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THURSDAY
Thursday, March 20, 2014 X Volume 27 No. 32
THIS WEEK
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Crown seeks jail time in cat killing By Cam Fortems STAFF REPORTER
cam@kamloopsthisweek.com
Thompson Rivers University researcher Musfiq Rahman is using wireless technology to create all sorts of mobile apps. Dave Eagles/KTW
wirelessWAVE By Dale Bass
STAFF REPORTER
dale@kamloopsthisweek.com
S
TAR TREK had it right — it’s just taken years to finally cross that frontier of technology Gene Roddenberry envisioned. Musfiq Rahman is part of the generation of computer programmers and application designers who can foresee a day when people might have a chip implanted in them with all their medical history. When they might have miniature tech-
nological tags on their body that give real-time information on blood pressure, heart rate and respiration. When a nurse can wave a tablet over them and gather all kinds of medical data and send it off to other medical personnel. Rahman even sees applications that would apply to places like Wal-Mart, with wireless technology that can read tags on everything item in inventory, recording what comes in, when it comes in and when it goes out. Rahman even has
a student working on an application that could help solve some of the parking woes at Thompson Rivers University using wireless technology. He’s come a long way from his first experience with a computer at a university in his homeland of Bangladesh. Rahman’s family couldn’t afford a computer and he didn’t start to learn about them until his undergraduate year. Even then, students would have to book time to use one and
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Rahman found himself sometimes surfing the worldwide web after midnight. The interest grew and Rahman eventually achieved a doctorate in computer science, with a dissertation on the security of wireless technology. “There is a lot of new wireless technology and it can be hard
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to keep up,” he said. “Before we can finish learning one area, it evolves into a new one.” His primary interest is trying to break into new technology, get around its security, find the loopholes “and then figure out how to patch them.”
X See IMAGINE A11
The “easiest way” for a drunken man to get rid of a problem cat did not take into account the pain and suffering it would cause the animal, a provincial court judge has ruled. In Kamloops provincial court on Wednesday, Judge Chris Cleaveley found Steven Seidel guilty of the Criminal Code offence of causing unnecessary pain or suffering to an animal. Seidel was also found guilty of two counts under the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, but those were stayed in favour of the more serious offence. “He [Seidel] strangled and killed the cat when he was angry,” Cleaveley said. “It was the easiest way to get rid of the cat.” Cleaveley rejected an estimate by Seidel that his unneutered male cat, named Oreo, lost consciousness in less than a minute. Cleaveley also noted the struggling cat left scratch marks on Seidel’s arms. X See JUDGE A7
THE LONE ACTIVIST More than 32,000 people signed an Internet petition demanding “justice for Oreo,” but a lone activist watched proceedings in provincial court on Tuesday, March 18. Leanne Pentney admitted she had to leave the courtroom during some testimony and crossexamination by defence lawyer Ken Tessovitch, who questioned a veterinary expert about how, and whether, it can be determined if animals suffer pain and fear. “That got to me,” said Pentney, who is writing about the proceedings on her Facebook page, where she expects it to be highly read by friends interested in the trial. “An animal does suffer pain,” she said. Pentney said she recently had to put down two pets, ages 16 and 17, and argued pets differ from farm animals — a comparison made by Tessovitch — in the way they must be treated at end of life. “We’re to take care of them, she said. “Just like children.” Pentney said she feels little empathy for Seidel, who was convicted of one Criminal Code charge and two others under the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act in connection to the death last year of his tomcat. “When you do that to a victim who can’t speak — that’s the worst,” Pentney said. The petition online at causes. com received more than 32,000 signatures. It asks the sentencing judge to give the maximum penalty under law if Seidel is found guilty and to ban him from owning pets for the rest of his life.
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