Good thing they were in a 'free' country

In response to a recent court ruling that upheld the prohibition of "silent expressive dancing" at the Jefferson Memorial in Washington D.C. a number of people decided to hold a silent dance protest at the memorial.

The following videos show some of what happened to the dancers while they were at the memorial dancing.



[Embedded video]



[Embedded video]

Even if we accept that what these individuals were doing was disruptive and that the police service involved can prohibit them from doing it, was the force used really necessary?

Furthermore, if the reason for prohibiting dancing and other such activities is related to disturbing tranquility isn't it at least a little ironic that the resulting arrests surely did more to disturb the tranquility than silent dancers? Would Justin Bieber, or any other celebrity, be arrested for visiting the site and disturbing the tranquility of the monument when they are mobbed by adoring fans?

I understand why one might want to prohibit disruptive behaviours at this type of site (though I think such a goal is fundamentally questionable), but things have clearly gone to far when silent swaying can be deemed so disruptive that it merits arrest.

Get your act together NSLC

Yesterday Jeannette and I were walking through the local NSLC (provincially run liquor store) when we noticed an acquaintance of ours, who also happens to be a local winemaker, pictured and named in a display about locally produced wines. (In case you are curious, we did end up buying one of his products and were quite pleased with it.)

A few minutes after spotting this picture we made our way to the check out where, much to my surprise, I was IDed. As I am now almost 10 years over the legal age I am always surprised when I am IDed, particularly if I have previously made purchases in the establishment without being IDed.

Anyway, this morning while at the farmer's market Jeannette ran into our acquaintance and mentioned that we saw the display with his photo and name. This local winemaker then told Jeannette that recently when making a purchase in this same store, where his photo and name were prominently displayed, he too was IDed.

How is that for ineffective systems? I am not sure if their IDing system is worse than their staff product training system, but I am pretty sure that at least one or both of these systems is pretty far out of whack if something like this can happen.

What's the difference between pro sports and the film industry?

Based on my assessment of news coverage in St. John's, the potential return of an AHL team to St. John's seems to be a pretty big story at the moment. An aspect of the story that seems to be getting the most coverage is whether or not the municipal and provincial governments would provide the team with some sort of subsidy/incentive to help the whole relocation process along.

A few days ago the city decided it wouldn't offer such an incentive and just a few moments ago I heard that the provincial government has also decided against providing such an incentive. Apparently Terry French went so far as to say that the government would be 'philosphically' opposed to such a subsidy.

And while I don't happen to be a particularly big fan of subsidies to pro sports teams I do find it funny that the same government that actively subsidizes the TV and film industry, among other industries, would go so far as to suggest professional sports are a lesser (in terms of meriting public support) form of mass entertainment or employment. I have to imagine that the number of jobs associated benefits that could be almost guaranteed by the arrival of a pro hockey team would be of greater economic significance than frequently arise due to other industrial subsidies.

If you don't want to subsidize a particular company, fine, don't subsidize it, but to suggest that you are philosophically opposed to a particular aspect of the entertainment industry seems a bit much, particularly on a day that the same government announced funding for the acquisition of lighting equipment for the TV and film industry.

It has begun or On the road or a more 'rational' university system in Nova Scotia

Since the O'Neill Report on post-secondary education in Nova Scotia was released a few months ago talk of university mergers has been in the air. Recent university budget constraints and tuition increases have provided the merger fire with even more fuel.

It seems that we may have finally reached a tipping point. CBC is now reporting that Dal and the Nova Scotia Agricultural College are set to begin merger talks.

I presume the big question is if this set of talks will lead to any additional merger talks. Based on what I have heard on the subject MSVU seems like a prime merger candidate, as does NSCAD. I keep wondering if we can really justify the continued independence of SMU and Dal.

One prof I spoke to about this a few months ago thought that mergers were unlikely to happen, at least in Halifax, on a large scale because of the religious affiliations of the schools that would be involved. Could a protestant school really absorb a catholic school like SMU without causing a public backlash? While we will have to wait to see if such arguments are brought forward, I really have a hard time imagining that this would ever be much of an issue in this secular age, particularly when most of the students attending these schools probably can't identify the religious groups with which the school was originally associated. Furthermore, are any of these religious groups really interested in putting up a fight, particularly if winning means permanent budget gridlock for the institution and lower quality education?

Anyway, I suspect these merger talks are a sign of things to come for post-secondary education in Nova Scotia and given the size of the industry here such talks will be of some importance to the province as a whole. I know I will definitely be paying attention as this plays out.

Yesterday was a pretty nice day

Yesterday afternoon I spent a little time outside while reading and decided to try to capture some of the cloud activity that was taking place.



[Embedded video]

I think that this actually turned out pretty well. I am actually a little surprised to see how well this turned out. Who knew that clouds move so much on days when it doesn't even appear to be windy?

Hits close to home

Several aspects of this video have happened to me - more than once.



[Embedded video]

In case you were curious, this was created by the baby monkey guy.



[Embedded video]

It's hard to believe that this is real

I am not even entirely sure what to make of this, but it is definitely impressive.



[Embedded video]

I am curious how many more libraries will adopt similar storage and retrieval systems? Also, I am curious to know how much it cost to implement such a system.

Putting me to shame

What was possible in stop-motion video in 1977 at the NFB (a place not known for their huge budgets)



[Embedded video]

All I was capable of in 2011 (in an afternoon in my bedroom with no budget).



[Embedded video]

I feel a little embarrassed.

He talk-sings the hell out of the anthem

I am not inclined to call myself a big William Shatner fan, but I did find this pretty amusing for an NFB production (an attempt at humour).



[Embedded video]

Contradictory information from the feds on alcohol?

A story that has received some attention recently is a BC man's attempt to draw attention to the impact the Importation of Intoxicating Liquors Act is having on small wineries in Canada. The law makes it impossible to for wineries to sell directly to out of province clients or even for those clients to purchase wine and then themselves transport it to another province.

The particularly problematic section of the law seems to be section 3. (1), which I might as well quote here in full:

Notwithstanding any other Act or law, no person shall import, send, take or transport, or cause to be imported, sent, taken or transported, into any province from or out of any place within or outside Canada any intoxicating liquor, except such as has been purchased by or on behalf of, and that is consigned to Her Majesty or the executive government of, the province into which it is being imported, sent, taken or transported, or any board, commission, officer or other governmental agency that, by the law of the province, is vested with the right of selling intoxicating liquor.

I read this section to mean private citizens (among others) are prohibited from transporting alcohol across the national border as well as provincial borders. This national border aspect of the prohibition is an issue that hasn't really been raised in the coverage I have seen.

I find the absence of this discussion particularly surprising because I suspect that many residents of Canada as well as visitors to Canada have brought alcohol into the country with them, and I presume most of these people had no idea they were doing anything illegal.

My guess is that many people thought that what they were doing was fine because for years Canadian customs agents have been suggesting that it is fine to bring alcohol into the country. Actually, even now the CBSA website provides guidelines regarding how much alcohol one is allowed to bring into the country. Furthermore, it has at least been my experience that when one does bring alcohol into the country customs agents aren't particularly inclined to enforce or even mention the restrictions outlined in the Importation of Intoxicating Liquors Act.

Anyway, if I am clearly missing something in my analysis please let me know otherwise I will have to remain convinced that CBSA is facilitating the the illegal importing of alcohol by private citizens and has been doing so for years.

Work around?

For much of this evening Blogger has been unable to accept new posts or comments.  It seems that there are some issues that they are trying to resolve.  As far as I can tell they have thus far been hesitant to suggest a time by which service will be restored.

Anyway, all of this means that I can't get my up to the minute stats that I am accustomed to checking periodically throughout most evenings.  How am I supposed to get any work done if I can't confirm that we have had three pageviews in the past 2 hours?

I am curious if this post will even be posted as the system is supposed to be down (though I am trying to post it through an in-direct mechanism that I hope is still functional).  Actually, testing this mechanism is my only real justification for this post.

Update: My 'work around' didn't really work - it was held up in the system until Blogger came back online.

Hopefully to clue things up

For better or worse I have recently been somewhat intrigued by the coverage and story of the recent election of Ruth Ellen Brosseau (though I realize that in the larger scheme of things this is really not a particularly important story). Actually, I suspect that I wouldn't have found this story the least bit intriguing had I not noticed that Ms. Brosseau's parliamentary profile lists her language preference as French even though it seems to be pretty widely accepted that she is more comfortable in English. (For a while I wondered if this profile might be modified to reflect reality but I now have the sense that 'French' is there to stay whether or not that is actually her preferred language.)

As a follow-up, and hopefully a conclusion, I thought I should provide a link to footage of an interview given by Ms. Brosseau earlier today. The public, and her constituents, should now have a slightly better sense of her ability to communicate in French. I leave it up to you to decide how capable a French speaker you think she is.

I'll never miss a hot viral vid again

A few days ago I happened to be browsing the Twitter when I noticed a re-tweet from one of the Google accounts that I follow. The tweet in question was originally a tweet from the YouTube Trends Twitter account. Eventually I was taken to a post about newly popular slo-mo videos. After watching a few of these videos (and a few others that I found through the first videos) I decided to subscribe to the blog via RSS and Google Reader.

Now I regularly get updates about trending/viral vids on YouTube as they are going viral or starting to trend. For instance, yesterday I received a notice that included a video of a key playing a banjo with his brothers.



[Embedded video]

Then today I noticed that Failblog's Win! blog re-posted the video. I was a full 12 hours ahead of Failblog in getting the news. I felt like a real web insider.

Of course I'm not just getting the inside scoop on hot new viral vids, but I am not also watching a few more viral vids than I might have a few days ago. Fortunately, I have been able to restrain myself to a fairly admirable extent, and most of the vids I have been watching have been at least fairly entertaining or informative - unlike the junky vids I was watching before I subscribed to this blog.

And in case you're curious, as far as I know none of my vids have been featured on this blog, presumably because none have hit yet (though I am surely just around the corner with a few of them).

Anyway, if you have to be the first kind on your block to have the inside scoop on hot YouTube vids the aforementioned blog is for you. Even if you don't have to be the first kid on your block to have all the new vids but are just someone who likes a good viral vid you also might find this website worthwhile.

Even more conflicting information about Ms. Brosseau

A few days ago I posted about the apparent disconnect between the newly elected Ms. Brosseau's reported language abilities and parliamentary language preference.

One might think that Ms. Brosseau has already dealt with enough media coverage, but it seems that she might be in for a fair bit more because reports are now coming out that the post-secondary experience reported on Ms. Brosseau's NDP profile page did not actually occur as claimed. It seems that the school in question has indicated that Ms. Brosseau did not complete the program that it has been claimed she completed. Drama.

Now it seems that the NDP profile been modified to reflect the claim of the school.

Anyway, while I can't say that I am glad to hear about this development I am quite pleased that CBC's reporting on the topic has at least resulted in a second picture of Ms. Brosseau. The overwhelming presence of the first photo was starting to become a little disconcerting. Was there only one picture of this woman? That being said, the new photo being used by the CBC has the same strange background. What's up with that?

Anyway, I am curious to see how much longer this story will manage to attract coverage. Mustn't there be more important stories for the parliamentary press corps to be following?

Conflicting information about Ms. Brosseau

Starting a few days before the final votes were cast in the recent Canadian election and now continuing past the election has been a media fascination for the then NDP candidate for Berthier--Maskinongé, Ruth Ellen Brosseau. At first it was noted that Ms. Brosseau had spent some portion of the campaign period on vacation in Las Vegas. More recently it has been reported that Ms. Brosseau did not even go to the riding to campaign during the election period.

Maybe the most contentious revelation, at least as far many Francophone residents Ms. Brosseau's district are concerned, is that Ms. Brosseau's French is so rusty and that she is currently being given a crash course in French through the aegis of the NDP and Thomas Mulcair (a prominent Quebec NDP MP).

Given the prominence of this revelation about Ms. Brosseau's level of competence in French I was a little surprised to see that on her parliamentary profile page her "language preference" is French - a language which even her party and father suggest she can't speak particularly well.

Since the disconnect between her parliamentary profile and publicly available information is quite prominent I included a screen shot in case the profile is updated to reflect her language abilities (we wouldn't want to lose this piece of information in the shuffle).

Oh, and I also love that there seems to be only one publicly available picture of this woman, and that it is being used by just about everybody. I wonder if she knew that her candidate profile photo would gain such attention and be so frequently used if she would have used the photo that she used?

Making a Wooden Futon Frame

A few weeks ago I looked at my friend Peter's wooden futon frame and observed that the design was really quite simple. Actually, the design seemed so simple it seemed like something that I might be able to replicate with relative ease and only a few tools.

Of course as I haven't made much furniture my claim that I would be able to easily make a wooden futon frame was met with some hesitation and suspicion. Even my pricing of lumber and buying a mitre box and saw didn't seem to allay fears that at best this project would end with a pile of partially used lumber and stripped screws.

Through all of this doubt I remained firmly committed to the idea and confident of my abilities, even though I haven't done much woodworking since my Home Maintenance class in high school.

On Tuesday I finally got around to picking up the required materials: 3 2x4s, 8 1x4s, 1 1x2s, 50 screws, and 6 nut/bolt/washer sets.

That afternoon I laid things out as best I could without cutting any of the wood and did my best to picture how the item would come together. Without much hesitation I then started working on the project by cutting the 2x4s down to size and then drilling holes in them to allow me to use the nut/bolt/washer combos to create hinge effects.

The next major step was to attach the 1x4s to the 2x4 sections to create the areas on which the pad was to rest. As expected, this all went quite well.

Of course, as I didn't make any plans or take any measurements from Peter's futon I did eventually run up against a problem when I found that some of the 2x4 sections were to long to allow the frame to lie flat on the ground when in the bed position. To fix the problem I had to remove the 2x4s from the 1x4s and cut them before re-attaching them. (Considering that I didn't have any plans or specs I was pretty pleased that this relatively minor and easily rectified problem was the only real problem that I encountered.)

Once the fram was constructed I attached sections of 1x2 the 2x4s to hold the back of the frame in the couch position. The next, and last, step was to cut wedges in some of the 2x4s to act as resting places for the previously mentioned 1x2s so that the couch position could be maintained. And even though I had to make the cuts freehand they turned out remarkably similar to one another.

Anyway, feel free to check out the time-lapse video of the event. As you can see, the frame is really quite simple and easy to construct.



[Embedded video]

In case you are curious, it does feel pretty great to have made a functional piece of furniture. I presume this sense of accomplishment is similar to what knitters or sewers feel when they make a wearable piece of clothing from materials that originally seem completely unlike anything even remotely resembling clothing.

The only the the futon is still missing is a proper pad, though a fully functional/comfortable arrangement has been rigged up with a thing foam mattress and a think memory foam mattres pad.