two coloured sub-pixels per pixel instead of three. The reduced colour resolution is made up for by the excellent contrast and blacks that AMOLED provides (as well as lower power usage), but it’s a matter of taste which screen type you prefer. When we saw the phone we found its screen bright and colourful, but we'll save a full opinion for when we can do a proper side-by-side comparison.
As expected, the screen can be operated just by hovering your finger over it, giving rise to two new features. Air View lets you hover over content, such as an email or photo, to preview it without having to open it. Air Gesture lets you change tracks, scroll through a web page or answer a call with a wave of your hand. We haven't had chance to try the system out yet, but this should make fine-control of the touchscreen operating system that little bit easier.
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