I live about an hour-and-a-half north of Nanaimo (You're from the Comox Valley, I assume? Wow, a fellow/. er in my neighbourhood!) and I can safely say Vancouver Island coal mining still has some life left in it. It's nothing like the glory days which founded Nanaimo and eventually the whole province, but it's still good business for the right markets.
I don't think they'll be making any man-made islands soon, especially since we have no shortage of natural ones. No argument there, especially considering any man-made islands would get pulverized by the storms, fast tides and floating debris. Our ocean is not exactly gentle and placid.
I'd rather they spent the money (and labour) on raising the dykes a wee bit higher, to be honest. The dykes in Nanaimo ain't just Dutch farmers, my friend.
The ones you're thinking of, in Canada we spell as "dikes," eh?
Someone modded you troll while I was writing this response. For what it's worth I don't think your comment was at all troll-like.
I thought the article leaned a little too far towards the "hobbit" conclusions and didn't even ask if they were children or even how old they might have been. It's a fascinating discovery and maybe they are some kind of branch species, but it seems more likely, like your comment and TFA suggested, that their diet and inbreeding may have led to them being "midgets."
"The 30th anniversary celebrations were accompanied by Vogon poetry readings over BBC radio. In other news, the suicide rate rose sharply across London and surrounding areas..."
Thanks for the link. And there's a whole crapload of stuff being deregulated by this decision, to see what will be phased out read the end of the decision.
There's a lot of technical stuff in there I don't understand, but I can't see how letting the market forces reign in Canada will result in anything other than the big players swallowing up the small ones. It's been happening with the cable industry here for years, and with the DSL market, too. That's what happens when the fibre-optic backbone is owned by one or two companies.
The big difference is the Encyclopedia Brittanica is put out by an organization which can be held to account for mistakes, and correct them next edition. There is accountability with Wikipedia, but it's limited - how do you hold an anonymous IP address from one of its thousands of editors accountable? Better ask the RIAA how they do it.
But anyone using Wikipedia - or the encyclopedia - for any kind of meaningful research, and for citation, deserves a smack upside the head with Brittanica's fattest volume. They're starting points, nothing more, not the sum of all human knowledge.
Hell if they somehow get away with this I'm making Starcraft Universe (WoW clone) and I'm gonna be a millionaire! Hope you've got a few hundred servers in your mom's basement there. And that's just for your Korean customers.
So then they should change it to something else. Maybe they could pick "Scabulous." Sorry, that's too gross. How about "Wordsmith?" Or "Super fun happy family word make game." Oh wait, it's two guys in India, not Japan.
Seriously, though, I think they could have named it anything and it would have still been popular. The threat of lawsuit just seems like a "me-too" on behalf of the Scrabble publishers because they're just upset they didn't think of making a Facebook game first.
It is EA, Hasbro and Mattel, after all, some of the worst offenders when it comes to the bug and ad-infested crapware with which Wal-Mart fills its shelves. Name recognition is all they have going for them and they want to defend that market because it's lucrative and the thought of making money off an Internet app confuses and scares them.
I'm right there with you. There's still a place for small-town papers because all those decisions being made by your local politicians affect your daily life more than what you'll read in the New York Times. And who's going to cover those exciting meetings? Maybe that can get outsourced to India, too.
I grow tired of all the people who are quick to toss out accusations about the media as "lapdogs," "writing crap," "shoddy reporting," "one-sided," etc. Fair enough, but I find those accusations usually get thrown out by people who simply don't like what they read, and shoot the messenger. I ran into this this week. Our local sawmill is closing, putting hundreds of people out of work. Big news. However, I learn that some of those laid-off employees, if they choose, could take a job at the pulp mill next door, bumping pulp mill employees out of work because of an arcane agreement that is 14 years old. I report this fact and get blasted for it. But it's a fact. I could do what the other newspaper here in town did -- whose employees are in the same union as the sawmill -- and ignore this little fact to ingratiate myself to the union, and cover my own ass while appearing to be sympathetic. But instead my credibility has been questioned, I have pissed-off people phoning me at home to be abusive and I ask myself, why do I bother? I don't get paid enough for this crap.
How many other reporters are asking themselves that same question?
And for anyone who tries to argue that journalism is some idealistic calling, save the evangelism for the Sunday morning edition.
We decided last summer to get a Wii because it was more family-friendly. My wife and I enjoy playing the WiiPlay games and my two-year-old enjoys watching Mommy and Daddy smack-talk each other while they fish and cow race. Plus, it's easy to put the game down, unlike a Final Fantasy game with an endless cutscene that cannot be paused or replayed (sorry if that's no longer true, FFVII was the last one I played.)
Casual games are the biggest market out there. My wife spends hours playing games on Kongregate, more than I spend playing something like Twilight Princess or Far Cry. And I thought I was the hardcore gamer in the house.
I hope that Nintendo doesn't get cocky, now that millions (?) of Wii consoles are in living rooms, and continues to encourage quality games, not shovelware. As long as they can still publish good, single-person games (not crippled versions of other console's games, I'm looking at you Force Unleashed) for gamers like me to play after toddlers go to bed. A diverse catalogue is what is going to keep people playing Wii for the next few years.
Very interesting, thanks for posting that. When my daughter was an infant (8-12 months) we taught her to communicate simple concepts like "please" and "thank you" with sign language. She could ask for things before she could say what they were. No she won't shut up (two-and-a-half years old). To the article, It's not really surprising that kids absorb information. What I find surprising is how my daughter can so quickly pick something up after seeing it only once (i.e. curse words, my bad) or how to open or do something that's "mommy-daddy only."
Besides, aren't reporters "paid fact-checkers"? They are now, thanks to budget cuts. And at my newspaper, which is pretty small, I have to be a writer, photographer, editor, fact-checker, proof-reader, videographer, website programmer and paginator. There's a lot of ways to screw up. So I try really hard not to, and am usually successful.
And don't get me wrong, I like the idea of going to the source, too. But not every reader has the time to seek them out, to learn how to decipher scientific jargon or to gauge the trustworthiness of the source. That's what reporters are supposed to do, but sometimes they make mistakes. Sometimes big, stupid mistakes.
Does that mean you're going to stop reading the news, or does it mean you're going to keep reading, but with a critical mind? Does it mean you're going to assume that all news is inaccurate? Or that sometimes there are mistakes?
The thing is, the hobbyist blogger has it easy. "I like astronomy so I'm going to write about what I think is interesting." If they get something wrong, "oh well, who cares, I'm only doing this blog for fun and I'm not responsible for what my readers think." But a reporter has to think, "what will my readers find interesting? How can I inform them? Educate them? Challenge them? Not talk down to them? Not overwhelm them? Not screw up? Not just write about what I think is interesting?" And a reporter has to realize that what he/she writes shapes public opinion, whether they like it or not, and they have to be extremely careful to be fair and accurate, because they have that responsibility. That is what they are paid for.
Just curious -- you make a good argument, despite your borderline-offensive language, but why does my original post get modded 2 - interesting" when I try to offer a little insight into what journalists actually do, but your post, which includes such language as "asanine", "moronic" and makes a thinly-veiled personal attack, suggesting that if I don't agree with you I'm "a hack whose willing to peddle any old dogshit for a moment in the limelight" gets modded higher, and "informative?" You also take a shot at me for apparently making a mountain out of a molehill and you make a negative blanket generalization about my profession. You can do so if you like, I don't really care, but I hardly think it's "informative," mods.
To the actual topic, I'm not trying to say I know everything, or that I don't give my sources a fair chance to say what they mean. But I've seen too many stories where a source ends up driving the bus, and the story still ends up being wrong, and the journalist eats it while the source gets to play the "I was misquoted" card. Journalists are not machines that regurgitate what sources tell them. Every source has an agenda, and the journalist has to determine what it is, and how important/dangerous/irrelevant it is to the story.
A journalist's job is to present the facts fairly, accurately and objectively as possible. But it's also the journalist's job to think critically about the information they are taking in, and present facts and people in a truthful light.
What you get with that scenario is news written by hobbyists, which is not necessarily bad, but they are only writing about what they find interesting. Which explains why Wikipedia has more information about He-Man and the Masters of the Universe than string theory.
And besides, the pay in journalism is shitty enough now, you're not going to get very skilled writers/researchers/thinkers for part-time wages. Unless you outsource reporting to India, which has already been done (http://www.journalism.co.uk/news/story3306.shtml)
But people want news now, they want it accurate, and they want it free. Just remember you get what you pay for.
When I did a feature on a person, even a critical piece, I would send a draft to them before I submitted the article - usually there were no corrections - but when there were - they were vital. No offence, but no wonder your stint was brief. The journalist's job is to get it right the first time, or ask for clarification during the interview. You get one chance to get it right when it goes to print.
This is sometimes extremely difficult because when you are a journalist, if you make mistakes, they end up in print for everyone to see, with your name attached. But it's better to make mistakes, and correct them in humility, than to let your source write your story for you.
I've worked as a journalist for nearly seven years, and I've made some doozie mistakes, and corrected them. But I have never let a source control my story. And you know what? I've never had one refuse to be interviewed again, even if the story was critical of them. The most I will do is read back their quotes to them, and tell them in what light I am presenting them. But giving them editorial control over your story is a bad idea.
One last thing - the SETI reporter made a big, stupid mistake. It's a good thing the summaries around here are always so accurate, isn't it?
Seriously though, I think there are a lot of people who don't give a shit if anyone sees them committing a crime or misdemeanor. So a camera doesn't do anything for people who have no fear.
I don't expect Canadians will see much benefit from this for a while, in terms of trading with the US.
Case in point: I live in Canada. I want a new cordless reciprocating saw that works with my Home Depot-brand Ryobi cordless tool set. So I went to the American homedepot.com website and looked it up. I discovered it was available for $50. Great, the price should be about the same in Canada, I thought. I went to the Home Depot closest to where I live and found the saw - where it was selling for $80. There's no excuse other than price-gouging to sell an item for that kind of markup when the Canadian dollar and American dollar are almost equal.
Conclusion: It's going to take a while for prices to equalize while American companies with footholds in Canada will gouge as much as they can out of us to pay for that stock they imported when the dollar was worth less.
And for the record, for all the Americans who don't think this is important, the US is Canada's biggest trading partner, but Canada is the US's biggest trading partner, too. Look it up.
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I don't think they'll be making any man-made islands soon, especially since we have no shortage of natural ones. No argument there, especially considering any man-made islands would get pulverized by the storms, fast tides and floating debris. Our ocean is not exactly gentle and placid.
The ones you're thinking of, in Canada we spell as "dikes," eh?
Someone modded you troll while I was writing this response. For what it's worth I don't think your comment was at all troll-like.
I thought the article leaned a little too far towards the "hobbit" conclusions and didn't even ask if they were children or even how old they might have been. It's a fascinating discovery and maybe they are some kind of branch species, but it seems more likely, like your comment and TFA suggested, that their diet and inbreeding may have led to them being "midgets."
"The 30th anniversary celebrations were accompanied by Vogon poetry readings over BBC radio. In other news, the suicide rate rose sharply across London and surrounding areas..."
Thanks for the link. And there's a whole crapload of stuff being deregulated by this decision, to see what will be phased out read the end of the decision.
There's a lot of technical stuff in there I don't understand, but I can't see how letting the market forces reign in Canada will result in anything other than the big players swallowing up the small ones. It's been happening with the cable industry here for years, and with the DSL market, too. That's what happens when the fibre-optic backbone is owned by one or two companies.
There's an XP version? BRB I gotta go turn off automatic updates
Good point.
The big difference is the Encyclopedia Brittanica is put out by an organization which can be held to account for mistakes, and correct them next edition. There is accountability with Wikipedia, but it's limited - how do you hold an anonymous IP address from one of its thousands of editors accountable? Better ask the RIAA how they do it.
But anyone using Wikipedia - or the encyclopedia - for any kind of meaningful research, and for citation, deserves a smack upside the head with Brittanica's fattest volume. They're starting points, nothing more, not the sum of all human knowledge.
Er, sorry, I thought this thread was about something else.
So then they should change it to something else. Maybe they could pick "Scabulous." Sorry, that's too gross. How about "Wordsmith?" Or "Super fun happy family word make game." Oh wait, it's two guys in India, not Japan.
Seriously, though, I think they could have named it anything and it would have still been popular. The threat of lawsuit just seems like a "me-too" on behalf of the Scrabble publishers because they're just upset they didn't think of making a Facebook game first.
It is EA, Hasbro and Mattel, after all, some of the worst offenders when it comes to the bug and ad-infested crapware with which Wal-Mart fills its shelves. Name recognition is all they have going for them and they want to defend that market because it's lucrative and the thought of making money off an Internet app confuses and scares them.
This post was pretty well-thought out.
Just because someone says something you don't like doesn't make it flamebait.
[rolls dice] a pleasure to know him.
These are gamers we're talking about. A greasy film of Cheetos grease should be sufficient.
Employers do not work that way! Good night!
I'm right there with you. There's still a place for small-town papers because all those decisions being made by your local politicians affect your daily life more than what you'll read in the New York Times. And who's going to cover those exciting meetings? Maybe that can get outsourced to India, too.
I grow tired of all the people who are quick to toss out accusations about the media as "lapdogs," "writing crap," "shoddy reporting," "one-sided," etc. Fair enough, but I find those accusations usually get thrown out by people who simply don't like what they read, and shoot the messenger. I ran into this this week. Our local sawmill is closing, putting hundreds of people out of work. Big news. However, I learn that some of those laid-off employees, if they choose, could take a job at the pulp mill next door, bumping pulp mill employees out of work because of an arcane agreement that is 14 years old. I report this fact and get blasted for it. But it's a fact. I could do what the other newspaper here in town did -- whose employees are in the same union as the sawmill -- and ignore this little fact to ingratiate myself to the union, and cover my own ass while appearing to be sympathetic. But instead my credibility has been questioned, I have pissed-off people phoning me at home to be abusive and I ask myself, why do I bother? I don't get paid enough for this crap.
How many other reporters are asking themselves that same question?
And for anyone who tries to argue that journalism is some idealistic calling, save the evangelism for the Sunday morning edition.
We decided last summer to get a Wii because it was more family-friendly. My wife and I enjoy playing the WiiPlay games and my two-year-old enjoys watching Mommy and Daddy smack-talk each other while they fish and cow race. Plus, it's easy to put the game down, unlike a Final Fantasy game with an endless cutscene that cannot be paused or replayed (sorry if that's no longer true, FFVII was the last one I played.)
Casual games are the biggest market out there. My wife spends hours playing games on Kongregate, more than I spend playing something like Twilight Princess or Far Cry. And I thought I was the hardcore gamer in the house.
I hope that Nintendo doesn't get cocky, now that millions (?) of Wii consoles are in living rooms, and continues to encourage quality games, not shovelware. As long as they can still publish good, single-person games (not crippled versions of other console's games, I'm looking at you Force Unleashed) for gamers like me to play after toddlers go to bed. A diverse catalogue is what is going to keep people playing Wii for the next few years.
Very interesting, thanks for posting that.
When my daughter was an infant (8-12 months) we taught her to communicate simple concepts like "please" and "thank you" with sign language. She could ask for things before she could say what they were. No she won't shut up (two-and-a-half years old).
To the article, It's not really surprising that kids absorb information. What I find surprising is how my daughter can so quickly pick something up after seeing it only once (i.e. curse words, my bad) or how to open or do something that's "mommy-daddy only."
And don't get me wrong, I like the idea of going to the source, too. But not every reader has the time to seek them out, to learn how to decipher scientific jargon or to gauge the trustworthiness of the source. That's what reporters are supposed to do, but sometimes they make mistakes. Sometimes big, stupid mistakes.
Does that mean you're going to stop reading the news, or does it mean you're going to keep reading, but with a critical mind? Does it mean you're going to assume that all news is inaccurate? Or that sometimes there are mistakes?
The thing is, the hobbyist blogger has it easy. "I like astronomy so I'm going to write about what I think is interesting." If they get something wrong, "oh well, who cares, I'm only doing this blog for fun and I'm not responsible for what my readers think." But a reporter has to think, "what will my readers find interesting? How can I inform them? Educate them? Challenge them? Not talk down to them? Not overwhelm them? Not screw up? Not just write about what I think is interesting?" And a reporter has to realize that what he/she writes shapes public opinion, whether they like it or not, and they have to be extremely careful to be fair and accurate, because they have that responsibility. That is what they are paid for.
Just curious -- you make a good argument, despite your borderline-offensive language, but why does my original post get modded 2 - interesting" when I try to offer a little insight into what journalists actually do, but your post, which includes such language as "asanine", "moronic" and makes a thinly-veiled personal attack, suggesting that if I don't agree with you I'm "a hack whose willing to peddle any old dogshit for a moment in the limelight" gets modded higher, and "informative?" You also take a shot at me for apparently making a mountain out of a molehill and you make a negative blanket generalization about my profession. You can do so if you like, I don't really care, but I hardly think it's "informative," mods.
To the actual topic, I'm not trying to say I know everything, or that I don't give my sources a fair chance to say what they mean. But I've seen too many stories where a source ends up driving the bus, and the story still ends up being wrong, and the journalist eats it while the source gets to play the "I was misquoted" card. Journalists are not machines that regurgitate what sources tell them. Every source has an agenda, and the journalist has to determine what it is, and how important/dangerous/irrelevant it is to the story.
A journalist's job is to present the facts fairly, accurately and objectively as possible. But it's also the journalist's job to think critically about the information they are taking in, and present facts and people in a truthful light.
I stand corrected. You just made a case for paid fact-checkers - something many major media outlets have cut back in recent years.
What you get with that scenario is news written by hobbyists, which is not necessarily bad, but they are only writing about what they find interesting. Which explains why Wikipedia has more information about He-Man and the Masters of the Universe than string theory.
And besides, the pay in journalism is shitty enough now, you're not going to get very skilled writers/researchers/thinkers for part-time wages. Unless you outsource reporting to India, which has already been done (http://www.journalism.co.uk/news/story3306.shtml)
But people want news now, they want it accurate, and they want it free. Just remember you get what you pay for.
This is sometimes extremely difficult because when you are a journalist, if you make mistakes, they end up in print for everyone to see, with your name attached. But it's better to make mistakes, and correct them in humility, than to let your source write your story for you.
I've worked as a journalist for nearly seven years, and I've made some doozie mistakes, and corrected them. But I have never let a source control my story. And you know what? I've never had one refuse to be interviewed again, even if the story was critical of them. The most I will do is read back their quotes to them, and tell them in what light I am presenting them. But giving them editorial control over your story is a bad idea.
One last thing - the SETI reporter made a big, stupid mistake. It's a good thing the summaries around here are always so accurate, isn't it?
That's because the Hot Fuzz weren't on the job.
Seriously though, I think there are a lot of people who don't give a shit if anyone sees them committing a crime or misdemeanor. So a camera doesn't do anything for people who have no fear.
I don't expect Canadians will see much benefit from this for a while, in terms of trading with the US.
Case in point: I live in Canada. I want a new cordless reciprocating saw that works with my Home Depot-brand Ryobi cordless tool set. So I went to the American homedepot.com website and looked it up. I discovered it was available for $50. Great, the price should be about the same in Canada, I thought. I went to the Home Depot closest to where I live and found the saw - where it was selling for $80. There's no excuse other than price-gouging to sell an item for that kind of markup when the Canadian dollar and American dollar are almost equal.
Conclusion: It's going to take a while for prices to equalize while American companies with footholds in Canada will gouge as much as they can out of us to pay for that stock they imported when the dollar was worth less.
And for the record, for all the Americans who don't think this is important, the US is Canada's biggest trading partner, but Canada is the US's biggest trading partner, too. Look it up.
You receive the grave-robber perk! That's a -5 to karma, BTW.