That's a big swing

Amazingly, we have somehow managed to experience a 21 degree temperature swing since this morning. Maybe what is even more impressive than the fact that we experienced such a large temperature swing is that it basically happened as forecast.

A consequence of this huge swing is that buildings are much warmer than I think they should be. I guess it will take another day or so for things to work themselves out with regards to building temperature.

Score
Cameron 65
Neil 30

End of the blog-off

There are less than 14 minutes left in the blog-off, which means the blog-off is at least 2799 2800ths done with the competition this year. Cameron hasn't posted much this evening and only has a few minutes to correct the tagging of previous entries to regain 30 or so points. After this post, I'm within striking distance; it feels like a trap. Oh wait... Cameron has posted a new post with a high score for himself. It looks like he has perhaps corrected his labelling mistakes. Looks like that just about does it for me. I'm confident I don't have another 7 posts in me.

Score

Cameron 65

Neil 30

New Ubuntu installs

In the past month or so I've installed Ubuntu on three computers: Rebecca's old laptop, my new laptop and my desktop at school. Overall I was quite pleased the with install process and the final result.

All the installs were performed using a USB flash drive. I started with Rebecca's old laptop and I used all 40 gigs for Ubuntu, removing Windows from the machine. I caused some trouble for myself by partially disabling the wireless on Windows, which I then had to go back and fix at an inopportune time which cost me some minutes. I also tried at first to use a flash drive that wasn't fast enough, which cost me about an hour. The good news is that the laptop is now much more usable than it had been, both in terms of hard drive space and the resources required to run the OS on a minute-to-minute basis.

The other two installs were different in that they were dual-boot installs (ie. the Windows OS was left functioning). These took a little more internet research and a little guidance from an officemate but went as smoothly as was reasonable.

I'm now using Ubuntu almost exclusively at work and home. As I go on I hope to notice productivity increases from easier access to some programs.

Score

Cameron 34

Neil 25

Revised blog-off counts

I'm pleased now to bring you a revised blog-off count, as shown at the bottom of this post. The method of counting was not checked closely and I may easily have overcounted*. However, as you can see the competition is very close at this point; 3 more posts is definitely within my ability.

*according to Jeopardy this evening "overfish" is what you do to tuna and cod (or at least that's how I prefer to remember it).

Score

Cameron 34

Neil 20

Thank goodness for spam bots

It now seems as though Neil is now trying to use the fact that my Twitter account is tied to our blog to post things of an unseemly nature to my Twitter feed. I think it is fair to say that I didn't imagine that this is how this service might be abused. Though seeing as how I am dealing with Neil I probably should have guessed that he would figure out how to game the system and try to find a way to 'humiliate' me.

Anyway, I guess I am now a little glad that so many of my Twitter followers are spam bots and faceless corporations. Who would have ever imagined that I would be glad that most of the people following me on Twitter aren't living and breathing individuals?

The worst part is that any submissions made for this devious purpose will not only be attempts to embarass me, but they will also bring Neil five steps closer to victory.

Score
Cameron 64
Neil 15

Is he making a run for it?

It seems that Neil has decided to make a last minute run for the title in our 3rd annual Montifax blog-off. Finally. I was wondering how long I would have to wait before his competitive juices would start to kick in.

Given that I have handicapped myself so severely I think it would be possible for Neil to crank out the baker's dozen or so posts he would need to win (it may be fewer if his newly added rule about only posts tagged with 'competitions' stands).

Of course, even though we aren't talking about all that many posts, it would be more posts than Neil has made on the blog since previous blog-offs.

Score
Cameron 63
Neil 15

Taking care of one's Twitter account

It has just occurred to me that I don't mind that my blog posts are going to Cameron's twitter feed; it gives me free access to post to Cameron's twitter account without his consent.

I'm taking suggestions in the comments of this post on clever things to post to Cameron's twitter account. Please include all of your good ideas, as I can do this seemingly as much as I want. I presume Blogger doesn't scrub # from titles, so feel free to use hashtags too. I can probably use @ too, so if you want a shout-out let me know. Note that the auto-included url is about 20 characters, so 120 characters or less please.

Score

Cameron 62?

Neil 15

Stealing credit where little credit is due

I hadn't intended to blog again so soon, but it appears Cameron is stealing Twitter credit for my posts. (Perhaps I would have noticed if I had blogged more recently.) As I'm not familiar with the service Cameron is using to do this, it is necessary to assume that there is an option for him only to post his own contributions, and that he is consciously stealing credit for my posts.

I'll update later on Cameron's correct score; I haven't had a chance to review his previous sneaks because I'm too busy uncovering new ones.

Score

Cameron 62?

Neil 10

Fire up the ol' blogger (AKA my blogger was broken)

So not much is new with respect to blogging. I was briefly listed as a contributer on Doyle Pitches, but I removed myself after an exhausting 11 or so days of not contributing.

I've been told recently (about a month ago) that there's also a blog-off here at Montifax. Cameron sneakily holds these competitions with so little notice that it is hard to find time to come up with ideas. (Author's note: I'm not good with counting or ideas.) On a related topic, I think I should clarify that only posts that have the label "competitions" will be counted in the blog-off. The score below may be corrected upon review of previous posts this month.

Score

Cameron 62?

Neil 5

How it's done

Neil and I dropped some serious know-how on our Roll Up the Rim to Win cups earlier tonight. On coffees that we finished within a matter of minutes of one another we both used my rim-roller to take us to victory. Of course, I suspect the rim-roller is just starting to get warmed up as neither of us won more than free coffees, but they were victories nonetheless.



[Embedded video]

Anyway, we will have to see if my rim-roller is an effective winning machine as I think it might be.

Score
Cameron 62
Neil 0

Late February snowfall

So it seems that we are getting some of the storm that was forecast for the region. Fortunately, at least so far, the rain hasn't started. Of course, I imagine that the rain won't take too long to arrive.



[Embedded video]

It seems a rather fitting way to bid adieu to our third annual blog-off doesn't it?

Score
Cameron 61
Neil 0

Has MUN gone viral?

Last night, on Neil and Rebecca's recommendation, I was watching a video on YouTube. All of a sudden I noticed an ad that had something to do with double rainbows. After a slightly closer inspection I noticed that the ad had something to do with Memorial University of Newfoundland, apparently it is an ad for their philosophy program.

I am not sure how effective viral video based ads on YouTube will be at attracting students to MUN, but I definitely found this one amusing. I generally feel that a move in this direction would be an improvement for Canadian university advertising campaigns, which to this point have generally pretty lacklustre and unexciting (at least as far as I have seen).

Score
Cameron 60
Neil 0

A Few Quick Notes 515

-After our late week rain storm we have fallen back to sub zero temperatures. Not surprisingly, we now have all kinds of ice and whatnot. The worst part is that we are supposed to have another rain/snow storm tomorrow.

-One consequence of this relatively horrible series of weather events has been the formation of a large sheet of ice on the cement area outside my bedroom window. My attempt to do some sliding on this ice was relatively disappointing.



[Embedded video]

-Tomorrow is the final day of the blog-off. I am still trying to convince Neil to throw up a few posts before time runs out. If he doesn't throw up at least a post it will be a bit weird to post a wrap-up video and celebrate my victory.

-We had our final regular season Ultimate game last night. Unfortunately, we didn't play very well and managed to lose the game.

Score
Cameron 59
Neil 0

Partially formed ideas about post-secondary education in Nova Scotia

Since the release of the O'Neill Report on post-secondary education in Nova Scotia a number of the report's recommendations and potential ramifications have been on my mind. Of course, none of these ideas have been fully formed, nor have I really been able to articulate exactly where the problem is or what I think might be a better solution.

Recommendations relating to tuition deregulation have, it would seem, been foremost on my mind. For your information, the general thrust of the recommendation was for a deregulation of tuition fees with the expectation that they will increase over time. Almost immediately this recommendation seemed counter intuitive to me, at least if Nova Scotia is still interested in having universities. If they they want their universities to whither and die this recommendation makes prefect sense.

I guess I should start with a little background. Of the 77 000 (or so) university students in Atlantic Canada, 35 000 are studying at Nova Scotia's 11 universities (6 of which are located in Halifax). Many of these students come from place other than Nova Scotia. Dal suggests that 44% of its students come from provinces other than Nova Scotia and 10% are international students.

On the demographics side of things, Nova Scotia has one of the oldest populations in Canada and is only getting older. Population projections don't paint a rosy picture of the Nova Scotia of the future. I would say that it will be nothing but old folks homes but I am not sure that they will even have the people to work in those positions throughout the province. Consequently, a fair bit of money and effort has been put into encouraging young people to migrate to Nova Scotia, or stay here if that is where they are from.

On the competing universities side of things, MUN's lowered tuition fees and a corresponding increase in the number students from Nova Scotia seems to suggest that some portion of the Nova Scotia population is responsive to relative differences in tuition prices. As things stood in 2005/06 (the last year for which I could find full data) the difference in price between Dalhousie and Memorial for 4 years of tuition, room and board, and fees was about $27 000. Dalhousie was almost twice as expensive as Memorial for exactly the same degree. Unfortunately, I don't have a full picture of exactly how having the country's highest undergraduate tuition fees are driving local students out of the province (but I suspect that it is not a pretty picture).

I should also mention that Nova Scotia has a graduate tax rebate that can be valued at several thousand dollars, if you pay taxes/have a job. While the utility of this program, at least to me, seems questionable at best (particularly when other provinces have comparable programs that are more lucrative), it does suggest that the province is willing to put up funds to encourage youth residency in the province.

So, to sum up, we have a context where a young, educated population is needed and there is some evidence that these people seem at least somewhat sensitive to price. Consequently it seems strange to increase tuition when efforts are also being made to attract young residents to the region. This seems particularly strange given the relatively small sums of money we are talking about on the tuition front. $35 000 000 ($1000 a student) in a budget of several billion is relatively insignificant. Instead of driving students out and then trying to bring them back with a tax rebate (that may not even apply to most people) they could maybe consider trying to encourage them to stay with lower tuition fees, or something of that nature.

Anyway, I know I am rambling and a little disorganized, but it just seems that by allowing tuition increases the provincial government has the potential to exacerbate an already serious problem. As far as I can tell, the best case scenario associated with these recommendations is that only a few thousand students stop coming to Nova Scotia to be educated - which won't be good considering the number of universities that the province has chosen to maintain.

Again, I apologize for the sloppy organization of these ideas. I just needed to get this off my chest. Maybe if I talk it through a few more times I might have something approaching a coherent argument or position.

[And I should be clear, everything discussed here is in the context of a place that has chosen to publicly fund education and population retention schemes. The issue isn't whether or not public funds are appropriate, but how they will be used.]

Score
Cameron 58
Neil 0

Neat idea

A friend of mine from library school recently started a blog drawing attention to types information/things that are not available online.

I really like the idea of being reminded that there are all kinds of things that aren't yet available online (or that may never be available online). In particular, it is nice to be reminded of those things that aren't online that we might expect to find online. What about all of those government records that have been created electronically since the 1980s that still aren't available online?

And I guess another important purpose is to remind people of the utility of those institutions that do house this information. For better or worse, and whether we like it or not, libraries and archives still remain the only places to get some materials. Newfoundland's pre-confederation records are still only available at the provincial archive. If you want to see them you have to go there in person.

Anyway, if this sounds as though it might be the kind of thing that would interest you I would encourage you to check the site out (and even make suggestions as to other types of information that might be included).

Score
Cameron 57
Neil 0

Reading and stuff

Yesterday, as part of my preparations for my upcoming comprehensive exam, I went to the library and borrowed a few books. The book that I have started to read is Thomas S. Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 2nd ed., apparently the popular edition of the work.

Though I had heard of Kuhn and his famous paradigms before yesterday, I really didn't know much about Kuhn or his work (not that I know all that much now).

Anyway, the first thing that I learned about Kuhn is that he was trained as a physicist. Given that I have only encountered his work in the context of the social sciences this surprised me. I guess that as the book was classified in the Qs I should have had a hint as to the nature of the author's subject and training.

On a related note, I also didn't really know that Kuhn's focus is largely hard science/s (i.e. physics and optics and whatnot). That his work is so frequently discussed in the social sciences seems to have been something of a coincidence, rather than Kuhn's goal when writing the book (though this is not to suggest that he didn't think about the social sciences in the development of his ideas). The following paragraph from the Wiki article on the book seems to sum things up nicely:

In 1987, Kuhn's work was reported to be the twentieth-century book most frequently cited in the period 1976-83 in the Arts and the Humanities and the Times Literary Supplement labeled it one of "The Hundred Most Influential Books Since the Second World War." The book's basic concepts have been adopted and co-opted by a variety of fields and disciplines beyond those encompassing the history and philosophy of science.

Anyway, all of this was just to say that I am enjoying the book so far. In some ways it reminds me of reading Orwell or Huxley as a teenager.

I guess I should probably get back to work.

Score
Cameron 56
Neil 0

A Few Quick Notes 514

-After several days of sub-zero weather we have finally moved onto a just-above-freezing winter rainstorm. Though I haven't gone outside yet, I imagine that it is going to be pretty slippery and generally unpleasant. Oh, and the temperature is supposed to return to the sub-zero zone by tomorrow. What fun.

-I seemed to have dropped to 0:2 in this year's Rollmops the Rim to Win competition. As lame as it is to keep reporting these figures here, I am largely motivated to continue the practice this year for two reasons. Firstly, I do like knowing my record and this is a relatively easy way of keeping track of it. Secondly, it seems that my brother, sister, and mother have kept me abreast of their progress so far this year, so it seems only right that I continue to return the favour and, again, this seems to be the easiest way to do it.

-Apparently Dalhousie is no longer a nuclear power. I guess it is mildly comforting to know that there isn't a 30 year old nuclear reactor in the building next to my office.

-The end of our 3rd annual blog-off is fast approaching. As of yet Neil has still not posted. I am hoping that he will throw up at least a few posts before the whole thing wraps up in a couple of days.

Score
Cameron 55
Neil 0

The Tunnel

Apparently we are in the midst another round of Labrador to Newfoundland tunnel talks, though this time it seems that Newfoundland is being aided and abetted by Quebec.

I really don't understand how this concept has had such staying power. Given the billions (close to 2) that this project will likely cost, I just don't see how the tunnel will ever be able to pay itself off, particularly as there will be so few people living near either end of the proposed tunnel. And I have to imagine that this number is projected to drop over the coming years (turns out I was right, projections aren't positive for the economic zones on either side of the tunnel)

I thought that it was particularly funny that in the linked CBC article it was suggested that savings of $2 billion could be achieved over the course of 20 years (on a tunnel that will likely cost at least $1.7 billion - if not more). So it seems that in the best case scenario there might be a net savings of $300 million, though I guess this comes before the interest on the borrowed $1.7 billion, the cost over-runs that are sure to transpire, and 20 years of tunnel maintenance. Maybe savings on a $1.7 billion (or larger) investment should have the potential to be worth more than $15 million a year?

Maybe there are less expensive methods of saving $2 billion over 20 years than spending $1.7 billion upfront and then having an expensive piece of infrastructure that will require constant maintenance and care?

Score
Cameron 54
Neil 0

A Few Quick Notes 513

-Today was a pretty standard winter's day - warmer while the sun was shining and cold in the evening. Not surprisingly, the official record, as recorded by Environment Canada, doesn't seem to reflect the reality of todays ups and downs.

-It seems that Roll Up the Rim to Win has started again. Apparently, though I would never have guessed it, the competition is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year. Anyway, I am off to a disappointing 0 for 1 start.

-I have started searching the library's catalogue to find the books that I will need to prepare for my upcoming comprehensive exam. This have not gotten off to an auspicious start. Two of the four books that I have searched for are not held but the library but will need to be brought in from other universities in the region. Sadly, this rate of success isn't a surprise.

-Peter and I enjoyed tonight's Old Man Luedecke show. It is possible that this will be the final show of this concert series that I will attend, though I guess there is some chance that I might go to Amelia Curran/City and Colour show on Friday.

-I guess I should get back to locating/requesting library books. Maybe, if I am lucky, I will even get to start reading one of the articles I printed earlier this evening.

-It would be really great if Neil took a few minutes to throw up a post or two. The margin by which I am winning is starting to become a little embarrassing.

Score
Cameron 53
Neil 0

The Next Phase

Just a few minutes ago I received a copy of my reading list for my comparative politics comprehensive. As expected, it is a little longer and more intense than I might have liked (it is 13 pages with 25-30 citations a page). And this is for a test that I am supposed to write in May.

On the upside, I have read a few of the articles on the list before (and I recognize most of the authors). Maybe most importantly, I do have some control when it comes to the areas on which I am to be tested. So even though the list is 13 pages long, I will only be responsible for a subsection of the full list.

In any event, I definitely have a lot of reading and studying to do between now and May.

I have already started to download a few of the articles and tomorrow I will head in to the library to pick up a few books. Hopefully by tomorrow I will be fully immersed in the studying process. Yum. Should be exciting.

Score
Cameron 52
Neil 0