May 2013
29 posts
Canadian Anti-Piracy Outfit Pirates Photos for its... →
[Canipre] want to change people’s attitudes toward piracy and make a few bucks in the process. However, it appears that the attitude change should start closer to home, as their own website blatantly uses photos that have been ripped-off from independent photographers.
The unintended consequences of bike lanes →
as I’ve watched a busy stretch of road convert from no bike lanes to bike lanes, here’s what I’ve noticed most: more people park illegally. Somehow the bike lane operates as a permission to “temporarily” park at the side of the road… this doesn’t mean cities shouldn’t install bike lanes. But they also need to adjust the rules about temporary parking. And schmucks need to learn that...
Must read: Out in the Great Alone →
Flying through the pass was — how can I put this — awesome. I mean in the sense of inspiring genuine awe. You are a dot moving among white clouds. White cliffs break through the clouds and you fly beside them… For much of the crossing the snow makes it impossible to tell where the ground is, and then when you spot it, it’s crazy, striations of ice and rock like the inside of a marble. It...
NYC Study Finds Protected Bicycle Lanes Boost... →
NYC DOT found that protected bikeways had a significant positive impact on local business strength. After the construction of a protected bicycle lane on 9th Avenue, local businesses saw a 49% increase in retail sales. In comparison, local businesses throughout Manhattan only saw a 3% increase in retail sales.
GeoGuessr - Let's explore the world! →
Guess where in the world Google street-view has taken you.
Infographic: Is Your State's Highest-Paid Employee... →
You may have heard that the highest-paid employee in each state is usually the football coach at the largest state school. This is actually a gross mischaracterization: Sometimes it is the basketball coach.
The cost of scrapping the long-form census →
it would seem to have cost more money to produce less reliable data.
Gays Beware with Jesse Tyler Ferguson and George... →
Why Isn't Gatsby in the Public Domain? →
Yes, even though F. Scott Fitzgerald died 73 years ago (and is therefore unlikely to be incentivized to produce more work), The Great Gatsby is still restricted by copyright.
National Research Council move shifts feds'... →
the executive director of the Canadian Association of University Teachers said the government is “killing the goose that laid the golden egg.” “By transforming the NRC into a “business-driven, industry-relevant” organization, you are denying its ability to support basic research,” said Jim Turk.
“Throwing is hard. In order to deliver a baseball to a batter, a pitcher has to...”
– High Throw
A City That Turns Garbage Into Energy Copes With a... →
Oslo, a recycling-friendly place where roughly half the city and most of its schools are heated by burning garbage — household trash, industrial waste, even toxic and dangerous waste from hospitals and drug arrests — has a problem: it has literally run out of garbage to burn.
“imagine that millions of Americans walk around each day wearing … a device...”
– Michael Chertoff, secretary of Homeland Security for George W. Bush, on Google Glass (via Schneier on Security)
Enbridge breaks safety rules at pipeline pump... →
The biggest oil and gas pipeline company in Canada is breaking National Energy Board safety rules at 117 of its 125 pump stations across the country … the [National Energy Board] admits that it has only just started to concentrate inspections on regulations covering backup power and shut-down systems. The regulations are anywhere from 14 to 19 years old.
Tor Books says cutting DRM out of its e-books... →
Government moves to control wages at Crown... →
government ministers on the Treasury Board Secretariat will be able to impose “any requirement” on Crown corporations at the bargaining table.
Canada can't account for $3.1B in anti-terror... →
He found that departments reported spending $9.8 billion of the $12.9 billion allocated for security and anti-terrorism measures under the program but he couldn’t determine where the other $3.1 billion went. The Treasury Board had no clear answers for him.
April 2013
68 posts
Green Party: Defending friends who didn’t get the... →
Last night, the Leader of the Green Party voted against holding the current and previous governments to account for their inaction on fighting climate change.
Game Pirates Whine About Piracy in Game Dev... →
The cross-platform simulation game “Game Dev Tycoon” takes players back to the 80s, with the challenge to become market leaders by releasing new and innovative games. After two years of development the game went up for sale yesterday, but the developers also considered those who might want to pirate it. In addition to putting out a legit copy the brothers also released a cracked game which they...
Reality Check: Jason Kenney part-time history... →
Vic Toews' office overruled Omar Khadr prison... →
Under normal procedure, the warden of an institution makes the final call on granting a reporter access to an inmate… Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s own department immediately flagged the initial interview application, and asked to be kept in the loop… Millhaven Warden Kevin Snedden approved a telephone interview with Khadr… Within 90 minutes, however, the request was...
Reality Check | How much is the B.C. NDP promising... →
The Liberals say Adrian Dix’s promises have hit $3B, but we found their math doesn’t add up.
Climate change scientist calls Conservatives... →
“I think he’s beginning to get worried because the secretary of state, John Kerry, is well-informed on the climate issue and he knows that his legacy and President Obama’s is going to depend upon whether they open this spigot to these very dirty, unconventional fossil fuels,” Hansen said about Oliver. “We can’t do that without guaranteeing disasters for young...
“the government is misusing private member’s bills because they...”
– Chris Hall: The every-backbencher-with-a-crime-bill week
Conservative citizenship-stripping bill barbaric... →
Stripping a person of citizenship on grounds of alleged misconduct is arbitrary, medieval and serves no valid purpose.
“One positive byproduct of the move to Yahoo is that the SNL clip archive will be...”
– Yahoo yanks Saturday Night Live from Hulu
'The private sector is superior'. Time to move on... →
Private sector dynamism versus public sector inefficiency has been the dominant political narrative of the last few decades. It has supplied the excuse for repeated, one-directional upheaval in many of the services that we rely on, and which are essential to our quality of life. At best, evidence of private sector superiority is missing. At worst, such lazy assumptions can cost lives
David Letterman's Anti-Fracking Rant →
Late Show host David Letterman went on an epic anti-fracking rant Wednesday evening, calling out “greedy oil and gas companies” for ”injecting highly toxic and carcinogenic chemicals” into the ground.
A Senate in the Gun Lobby’s Grip →
A must read:
Senators say they fear the N.R.A. and the gun lobby. But I think that fear must be nothing compared to the fear the first graders in Sandy Hook Elementary School felt as their lives ended in a hail of bullets… still these senators decided to do nothing. Shame on them… Speaking is physically difficult for me. But my feelings are clear: I’m furious. I will not rest until...
Germany bucks global trends by abolishing tuition →
In Germany the great experiment with tuition fees is coming to an end. Seven of the 16 states introduced tuition fees after a federal court ruling in 2005 freed them to do so, but one by one they have undone them. The last two states to charge tuition fees, Bavaria and Lower Saxony, are expected to abolish them in the coming months, making Germany an outlier amid a global trend toward the...
NDP uncovers thousands of privacy breaches... →
there have been at least 3,134 privacy breaches by the federal government over the past ten years, affecting no less than 725,350 Canadians… less than 13% of these recorded breaches were reported to the Privacy Commissioner.
