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I was going to mode this up, but you lacked a link to the story. I'm curious to know what school and too lazy to google it (well okay, I tried Is this the one you're talking about? It is a little old, but a disgusting story nonetheless.

If a child draws a picture of aliens and says "my daddy went on a trip with them", would they be getting a visit from the DoD? We're losing it ... quickly.

Red light cameras discourage running *yellows*, out of the fear of running reds and getting a ticket. They dramatically increase accident rates: http://www.therecord.com/news/local/article/825583--red-alert-lucrative-cameras-spark-crashes-injuries

The other side effect is that they never bring in the money that's expected, and so yellows get shortened to catch more people running reds. They're a good deal for the companies selling them, but don't do anything for safety.

That's wrong. Canadians are keeping their cars longer than ever before, because they are more durable. They don't make them like they used to is right - we make them a lot better nowadays. I remember reading a Statistics Canada based piece in The Globe and Mail (cannot relocate), but I found these studies just googling it now.

http://www.autonorth.ca/home/2008/7/30/canadians-keeping-cars-longer.html
http://www.therecord.com/news/business/article/623911--canadians-keeping-cars-longer
http://www.thecarconnection.com/news/1057594_will-auto-sales-stay-lower-because-better-cars-last-longer

Solution: Pay fisherman to catch garbage

Better solution:

1. Create plastic eating microbes.
2. Deposit in plastic-rich oceanic environment.
3. Let nature do the rest. -_-

I expect people would have said the same about this too.

Didn't we already have this discussion once after someone had already done it?

When he was wandering around at night looking for someone to "plug him in" .... Talk about reaching out and touching someone. Wow!

There's a similar robot in my area, although I guess the cardboard isn't as nice as the shiny blue paint. http://news.therecord.com/Business/article/236315

Desire2Learn is local here in the Kitchener-Waterloo area.

They were devastated by the earlier court ruling, and now this?

Here is an article from the local newspaper on the topic.

Note: RIM is also local here, and NTP's affair with them was closely followed.

Time to revamp how patents are issued, or have the USPTO pay the court damages due to wrongly issued patents.

Giving a human a physical avatar has been done a few times. This has even led to some useful applications like IvanAnywhere so telecommuters can interact with their physical co-workers.

According to the article, the idea originated not from the telecommuter but from his boss, Glenn Paulley, who has a PhD in CS (his dissertation was on query optimisation). However, the article suggests that the idea was further refined by another employee, Ian McHardy, who I think is a database programmer. The article says that Dr Paullie (the boss) thought of installing a webcam under a blimp after seeing a TV ad for a remote control toy blimp, and McHardy (the other employee) suggested using a robot instead. McHardy then spent some time research telepresence and other projects, eg a project about robots allowing hospitalised students to attend classes. What I would like to know is whether these are the people who had the original idea of using a robot for helping telecommuters communicate with other office employees. The telecommuter will speak at UoWaterloo on 15 October. Perhaps I could send my telepresence robot there and ask him, but I'm not sure whether the robot will survive a body search by the security at the airport after it passes the metal detector. Maybe one day the standard security officer's training will include instructions on how to bodysearch a robot without disconnecting any wires!

2.4 MILLION DOLLARS! therecord.com's story

To quote, "The researchers emphasized that their $2.4-million US study could not address whether God exists or answers prayers made on another's behalf. The study could look only for an effect from the specific prayers offered as part of the research, they said." And adding insult to injury, "The study 'did not move us forward or backward' in understanding the effects of prayer" and Dr. Herbert Benson of Harvard Medical School, a co-investigator said, "We cannot come to a conclusion, except to say that by this study design, with its limitations, this is what we found."

Not only do I see this as a complete and utter waste of money (try and prove your religion through science when religion is purely faith based in its foundations, with no connection to science whatsoever -Scientology excluded- and you'll quickly find out that you have nothing meaningful to prove, except that you really should have used that money for a better purpose), it's also an insult to the scientific community in general as this was (I'm saying this from what I have heard reported on MSNBC, etc. last week when this story broke) the most expensive reasearch study of its kind to date.

Let's spend $2.4 Million to study the effects of placing flowers in the hospital rooms of these heart patients and figure out if they help the patient recover in any way, or do they merely make the patient wonder if these flowers might just transfer over to their funeral, and that they'd be none the wiser. Get real.

I think they need to think carefully about the ratio between free and paid content. Not knowing what publication this is, it's hard to be specific, but I believe that only the truly authoritative sites can get away with putting most of their content behind a subscription wall. Let's face it, with so much stuff available for free today on the Internet from reputable sources, you have to provide something unique, some extra value-add that makes it worthwhile to subscribe to your content.

The local newspaper in our area, The Record, went to a pure-subscriber model a couple of years ago. You can't get anything for free on their website except for some very basic stuff (weather, community events) and classified ads. Contrast that to The Globe and Mail, which offers much of its daily content for free. Guess which one I look to for online information?

What's worrisome for the subscription-only plays is that it's a serious barrier to entry to attracting a younger readership. Young people don't seem to read offline newspapers much any more. Placing your content behind a firewall means that can't read you online. Which will probably bite you in the long term.

Not that anyone will dare discuss their Adsense earnings, for fear of having their account cancelled.

Actually, you're allowed to disclose information about your earnings now, you can't just disclose specific details about number of clicks and such. Initially, yes, there was a restriction against discussing anything at all about the earnings, but that was lifted a while back. Certainly if your site draws the right kind of crowd (especially a paying crowd) then the advertisers will spend more to advertise with you. That's what Google's "smart pricing" is really all about, for example.

Advertisers are willing to pay more for ads shown only on Google's search result pages or on specific sites that they target within the Google Network (which includes run-of-the-mill AdSense publishers but also AdSense Premium publishers and some other kinds of sites).

Advertisers are certainly facing more options for spending their money now that Yahoo! and MSN are offering or going to offer similar programs to AdWords.

The most detailed story I've read about this was in The Kitchener-Waterloo Record, which unfortunately is subscription-only. From a Google News search, I don't see the article duplicated anywhere, so I am copying and pasting the article here. (There were also two photos, which unfortunately can't be linked to. Perhaps someone else with a subscription can set up a mirror.) Andrew Frow, RIP. :-(

U of T student dies in solar car; Vehicle out of control near Waterloo Regulations being followed, police say

A University of Toronto student is dead after the solar car he was driving veered out of control on a highway just west of Waterloo Region yesterday afternoon.

Andrew Frow, 21, of Toronto was driving the university's team car east along Highway 7 and 8, from Stratford to Waterloo, as part of a Canadian solar car tour. The small low-riding car suddenly went out of control at about 4 30 p.m., veering across the centre line of the two-lane highway, said Constable Glen Childerley of Perth County Ontario Provincial Police.

The car then swerved back into its lane, hitting the right shoulder. It then plowed across the highway into the path of a minivan in the westbound lane.

"It zoomed right across the road and was T-boned by the van," said Childerley, adding the driver was alone in the solar car.

The impact destroyed the car. Its solar-panelled roof was flung off and its shell ended up in the ditch on the north side of the highway.

The driver's teammates rushed to his aid. The students were in two minivans, one driving in front of the solar car, one behind, when the crash occurred.

Two of his teammates frantically performed CPR on the young man as he lay in the wreckage, said truck driver David Hackett, who pulled up at the scene moments after the accident.

Hackett, a volunteer firefighter in his hometown of Maryhill, offered to take over from the visibly upset woman doing mouth-to- mouth.

"I'm just sorry we couldn't do more," said Hackett, who was delivering groceries to Stratford when he came across the crash.

"I am grateful for the training that I had and that I could respond."

Paramedics, Stratford firefighters and OPP soon arrived on the scene and took the driver by ambulance to another ambulance with a doctor and waiting medical team.

The crew took the young man to a Kitchener hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

After he was rushed away, police began inspecting the mangled wreckage in the ditch to determine why the crash occurred. That section of the highway was closed for hours as they worked.

Hunks of metal, some bearing the University of Toronto logo, were strewn across the grassy ditch.

As police worked, students on the U of T team huddled across the street, many hugging each other.

They did not want to talk to the news media last night.

Rudy Schoenhoeffer, who was driving the minivan that hit the solar car, was also there.

"I'm just saying a prayer for him," the Stratford man said quietly as he stood by his van, its front end dented.

He was on his way home from work in Cambridge when the crash occurred.

Jessica Whiteside, U of T's acting associate director of news services, said it was too early last night for anyone at the university to comment.

Childerley said solar cars have to get a special permit from the Ministry of Transportation to drive on roads and highways, and must travel with a regular vehicle in front and behind. Those vehicles must have flashing yellow lights on their roofs.

The U of T car was following these regulations.

Kitchener-Waterloo Record

[Photo] The U of T solar car drives along Western Rd. toward the University of Western Ontario in London yesterday. Later, near Waterloo, another driver lost control.

[Photo] OPP investigate the scene of the fatal solar car accident on Highway 7 and 8 near the town of Shakespeare, Ont., yesterday.

>Have a boilerplate response ready explaining that you only accept documents in open formats

That isn't going to work nearly as well as:

"Our office is standardized on Office 97, and with 200 seats, the cost to 'upgrade' to Office 2003 is beyond our capacity. Please resend the file in a backwards compatible manner."

That will get their computing department to ensure people save their files in a compatible format, as most businesses *are* going to stick to Office 2000 or Office 97. They've probably had that message sent to them dozens of times before you give it to them, so they're going to listen to it.

A one-off "it's not open source" message wouldn't get my suppliers, for example, to stop sending me their pricesheets in Excel files.

This is the same as using corel draw for your graphics. It might not be the graphics industry standard, but all the companies I've dealt with (From the National and Regional Phone Books to Local Newspapers, all the way down to the local Ad-Rag) will explain, in detail, how you can save corel draw files in a manner they will accept. They specifically mention corel draw because it *is* popular enough that not supporting it means lost business (despite popular belief by stupid hoity-toity graphics folks at the local learning centers). However, I'd not expect a document on how to save a compatible Xfig file...

>I would definitely buy water there if it was the only place to buy water, no matter how bad it is. I have no choice and I have nowhere to file a grievance.

So, you're in the same boat, however I disagree with you that there's nowhere to file a grievance. It takes less than 30 minutes to fill out a small claims suit. Sue them under antitrust regulations if they have a monopoly and aren't providing a safe service. Seems clear and cut. You'd win without a lawyer.

>Suing large companies usually gets you nowhere.

Tell that to McDonald's. All they did was serve coffee that was "too hot" and lost millions of dollars. Imagine the result if they purposely served poisoned coffee.

>Who do you think is going to win in a case like that, someone making 30,000 a year or a corporation making 30 billion a year?

Clearly, the person in the right. And sometimes (eg. again, McDonald's coffee lady) it isn't the person in the right, and even then, it isn't always the person with the most money.

>Also look at MS. They make an inferior product that beats out better software that's free.

The product might be inferior, but it isn't hurting anybody (and if it is, MS already told you in BIG LETTERS not to use it for that purpose). The fact is people are paying for it because they want it. That might be because of better marketing. Whatever the reason, especially today, you don't need MS software to "survive". Sure, you might need it for your job, but even then, learning Microsoft Windows isn't going to leave you impaired in any way.

>Politcal scandals nowadays tend to either be about personal doings which are no one's else's business or involve corporations themselves, like Halliburton. The corporate scandals tend to be along the lines of Enron, which is an obvious reason for more regulation.

Hmmm, I have heard in the US that newspapers tend to be like this. In Ontario, they prefer to focus on what the government is ruining. In my case, the "big things" tend to be:

- Is the government ruining education, is privatization of the phone system/hydro a good thing, (locally) how bad did the city screw us over on RIM park, etc, etc.

Rarely do the leaders get their personal lives exposed, except in a few trashy newspapers, or as part of the "editorial" section. Hey, why not take a look at my local paper and see for yourself! :)

(If the registration is a PITA, and it certainly is, try the Sun)

>The point being that it's nice in theory to do that but people are not always in a position to help themselves (just like how communism is nice in theory).

It all depends on how much you believe in something. We're all selfish at heart, and most people, when pushed, will change their minds to suit their needs.

Right now I'd love to tax the hell out of all my competing businesses, but if mine went flat, I couldn't care less. That's human nature. And it's that selfishness (which that conservative is showing in abundance!) that is the reason why people can, and should, be responsible for themselves. Even when they are pretending they aren't, they really are.

Guelph-based Co-operators Life has warned more than 180,000 customers about possible identity theft after the disappearance of a computer hard drive containing sensitive personal information....

"Vital information such as name, date of birth, social insurance number and mother's maiden name" can be used to access financial accounts, transfer bank balances and apply for loans and credit cards, Co-operators CEO Kathy Bardswick said in the letter this week.

You might want to know about their local exploits.

Too bad that by percentage, I'm told they only bought the R. :-) At least they didn't rip off the city.

The local newspaper mentioned slashdot as a site complaining about the deal when it made front page in the locals. It might be worth double checking your spelling/grammar/intelligence before posting. :-)

The Kitchener/Waterloo newspaper, The Record, has as the headline today (Aug 17) UW, Microsoft deal under fire. This Slashdot discussion is mentioned.

The Kitchener/Waterloo newspaper, The Record, has as the headline today (Aug 17) UW, Microsoft deal under fire. This Slashdot discussion is mentioned.

If you group all the cities in my area up loosely (and I mean very loosely) you might get 300,000 people.

Yet my neighbouring city (Kitchener-Waterloo) has proposed to build miles of streetcars because they think this will move the average 2 - 5 riders on each bus off them to streetcars that don't even stop in their neighbourhood. This is even dumber than when they washed millions down the hole with an unread contract with RIM. Sheesh, its even dumber than when two a local town mayor was caught for DUI.

God, when I read the title in the newspaper I was just so freakin' glad I live far enough out of town that I didn't vote for any of those idiots.

If you group all the cities in my area up loosely (and I mean very loosely) you might get 300,000 people.

Yet my neighbouring city (Kitchener-Waterloo) has proposed to build miles of streetcars because they think this will move the average 2 - 5 riders on each bus off them to streetcars that don't even stop in their neighbourhood. This is even dumber than when they washed millions down the hole with an unread contract with RIM. Sheesh, its even dumber than when two a local town mayor was caught for DUI.

God, when I read the title in the newspaper I was just so freakin' glad I live far enough out of town that I didn't vote for any of those idiots.

If you group all the cities in my area up loosely (and I mean very loosely) you might get 300,000 people.

Yet my neighbouring city (Kitchener-Waterloo) has proposed to build miles of streetcars because they think this will move the average 2 - 5 riders on each bus off them to streetcars that don't even stop in their neighbourhood. This is even dumber than when they washed millions down the hole with an unread contract with RIM. Sheesh, its even dumber than when two a local town mayor was caught for DUI.

God, when I read the title in the newspaper I was just so freakin' glad I live far enough out of town that I didn't vote for any of those idiots.