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I hear they tried that robot in Montreal and it crashed due to memory exhaustion.

Montreal is one of the oldest city in North America and there are so many leaks in its water system that it loses 30% of its fresh water supply.

Makes you wonder what is the average water loss in other systems.

https://montrealgazette.com/ne...

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada...
 

I should expand, since due to some activity in my office this one got cut off:

Having observed the Obama years, the purchasing power of our currency fell off quite a bit. You might look along these lines:

* https://www.consumerreports.or...
* https://www.bostonglobe.com/li...
* https://montrealgazette.com/op...

It may have avoided the official indexes, but the loss of real-world value to our currency was a thing, which is about what one would expect from fast money policies.

Robots are showing up everywhere. They're now doing the cutting for cataract surgery because they can do it better than a trained specialist surgeon. How long before they do the rest of the surgery?

So your wife would rather have this dude in the bathroom with her, because he happens to have a vagina that he was born with? (Not that she has any way of knowing that, if both of them are using the bathroom as intended.) Because that is what the NC's law would require.

Absolutely untrue. I've been told many times I'm the best PCB designer engineers have worked with, and I do know the biggest tool in the industry, Cadence. Now that the economy is crashed, everyone wants Altium experience.

The reality is that I'm a stubborn and very naive person, I persisted in doing PCB design even though I know that Montreal is dead and finished in high tech. Or in *that* kind of high tech. There's an abundance of startups working on increasingly baffling (to me) products that obviously have no meaning or use whatsoever. Yes, yes, that intelligent internet enabled wearable t-shirt is the future of mankind. Fuck me.

I've worked on all kinds of materials to 12GHz, I've done 24 layer multi-material boards with blind and buried vias, I came up with novel power-bypassing schemes, I can solder, prototype, write scripts, automate boring CAD tasks, worked with suppliers, ordered prototypes, etc..

I'm not just a PCB designer, I can handle all kinds of tasks.

"Oh but we see a gray hair, and you don't know the ARM architecture? What's this? Cadence? Buh bye!"

The few contacts I still have left here don't like me. One guy said I "betrayed" him when he hired me as a technician but then I was drafted (ha) to PCB design by *his* boss because of my previous experience. What did he expect? Blood ties after a year of work soldering wires?

Then this guy left to start his own company which apparently isn't a betrayal. I can't deal with the kind of soap-opera drama that people bring to the table.

The double-standards, the back stabbing, the fact that people will hang on to a bad joke I made 15 years ago but forget the 100 hour weeks I can do to finish a project, I'm barely able to get work to stack boxes in a warehouse. (I really did do that, the guys there are kind of scary, they're all on prison-work programs with tattoos and broken noses, and they see me with my baby face and lady fingers.... get it?)

Sorry, my quality of life is miserable here. I tried to get a simple job with the government for 14$/hour, which is lower that I made 20 years ago, they wanted to do a RCMP background check on me, I then asked them how come Arthur Porter was able to be hired at the CHUM to defraud the government out of millions of dollars even though everyone knew he screwed over the Detroit hospital. Why check me and not the real robbers? People who lose millions are OK, lose a pen and HR escorts you out?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
http://www.montrealgazette.com...

Needless to say, I didn't get far there. I'm fed up of being robbed and defrauded by people who will suffer no consequences while I pay their retirement with my taxes for the rest of my life with my 14$/hr job.

I'm more and more outraged by where we are heading as society, excuse me if I don't have the same eagerness that I had at 20 about yet another microprocessor, yet another LED, yet another logic gate, etc.

I am outraged that employers don't even offer long term employment but then have the gall to say "but with your experience, if we hire you, you won't stay!"

OF COURSE I WON'T STAY YOU COCK KNOB, YOU'RE NOT OFFERING ANYTHING WORTH STAYING FOR!

I need to EAT, what am I supposed to do? LIE?

Is that it?

"Oh yes, I saw your website and am very excited to work on yet another disposable tech bauble while we are being robbed daily! Sure!"

There are no more large hardware electrical engineering companies in Montreal. Forget it. You want an example?

OK, here goes, there's a company that builds simulators for large equipment here. My friend, an engineer, had to go through three interviews, including one with the CTO. He had to make a whole song and dance routine. The company acted like they are building a Tokamak.

The job? Wiring joysticks. A switch, a connector, a cable, a light, maybe a second connector.

All indications are that Martin Couture Rouleau, who rammed his vehicle into two Canadian soldiers on Monday, killing one, and Michael Zehaf Bibeau, who is alleged to have shot dead a soldier guarding the National War Memorial on Wednesday, each acted on their own. They were also reportedly recent converts to an extremist fringe of Islam, and suffered from chronic psychological problems.

---

Gijseghem suggested that such behaviour might even be schizophrenic in nature, but Lafleur disputed that idea.

"People suffering from schizophrenia are very disorganized and they act in totally unexpected ways, and in extremist groups they are rarely tolerated," Lafleur said.

Rather, he contended, such individuals probably suffer from either borderline personality disorder or bipolar disorder (both of which can be characterized by impulsive, even psychotic behaviour), have grown isolated from their friends and families, and are suffering from an identity crisis.

When you write:

Today, Islam clearly holds a siren's song appeal to some disaffected members of society.

... you can switch Islam with anti-abortionists bombing clinics, the Branch Davidians at Waco, Timothy McVeigh against "the gubbermint" over Waco, Hindu Inderjit Singh Reyat bombing Air India flight 182, Protestants vs Catholics in Northern Ireland, and pretty much some members of any disaffected group will be attracted to violence. The recent violence in the US over police shooting blacks does not have its' roots in religion.

From THe Montreal Gazette:

Rights of drug addiction patients violated: ruling

Scientology-linked Narconon exploited and abused those it purported to be treating: Human Rights Commission

By Catherine Solyom, THE GAZETTEApril 15, 2014

“It’s more important for me to get Narconon exposed as one of the most dangerous, quasi rehab centres in the world,” says David Love, who won a Quebec Human Rights Commission case against the drug rehab centre linked to the Church of Scientology.

Four years after he left Narconon Trois-Rivières, and two years after the so-called drug rehabilitation centre was shut down by the public health agency, David Love has been vindicated by the Quebec Human Rights Commission, which concluded the centre exploited and abused him — financially, physically and mentally — along with two other complainants.

Love, who was first a patient then an employee at Narconon until he realized it was closely linked to the Church of Scientology, said the commission’s recent decision was a “global win” against Narconon, which continues to run drug rehabilitation centres in several countries — putting patients’ lives at risk.

“Some say I’m in it for the money, but it’s not true — I want to help the addicts,” said Love, a native of B.C. who has stayed in Montreal to fight Narconon, first before the Quebec Labour Tribunal, then before the Human Rights Commission.

Both agencies mediated in his favour and against Narconon, an organization vaunted by Scientologists like actors Kirstie Alley and John Travolta.

“This isn’t just about criticizing Narconon and Scientology,” Love said. “It’s about saving lives. Drug addiction is an epidemic and I want to help addicts avoid the pitfalls of these pseudo treatment centres.”

Love wouldn’t disclose the amount the commission has proposed Narconon pay Love and the two other plaintiffs, also former patients, in moral and punitive damages. But he confirmed the total amount is in the “six figures.”

Michel Ménard, a lawyer for Narconon Trois-Rivières, said he couldn’t comment on the decision other than to say it was merely a recommendation — and not binding.

Citing confidentiality, Patricia Poirier, a spokesperson for the commission, said she couldn’t comment, either. The commission is still studying the case and has not yet decided whether to take the matter further and present it before the Quebec Human Rights Tribunal, she said.

Based on a three-year investigation of the facility in Trois-Rivières, the written document obtained by the Gazette says Narconon submitted Love to “degrading and humiliating practices,” “controversial teaching methods not based on any scientific study,” “poor living and food conditions” and “coercion and forcible confinement.”

Following the lead of the Supreme Court of Canada, the commission categorized drug addiction as a disability, and concluded that Love and others were discriminated against and financially exploited because of their disability.

Narconon patients — considered “students” by the facility — were charged $23,000 for the treatment, which typically lasted three to five months and included high doses of vitamins such as niacin combined with four- to five-hour sessions in a sauna — known as the “Purification Rundown.”

Following the teachings of Scientology founder and science fiction writer Ron L. Hubbard, patients were also deprived of any prescribed medication for mental illness, and had to undergo personality and IQ tests as well as training routines, which Love said were designed to make them accept to be under someone else’s control — and teach them how to control others.

Sittin

Their strongest arguments against including him are based on the idea that he has developed technology but that the Hult prize was for a business plan.
Note however that Jakub Dzamba won 3rd prize in McGill University’s Dobson Cup Business Plan Competition in 2012: Dobson Competition

The 2013 Hult prize winners from McGill University, according to Jakub, asked him to help on their entry and offered to get him listed as a team member or make him a partner in any business they started. It sounds like Jakub gave them substantial assistance if not the impetus for their entry.

Hult Competition is not innocent:
According to Jakub they reneged on their promises once it became apparent that the Hult competition would not let them add a 6th member.

University complicit:
According to the Huffington Post article the University Administration tried to get him to sign a gag order as part of a larger agreement.
Also note that it was at this point that: "McGill would file a pending patent for the cricket farms Dzamba designed in his name alone." which was used as an argument against him by one of the team members:
"McGill University, which values academic integrity and owns the patent, states unequivocally that our business has zero to do with Jakub," team member Jesse Pearlstein fired back.

I believe the Canadian surveillance division is actually CSEC. Here's a recent article about them http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Opposition+calls+halt+agency+activities+directed/8820518/story.html

CSIS is more akin to the CIA than the NSA.

The stolen amount was 16,000 barrels, or $20 million worth. 600 barrels is not quite a full recovery.

Since this is the most talked about alternative energy source for a car but are we ready for that ? I'm not sure but 1 thing I'm sure is that some countries or provinces like mine are not ready. Well I'm not too positive about the idea of all the population of Quebec using electric cars. I just think about the electricity cost and what we use right now and what we will need won't be small. I fear that.

the average price per Kw/h is around 6.8. The table is here.

The company has 2.8 million customers responsible for 4.01 million residential, commercial, institutional and industrial service contracts. - Hydro Quebec

Most of the money and profit Hydro-Quebec is making is towards exporting energy. Without those exports, Hydro-Quebec would increase the price to make a profit margin. They've told that countless times in press conferences.

Imagine if the same amount of customers using electric cars on the same grid ?

I don't have the exact number but in 2011 the monthly consumption of Hydro Quebec was around ) 3,06m. Can you imagine if you put around 2-3 million cars on that same grid ? This is just a thought but I think the price will increase without any hesitation and Hydro-Quebec will force it on us. Twice a year or so Hydro-Quebec is asking the goverment for a price increase as they tell us we don't pay enough. I can imagine they will have lots of arguements to increase the price and the goverment will have almost no choice but too accept.

ps: this is just Quebec, I can imagine worst numbers, facts or stories in other provinces or countries.

Yes, thousands. In Guelph alone, there were at least 7,670 - EC knows this from records they were able to subpoena from RackNine - http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Fraudulent+robocalls+absolutely+outrageous+Mayrand/6383004/story.html - those same records matched the CPC's CIMS database exactly. Now that's just the ones that "pierre poutine" set up - it's looking increasingly likely he was a rogue, but there was an underlying and much more pervasive and carefully executed national strategy - http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/story/2012/04/24/pol-election-calls-poll.html - If pierre poutine hadn't gone and blown it by going overboard, we might never have found out.

http://www.montrealgazette.com/business/Canadians+targets+sexpionage/5793483/story.html
http://tucsoncitizen.com/usa-today-news/2011/12/01/sexpionage-are-chinas-hotel-rooms-bugged/

Sexpionage is standard MO for many world governments and large corporations. What happened to Assange looks very similar, but with lawsuits instead of blackmail. Read the first article; it can be very hard to combat this kind of attack, especially when all the immediate parties are unwitting at the time of the event.

Have a few numbers:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/nov/25/christian-brothers-abuse-payout [guardian.co.uk]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23521616/ns/us_news-faith/t/catholic-sex-abuse-payouts-top-million/ [msn.com]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1557479/Roman-Catholic-Church-agrees-sexual-abuse-payout.html [telegraph.co.uk]

http://life.nationalpost.com/2011/08/18/clergy-abuse-payouts-pushing-dublin-archdiocese-toward-bankruptcy/ [nationalpost.com]

http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Catholic+Church+seeks+limit+abuse+payouts+Germany/3605154/story.html [montrealgazette.com]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2004/jun/24/usa.danglaister [guardian.co.uk]

http://vivekajyoti.blogspot.com/2011/03/catholic-jesuits-in-166-million-abuse.html [blogspot.com]

http://www.vaticancrimes.us/2011/01/catholic-abuse-victims-offered-firm.html [vaticancrimes.us]

The response has been documented to have AGGRAVATED the problem, and continued over decades.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/nov/25/christian-brothers-abuse-payout [guardian.co.uk]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23521616/ns/us_news-faith/t/catholic-sex-abuse-payouts-top-million/ [msn.com]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1557479/Roman-Catholic-Church-agrees-sexual-abuse-payout.html [telegraph.co.uk]

http://life.nationalpost.com/2011/08/18/clergy-abuse-payouts-pushing-dublin-archdiocese-toward-bankruptcy/ [nationalpost.com]

http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Catholic+Church+seeks+limit+abuse+payouts+Germany/3605154/story.html [montrealgazette.com]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2004/jun/24/usa.danglaister [guardian.co.uk]

http://vivekajyoti.blogspot.com/2011/03/catholic-jesuits-in-166-million-abuse.html [blogspot.com]

http://www.vaticancrimes.us/2011/01/catholic-abuse-victims-offered-firm.html [vaticancrimes.us]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/nov/25/christian-brothers-abuse-payout

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23521616/ns/us_news-faith/t/catholic-sex-abuse-payouts-top-million/

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1557479/Roman-Catholic-Church-agrees-sexual-abuse-payout.html

http://life.nationalpost.com/2011/08/18/clergy-abuse-payouts-pushing-dublin-archdiocese-toward-bankruptcy/

http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Catholic+Church+seeks+limit+abuse+payouts+Germany/3605154/story.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2004/jun/24/usa.danglaister

http://vivekajyoti.blogspot.com/2011/03/catholic-jesuits-in-166-million-abuse.html

http://www.vaticancrimes.us/2011/01/catholic-abuse-victims-offered-firm.html

I'm pretty sure Eichmann surrendered.

He wasn't - he was abducted, and it was specifically arranged to take him alive:

"Finally, almost a half hour later, Eichmann got off a bus. A Mossad agent engaged him, asking him in Spanish if he had a moment. Eichmann was frightened and attempted to leave while blinded by Mossad headlights. Two Mossad men wrestled him to the ground and he was brought to the car."

Granted, they actually gave him a choice of being killed there an then, or standing trial - after he was tied up.

Osama greeted his captors with the business end of an AK-47. granted, that's what we wanted him to do, but it wasn't an assassination. We came to capture him, he shot at us, so we shot back. If Obama hadn't picked up a gun, he wouldn't be sleeping with the fishes.

Per official story, Osama was unarmed.

Frankly, personally I'm more and more inclined towards the fact that they didn't actually get him. Hasty burial at sea, persistent refusal to release the photos ("gruesome" my ass! we've seen much worse than a man shot in the head from both wars already), and that photoshopped photo floating around early on after the announcement - there's too much cheesiness surrounding this. If the man was dead for real, I'd fully expect his head paraded on a pike at Ground Zero - well, maybe not quite, but definitely more evidence and not just empty talk. That conspiracy theory about him actually being dead for 3 years now suddenly makes a lot more sense - it would explain all the theater.

I had never noticed "there being a subtle (but satisfying) 'click' when plugging-in a cable".

I was referring to the story about how for the original iPod launch, Steve Jobs was aghast that the prototypes didn't have a satisfying 'click' when you plug-in the headphones. So he forced the engineers to spend all night putting in better jacks into the prototypes. (See here, or here, or here.)

Just like all companies Apple makes compromises.

Absolutely. They make mistakes and compromises, as I was careful to point out in my previous post. But the perceived quality of their products is more than just "convincing" people--they put much more careful thought into their designs and design tradeoffs. Are their products perfect? Far from it. But their designs are far better in consistency and execution, than all of their competition. (If you want to argue that 'being best' is too low a bar, and that products are in general not sufficiently carefully designed, I largely agree...)

....and yet, you don't hear of people being killed by them when someone couldn't find themselves a gun. Go figure.

You don't?

There's obviously no point in arguing with you. You're not going to let facts get in the way of outlandish hyperbole.

Segedunum is a troll, pure and simple, and not a particularly good one. I've stopped responding to him: he has no room for any views but his own.

....and yet, you don't hear of people being killed by them when someone couldn't find themselves a gun. Go figure.

You don't?

There's obviously no point in arguing with you. You're not going to let facts get in the way of outlandish hyperbole.

To save time when that happens, the US could always crib from the Canadian military's draft policy on transgender soldiers. The policy does specifically allow transitioning soldiers to wear the uniform of their target gender.

Dealing with non-heterosexual, non-cisgender people in the military isn't some bizarre new thing that the US is blazing new ground on. Other western militaries are well ahead of the US, as even NPR has realized.

Europe bans baby bottles with Bisphenol A

Too bad for the people whose baby bottles were protected by only the free market.

Yes, there is a difference and no China is not socialist. As a theory socialism advocates state ownership of industry and as an economic system the state owns the capital. China however allows and advocates individuals owning their own business. And it's not just in China the government allows private businesses, Cuba does as well, it is experimenting with private ownership of small businesses. The economic system in USSR on the other hand was communism which banned the private ownership of property. Everything was collectively owned, er that's how it was supposed to be, but it wasn't really. And like China and Cuba technically the US has a mixed economy, the new health insurance reform bill Obama signed underscoring that.

Falcon

Here is canadian newspaper stating them at least (I read earlier from local newspaper in my language)

I found this for Canada, it seems to have the same rules stated too.

there is not much you can do if that person is at the other side of the globe. Yes you can call police, but they will seldom do something.

Don't count on it:

The federal government can extradite a man to face a first-degree murder trial in the United States on charges of killing his wife, even though the evidence presented against him does not meet the test for the same charge in Canada, the Supreme Court of Canada has ruled. Top court okays U.S. extradition [Oct 16]

A Briton accused of hacking into secret military and Nasa computers has had his extradition to the US put on hold as new psychiatric evidence is considered. Hacker's extradition put on hold

This is Gary McKinnon pitching his last-ditch "Asperger's defense" to the Home Office.

The Swiss Justice Ministry rejected on Tuesday film director Roman Polanski's appeal for an immediate release from custody. Polanski was arrested September 26 upon arriving in Zürich, Switzerland, to attend a film festival and has remained in prison ever since, awaiting possible extradition to the United States. Roman Polanski denied bail in Switzerland

Comedian and talk-show host Whoopi Goldberg had on The View on September 29 tried to defend his actions.
"It wasn't rape-rape," she had said.
The next day, Debra Tate, sister of Polanski's murdered wife, Sharon, argued on the Today show that it was consensual sex even though the victim was 13.
"There's rape, and then there's rape," she said.

Shannon Gilreath, Wake Forest University Law Professor for Interdisciplinary Study and a nationally recognized scholar on issues of equality, sexual minorities, and constitutional interpretation, believes there are really two perspectives involved in the case. "One is the perspective of people who look for any reason imaginable to excuse the victimization of women and girls that is rampant: it happened long ago, she was mature for her age-she wanted it," he explained. On the other side of this are those of us who are saying that every victim matters, even those victimized by people rich enough to evade jurisdiction for many years."

But Gilreath says that statutory rape is a clear offense under the law, and at the age of 13, the girl was underage. Polanski defenders 'define' rape

This cartoon appeared days ago... <g>

... that aside, and given the colour of comments I read so far, can you think of something that your goverment can say to convince you that the db is going to be deleted? I mean, it's just bits.

That paper happens to be the Montreal Gazette, (at http://www.montrealgazette.com although the web-site is pretty bad.) and I'll give a few reasons why I still bother with such a dead-tree publication:

1) The Gazette is one of the few papers that still has good comics. Montreal has an active and vocal comic-loving community and has been known to petition the paper for the comics we like. As a result, the comic page has every comic the same size as that mandated by Doonesbury, and there is nothing on the comics page but comics. There are two pages of full-color sunday comics on saturday (along with the normal B&W), and another single page of color on Sunday. Since I *still* can't get decent broadband out in the suburbs where I live, it takes me close to an hour to merely download that many comics on the Internet. Here the Gazette is actually saving me time. Now I don't want people to think that comics are the best/only thing in my life, but until recently, the comics really were the only thing that kept me a subscriber.

2) The technology reporting has recently seen a major improvement. Since part of what I do for a living in monitor changes in technology, I'm on a large slew of tech mailing lists and get most of my info from the web. This time last year, I would often find out about new technology two or three weeks before it would show up in the paper. Lately, I've been as likely to first hear about a new breakthrough in the Gazette as here on slashdot! I can only assume that there has been a major push to be more timely. Now if they would only add URLs to more of the tech stories so I could do additional research, I could start deducting the paper as a reasonable business expense.

3) The final, and IMHO the most important service that the Gazette provides is local news. Now, I don't know about most of North America, but in Montreal the English-speaking technical community is quite small. The events that occur in it can have major impacts on my life. Today, for example, I discovered in the Gazette that Zero Knowledge (a local company I'm sure many have heard of) just managed to recruit Stefan Brands. I have yet to see this news elsewhere on the net, although I assume it'll come down various channels eventually. Other news, like which Internet companies in my neighborhood are recruiting, and which are going IPO, is something that I would have a hard time finding out on my own.

So, I guess my suggestion to any newspaper that wants to keep readers like me is to try and reflect on how the local situation will change as a result of global and/or local events. Don't just report the news, reflect on what it means to the readership area. Global news I can get better on the Web. Local information of note is harder to come by.

If anybody is interested in reading more about the Canadian Government's decision to force cable companies to "open up", check out the following URLs:

CRTC orders cable firms to give ISPs access to high-speed service.

CRTC and FCC compare notes on Internet

For a more Beaureaucratic look at things, try :

"Competition and Culture on Canada's Information Highway: Managing the Realities of Transition - 19 May 1995"

Telecom Decision CRTC 98-9

The jist of things is this - The CRTC gave cable carriers 90 days to sell their higher speed Internet services to Internet service providers (ISPs) at a rate 25 per cent lower than their lowest retail prices - forcing competition and across-the-board fair play (hopefully).


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| big bad mr. frosty
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I mean, just look at the bags under the eyes of this guy. They must have had a lot of Penguin Mints to get those ungodly things....