The Toaster Project
Making a toaster alone, from raw materials.
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Monday, June 29, 2009
Tsering Shakya: Tibetan Questions
New Left Review - Tsering Shakya: Tibetan Questions: "Tsering Shakya was born in Lhasa in 1959. His father, the headmaster of a small Tibetan-language private school, died while he was still a child. The family was divided by the onset of the Cultural Revolution: an older brother and sister were strongly committed leftists, while another brother was imprisoned for opposition to it. In 1967, his mother left for Nepal with Shakya—her youngest child—and her other daughter. Shakya attended a Tibetan school in the northern Indian town of Mussoorie for several years; in 1973, he won a scholarship to a boarding school in Hampshire, and then continued his studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London. Between 1983 and 1990 he worked on anti-racist campaigns with Labour-run municipal councils in London. During the 1990s Shakya produced his outstanding history of Tibet since 1947, The Dragon in the Land of Snows, published in 1999. He also translated the autobiography of Buddhist monk Palden Gyatso (Fire Under the Snow, 1997), and co-edited the first anthology of modern Tibetan short stories and poems (Song of the Snow Lion, 2000). He now teaches at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver and is currently working on a study of modern Tibetan literature."
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Saturday, June 27, 2009
Friday, June 26, 2009
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Peakonomics and the end of innovation
Peak water, peak fish and the end of everything - Andrew Potter Features - Macleans.ca
Mr. Potter of Macleans makes some really good points about yet another addition to Peak Oil Economics.
Favourite line: "The stone age didn't end because they reached peak rocks."
Mr. Potter of Macleans makes some really good points about yet another addition to Peak Oil Economics.
Favourite line: "The stone age didn't end because they reached peak rocks."
Sunday, September 28, 2008
Menu Idea #3 - Media Bias
It certainly seems as if the CBC is eating crow,
As a public broadcaster we have an added responsibility to provide an array of opinions and voices to complement our journalism. But we must do so carefully. And you should be able to trust us to provide you with work that’s based on solid reporting and free from the passionate excesses of partisanship.
We failed you in this case. And as a result we have put new editing procedures in place to ensure that in the future, work that is not appropriate for our platforms, will not appear. We are open to contentious reasoned argument but not to partisan attack. It’s a fine line.
Ombudsman Carlin makes another significant observation in his response to complainants: when it does choose to print opinion, CBCNews.ca displays a very narrow range on its pages.
In this, Carlin is also correct.
Menu Idea #2 - Your political rivals
Stephane Dion tries to eat Jack Layton before he eats the rich,
Liberal Leader Stephane Dion appeared determined on Sunday to stave off a potential shift of Grit voters to the New Democratic Party, branding Jack Layton an "old-fashioned socialist" with a "job killing" electoral platform.If they keep dividing pieces of the left wing, the Conservatives will win a majority.
Saturday, September 27, 2008
Menu Idea #1 - Inferiority and Germans
If the American economy collapses we can always eat our inferiority complex;
Has one nation even hinted that it might help bail the US out of its financial crisis?Perhaps the German Finance Minister will dine on his schadenfreude.
Just one?
This is a country that has always been among the first... in fact, it’s been expected to bail out other countries when they get in trouble.
Look it up. Go down the list of countries that Americans have bailed out with their hard earned cash when the time came.
You’ll find many of them.
Bill Clinton just the other day on Larry King bragging about how Mexico actually paid its money back early. Well where’s Mexico today?
Where’s Canada today?
Where’s Germany?
Well don’t count on Germany they can barely contain themselves they’re so excited about Americas troubles these days. Did you hear their finance minister? “Well its American greed, the blind drive for higher profits”. Because Germany’s been giving Mercedes away in the US out of the goodness of their heart all these years!!
Why Labradoodle Soup?
In the months before the collapse of Wall Street, people were willing to leverage the equity on their houses so that they could by a $3000 mixed breed mutt. This egregious use of credit lead directly to the collapse which has left so many of my neighbours wondering if they'll be able to afford food during the recession.
Fortunately there is always a silver lining on every cloud, and practical advice in every post.
Fortunately there is always a silver lining on every cloud, and practical advice in every post.
Saturday, March 22, 2008
Because Everyone Deserves to Know
... their odds of dying.
From the National Safety Council;
You odds of dying because of a streetcar are 1/27 of those due to a train. Over the course of your lifetime you have a 1:5,552 chance of dying in a plane or spacecraft accident. This year you have a 1:20,975,489 chance of being cooked or frozen to death at the hands of man. 30 Americans died last year as a result of hot tap water. You are more likely to die as a result of inhaling gastric contents than alcohol poisoning. 6 more people were executed by the state than were struck by lightning.
Are there any statistics nerds who could determine the odds of being struck by lightning while flying a spacecraft while being cooked alive by another person?
From the National Safety Council;
You odds of dying because of a streetcar are 1/27 of those due to a train. Over the course of your lifetime you have a 1:5,552 chance of dying in a plane or spacecraft accident. This year you have a 1:20,975,489 chance of being cooked or frozen to death at the hands of man. 30 Americans died last year as a result of hot tap water. You are more likely to die as a result of inhaling gastric contents than alcohol poisoning. 6 more people were executed by the state than were struck by lightning.
Are there any statistics nerds who could determine the odds of being struck by lightning while flying a spacecraft while being cooked alive by another person?
Thursday, March 20, 2008
Predictable Consequences
George Jonas at the National Post points out the predictable consequences of using NATO air strikes as a peacekeeping tool.
Wait a minute, someone might say. Canada didn't go to war in 1999 as a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) to help Kosovo secede from Serbia. That would have been like Germany dismantling Czechoslovakia in 1938 to liberate the Sudetenland. We only participated to prevent what we believed was an attempt at ethnic cleansing in Kosovo.
Yes, well, so much for the best-laid plans of mice and men. The forces of Western liberalism that went into Kosovo to prevent ethnic cleansing ended up presiding over it.
It was exactly four years ago, during the last week of March, that nearly 1,000 Serbs fled their homes after Albanian Muslims attacked Serb Christians in their churches and villages. News agencies quoted Admiral Gregory Johnson, U.S. Commander of NATO forces for Southern Europe at the time, saying: "This kind of activity almost amounts to ethnic cleansing." Almost? By the spring of 2004, an estimated 200,000 Serbs had been driven from the province.
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
Queen's buys Women's Prison
Kingston - In a move that will likely bring a weary sigh from most Queen's alumni, Kingston's venerable academic institution (founded 1841) has announced that it will be taking over the site of the former Kingston Penitentiary for Women, located across the street from Queen's West Campus.
The Crown Lands Corporation - the present owner of the prison site - has agreed to demolish three of the four walls surrounding the former prison, as well as all 'non-heritage' structures on the property. The fourth wall will remain to keep law-abiding Portsmouth residents safe from Queen's undergraduates.
The university has pledged to respect the heritage designation of the historic stone structures which make up the prison. No word yet on how it plans to put hundreds of cell-sized rooms to academic use. The prison will be turned over to the school in 2008.
The Crown Lands Corporation - the present owner of the prison site - has agreed to demolish three of the four walls surrounding the former prison, as well as all 'non-heritage' structures on the property. The fourth wall will remain to keep law-abiding Portsmouth residents safe from Queen's undergraduates.
The university has pledged to respect the heritage designation of the historic stone structures which make up the prison. No word yet on how it plans to put hundreds of cell-sized rooms to academic use. The prison will be turned over to the school in 2008.
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