Slashdot Mirror

..... "Only penguins would go up against Darth Vader"

http://archives.cbc.ca/IDD-1-71-1794/conflict_war/ hiroshima/

It's a sad day in the history of humanity. The cruelty that we visit upon each other should never be forgotten.

--jeff++

the program is based on this book:

http://www.operationhollywood.org/

and is produced by CBC:

http://www.cbc.ca/passionateeyesunday/feature_2410 04.html

Since the link is down, here's another article.

Pictures of Repliee. The android behind her doesn't appear too lifelike, though.

It appears that the Osaka lab has been /.ed. Might be interesting once everything settles down.

Could not find the link on BBC (I know it's there somewhere), but found this on CBC web site. Pretty sure it's the radio show but do double check. http://www.cbc.ca/quirks/archives/04-05/may07.html #1

http://vancouver.cbc.ca/regional/servlet/View?file name=bc_telus-cable20050725

Leading up to this dispute Telus has provoked the union in a number of ways leading to the Canada Labour Relations Board finding against Telus of "bargaining in bad faith".

http://www.cirb-ccri.gc.ca/whatsnew/LD1291_e.pdf

In war truth is the first casuality. In this dispute it looks like intelligence is the one getting hurt.

Plenty of articles reporting this---such as this one---give specific information on what Telus objects to on the blocked website:

"the company said the site suggested striking workers jam Telus phone lines, and posted pictures of employees crossing the union picket lines.

Telus spokesman Drew Mcarthur said advocating jamming lines hurt the company, and access to the pictures threatened the privacy and safety of employees."

However, I have to agree with everyone who says this was a deeply stupid idea. Several phone lines supplying communities of hundreds of people have been cut (see same link), which one would expect Telus to use to turn public opinion against the locked-out union members. As it is, they've committed a massive PR blunder---one that has now been picked up by national news services in Canada and widely distributed---that will weigh against them for (literally) years when people decide whether to use their service. According to comments on the union web site (unblocked proxy here), that's already started to happen. It's like they're trying to disprove the idea that no publicity is bad publicity...

It should also be interesting to see whether this is legal. While the Charter doesn't directly prevent censorship by private entities, Telus has a regional monopoly on local telephone service, and so quite possibly may be vulnerable to legal measures.

TELUS defends their actions in terms of not allowing access to "harfmful"/legally questionable (in their opinion) content like pictures of employees who cross the picket lines and the site encouraging people to "jam the phone lines" at TELUS. In their Terms of Service for their internet service, TELUS does say:

45. You acknowledge that TELUS has no obligation to censor or monitor use of the TELUS Internet Services by you, any customer or any third party, including, without limitation, any obligation to censor or monitor any content, material or other information sent, received or accessible through the TELUS Internet Services or the Internet. However, you agree that TELUS has the right to, without notice, monitor use of the TELUS Internet Services and monitor, review and retain such content, material or information if TELUS believes in good faith that such activity is reasonably necessary to provide the TELUS Internet Services to customers, ensure adherence to or enforce the terms of this Agreement, comply with any laws or regulations, respond to any allegation of illegal conduct or claimed violation of third party rights, or protect itself or others.

Mod parent up! =P

Yes, I am proxying the site.. but it appears that the main site is actually down and having issues.

http://vancouver.cbc.ca/regional/servlet/View?file name=bc_telus20050725

From My box:
traceroute to www.voices-for-change.com (204.14.106.29), 30 hops max, 38 byte packets
1 192.168.196.43 (192.168.96.43) 1.372 ms 1.211 ms 1.144 ms
2 * * *

From a friend of mine (A telus business customer in another city):

traceroute to www.voices-for-change.com (204.14.106.29), 30 hops max, 38 byte packets
1 10.X.Y.9 (10.X.Y.9) 11.937 ms 9.774 ms 9.080 ms
2 192.168.X.Y (192.168.X.Y) 6.888 ms 10.091 ms 9.272 ms
3 REDACTED.bb.telus.com (209.115.XX.XX) 175.486 ms 108.097 ms 203.427 ms
4 * * *

SSHing to a non-telus IP, I can access the website directly.

ping www.voices-for-change.com
PING www.voices-for-change.com (204.14.106.29): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 204.14.106.29: icmp_seq=0 ttl=115 time=107.100 ms
64 bytes from 204.14.106.29: icmp_seq=1 ttl=115 time=107.068 ms

Oops, sorry. Links:

Telus cuts subscriber access to pro-union website

Telus to implement most recent offer to union (NB: this was a unilateral move)

Telus wins injunction against striking workers

That second link is the kicker. This little spat has been going on for quite a long time and is, quite frankly, getting tiresome. Between Telus and the ongoing Bell Canada strike, it's amazing that we here in Canada still have a working telephone network. And by working, I mean one that hasn't fallen into a complete state of misrepair, though I am having a hell of a time in getting a repair guy to come out and fix the extensions upstairs in my house. (I pay a couple bucks a month in insurance, so they can bloody well fix it.)

NB: I am a less than please Telus cellular customer.

Oops, sorry. Links:

Telus cuts subscriber access to pro-union website

Telus to implement most recent offer to union (NB: this was a unilateral move)

Telus wins injunction against striking workers

That second link is the kicker. This little spat has been going on for quite a long time and is, quite frankly, getting tiresome. Between Telus and the ongoing Bell Canada strike, it's amazing that we here in Canada still have a working telephone network. And by working, I mean one that hasn't fallen into a complete state of misrepair, though I am having a hell of a time in getting a repair guy to come out and fix the extensions upstairs in my house. (I pay a couple bucks a month in insurance, so they can bloody well fix it.)

NB: I am a less than please Telus cellular customer.

Oops, sorry. Links:

Telus cuts subscriber access to pro-union website

Telus to implement most recent offer to union (NB: this was a unilateral move)

Telus wins injunction against striking workers

That second link is the kicker. This little spat has been going on for quite a long time and is, quite frankly, getting tiresome. Between Telus and the ongoing Bell Canada strike, it's amazing that we here in Canada still have a working telephone network. And by working, I mean one that hasn't fallen into a complete state of misrepair, though I am having a hell of a time in getting a repair guy to come out and fix the extensions upstairs in my house. (I pay a couple bucks a month in insurance, so they can bloody well fix it.)

NB: I am a less than please Telus cellular customer.

Some interesting articles I found looking up friendly fire:

Reader's Companion to Military History
World War 2 Friendly fire
Amicide (Study by US Military)
CBC Article on friendly fire in Iraq

You raise a good point that there are far too many friendly fire incidents in our military. I would venture to say it is due to overworking the individual soldier and not a lack of competence. Also friendly fire has been around for a long time and will never fully disappear, it is a fact of war.

My grammar is crap and if someone were to look over even this post I'm sure I've made a few glaring mistakes, but I do find it humorous to open your comment with "your" when "you're" is more appropriate.

Oh, well, that's why I'm making plans for Canada next year. :)

Seems that the last bastion of freedom and privacy is the Great White North.

You can find a summary here: http://www.cbc.ca/passionateeye/powerofnightmares/ one.html

My favorite quote, that pretty much sums up the whole thing: "Senior American civil servants and politicians came to believe their view that the Soviet Union was an evil force against which the U.S. should be presented as a force for good."

The fools! - All Good Liberals (TM) know that the Soviet Union was a great force for Good in the world! 100 percent literacy and free healthcare! 100 percent literacy and free healthcare! 100 percent liter... erm, in any case what is interesting here is how little is new in the world.

While the "Liberals" (aka Socialists) used to carry water for the Soviets in the old days, now they have make do with the brave Mujahedeen. I guess whoever hates The Great Satan the most gets the loyalty of the Libs, no matter what... (Few things gets a Lib going as much as thinking about the poor, innocent Jihadis locked up at Gitmo.)

Yup, we also had a Canadian Citizen(!) being deported from the USA to Syria, where he could be tortured until he confessed to whatever-the-fuck the US wanted him to confess to: http://www.cbc.ca/stories/2002/10/16/arar021016

Canada is thinking about it

Might as well throw in The CBC Obit, as well (given that he was born in Canada).

Notice how they're all clustered around rivers, wells, etc?

Like civilizations in many places. People in rain forests live near the rivers, for pity's sake.

The situation as of at least 2000 was verifiably no different than today. One simply needs to look at the multitude of irrigation techniques that arose in the area as a necessity

1. Even in rainy climates, farmers still irrigate. The presence of irrigation technology doesn't rule out forests and rain.
2. It was overfarming, including irrigation with salt-contaminated water, that burned out the fields and led to agricultural collapse.

You've already been pointed to Ronald Wright's A Short History of Progress -- it does cover this point, and other interesting stuff besides.

Looks like Disney should know about this too... http://www.cbc.ca/stories/print/2002/12/03/norwalk _virus021203

- Apparently something similar is already happening. There was a court ruling (in Vancouver?) that said the 15 or so people that accidently were allowed to purchase the new Harry Potter book early are forbidden to discuss the book until after Friday midnight when it is released. http://www.cbc.ca/story/arts/national/2005/07/11/A rts/HarryPotter_050711.html

If it is any consolation, I, and many others do buy Beeb DVDs. And I wouldn't have without having cruised the website daily (Walking with... and such). If you ever feel the need to download our excellent science show Quirks and Quarks the please accept my invitation and drop by the CBC.

And, Lord knows, this was a slashdot-specific story, and you certainly couldn't have gotten details anywhere else before you opened your mouth.

just a moment ago.

'Super kids' about Brian, Michael and Mendel. I recommend it highly.
http://www.cbc.ca/roughcuts/feature_110304.html
http://www.jewishbulletin.ca/archives/Mar04/archiv es04Mar05-04.html

I wished I had recorded it. It had some good list between scenes. Like 'A kid is a gift to his parents but not all kids are gifted' '1\100 000 has iq over 120, 1\ 1000 000 has iq over 140' 'even talented kids need more support' etc. Has anyone written these down?

The best way to disprove the death penalty is to find a list of wrongly convicted felons that would have been given the death penalty had it existed where they were convicted.

I'll get you started with Canada's best list. Guy Paul Morin, Donald Marshall Jr., David Milgaard, Romeo Phillion, James Driskell all received Canada's most serious possible punishment (25 years in prison). We would be mourning their deaths right now if we were so backwards as to have murdered them.

Of course, the simplest answer is this: If it turns out the convicted were wrongfully convicted, the prosecutor should be put on the stand for murder, since they alone caused the convicted's death. Of course, if we did this, I don't think we'd see many prosecutors pushing for the death penalty :-)

I do not think it's right that taxes fund schools. My friends farm more than 650 acres in upstate NY, and their property tax increases are justified by the greater cost of education. They have ZERO children because they can hardly afford to run the damn farm. These school taxes play a major role in their financial situation.

Meanwhile, the single mom with six kids who collects subsidies from the state, rents subsidized housing and pays no property taxes has enrolled all six of her children in public school.

Subsidizing this behavior rewards and/or encourages it and is NOT good for society. You've got more kids being raised by people who are not responsible and less by those who work hard to barely get by.

Obviously, you and the posters above disagree and think that it's the responsibility of "society" to raise the children of the irresponsible (while encouraging them to remain irresponsible) but I'll agree to disagree.

As for roads - YES, if I don't use the road, I shouldn't have to pay for it. In fact, we've got a system set up that theoretically works like this; gas taxes, excise and registration taxes and tolls.

If you buy lots of gas, you pay lots of taxes. If you own a car, you pay excise tax. If you use toll roads, you pay to use the roads.

If the food I buy in the grocery store w/in walking distance from my house (or rolling distance if I have no legs) is delivered via these roads, the shippers pay the taxes and tolls and build this cost into their delivery fee. The store that pays them then builds that cost into their prices, and the head of lettuce that you can grow yourself in the middle of summer from a $0.01 seed, is sold for $2.00 in the middle of winter mainly because it's transported to you and someone pays for that.

If we paid for the roads entirely with user fees / tolls / gas tax / whatever, we'd all have more to spend on groceries or whatever. Yes, the costs of these goods would possibly go up, but the bureaucratic overhead of moving this money through the state government would be less. Maybe I'm optimistic, but removing the state from the equation looks like it would increase disposable income.

If my mail is delivered to me via a sidewalk I don't personally walk on, I'm still "using" the sidewalk. That's not that hard to understand, right? However, this avoids the question.

I just read that the Canadian Postal Service has refused to deliver mail to a woman because her stoop is 10cm too high. I don't know why you think you're entitled to mail delivery when you've done nothing to facilitate the delivery. If I expect the mail to come to my house, I'll provide a way for the mail carrier to get there. If they want to charge me because they need an off-road vehicle to get to my house, I'll either rectify this or pay them to get one.

Growing up, we paid for a dump permit. If we had to dispose of more than our normally allotted amount, we were charged extra. If we didn't want to use the dump, we didn't have to pay for it. It's not difficult to comprehend a user fee-based service working in this manner. It's still in practice today.

I'm not sure I get your point about water. Most places with town / city service pay for the amount they use. These fees go to maintaining the system etc. Growing up, we had a well. We paid to maintain that ourselves and did not have a town water bill.

When the town installs a water main through your area, you usually are forced to pay for it. Even if you're not going to use it.

As for bottled water... I'd be willing to bet that if you have town water, you're paying for what you use, and you haven't replaced your water use entirely with bottled water. But if you have (and you shower with it), you probably aren't paying much, if anything, for water service...

If wi-fi were installed for everyone, unless they

(Speaking as a NetAdmin in Alberta) Seems like it may have been simply because the library in question didn't have a computer use policy.

From CBC.ca:
"The library has changed its policy, informing employees that they have no expectation of privacy when using work computers."

So it is legal to make kids as young as 12 work in menial jobs that companies in Alberta are having trouble finding adults for, so long as they don't log their keyboards!

Hurray!

To be fair, you should mention Air India Flight 182. Not successful.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/airindia/

The Canadian Broadcasting Corperation has a map with their story here: http://www.cbc.ca/story/world/national/2005/07/07/ london-subway050707.html .

Toyota declares Americans too stupid to work in their factories

"Source?"

Fair question. Here's a popular press account of a study of melanoma survival, which isn't quite the same thing as the result I paraphrased. I'll think I'll have to visit the library to find actual studies.

• The first transatlantic wireless signal was sent in 1901 from Signal Hill (St. John's) by Marconi to England. (Wikipedia, Nobel Prize Bio)
• The oldest known establishment in North America was a viking settlement at L'Anse aux Meadows around 1000 AD. It is now a UNESCO world heritage site.
• Canada Day, July 1st is also Memorial Day locally, as it was the day with the heaviest losses among the Royal Newfoundland Regiment. This was at Beaumont Hamel, during the Battle of the Somme. Every Newfoundlander who advanced was either wounded or killed.
• We are home to the most Easterly point of North America, Cape Spear. That is, if you don't count Greenland.

• The Oldest City, by Paul O'Neill
• A History of Newfoundland, by P.W. Prowse

But according to a new analysis, this view couldn't be more wrong: far from being in technological nirvana, we are fast approaching a new dark age.

If there really are fewer inventions being adopted, I think it would likely be due to the higher level of technical complexity to develop truly innovative designs these day that would catch someone's attention. Combine that with the signal to noise ratio and fewer inventions are coming to the forefront.

Today I was listening to a radio show, I think it was pre-taped on CBC Radio, but at any rate, the show delved into the differences between advertisements today and fifty years ago, with an emphasis on ads that push the limits of decency. The show's host made a comment that stuck with me about how yesterday's shocking ad is certainly mild in comparison to what's next on the horizon. To me this points at the human condition in that we are less and less impressed with the here-and-now, until someone changes the way we see things altogether and a whole new level is reached, attained, marketed, exploited and drained until it happens again and again.

More and more, he says, progress takes place "under the hood" in the form of abstract computing processes. Huebner's analysis misses this entirely.

I think the advancements that make most sense are not necessarily under the hood, but it would be important to address that aspect. To me, the most important advancements are how people use technology, not the technology itself -- and I would like to think it will always be that way. Maybe I am wrong.

You can invent webpages, but they won't really catch on until they have links in them, decentralizing and killing document hierarchy. You can invent weblogs but they won't really catch on until you have RSS and weblogs with feed readers built in. It's the little things but you need to be able to really understand how people WANT to use things before the level of invention meets demand.

Nothing is new under the Sun, except our use of the materials given.

Really. The Supreme Court of Canada ruled (very recently, so of course there were fines last year) that people can pay for expedited private health care if their human rights are endangered by the wait for public care.

Podcasts of news (and other) shows are also offered by public radio stations such as the BBC, CBC and SRC.

BBC or CBC. http://www.cbc.ca/ is actively embracing open standards. They have an OGG stream they are testing out, give instructions for user of Mac or *NIX and link to Mplayer.

http://www.cbc.ca/listen/index.html

BBC or CBC. http://www.cbc.ca/ is actively embracing open standards. They have an OGG stream they are testing out, give instructions for user of Mac or *NIX and link to Mplayer.

http://www.cbc.ca/listen/index.html

Yeah, if you go through the wrong line-up in a train station I doubt it causes this! Ciao, Dcobbler

The CBC had an article a little while back about the spammer (Jeremy Jaynes) who was sentenced to nine years in jail. To quote the article:

Prosecutors said Jaynes received 10,000 credit card orders in one month for the [product], each for $39.95 US.

You do the math. Not millions perhaps, but very lucrative.

source: http://www.cbc.ca/story/business/national/2005/04/ 08/spam-050408.html

Supposedly the sail can be rotated to angle the incoming light in such a way that the speed of the vehicle can be increased or decreased. The purpose of this test flight was to see if this could be achieved in practice. The problem with interstellar travel is the there is no incoming light. The proposal is that one would use large lasers to generate the light force across these distances. There was a very good interview with one of the people involved in this test flight on CBC radio's Quirks & Quarks last Saturday (link to show http://radio.cbc.ca/programs/quirks/archives/04-05 /jun18.html).

Just a bit of paranoia to consider.

"Leave China alone for Christ's sake. You're not going to change things, especially if you are NOT IN CHINA!"

No way. This has gone way too far.

If there is truth to these accusations that the Chinese government is intimidating citizens of my country in any way for something such as practicing Falun Gong, then we have a serious problem that need s addressing.

I'm in no way in favour of military action, but this is clearly and act of war on their part if it is true.

Check out this week's Quirks and Quarks podcast, which covers the same topic. They interview the Planitary Society project manager about the upcoming solar sail launch.

While I'm at it, they've also got a segment on quantum cryptography this week which is kind of interesting.

I think we all have to worry anyway. This kind of shit happens all the time. They're going to find the people responsible for these, and the corporations that allow it to happen will get off with only a bit of bad publicity. That's the real tragedy. There ought to be a law that if you are going to retain someone's personal information then you are responsible for keeping it safe. Same as I'm responsible for keeping my PIN number safe.

applies most places(even here in Canada)

Call your MP and tell him why you want it to stay that way. The Liberals can't afford to introduce any controversial legislation these days. They'll buckle if we yell loud enough.

From my blog entry this morning... saves me retyping it all in.

So the CBC has this story, about a recent poll of Americans which found that 73 per cent of them prefer watching movies at home, whether through DVD, VHS or pay-per-view, rather than in the theatre.

I'm sure Hollywood will get in a panic about this, and the MPAA will claim that piracy is to blame, even though only 5 per cent of those polled said they had downloaded a film.

My response to Hollywood is: can you blame people?

You're paying about $10 to go to the movies these days, just for admission (and even that's likely to get worse in Canada, when you read this about Cineplex Odeon buying Famous Players) to watch the latest crapstravaganza featuring the current flavour of the month actor who can't act their way out of a paper bag. The main character has some token development, and is surrounded by wooden characters brought to dubious life by bit actors. When will Hollywood realise the importance of casting for the small roles? Most of the Hollywood movies I've really enjoyed are the ones that people all of the roles, large or small, with quality character actors. Look at Shawshank Redemption, or even Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings, which didn't win any actors any awards, but were riddled with people who know how to act. And that makes it so much more convincing versus say, garbage like The Fast and the Furious.

So people end up staying home--why get the car out, haul the family down to the theatre, spend $40 on admission and $30 on popcorn and drinks for a feature you're pretty sure, based on track record, is going to be disappointing? Much easier to stay at home and spend a few bucks renting the DVD or watching the pay-per-view.

But appallingly bad films are not the only reason people are staying at home. Look at the difference in the viewing experience.

At the theatre, I'm stuck in a seat that allows limited shifting of body position, the floor is sticky, people beside me talk to each other about other things throughout the movie, the guy behind me is busy explaining the film to his girlfriend (or worse yet, summarising the plot of Episodes I, II, IV, V and VI of Star Wars at the same time as watching and trying to explain RotS), I'm nowhere near the center of the screen because I no longer have the inclination or energy to line up first or barge past everyone else when they open the doors to get a good seat, the picture is grainy, often out of focus, and the sound is turned up so high and the sound system so poor that high-frequency noises like R2D2's beeps, are actively painful...

Contrast that with, say, watching a DVD at home. I get the seat I want (though I can move during the film if I want, as well). I can put my feet up. My seat is right in the center of the screen. I can have the amount of ambient light I want. I can get up and go to the bathroom without missing the only meaningful line of dialogue in the film, the popcorn is cheaper and tastes better, the picture looks great. And as for the sound system (audiophile geekout coming up, you have been warned)...

I have extreme control over the volume. I can boost the center channel volume so as to hear dialogue perfectly, while keeping the rest of the speakers lower. I've got an Arcam AVR100 amp driving the rear speakers, center channel and subwoofer, and a Musical Fidelity A300 dual mono amplifier driving some Monitor Audio Silver 8 speakers on the front, and the whole experience is way better than what you get