Chronological Weblog/Links

Oh, Government Toadies....
July 29, 2010 :: ...you are so obvious and unsubtle. I suspect the Herald is a little over the top in suggesting Harper had anything to do with this; more likely an eager boot-licker trying to please. But...

The Yes Men: P2P edition
July 28, 2010 :: The Yes Men are making their newest movie available for bittorrent download and also provide links to donate money if you feel like it (I did). If you like their antics/activism please consider...

Hilhurst/Sunnyside Farmer's Market
July 16, 2010 :: Esther and I have been down to the newly revamped Hilhurst/Sunnyside Farmer's Market (Wednesdays from 3:30 to 7pm) a couple times and it really is quite improved: a good mix of actual...

Sour Gas wells, pipeline coming to Kananaskis
June 08, 2010 :: ``Alberta regulators have approved 11 sour gas wells on the eastern slopes of the Rockies despite strong opposition from landowners, ranchers, and environmentalists.'' ...also a pipeline....

Better food means better marks
April 13, 2010 :: Jamie Oliver is on a recent TED-prize-sponsored quest to better educate kids about what food is and give them better access to it. His talk at TED about it is both very depressing and...

Doctor's Strikes equal Lower Death Rates
March 24, 2010 :: Some time ago my friend Michael told me about a case of an Israeli doctors' strike in the 80's actually resulting in reduced mortality rates, and I finally got around to searching about...

Do better at math: teach it less
March 24, 2010 :: Interesting: a long article about an experiment from 1929 in which kids were taught no math at all (they spoke English instead, e.g. telling stories etcetera) up until grade 6. Before the...

Sea Lions killed for being sea lions
March 09, 2010 :: Here's a ridiculous one: ``A task force is expected to recommend that pesky sea lions that gobble up threatened salmon at Bonneville Dam be killed in order to help conserve fish runs'' ...

Internet Full
February 28, 2010 :: ARIN, the regional registrar for North America estimates that IP address exhaustion will happen this year. Although predicted since the 1990s (and planned for, with the IPv6 standard since...

Government Poisoning Citizens
February 25, 2010 :: Via Craig, we get this heartwarming story of the US government adding poison to then-illegal alcohol during Prohibition. They ordered the poisoning of industrial alcohols manufactured...

Genetically-engineered pigs
February 19, 2010 :: This is such fucking horseshit. Problem: hosing out factory pig farms put too much pig shit in rivers, ground water, etc. Solution: genetically engineer the pigs to have less phosphorous...

Sad state of affairs
November 15, 2009 :: ``Alberta elementary students can now visit provincial parks - without leaving their classroom.'' ...and without fear of lawsuits. Oh joy! What a fucking crock of shit. ...

Parents not competent to watch their own children...
October 29, 2009 :: ...at least according to the UK government. A town "adventure playground" recently banned all adults who has not had a criminal background check -- including the parents of kids at the ...

Canadian DMCA lobbying: what's good public policy, again?
October 14, 2009 :: You're probably not aware that the Canadian government is currently trying to make our copyright system far more broken than the American's (which is about as horrific as you get right now...

Manual of Security about not-leaking leaked...
October 06, 2009 :: Ah, those wakcy spooks are apparently also geniuses of Irony: successfully leaking their nearly 2400-page manual on avoiding leaks... Another point for wikileaks...

DEET a human neurotoxin
August 07, 2009 :: See also this story. So I guess my paranoia about DEET is not just retarded horseshit. By using toxicological, biochemical and electrophysiological techniques, we show that...

Estrogen analog BPA shown to enter urine during normal use
June 05, 2009 :: Bisphenol-A (BPA), an estrogen analog used in polycarbonate and other plastic manufacture, has been shown to enter the urine during "normal" use (i.e. putting cold water in a polycarbonate...

Humans or Bacterial Colonies?
June 05, 2009 :: I was playing around with Wolfram Alpha and noticed that there are an order of magnitude more bacteria (1015) in our bodies than there are human cells (1014)...

Cool: paper published
April 30, 2009 :: I helped my friend Kyle with writing some Python code to do clustering of GPS data for his Biology PHd project. He has published the following paper which has my name on it also; pretty ...

Rushkoff: in defense of the Dark Ages
April 24, 2009 :: ``...the Dark Ages were not dark. The Late Middle Ages, in particular, were extremely prosperous. Population and wealth went up, work hours went down. Height and health went up, death and...

Holy FUCKSMASHERS, Batman: $11.3 trillion thus far...
April 24, 2009 :: So, what does $11.3 Trillion (or nearly 80 fucking percent of US GDP [!!]) has been pledged thus far on bailouts, and around 25% of that has been spent. This CSMonitor article tries to answer...

Yay science! Glow-in-the-dark puppies!
April 23, 2009 :: The next great leap for our awesome Science is...bumbumbum...glow in the dark transgenic dogs! Obviously, a pressing problem has been solved here. What a great day for mankind. Be sure to...

$250 million dollar atomic waste dome
March 09, 2009 :: ...located safely in the middle of the ocean. No risk of leaks there... See it also on google-maps with what looks like a neighbouring atomic test-crater..

Surveillance Self Defense
March 09, 2009 :: Interesting-sounding repository of information from the Electronic Freedom Foundation (EFF) on protecting one's self from surveillance.

An Anarchist Critique of Democracy
February 24, 2009 :: Some good points in here. ``...reject all societal processes that break that link -- such as private property, exchange relations, division of labor, and democracy. We call that broken...

Poor, poor easily-terrified RCMP officers
February 23, 2009 :: ``One of the RCMP officers who confronted Robert Dziekanski the night he died at Vancouver airport testified on Monday that he feared for his safety after Dziekanski took a combative stance.''...

TED2009: Barry Schwartz
February 23, 2009 :: An interesting TED 2009 talk by Barry Schwartz, a psychologist ostensibly analying "the financial crisis" and speaking about "a society gone mad with bureaucracy". Some quotes I wrote while...

Confidential: NATO report on Afghanistan
February 19, 2009 :: A confidential NATO report on Afghanistan's civilian deaths has been leaked on Wikileaks. ``...civilian deaths from the war in Afghanistan have increased by 46% over the past year.''...

Anyone can listen to you via your cell phone
February 19, 2009 :: ...at any time, whether you've got it on or not. More (as always) at Wikipedia. If you really want to break out the tinfoil to protect yourself, read about ECHELON.

US Predator drones along Canada border
February 18, 2009 :: The US is deploying Predator unmanned drones along the US/Canada border from Ontario through Manitoba to invade people's privacy and take pictures of their naked sunbathing asses. Oh, sorry,...

Lamarkian evolution not horseshit afterall?
February 16, 2009 :: A new study finds that acquired traits can actually be passed on -- better known as "Lamarkian evolution", widely "debunked" and ridiculed as early as high school. ``In Feig's study,...

Philippines support urban agriculture...
February 06, 2009 :: ...as response to global economic panic. Seems much more prudent than borrowing money from our children to shovel into the firey pits of the broken banking system...

Track people via their cell-phones
February 06, 2009 :: Not just for the Government anymore! Now track your "friends" via Google, who deduces where they are via the GPS chip in your cell phone, which tower your phone is communicating with or which...

"Does not seem possible" that the LHC will destroy the Earth...
January 23, 2009 :: So, all those scientists who were "absolutely certain" that the mini black-holes created by the Large Hadron Collider (turned on briefly a few months ago, breaking it) will not last long...

Daylight Savings Kills
November 01, 2008 :: Professors Paul Fischbeck and David Gerard have made a study of traffic fatalities that shows pedestrians walking during the evening rush hour are nearly three times more likely...

Wikipedia for Schools
October 22, 2008 :: Very cool: a "school friendly" selection of Wikipedia articles. Originally intended for offline DVD distribution to developing countries, this contains 5500 fact-checked articles selected...

25% of Mammals Face Extinction
October 07, 2008 :: Holy fucking cock-balls. One in four of the world's 5,487 known mammal species face extinction, according to a new conservation "report card" unveiled today. Marine mammals...

SmirkingChimp on Sarah Palin
September 29, 2008 :: ``Only 21st-century Americans can pass through a metal detector six times in an hour and still think they're at a party.'' [..] ``The great insight of the Palin VP choice is that...

Officer Friendly?
September 29, 2008 :: The Denver police union had quite a time a the recent Democratic National Convention and are selling shirts: ``We get up early...to beat the crowds''.

Giant Corporate Welfare Cheques
September 24, 2008 :: So, where are all these right-wing free-market advocates now that the "banking system" in the US -- privatized over the years and now so "free market" it hurts? Eh? Giving them $800 billion...

Stickmen explain US bankruptcy
September 24, 2008 :: This is the second-best primer on the US "credit crunch" (bankruptcy), explained by stick-men. Awesome! (Seriously)

Stickmen explain US bankruptcy
September 24, 2008 :: This is the second-best primer on the US "credit crunch" (bankruptcy), explained by stick-men. Awesome! (Seriously)

Told you so: red light cameras for surveilance
September 17, 2008 :: For all those people who predicted that red-light and speed cameras would be used to track vehicles: you're right. Private companies in the US are hoping to use red light cameras...

Bridgeland garden plots to be protected?
September 17, 2008 :: The lots at the end of a quiet cul-de-sac on 7 Street N.E. are the last of what was once a common sight — neighbourhood vegetable gardens. The city bought land in the 1920s...

Greens still excluded from debates
September 09, 2008 :: In 2006, the CBC's excuse for not include the Greens in national debates was that they didn't have a seat. Lacking that excuse this year (the Greens have one seat currently), they simply...

Must-Listen: "Ideas" on Copyright
September 09, 2008 :: Great podcast from the CBC radio show "Ideas" about copyright. Pretty decent overview of the whole situation, in about 30 minutes.

Survival time of (unpatched) machines on the 'Net
July 16, 2008 :: The Internet Storm Center publishes these cool graphs of the average time an unpatched machine will last on the Internet before being taken over by malware (not even with someone surfing)....

"Turf Wars" in New Yorker: why we love lawns
July 16, 2008 :: Good essay on the history of our ridiculous infatuation with green squares of foreign grass. One of the most popular herbicides was — and continues to be — 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic...

Italian police sentenced over 2001 G8 protests
July 15, 2008 :: During the G8 summit in 2001, police were accused of posing as "Black Block" anarchists (among others) and inciting violence. There was also widespread illegitimate arrests of protestors,...

GNU/Linux open photo tools
July 10, 2008 :: An Apple fan-boy tries to find a replacement for Aperture under GNU/Linux (Ubuntu) and, to his surprise, succeeds. ...and it's all open source/free software and runs on Windows if you're...

Iran sucks at photoshop
July 10, 2008 :: Speaking of free/open photo tools, Iran apparently sucks at using them, releasing allegedly digitally altered images of their recent missile tests.

Electro-shock Plane Tickets
July 09, 2008 :: The Department of Homeland Security is apparently interested in deploying "electronic ID bracelets" for plane travellers to take the place of boarding passes. One difference: these...

Nelson Mandela not Terrorist
July 03, 2008 :: Nelson Mandela, 90, and other members of the African National Congress were officially taken off the US government's "terrorist list". He may now legally travel to the US.

Spanking: Jail.
June 19, 2008 :: The Senate is preparing to pass through a bill (which would still need House approval to become law) which would make it a crime to spank your child.

Wilderness Lake to Tailings Pond: Rubber-stamp
June 17, 2008 :: Federal Bureaucrats are allowed to redefine lakes and rivers as "tailing containment facilities" (aka toxic waste dumps for mining debris) and are doing just that to a bunch of lakes and...

Spontaneous Universes?
June 10, 2008 :: Apparently more observation and data-processing of the microwave background radiation reveals evidence for time existing before the big bang and spontaneous formation of universes from "parent"...

FBI using terrorism laws to "infiltrate" protest groups
May 23, 2008 :: As predicted, so-called "terrorism" laws are really being used to fuck the tender bottoms of protestors. What they were looking for, Carroll says, was an informant -- someone...

Dominion Book Review: Damming the Flood
May 08, 2008 :: The coup d'etat that Canada was instrumental in executing (pun intended) you've probably never heard about (and likely told me I was wrong when I told you). Interesting-sounding book about...

North face Mt. Alberta: new winter route
May 08, 2008 :: Steve House details his recent new route (with Vince Anderson) on the North Face of Mt. Alberta. Cool!

Army wants own botnet
May 08, 2008 :: The army wants to set up their own botnet (apparently Storm freaked the hell out of them?). Their own words are better anything I could make up: The world has abandoned a fortress...

GHM officially opposed Everest summit Olympic torch relay
April 18, 2008 :: Well, at least some people are sane: We believe that the project of the People's Republic of China to raise the Olympic torch at the top of Everest is particularly inappropriate,...

US to shoot down own spy satellite
February 15, 2008 :: All satellites' orbits decay. They will all eventually crash into Earth (even the moon, although that's a ways away). Knowing this, the US secretly launched a spy satellite whose "rocket...

RCMP hold improper, secret databases on Canadians
February 14, 2008 :: Secret databases kept by RCMP have been revealed and contain, apparently, a shocking amount of information which, "should not have been there" according to the Privacy Commissioner. ...

Drug Company Research vs. Ads
January 14, 2008 :: The study, entitled The Cost Of Pushing Pills is the product of two Canadian researchers, Marc-Andre Gagnon and Joel Lexchin. Their analysis of data from two market research ...

Kananaskis Clearcutting
January 08, 2008 :: See some pictures here. If you thought the clearcutting in the Ghost was bad, check this shit. The logging of the Kananaskis has started by decimating the Lusk Pass area near...

GSM radiation affects sleep
January 02, 2008 :: New Swedish research indicates that GSM radiation (that is, your cell phone) increases the length of time to reach deep sleep and shortens the time you spend there. During actual...

MEC silently removes polycarbonate bottles
December 07, 2007 :: Ryan sends me this Globe and Mail article noting that MEC [Ranting at MEC] has silently pulled all their polycarbonate Nalgene bottles (the coloured or clear ones, NOT the filmy white LDPE...

Funny little cartoon
September 01, 2007 :: Office - hippie commune.

Lotsa Meat equals lotsa cancer
July 13, 2007 :: Study links breast cancer to "Western" (high meat, high sugar) diet. The study compared post-menopausal women living in Shanghai who ate a "meat-sweet" diet high in meat, dairy,...

Permanent US Iraqi Presence
June 12, 2007 :: As predicted by many years ago, the US is now signalling an intent to stay more-or-less permanently in Iraq. In Washington and among American military officers in Iraq, the ...

No Grizzlies
June 12, 2007 :: There are half as many grizzlies in Alberta than previous thought, it has finally been learned. (The Alberta government did surveys some years ago and refused to release the results; I guess...

Etch-a-Sketch marathon art
June 12, 2007 :: Holy cock-balls. Some dude (James Lebron) took a time-lapse video of him drawing a pretty impressive etch-a-sketch picture over the course of 5 hours.

Buttery flavoured lung disease
May 08, 2007 :: The flavouring agent most used to cause a buttery sensation in microwave popcorn (yuck!) causes a weird, rare lung condition which basically plugs your lungs. Mostly, this affects the people...

THC as lung-cancer treatment?
April 19, 2007 :: Some evicence suggests that THC, the (psycho-) active ingredient in cannabis may be a useful treatment for lung cancer. THC acts on pair of receptors, CB1 and CB2. The receptors are...

Cadence-only bike computer
April 17, 2007 :: A nice little set of instructions to turn a "normal" bike-computer into a cadence-only one (my feeling match the author's: I haven't ridden with a bike computer in probably a decade [since...

Green leader to have no Liberal opposition
April 16, 2007 :: Green party leader Elizabeth May will run against Peter McKay and will not be oppposed by a Liberal candidate; the Greens will not run a candidate in Stephan Dion's riding in exchange. ...

Morton: pine bettle "emergency"
April 16, 2007 :: Ted Morton announced that the pine-beetle infestation in (mostly) northern Alberta is an "emergency" in order to tap into extra funds to start slashing and burning. Ralph Carter [U...

Cell-Phones causing bee deaths?
April 16, 2007 :: The mysterious recent collapsing of most bee-colonies in the US may be caused by cell-phones, a new study suggests. ``[some scientists] are putting forward the theory that radiation ...

Branch: recycled yuppie-ware
March 09, 2007 :: From boingboing: yuppie-leaning house (etcetera) wares made largely from recycled/reused stuff. This thing is sort of neat.

Judge: justice too expensive
March 09, 2007 :: Finally a real, live judge agrees with me: "justice" is for the rich. The cost of justice is beyond the reach of many middle-class Canadians, the chief justice of the Supreme...

Mercury-in-fish global health problem
March 08, 2007 :: Pregnant women (or women planning to get pregnant at any point) should avoid fish, most especially larger predators (tuna, etcetera) and carefully monitor intake of other fish like perch...

Biggest Invetebrate Ever
March 08, 2007 :: Fishermen off the coast of New Zealand have found the largest invetebrate ever, weighing in at almost one thousdand pounds! Scientists have believed that squid could grow to this...

15-year-old Canadian GitMo Detainee
March 08, 2007 :: Captured in 2002 (then 15) Omar Khadr has been held in Guantanamo Bay ever since. The Canadian government has done little to assist him (he has not had a trial yet). He spoke to his family...

ADD drugs to finally get warnings
February 22, 2007 :: The drugs used to treat ADD (aka ADHD) (1%-2% of north american kids are prescribed one) are (finally!) going to get warnings about cardiac and psychiatric risks in the US; Canada isued ...

Chimps hunting with spears
February 22, 2007 :: Chimpanzees in Senegal have been observed using sharpened sticks to hunt other, smaller, primates.

Shocking: more work, less time with family
February 13, 2007 :: Workers on average spend 45 fewer minutes per day with family now than in 1986, since workers on average are working more now (than ever before; humans have never worked more hours per year...

US honey-bee die-off accelerating
February 13, 2007 :: From 1971 to 2006 approximately one half of the U.S. honey-bee colonies have vanished, but the rate of attrition reached new proportions in the year 2006, which were alarming to many...

Settler-era Sourdough Starter
February 09, 2007 :: Cool! Someone named Carl has been preserving a sourdough starter passed on to through his family. It is thought to date to from the mid-1800's. For the "price" of a self-addressed-stamed...

"Vast expansion" of DNA collection
February 05, 2007 :: If you want another reason not to go to the crazy fascist USA, here's a good one: The Justice Department is completing rules to allow the collection of DNA from most people...

Travel to US to require fingerprints, credit check
January 25, 2007 :: For all Europeans, New Zealanders and Australians, travel to the US will now require the taking of all 10 fingerprints (which will be entered into the FBI's database and retained indefinitely...

Disrupting cancer cells' energy
January 18, 2007 :: A healthy cell relies on its mitochondria (descendants of bacteria that took up residence in the single-celled ancestors of animals and plants about 2 billion years ago) to oxidise...

Doomsday clock at 5-minutes to
January 17, 2007 :: The Doomsday clock was moved again by the Bulletin Of The Atomic Scientists to 5-minutes to midnight. As we stand at the brink of a second nuclear age and a period of unprecedented...

US pushing their luck
January 12, 2007 :: The US has raided the Iranian Consulate General in Iraq, and the Russian and Kurdistani Regional Governments have both condemned the attack as violating the Vienna Convention on Consular...

Mike the Headless Chicken
January 11, 2007 :: Despite [Farmer] Olsen's botched handiwork, the by-now-headless [rooster] Mike was still able to balance on a perch and walk clumsily; he even attempted to preen and crow, apparently...

UCS: ExxonMobil funding anti-global-warming groups
January 05, 2007 :: The Union of Concerned Scientists has released a report detailing that oil giant ExxonMobil has funnelled at least $16 million over 7 years to 43 advocacy groups who "seek to confuse the...

Some Euro bears have stopped hibernating
January 04, 2007 :: Brown bears in northern Spain have stopped hibernating due to the increasing warmth of the Earth. In a December in which bumblebees, butterflies and even swallows have been...

RFID credit cards easily hacked
October 24, 2006 :: So-called "next-generation" or "contactless" credit cards with RFID tags are easily hacked to glean their information. This could be used to clone the credit card easily. Tom...

Willie's Stash
October 17, 2006 :: Photos of Willie Nelson's stash when he was busted somewhat-recently in LA.

No more Canadian Topographic maps? They'll stay.
October 12, 2006 :: So, as if going to a 40m contour-interval wasn't bad enough now, apparently, there will no longer be any NTS map sheets printed (i.e. the ones you use for skiing, climbing). Instead, you will...

French intelligence agency member charged with 1985 bombing of Rainbow Warrior
September 29, 2006 :: A then-member of the French intelligence agency and brother of presidential candidate has been charged with the bombing -- in 1985 -- of the Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior. [..]...