Multitasking is important...
Sunday, April 10, 2005
Early April, but on the water!
Saturday after playing ultimate at Hart House - thanks Noah for organizing!
Friday, April 08, 2005
Monday, April 04, 2005
Wertheim on Tennis
"I thought I'd pass on this great tennis-related Mitch Hedberg line: 'The depressing thing about tennis is that no matter how much I play, I'll never be as good as a wall. I played a wall once. They're relentless.'"
Thursday, March 31, 2005
The pothole, the cyclists and the lawyer
Hey, this is great. The Star is totally taking this guy to task for being a whiny self-centred moron. Seriously - take your screw-ups like an adult (not like a man, b/c I seriously doubt the Flygurls would appreciate the putdown). Anyway, ordinarily I wouldn't post the entire article, but the star will block access in 14 days and I want to make sure that this is still around. And, if any of my many lawyer acquaintances actually know this putz, tell him to learn how to bike rather than suing a bunch of people doing yeoman's work protecting a little-known but beautiful part of the countryside.
Seriously. This makes me angry (and most of you are fully aware of how passive-aggressive I am, so this is unusual). Take some responsibility for your actions. You choose to bike on a single track trail. You fall. That happens. It's supposed to happen. Otherwise there would be no fear and no challenge and no reward for actually pushing yourself. If you don't want that to happen, don't leave the spin class. Pick up bocce. How is this anyone's fault but his? Frankly, I'm amazed that he didn't opt to sue his bike manufacturer for not outfitting his ride with a pothole detector and avoidance system. Argh.
Thank you Slinger for breathing some common sense into this:
The Kolapore Uplands, 5,000 hectares of the Niagara Escarpment a little south and west of the bottom end of Georgian Bay, is the largest and roughest patch of semi-wilderness left in southern Ontario. Steep and rugged, what isn't cliff face or exposed rock is hardwood forest regrown since being clear-cut a century ago. It is a dreamscape for the craziest risk-takers, and since the 1970s, the University of Toronto Outing Club and the Kolapore Uplands Wilderness Ski Trails Committee have cut 60 kilometres of trails through it that are earnestly posted 'Challenging Ski Trails - Not For Novice Skiers.' They are volunteer organizations; the trails are maintained by volunteers; anybody can use them for free. Costs are covered by donations, which totalled $2,600 this year, and the sale of a trail map without which it is easy to blunder into even greater peril.
Since the volunteers' interest is solely skiing, in seasons when there is no snow the trails are left to fend for themselves. But in the 1990s the mountain bike appeared, and with it the mountain bikers who discovered in Kolapore the hellishly beautiful terrain that makes their testosterone-charged adrenalin bubble and boil. The best (that is, the worst) of the trails earn the highest mountain-biking accolade: radical. Presumably 'totally radical'' would be prying open elevator doors at the CN Tower and biking down the empty shaft. It's unlikely that the lack of maintenance for cycling is considered a drawback.
Then along came James Leone, 31, a Torontonian who, last Aug. 1, was on a trail that bikers grade as "easiest" when, according to documents filed in court, "suddenly and without warning his bicycle came to an abrupt stop" and he was thrown forward, "striking the ground with sudden and violent force." Plunging into a "hole in the ground, the depth, size and location of which constituted an unusual danger" might sound like something that's all in a day's (or five minutes') adventure for a mountain biker, except for one thing: Leone is a lawyer.
As one of the country's foremost legal experts explained to me, the first thing first-year law students learn the first day of civil procedure is, when you sue, "sue everything in sight." Leone is suing the outing club, the ski trails committee, the regional trails network, the local municipality and the province (which owns the land where he encountered the alleged hole) — everything but the sky above and the Earth itself. He wants $1,150,000 in damages for expenses and lost income as a result of a fractured vertebra he says he suffered, while his co-plaintiff — his wife, Ashley, who wasn't biking — "sustained a loss of guidance, care and companionship" she might reasonably have expected if he hadn't run into said hole.
Leone's stated position is that, whether they like it or not, the volunteer organizations and the province, by permitting the trails to exist on its land, are responsible for creating "a situation of danger from which the plaintiff, despite all reasonable efforts and precautions was unable to extricate himself," and that they "failed to take reasonable care to protect the plaintiff from the unusual danger, of which they knew or ought to have known." Leone and his lawyer declined several requests for an interview, so we don't know the answers to three questions I left on his voice mail. Was he alone? Given the seriousness of his injuries, how did he make his way from the site of the wreck? And how much mountain-biking experience did he have, or was this his first time?
These lead to other questions. If a hole in the ground was such a surprise, would he have been better off mountain biking on a sidewalk in Toronto (although holes abound in them)? If the hole was big enough to crack up in, how did he fail to see it if he was "exercising reasonable care for his own safety" as his statement of claim attests?
And how come nobody else crashed into such a big hole, or did they and just figured that's the way it goes?
Certainly skiers have gotten hurt on the trails, some of them local experts, some severely — but nobody has ever sued before. Mountain biking ain't kiddie car. By suing, James Leone might make it so that nobody can do either. Even if he loses, chances are that the limited insurance the volunteer organizations carry will become so expensive they can't afford it, or it won't be available at all. This would force them to stop the work they've done for years. The trails would disappear. It is a curious thing, and it seems to be verging on epidemic — people refusing to accept responsibility for their own actions. If something bad happens to you, even if it happened because you did something beyond your abilities or plain foolish, blame somebody else. Nothing is your fault.
Seriously. This makes me angry (and most of you are fully aware of how passive-aggressive I am, so this is unusual). Take some responsibility for your actions. You choose to bike on a single track trail. You fall. That happens. It's supposed to happen. Otherwise there would be no fear and no challenge and no reward for actually pushing yourself. If you don't want that to happen, don't leave the spin class. Pick up bocce. How is this anyone's fault but his? Frankly, I'm amazed that he didn't opt to sue his bike manufacturer for not outfitting his ride with a pothole detector and avoidance system. Argh.
Thank you Slinger for breathing some common sense into this:
The Kolapore Uplands, 5,000 hectares of the Niagara Escarpment a little south and west of the bottom end of Georgian Bay, is the largest and roughest patch of semi-wilderness left in southern Ontario. Steep and rugged, what isn't cliff face or exposed rock is hardwood forest regrown since being clear-cut a century ago. It is a dreamscape for the craziest risk-takers, and since the 1970s, the University of Toronto Outing Club and the Kolapore Uplands Wilderness Ski Trails Committee have cut 60 kilometres of trails through it that are earnestly posted 'Challenging Ski Trails - Not For Novice Skiers.' They are volunteer organizations; the trails are maintained by volunteers; anybody can use them for free. Costs are covered by donations, which totalled $2,600 this year, and the sale of a trail map without which it is easy to blunder into even greater peril.
Since the volunteers' interest is solely skiing, in seasons when there is no snow the trails are left to fend for themselves. But in the 1990s the mountain bike appeared, and with it the mountain bikers who discovered in Kolapore the hellishly beautiful terrain that makes their testosterone-charged adrenalin bubble and boil. The best (that is, the worst) of the trails earn the highest mountain-biking accolade: radical. Presumably 'totally radical'' would be prying open elevator doors at the CN Tower and biking down the empty shaft. It's unlikely that the lack of maintenance for cycling is considered a drawback.
Then along came James Leone, 31, a Torontonian who, last Aug. 1, was on a trail that bikers grade as "easiest" when, according to documents filed in court, "suddenly and without warning his bicycle came to an abrupt stop" and he was thrown forward, "striking the ground with sudden and violent force." Plunging into a "hole in the ground, the depth, size and location of which constituted an unusual danger" might sound like something that's all in a day's (or five minutes') adventure for a mountain biker, except for one thing: Leone is a lawyer.
As one of the country's foremost legal experts explained to me, the first thing first-year law students learn the first day of civil procedure is, when you sue, "sue everything in sight." Leone is suing the outing club, the ski trails committee, the regional trails network, the local municipality and the province (which owns the land where he encountered the alleged hole) — everything but the sky above and the Earth itself. He wants $1,150,000 in damages for expenses and lost income as a result of a fractured vertebra he says he suffered, while his co-plaintiff — his wife, Ashley, who wasn't biking — "sustained a loss of guidance, care and companionship" she might reasonably have expected if he hadn't run into said hole.
Leone's stated position is that, whether they like it or not, the volunteer organizations and the province, by permitting the trails to exist on its land, are responsible for creating "a situation of danger from which the plaintiff, despite all reasonable efforts and precautions was unable to extricate himself," and that they "failed to take reasonable care to protect the plaintiff from the unusual danger, of which they knew or ought to have known." Leone and his lawyer declined several requests for an interview, so we don't know the answers to three questions I left on his voice mail. Was he alone? Given the seriousness of his injuries, how did he make his way from the site of the wreck? And how much mountain-biking experience did he have, or was this his first time?
These lead to other questions. If a hole in the ground was such a surprise, would he have been better off mountain biking on a sidewalk in Toronto (although holes abound in them)? If the hole was big enough to crack up in, how did he fail to see it if he was "exercising reasonable care for his own safety" as his statement of claim attests?
And how come nobody else crashed into such a big hole, or did they and just figured that's the way it goes?
Certainly skiers have gotten hurt on the trails, some of them local experts, some severely — but nobody has ever sued before. Mountain biking ain't kiddie car. By suing, James Leone might make it so that nobody can do either. Even if he loses, chances are that the limited insurance the volunteer organizations carry will become so expensive they can't afford it, or it won't be available at all. This would force them to stop the work they've done for years. The trails would disappear. It is a curious thing, and it seems to be verging on epidemic — people refusing to accept responsibility for their own actions. If something bad happens to you, even if it happened because you did something beyond your abilities or plain foolish, blame somebody else. Nothing is your fault.
Wednesday, March 30, 2005
Paddling Central Ontario
Toronto
"It's often hard to convince people that you can run white water in the Toronto region let alone the city of Toronto. The Don, the Humber and the Rouge Rivers all have some good white water runs in the in the spring, while nearby Dufferin Creek provides another option.
Humber - II-III/IV. Season March, April and after a long heavy rain. Put In just west of Weston Road just below the 401 - Take Out at Dundas. Located in the western part of the city, the river parallels the 400 before it crosses under the 401. It roughly parallels, and runs west of Jane Street for the remainder of its course. The white water section is located between highway 401 and Dundas Avenue and runs through Weston Golf Clubs before it's back into public greenspace in Cruickshank Park followed by Cruickshank, Lions Raymere, Scarlett Mills then James Gardens, Lambton Woods.
NOTE: There are a series of dams with wicked keepers on route, two are located on the section after the bridges. Scout the whole section and consult with local paddle shops before making a run on any part of this river. The river is prone to deadfalls, strainers and sweepers and the dams are potential killers. "
"It's often hard to convince people that you can run white water in the Toronto region let alone the city of Toronto. The Don, the Humber and the Rouge Rivers all have some good white water runs in the in the spring, while nearby Dufferin Creek provides another option.
Humber - II-III/IV. Season March, April and after a long heavy rain. Put In just west of Weston Road just below the 401 - Take Out at Dundas. Located in the western part of the city, the river parallels the 400 before it crosses under the 401. It roughly parallels, and runs west of Jane Street for the remainder of its course. The white water section is located between highway 401 and Dundas Avenue and runs through Weston Golf Clubs before it's back into public greenspace in Cruickshank Park followed by Cruickshank, Lions Raymere, Scarlett Mills then James Gardens, Lambton Woods.
NOTE: There are a series of dams with wicked keepers on route, two are located on the section after the bridges. Scout the whole section and consult with local paddle shops before making a run on any part of this river. The river is prone to deadfalls, strainers and sweepers and the dams are potential killers. "
Monday, March 28, 2005
Thursday, March 24, 2005
Aaaaarrrrrgggghhhh!
Also, to add to my car saga, I went out last night to drive to a volleyball and it wasn't where I had parked it on First Avenue. Trying not to leap to troubling conclusions, I figured I had confused where I had parked it on Sunday. So, I jogged around the neighbourhood looking for it. No joy. And I'm now late for volleyball. So I call the parking hounds, and it's been towed.
Apparently the parking permit fell off the front window and the parking police issued three tickets (at $30 each) before having it towed ($140).
Apparently the parking permit fell off the front window and the parking police issued three tickets (at $30 each) before having it towed ($140).
Wednesday, March 23, 2005
Monday, March 21, 2005
Wish list
So. Some people have said posting a gift list would be both presumptuous and useful.
Here are some off the top of my head - please keep in mind that no one should feel any pressure to get me any of these items. In general, I'd rather spend time with most of the people who might be reading this (preferably somewhere cool, or unique, or exotic, or convenient, or scenic ) - so if you'd rather play outfitter, and design a trip, well, that'd be good too.
Better cookware
Canoe
Drill
Wetsuit
Sofa or sofa
Ottoman
mp3 player - HD based or flash
Tennis racquet
Art
DVDs
Digital Camera - ideally 5Mb and 10X optical zoom
Some good grips kitchen stuff
Here are some off the top of my head - please keep in mind that no one should feel any pressure to get me any of these items. In general, I'd rather spend time with most of the people who might be reading this (preferably somewhere cool, or unique, or exotic, or convenient, or scenic ) - so if you'd rather play outfitter, and design a trip, well, that'd be good too.
Better cookware
Canoe
Drill
Wetsuit
Sofa or sofa
Ottoman
mp3 player - HD based or flash
Tennis racquet
Art
DVDs
Digital Camera - ideally 5Mb and 10X optical zoom
Some good grips kitchen stuff
A Coder in Courierland
"Oh, right. So you want to be a bike courier? You read this whole article looking for a few simple tips to make the transition easier?" Well, here they are:
- Have two bikes. You don't want to miss a day or two's work every time something fails on your bike and neither do you want some asshole bike thief to deprive you of the ability to pay your bills with one fell swoop of the bolt cutter. Anyway, no matter how fast your primary bike is, it feels nice to switch it up every now and then.
- Buy a map. A good one. No matter how well you think you know the streets, you will be referencing it a lot. So don't buy a folding one, buy one that's bound like a book. Ideally, a water-proof one at that.
- Put some money away from the big paycheques so it doesn't hurt as much when you get the small ones.
- You will fall. Wear a helmet and then don't stress about it. That said: First learn to ride safe, then learn to ride fast.
- Capacity is more important in a bag than style.
- Don't bother packing a lunch the week of hallowe'en. Every secretary's desk will have a bowl of free candy on it.
- And finally: Be best friends with the dispatcher.
Friday, March 18, 2005
Thursday, March 17, 2005
Tuesday, March 15, 2005
The Ides of March
So, Caesar had a bad day a couple of millenia ago, and now my birthday is cursed. But on the upside, at least it sometimes prompts people to remember it. Although frankly, I have my doubts about the siblings. In fact, I'd offer roughly 1:1 odds that neither remembers it, 2.5:1 that one of them remembers enough to make a phone call, and 5:2 that they mailed anything to me.
Not that I'm bitter or anything. Here's an open question - how inappropropriate is it to list gift desires publicly? Now that I've had a job for a while, I've bought a bunch of toys for myself already - and the number of affordable toys I desire is declining somewhat. So, is it bad form? Is it massively presumptuous?
Postscript: not 2 minutes after this was posted, Wallis Minor called :)
Not that I'm bitter or anything. Here's an open question - how inappropropriate is it to list gift desires publicly? Now that I've had a job for a while, I've bought a bunch of toys for myself already - and the number of affordable toys I desire is declining somewhat. So, is it bad form? Is it massively presumptuous?
Postscript: not 2 minutes after this was posted, Wallis Minor called :)
NOW: T.O.'s 100 best bars
NOW's third annual lineup of T.O.'s most essential dives, gin joints and watering holes.
Friday, March 11, 2005
Ragged Falls revisited
A picture from the Ragged Falls post. This is one of the reasons we thought it might be impossible to paddle. Apparently, and not surprisingly, we were wrong.
Thursday, March 10, 2005
PubliCity
And they're having a public show (well, a real-world show).In Toronto alone, there are over 100 documented local
photoblog sites listed on toronto.photobloggers.org (a hub for blog activity in
Toronto), and thousands more from around the world are listed on photoblogs.org
(a global directory of photoblogs and resources).
"Work wife" vs Real life
An essay on that key person you have at work:
"The people we make fun of are the people we don't want to become. By telling a work spouse who we aren't, we're telling her who we are. For many men, this qualifies as intimacy. Admittedly, the intimacy of a work marriage is often based on stuff that no one else would get. With your work spouse, it's all inside jokes and finely honed impersonations that can never be fully appreciated by an outsider. It is the very essence of You Had to Be There. Although a lot of work-spousal activity happens in public places - at a conference table, in a meeting - the mental place you go to in those moments is a zone that no one else, other than you and your work spouse, will ever enter. When someone you both hate does something profoundly annoying or stupid, you look at each other instinctively, move an eyelash or swallow a certain way, and everything is thoroughly grokked and agreed. "
Wednesday, March 09, 2005
In lieu of the NHL, we present Youngblood!
"On the flip side, you can't have a better final game than Youngblood did: Two goals in the final 10 seconds of a championship game (giving you a hat trick), plus, you cold-cock the guy who maimed your friend, and you go home with the coach's daughter. The end. Think about it ... what sports movie character topped that performance in a single night?
Roy Hobbs and Rocky Balboa had to go to the hospital; Paul Crewe had to go back to jail; Danny Noonan was stuck with Maggie; Jimmy Chitwood was stuck in 1950; Henry Steele still had to transfer; Kelly Leak had to drive the Bears all the way back from Houston to California; I mean, you can keep going down the list, and I guarantee that nobody was riding higher than Dean Youngblood that night.
3. That reminds me, in the mid-'80s, Rob Lowe played a champion rower at Oxford, then he played a hard-partying saxophone player, then he played a hotshot Canadian hockey star ... and nobody ever questioned this chain of events. Strange time to be alive.
4. Given that there have been six original hockey movies made over the past 30 years - 'Slapshot', 'Youngblood', 'Mighty Ducks', 'Mystery, Alaska', 'Miracle' and the delightful 'Sudden Death' - and all of these movies are loved by hockey fans to varying degrees, it's safe to say that you can't screw up a hockey movie.
So let's start making more of them, please. Now that professional hockey has done an Exit Stage Right, we need more Russell Crowes and Paul Newmans. We need more Ed Lauters and Kurt Russells. Heck, we even need more Rob Lowes."
Roy Hobbs and Rocky Balboa had to go to the hospital; Paul Crewe had to go back to jail; Danny Noonan was stuck with Maggie; Jimmy Chitwood was stuck in 1950; Henry Steele still had to transfer; Kelly Leak had to drive the Bears all the way back from Houston to California; I mean, you can keep going down the list, and I guarantee that nobody was riding higher than Dean Youngblood that night.
3. That reminds me, in the mid-'80s, Rob Lowe played a champion rower at Oxford, then he played a hard-partying saxophone player, then he played a hotshot Canadian hockey star ... and nobody ever questioned this chain of events. Strange time to be alive.
4. Given that there have been six original hockey movies made over the past 30 years - 'Slapshot', 'Youngblood', 'Mighty Ducks', 'Mystery, Alaska', 'Miracle' and the delightful 'Sudden Death' - and all of these movies are loved by hockey fans to varying degrees, it's safe to say that you can't screw up a hockey movie.
So let's start making more of them, please. Now that professional hockey has done an Exit Stage Right, we need more Russell Crowes and Paul Newmans. We need more Ed Lauters and Kurt Russells. Heck, we even need more Rob Lowes."
Friday, March 04, 2005
First Descent of Ragged Falls
Wow. A bunch of us paddled the Oxtongue River and portaged around this. In fact, we had a lunch next to it. And even though the water levels were reasonably low, this looked completely undoable, in that the risk factor looked lethal.
Thursday, March 03, 2005
Finding The A-team
A practical joke on Craig's List. Great responses.
I love it when a plan comes together!
I love it when a plan comes together!
Wednesday, March 02, 2005
NB - this is not my picture. I borrowed (and I'll link back as soon as I remember) it from here: http://wvs.topleftpixel.com/archives/photos_landscape/050213_1034.shtml where there is a tonne of great shots. Anyway, I did go for a walk here and it is very interesting - although it was better in February, when it was fully icy, like the next shot - also borrowed as I forgot my camera.
Tuesday, March 01, 2005
The Pugly Awards
Fun concept - recognizing the best and worst of 2004's developments in Toronto. And wow, I think I voted 70/30% in favour of thumbs down. Just goes to show that there's a lot of crappy condos/office buildings in Toronto.
Monday, February 28, 2005
Thursday, February 24, 2005
Chilling with the P's
My parents are hanging out here at the moment, where it's a balmy -33 with windchill and calling for a blizzard warning. Good times, good times. Most Canadian parents, if they travel in February, tend to be snowbirds, but not to Iqaluit (formerly Frobisher Bay) to coach the new territory's badminton coaches.
Wednesday, February 23, 2005
Welcome to Smackerel
Look! It's Accordion guy's original home in TO! Read the chapters - for people of a certain age and interest, it's totally a flashback...
Friday, February 18, 2005
Free Stanley
Now that the NHL season has been cancelled, Free Stanley is urging hockey fans to demand that the Stanley Cup trustees, Ian "Scotty" Morrison and Brian O'Neill, award the Stanley Cup this season. Free Stanley believes the Trustees have authority over the Cup and are duty-bound to award it this year. There are numerous scenarios that can be used to decide a worthy hockey champion this season. Free Stanley is asking fans to contact the Trustees and demand a challenge for the Stanley Cup. Email the Trusees at: info@hhof.com
Or send a letter by regular mail to:
Ian "Scotty" Morrison and Brian O'Neill
Stanley Cup Trustees
Hockey Hall of Fame
BCE Place
30 Yonge Street
Toronto, Ontario
Canada M5E 1X8
Or send a letter by regular mail to:
Ian "Scotty" Morrison and Brian O'Neill
Stanley Cup Trustees
Hockey Hall of Fame
BCE Place
30 Yonge Street
Toronto, Ontario
Canada M5E 1X8
Thursday, February 17, 2005
Olympic Ski Jump at the Science Centre?
In 1933, the Toronto Ski Club decided to bring Hogtown in on the action by constructing a 65-foot-tall launch tower in the valley—directly behind where the Ontario Science Centre now stands. The Thorncliffe Ski Jump became the site of several elite international competitions, regularly drawing upward of 10,000 fans
Wednesday, February 16, 2005
Balbulican Ultimate Dismissal chart
Brilliant list of retorts includes:
Category 1: Contradiction Codes
1) Dismissal codes may be used in conjunction with each other. For example, Basic Denial (C-1) can be combined with any of the Derision Series (Category 4, M1 to 4) to devastating effect. Please list in the appropriate order when using multiple dismissal strategies for maximum effect.
Category 1: Contradiction Codes
C-1: Basic Denial (e.g.: That didn’t happen).Category 2: Bullying Codes
C-2: Complex Denial: (e.g.: That can’t possibly be true, because if it were, other unpleasant things that I don’t choose to believe in would be true as well.)
C-3: The Missouri Variant - (e.g.: That might have happened, but you can’t prove it to my satisfaction.)
B-1: Righteous Wrath (e.g.: How DARE you even suggest such a thing about our brave troops/the Pope/the left/me?!)Category 3: Diversion Codes
B-2: Blackmail (e.g.: Don’t you realize that by saying that you’re endangering our brave troops/the credibility of the UN/Western Civilization As We Know It?)
D-1: Burden of Proof Reversal (e.g.; Oh, YEAH? Well, how can you PROVE that their proofs are correct, to MY complete satisfaction?)Category 4: Mockery Codes
D-2: The Red Herring (e.g.; How come you’re ALWAYS picking on my beloved country/President/side of the political spectrum/browser?!)
D-3: Archeoblogogy (e.g.; Three years ago, in another thread on another site on another topic, YOU SAID…)
M-1: Lofty Dismissal (e.g.: There’s a lot of debate on the ‘net about this, most of it low quality – this is just one more example. No need to discuss.)Category 5: Assorted Fallacy Codes
M-3: Mock Deference (e.g.: Oh, right, well, (snort, guffaw) because YOU say so (snicker), it MUST be true (chortle). No need to discuss.)
F-1: Straw Man (e.g.: So in simple words you believe…(insert highly distorted misinterpretation of your opponent’s position here, then triumphantly defeat the stance your opponent never took.)Notes:
1) Dismissal codes may be used in conjunction with each other. For example, Basic Denial (C-1) can be combined with any of the Derision Series (Category 4, M1 to 4) to devastating effect. Please list in the appropriate order when using multiple dismissal strategies for maximum effect.
Tuesday, February 15, 2005
Weekend recap
Friday: watched King Arthur on DVD. The clash between the screenwriter's attempt at revisionist English history and the producers' need for titillation and excitement is pretty, umm, lame. Too bad, esp. as I really like the leads - Kiera Knightly and Clive Owen.
Saturday - brunch north of Orangeville; skate ski at Horseshoe for 20+ km (Katy's climb is hard btw) and then board for four hours.
Sunday - weak brunch on Bloor West West at Caffe Demetre (could have been fine, but they just didn't try very hard), followed by meeting the P's and then xc skiing at Albion Hills, where there was a distinct lack of snow.
Saturday - brunch north of Orangeville; skate ski at Horseshoe for 20+ km (Katy's climb is hard btw) and then board for four hours.
Sunday - weak brunch on Bloor West West at Caffe Demetre (could have been fine, but they just didn't try very hard), followed by meeting the P's and then xc skiing at Albion Hills, where there was a distinct lack of snow.
Monday, February 14, 2005
Montreal - the mecca for private health care
"Montreal, in effect, is now the mecca of private health in Canada, attracting patients from as far away as Vancouver Island."
The funniest line in this article is from the doctor who grimly points out that Quebec would get to push the boundaries because Ottawa will never slap a federalist provincial government down - unlike say, Ralph Klein or Gordon Campbell...
The funniest line in this article is from the doctor who grimly points out that Quebec would get to push the boundaries because Ottawa will never slap a federalist provincial government down - unlike say, Ralph Klein or Gordon Campbell...
Thursday, February 10, 2005
Wednesday, February 09, 2005
Tuesday, February 08, 2005
Not Bad for an Old Guy
Yep, making us young un's look bad. Paul G's account of summer climbing with my dad includes some nice shots of the Premier Range. Go Dad!
Monday, February 07, 2005
Friday, February 04, 2005
Legend of Bode grows
"Racing in the downhill portion of the combined competition (one run of downhill and two runs of slalom scored by cumulative time) at the Alpine World Ski Championships, Miller lost a ski on a low jump 15Damn. That's amazing. The DH races are skied on super-hard, slick, icy runs at sick speeds. Skiing virtually the whole thing on one ski - fast! - is an amazing feat of athleticism. A friend of mine once tried to race the women's DH at Lake Louise. The pro women do it in less than 90 seconds. Granted, it wasn't a closed course, but they got down in something like 3:30. Now try that with one ski !?!
seconds into the course and then skied for roughly 90 seconds over more than a mile of steep, twisting snow on one long, thick downhill ski. Peers in the finish corral marveled at his skill and reveled in the theater. 'He was superb, even on one ski,'' said Austrian downhiller Michael Walchhofer."
Thursday, February 03, 2005
Tuesday, February 01, 2005
Tactical Care
Interesting analysis of the differences b/w civilian care standards and military ones.
Monday, January 31, 2005
going, going...
"We have to face that there are two types of American programmers who are doomed to extinction. First, the bad ones. Traditionally, there have been more exceptionally bad programmers than exceptionally good ones. It's well known that there is something like an order-of-magnitude gap in productivity between the very best programmers and the very worst, but it's less known that the distribution of talent is quite asymmetrical, with a long-tail toward the less-than-competent. The untalented have long survived by coasting in larger teams and being the only game in town for smaller concerns. These are exactly the scenarios that the offshore shops already have firmly in their sights and where the "How much worse could offshoring be?" seed is most likely to find fertile soil.
As the "tail" of unproductive-but-employed programmers is chopped off, the productivity demanded of an employed programmer is going to increase dramatically. Programmers complacent in their skills and tools because they've met programmers who are less productive will quickly find themselves on the edge of the cliff. "
As the "tail" of unproductive-but-employed programmers is chopped off, the productivity demanded of an employed programmer is going to increase dramatically. Programmers complacent in their skills and tools because they've met programmers who are less productive will quickly find themselves on the edge of the cliff. "
Sunday, January 30, 2005
Thursday, January 27, 2005
ESPN.com: Page 2 - Yup ... these are my readers
"Q: I think EA Sports should add a feature to NBA Live: 2006 that would allow players to attack the fans. Imagine being the Heat and taking Shaq into the crowd to kill 15 people?--Dan, New Brunswick
SG: Couldn't they just merge NBA Live and Grand Theft Auto and set it in Portland? Not only could you try to win the NBA title with the Blazers, but you could have missions between games: Raise pit bulls to fight against Qyntel Woods and his dogs; steal pot from Damon Stoudamire; fight the Portland police when they catch you asleep in your car at 4 a.m.; frame Ruben Patterson for a felony assault; switch your urine with the ballboy's urine before an unexpected drug test; assassinate Dick Bavetta before he referees your game against the Knicks; and so on. And during games, you could inexplicably charge into the stands and start punching spectators -- it would be just like randomly attacking people in Grand Theft Auto. Of course, the ultimate goal would be to overthrow David Stern and take over the league.
SG: Couldn't they just merge NBA Live and Grand Theft Auto and set it in Portland? Not only could you try to win the NBA title with the Blazers, but you could have missions between games: Raise pit bulls to fight against Qyntel Woods and his dogs; steal pot from Damon Stoudamire; fight the Portland police when they catch you asleep in your car at 4 a.m.; frame Ruben Patterson for a felony assault; switch your urine with the ballboy's urine before an unexpected drug test; assassinate Dick Bavetta before he referees your game against the Knicks; and so on. And during games, you could inexplicably charge into the stands and start punching spectators -- it would be just like randomly attacking people in Grand Theft Auto. Of course, the ultimate goal would be to overthrow David Stern and take over the league.
Wednesday, January 26, 2005
The alarm clock that physically drags you out of bed
Brilliant.
When the alarm chimes in the morning, you must reach up and tap the Sfera to silence it. Which triggers the snooze function and makes the alarm rise higher. As it slowly rises away from your reach, you must stretch higher each time to gain another ten minutes of snooze.
When the alarm chimes in the morning, you must reach up and tap the Sfera to silence it. Which triggers the snooze function and makes the alarm rise higher. As it slowly rises away from your reach, you must stretch higher each time to gain another ten minutes of snooze.
Globetechnology: Microsoft to restrict fixes
Not that I'm admitting or denying anything here, but oh uh.
Tuesday, January 25, 2005
Monday, January 24, 2005
First Nonsmoking Nation - Bhutan banned tobacco
This, to me, makes more sense than the creeping encroaching ban on smoking that Canada is taking. Seriously - why is tobacco banned in most enclosed public places? The whole marijuana vs tobacco false dichotomy? Bah. But once again, good on Bhutan for following the path of its own drummer. First there was GNH vs GDP, and now this...
Friday, January 21, 2005
Thursday, January 20, 2005
Thin edge of the wedge?
From Canada.com
Just weeks before it introduces divisive same-sex marriage legislation, the federal government has launched an urgent study into the legal and social ramifications of polygamy. Critics say the study
underscores a deep concern in the Martin government that legalized homosexual marriage may lead to constitutional challenges from minority groups who claim polygamy as a religious right.
It also suggests that the government is suspicious that multi-marriage is more commonplace in Canada than widely realized. Polygamy, outlawed in Canada but accepted and practised in many countries, typically means a man having several wives at the same time. "In order to best prepare for possible debate surrounding Canada's polygamy policy, critical research is needed," says a Status of Women Canada document. "It is vital that researchers explore the impacts of polygamy on women and children and gender equality as well as the challenges that polygamy presents to society."
Conservative party justice critic Vic Toews says there is a direct link between the Status of Women concern and the same-sex marriage legislation due to be introduced by the government in February.
"This government understands it has a problem on its hands," said Mr. Toews, a former Manitoba
constitutional lawyer. "What they are looking for is evidence to demonstrate that polygamy is inconsistent with Charter and Canadian values. If I was a lawyer prosecuting a polygamist that's the type of evidence I would be looking for."
Sayd Mumtaz Ali, president of the Canadian Society of Muslims, said he opposes same-sex marriage but said if it is legalized in Canada, polygamists would also be within their rights to challenge for their choice of family life to be legalized. "This is a liberally minded country with regards to equal rights," said Mr. Ali. "And literally millions live common law." Multiple marriage is legal in most Muslim countries, he said, but a Muslim man who takes more than one wife must prove to a court that he is capable of treating them all equally. He said he knows of some "but not too many" Muslims who live in
Canada with more than one wife but knows of no situation where the wives are unwilling, or unhappy, participants in the arrangement. But Mr. Ali said he has not detected any significant support among Muslims for a constitutional challenge. "To my knowledge there is no plan to push for this,' he said.
But when same-sex marriage becomes legal, the door will open to more Charter challenges, said Conservative critic Mr. Toews. "Once you change the definition of marriage from one man and one woman and you move to two persons," he said, "what then is the distinction between two persons, or three or more persons? If I was a lawyer defending polygamists, I'd say 'hey this is a constitutional
right, a freedom of religion.' Why can't freedom of religion trump this new definition of marriage?"
Wednesday, January 19, 2005
Beastiemania Lyric Archive
Just a little obsessive, but if you wanted to know just which DJ dropped a 'lil Thurston Howelling in which song on which CD, well, now you know...
NYT :: Skiers Risk Answering the Call of Their Wild Side
This is a relatively balanced article on the risks of out of bounds skiing. I liked hearing from those who were irked by the disasters because it stood a chance of endangering other people's access rights.
Really, it's too bad that people are so litigious these days. We should all have the right to launch ourselves off cliffs without other people being afraid :)
January 19, 2005
Skiers Risk Answering the Call of Their Wild Side
By KIRK JOHNSON
ARK CITY, Utah, Jan. 18 - The solo skier or snowboarder cutting virgin tracks through the deep powder on a steep mountain slope has become a signature and symbol of the Western tourism industry - heady with its mixture of freedom, beauty and rugged individualism.
But that seductive image may be encouraging more and more people - many without much experience or training - to venture beyond the relative safety of the big resorts, risking harm to themselves and others, skiers and backcountry experts say. Seven people have died in backcountry avalanches in Utah alone since the season started, more deaths than there have been in any other year since 1950.
"They built the lifts and they pushed the powder," said Bob Athey, a backcountry veteran who was preparing Tuesday morning, as he does just about every day, to ski by himself into the woods near the Alta Ski Resort. "But then you have more skiers, which dampens down the powder, and that means the people who do want it have to go out of bounds to get it."
In the past few years, the ski industry has responded to a hunger for untrammeled terrain. Alpine touring, which allows a skier to hike like a cross-country skier, or lock the boot down for traditional downhill skiing, has become one of the fastest-growing categories in winter sports, industry officials say. Traditional ski makers like Atomic have expanded into the new market, and boot makers that once served only mountain climbers have retooled as well. The American Alpine Institute, a climbing school and guide service in Bellingham, Wash., estimates that off-road skiing, as it might be called, is growing three to five times faster than the traditional downhill sport.
But there is a deep culture clash at the heart of this new phenomenon. Many people who identify themselves as backcountry skiers - knowledgeable about the risks, trained in survival skills and never without an electronic homing device to help people find them if they are buried by snow - look with barely concealed disdain at what they call the "out of bounds" skier, who simply rides the chairlift up, disregards the warning signs and ducks under the rope.
The 27-year-old man who died here Friday, Shane Maixner, found still on his snowboard under four feet of snow near the Canyons Resort, was an out-of-bounder who apparently reached the place of his death through a gate on the resort boundary marked with a prominent skull and crossbones. The gate, which leads onto public land, is unlocked and unguarded, and its location is clearly marked on resort maps.
Mr. Maixner was not carrying any of the recommended backcountry survival gear. "You can't sugarcoat it or people will never learn," said Patrick Ormond, a mountain guide who lives here in Park City. "Once you cross that gate, if you're unprepared, you cross the line from ignorance to recklessness."
But other backcountry skiers, dyed deep with the free-will ethic that imbues their sport, say that individual decisions and their consequences are all that matter. Life is a calculated risk, they say, and an out-of-bounds skier, however unprepared, has made a choice. That fact must be respected, they say.
"They got killed doing something they like," said Charlie Sturgis, a ski tour guide who manages an outdoor outfitting store here called White Pine Touring, referring to the recent skier deaths. "That beats hanging out the front of a windshield."
Other backcountry skiers are simply angry. Access into national forests and other public land is already tighter than ever, they say, as private property and resort development have encircled mountain areas in the West. Reckless people, they say, give careful people a bad name - and create an excuse for landowners who might want to close roads or trails. "Besides putting rescuers in danger, our access could be hurt," said Brent Sherry, a college student in Salt Lake City who skis both the backcountry and the resorts. "I think that could be a real issue."
Avalanche experts say that the recipe for a snowslide is simple: different storms deposit different layers on a mountain, some with wetter snow and some with drier powder, and the terrain is safe only when the layers bond, like a layer cake, usually with a few days of warm sun. Experienced skiers say they venture out only after digging a snow trench to see how well the pack has congealed. And any slope steeper than 30 degrees is double prone to slide, they say. Dutch Draw, where the slide occurred last Friday outside the Canyons Resort, has a slope of 37 degrees to 38 degrees.
Other skiers say it is not about the snow or the slope, but about decision making. Some people have a hard time backing away, or backing down, even if they are able to read the dangers. It is a problem that men, in particular, are apparently prone to. Of the 629 people killed in the United States by avalanches since 1950 whose sex was determined, only about one in 10 were women, according to the Colorado Avalanche Information Center in Boulder.
"Ninety-nine percent of the problem is testosterone poisoning," said Larry Guild, a skier from Amherst, Mass., who was on vacation in Utah and preparing on Tuesday to depart for Utah's backcountry for the first time. Mr. Guild said he was going with a guide and would not have it any other way. "There's no way I'd go up there by myself," he said, nodding his head to the mountains towering above the road where his group had parked.
Other people said that intuition was what could save a person in the wild and that there was only one way to get it - through years of experience. Sex does not matter, they say. "My husband has tried to develop a sixth sense about avalanches, and I usually defer to him," said Julie Cooke, who lives in Alta and was walking Tuesday morning past the backcountry access trailhead near her home. Ms. Cooke, who said her husband had been skiing the backcountry for 30 years, has not felt right going out since the last big wave of storms and said she would probably just wait a bit longer still, until she and her husband were sure.
With their grooming equipment and ever-present ski patrols, mountain resorts project an aura of safety that can obscure the risks beyond the borders of a flimsy fence, some skiers say, especially when the snow might look, to the untrained eye, about the same on either side. Others say that in the blur of warnings and precautions that modern society requires on so many things it is easier than ever to dismiss an avalanche danger sign as the work of lawyers or fussy government monitors, however dire the language. "There's a lot of stuff that can get you killed, but when you're in a ski resort, you don't have that expectation," said Mr. Sturgis, the tour guide and store manager.
Referring to the backcountry access point near the summit at Canyons Resort, he added that he thought that most of the people who went past the gate believed they were merely extending the resort experience.
Police officials say there is also the question of how to enforce the rules. The Summit County sheriff, Dave Edmunds, whose jurisdiction includes the Park City resorts, said that leaving a resort to ski onto someone's private property, for example, was an easy one - that is trespassing. But public lands outside a resort, like the Dutch Draw area where the big slide hit last week, are far trickier. The public has a right to be there, Sheriff Edmunds said, unless individuals have violated some other law along the way.
"If you're an adult and you want to go and risk your life, it's your business," he said. "We just have to clean up the mess."
Really, it's too bad that people are so litigious these days. We should all have the right to launch ourselves off cliffs without other people being afraid :)
January 19, 2005
Skiers Risk Answering the Call of Their Wild Side
By KIRK JOHNSON
ARK CITY, Utah, Jan. 18 - The solo skier or snowboarder cutting virgin tracks through the deep powder on a steep mountain slope has become a signature and symbol of the Western tourism industry - heady with its mixture of freedom, beauty and rugged individualism.
But that seductive image may be encouraging more and more people - many without much experience or training - to venture beyond the relative safety of the big resorts, risking harm to themselves and others, skiers and backcountry experts say. Seven people have died in backcountry avalanches in Utah alone since the season started, more deaths than there have been in any other year since 1950.
"They built the lifts and they pushed the powder," said Bob Athey, a backcountry veteran who was preparing Tuesday morning, as he does just about every day, to ski by himself into the woods near the Alta Ski Resort. "But then you have more skiers, which dampens down the powder, and that means the people who do want it have to go out of bounds to get it."
In the past few years, the ski industry has responded to a hunger for untrammeled terrain. Alpine touring, which allows a skier to hike like a cross-country skier, or lock the boot down for traditional downhill skiing, has become one of the fastest-growing categories in winter sports, industry officials say. Traditional ski makers like Atomic have expanded into the new market, and boot makers that once served only mountain climbers have retooled as well. The American Alpine Institute, a climbing school and guide service in Bellingham, Wash., estimates that off-road skiing, as it might be called, is growing three to five times faster than the traditional downhill sport.
But there is a deep culture clash at the heart of this new phenomenon. Many people who identify themselves as backcountry skiers - knowledgeable about the risks, trained in survival skills and never without an electronic homing device to help people find them if they are buried by snow - look with barely concealed disdain at what they call the "out of bounds" skier, who simply rides the chairlift up, disregards the warning signs and ducks under the rope.
The 27-year-old man who died here Friday, Shane Maixner, found still on his snowboard under four feet of snow near the Canyons Resort, was an out-of-bounder who apparently reached the place of his death through a gate on the resort boundary marked with a prominent skull and crossbones. The gate, which leads onto public land, is unlocked and unguarded, and its location is clearly marked on resort maps.
Mr. Maixner was not carrying any of the recommended backcountry survival gear. "You can't sugarcoat it or people will never learn," said Patrick Ormond, a mountain guide who lives here in Park City. "Once you cross that gate, if you're unprepared, you cross the line from ignorance to recklessness."
But other backcountry skiers, dyed deep with the free-will ethic that imbues their sport, say that individual decisions and their consequences are all that matter. Life is a calculated risk, they say, and an out-of-bounds skier, however unprepared, has made a choice. That fact must be respected, they say.
"They got killed doing something they like," said Charlie Sturgis, a ski tour guide who manages an outdoor outfitting store here called White Pine Touring, referring to the recent skier deaths. "That beats hanging out the front of a windshield."
Other backcountry skiers are simply angry. Access into national forests and other public land is already tighter than ever, they say, as private property and resort development have encircled mountain areas in the West. Reckless people, they say, give careful people a bad name - and create an excuse for landowners who might want to close roads or trails. "Besides putting rescuers in danger, our access could be hurt," said Brent Sherry, a college student in Salt Lake City who skis both the backcountry and the resorts. "I think that could be a real issue."
Avalanche experts say that the recipe for a snowslide is simple: different storms deposit different layers on a mountain, some with wetter snow and some with drier powder, and the terrain is safe only when the layers bond, like a layer cake, usually with a few days of warm sun. Experienced skiers say they venture out only after digging a snow trench to see how well the pack has congealed. And any slope steeper than 30 degrees is double prone to slide, they say. Dutch Draw, where the slide occurred last Friday outside the Canyons Resort, has a slope of 37 degrees to 38 degrees.
Other skiers say it is not about the snow or the slope, but about decision making. Some people have a hard time backing away, or backing down, even if they are able to read the dangers. It is a problem that men, in particular, are apparently prone to. Of the 629 people killed in the United States by avalanches since 1950 whose sex was determined, only about one in 10 were women, according to the Colorado Avalanche Information Center in Boulder.
"Ninety-nine percent of the problem is testosterone poisoning," said Larry Guild, a skier from Amherst, Mass., who was on vacation in Utah and preparing on Tuesday to depart for Utah's backcountry for the first time. Mr. Guild said he was going with a guide and would not have it any other way. "There's no way I'd go up there by myself," he said, nodding his head to the mountains towering above the road where his group had parked.
Other people said that intuition was what could save a person in the wild and that there was only one way to get it - through years of experience. Sex does not matter, they say. "My husband has tried to develop a sixth sense about avalanches, and I usually defer to him," said Julie Cooke, who lives in Alta and was walking Tuesday morning past the backcountry access trailhead near her home. Ms. Cooke, who said her husband had been skiing the backcountry for 30 years, has not felt right going out since the last big wave of storms and said she would probably just wait a bit longer still, until she and her husband were sure.
With their grooming equipment and ever-present ski patrols, mountain resorts project an aura of safety that can obscure the risks beyond the borders of a flimsy fence, some skiers say, especially when the snow might look, to the untrained eye, about the same on either side. Others say that in the blur of warnings and precautions that modern society requires on so many things it is easier than ever to dismiss an avalanche danger sign as the work of lawyers or fussy government monitors, however dire the language. "There's a lot of stuff that can get you killed, but when you're in a ski resort, you don't have that expectation," said Mr. Sturgis, the tour guide and store manager.
Referring to the backcountry access point near the summit at Canyons Resort, he added that he thought that most of the people who went past the gate believed they were merely extending the resort experience.
Police officials say there is also the question of how to enforce the rules. The Summit County sheriff, Dave Edmunds, whose jurisdiction includes the Park City resorts, said that leaving a resort to ski onto someone's private property, for example, was an easy one - that is trespassing. But public lands outside a resort, like the Dutch Draw area where the big slide hit last week, are far trickier. The public has a right to be there, Sheriff Edmunds said, unless individuals have violated some other law along the way.
"If you're an adult and you want to go and risk your life, it's your business," he said. "We just have to clean up the mess."
Tuesday, January 18, 2005
Production and Overproduction
* the challenge facing academics today is how to “overproduce with dignity”.
* A big part of the problem is the way that academic institutions think about and measure productivity. It’s become increasingly common for state legislatures to hammer public institutions for more and more quantitative evidence of productivity, but even at institutions which do not have to answer to legislators, various metrics of productivity have become more and more common.
* What ends up being measured, however? First, the productivity of scholarship: numbers of things published and disseminated, grant monies secured, quantities of fellowships and memberships. In suggesting that the status quo of such productivity lacks (and needs) dignity, John Holbo is pointing to the core of some of academia’s worst ills. The drive to scholarly overproduction which now reaches even the least selective institutions and touches every corner and niche of academia is a key underlying source of the degradation of the entire scholarly enterprise. It produces repetition. It encourages obscurantism. It forces overspecialization as a strategy for controlling the domains to which one is responsible as a scholar and teacher.
* You can’t blame anyone in particular for this. Everyone is doing the simple thing, the required thing, when they publish the same chapter from an upcoming manuscript in six different journals, when they go out on the conference circuit, when they churn out iterations of the same project in five different manuscripts over ten years. None of that takes conscious effort: it’s just being swept along by an irresistible tide. It’s the result of a rigged market: it’s as if some gigantic institutional machinery has placed an order for scholarship by the truckload regardless of whether it’s wanted or needed. It’s like the world’s worst Five-Year Plan ever: a mountain of gaskets without any machines to place them in.
* You could try to contest this if you wanted to measure academic productivity by looking to the importance or significance of particular scholarly work. But even that inevitably will lead to some ghastly results, whether you use a citation index or Google Scholar.
* So my simple suggestion is this: stop. Administrations and faculties need to stop caring how much someone writes or publishes or says, or even how important what they’ve published is according to some measurable or quantifiable metric. Not only because trying to measure productivity in terms of scholarship destroys scholarship, but because it detracts from the truly important kind of productivity in an academic institution.
* What really matters is this: how different are your students when they graduate from what they would have been had they not attended your institution, and how clearly can you attribute that difference to the things that you actively do in your classrooms and your institution as a whole? What, in short, did you teach them that they would not have otherwise known? How did you change them as people in a way that has some positive connection to their later lives?
* It’s the only productivity that matters, however we try to measure or account for it. What do we do by design that we can reasonably say produces a positive, identifiable difference in the lives of our students and our wider community? Scholarship enters that question somewhere, but hardly at all in the ghastly spew of excess publication that contemporary academia demands.
* A big part of the problem is the way that academic institutions think about and measure productivity. It’s become increasingly common for state legislatures to hammer public institutions for more and more quantitative evidence of productivity, but even at institutions which do not have to answer to legislators, various metrics of productivity have become more and more common.
* What ends up being measured, however? First, the productivity of scholarship: numbers of things published and disseminated, grant monies secured, quantities of fellowships and memberships. In suggesting that the status quo of such productivity lacks (and needs) dignity, John Holbo is pointing to the core of some of academia’s worst ills. The drive to scholarly overproduction which now reaches even the least selective institutions and touches every corner and niche of academia is a key underlying source of the degradation of the entire scholarly enterprise. It produces repetition. It encourages obscurantism. It forces overspecialization as a strategy for controlling the domains to which one is responsible as a scholar and teacher.
* You can’t blame anyone in particular for this. Everyone is doing the simple thing, the required thing, when they publish the same chapter from an upcoming manuscript in six different journals, when they go out on the conference circuit, when they churn out iterations of the same project in five different manuscripts over ten years. None of that takes conscious effort: it’s just being swept along by an irresistible tide. It’s the result of a rigged market: it’s as if some gigantic institutional machinery has placed an order for scholarship by the truckload regardless of whether it’s wanted or needed. It’s like the world’s worst Five-Year Plan ever: a mountain of gaskets without any machines to place them in.
* You could try to contest this if you wanted to measure academic productivity by looking to the importance or significance of particular scholarly work. But even that inevitably will lead to some ghastly results, whether you use a citation index or Google Scholar.
* So my simple suggestion is this: stop. Administrations and faculties need to stop caring how much someone writes or publishes or says, or even how important what they’ve published is according to some measurable or quantifiable metric. Not only because trying to measure productivity in terms of scholarship destroys scholarship, but because it detracts from the truly important kind of productivity in an academic institution.
* What really matters is this: how different are your students when they graduate from what they would have been had they not attended your institution, and how clearly can you attribute that difference to the things that you actively do in your classrooms and your institution as a whole? What, in short, did you teach them that they would not have otherwise known? How did you change them as people in a way that has some positive connection to their later lives?
* It’s the only productivity that matters, however we try to measure or account for it. What do we do by design that we can reasonably say produces a positive, identifiable difference in the lives of our students and our wider community? Scholarship enters that question somewhere, but hardly at all in the ghastly spew of excess publication that contemporary academia demands.
s p a c i n g : : : whose space is public space?
On a related note, played shinny at Christie Pits on Saturday. There were only 8 people out there.
Disc Withdrawal
Check out the final moment of this clip. Sweet grab, but I hope he has health benefits for that separated shoulder...
Monday, January 17, 2005
Bloody Sundays - PittsburghLIVE.com
Bloody Sundays - PittsburghLIVE.com: "'You want to know how hard you're hit? If you're a running back, and you're hit full-speed, he can literally knock the feces out of your bowels. You lose all feeling in your limbs. That's how hard they hit in the NFL,' said Merrill Hoge, a former Steelers and Bears running back forced out of the game in 1995 because of a devastating series of concussions. "
Wednesday, January 12, 2005
Research :: itbusiness.ca
The, umm, highlights?
Most enterprises customers, however, will likely take the same approach to market research as they have to establishing vendor partners: they'll winnow them down as much as possible, and in many cases will seek out those with the broadest portfolio of expertise. That doesn't mean there isn't any room for differentiation. I tend to see IDC, for example, as the best place to find overall market statistics on IT spending, including hardware and software sales. Gartner seems better at assessing industry trends like utility computing. Forrester, meanwhile, has some highly sophisticated practices aroundWell. I have no comment. None. Nada. Rien. Let's the facts stand. Yep. No idea what he could mean by "No obvious replacements." That's crazy talk. As Bill the Cat would say, "Cough. Oop Ack."
specific vertical markets like finance. All of them offer everything, but each has subjects in which they stand out. More than most industries, analyst firms are truly a product of their employees.
Nurturing those employees and maintaining morale may be the most important element in the integration process at Gartner and Meta, which probably ruffled feathers when they said their merger
is intended to achieve "operational efficiencies" -- you don't have to be an analyst to know what that means. Even at IDC Canada, which so far has stayed away from acquisition activity, several long-standing analysts have fled, with no obvious replacements. These are people, after all, who are used to assessing the future. In the short-term, the forecast doesn't look good.
Monday, January 10, 2005
Googling Malcolm Gladwell :: Better Living Centre
One of the better easy-to-read pop/tech/sociology/anthrolopogy authors out there - and he's from Canada too!
How to Take Down a Christmas Tree :: Bow. James Bow
Doesn't apply to me this year, but brings back fond memories of Xmas' past. Including the story I heard about two of the nicest, kindest, most considerate people I know dropping their xmas tree of their balcony, which was 8-10 stories up.
Wednesday, January 05, 2005
Recently Read:: Lorraine Adam's Harbor
I liked it. But then again, I'm still at work at 8:30 on a Wednesday. So, while I sit on hold, trying to get Budget Rent-A-Car to mail the CDs I left in the car, I'll tag the following reviews that articulate why it was a good book.
The characters:
List of reviews:
Oh - I did reach someone in Calgary. But, no, they've gone home for the day.
The characters:
He and his friends go clubbing in shoplifted suits, fall in love, try to figure out American body language and slang and often get it wrong. They get fake papers, commit minor insurance fraud, live on the edge, always terrified of the authorities. Adams draws her characters with compassion and humor, taking us inside their heads by means of an invented idiom crafted from her protagonists' fractured English and fluid Arabic cadences, at once poetic and deliberately ungainly: "But Rafik this early was asleep," Aziz thinks. Or "the acrid of bus bellied up to them."A review by a Muslim blog
List of reviews:
Oh - I did reach someone in Calgary. But, no, they've gone home for the day.
Tuesday, January 04, 2005
Requiem for a Cop :: Dana Stevens
Seems sort of silly that I'm focusing on Orbach in light of global events, so this is the second last post on the topic.
Monday, January 03, 2005
Flit on DART
A variety of commentators have snapped at the Cdn government's seemingly slow response time to the tsunami tragedy. This is an excellent explanation of the historic policy choices that serve to constrain our possible actions now. It also offers up an interesting dilemma for the Liberal party - historically, the Grits have been fairly anti-CF (dating right back to the decision to smush the arms of the military into one). This goes along with their theories about violence (they're against the state's use of violence - with the possible exception of using it against other Liberals). However, the downsizing of the Canadian military now serves to limit Canada's ability to 1) matter in the world (not a big deal to most Grits, who have managed to come up with a number of clever theories to get around the "feet on the ground" maxim, such as Axworthy's "soft power"); and 2) to have a humanitarian influence in the world - which is part and parcel of the Canadian mythology/iconology.
Anyway, worth reading. The nut graf is here:
Similarly, I liked Paul Wells' evisceration of the media's fixation of cdn cabinet meetings as a viable response to this tragedy. I mean, do you really think that Joe Comuzzi is going to help the Sri Lankans? Will Liza Frulla want to defer this to the relevant Quebec minister (actually, given that Alberta, BC and Ontario have all beaten the feds to the mark - don't answer that)? Can Stephane Dion pen a stiffly worded missive to Mother Nature, reminding her of her statutory duties? Does this mean that Judy Sgro will now have Thai strippers working in her office and on her re-election campaign instead of Romanians? Can Ken Dryden get his Dad to send more sleeping kits?
Seriously, I realize that Blackberries are banned in Cabinet meetings - but one would think that they are still used outside the Langevin Block. Face to face meetings weren't and aren't necessary in this case.
Anyway, worth reading. The nut graf is here:
Starting with the McCallum years, we officially became "hotspot" averse. (Regarding strategic airlift, his now famous line was "No one has yet been able to give me a single instance where the absence of this capability stopped us or significantly delayed us moving people or equipment from point A to point B." Well, we've got a single instance now.)
Unfortunately, as was commented on at the time, that mentality makes it now effectively impossible to deploy in natural disaster scenarios, as well. DART, an Eggleton "first-in" project, has atrophied to the point where it proved undeployable even to Haiti during the hurricanes last year. If all this makes you wonder how effective the CF might be if that earthquake had been off of Vancouver Island, instead of Aceh, well, you probably should wonder. It's certainly not encouraging. Hopefully the Americans will have an aircraft carrier free then, too.
The good people of Port Alberni might want to flinch.
If I have time, I might skim through the army.ca forums to see what the people who actually know think.Similarly, I liked Paul Wells' evisceration of the media's fixation of cdn cabinet meetings as a viable response to this tragedy. I mean, do you really think that Joe Comuzzi is going to help the Sri Lankans? Will Liza Frulla want to defer this to the relevant Quebec minister (actually, given that Alberta, BC and Ontario have all beaten the feds to the mark - don't answer that)? Can Stephane Dion pen a stiffly worded missive to Mother Nature, reminding her of her statutory duties? Does this mean that Judy Sgro will now have Thai strippers working in her office and on her re-election campaign instead of Romanians? Can Ken Dryden get his Dad to send more sleeping kits?
Seriously, I realize that Blackberries are banned in Cabinet meetings - but one would think that they are still used outside the Langevin Block. Face to face meetings weren't and aren't necessary in this case.
Sunday, January 02, 2005
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