The View From In Here

Remembrance Day, 2007

2007-11-11T15:02:00.000-05:00

Courtesy City of Kingston

In Flanders Field
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

— John McCrae

Book Prices (and what Chapters can't do about it)

2007-11-07T22:23:00.000-05:00

Now that the Canadian dollar's more than par with the American dollar, complaints have grown about the discrepancy in prices for books, which are very noticeable since they're usually printed on the back cover.

It's been getting a lot of media attention lately, what with Wal-Mart announcing that they'll sell books and greeting cards at US prices, which they probably can because it's likely a loss leader to draw people in to buy other things rather than having it as a major part of their revenue source.

Then there's this article about how prices are established months in advance and how titles NOW are reflective of the exchange rate of previous months.

Finally, there's this column venting on Chapters-Indigo and calling on the company to cut prices because it's so big that it gets HUGE discounts from publishers, moreso than small retailers, and that it should do it because,

"sure, they'll lose on some stock but it would make them heroes and they'd sell lots more books than usual."

Will Chapters-Indigo really be hailed as heroes, even in the figurative sense? I doubt that. Here's why.

If they were to completely sell all merchandise at US prices, yes, the consumer wins out and conceivably people may buy more at Chapters-Indigo locations. However, as that columnist stated, small booksellers don't get the discounts Chapters does and they've bought their merchandise at the prices set months prior. So now, not only are they competing against Chapter's purchasing discounts, but they would also have to face the new price competition that Chapters, the bookselling giant that they are in Canada. Will they be able to sell at US prices and take the loss that she thinks Chapters can so easily absorb? I doubt it. How long before we hear small booksellers complaining that Chapters is undercutting them and thereby killing the downtown, Main Street 'mom-and-pop' bookstores?

Chapters-Indigo would get villified just the same. They're in a (insert Joseph Heller reference here). So don't expect Chapters-Indigo to do much except say that they're waiting on the publishers to adjust the prices (which is what my friends the employees have been trained to say). They don't gain anything from action, so inaction will be the status-quo.

Therefore, please don't complain to Chapters-Indigo employees about the price discrepancy...they know it sucks. They're the book buying public too. And don't bother telling them that you'll only buy at US prices or you'll walk out. They don't care. They don't have to because the opportunity cost for the book was clearly higher than what you were willing to pay for anyhow (especially since you can get almost-US prices online anyhow, so what the hell were you doing in the store in the first place). Otherwise, you would own the book now.

It's basic economics. The sale was never there.

6 most terrifying foods in the world

2007-10-11T20:30:00.000-04:00

via Joey de Villa

I disagree with the title of this article. It's not terrifying as it is the most disgusting foods in the world. I definitely felt some of my dinner coming up reading the description and looking at the images.

I wonder if Tom Parker Bowles ate any of these foods for his book, "The Year of Eating Dangerously"?

First Day at Work

2007-10-09T17:45:00.000-04:00

Nothing eventful ever really happens on a person's first day at work, which I think is a good sign. I have a better idea of what I'll be doing, if not exactly how I go about doing all the projects that I'll eventually be assigned to. Still, I'm more interested in what I'll be doing, even if it's not exactly where I want to go (because assigning civic addresses is such exhilarating planning work, I assure you). While I don't expect to be able to blog about my job on a regular basis (if only because I doubt there'll be that many interesting stories), I'll also be trying to avoid blogging at work, since it's a definite sign that I'm slacking off.

Apparently, Friday is Pajama Day, so that may or may not be interesting...

Nuit Blanche/Word on the Street 2007

2007-10-03T22:57:00.000-04:00

Wesley gives a very good recap of our night of carousing at Nuit Blanche 2007, all it's highs, lows and everything in-between. I was the unnamed friend that added up to the 'we' in his post, so of course I'm not hurt that he didn't just mention me by name. I think I would've liked to see Incursion in its entirety (if it wasn't for the giant crowd) and the parkour ninjas. The best part of the night was our surprise discovery of the laser graffiti. That was cool, which when followed by the giant locust, made for a great 1-2 punch for art.

And I don't know what happened to the Queen Streetcar, but pretty much walking from Trinity-Bellwoods to the Eaton Centre is TEH suck. Unlike Wes, however, I did make it to Word on the Street the next day, and got some good deals on several copies of past Massey Lectures as well as a signed copy of Ecoholic. Definitely coming back to THAT next year.

While I'm sure Nuit Blanche lost some mystique with some people because of the crowds, I had a very fun night and am eager to make it out for Nuit Blanche 2008. Wes, next year, we will have a better plan, possibly involving bikes...

Pictures from Wes
Torontoist response

Anything BUT "hot air"

2007-09-29T10:32:00.000-04:00

Ever since the issue of climate change burst onto the scene in recent years, there have been a deluge of books tackling the subject, from various perspectives, often with overheated rhetoric about the plight of what our actions towards the planet (and its subsequent effects on our daily lives) (See Heat by George Monbiot, or Tim Flannery's "The Weather Makers") or the almost-complete denial of the issue being a big deal (*cough* Bjorn Lomborg, *cough).

Since climate change is a global phenomenon, these books take a global perspective. There wasn't really a book that analyzed it from a Canadian perspective.

Until now. I've just finished reading Jeffrey Simpson, Mark Daccard and Nic Rivers' "Hot Air: Meeting Canada's Climate Change Challenge" and I rarely say this, but this book should be required reading for everyone who acknowledges that climate change is a major issue in Canada. Here's why.

If you're a climate change denier, this book's won't convince you otherwise. It assumes climate change is happening and briefly summarizes the issue and science in one or two brief chapters so it wouldn't be too convincing. Its focus isn't the science, but the complete failure by our successive governments to be serious and committed to dealing with this problem, starting with the Mulroney government and ending right up to the Harper government.

It's saved its most scathing critique for the Chretien/Martin era, when they committed Canada (through Kyoto) to a difficult target, and then only set up voluntary measures, subsidies and as he said it on this morning's CBC show, "exhortations" as means to get Canadian involved. We all know how well THAT turned out. Instead of getting us 6% below 1990 levels, we were ABOVE by 25-26%.

And while they're less mean on Harper, they show how he and his government were completely blindsided the first time around (when Rona Ambrose, then Environment minister, became the sacrificial lamb) because throughout the 90s, they never believed in climate change anyhow. Smelling the political air changing, they quickly cobbled together a plan that was only slightly better than Dion's plan, with one major difference: The implementation of a mandatory emissions cap.

Their book is therefore bi-partisan in its critique, at the Liberals for failing to do ANYTHING, and at the conservatives for failing to believe in the issue. They also take swipes at the environmental movement, who've dogmatically regarded the Kyoto Protocol as the planet's sole saviour, and the Canadian business community, for being so antagonistic about dealing with this issue.

And this is where environmentalists might disagree with them but I agree wholeheartedly. KYOTO'S DEAD. WE'RE NOT GOING TO MAKE THE TARGETS IF OUR LIVES DEPENDED ON IT. MOVE ON.

While this doesn't mean that Harper should join that ludicrous "Asia-Pacific Partnership" (which by the way, has no compulsory components whatsoever, so voluntary targets will work SO WELL in Canada, as we've seen...), it does mean that our government (on both sides of the House) need to be adults and acknowledge that they've failed the public and the world community on this issue and that amends need to be made.

Their solutions are straightforward: Carbon tax, emissions cap, tradeable certificates, and carbon sequestration. Most of these would be compulsory, market-driven mechanisms aimed mainly at heavy emitters and energy producers. This does not mean they'll target Alberta (as Albertans are SO scared about that), as they show how different components can alleviate concerns but also reflect the fact that the Oil and Gas's newfound wealth has a cost that should be fairly paid. The carbon tax and the tradeable certificates would be the two that would really affect the individual.

None of these mechanisms will be very palatable, if only because the Canadian public hasn't completely accepted that our current lifestyle has a emissions cost that has yet to be paid. Their solutions are the first steps towards everyone accepting this cost.

While many people may not like using policy to change behaviour, we've seen that we won't do it voluntarily. We're all a part of this problem. It's time we be forced to do something about it.

P.S. Amazon customers are SO OFF BASE in that those who've bought "Hot Air" are buying books that pretty much deny the existence of climate change. Boy are they going to be disapointed. If anyone ACTUALLY wants to read a good book on the science of climate change, read Elizabeth Kolbert's "Field Notes From a Catastrophe".

Paul Pott's made Hell freeze over...

2007-09-13T20:36:00.000-04:00

...because he's shown that Reality TV can actually show something decent. Let me explain.

People who know me know I loathe Reality TV. I avoid it as much as I can. This morning, at Chapters, of all things, my manager wanted to show the staff a youtube video that was related to an upcoming promotion.

Last year, Simon Cowell started ANOTHER Reality TV show called "America's Got Talent", which is to find ordinary people doing extraordinary things, people vote on them, etc. etc. Simultaneously, he aired "Britain's Top Talent" in Britain, on the same premise.

In Cardiff, the judges met one contestant by the name of Paul Potts. He sold cell phones by day, but he had something else coursing through his veins: opera.

To say everyone was impressed by his performance would be an understatement. The judges' reactions were particularly brilliant. I'd admit that it definitely sent chills through my body when he was singing. The unexpectedness made the performance even more remarkable and no one was going to send him home.

To spoil the ending of that season, he wound up winning the whole thing, and has since released a CD of him singing (which was why we were being informed, because the CEO, Heather Reisman, planned to promote his CD in our stores soon). Now, there are other clips on youtube of his performances throughout each stage of the show. However, I find them less impressive because he was more polished, they had these unnecessary pyrotechnics, and a few times, the crowd drowned out his singing. That first time where it's just him, the mike and his music, is where I find you get the full effect of his voice.

Even giving full credit to his talent, I realize that most of us with the untrained ear will find his singing stunning. I wonder though, with his lack of professional training, how he would stack up against the 'average' (if you can even have such a thing) opera singer (?!?! I'm guessing here). Any guesses here? Meileen, I'm looking at you for some assistance here.

Djokovic the joker

2007-09-11T21:05:00.000-04:00

The first time I'd seen or heard of Novak Djokovic was at the 2007 Rogers Tournament this summer. Being an up and coming 20-year old tennis player was one thing (he's also Number 3 in the world, so he's really just up and coming in my mind), but being one with personality was another. Watching his post-game interview, he was having a lot of fun with the interviewer and making a lot of jokes. I found this unique because most often, athletes tend to respond in the ubiquitous, "I gave it a 110% on the court and I love my opponent like I love my dog, but game time, he/she's the enemy" etc. etc. etc.

With Djokovic though, he can carry on a conversation, and a fun one at that. Apparently, he also doesn't mind letting cameras following him around everywhere. I present to you three videos as evidence:

A series of impersonations of other top-ranked players during practice at Wimbledon.

Djokovic singing "I Will Survive". I don't know why either.

Djokovic introducing a journalist to some Serbian fare.

Everyone loves the impersonations. And judging by the related videos on youtube, he does it quite frequently too during practices. I hope it doesn't become his schtick though, snice that would make it tired and boring. After he won the Quarterfinals at this year's US Open, the ESPN or USA or wherever broadcaster OF COURSE asked him to do impersonations of Maria Sharapova and Rafael Nadal to the people in the stands and those watching at home...so that slippery slope's already begun.

Still, I hope he continues to do well. He's a phenomenal player and he's certainly brought interest back into tennis for me

More meta-blogging

2007-09-06T20:43:00.001-04:00

Recently, I've found myself half-composing posts in my head only to abandon them once I reach the keyboard. Not for a lack of interesting topics certainly, what with the controversy over the Bomber Command exhibit at the Canadian War Museum, the proposed designation of the "Highway of Heroes" for the 401 highway (aka the MacDonald-Cartier Expressway, or the MCE), an appropriate response to "Planet of Slums" by Mike Davis, etc., etc. The complete dearth of posts seems to have created a positive-feedback towards my reluctance to write any piece of coherent analysis.

I'm hoping this will push me towards writing more again, so that out of whatever comes out, at least a small amount will be analytical in nature. Alright, that's enough self-indulgence for one day.

I love New York City. Oh yeah! New York City!

2007-08-12T10:54:00.000-04:00

Title's from "I Love NYC" by Andrew W.K. just so you know.

Having never been to New York City and only knowing it through The Media, I had no clear expectation of what I would find. Now though, I’ve had a brief glimpse of why people say it's the best city in the world.

My friends and I eschewed motor transportation and just hiked through Manhattan. We had 12 hours to do it in and we were determined to hit up our two desired locations: Campers (shoe store) in Soho and Central Park.

Walking down any of the 5th-8th Ave., I find myself feeling much less claustrophobic in Manhattan than say, Hong Kong, probably because it was early in the morning and with the wide sidewalks and four-five lane road, there's a greater sense of space between the towers (until you get into midtown, and well, that feeling goes out the window). It was very enjoyable actually walking through a near-empty Manhattan, since the city didn’t get going until 11AM (when we arrived, there was already a line-up of tourists itching to go up the Empire State Building). It was interesting watching the city’s residents wake up and slowly open up their shops, revving the economic engine that is Manhattan.

We walked through a bit of SoHo and Greenwich Village, but it was all too brief to really get a sense of what Jane Jacobs loved about the area. What also didn’t help was my focused pursuit of a Magnolia Bakery's cupcake, made more famous by SNL’s “Lazy Sunday” skit. And yet, I had to ask THREE different NY residents before I got an idea of where it was, the third being (I’m guessing) a transplanted Aussie who told me to just head west on Bleecker Street. Turns out, it was way the hell west (West 11th Street and Bleecker, FYI), but man, those cupcakes did have mad frosting!

We then headed up 8th Ave, which apparently was home to a gay district (if not ‘The’) as well as a weekly roving street fair on West 23rd Street. It was these impromptu non-touristy New York experiences that I enjoyed the most. But once we reached 31st Street, it was time to blend into the jam-packed crowd walking through Times Square. Pure sensory-overload, that’s how I would describe it. Everything exploded on a grand scale in neon-colour (made even more apparent in the evening). Even the blind could follow the New York Stock Exchange ticker tape. And of course, who could forget The Naked Cowboy, a Times Square staple…

Eventually we were free of the crowds and into the quieter attraction of Central Park. Time running short, we enlisted Omar and his pedicab, as he toured us through the lower half of the park. A Malian (?), a fan of the Celtics and Jay-Z, he showed us various notable landmarks (2nd oldest carousel, Central Park zoo, the fountains, Strawberry Fields, etc). You could spend an entire day in Central Park alone, but it was nice to be inside some greenery, if ever so briefly.

Best part of the trip: Manhattan’s grid system made it very easy to navigate, considering I had never been. The landmarks helped too. Runner-up was finding The Onion in newspaper format. It’s teh awesome!

Worst part of the trip: Being held up at US customs for 1-1.5 hrs because 3 of the passengers were trying to cross the border without an entry visa and with only their non-Canadian passports. Runner-up was that I couldn't bring back any Magnolia cupcakes...

Photos are all on Facebook. I’ll link them once my friends puts them up.

EDIT: oh wait, they won't let me link up...ummm...if you don't have Facebook, sorry.
EDIT2: Oh man, how could I leave out THE CUPCAKES as the best part of my trip?!

The Art of Consumption and Everyday Life

2007-08-05T13:01:00.000-04:00

Profiled in the Toronto Star today, Photographer Chris Jordan have captured or digitally composed provocative images of the things we consume in everyday life but also statistics that we may not be able to grasp intuitively. For example, this work from his "Running the Numbers: An American Self-Portrait" is titled, 'Plastic Bags, 2007'.

It's description: "Depicts 60,000 plastic bags, the number used in the US every five seconds".

The actual print is 60 x 72". It's BIG. If you zoom in to actual size:

And if you were to take the time to count each plastic bag, you would find all 60,000.

All his images are thought-provoking, and very reminiscent of Edward Burtynksky's work, Manufactured Landscapes, creating art out of the mundane materials of western society. If I was to apply Chip and Dan Heath's principles from "Made to Stick" about how to communicate ideas effectively, Jordan's work would pass with flying colours:

Simple - The images are simple. In the "Running the Numbers" exhibit, It's one item, one number, one message.
Unexpected - The images appear abstract, until you look closer and find an everyday item.
Concrete - These aren't computer-generated products (although some are digitally composed together), but images of real things.
Credible - The numbers in his statistic has to match the numbers in the image. Otherwise, he'd lose all credibility.
Emotional - The shock is in making an abstract statistic into something tangible and can be grasped.
Story - It is a very short story about the different impacts we make collectively as a society.

As he says, he's not trying to guilt anyone, but to show what each person's everyday life looks like in aggregate. Whether we choose to do change something about it is another thing entirely. Do check out his other sets on his website, "Intolerable beauty" and "In Katrina's Wake".

Both images from http://www.chrisjordan.com

A timeline to Potter-madness

2007-07-21T12:46:00.000-04:00

Having stood outside in the cold in January waiting in line for a Nintendo Wii for/with my friends, I thought I understood the nature of obsession.

In fact, I understood nothing. Yesterday, on July 20-21, 2007, I had finished my 9-3 AM shift for the 12:01 AM release of the final installment of the Harry Potter series, “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows”. Here now a chronology:

11:25 AM: I’m still working my Friday 7-12pm regular shift and this is when the FIRST Harry Potter fan of the day asks where to start lining up for the book.

8:30 PM: I drive into work and already the store’s set up 2 lines for people outside, one for fans who’ve pre-ordered the book, and the other banking on getting it at one past midnight. Inside, it's filled with people loitering and as I’m fitted into my costume (I’m a Death Eater manning a booth…who says dark wizards can’t be bureaucrats?), plans are in motion to finish the last arrangements for the store. The skids of books were not to be moved to the floor until 11:50 PM.

9:30 PM: A co-worker’s cousin who has more than a passing resemblance to Daniel Ratcliffe got dressed up as Harry Potter for us…and was soon swarmed by those same girls for photos (…though since he was starting university in September, he hoped none of this ended up on YouTube).

10:00 PM – 1130 PM: We’ve finally moved the lines inside, which also meant the start of activities around the store. There are now more people than I’ve ever seen in the store, and I must admit, it feels a little bit claustrophobic. I don’t get a chance to see the buzz of activity around because my job is to pre-register people who’ve pre-ordered the book by giving out wristbands. The roaming magician we hired is a popular attraction, entertaining those in line with various card tricks.

11:00PM – By about now the girls at the front of both lines have decided to start cheers for every hour, half hour, 20 minutes, 15 minutes, 10 minutes, etc. for the countdown to the book’s release. And with each passing cheer, my tolerance for them lowers just that much more.

11:50 – 11:59 PM – The girls decide to hold a cheering contest between the pre-order and the regular sales line. By now I’ve a ringing in my ears that won’t go away and a headache. Earplugs would’ve been good right about now. Not that the timing helped, because the Skids of the much-anticipated books are now being moved out from our Receiving Area to it’s respective areas, with security guard in tow. That’s right, we hired security guards to protect books. These are pretty much J K Rowling’s Crown Jewels. Loud cheering ensues and flashes go off behind me as people photograph the boxes of books. Stop and think about what you've just read...

People are taking pictures of cardboard boxes....okay, you can resume reading now.

12:00 – 12:01 AM – People start counting down the seconds. I'm hoping that people won’t just rush us and steal the books, because really, 4 employees and a half-indifferent security guard would not be able to hold back a crazed mob. If only they authorized my Taser request…

12:01 AM – The book release arrives!

12:01 – 1ish AM – It’s a non-stop flurry of books, bags, and gift cards as my friend and I try to process people through as quickly as possible. Slight delays ensue as some people cut in lines and don’t have a wristband force me to stop the flow and check off their names. Mild irritation, granted, but we wanted these crazies out of our hair as fast as possible.

1-3 AM – The craziness is over! We actually get people out the door with their Precious in a little over an hour, which is pretty impressive. We had some stragglers left coming in to pick up pre-orders or make outright purchases, but for the most part, we could nonchalantly start cleaning up the mess customers made. And of course, it WAS a mess. But we only did a half-hearted attempt because we were tired and really didn’t care all too much. I don’t envy the people who had to come in this morning to clean up after us…I seriously think we need to shut down the store for a few days just so we could re-shelve and re-organize everything.

3 AM – We’re done, so we all get together in our costumes for some staff photos. I manage to find someone peering through our front door. It seems he’s wondering if he could still buy a copy for his little brother, whom he promised would have it by the time he wakes up. I tell him he’s about an hour too late and think, “shouldn’t have gone to the bar first and then try to buy the book…”.

3:30 AM – Finally leaving the store and I need FOOOOOOOOD! Just as we’re rolling into a McDonald’s drive through, they tell us it’s going to take 20 minutes for them before they can serve us because they’re switching over to the breakfast menu…my timing couldn’t be more terrible.

And so ends this madness. I get to sleep at 5 AM, knowing many people will still be up reading the Deathly Hallows. In fact, I’m sure some people are STILL reading as I type this. Who’s going to sleep well? JK Rowling for one, since she will probably by the end of this be double the financial worth of the Queen of England. The other is Heather Reisman, head of Chapters-Indigo, who will also have made a truckload of money.

Me? I get to eat a sandwich from Burger-King at 4 in the morning. Who’s the winner tonight, you think?

Two elephants walks down the street...

2007-07-13T00:12:00.000-04:00

If you haven't heard this yet, this may be the funniest story to ever happen to the Town of Newmarket.

So the circus was in town (ha ha) and the electrified fence for the elephants went down and realizing this, two of them decided to play tourist. The thing is, where the circus was set up (Ray Twinney Complex, it seems), it is surrounded by suburbs. So of course, where do the elephants go but down suburban streets, surprising some night-owls while they enjoy a midnight snack of golf course and front lawn trees.

Anyways, York Regional Police was kind enough to post mp3s of a 911 call reporting this and the dispatch conversation with police officers sent to...ummm...corral these animals. The cops were definitely having fun relaying their efforts back.

Update: It seems the York Region Police have taken down the mp3s. Luckily, the good ol' CBC has a realaudio format of the initial call to police. If I find a link to the other one, I'll post that one too.

The Lack of Posts

2007-07-10T18:57:00.000-04:00

For someone who doesn't have a full-time job, I am surprised at the sparse blogging that I've done. While the cliche is that job-hunting is a full-time job unto itself, it is not wholly to blame. There frankly hasn't been all that much of interest that I've wanted to talk about.

I've completely lost touch with the national and international political scene (what I get for not watching BBC World and reading every available news site possible) and while I had a piece to say about the fine journalism from the Toronto Sun on their coverage of the National Day of Action recently, the moment's past (it wasn't that interesting, just me being snarky at them).

But on the whole, there's nothing much to say that couldn't be said in one sentence:

- Live Earth will not have created a new environmental consciousness, but hooray for 26 hrs of mediocre music!

- Michael Bay ruined Transformers the Movie and I will NEVER see it.

- I just finished reading "Field Notes From a Catastrophe". It is very much an underrated book, if partially because "The Weather Makers" took all the hype.

- The fact that people care enough about whether a fictional character like Harry Potter lives or dies enough to create websites and petitions make me want to both laugh and cringe.

- I'm tired of most Canadian politicians claiming their city/province/Canada is at the leading edge of implementing environmental policy. We are not. Let's be honest with ourselves and admit that so we can work at becoming that leading edge instead.

Alright, that's enough for now. Hopefully, I'll get back to some semi-regular blogging soon.

The Internet may yet redeem itself

2007-06-12T16:24:00.000-04:00

This was heralded as the End of the Internet.

This story might just save it.

Courtesy Joey Devilla and Metafilter.

The Michael Lee-Chin Crystal

2007-06-10T17:32:00.000-04:00

I had the opportunity to visit the newly opened Michael Lee-Chin Crystal addition of the Royal Ontario Museum (the ROM) yesterday.

Most people who comment on it typically either like it or hate it. I fall in the former category. If you're far enough away on either end of Bloor, the ROM looks like either an alien spaceship has crashed into the northern end of the building or someone's chemistry experiment has gone awry (or maybe even remind someone of the crystals exploding through Metropolis in the new Superman movie...but I guess that's too pop-culturish of a simile). Either way, it's a spectacular view that grabs one's attention on the street. It'll make a great landmark and Toronto certainly needs more of it.

The ROM allowed visitors to tour the crystal without the exhibits in place, which was a great idea because it really gives you a good sense of the space itself without the exhibits as a visual distraction. As mentioned in many news items, none of the walls and such are at right angles with each other, which is both an engineering and artistic feat. There's plenty of space, though because it faces north for the most part, it lacks natural lighting into the rooms, which I would've preferred. In certain areas of the crystal, there are portions of the existing building break through the new walls, which I really liked because to me, it reminds visitors that the crystal doesn't exist in and of itself but is a part of the overall museum.

There's also a certain sense of weightlessness in the building, particularly by the windows where it hangs over the street. Not that the ROM is dark and dank, but the contemporary design of the building certainly doesn't invoke the stereotypical notion of a museum. In fact, it's more reminiscent of a modern art gallery. This is certainly the case with the Sugimoto Hiroshi Special Exhibition already installed on the 4th floor. The room feels cavernous, even with the people walking in and out and around the spartan display cases. It'll be interesting to see how the permanent exhibits are set up.

Overall, I enjoyed my tour and am very excited to see it in its completion, with the permanent exhibits, new restaurant and new public space. Toronto architecture's certainly gotten more interesting.

What I love about Summer

2007-06-10T17:25:00.001-04:00

You know what I love about Summer? Watermelon. And fresh corn on the cob. Fresh strawberries too.

There's something about the anticipation of seasonal foods that make them that extra bit better. While it's very likely a psychosomatic effect, I definitely get added enjoyment out of the few weeks when I can, well not gorge but more feast I guess, on these delectable items. I just tend to appreciate these foods more.

It's not limited to fresh produce either. Girl Guide Cookies, Cadbury mini-eggs are both worth the wait. I somewhat wish that mini-eggs weren't also available during Christmas nowadays.

Anyways, this was mostly a post about how much I love watermelon, if only because I just had some this afternoon (though now that I think about it, the one I had probably wasn't sold in season). Hmm. Kinda throws my whole premise out the window, doesn't it?

Reflections in Edmonton

2007-05-25T00:35:00.000-04:00

Here I am, sitting alone in my friend Tara's wonderful guest room in Calgary and I'm still thinking about Edmonton.

You know how someone had once said that we can't know or appreciate happiness unless we have sadness? While I sort of agree, I don't think anyone needed this sadness.

It's an odd and sad coincidence to be so excited for a trip to see some friends in another part of the country only to hear the night before that a friend overseas tragically lost her life a few days prior.

I only knew Emma while I was working for the Publishing and Copy Centre at Queen's University. She was the life of the party though. She was the biggest Oilers fan I knew on campus and her laugh was infectious. She had boundless energy, especially when it came to her friends. Through Facebook, I found out she had a blog. Her personality very much shines through in her writing style, and I can't help but laugh at her posts, as if she's telling the stories in person.

But others knew her much better and I'm sure they are much more devastated than I will ever be. Still, I'm shocked and saddened by this event. It definitely changed my perspective of this trip, as I imprinted my own feelings over minute details of my flight to Calgary.

Leaving Toronto on a smoggy but bright sunny day, I arrive in Edmonton, her hometown, cloudy, with scattered rays of sunlight. A bittersweet atmosphere, it seemed. There'd were streaks of rain for brief moments, which felt as if the city itself was slowly mourning her. Oddly appropriate. On the flight, I walk by a mother and her baby, and think how Emma will never become a mother. While waiting for my connecting flight, I listen to retirees meeting and talking about traveling to destinations in Greece, fulfilling their lifelong dreams. What happens to Emma's dreams now? In the gift shop, they're replaying the Stanley Cup finals between the Oilers and the Carolina Hurricanes. What will the Oilers do without their #1 fan?

I would like to think that I'm not overdramatizing what I'm feeling. I would like to think that every so often, I will think of her and what her brief friendship meant to me. I would like to think that what I'm writing now is in someway meaningful.

But right now, I just don't want to think anymore. I don't want to think about a world where there isn't an Emma around to make someone laugh.

Internerd Nostalgia-ganza!

2007-05-23T13:51:00.000-04:00

And if you want more, there's this thread from a forum Wes showed me. From Body Break to United Furniture Warehouse to the Canadian Tire Guy, they're all here!

I don't know whether to curse him or thank him for bringing all this back...

Somebody's gotta steal this idea for Canada...

2007-05-18T23:29:00.000-04:00

I don't know if this really is the biggest, but it's probably the coolest scavenger hunt out there. This year's list is pretty mammoth, though apparently, there've been past items that are just batshit crazy.

Clearly, this is an idea worth spreading around, since it seems it'd be really fun to partake in. And of course, I must include some youtubery of this organized chaos.

Will photos change anything?

2007-05-15T23:12:00.000-04:00

So now we have photographic evidence that shrimp trawlers in Asia are damaging the seabed (and therefore, ocean habitats) with their clean sweeps, thus proving moreso what scientific papers have said previously.

Will this actually change those practices?

I'm not holding my breath.

How much are a pair of pants worth?

2007-04-27T22:40:00.000-04:00

Apparently, US $65 million.

You read that right. Not $65, not $650, not even $6,500. $65,000,000. If there was ever a lawsuit that was the definition of frivolous, this would be it.

via Kottke

Euro-style communities in China

2007-04-19T20:45:00.000-04:00

Re-creating European cities China's latest housing trend

Snarky responses:

-It's like living in Europe, but without all those damn Europeans.
-It goes to show that China is tops at refabricating ANYTHING.
-If England, England was ever made into reality, it'd totally be China, China.
-hooray for Las Vegas-esque mass production and commodification of experiences!

Thinking

2007-04-19T17:27:00.000-04:00

It's been one of those weeks where I've been nicely distracted from the thought of my thesis defense by some big ideas being discussed. Like my moniker suggests, I've been absorbing tons of information but very little's been trickling out. Still, I've quite enjoyed being absorbed in my thinking through its implications.

1) At my friend's birthday dinner, there was a brief discussion about the wonders of Canada and the myth (in the grand story sense, not the inaccuracy that it's come to mean) of our national healthcare. This dovetailed into Andrew's post about the long wait for treatment for his friend's ACL,how unfortunate the current circumstances have dictated the long wait and what is to be done. Are we forever burdened with 'equal access to crap' as some claimed in the comments, or is it better than we think it is?

It seems like private delivery of some medical services seem not completely unreasonable, as long as those parameters are strictly defined. If however, some feel that private delivery shouldn't be based on 'medical necessity', then what exactly? Surely, a compromise can be achieved that doesn't completely undermine the public system. This also assumes that those resources freed by private delivery could be redirected elsewhere to other parts of the public system, instead of just having it shrivel away. Part of the problem is the fact that small-scale trials are nearly impossible. You can't create an industry only to destroy it completely if it doesn't meet your political objectives. So what are our options for testing private delivery? Thought exercises just aren't that convincing.

2) At the same time, I've been reading Reed Scowen's "Time to Say Goodbye", whose thesis is that Quebec and Canada should separate (for reasons explained in the book) and Canada can be the better for it. I'm only 2/3 of the way through, but I was struck by this line,

"Canada is a country of minorities"

and what he defines Canada to be:

"...we are in a state of mutual allegiance with everyone who lives within Canada's borders, not with the objective of achieving a common substantive purpose, but through loyalty to the structure that provide us with our freedom and its corresponding responsibilities, to 'the authority of certain conditions in acting'."

"A deeply felt commitment of mutual allegiance with all Canadians; a commitment to parliamentary rule; the search for fairness in our respect for basic human rights and freedoms; respect for local and regional values and priorities; above all, a respect for the Constitution itself - that's what you get from being Canadian. This is our common culture, our civil association. It may not satisfy my definition of what it is to be Canadian. Nor yours. It does not make us unique in this world. But that's all that we all agree on. And it's enough."

My first thought was, "is that enough to bind us all together"? My second thought, of course, was, "let's see Molson try to sell that.

3) The 'country of minorities' made me think of the Ontario's citizen's assembly's referendum to the Ontario public on whether to change our electoral system from a first-past-the-post to a mixed-member proportional representation (PR) system. As a symbolic thing, it seems appropriate to have a country of minorities governed by minority-based coalitions. There are much better arguments for and against switching to any type of PR, of course. I just wasn't thinking about them at the time. I have no idea how it'll turn out, and while I know what the pundits like, I'm eager to see what Ontarians' views are.

4) Finally, The provincial Liberal government has decided to follow New Jersey, Australia and others to ban 'inefficient' light bulbs by 2010. Some think this is a good idea; others, not so much. While it seems quite heavy-handed to me, I'm wondering whether energy consumption (among other things) can be decreased without such government intervention or drastic environmental degradation?

To run again

2007-04-19T16:57:00.000-04:00

I started running again now that it's warmed up (I've a strange aversion to treadmills...)

Anyways, 5k in 27 min = a very low bar to overcome. When I used to run with Matt, we did it in 23 min. This is punishment for being a blob for 5 months...

New Layout

2007-04-13T22:31:00.000-04:00

There wasn't a huge need to revamp the layout, but my eyes were hurting from staring at all the white, which probably means everyone else was too. I also had to update parts of my blogroll (thx Megan), which gave me the impetus to spend the last two hours doing this.

If I was better with HTML and CSS, it would've been done a lot quicker and with a bit more sophistication. But then, if you were looking for sophistication in this blog, you clearly made the wrong turn at Albequerque. Hopefully, these colour schemes will also be much easier on the eyes.

Top 5 Books (so far): a High Fidelity tribute

2007-04-13T14:58:00.000-04:00

I've just finished reading "High Fidelity", and having been voraciously consuming books since I've been working at Chapters, it seemed like fun to write out my top 5 books I've read so far:

Top 5 Picks
1) The Omnivore's Dilemma - Michael Pollan
Written like a travelogue, the author takes its readers through the different ways we grow our food, from our current industrial production system, to the 'industrial organic', the truly sustainable model and 'hunter/gatherer' systems. Along the way, he examines the implications for each of them and shows that separating ourselves from our food sources has really undermined our appreciation of the food we eat and the environment from which it is produced.

2) The Dodecahedron (or a Frames for Frames) - Paul Glennon
Imagine each of the 12 self-contained short stories as a face on a 12-sided polygon, where the vertices and edges represent the elements common to the 'adjacent' stories. Is that such a cool concept or what?

3) Stanley Park - Timothy Taylor
I think it helped that I read this immediately after The Omnivore's Dilemma, as I was still mentally engaged with issues about how we grow our food. This novel isn't just about food, but also about identity, roots and the meaning of 'home'.

4) Made to Stick - Chip and Dan Heath
On a recommendation from a co-worker, it's all about how to get people to remember your ideas after you've told it to them. It's effective because it's like the duct tape on the book jacket: easy to use, useful for almost any situation, and their ideas really stick!

5) The Road - Cormac McCarthy
I've already said my piece about it HERE. I may end up buying it at some point, especially to see if I can peel off the 'Oprah's Book Club' sticker on the trade paperback edition.

Not all my reads, however, were fantastic. While none of them were awful, there were some that didn't satisfy:

Top 5 Surprisingly Disappointing Reads

1) DeNiro's Game - Rawi Hage
A Governor General's Award and a Giller Prize nominee, I expected this book to be one of the best reads of the year. While I understand the motivations behind the main character, I couldn't sympathize with him at all. I just thought he was a giant dick for a lot of the novel.

2) Colour of Magic - Terry Pratchett
Another co-worker recommendation. It's very fantastic and well-conceived world with its own internal logic. I just didn't find the plot of the novel to go anywhere. The main characters gets thrown from one ridiculous situation to another with no logical end. Maybe that's the whole point of Discworld, but it still didn't make me like it.

3) Getting to Maybe - Frances Westley et al.
The book's premise tries to show that individuals have been and can continue to be the focal point for major social change. It tries distill those real-life experiences into general rules for how individuals might want to get involved. However, the suggestions are too vague and if the people you describe couldn't predict that they would be this focal point, how can the authors? If the authors applied the ideas from Made to Stick, maybe it would've been more effective. Or, it's just something a book can't properly describe.

4) How Happy to Be - Katrina Onstad
I read this on a recommendation by Paul Wells, who found it to be an absolutely fantastic read. I read this after Stanley Park, and while they both seemed to tackle similar issues (particularly the estrangement with one's father), I thought Stanley Park handled them much more effectively. I also found the main character of this book to be more neurotic than necessary. The not-so-subtle in-jokes and monikers like "The other Big City Lefty newspaper" (get it, it's the Toronto Star, wink wink!) and "The Annual International Film Festival" (both paraphrased, but you get the idea) made me want to scream, "EITHER USE THE REAL NAMES OR MAKE UP A NAME!"

5) Bloodletting and Miraculous Cures - Vincent Lam
It's not a bad collection of short stories. I really didn't know what to expect. It's more me than the book. I think the fact that the connections built up between the characters in the earlier stories quickly unravels in the later stories left me wanting. While I understand that this is what happens once you leave university or med school or whatever, it just left me with a neutral feeling. It does make me want to read more short story collections to see how others do it.

Honorable Mention: High Fidelity - Nick Hornby
This was entirely my own fault, having seen and loved the movie before reading the book. It's not that the book was bad, but I couldn't develop my own scenes from the descriptions in the book. Instead, all I could think about was Jack Black and John Cusack...)

Maybe I'll post again when I've found a real job and can no longer read books at the current pace and see if the list has changed any.

What Energy Savings?

2007-04-03T14:52:00.000-04:00

I'm shocked...shocked I say, to hear that arbitrarily changing an already arbitrary method of keeping time resulted in NO energy savings.

I mean, why should we put our efforts into real energy conservation efforts when we can just keep moving time back and forth and make it look like we're trying to do something?

The Road

2007-03-29T20:11:00.000-04:00

This is one of those few times where Oprah Winfrey's taste and mine match, if ever. On Wednesday, she picked "The Road" by Cormac McCarthy, as her new Oprah Book Club pick.

I know this because it popped up on the Chapters-Indigo website last night, but also because today we had about 900 trade paperback copies in the store (ok, so I exaggerate).

Anyways, I read it in hardcover, i.e. before the force of nature that is Oprah Winfrey picked this title out of the billions found in the masses to be placed in the sales-inducing canon that she's created. It was on a lot of top ten lists for books in the US for 2006, which was one reason why I chose to read it. And I really liked the book.

The basic premise is a father and son who's on a journey to the sea in a post-apocalyptic future where nothing living remains, except for the straggling remnants of humanity here and there. It's a tale of survival, and the bond between them that makes them desperate enough to keep on living.

What makes McCarthy's setting so terrifying is not the presence of monsters or mutant zombies or what not. It's the complete absence of life. The thought that the wide, wide, world is more or less empty just chilled me to the bone. It doesn't burden the reader with words, but it's still vivid enough that you feel you are there wandering with them, hungry with them, cold with them. It was the atmosphere that made the book for me.

But while I liked it, I don't think I could read it again for a long time because it depressed the hell out of me. It's a bleak book and to me, it's not one of those novels where there are chapters that could be read and re-read all the time.

It'll be interesting to see whether the people who tend to buy books based on her recommendations will continue to do so with this title.

More PhD Comics-related hilarity...

2007-03-13T12:21:00.000-04:00

Danna, this is what will happen when you read my thesis...

AND

If only it was this easy to complete my thesis...

A news story that shouldn't be one...

2007-03-09T21:45:00.000-05:00

I don't even know how to describe this story...

And yet, the only question that comes to mind is:

Will this make the elephant go blind?

I need to get out more...

Canada Reads 2007

2007-03-01T00:01:00.000-05:00

I've been listening to the streaming audio for this year's Canada Reads 2007 (which I always thought was a great idea to introduce you to Canadian titles that a person may not have been exposed to otherwise). This year, the books in contention were:

Gabrielle Roy's 'Children of My Heart'

Timothy Taylor's 'Stanley Park'

Anosh Irani's 'Song of Kahunsha'

Heather O'Neill's 'Lullabies for Little Criminals'

David Bezmozgis' 'Natasha and other Stories'

I've listened to two episodes and 'Children of My Heart' has already been voted off. While I want 'Stanley Park' (which I loved) to be the book that they suggest Canadians read, I don't think it's going to win. Most of the panelists didn't have enough positive things to say about the novel. Listening to Denise Bombardier describe the passages about food as 'boring' just stabs me in the ear. The closest was John K. Samson's description that the novel was the most ambitious.

My prediction is that 'Song of Kahunsha' will win this thing. There were very little criticism (though the topic at the time was only, 'did this book qualify even though it was set in Mumbai') and the only opposition was Jim Cuddy, who thought the character didn't change enough (he also didn't like 'Natasha' because it was a set of short stories and 'Lullabies' because the characters weren't really affected by the events that happen in the book. It'll be interesting to see what he'll vote for after 'Stanley Park' gets voted off...

Update (Mar. 2 11:39 AM): Wow. I'm listening to Canada Reads live and I've been proven wrong. It's now between 'Stanley Park' and 'Lullabies for Little Criminals', with Denise Bombardier breaking the tie for voting off between 'Stanley Park' and 'Song of Kahunsha' and choosing the latter.

Tales from the Bookstore II: The last question I thought I'd ever hear...

2007-02-26T23:14:00.000-05:00

Customer: Hi.

Me: Hello, what can I help you with?

Customer: These books, do you buy or do you borrow?

Me (in disbelief): Excuse me?

Customer: do you buy, or can you borrow?

Me (my mind having been blown): Um...no, you can't borrow.

Customer: Oh. okay. Thank you.

To Iris

2007-02-24T17:24:00.000-05:00

My dear and wonderful cousin Iris,

who was welcomed into her parents' arms just yesterday. I only have this to say:

It's a strange and wonderful world. Sometimes it can be a bit messy. Hopefully, by the time you start finding your place in it, we'll have left it in better shape than when we first started looking around.

Update (Feb. 25): ...and by 'yesterday', I meant two days ago (Feb. 22). Like I said, it's a strange and wonderful world, where no one actually told me when you were born and I ended up inferring the wrong day. My bad.

Nathan Phillips Square redesigned...for the better

2007-02-21T20:32:00.000-05:00

Courtesy: City of Toronto, Rogers Marvel Architects

About a year and a half ago, there was an internship with the City of Toronto to lay out the background work for what would become the Nathan Phillips Square redesign competition. The interviewer and I discussed what I would've done to the square and needless to say we disagreed in our views (I wanted the colonnade gone, he didn't...as it turns out, the entire property is under heritage designation so any redesign efforts couldn't remove it completely). I also didn't get the internship, which I was bummed about.

Fast forward to yesterday, and a shortlist of designs (4) were presented to the general public yesterday at Toronto City Hall. Torontoist gives a very good summary of all the design presentations (mainly because, well, they were kinda there). So go over there and read about the designs and then come back for my *ahem* expert opinion...

Welcome back. Have the designs fresh in your heads? Good. I agree with Torontoist in that there were definitely good and bad points in each of the designs. Overall though, I liked Rogers Marvel Architects' design the best (which is why it's the only one pictured here). There were two things that sold me on the design. One was the new opening on the East side off Bay street. It makes the colonnade less constricting while providing a new pedestrian entrance. The other reason is the sloping hill. I LOVE IT. You can access this hill from the square OR the colonnade and it incorporates the green space that was previously separated from the west portion of the raised walkway. It literally brings that green space into the square.

I would've liked to see the peace garden moved so that it's not stuck out there like an island, since I can't really envision quiet reflection in the middle of the goings-on of a public square. While I did like Baird Sampson Neuert's idea for the peace garden, incorporating that into the Rogers Marvel's design would make the square too 'west-heavy'. The Ziedler partnership design, while striking and different (especially the undulating green roof), it seems to lack sophistication for what is also the seat of power *cough* of Toronto in addition to the square being a public space. However, I did like the idea of glass railings fort the colonnade, which would make the square more visually accessible.

Therefore, I hope the committee chooses the Rogers Marvels design while incorporating the eco-design features presented by Baird Sampson Neuert and Plant Architects and the glass railings for the colonnade from the Ziedler design. That would be my dream square. I would go there EVERY DAY (and by every day, I mean, whenever I have the chance). It's the least they can do for not hiring me in the first place.

Update (9:14 PM): It's never too early for an update. Dylan Reid of Spacing Wire and I pretty much agree. He also elaborated on several points that I didn't cover. One interesting note from a commenter. The campfire in the Rogers Marvel design is pretty unrealistic. They could've done better with that. A minor quibble, but still.

Wrong doesn't even begin to describe it Pt. II

2007-02-11T17:13:00.000-05:00

I was hoping to be able to stop from posting on Climate Change, as already done HERE and HERE.

But once again, we have another fine piece of reporting from Peter Worthington of the Toronto Sun.

And while The Sun is noted for its journalistic excellence by SO MANY Torontonians, I just had to comment on it b/c his readership is so much bigger than mine and I wish it was oh, I don't know, accurate.

First, this comment:

"Rarely mentioned is the global warming threat is not anchored in scientific fact or research, it is a hypothesis, a theory, that has yet to be proven."

Hmmm, could he be using a rhetorical device to link global warming (Hi, this is 2007, the accurate term is actually climate change, but welcome to the 1990s) to another supposed disputed scientific controversy (that shouldn't be disputed at all, by the way)....*cough* evolution *cough*. Sorry, I had a piece of antarctic ice core stuck in my throat. I would LOVE to know if he's read ANY of the many scientific papers that's been released on the changing climate that point to this serious issue. Because those thousands of papers couldn't possibly actually weigh as much as an anchor, could it?

"The IPCC report is based on writings of some 2,500 scientists (few of them climatologists, and many geneticists, environmentalists, etc.), and their findings are compressed into a “Summary for Policymakers” which is a political document, not a scientific one, compiled by UN spinmeisters."

UN spinmeisters, eh? well, let's see. I've addressed the authors debacle previously, both the number of scientists (2500 are the REVIEWERS, not the authors) and who they are. And while I said I addressed this issue already, it's kind of fun. Here's a list of the authors from the 2001 IPCC climate change report. Now, the 2007 list of authors isn't released yet, but judging from the 2001 list, I'm sure what they'll have done this time around is fire the whole lot of them and replaced them with geneticists, environmentalists and the boogeyman (I've been told he's on the UN payroll too).

If you can't be bothered to get these little pieces of information right, which are readily available on the IPCC main page, and found within seconds of googling "IPCC", then don't bother writing it. I wonder if he did ANY research on this, or whether all he did was watch Larry King Live, which, I've been told, is a bastion of truth and knowledge.

Maybe they were premature in releasing the summary before the final report was ready to be published, but that's not to say that they won't release a much larger volume that goes into detail what their research shows. Again, from the IPCC site, the final report is 4 volumes long. Count it with me. FOUR. Is that enough for you Mr. Worthington? Probably not, because you wouldn't read it anyways because it's not 'scientific enough'.

"Talk of “consensus” in science is nonsense. Consensus is not truth, nor proof, it is compromise. In science, everything should be tested and becomes either true or false, or undecided."
"Whether Earth is round or flat is not a matter of “consensus.” Ask Galileo. Consensus at Salem in 1692 was that witches took over childrens’ bodies."

If the scientists were just sitting around the coffee table making stuff up and agreeing that it's true then yes, consensus would be nonsense. However, when they're doing independent research and testing their hypotheses gathering information, affirming that their results are in agreement with each other, that's a whole different story. And no, consensus isn't always a compromise. It can be, just not every time.

And apparently, any scientists working for the IPCC are now puritans too. Just wanted to let you know in case Mr. Worthington wasn't clear enough.

"Prof. Lindzen is a genuine scientist, ever probing and questioning. He cites scientists who’ve been fired, denied post on panels, or whose research has been rejected not for merit, but because they challenge the prevailing UN view that global warming is man-induced, and not a cyclical occurrence of nature. As for Canadians (and PM Harper), the Calgary-based website friendsofscience.org is more instructive than the IPCC."

And yet, Mr. Worthington couldn't give his readers one example of who those scientists that Prof. Lindzen talked about were. Didn't he watch the show? He couldn't have jotted one name down? Prof. Lindzen is a 'genuine scientist', but all those people writing for the IPCC? They're clearly not because they don't hold tenure or publish papers in scientific journals. They're merely genetics-quoting hippies. Yep. That's clearly who they are.

As for the "Friends of Science" website. I'll let DeSmogBlog take it over from here, who've catalogued the supposed 'expertise' of this group.

"Predicting climate change is more than computerized models — and far more complex than predicting the weather change — which is 50% wrong at best. Just witness no warning of the tornadoes that ambushed Florida last week."

"Lastly, why the excessive fear of carbon dioxide, essential for agriculture and plant life? CO2 is not pollution. And it’s man-made pollution that threatens the environment, and planet."

I'm so tired of pointing this out. Really. Predicting any complex system is...wow, complex. So does that mean we shouldn't try? And it's not like these computer models are based on variables pulled out of thin air. It's using historical data and trying to infer what will likely happen. Yes, there's uncertainty but there's uncertainty in any model. Again, my point is not to disparage economics, but why is it that uncertainty in economic forecasts are much more accepted than say, climate change predictions? Both are large complex systems, both use mathematical and computer models to predict behaviour, so why is the risks in one more accepted than another?

On the other hand I totally know where he got his information on carbon dioxide from. A very reputable scientific source, I'm just saying. I'll let RealClimate do the heavy lifting on this one.

Finally,

"As for global warming, if indeed it is more than a cyclical event, surely more food will be produced and more people will have a more comfortable life."

Yes, all those people who live in low-lying coastal areas who may get flooded from sea level increases due to melted ice caps will be SO MUCH more comfortable.

Alright, I'm done. I'm going to back to sleep, where it's a Mr. Worthington-free world and it actually makes sense.

P.S. A much more compelling reaad is Pheton's Reins, by MIT professor Kerry Emanuel.

More Climate Change fun.

2007-02-11T17:06:00.000-05:00

Apparently, the Fraser Institute released an "Independent Summary Report for PolicyMakers" (ISPM) in response to the IPCC's Summary Report for PolicyMakers (SPM). As much as I would enjoy refuting the ISPM (I really wouldn't), both RealClimate and DeSmogBlog already beat me to the punch. Which is fine, because they actually probably would've had more fun doing it than me.

Though once again, I'm sure contrarians will believe the 10 authors of the ISPM moreso than the 1250 authors and 2500 reviewers. Because, if anyone's tried to get consensus within a small group knows, it's nigh-impossible. You get this large group of scientists to agree about one thing, and it's clearly they're ALL crazy and lying about the consensus, right?!

Wrong doesn't even begin to describe it.

2007-02-10T16:39:00.000-05:00

I don't want to say that I'm better than the Editorial Page of the Wall Street Journal, but did they even read the recently released IPCC Summary for PolicyMakers (SPM)?

Two easy examples:

"The document that caused such a stir was only a short policy report, a summary of the full scientific report due in May. Written mainly by policymakers (not scientists) who have a stake in the issue, the summary was long on dire predictions."

Written BY policymakers? It was written FOR policymakers. I've read Jonathan Overpeck's (one of the authors) papers in a class on Global Environmental Change. He's a scientist, not a policymaker. Google any of the other names and you'll find them to be scientists.

"More pertinent is the underlying scientific report. And according to people who have seen that draft, it contains startling revisions of previous U.N. predictions. For example, the Center for Science and Public Policy has just released an illuminating analysis written by Lord Christopher Monckton, a one-time adviser to Margaret Thatcher who has become a voice of sanity on global warming."

"Take rising sea levels. In its 2001 report, the U.N.'s best high-end estimate of the rise in sea levels by 2100 was three feet. Lord Monckton notes that the upcoming report's high-end best estimate is 17 inches, or half the previous prediction."

Now, 17 inches is 0.4318m. In the IPCC SPM report's Table SPM-2, they used 6 different scenarios to predict what the projected sea level rise would be by 2100 (technically 2099). According to this, the lowest project rise to the highest projected rise will be between 0.18 to 0.59m. That's 7.08 inches to 23.22 inches. Whether almost two feet is vastly different from the three feet is up to you. It's still not the 17 inches that they publish as the 'high end'. Now there's only one other place where the number 17 comes up:

"Global average sea level rose at an average rate of 1.8 [1.3 to 2.3] mm per year over 1961 to 2003. The rate was faster over 1993 to 2003, about 3.1 [2.4 to 3.8] mm per year. Whether the faster rate for 1993 to 2003 reflects decadal variability or an increase in the longer-term trend is unclear. There is high confidence that the rate of observed sea level rise increased from the 19th to the 20th century. The total 20th century rise is estimated to be 0.17 [0.12 to 0.22] m. {5.5}"

Now, I'm not saying that's exactly where they got it from, but I have no other explanation for how they came up with that number, except that this Lord Monckton is wrong, in which case, the Wall Street Journal should stop quoting him.

I was going to write more about their inaccuracies with the supposed 'dispute' over the Mann et al. article, but RealClimate (a blog published by climate scientists), have enough rebuttal points HERE and HERE. Just checking now, they've also posted a response to this editorial HERE.

My final point is based on this:

"The IPCC report should be understood as one more contribution to the warming debate, not some definitive last word that justifies radical policy change. It can be hard to keep one's head when everyone else is predicting the Apocalypse, but that's all the more reason to keep cool and focus on the actual science."

I agree that we should keep cool and focus on the science. It's just too bad they haven't. This summary, plus the final report coming out in May, was written by 450 scientific authors with input by another 800+ contributing authors and peer-reviewed by another 2500 scientists. And they're ALL telling us the same thing. What more do they want? Again, have one scientific paper (Soon and Bailunas comes to mind) that calls into question climate change BUT has refuted on a scientific basis, and the whole science is called into question. Have a report written, read and edited by thousands of scientists (because surprise, climate change has so many complex factors that you need oceanologists, paleoclimatologists, atmospheric scientists etc. to weigh in on the forcings and the impacts) and it's "ONLY a contribution to the warming debate".

You can't win. You just can't win.

Faux Green vs. Faux Green

2007-01-31T18:50:00.000-05:00

Alright already.

Conservatives: You mocked anyone who tried to give a damn about the environment but changed your tune just a few months ago when public opinion shifted against you on the environment file.

Liberals: You had the chance to try to change our behaviour towards the environment and you barely lifted a finger.

Conclusion: YOU'VE BOTH SUCKED since 1993 on this issue. Can you all now admit your mistakes, quit your sniping, and move on to doing something actually constructive?

"I will do the next best thing...block it out..."

2007-01-29T22:52:00.000-05:00

"Since the beginning of time man has yearned to destroy the sun."

When real policy imitates the Simpsons, you know it's a bad idea...

A law for every household; a helmet on every head

2007-01-24T15:41:00.000-05:00

I was going to comment at length about the excessiveness of calling for mandatory helmets for tobogganing kids, to be enforced by law (?!), because of recent tragic children deaths from head injuries. The fact that half of the unfortunate deaths were car-related (DON'T TOBOGGAN ONTO OPEN ROADS!) and the very low-risk activity that it actually is seem to have been lost to the discussion.

If each parent talked to their kids a bit more about personal responsibility and playing safely, I'm sure this issue will go away, along with the ridiculous government overreach.

The up and downsides to reading well-written blogs daily is that they often beat you to the punch, and usually respond better to the issue.

Little Mosque back-patting

2007-01-24T11:55:00.000-05:00

As I noted in the comments here, I expected that the second week of "Little Mosque on the Prairie" would draw in about 1.2 million viewers. What was the magical number that the CBC reported?

1.2 million viewers.

If only guessing right actually got me anything but a smidgen of honour and glory. Oh well. I must say though, the second episode did improve, except for the 'hit-over-your-head' blatant jokes about hockey and such. Those were still really bad.

I'm looking forward to the third episode, except it gets pre-empted tonight by the NHL All-Star Game and returns on Jan. 31. With the novelty wearing off and a missed week, the question is whether it will keep consistent viewership numbers from next week onward.

Tales from the Bookstore I: So we've narrowed it down to...it was signed.

2007-01-17T22:59:00.000-05:00

Customer: I'm looking for a book.

Me: Okay.

Customer: It's a novel. I don't remember the name of the author or the title. It's kinda scary. I saw it in one of your other stores and the author had signed it...

Me: Okay...so it's either Mystery or Horror.

Customer: That's all I know about it.

Me: Right...Do you recall anything about the plot?

Customer: Umm, I think it had to do with some murder and they were trying to solve it. The author had signed the book.

Me: (*Thinking* So that's pretty much every Mystery novel ever written...good.)

Customer: The author's only written this book and nothing else.

Me: Okay, so is it a hardcover.

Customer: No, it wasn't that but bigger than these ones.

Me: So it was a trade paperback.

Customer: Yeah, maybe. I remember the cover was shiny. I just remember seeing signed copies in the other store.

Me: (*Thinking* I give up. I've officially lost interest.)

Winter's arrived...

2007-01-17T00:55:00.000-05:00

Photo courtesy Torontoist

...and it took its sweet time! I definitely missed the sound of snow crunching beneath my feet.

The iPhone: Everyone's talking about it...

2007-01-11T00:13:00.000-05:00

...but not everyone will be able to talk with it. If you haven't heard about the iPhone, then you must have NO (or very, very little) access to mass media whatsoever.

A nice, comprehensive review of it can be found from Chrominance.

Little Mosque on the Prairie review

2007-01-09T21:02:00.000-05:00

eh. it was okay. Some jokes were well-delivered...some weren't. As I told my friend Elaine, it has potential, but I hope they don't run out of jokes after this episode. I guess we'll all find out if the next few episodes get better, or whether they'll end up re-hashing the same territory.

Between 6.5 and 7 out of 10.

First (substantive) snowfall!

2007-01-09T18:38:00.000-05:00

Hopefully it will last, but I doubt it with the weather we've been having.

Who falls for these things anyways?

2007-01-05T12:30:00.000-05:00

via Kottke

This link is somewhat old, so bear with me. You know those emails from various African countries claiming to want to smuggle out millions of dollars and they need YOUR help to do it, which you will be handsomely compensated? Aside from the complete immorality of helping some corrupt official impoverish an already impoverished nation, you could smell the stink of scam coming off these emails from a mile away. I didn't think anyone could fall for these things.

Oh, How I'm SO wrong. (Of course, I understand that these scams wouldn't exist if no one fell for it, but still...)

Little Mosque on the Prairie

2007-01-04T17:07:00.000-05:00

There've been a lot of press coverage on a new CBC half-hour comedy debuting next Tuesday (Jan. 9) at 830pm EST. Why? Because it's a show starring Muslims about Muslims in Canada.

Titled, "Little Mosque on the Prairie" (get it?), one of the actors commented that it may be getting a lot of press solely because the title might make people think it's going to be overtly political and controversial, while the actors and those involved say it's just a simple sitcom: think "Corner Gas", but with a mosque and not a gas station.

Hopefully, it'll be just as funny. And if it is as funny as hyped, that'll be TWO comedies set in the Prairies...who said there was nothing worthwhile out there.

I'll be watching it. I hope you will too.

Crazy Bookshoppers, a series?

2007-01-02T22:20:00.000-05:00

So Angela had noticed that I hadn't posted in a very long time and wanted stories about crazy bookshoppers.

There have been some...interesting shoppers, and few come to mind, but I want to save those for the next few posts, since they deserve their own. No names, no locations. Nothing. If I get fired from Chapters because of this blog, it'd be funny, sad and lame all at the same time.

Suffice it to say, shoppers are messy. Chapters encourage this because we allow people to browse. During the holiday season, it just becomes worse. People are more demanding about wanting the material but at the same time other people are inconsiderate with the way they handle the material. They work against themselves. When I have to pick up coffee cups and used tissues from the shelves, that just frustrates me. Thus, people on my MSN lists have been on the receiving end of very terse messages about Chapters customers as part of my name.

I'm glad it's slowly returning to normal volumes of customers. Though It also means that employees have to once again be a bit more persuasive about making that sale, so back to something that I know is part of my job that I'm okay at but uncomfortable with at times.

Gives me one more reason to finish my thesis more quickly.

Filler Material

2007-01-02T22:10:00.000-05:00

The novelty of working at Chapters has definitely worn off with the end of the holiday retail season. Much has happened and less is happening.

Now that my work hours are being reduced, I can work on my thesis again. That also means time for my side-project on a rails-to-trails report. It also means less time for blogging. Lot of interesting things are happening but nothing blog-worthy. I'll have to keep a more vigilant eye.

I also noticed less personal blogging about me, hence this post. Being in a constant state of fatigue isn't fun, but after reading "Bloodletting and Miraculous Cures", I realize of course, that this is nothing. Though the story about Dr. Chen falling asleep while driving and the things he does to keep himself awake resonated with me because I do the exact same things (pinch self, slap face, sing loudly and badly)...maybe it's universal.

One thing about Chapters though. It's forced me to read more, which is great. Being introduced to so many new books, but it also means there are many I want to buy, but can't, many I want to read, but don't have time to. There's always a catch.

But of the books I've read that I want to recommend, it's "The Omnivore's Dilemma" by Michael Pollan and "The Dodecahedron or A Frame for Frames" by Paul Glennon. I've read at least seven books since I started and those two are by far my favourite. The former a non-fiction and the latter a fiction, so a recommendation for both sides of the aisle, I guess

That's a Joseph Heller if I ever saw one

2006-12-08T21:15:00.000-05:00

You can't win with some people.

First, Mark C. agrees with Ezra Levant that a PM candidate, like Stephane Dion would be if a general election is ever called, should only hold one citizenship:

"Unlike the GG, M. Dion did not actively apply for French nationality...Nonetheless, he should renounce French citizenship "

I can accept that statement if that's what he expects of any leader of Her Majesty's opposition or Prime Minister or a Governors General.

But then Mark C. turns around and mocks the renunciation of French citizenship from Stephane Dion because that's what people like Mark C. expected of him:

"So, Citoyen Dion, you have family feelings that are so important to your identity. But if it becomes a question of power, tant pis pour maman. Eiskalt.
The pragmatic egoist. The tears, count 'em."

Sir, I say sir, that's dishonest.

You can, however, win with other people.

Free! It's all FREE!

2006-12-03T18:07:00.000-05:00

Via Declan AND Kung Fu Monkey,

A guide to free software that allows you to replace most standard productivity software that you would have to sell an arm for, like Microsoft Office, Photoshop, iTunes (well, this one's already free, but if you want to be free from the clutches of the big and scary Apple Corp. too...), etc.

Everyone likes Free.

Apparently, third place is where you want to be.

2006-12-03T14:19:00.000-05:00

On a strange saturday night, two candidates came from third place to win their respective leaderships.

First, Ed Stelmach came from behind to defeat Jim Dinning and Ted Morton to become the premier-designate of Alberta and the leader of the provincial Progressive Conservatives.

I've read very little of Stelmach, so I'll have to start learning more into Alberta politics if I end up working in Calgary. I probably won't agree with many of his positions, but if I can respect his principles and he's less reactionary than Ralph Klein, then I can live with that.

Second, Stephane Dion came from behind to beat the two frontrunners of the Federal Liberal Party, Bob Rae and Michael Ignatieff, respectively, and become the Leader of the Opposition.

As for Dion, he's pledged his platform around the concept of Sustainable Development, except he actually seems to know what he's talking about when he uses the three pillars: economic, social and environmental sustainability. If he can actually form a coherent platform from this, using help from the likes of Gerard Kennedy and Martha Hall Findlay, it might actually make me consider voting for the Liberals in future elections.

He has two weaknesses that I care about: his failure to do accomplish anything with Kyoto when he was in government. And his lack of a sound foreign policy strategy. I hope he can correct these two flaws (well, the former really requires an admittance of failure while the latter will be a bit tougher...)

Either way, the surge in support for the Green Party in the London by-election and the election of Dion has sparked a small flame of optimism in me about the possible future direction in Canadian politics.

One step forward, two steps back

2006-12-01T16:26:00.000-05:00

CBC to revive hour-long local/regional newscasts for 6pm.

Oh, Good Grief!

2006-11-28T23:33:00.000-05:00

The post's title was too easy, but I had to go there. I just saw the Charlie Brown Christmas Special and I had forgotten how much I had liked it, especially its straightforward message about the creeping (well, not so much creeping anymore) commercialism of current Christmas practices and how celebrants should remember and be celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ (historical and political arguments, aside) instead.

But broadcasting it on Nov. 28 is a tad too early, isn't it?

At Western

2006-11-23T23:19:00.000-05:00

my friend Elaine sent me this blog post about UWO (University of Western Ontario) soliciting comments about how to balance the need for green space versus parking on campus. While that's nothing new, what's really interesting is that the blog is an official UWO blog set up by the administration, called "At Western".

It seems (anecdotally anyways) Western has been more progressive towards using Internet technology and making it standard practice, at least when compared to Queen's. I don't recall, for example, Queen's admin setting up a blog to interact with students. Western's wireless network, from what I've heard, is also campus-wide, whereas Queen's is only available in certain areas (and even then, it's spotty at times). Although, some Queen's admin have Facebook accounts, but that's just weird.

While there've only been a moderate numbers of comments (20ish seems to be the max lately), I would be more interested in looking at the total number of hits for each post to see whether students are actually going to read this blog, how well-known this is and whether it's an effective strategy in communicating with students.

Either way, I find it impressive that the administration is striving to keep up with current technology.

Logic Puzzles!

2006-11-23T21:20:00.001-05:00

I found some logic puzzles courtesy of Kottke, so I hope you enjoy them. Some of them are challenging, some of them are interesting and some of them are frustrating.

The questions are HERE.

The answers are HERE.

The Limited Arc TV series

2006-11-18T23:13:00.000-05:00

For all its trite and melodramatic delivery of the dialoge, I LOVE Babylon 5. I have likely posted about this before, but I don't feel like digging up the older post as I have yet to go back and add subject links to all my old posts (now that Google has provided this option) so it would take quite a bit of time.

One of my favourite things about the show was that J. Michael Straczynski, the creator, envisioned this series, his story, to have a definitive beginning, middle and an end. I had once heard that he wrote the scripts in order to have the series completed in 5 season. How long did it take the series to complete? 5. It made for very satisfying TV watching because the major plotlines and most of the subplots were resolved by the end.

Unlike Lost, where it seems like the current story's being dragged out because it's become popular so news execs want to milk it and stretch the series for all as long as possible. Consequently, the story's suffering from its poor storytelling and irrelevant plot twists; it's hemmorrhaging viewers to other shows because nothing's being resolved.

The solution of course is to have series like Lost be written with a limited number of seasons in mind, with a definite beginning, middle and end. I'm not the only one who believes this would work:

"Viewers would be both more willing to sign on at the beginning (knowing their investment will pay off) and more inclined to buy DVDs later (either as catch-up for newbies or as a satisfying boxed set)."

"But which would you rather tune in to next fall: a brand-new mystery from the creators of Lost, that entirely satisfying and thrilling limited-run series you loved? Or yet another season of Lost, that show that started out so well but is now meandering all over the damn place? Puzzles are meant to be solved, not prolonged. You can only tease viewers so long before they feel like they’re being mocked."

All Things Kottke

2006-11-15T22:36:00.001-05:00

Like Metafilter, Kottke is a site for me to find out about interesting stories, events and blog-worthy materials. These last few days have seen a smattering of interesting links. For your viewing pleasure:

1) On a desert island, if I could only take 5 comedy movies with me, they would have to be, off the top of my head: 40 Year Old Virgin, Grosse Point Blank, High Fidelity (yes, TWO John Cusack movies), Old School, and Dogma. I could live on those 5 comedies for the rest of my life. What would YOUR picks be?

2) On "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire", A good explanation on why contestants blather on about inane stories of their lives on their way to a cool million dollars.

3) Most people barely know about web 2.0 and what that means (while those who do know, generally hate the term), so why do we need web 3.0?!

4) This is supposedly a banned, un-aired ad for the XBox 360. I can totally understand why someone might not want this shown on national television, but man do I love it!

5) Finally, people who know me will know that Google Earth and Google Map are my (not-so) secret nerd-love apps. Well, someone's now provided historical maps that can be overlayed as layers on Google Earth. So for example, you can see existing 3-D buildings in the context of a New York 1836 street layout. This app just keeps getting better and better.

Kiwi!

2006-11-13T12:17:00.001-05:00

via Metafilter, this is an animation short posted by a YouTube user, Dony, that he created for his Master's thesis...If only my thesis would have as much emotional impact. Anyways, on with the show:

Je me souviens

2006-11-11T10:50:00.000-05:00

The Game of Life

2006-11-04T21:12:00.000-05:00

I recently talked to a friend over the phone about what's been going on with her life and she tells me that she's just bought another condo, going to move in with her boyfriend, but rent out her old one. I was happy for her but completely floored. She recounted a similar conversation with another friend who remarked,

"How did you get two houses and a career ahead of me in the Game of Life?!"

And while that was what I was wondering too, all I could imagine in my head was the board game "The Game of Life":

If this was an accurate representation of our lives, it felt like she was cruising with the top down and wind blowin' in her hair down that long straightaway behind the spinning wheel ...

Whereas, I'm stuck at the fork in the road near the spinning wheel with a flat tire and I'm trying to hitch-hike the rest of the way...

Talking Science

2006-10-31T01:02:00.000-05:00

This morning on Sounds Like Canada, Shelagh Rogers interviewed Dr. Sumaila about some comments made by fishers about harvesting hagfish off the East Coast, or something to that effect (I only caught the end of the fishers' comments). He notes that we're now harvesting the bottom-feeders (e.g. hagfish), literally, for food, and it will not only prevent the ecosystems that they're inhabiting from recovery in the future, but that our society has so little pride that we'd sink this low for food.

What was more interesting was Shelagh's question asking him about whether his use of everyday language to explain his concern meant that he was speaking as Dr. Sumaila the person or as the scientist. This of course implied that scientists, for all intents and purposes, always spoke in jargon. Dr. Sumaila plainly corrected her that he is speaking as both since he's merely using the right type of language for the right type of audience.

Of course, that's not always the case, as evidenced by the newly released "A scientist's guide to talking to the media". It's supposed to be a guide for scientists on how to interview and describe their work to popular media without having it misconstrued or misreported. Because as most people who reads newspapers or any reporting knows, everyone will hear or read about the incorrect fact, but rarely the correction. This puts scientists ill-at-ease when talking to the press because their reputation, and sometimes more, can be at risk over their work.

If it is as useful as it is described, then it will become an important text that all aspiring scientists should read. The Evolution/Intelligent Design debacle has shown the power of rhetoric and how that can sway public opinion over an issue. It is therefore incumbent upon the scientific community to argue in the popular media in an influential and convincing way that the research speaks for itself as truth, in all its messiness. Of course, that's the limitation. Scientific endeavour is a messy process and it can sometimes be difficult to describe. However, we shouldn't shy away from it.
It's also why I think Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth is an interesting and important movie. He took the complex issue of climate change, with all the scientific research behind it and distilled it into a presentation that people of all education could understand. He simplified the message, but not the science. We know this because for all the minor errors that scientists have admitted, they have also stated that the core of his message is accurate. Also, his use of the stunning before/after images of glaciers, etc. to dramatize his point is just powerful.

This is how science should be presented.

P.S. Definitely a good Christmas gift for Katie. And if it happens that I should borrow it, then so much the better. Also made me want to re-read "Politics and the English Language" too.

Update 10/31/06 10:03 AM: By 'this morning', I meant yesterday, as in 10/30/06. I started writing this at 11pm and didn't finish til 1 am. Sorry for the confusion. h/t to Matt for catching it.

The Clean Air Act (I): Blowfish

2006-10-21T01:50:00.000-04:00

(Mainly due to my slackery, I’m going to break up my analysis (such as it is) of the Conservative government’s Clean Air Act into a few parts. So bear with me.

Let me first say that the Liberals CAN NEVER attack the Conservatives on the issue of Climate Change. They had 13 years since the Rio Summit and nine years since the Kyoto Accord to do something substantial. Instead, we got years upon years of consultation and some half-hearted programs. It didn’t help that the Official Opposition (the Conservatives) attacked climate change as a figment of the world’s imagination (irony, no?). All the while, our country’s GHG (GreenHouse Gas) emissions have gone up while other countries (notably European ones) have been working hard to meet the Kyoto targets. So thanks, Liberal Party of Canada, for sitting on your hands instead of leading.

That being said, the Clean Air Act is good politics, but poor policy. Some good ideas are there, but the follow-through is weak, like spaghetti noodle weak.

So let’s deal with the politics first. Why is it good politics? Even though the policy IS weak (which I will explain in an upcoming post), it shows voters that they’re finally doing something about climate change (even though they’re hiding it behind the catch-all of ‘air pollution’). That’s the problem though. They’re doing something, not something substantial. While air pollution is a serious issue, climate change is much more serious especially considering it is a global-scale issue (where I would argue, often times air pollution is to an extent, a localized issue). The local concerns almost always trumps the global.
The Harper Conservatives only ever meekly admit in public that climate change is an issue (except for Garth Turner, and look what happened to him...)…and only when prodded while the spotlight’s on them. God forbid they say the name…you know, Kyoto (yes, yes, it’s still a Japanese city. It’s okay. You can say it). I don't know why critics have to still accuse the government of abandoning Kyoto...The Liberals left the Kyoto Accord bleeding and gasping for air. The Conservatives just put the final bullet in its head.

They’ve gotten praises from some industry groups and some fringe lobby group masquerading as speaking the truth about climate change, but that’s not a surprise since they’re the ones who would be happy with inaction. Meanwhile, the opposition parties, the environmental groups, many pundits, have seen this for what it is: A blowfish. It looks big, but really there’s nothing inside.

The opposition parties have even stated that they will kill this Bill (C-30) on second reading. So now, it plays even better to the Conservative’s advantage since, whenever the next election comes around, they can argue that, “we had a plan in place, except the Opposition killed it. So vote for us, because we actually tried to do something”. If that isn’t a win-win for them, I don’t know what is. They get to make the Opposition look partisan and unconcerned, all the while they don’t have to do something they never believed in. Not that it matters, because even if this bill passes, It won't have an appreciable effect on reducing GHG emissions anyways.

So Part II, dealing with the actual policy will arrive shortly.

In the meantime, for ACTUAL climate change answers and information, go to RealClimate. It’s a blog written by the actual scientists working on this issue, the people on the ground, in the air, everywhere, as it were.

PS: I'd like to say I wrote that last paragraph before I read the Maisonneuve article and while we pretty much say the same thing, I liked the way they said it. That's why that person's a journalist, and I'm just a blogger sitting at home.

What the world needs more of...

2006-10-19T23:24:00.000-04:00

Jon Stewart just showed it on his show tonight: Microwaveable pancake-wrapped sausage on a stick! That's right, it comes in a multitude of flavours too.

Ahh, just like how mom used to make it...

Garth Turner, where will you go?

2006-10-19T03:12:00.000-04:00

As mentioned in various outlets today, Conservative MP Garth Turner was kicked out of caucus today because of alleged breaches in confidentiality and attacks on caucus members stemming from his blog. While he expressed surprise about his ouster, others less so. Some viewed it as hypocritical, others thought it was punishment for not fully towing the party line, while others humourously likened it to 1984.

Meanwhile, Garth urged everyone to "go and read it, and make up your own mind."

So I did. Here's what I found. Not much.

Granted, I only read October's worth of posts, but I couldn't really find anything close to resembling attacks on party members. True, he was skeptical of the Conservative's action plan on climate change, but then anyone with some education on the issue would be skeptical too. I still wouldn't characterize it as an attack.

As for the confidentiality breach, the closest thing I could think of was his thoughts after a Finance Committee meeting (that he's on) and his speculation on what the Budget Update might look like. But here's the thing. It was all speculation. His exact words were:

"As a consequence, I have no idea how this committee will end up recommending anything. Which is why Jim Flaherty is not waiting, telling an audience today that more personal and business tax cuts are coming, along with some new measures to help lower-income people get back into the work force...So, I’d wager the coming budget will look pretty much like this:"

And he goes on to list some things he thinks will happen and/or wants in the Budget. But he never out and out says "Jim Flaherty is promising these things will happen". Is that splitting hairs? I don't think so. Not once in the entire post did he elude to knowing exactly what Finance Minister Flaherty will report to Parliament. Plus, it wasn't even a caucus meeting. It was a finance committee meeting, which I'm assuming (and maybe that's my mistake) other non-Tory members do sit on and would know whatever MP Turner knew. So unless there were actual instances of breaching confidentiality in his earlier posts and the Ontario caucus decided to do nothing until now (for whatever reason), then I don't know where the accusations are coming from.

His detractors, however, are glad to be rid of this 'maverick', especially for being too cozy with the Green Party leader Elizabeth May. I find it disappointing that you can be branded pretty much as a traitor if you so much as talk to someone from a different political stripe or share common views and opinions. And if people use his MPTV vlog segments as proof of this coziness, they needed to be reminded of the fact that he's also interviewed Liberals, Tories and Dippers too.

The other thing that bothers me is that many commenters (not the posters) on right-wing blogs have already accepted the fact that he breached confidentiality, even though no one's offered proof. Please, for the love of all that is logical, read his damn blog before making a judgment about whether he did breach it or not. I don't doubt that I may be wrong, but as I said, if there were earlier breaches, why did it take so long for something to happen?

Matt, I would love to hear your reaction to this event, particularly this comment on Stephen Taylor's post:

"...Our system is based on an adversarial approach. It is important that the party stick together and oppose the opposition, not each other. Turner has shown thru his blog and interviews he has the right, despite being elected as a member of a political party to act as an independent without consideration for his party and colleagues. His disloyalty to the party and the leader has now come to bear. Mr. Turner should sit as an independent and see how much attention he will get from the media now..."

As a capper, those same detractors think he'd fit right in with the Green Party. I wonder if that's because they've actually read the Green Party platform and found that they mesh well with Garth's views or whether they've just read about his environmental views and pigeonholed him into the one party which has a broad environmental mandate? And what does that say about conservatives' stance on the environment?

The blogging equivalent of cocktail wieners

2006-10-18T23:01:00.000-04:00

Via Metafilter:

- Once again, a school's banning the game of Tag because...well, I don't quite know.

- A scathing invective from Rolling Stone on how bad the 109th Congress has been. Apparently, really, really bad.

- I wonder if weapon designers ever get ideas from NERF...or vice versa?

The life and death of the electric car

2006-10-17T01:59:00.000-04:00

image courtesy EV1 Club.
Scenario: If a car company like Honda or Chrysler discontinues a line of automobiles citing insufficient sales and demand, would you expect them to recall all leased vehicles of that model so that they could be destroyed?

Probably not. So why did GM recall, round up and destroy almost every EV1 (one was given to a museum)?

This is one of the main question stemming from the documentary "Who Killed the Electric Car" that I watched this weekend with Wade at the Screening Room in Kingston.

The documentary narrative spann California's intiative in the early '90s requiring automakers to develop ZEVs (Zero-Emission Vehicles), the introduction of several electric vehicles, most famously GM's EV1, the subsequent cancellation of its sales, the complete recall of every EV1* (since all were only available for lease), the grassroots campaign to buy out the vehicles (which was refused), and the subsequent destruction of all the EV1 vehicles on the GM proving Grounds in California.

*At the time, EV1s were touted to be very clean, fast and efficient, because there were no combustion engine, just a set of batteries and a motor. It had a range of about 100 miles on a single charge and had comparable speeds with regular sedans. This would conceivably meet most city dweller's needs since, for the most part, a daily commute very rarely exceed 100 miles.

image courtesy EV1 Club.

To this day, no one really knows why GM decided to round up all these cars to be destroyed. This resonated with me because it reminded me about the cancellation of the Avro Arrow program and the subsequent destruction of all test planes, models and documents. In both cases, it just seems illogical by both parties to destroy technology that was ahead of its time when it could have been stored away for a future opportunity to revisit the techonlogy.

I can understand cancellation of sales if there was insufficient demand (though that's disputed in the film of course). But if existing customers who've already leased your vehicle and want to buy out the lease, why refuse? It doesn't make any sense to alienate customers like that. It can't be because of worry about litigation over maintenance since companies warn about products they no longer provide technical support for all the time. And it's these element that brings a feeling of a sinister agenda behind this action.

One interesting point was the fact that it was a paradoxical product that could never reach its potential. I mean, why would automakers want to sell a product that exposes the inadequacies and inefficiencies of your other products, right? There was never a willingness to push the electic car onto the public consciousness. The ad campaign for the EV1 evokes a stalker movie, for crying out loud. 'I wouldn't want an EV1 to eat my children', is what the message was telling me. An iPod campaign it ain't.

Another interesting point dealt with the maintenance of the vehicle. They interviewed a mechanic who had serviced both types of vehicles. He commented that when an EV1 came in for a service check, all he really did was refill wiper fluid and rotate the tires. He laughed about how his hands were so much cleaner than when servicing regular cars. A car with an internal combustion engine required oil changes, new mufflers, timing belts, etc. Think of the resources saved not having to produce these products and the money saved by consumers not having to purchase these products.

While the EV1 is now dead, others have risen to take it's place, namely Tesla Motors' Tesla Motor and Feel Good Car's (a Toronto company no less) ZENN neighbourhood vehicle. Providentially, there was an article in Monday's Toronto Star about the push for plug-in hybrids (gasoline/electric hybrid cars that can also be run by soley charging the battery, ala EV1 and the rest). The money quote:

"...A few weeks later, Bloomberg News — citing unnamed sources — reported that General Motors was developing a plug-in hybrid. GM vice-chairman Bob Lutz has more or less backed up that report, writing in his corporate blog last month that the auto giant is studying plug-in hybrids and "will have more to say about those soon."

Is GM kidding me?! They're doing research on technology they already have? They could've been ahead of the curve if they improved and pushed the EV1 and are instead playing catch-up. With technology constantly improving, there are already batteries available that can provide the same mileage as conventional cars or hybrids. Way to go guys. I can see why your market share's been dropping.

"No doubt, they're also facing pressure from the U.S. government. Because large-scale introduction of plug-in hybrids has the potential to dramatically reduce oil consumption, and therefore U.S. dependence on foreign oil, George W. Bush is all over the idea..."

You know what would drastically reduce oil consumption more than plug-in hybrids? Cars that didn't rely on gasoline at all. Now where in recent memory did we have cars that could do that...?

P.S. Scariest/Funniest moment in the movie: the documentary interviews Mel Gibson about him owning an EV1. Unfortunately, they were interviewing him when he still had that giant "I've been in the jungle for the last couple years filming 'Apocalypto' so I didn't shave and oops I've now been arrested for drunk driving and saying anti-semitic remarks so it makes me look Ca-Razy" beard. I couldn't pay attention at all to what he was saying because the beard was just too big and scraggly and mesmerizing...

Aurora...Borealis, that is.

2006-10-14T14:45:00.000-04:00

Sorry for another embed. I would've commented on the Conservative Government's Green Plan II, except well, no one technically knows what it is except for some vague commitments and even then, many in the blogosphere and the mainstream media have already made critical comments. I won't make mine until the actual plan is presented to Parliament (though a supposed leaked plan already have some environmental groups worried and the idea of capping emissions by intensity is just not effective).

Instead of that, you can all watch an amazing time-lapse video of a night's worth of the aurora borealis (northern lights). Since I didn't get the junior planning job in Iqaluit, this is the closest I'll get in the next little while to seeing them:

Got a case of the Humans?

2006-10-03T22:10:00.000-04:00

Confused? This should explain things:

Hat tip to Wes.

See Vous Play

2006-10-02T18:51:00.000-04:00

While the buzz all this weekend in Toronto was Nuit Blanche, the self-described, "free all-night contemporary art thing", International Music Day (supposedly) was overlooked on Sunday. CBC Radio 3 and its French partner, Bande A Part, hosted "See Vous Play", a free concert that night at the Kool Haus, featuring four bands, two English, two French: Les Breastfeeders, Emily Haines and the Soft Skeleton, Les Trois Accords and the Joel Plaskett Emergency.

My recent travels and laziness caused me to pretty much both events, including the live webcast of See Vous Play. Luckily for me and for you (if you're so inclined), CBC Radio 3 has it available in streaming radio and podcast format.

So what are you waiting for?

That's motrin pain...

2006-09-26T16:42:00.000-04:00

Photo courtesy the People's Daily Online.

I first saw this in the Star, but the Sun Online had more details. Basically, during a warm-up for a track meet in Sao Paolo, Brazil, a wayward javelin ended up in the foot of this judge.

You can't help but shudder...

Who is this?

2006-09-19T13:28:00.000-04:00

Who is this?
Originally uploaded by blackhole81.

This is for SURPers only. Please leave in the comments who you think this man in the Queen's jacket and baseball cap is, found wandering the streets of Aberdeen during Homecoming. And yes, you definitely know this person.

Homecoming Photos!

2006-09-19T12:58:00.000-04:00

Thanks to Wade's timely intervention, my Homecoming photos are now up for viewing. Just click on the badge on your right.

Journal verdict: It's all good

2006-09-19T12:42:00.000-04:00

Not much to report from the Queen's Journal (sorry, they're slow to upload so I can't show you pictures or linked text). But it's pretty much the same things re-iterated: Much better than last year, it was safe but fun, etc. There is a report from the Journal saying one student was Tasered for resisting arrest, but it wasn't confirmed in the special Homecoming pull-out that the Journal published. They do have a great spread of the crowd in Aberdeen, as well as an ironic picture of a student getting arrested wearing a t-shirt with a 3-panel cartoon titled, "How to avoid a cop" and Don Rogers trying to convince a passerby to not drink on Aberdeen (HA HA HA). Some choice quotes:

"They allow things you would never allow in Ottawa. As long as people don't do the same dumb shit as they did last year, it's all good." - Nick Bertrand, University of Ottawa student.

"It seems to be controlled chaos." - Harvey Rosen, mayor.

"So far, it's looking very peaceful and very orderly. It's very good to see the volunteers and the police and the students are talking." - Vice-Principal Deane, Queen's University.

"People love the volunteers. I've had so many 'thank-you's', ranging from random people coming up and simply saying thanks, to whole groups of people saying, 'Chug your beers for the volunteers!'" - Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, ArtSci '07 volunteer.

Homecoming Part II: The Whig's perspective

2006-09-18T11:45:00.000-04:00

So I wasn't too far off. Reactions from the Kingston Whig-Standard has been positive. Apparently, an estimated 8000-10000 people were packed into the Aberdeen/Johnson/University area Saturday night with an approximately 200 police officers keeping the peace. About 50 people were arrested, though that number's expected to increase. There were two arrests for assault on a police officer and one for resisting arrest (which I think I was witness to as 3 officers were chasing a student down University Ave...like he would've escaped). All in all, the non-confrontational measures employed this year have had an appreciable and positive effect. A timeline of events seen from a reporter can also be found HERE.

Some choice quotes:

Kingston Police Sgt. Neil Finn: "Over 100 students have come up to me and shaken my hand and said thanks for letting them have such a safe party - and the other officers have had the same experience."

"I was hoping there were going to be some cars smashed here - we're serious," said Eric Joyce, 19, a second-year University of Western Ontario student. Joyce came with four other Western students to witness what has become known as one of the top parties in North America. He and his friends were also hoping to smash some beer bottles, he said.

Not everyone was impressed by the police performance. Former city councillor Don Rogers spent hours pacing the sidewalks around Aberdeen Street to protest the relaxed policing of liquor laws. He carried a sign that read, "Police: Don't just stand there! Enforce our liquor laws."

A police officer took away his sign twice, but Rogers had more in his trunk and continued his campaign. "This is our neighbourhood and we have to take back our neighbourhood," Rogers shouted over the noise on Johnson Street. He said he wanted to see police employ "whatever crowd-control measures are necessary" to clear up the party.

Tomorrow: reactions from the Queen's Journal.

Update: Sept. 19, 2006 1:32 pm

An updated article from the Whig outlining the likely costs borne by the City of Kingston for Homecoming and concerns the chief of police had over the weekend.

Post-Homecoming 2006 Reactions

2006-09-17T17:40:00.000-04:00

This is what I get for not going to the library right away and posting my reactions. You fall behind quickly. Well, I excuse myself because I was running 10k for the Terry Fox Run today. So there.

For those interested, Optimuscrime has some reactions and pictures posted. I took a lot of pictures last night but I forgot to bring the camera connector so my pictures won't be up until next week, but you 3 faithful readers will be the first to know.

Anyways, I think of all that could've happened on Aberdeen tonight, it was the best outcome it could've had. The atmosphere was great, few smashed bottles, lot of very chill people. The police and the volunteers did an amazing job with the crowd. They didn't have to handle anything, just keep people and cars moving and handle the odd open alcohol violations here and there. The volunteers were everywhere and everyone had a plastic cup. I think the city, the AMS, the Kingston Police, the OPP and the voluteers deserve a hell of a round of applause for the work they put into making this event run so smoothly. The lighting, the cameras, the volunteers, the plastic cups definitely made considerable differences from last year.

The partygoers also deserve recognition for being respectful of the whole situation. Everyone seemed to have a great time without having to get rowdy. What surprised me the most was how it had spilled out of Aberdeen. In all my times witnessing this street party, I've never seen so many people on Johnson St., University Avenue (BBQ at University and William?! Unheard of!) and Division Street as well (though someone might argue the contrary). I can only attribute that to the many undergrads NOT from Queen's who made it to Kingston this weekend because of their friends here and the notoriety gained from last year (I should know, I rode with several of them on the bus on the way here on Friday).

And while this should be portrayed in the next few days as a very successful Homecoming, I find it ironic walking through Aberdeen last night that probably 40% of the people there weren't even Queen's students, let alone alumni (My percentage comes from the sheer number of people there, as I can't imagine ALL of them being Queen's students). As the name implies, "Homecoming" is normally reserved as a celebration for alumni, and yet there didn't seem to be that many there, or they blended quite well with the crowd. While there's an inkling of worry about whether alumni will actually consider NOT coming because it's been taken over by undergrads and students from out of town (as yet another excuse to drink and party), it is only a passing thought that I don't have an answer to.

At the beginning of this post I mentioned why last night's event was the best outcome. On the one hand, the behaviour of everyone last night should hopefully convince the city that Queen's, the city and out-of-town students CAN get along during Homecoming without causing a blemish to the institution or the town, which should ensure the viability of future Aberdeen parties at Homecoming. It was also very self-contained within the boundaries of the ghetto, which I think is a much better solution then having thousands of drunk partygoers spread out across downtown. On the other hand, the (some might say) good behaviour of the people on the street might convince the shit disturbers that everyone else on this street is not going to tolerate belligerence now that we've seen both the brink of Homecoming cancellation and what a good Homecoming celebratoin can look like. This should hopefully convince those yahoos to either a) tone down their behaviour in the future or b) not come back. Either way, less violent behaviour, the better.

The fortuitous timing of being in Kingston this week allows me to be able to gather local media (Kingston Whig-Standard, Queen's Journal) reaction to all of this, see if my observations agree with theirs and pass this information along to you, my faithful readers.

Just another public service that I provide with a smile...now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go lie down and rest me legs.

When did UNICEF start playing football?

2006-09-13T12:33:00.000-04:00

Well, not quite. Those familiar with professional football (soccer, keep up!) will know that professional teams tend to have their biggest sponsor's logo emblazoned across the chest of the soccer jersey, as evidenced below:

Bayern Munich Jersey

You get the idea. I was going to show you a jersey from the English and Italian leagues as well but Blogger's been un-cooperative. Anyways, it came as some surprise to me (mainly because I am so unobservant) that FC Barcelona, one of the top teams (if not the top) in Spain and in Europe, didn't have a corporate sponsor on their jersey:

This is their 2006-07 Home kit. What's funny is that these are now outdated. Apparently, FC Barcelona has signed an agreement with UNICEF, the UN children's organization, to have their logo on their jersey. The price? 1.5 million euros. But it's the other way around. FC Barcelona is contributing that amount ANNUALLY to fund UNICEF projects. They debuted these new jerseys in the Champions League against Levski Sofia, routing them 5-0:

I don't see this as a start of a trend, nor do I think this will make FC Barcelona any more popular (I doubt I'll see aid workers snap up Cdn $100+ Barca jerseys just because UNICEF's logo is on it...), but it's interesting to see a team that's eschewed a corporate logo for so long went this route instead. And while other teams give back to their respective communities in other ways, it doesn't diminish what FC Barcelona has done.

So they deserve a hat tip.

Hope this World Container can be salvaged...

2006-09-10T22:39:00.000-04:00

The Tragically Hip is one of my favourite bands. I know not everyone have the same opinion of them (looking at you, Wes and Jenny) but it doesn't matter. I was excited to hear that they were releasing a new album, called "World Container".

Until I heard the new single, "In View" on the radio. Then I shuddered. I hated it. Again. This happened the last few times, with "Vaccination Scar" and "It's a Good Life If You Weaken" (This last song did grow on me in the end, but I still don't like "Vaccination Scar"). Other bloggers have also not given good reviews of the song either.

I hadn't paid attention to the background piano in the beginning of the song but now I just find it irritating. The other thing that bothered me was the chorus, "The phone rings once. The phone rings twice. The phone rings three times..."

Really? This is the chorus? I mean, The Hip aren't known for their thought-provoking lyrics, granted, but they could definitely do better than that.

I watched/listened to the clips of the other new songs but I can't really judge by the poor quality of the video. I'll have to just wait for the CD to come out. Hopefully, like In Between Evolution, where I skip through "Vaccination Scar" and "Heaven is A Better Place Today" to the better songs, like "Makeshift We Are" and "Goodnight Josephine", I can ignore "In View" and find the good stuff.

In which I explain my Summer with a cartoon

2006-09-05T17:04:00.000-04:00

Courtesy PhD Comics

That's pretty much how it went down this year, plus or minus some differences. Please don't let my supervisor know about this post...

He's so pointy it hurts...

2006-08-27T02:30:00.000-04:00

So, they're coming out with a live-action "Transformers" movie in 2007. Okay, it's Transformers. I'm well aware. I loved them as a kid and I'm 24 now. I realize that. I told some friends that I'd go see it in theatres but I probably won't because I'm 24. Even though the this video clip of Optimus Prime wasn't too shabby. I mean, this picture of him seems very faithful to the cartoon:

So far so good. My question is this. How did we get a Megatron that goes from looking like this originally:
To this for the movie:

WTF?! So many thoughts going into my head...like the fact that it was designed by some 14 year-old fanboy with a hard-on for sharp, pointy things...or the fact that Megatron seem to have been based on tattoo designs...or the fact that Megatron seemed to have fallen one too many times into a skate sharpener...everything about this design seems to scream "EXTREME!!!" but in that overused, late '90s way.

Anyways, this has effectively ruined the movie. Oh well, I guess you really can't bring your childhood back...

Hat tip to The Superficial, The Comic Blog, and Comic Art Community for the story and the pictures

From the makers of "Attack of the Plush Tomato"...

2006-08-23T00:05:00.000-04:00

...comes:

"Planes on a Snake"

Hat tip to Matt and Andria

Another piece of childhood down the drain

2006-08-19T03:06:00.000-04:00

I remember days back when I was a kid when I would watch Street Cents, a half-hour commercial affairs TV show produced by the CBC that was targeted to kids and teens. And NO, I didn't watch it because of Jonathan Torrens...

While it wasn't groundbreaking, to me, it just seemed like a useful show to have around, like an encyclopedia. You never know when the product they test will actually help you decide on a purchase (Fave test: Nalgene water bottle. They had to drop a completely filled bottle off something like a 8 storey building for it to smash in half).

So it's with some sadness to hear that the CBC is cancelling the show because of dwindling youth audience. While I don't fault them for their decision, it's still sad to see a staple of MY CBC mythos disappearing.

Maybe they could turn it into a vlog or something. Something useful like this shouldn't just be dropped into the dustbin of cancelled shows...

Softwood Soft Ruling

2006-08-16T02:42:00.000-04:00

Are these WTO rulings in favour of Canada over the softwood lumber dispute even worth anything anymore? In the past several years, almost 99% of stories I've read about rulings have gone in Canada's favour. Yet, the deal being brought to the table by the US is that they get to keep $1 billion in tariffs that they took illegally from us and we STILL have to impose duties on our own lumber, even though in NAFTA and WTO rulings, we were never in the wrong.

How effective can the WTO be if nations bound to their rules can just flagrantly disregards them?

We're Number One! (because no one's left)...

2006-08-14T18:45:00.000-04:00

11 universities, including UofT, McMaster University and UBC, have opted out of the Maclean's Annual University Survey, citing flawed methodology on Maclean's part for their withdrawl.

While I really don't care either way, it really paves the way for Queen's to brag about the fact that we're #1 in the survey!

Oh wait, McGill's still around...

Update Aug. 24, 2006 7:49pm

Apparently, McGill WILL be number one because we're not even there anymore. It seems that Queen's has reviewed (*cough* followed the crowd *cough*) this issue and has decided to pulled out of the Maclean's survey. With most of the major universities out, looks like the yearly publication is likely as good as dead...

Work in a termite mound!

2006-08-14T03:48:00.000-04:00

Via Treehugger

Did you ever wonder what it would be like to be a termite? Now you can!

A sprawl-ing post

2006-08-14T03:39:00.000-04:00

I’m about a week late from responding to this post by Andrew Potter because I keep putting it off. It’s one of those rare opportunities where someone speaks of something that I’m interested in.

He points to an article in the Aug. 6 Sunday Times discussing the emerging resistance to ‘vertical sprawl’ in the US, where they tie-in the ideas of smart growth and infill development with ideas of dropping 70-storey towers in a low-rise residential neighbourhood. This is in response to a reader who believes“…that the solution to our economic and environmental problems was to have everyone living in ultra-dense 50-story towers, 10 000 people or so to a tower”. The same day, I read Joel Kotkin’s piece on the permanence of the suburban landscape in the US.

I don’t disagree with Andrew. I don’t think sprawl is inherently evil nor is density inherently moral. What I really disagree with is the content of the article. In it, they discuss residential groups who are opposed to high-rise development in infill projects in low-density neighbourhoods, which they call suburban sprawl. They tie it to infill development and smart growth principles, which they argue that in practice, particularly in working-class neighbourhoods, “means displacement and gentrification, often by redevelopment eminent domain”.

Smart Growth Principles, according to the State of Maryland, an early proponent, include the following:

· Mix land uses
· Take advantage of compact building design
· Create housing opportunities and choices
· Create walkable communities
· Foster distinctive, attractive communities with a strong sense of plan
· Preserve open space, farmland, natural beauty, and critical environmental areas
· Provide a variety of transportation options
· Strengthen and direct development to existing communities
· Make development decisions predictable, fair, and cost effective
· Encourage community and stakeholder collaboration in development decisions.

These principles are vague, but it also provides elbowroom to develop within the context of the site. Comparing this list to the arguments for and against Smart Growth in the article, it seems to me that neither the developers nor the opposition actually understand what Smart Growth means. I’m not even a full-fledged planner with any work experience and I can tell you that a bunch of 62-storey towers in a low-density neighbourhood is a stupid idea. I’ve had it drilled into my head that any development, especially infill, should always be integrated within the context of the immediate area and the surrounding neighbourhoods. According to Smart Growth, community and stakeholder collaboration would’ve immediately recognized the problem of such inconsistent development. The problem of gentrification is a genuine concern, and no one has a complete answer. But part of Smart Growth and good planning is that developments need to think long-term and consider all socio-economic groups. Having affordable housing and good community amenities in a development is a start towards ensuring that the working-class are LESS LIKELY to be driven out. It’s not the only tool we have, but one of many. But that doesn’t mean high-density can’t work. It just has to be done appropriately and in the right context. It’s not how densely you build it, but how you build it dense and why. Density in and of itself serves little purpose. It’s not that these people are opposed to ‘vertical sprawl’ per se, but merely poor planning.

I think the problem Andrew and I both have with this topic is that the loudest voices seem to be misusing the history of suburban development in order to impose morals and find conspiracies that isn’t there. The environmental consequences of suburban development are quite real (land consumption, surface run-off, etc.) whereas the social and economic ones are certainly still up for debate. Real or perceived, these are all unfortunately unintended ones. No one was brainwashed into moving to the suburbs. Advertising certainly has great powers of persuasion, but people knew full well what they were buying into.

The solution is not to ban all suburban development, since that seems unlikely and quite absurd. Kotkin argues, at least in the US, that the suburbs are here to stay. The future is about how to build better suburbs. And it’s not just the environmental or a socio-economic concern. It’s also a demographic one. Once the bulk of the baby-boomers start retiring, will they be willing to drive all the time to the grocery store, the theatres, etc.? This is where the principles of Smart Growth and New Urbanism may come in handy. It’s not a perfect solution, to be sure, but nothing is. And if this segment does hold the enormous economic influence that it's been touted to have, maybe their needs will direct us to the development that have been trying to implement; maybe the people who lead us out into low-density will once again lead us to where we need to go: more compact, environmentally sustainable, socio-economically equitable (in opportunity), and age-adaptable communities.

My brain has collapsed because of Britney Spears

2006-08-04T16:13:00.000-04:00

How could that be, since she's in Alabama or Florida or somewhere and I'm in sunny Kingston?
Since I don't know how to clip the youtube video to this post, you'll just have to go to either link:

Youtube- Britney Spears acting very strange or stoned...

The Superficial- Britney Spears is very truly out of her mind...

Granted, making fun of celebrity intelligence is easier than well, Paris Hilton (!Zing!), but this certainly is a new low. I also recommend not watching it straight through, lest your eyes try to eat itself...

hat tip to Kate

Happy Wonderful Fun Time Post!

2006-08-02T16:24:00.000-04:00

via Metafilter

"Deception, thy name is the Pentagon"

"It came from beneath the sea!!!"

I feel all warm and fuzzy after reading these...

A racket through and through.

2006-08-02T14:45:00.000-04:00

Let's say I'm playing high-stakes poker with a couple of mobsters. I take most of their money but on the last hand I get caught dealing from the bottom of the deck. Now, at this point, they're... probably slightly miffed about what I've done. I'm likely going to be taken out back and shot. Instead, I plead with them a little, give them back their money and my money and they decide to let me leave with my life. I whine a bit more and they even agree to let me keep MY money.

Sounds ridiculous, right?

Well, so's AC Milan playing in Champions League.

Is it comfortable in here...or is it just me

2006-08-01T18:53:00.000-04:00

I've been in Stauffer library a lot these last few months because I can't seem to hack out a decent draft of my thesis (which is another post altogether).

But there've been times earlier in the summer when the A/C was on and I was actually cold. But today, amidst Kingston's heat alert and request to ease the load on our electricity grid, I'm finding Stauffer's temperatures to be quite comfortable. Why is this happening? I can see only two explanations for this:

1) Queen's actually took the request to heart and have upped the thermostat in the library.

2) They're renovating part of the 1st floor to make way for a new cafe and in doing so, they were tossing out a lot of construction material out the window and as I was walking by, the blast of A/C escaping out the window could literally knock you to the ground. Therefore, the second possibility is that all the cold is escaping through that one outlet.

I hope it's the former and I doubt the latter (mainly because I can't see that much cold air escaping from that one area especially when the main entrance is thoroughly opened all the time). But then my question is this: No one's complained that it's too warm in the library. So why isn't THIS temperature the norm so that less energy is used? Is the cooler temperatures to preserve the old materials? But if that's the case, shouldn't that kind of material be in a special climate controlled room anyhow?

LOL's not bad for me after all...

2006-08-01T10:22:00.000-04:00

A few days after my post on the NY Times' article on abbreviating every word, this article came out today about how instant messaging (IM) HAS NOT affected the grammar of today's youths.

phew...it sure is a relief to read this. Because once grammar goes, they'll start listening to that hippity-hop music and wearing baggy pants and then it's over...

Gentrification

2006-07-27T22:47:00.000-04:00

Hat tip to the Accordion Guy:

Obvi. that's just ridic. and exces.

2006-07-26T15:06:00.000-04:00

via kottke.

The Internet, via the email and instant messaging (IM), has been a leader in the great bastardization of the English language. And yes, it's not a new thing since it's a continually evolving language and others have tried to tenderize it before (Remember Ebonics, anyone?).

Now, my friends have used short-forms such as 'convos' for conversation and 'whatevs' for whatever and I generally roll my eyes at them.

But this girl's use of abbreviations and shortcuts is just ridiculous and excessive.

I'm sitting here and writing this and it doesn't seem like I have a point to make, much like the article. The author doesn't chastise nor condone her sister's way of speaking. I'm just curious as to what the point of abbreviating everything is? It's not like it saves that much more time by not saying the remaining variables. Is it clever for clever's sake?

I'm also not lamenting over the downfall of the english language since you have to know the full word to understand the abbreviation. Besides, I can't see a functional english language being fully distilled into five letter, monosyllabic arrangements and there'd be enough english majors left in the world who'll smack people down trying to use the Ling in any formal basis.

Anyways, if anyone catches me talking like that, I give you permission to Rochambeau me, and you can go first.

Oh, the guilt

2006-07-26T01:21:00.000-04:00

It's not that I find blogging a chore, but I definitely feel guilty both when I haven't posted something of substance in adequate frequency and when I feel like I'm procrastinating WHEN I am posting something of substance. I just can't win. Oh well, here're some nuggets, for those still interested in reading:
First, Ken Jennings (yes, that Ken Jennings from Jeopardy) writes an obviously satirical post about how Jeopardy should be improved. Anyone who reads it will agree with me that he is quite obviously sarcastic and not at all serious. What's interesting is that Michael Starr of the New York Post took it seriously and publishes it, which gets picked up by AP! Ken of course takes it in stride, but someone really needs to buy Mr. Starr a clue (for $400, Alex...).

Number two, thanks to his infamous stunt in the World Cup final, Zinedine Zidane's name has now been verbed.

Finally, here are three very interesting posts by Declan on transit and the Stats Canada report about commuting times. Part 1 briefly talks about the report, the major thing being car travel and transit times are up (except in Vancouver) and transit times are higher than automobile travel times. Part 2 deals with why that might be and how traffic demand works in big cities. As an urban planner to be, I am ashamed that I can't answer his question to my own satisfaction mainly because I've read very little on traffic issues. What he says makes sense to me but I can't say for sure and frankly it's going to make me procrastinate for an hour or so trying to find an academic paper that confirms this. Finally, part 3's a doozy. It's funny and at the same time a bit sad. He rebuts a Margaret Wente column with this issue and it's funny because Wente's column is JUST TERRIBLY WRITTEN AND ARGUED. It's sad because a fair number of Globe readers will have read it and a percentage of that group will agree with her erroneous statements and will in no way help to bring better transit to Toronto. Let's hope that these people will read Declan's rebuttal...

1 red paperclip = 1 house

2006-07-11T15:01:00.000-04:00

As many mainstream media outlets had been following this story, Kyle MacDonald's been slowly bartering things from his one red paperclip to his goal of his own home. His goal has been reached. As of July 7th, 2006, he's traded a spot in a movie to the town of Kipling, Saskatchewan for a house on 503 Main Street.

An Inconvenient Truth

2006-07-11T00:36:00.000-04:00

Al Gore's documentary "An Inconvenient Truth" is interesting and good in a variety of ways.

His arguments and presentation of facts about global warming isn't new, though compelling. For someone who have studied the science of climate change, he or she would find this film a little light. Rather, it is a good primer for those who are skeptical or know nothing of the situation. His solutions, also, aren't new or provoking. But that's the point. The solutions and technologies are out there. It's a question of whether people will accept the responsibility of our actions and the necessary change in the way we live.

The visuals, are like most good visuals, stunning. Like the works of Ed Burtynsky, you can't help but feel a little shock and disappointed by the massive change humanity is causing, particularly the difference in glacier sizes around the world.

And while most of the film is Al Gore "giving" his presentation (the one he's delivered in thousands of places across the world) to a small audience, it is also partly a documentary into his life and his fascination with the issue throughout his political career, from being in committees in Congress to his stint as VP and through to his presidential bid and its aftermath. Not only does this prevent the film from being a 90 minute slideshow presentation, it provides a glimpse into a man who could be raking in $50,000 fees giving speeches about his political career, but insteads decides to travel around the world talking about ice cores and global ocean currents and carbon dioxide emissions.

It is the loss in 2000 that spurred him to return to his lecture on climate change. And it seems as though the title has two meanings, one for the audience and one for him. In that, while for us, the inconvenient truth is of course, the way we live is impacting the Earth and our own future severely, for him, it's that perhaps he was never meant to be the President of the United States. While one might argue that he would wield more political clout as the President to affect change, it's interesting whether he would have been bogged down by the responsibilities to his country and to the office to be truly effective.

Instead, his responsibility is now to the world at large, and he has given the scientific community something else: A face and a voice. Perhaps this is his niche, his role: to be the Paul Revere of climate change, to warn us of the dangers ahead.

He seems suited because he straddles both the scientific and political community. He understands the language of the scientists. But having served in politics, he is a much better and more recognized orator than any scientist could be. In doing so, he could deliver the message, like the film, with effectiveness, using both scientific studies, but also with a little bit of humour (his presentation includes a clip from Matt Groening's Futurama about global warming) and visuals to cement his argument. Besides, with all due respect, I doubt most people would be able to pick out NASA scientist James Hansen (one of the biggest voices about climate change in the scientific community) from a line-up. It was a little annoying, though, during the film when he'd drop names like Carl Sagan as if he was a bowling buddy. But conversely, his connections with so many climate change scientists just shows how much attention the scientific community is paying to him.

I don't, however, share Gore's optimism. The people who should see this will probably not because it wouldn't interest them. And that's the problem. The people who would see this move have or will change their behaviour. The rest don't see it affecting their lives. But by the time that it does affect their lives and the clamour for change finally happens, it'll be too late. It seems that as much as we don't want to be told what to do, we need government to force this change upon us. Humans rarely change behaviour unless they are forced to. And either we can force the rest of the citizens to change now through our laws, or we can let the resulting consequences from global warming do it for us. That too is an inconvenient truth

Playing catch-up

2006-07-05T01:22:00.000-04:00

This post from Treehugger just gives me an excuse to berate Queen's about how much catch-up they have to do on the sustainability front. Basically, it's a story about University of Calgary's initiative to provide free bikes for students to travel around campus. And while we have the Yellow Bike Action here in Kingston, it's a community group effort, not the university. The bike program itself is part of a broader Sustainability Initiative.

Now, having done research on campus sustainability, we already knew that UBC and UVic were ahead of us in this category, not to mention many US universities. UofC pulling ahead just goes to show how hesitant Queen's is to change. A student position was finally created by the AMS to study and possibly coordinate sustainability efforts, and that was with much teeth-pulling from my friend Anjali Helferty.

The problem isn't that there isn't enough students willing to be involved. The problem is the lack of support from the Administration. And while Campus Planning can say that they've all these great projects in progress, there's no one to market them. There's no broad strategy to coordinate efforts. Queen's is planning to build this great LEED-certified building, but buildings won't create sustainability. A shift in mentality does. A change in how Queen's operate does. Now, Anjali deserves all the praise for her work, but until the administration is willing to put money behind creating a real sustainability officer within the administration structure and give it real power, Queen's will continue to fall behind with its piecemeal projects even as it's trying to catch up with the 21st century.

It's so easy too. It already has most of its students living in less than elegant housing in close proximity to the campus. Take advantage of that. You have engineers who construct an elaborate set piece for their formal. You have a show like "From the Ground Up", where professional contractors and subcontractors oversee youths building and renovating homes. Why not do a similar thing, except have the university pay the pros to oversee student volunteers who build a house or two over the summer. In exchange, they learn extra skills, they get to live there for a year rent-free and now Queen's has new housing to rent to other students. Incorporate some simple environmental design like strawbale walls, solar orientation, and efficient appliances, and you have a sustainable house. Obviously, it's not so clear-cut and there'd be some legal issues to deal with. But this is me coming up with an idea at 1:21 AM. Imagine someone who's paid to come up with these ideas and make them work...?

That's what we need. Or we won't even get to where U of C is.

my dealers...of music

2006-07-05T00:54:00.000-04:00

I don't know what brought this about, but most of you may already know of the bands of which I'm about to speak, so bare with me.

My music collection is probably defined as "alt-rock indie" (with a smattering of other genres) at best and "mainstream bandwagon indie-hopping" at worst. However, my favourites are due solely to the friends around me who either dragged me to a concert or lent me their CD to listen to and of course, I was blown away by what I was hearing. So this post is for them. In no particular order of favourites:

Mike Rate: he was a master's student in my lab when I was doing my undergrad thesis. To kill the many hours of driving, he brought along a well-honed collection of CDs of the hard-rock, punk persuasion. He re-introduced me to Queens of the Stone Age and Less than Jake. Less than Jake's "Anthem" was probably not the best ska-punk CD in people's minds by far. I don't know what it was, but I could listen to that CD over and over and over...and I did. It also spurred me back on to the punk train, to look up good ol' bands like the Ramones, the Clash and the contemporary ones like NoFX and Bad Religion. I had actually listened to QOTSA's "Songs for the Deaf" one time at Future Shop but couldn't get into it. It took listening to Mike's CD for 2 months straight to get me hooked. 65 minutes of damaging guitar hooks and Dave Grohl's drumming deliciousness was an energizer during the hellishness that was coring in the Eastern Shore of Nova Scotia.

Wesley Fok: Ahh, Wesley, proud owner of Chrominance and Angels Twenty. He dragged me to the Merchant one late May evening and blew me away with Joel Plaskett's onstage presence... So much rock-goodness, drunken bass guitaring and catchy lyrics that should be and usually are cliches, but when he sings it, they just sound so original. Each of the Joel Plaskett Emergency's records sound different from the last one, but you can hear the progresssion and the, I don't know, earnestness, I guess. Though Wesley doesn't enjoy him as much anymore, and his song "Nowhere with You" is now schilling for Zeller's, I would still drop everything and catch him in concert, no matter what town he and I might be at the same time.

Christina Cheung: Christina gave me a few mp3s from the Decemberists "Castaways and Cutouts" and I was immediately hooked. They were unlike a lot of bands I was listening to at the time because a lot of their songs were ballads of olde. Stories about legionnaires, chamisoles, countess and courtesans using guitars and accordions and a bevy of other instruments. And that's their schtick and they're good at their schtick. They are so much fun and their stories are always so catchy. They're like a good Pulitzer-prize winning novel, but for my ears! Their new album is coming out soon and I'm ever so excited. "Castaways and Cutouts" and "Picaresque" are equally good.

Wade Guyitt and Christine Lee: I had low, low expectations for the Final Fantasy concert. Especially when the opening acts were beyond weird and uninteresting. When Final Fantasy finally started, it ended up being one guy and a violin. Good thing that one guy happened to be Owen Pallett, who has not only been on the Vinyl Cafe but also collaborated on Arcade Fire's superb "Funeral". He was absolutely brilliant onstage, and if you don't believe me now, would you believe me then? Judgment's still out on his newest record, "He Poos Clouds", though.

My music collection would be so much worse if it wasn't for these people. And I thank them. But I was thinking. Where do they hear the next brilliant band from? I mean, I'm clearly 4 or 5 steps from the source (of "good music"), but they're definitely a few steps closer. Does it even matter that it takes me this many steps to discover a new, great band? Or does this have to do with the personal sense of "discovery" and "ownership," of knowing a great band before everyone else? Still, I'm curious how (and really it's just) Wesley and Christina keep tab with the burgeoning music scene, even though some of their recent recommendations haven't hit me the same way as the others...? I mean, I know where pot dealers usually get their merchandise, where do Wesley and Christina get theirs?