Thank you for responding - that part I knew, as I'm "business manager" (read "IT guy, HR guy, financial guy, assistant director, etc., etc.") for a non-profit here in Canada. I'm just wondering about the tax-deduction status of orgs that are registered in the US but not with the CCRA. Cheers!
Maybe, since there are already so many(!) tax lawyers in this thread, someone can tell me whether this is a valid deduction in Canada if it's recognized in the Excited States. I've been wanting to give a little love back to the lizard for a while. Cheers!
This is the idea behind FirstClass (from the artist formerly known as Softarc, then Centrinity, now the FirstClass division of OpenText). Longtime Mac users, Scandinavians, or alumni of certain universities may recognize what I'm talking about.
FirstClass is a multiplatform client-server setup that incorporates intra- and internet servers (WWW, email, etc.), groupware (conferencing, calendaring, shared resources, file and contact management, etc.), instant messaging, and the best unified messaging I've ever seen. It's like a more capable version of MS or Novell groupware, plus unified messaging, but way more manageable and scalable (think 100 000 users on an NT4 box administered by one part-time administrator, just for one example).
Why it's not better known is quite beyond me. Don't take my word for it, though; download the free trial and check it out for yourself. It's not time-limited or anything, it's not crippleware - it's a full-function server. The only limitation is licenses (you get five user licenses, any more have to be purchased).
And no, I don't work for them. I don't even stand to gain financially from increased business. I just think, based on what I've seen, that it's a great product. Cheers!
That's brilliant! And I can't think of any uses for goat shit, except those that involve trolls or spammers... although I kind of wonder whether it burns when dried. Cheers!
Maybe it's way too early in the morning for me to post (too much blood in my caffeine system), but you brought up comma placement. Wouldn't your last sentence make more sense if the comma after "...run-on sentence" was moved to follow "...comma placement"?
i.e. "I'm not the type of person who usually points these types of things out, but after the first few sentences of atrocious grammar, the remainder of attrocious grammar is all packed into a run-on sentence that, depending upon proper comma placement, is incomplete.
Oh, and misspelling "atrocious" doesn't help the cause. Keep fighting the good fight, though!;-)
Scientific American and The Economist as often as possible (Science when possible, too, but I don't get old ones from my dad anymore, so that's not very often - yes, I'm a cheap bastard).
Guitar mags, keyboard mags, tattoo mags, cooking mags, design/architecture mags, and political/social commentary mags show up in the mix too, but not often enough to mention by name.
Oh! Outdoor mags, Wooden Boat, Fine Woodworking, and geographic mags, too. Usually borrowed. Cheers!
Agreed. I had the good fortune of living on the Toronto Islands for a few years as a child, and they were absolutly idyllic. My brother lives in downtown TO now, and I really enjoy visiting.
Vancouver is a city with which I fall more in love every time I visit; I'm headed back in August. I've even toyed with the notion of moving there, but I'm pretty settled in Winnipeg and I think I'd miss the scene here a little too much. Still, there's something to be said for mountains, trees, ocean, and no screens on the windows. Cheers!
I have to put in my 0.0149346 USD on Winnipeg as a place to live. I've lived or spent time in most of Canada's big cities, and Winnipeg often gets an undeservedly bad rap (see parent for example). I'm not a native Winnipegger (hell, I'm not even a native Canadian, I'm a refugee from down south), but I've lived here off and on for almost 30 years.
True, the winters can be cold. And true, the mosquitos are a pain in the ass. But we have more than enough to make Winnipeg "the best kept secret in Canada".
As a musician, one of the chief attractions for me is our vibrant music scene. Ditto for other arts, including several world-class dance companies, a great theatre scene, and some truly excellent galleries. The film industry is booming because the city is clean, inexpensive, and rich with talent.
Winnipeg enjoys gorgeous summer weather, more sunshine than most other cities, a high proportion of greenspace and some lovely parks. We arguably boast the world's best per capita selection of restaurants. Fishing, hunting, and other outdoor activities are world-class. We have museums (soon to include the new international human rights museum at The Forks) and a wealth of historic architecture.
Best of all, Winnipeg is a multicultural bonanza, much like Toronto albeit in a more cozy fashion. Perhaps it is the Manitoba tradition of welcoming immigrants that has made this city and province the open, inviting, friendly place it is today. All I know is that people who move here - however much they initially dread it - are soon loath to leave, and those who move away find themselves coming back. Ask them why, and they'll say, "The people."
Now, as a selfish isolationist, I really shouldn't be saying all this, because I don't WANT any more people moving here. But I do think it's sometimes important to reply to people who don't know anything about Winnipeg beyond... cold and mosquitos.;-)
Igloos are made of snow, actually. You just have to find the right snow: a drift at least 60 cm deep and very hard packed by the wind. Then you cut blocks with a snowknife (a saw works surprisingly well, too). And yeah, I've built plenty of 'em.
You're right in saying you can't build them too big, though; I'd guess about 3 metres at the peak would be a practical limit. They're good for storage, and surprisingly warm and comfortable if the cracks are stuffed with snow.
Back to the base - I think the stilts idea is a good one. I'd modify it though, so the stilts terminate in some kind of long, chain-driven, very deeply threaded screws (almost like an ice auger if you're ever seen one). Snow piling up and compacting into ice? Use a very slow gear to back the screws out a metre or two.
In the arctic, OTOH, we used plain old pre-fab panels (plywood sandwich with 10 cm of foam insulation in between) on beams. The beams in turn were laid on a really simple foundation: cardboard boxes placed over exposed bedrock and filled with more foam. Once the foam hardens it stays in place, and you saw all the tops to the same level.
We got snow up to the roof pretty reliably every winter, but it melted in the summer. I guess they can't count on that down south, though. Cheers!
You know, I didn't think anyone remembered The Third Man... but if you know who Harry Lime is, you might really appreciate a book I just finished reading for about the tenth time in twenty years or so (yeah, I like it that much). It's an offbeat spy thriller/romance called Lime's Crisis by novelist/screenwriter Ronald Bass. Wonderful read. Cheers!
I'm pleased to say that my bank, though it has its problems, has a decent online banking site that works just fine with Firefox. If it didn't, though, I'd either switch banks or fire off a letter like you describe.
I occasionally (though rarely) run across commercial sites that don't work with Firefox; I always make a point of informing sales@ and webmaster@ that they've just lost a potential sale. When it's something big, like a Mini Cooper, they seem to listen.;-)
True enough, but they don't *hunt* in open water. Less ice == less bears; you can see it happening in my old stomping grounds of Hudson Bay, where decreased ice cover is marginalizing the bear population.
(My folks are retired arctic zoologists, I grew up in the Canadian arctic, and the climate change scenarios aren't pretty. Not so coincidentally, their last expedition was SHEBA/JOIS, the first international scientific expedition to use the Louis St. Laurent as a platform.)
They certainly did. Just joshin' - I'm pleased enough that someone (a) attributed the song to the right band finally, and (b) someone else actually rememberd their original name. Have a good one!
That was a truly great flick. I went to see it with a couple of women who were die-hard, I mean "dress-up-'n'-shout-alternate-dialogue" Rocky Horror fans, and all three of us walked out of Little Shop of Horrors thinking it was the best horror musical ever. Thanks for the memories!
Man, I don't know. Animals are one thing, but plants are quite another. Ever check out plant genetics?
I'm more of an animal guy, but my ex was into plant biology, and her take on the whole plant genetics thing is nothing less than... very worrisome. Plants swap and adopt chromosomes, hybridize, etc. much more freely than animals.
The problem therefore is not that the actions of a gene in one species aren't known (though I'm not convinced they're know well enough); it's that the gene can get into other species far too easily. There are bigger nightmares in that scenario than a few allergic reactions.
I'll be the first to admit I'm no expert in plant genetics - but a fair number of people who ARE experts are concerned. I'm inclined toward caution. I'd suggest that the best thing to do is to clearly label products containing material from GMOs and let the consumers decide, but the shee^H^H^H^Hconsumers are the same folks with unpatched Windoze boxen. Cheers!
Yeah, that was a good one - Canada-centric, too, which was fine by me. I used to play it with a bunch of comm^H^H^H^H left-wing acquaintances and we had a great time. Good springboard for serious political-economic discussion, too.
Most diesel owners that live in cold weather climates have to plug the car into an electric heater at night if they want their cars to start on a winter morning.
Man, I grew up in the arctic and live in scenic Winnipeg, and I can tell you that it's not just Diesel owners. Around here, on a cold night, you plug in or your car could well be dead in the morning. It'll turn over... but your battery won't have enough amps to turn it over quickly enough to start. Cheers!
The Rail Builder games from Mayfair (too lazy to google the links) were awesome. There were versions for the UK, Europe, India, North America, and Japan, IIRC. Best of all, though, was the fantasy version - the mighty Iron Dragon. For a while I was playing a game a night with a friend who was staying with my family; we had it down to such an art that we could get through a 2-player game in 45 minutes.
I'm on my second copy, though it's lent out at the moment. I can't think of another board game that captured my interest like Iron Dragon. We had quite the little circle of players going for a while, too, though I think it's fair to say that we are all geeks of one sort or another.;-)
There was an attempt to create an online version, but I don't know what happened to it - I've never been able to get the demo to work on my machines. Anyone know anything about this?
Oh yeah, forgot to add: I don't have a link on this. I'm old-school - I read it somewhere in a book. Kind of common knowledge among my family, though; we lived among the Inuit for many years when I was younger. Cheers!
Slashdot Mirror
Thank you for responding - that part I knew, as I'm "business manager" (read "IT guy, HR guy, financial guy, assistant director, etc., etc.") for a non-profit here in Canada. I'm just wondering about the tax-deduction status of orgs that are registered in the US but not with the CCRA. Cheers!
Maybe, since there are already so many(!) tax lawyers in this thread, someone can tell me whether this is a valid deduction in Canada if it's recognized in the Excited States. I've been wanting to give a little love back to the lizard for a while. Cheers!
This is the idea behind FirstClass (from the artist formerly known as Softarc, then Centrinity, now the FirstClass division of OpenText). Longtime Mac users, Scandinavians, or alumni of certain universities may recognize what I'm talking about.
FirstClass is a multiplatform client-server setup that incorporates intra- and internet servers (WWW, email, etc.), groupware (conferencing, calendaring, shared resources, file and contact management, etc.), instant messaging, and the best unified messaging I've ever seen. It's like a more capable version of MS or Novell groupware, plus unified messaging, but way more manageable and scalable (think 100 000 users on an NT4 box administered by one part-time administrator, just for one example).
Why it's not better known is quite beyond me. Don't take my word for it, though; download the free trial and check it out for yourself. It's not time-limited or anything, it's not crippleware - it's a full-function server. The only limitation is licenses (you get five user licenses, any more have to be purchased).
And no, I don't work for them. I don't even stand to gain financially from increased business. I just think, based on what I've seen, that it's a great product. Cheers!
...I think you've been playing too much chess at the Zone!
Or, if not, you certainly have the typical players pegged...
That's brilliant! And I can't think of any uses for goat shit, except those that involve trolls or spammers... although I kind of wonder whether it burns when dried. Cheers!
"...and have it mean butkiss..."
The word is bupkis. It's Yiddish for "nothing".
That being said, I almost like your version better. Cheers!
Maybe it's way too early in the morning for me to post (too much blood in my caffeine system), but you brought up comma placement. Wouldn't your last sentence make more sense if the comma after "...run-on sentence" was moved to follow "...comma placement"?
;-)
i.e. "I'm not the type of person who usually points these types of things out, but after the first few sentences of atrocious grammar, the remainder of attrocious grammar is all packed into a run-on sentence that, depending upon proper comma placement, is incomplete.
Oh, and misspelling "atrocious" doesn't help the cause. Keep fighting the good fight, though!
...in other news, parent actually works for FedEx and just got a stock bonus...
OK, I've got the mod points, now where's "-1, Too Informative"? ;-p
Scientific American and The Economist as often as possible (Science when possible, too, but I don't get old ones from my dad anymore, so that's not very often - yes, I'm a cheap bastard).
Guitar mags, keyboard mags, tattoo mags, cooking mags, design/architecture mags, and political/social commentary mags show up in the mix too, but not often enough to mention by name.
Oh! Outdoor mags, Wooden Boat, Fine Woodworking, and geographic mags, too. Usually borrowed. Cheers!
Agreed. I had the good fortune of living on the Toronto Islands for a few years as a child, and they were absolutly idyllic. My brother lives in downtown TO now, and I really enjoy visiting.
Vancouver is a city with which I fall more in love every time I visit; I'm headed back in August. I've even toyed with the notion of moving there, but I'm pretty settled in Winnipeg and I think I'd miss the scene here a little too much. Still, there's something to be said for mountains, trees, ocean, and no screens on the windows. Cheers!
I have to put in my 0.0149346 USD on Winnipeg as a place to live. I've lived or spent time in most of Canada's big cities, and Winnipeg often gets an undeservedly bad rap (see parent for example). I'm not a native Winnipegger (hell, I'm not even a native Canadian, I'm a refugee from down south), but I've lived here off and on for almost 30 years.
;-)
True, the winters can be cold. And true, the mosquitos are a pain in the ass. But we have more than enough to make Winnipeg "the best kept secret in Canada".
As a musician, one of the chief attractions for me is our vibrant music scene. Ditto for other arts, including several world-class dance companies, a great theatre scene, and some truly excellent galleries. The film industry is booming because the city is clean, inexpensive, and rich with talent.
Winnipeg enjoys gorgeous summer weather, more sunshine than most other cities, a high proportion of greenspace and some lovely parks. We arguably boast the world's best per capita selection of restaurants. Fishing, hunting, and other outdoor activities are world-class. We have museums (soon to include the new international human rights museum at The Forks) and a wealth of historic architecture.
Best of all, Winnipeg is a multicultural bonanza, much like Toronto albeit in a more cozy fashion. Perhaps it is the Manitoba tradition of welcoming immigrants that has made this city and province the open, inviting, friendly place it is today. All I know is that people who move here - however much they initially dread it - are soon loath to leave, and those who move away find themselves coming back. Ask them why, and they'll say, "The people."
Now, as a selfish isolationist, I really shouldn't be saying all this, because I don't WANT any more people moving here. But I do think it's sometimes important to reply to people who don't know anything about Winnipeg beyond... cold and mosquitos.
Cheers!
Igloos are made of snow, actually. You just have to find the right snow: a drift at least 60 cm deep and very hard packed by the wind. Then you cut blocks with a snowknife (a saw works surprisingly well, too). And yeah, I've built plenty of 'em.
You're right in saying you can't build them too big, though; I'd guess about 3 metres at the peak would be a practical limit. They're good for storage, and surprisingly warm and comfortable if the cracks are stuffed with snow.
Back to the base - I think the stilts idea is a good one. I'd modify it though, so the stilts terminate in some kind of long, chain-driven, very deeply threaded screws (almost like an ice auger if you're ever seen one). Snow piling up and compacting into ice? Use a very slow gear to back the screws out a metre or two.
In the arctic, OTOH, we used plain old pre-fab panels (plywood sandwich with 10 cm of foam insulation in between) on beams. The beams in turn were laid on a really simple foundation: cardboard boxes placed over exposed bedrock and filled with more foam. Once the foam hardens it stays in place, and you saw all the tops to the same level.
We got snow up to the roof pretty reliably every winter, but it melted in the summer. I guess they can't count on that down south, though. Cheers!
You know, I didn't think anyone remembered The Third Man... but if you know who Harry Lime is, you might really appreciate a book I just finished reading for about the tenth time in twenty years or so (yeah, I like it that much). It's an offbeat spy thriller/romance called Lime's Crisis by novelist/screenwriter Ronald Bass. Wonderful read. Cheers!
I'm pleased to say that my bank, though it has its problems, has a decent online banking site that works just fine with Firefox. If it didn't, though, I'd either switch banks or fire off a letter like you describe.
;-)
I occasionally (though rarely) run across commercial sites that don't work with Firefox; I always make a point of informing sales@ and webmaster@ that they've just lost a potential sale. When it's something big, like a Mini Cooper, they seem to listen.
I originally read "caned", and thought, "YES!"
(OK, it was funny to *me*...)
True enough, but they don't *hunt* in open water. Less ice == less bears; you can see it happening in my old stomping grounds of Hudson Bay, where decreased ice cover is marginalizing the bear population.
(My folks are retired arctic zoologists, I grew up in the Canadian arctic, and the climate change scenarios aren't pretty. Not so coincidentally, their last expedition was SHEBA/JOIS, the first international scientific expedition to use the Louis St. Laurent as a platform.)
They certainly did. Just joshin' - I'm pleased enough that someone (a) attributed the song to the right band finally, and (b) someone else actually rememberd their original name. Have a good one!
Blue Oyster Cult was first known as Soft White Underbelly. Props to grandparent, parent goes back to rawk skool. ;-)
That was a truly great flick. I went to see it with a couple of women who were die-hard, I mean "dress-up-'n'-shout-alternate-dialogue" Rocky Horror fans, and all three of us walked out of Little Shop of Horrors thinking it was the best horror musical ever. Thanks for the memories!
Man, I don't know. Animals are one thing, but plants are quite another. Ever check out plant genetics?
I'm more of an animal guy, but my ex was into plant biology, and her take on the whole plant genetics thing is nothing less than... very worrisome. Plants swap and adopt chromosomes, hybridize, etc. much more freely than animals.
The problem therefore is not that the actions of a gene in one species aren't known (though I'm not convinced they're know well enough); it's that the gene can get into other species far too easily. There are bigger nightmares in that scenario than a few allergic reactions.
I'll be the first to admit I'm no expert in plant genetics - but a fair number of people who ARE experts are concerned. I'm inclined toward caution. I'd suggest that the best thing to do is to clearly label products containing material from GMOs and let the consumers decide, but the shee^H^H^H^Hconsumers are the same folks with unpatched Windoze boxen. Cheers!
Yeah, that was a good one - Canada-centric, too, which was fine by me. I used to play it with a bunch of comm^H^H^H^H left-wing acquaintances and we had a great time. Good springboard for serious political-economic discussion, too.
Most diesel owners that live in cold weather climates have to plug the car into an electric heater at night if they want their cars to start on a winter morning.
Man, I grew up in the arctic and live in scenic Winnipeg, and I can tell you that it's not just Diesel owners. Around here, on a cold night, you plug in or your car could well be dead in the morning. It'll turn over... but your battery won't have enough amps to turn it over quickly enough to start. Cheers!
The Rail Builder games from Mayfair (too lazy to google the links) were awesome. There were versions for the UK, Europe, India, North America, and Japan, IIRC. Best of all, though, was the fantasy version - the mighty Iron Dragon. For a while I was playing a game a night with a friend who was staying with my family; we had it down to such an art that we could get through a 2-player game in 45 minutes.
;-)
I'm on my second copy, though it's lent out at the moment. I can't think of another board game that captured my interest like Iron Dragon. We had quite the little circle of players going for a while, too, though I think it's fair to say that we are all geeks of one sort or another.
There was an attempt to create an online version, but I don't know what happened to it - I've never been able to get the demo to work on my machines. Anyone know anything about this?
Oh yeah, forgot to add: I don't have a link on this. I'm old-school - I read it somewhere in a book. Kind of common knowledge among my family, though; we lived among the Inuit for many years when I was younger. Cheers!