Domain: mta.ca
Stories and comments across the archive that link to mta.ca.
Comments · 13
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bad mapping
hexagonal shape surrounding Saturn's north pole
damn. you win again, polar coordinates ... -
Re:Frostbitten laws
I must have missed the memo, what makes a newfie not "kanuck" [sic]?
The way they always miss the memo.
Honest to god that's the first new newfie joke I've heard in 10 years, it's so wrong, oh I know it's so wrong to make those jokes (thank you public school), but that one (spelling included) made me laugh.
As a side note Newfoundland didn't join confederation til sometime around 1949. They fought in world war 2 as their own nation; mostly; they had fallen on hard times in the 30's and the British were really running the show.
brief synopsis of events
It took 2 hard fought referendums before they decided to join, but they were broke without the mini boom the war had given them, so it was either Canada or Great Britain to take over, and we were closer. (Horrible minimalization of events that split communities and even families. Religion, politics, language, all was involved.) Perhaps this is why they are the butt of so many jokes up here, being the latecomers to the country, though if Quebec leaves us then I'm sure we could appropriately reword all of the good Newfie jokes.
And damn it, it's "The Real Canadian Superstore" (or Atlantic Superstore on the east.) It may be Canadien in Montreal, but certainly not in Vancouver, French is like the 4th or 5th most spoken language there. (insert opening for hongkouver joke, god I love a cultural mosaic.) -
Re:hurmYou made me curious; here's a page I found with a semi-rigorous calculation of the largest body which has an escape velocity small enough for a human to actually jump completely off of it. (I was going to do the calculation myself, but then I found this page) Link
For those too lazy to read the link, the result is a meteor with a diameter of about 7 km would be required to increase the escape velocity enough that you couldn't jump off. This of course assumes a certain density for the meteor and also that you are an olympic high-jumper. Also, it assumes that you can apply the same jumping force on the meteor as on the earth, which probably isn't true as you couldn't get a good running start. But it's an interesting result nonetheless, and using your definition these "moons" probably wouldn't qualify. Certainly comfortable walking would be impossible.
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Surveillance for some timeSince I live near Vancouver and am writing a paper on privacy right now, I decided to look into this a little bit. Here's what I've found:
- The organization in question, Barwatch, donated $5000 to the incredibly right-wing Liberal party (go figure) that currently runs the province. The same organization was behind a fight with the worker's compensation board of BC regarding the rights of workers not to have to work in a cloud of second-hand smoke. The Liberals changed the law to remove the WCB ventilation requirements.
- The same liberals have passed (I think) some privacy legislation that allows disclosure of personal information collected by observation at a performance, sports meet, or a similar event that is open to the public (Think Tampa superbowl), and allows organisations not to tell individuals what information they have, "if the disclosure of the personal information would reveal confidential commercial information that if disclosed, could, in the opinion of a reasonable person, harm the competitive position of the organization". In other words, it's pretty wide open.
- This isn't the first time Barwatch has cranked up surveillance of its patrons: This article mentions that video taping has been going on in Barwatch bars for three years before the article was written, in 1999. It also demonstrates that while these programs are justified by safety concerns, they are also used for marketing data.
- These guys have some power: Apart from the smoking legislation, Barwatch also lobbied to implement bus service later, and allow bars open later. Recently, the BC Liberal party allowed bars to be open until 4 AM on Fridays, and Translink began offering night bus service to at least SFU.
- On his geocities resume web site, Bradley Shende claims to be the Barwatch founder. According to his site, "Barwatch is an original concept. It's purpose was to establish communication between licensed establishments and the various branches of municipal law enforcement and regulation to create a forum of co-operation rather than adversity, and to set standards by which we would all operate our licensed premises. The organization has been a success over the years and is now branched out into the US and all over Canada." Apparently he is also "a quick study on systems and software". Nice win2k experience, Bradley.
- Barwatch has changed their phone number, and no longer has a web presence (www.barwatch.org as posted on Shende's web site). I was unable to contact them before posting this. The often cited name of the chair and spokesman of Barwatch is Vance Campbell.
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Re:12 bits
Very interesting, and thought provoking. While we're at it, why qwerty and not Dvorak? Trinary may make sense, but we are to deep into binary to even think of changing. Interesting to think that the ENIAC was based on something called Bi-Quinary ( I think we've talked about this before). So apparently was the IBM-650.
It seems that the debate between binary and bi-quinary was a topic of hot debate in the computing field as to the furutre of digital circuitry at one point in history. As the article states: "Each digit was represented in seven bit "bi-quinary" notation: one bit out of 5 represented a value from zero to four; one bit out of two indicated whether or not to add 5 to that value, giving the electronic equivalent of the abacus. -
Be Careful What You Wish ForI want a warp drive and I want one yesterday!
Be careful what you wish for. Thanks to fun things such as String Theory, Time Dilation, and Quantum Time Travel you just might get that warp drive... yesterday!
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Humanities projects: a sample and an ideaDon't overlook active participation in an existing, well-conceived project. I've mentioned my Historical Event Markup and Linking Project here on
/. before. Our system's generation of SVG maps and timelines is wonderfully internationalized in order to apply to as many disciplines as possible; my partners and I hope it will get widely used at this early stage so that peer criticism will direct its adolescence.Strong projects using existing technology will exploit the network's ability to deliver to, and collect from, anywhere. For instance, your older faculty in archaeology, Classics, Religious Studies, etc. probably have thousands of excellent slides under their own copyright that they really hope will not disappear after they retire. A local, web-based catalogue of these would be a treasure-trove to new faculty and might even be a selling point in the increasingly competitive market for academics.
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Humanities projects: a sample and an ideaDon't overlook active participation in an existing, well-conceived project. I've mentioned my Historical Event Markup and Linking Project here on
/. before. Our system's generation of SVG maps and timelines is wonderfully internationalized in order to apply to as many disciplines as possible; my partners and I hope it will get widely used at this early stage so that peer criticism will direct its adolescence.Strong projects using existing technology will exploit the network's ability to deliver to, and collect from, anywhere. For instance, your older faculty in archaeology, Classics, Religious Studies, etc. probably have thousands of excellent slides under their own copyright that they really hope will not disappear after they retire. A local, web-based catalogue of these would be a treasure-trove to new faculty and might even be a selling point in the increasingly competitive market for academics.
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Humanities projects: a sample and an ideaDon't overlook active participation in an existing, well-conceived project. I've mentioned my Historical Event Markup and Linking Project here on
/. before. Our system's generation of SVG maps and timelines is wonderfully internationalized in order to apply to as many disciplines as possible; my partners and I hope it will get widely used at this early stage so that peer criticism will direct its adolescence.Strong projects using existing technology will exploit the network's ability to deliver to, and collect from, anywhere. For instance, your older faculty in archaeology, Classics, Religious Studies, etc. probably have thousands of excellent slides under their own copyright that they really hope will not disappear after they retire. A local, web-based catalogue of these would be a treasure-trove to new faculty and might even be a selling point in the increasingly competitive market for academics.
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software design?are there any software design courses offered at your school?
while i was at university, i found myself embroiled in a lot of competition with other students, but i was the biggest source of it. i personally find it rather difficult to trust someone else's code, especially when we're graded on style, when my marks are on the line and my name goes in on the project. of course, most software is written in a team, so i'll have to learn somewhere.
this problem of mine eventually led to a burnout and i'm currently "between schools"
... what was offered at my old university is a course in software design where you were forced to work on a project as a team, and it was much more involved than most group projects. i was waiting to take it in my fourth year (which never came) and i certainly regret it. it would have helped a great deal. i think courses like this are being offered at more schools each year if they're not already common. people like me are all too common in this field ... -
An online journal that worksAn example of a successful, peer-reviewed, purely online academic journal is Theory and Applications of Categories. It has been operating since 1995; it was formed by a group of academics partly in response to the extortionate price increases levied by the Journal of Pure and Applied Algebra, and the quality of publications, the pool of authors and the pool of referees are almost the same. Interestingly, it's archived in printed paper format as well as online.
More and more university libraries are cancelling journal subscriptions because of the mounting expense. Unless papers find their way online, researchers are not going to have access to the information they need.
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Canada's Millitary Tradition, then and nowCanada has a strong military tradition dating back to the days when Jolly Olde and France were fighting for control of this great land.
In the 19th Century we repelled an armed invasion of Upper Canada (Ontario, Manitoba) from the American Libertarian forces (I'm sure it was some kind of deal with France due to The Napoleonic War, yes at one time Americans were friends with France and vice versa). Also during this century (as a member of the British Commonwealth) we sent troops to other regions in the Commonwealth (like India) and oddly enough, we produced beer for the British millitary forces in India (Alexander Keith's India Pale Ale, still available)
The 20th Century brought the World Wars. When Canada entered the war it was shown that our soldiers could carry more (per capita) than our European counterparts (because of a backpack system developed by the native populace and used by Canadien Voyager's & trappers for the last 300 years or so. Basically the backpack had shoulder straps AND a head strap, on average a Canadian soldier could carry up to 3 times that of a British soldier. This ability to carry coupled with the fact that Canadians were not fazed by France's 'bitterly cold' winter we were relegated to the work parties and rail crews. After much complaining to the war leaders Canadian regiments did see battle action in WWI and actually swung the tide of victory in our way at the battle of Vimy Ridge (Vimy Ridge).
World War II was filled with triumph and tragedy for Canadian soldiers (now completly autonomous from British rule) to read a brief summary of our exploits during WWII check out this page
Since WWII Canadian soldiers have seen action all around the world. And while true that Canada does not have a large standing army, if the call comes again to defend ourselves or our allies we shall rise to arms and fight for freedom.
What is my stake in all this? Well, my Great Uncle was a gunner in WWI, my Grandfather was a submariner with the Royal Navy in WWII, my Uncle was with the Merchant Marine in Korea and my father was a LRRP in Vietnam (with the American army) yowza!
Capt. Ron
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Re:so.. can anyone decode with it?
This would be The Matrix, according to The Internet UPC Database.
Do I get a prize?