58 Replies to “Reader Tips”

  1. This morning, in one of Vancouver’s dailies, I read a piece by Cam Fuller of CanWest (whomever he be) informing us that the author, Yann Martel has sent Stephen Harper a copy of his bestseller, “Life of Pi”, in hopes that it will convince him not to make further cuts to Arts funding.
    I trust that P.M. Stephen Harper will be reticent to read a book written by a man named “Yann”. Then again, I have read several books written by a man named Evelyn! I’ve even read his brother Alec’s “The Loom of Youth”. Of course Evelyn had a wicked sense of humour and was totally unafraid of offending his more liberal-minded contemporaries.

  2. OT, Vit, but just curious. Which software did you use to create that nifty drawing (vitruvius-studio-wiring-schematic.png) and how long did it take to put it together?
    It’s not as cool as a P&ID, PFD or mass balance diagram, but it’s still very impressive. 🙂

  3. As for Nat King Cole, there’ll never be a classier act, a classier voice, or classier guy.

  5. It’s the Graphviz graph visualization software, PiperPaul. You feed it a description of the nodes and edges in text form, and it lays out and plots the drawing. We use it to generate structure diagrams in my company’s software, so using it for my schematic drawing was a natural. The key unusual thing about Graphviz is that I didn’t draw anything. I just entered the nodes and edges descriptions as text data, and Graphviz did all the work. Similarly, my company’s software can generate nodes and edges descriptions based on our customers’ data, and feed it to Graphviz, so our software can produce those sorts of drawings without human intervention. And I also used it in the family tree software I wrote; at our last family reunion I had taped to the wall a drawing 36 inches high by 12 feet wide showing the family tree for hundreds of my relatives, which I must say did indeed impress a few of the kinfolk 😉  That software also produced a 3-inch ring binder print-out with one page per person and one per family, so the folks could red-pen the data, and then my dad (he’s 84) updated the web site I wrote so it’s now current with those changes.

  7. Quite interesting, for sure, there’s even a Mac version. I’m fairly familiar with CSS positioning, so this might be very useful for me. Does it do a preview of the output?
    Thanks and sorry for the continued OT subject.

  8. Thanks Vitruvius for the Nat King Cole. Really beautiful singing. I noted that one of the commenters mentioned that the song should start at 1:00 which really struck me, because I was marvelling at that long intro and the psychological effect when the song takes off. Tension, release.
    Yes, Larry Bennett. All class. I presume you’ve seen that piece with Natalie Cole syncing up with her father. I was pretty choked I tell ya.

  9. It doesn’t actually have anything to do with CSS, PiperPaul; it produces a PostScript file or one of a number of pixel image format outputs. However, it can in addition produce an NCSA image map file, which I use in my generated HTML pages to enable zooming around the graphic version of the family tree with the mouse. Graphviz has been around for quite some time, I suggest spending some time with the sample gallery and the on-line documentation to get a better feel for it’s capabilities.

  10. Larry, the ironic thing about Yann Martel trying to convince our PM not to cut arts funding is that Martel coined an interesting phrase: “Canada is the World’s Greatest Hotel”. It was his sarcastic way of pointing out that too many newcomers were taking advantage of our country, getting way more than they were giving back.
    From some movie industry friends I learned just how corrupt many members of the arts community are: their work is not good enough to sell commercially so they constantly seek out grants from assorted government agencies. Once they get the funds, there is absolutely no accountability to produce anything of value. They put together whatever piece of “crap” they want with the funds they have and then move onto the next project, seeking more funds once again.
    It’s like a useless make-work project repeated over & over & over again. All paid for with our tax dollars. 🙁

  11. Thought Experiment
    In 2012 envision congresswoman Michele Bachmann running for president, along with Sarah Palin as her VP.
    How do you think the Rabid Left MSM would attack these 2 ladies?
    Photo here

  12. Thanks Gord @10:06 PM. I assume this is considered “fair use”:
    Anyway, nice, sweet, and well-meaning busybodies have been wreaking havoc with the globe since at least the days of Rousseau. The Protest Singer offers a pretty good explanation of how the hopeful and the helpful manage to wander into a position of support for a Committee of Public Safety, a Nazi party, a Soviet Union, a Sarajevo, an al Qaeda, and a typical American university education. You don’t even have to read the book to gain this understanding; simply scan page three and the dust jacket. The secret of the too-good’s complicity in the too-bad seems to lie in a certain feckless disassociation from the real world. This is Alec Wilkinson’s sketch of Pete Seeger’s early history:
    He went to Harvard, joined the tenor banjo society, and studied sociology in the hope of becoming a journalist, but at the end of his second year he left before taking his exams and rode a bicycle west, across New York State.
    And this is the publisher’s thumbnail biography of Alec Wilkinson:
    Alec Wilkinson began writing for The New Yorker in 1980. Before that, he was a policeman in Wellfleet, Massachusetts, and before that a rock-and-roll musician. .  .  . His honors include a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Lyndhurst Prize, and a Robert F. Kennedy Book Award.
    Wellfleet, by the way, is a resort town on Cape Cod where the principal crime problems are nude sunbathing and dune buggies crushing plover nests.
    Fold two portions of scrambled egghead personal journey into one quote from Seeger’s journal.
    I seem to stagger about this agonized world as a clown, dressed in happiness, hoping to reach the hearts and minds of the young.
    Mix vigorously with a statement by Wilkinson.
    .  .  . all human beings are created equal and have equal rights. In the early and middle parts of the twentieth century, such a conviction made a person not a patriot, but a socialist.
    And you get a taste of the sharing, caring, lame-o lefty mind omelet that spreads mood-poisoning to the masses.

  14. A good listen; (Someone here, linked earlier)
    Political Correctness has roots going back to Marxist Russia. Because Communism failed economically, a new tactic was adopted. Extreme political correctness – destroy family values, demand even the most weird of ideas be given all encompassing rights in the name of being PC.
    The History Of Political Correctness .
    Pure CHRC speak starts at the 20:14 mark.
    Paraphrase: The extremist ones are so adamant that their “correctness” is the only thing that matters that they can be intolerant of all other actions and even thoughts – even to deny free speech to those opposing rampant Political correctness. (Hello Richard Warman)

  15. PiperPaul – Politically Seeger was a leftwing-nut as I suppose were all the Weavers, but to hear Ronnie Gilbert and Pete harmonize was a something else again. I think my dad (no socialist) had all their albums in the 60’s.

  19. I’m curious whether anyone else on here (mostly fellow Canadians, I presume?) listens to Dennis Prager. I listen to his podcast every day and his views almost always strike deep chords with my world view.
    In my fantasy world, CBC Radio 1 would be forced to have a Prager like individual on 3 hrs/day, Monday-Friday. I think it would dramatically reshape opinion in our nation.
    In a recent blog post I encapsulated his thoughts and those of Thomas Friedman on the Nobel Peace Prize fiasco.

  22. Formerly the most recorded song of all time, but overtaken by McCartney-Lennon’s Yesterday. Carmichael wrote it as a university student — an astounding feat for one so young. Louis Armstrong’s 1931 version is the greatest recording of the greatest American tune — well, my opinion, anyway. Yes, I love this song.
    Me No Dhimi: Many recordings of Stardust do begin at that later part. I think the intro was written two or three years after the initial publication of the music in 1928.
    Thanks Vitruvius!

  24. Tuned in to the Ceeb today, and heard an interesting story on leafy greens (spinach etc). Long story short, with mass production, the government is legislating more and more crazy things in the name of food safety.
    The regs in California (according to the radio and the article below) are ruining aquifers, disrupting wildlife, etc etc. Legislation, sponsored by Henry Waxman, is set to go nationwide, IIRC.
    http://tinyurl.com/ygfkhob
    Look, the US screwed up their economy badly – but I really don’t want them to mess up our food supply . . . . .
    (I forgot the (D) after his name, sorry)

  25. Thank you Vitruvius. Maybe I am dating myself, but those were the days when music sounded like music. Still waiting patiently for your Red Skelton production.
    So Anita Dunn’s favourite philosopher is Mao. Doesn’t surprise me. A number of the political personalities in Canada would agree with her.

  27. “I kind of knew I had a good shot at the world record, but when it hit the scale, it was just happy, I was crying, thought I was gonna pass out,” Christy Harp told Cleveland’s Fox News affiliate, as reported on Fox8.com.
    http://tinyurl.com/y8th3rr

  28. Robert W. @ 11:40PM —
    I was previously aware of Dennis Prager by reputation, but I never heard him until I took a vacation road trip to Moab, UT this past May. I really enjoyed his programme. I think his style is engaging and not completely over the top, which seems to be the style these days. I’ve listened to Dennis Miller for quite a while via podcast, and he is similarly engaging and entertaining, and has a wide variety of interesting guests. I’ll definitely have to look into Prager’s podcast, now that I know there is one.
    I agree that talk radio would be much better with these kinds of shows, but I doubt we’ll hear any of this in our lifetimes in Canada. Just look at the “controversy” back when Fox News was trying to get CRTC approval. In my neck of the woods in northern BC, all we get is The Moose, The Bear, and CBC (an hour behind from Prince George half the year). So we get our choice of either nonstop Nickelback, or panel discussion shows on the CBC about muffin recipies and phone-in shows for people to talk about memories of their favourite sweater for two hours. Thank CHRIST for MP3 podcasts.

  29. While driving I switch to CBC occasionally to catch up on propaganda. Unfortunately I spent a lot of time in the car yesterday and was filled with “Canada-bad-on-climate-change” in every possible angle.One talk show host asked us to call in about what we have noticed wrt polar bear extinction…?!
    They are coming out full force in anticipation of the Copenhagen agreement.
    It’s time for PMSH and the CPC to stop sitting on the fence and use the motherlode of information avavilable. It’s time to define a realistic policy and stop the propaganda. The recent announcement in Edmonton is a fair project. No delusions, just clean up on the air polution.
    When are we going to hear the CPC counter the lies about shrinking arctic ice and polar bear extinction?

  30. The natural end result of the religion of socialism:
    “Years of entitlement have convinced people that government is an endless source of wealth.”
    Socialism is the Road to Serfdom as Hayek said.
    …-
    “Belmont Club
    October 15th, 2009 5:04 pm
    Buy one take ten
    When a society has been told for years it can have something for nothing the damage is not just physical, but psychological; an entire mentality is crippled. A former British official who is now a director at the London School of Economics says that Britain is in deep trouble. Years of entitlement have convinced people that government is an endless source of wealth. With the economic crisis in full swing, the government has to cut back for national survival. The problem is that no one wants the music to stop. Even the intellectual class, according to Sir Howard Davies, has come to believe that any crisis can be met by simply borrowing and printing more money.
    Sir Howard Davies, now Director of the London School of Economics, said Britain faces a dangerous rise in the levels of public debt – even taking into account tax increases planned for coming years.
    “The next six months are going to be extremely delicate in the UK”, he told a gathering of HSBC clients in London. “It is very clear that something dramatic has to happen to control spending: but is the economy robust enough to survive fiscal tightening?” …
    What is disturbing is that the British people seem unwilling to face minimal belt-tightening. Even professors in higher education are balloting to strike, demanding a continuation of boom-time pay raises. “You have the best minds in the country planning to go on strike for 8pc. People are miles away from understanding what is needed.”
    Polling data shows that 48pc of the public are against any spending cuts and only 20pc see the need for retrenchment. Britons appear to assume that the “fantastic growth in public spending” over the last decade has become an entitlement.”
    http://www.pajamasmedia.com/richardfernandez/

  31. The Canadian MSM is a clone, albeit there are exceptions, of the American MSM.
    …-
    “The Left/Big Media’s Massive, Insidious Propaganda Tactics Exposed
    An internal memo for a prominent Hollywood organization reveals plans to incorporate President Obama’s political talking points into the storylines of shows on all four leading broadcast networks.
    The memo, uncovered by Jim Nolte, a writer for the Big Hollywood website, cites Obama’s call “for a new era of responsibility – recognition on the part of every American that we have duties to ourselves, our nation and world to serve others.” Nolte has posted the “working” document from the Entertainment Industry Foundation, which calls itself a “leading charitable organization of the entertainment industry.”
    The memo says “unprecedented week-long of television programming on all four leading broadcast networks – ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC, and all affiliated broadcast and cable properties … beginning October 19″ will feature “organically” created storylines about service and volunteerism touching on the “key issues” of education and children, health and well-being, environmental conservation and reduced energy consumption, economic development and financial security and support for military families.
    I’ve already noticed Obama being inserted into TV programs for no reason at all. He gets mentioned by characters in a positive, casual manner. He’s becoming as omnipresent and mandatory on TV programs as is the tiringly incessant mention of gayness.
    Hmm. “Volunteerism”. “Service”. What are they talking about? Who the hell knows? No one knew what “Hope” and “Change” meant, either, but now we all know, and the majority of us don’t like it one bit!
    It’s suggested that it’s got something to do with what some derisively refer to as “Obama Youth”.
    One commentor was inspired to submit:
    On the Big Hollywood site, one observer commented, “When coerced, it is not volunteerism, when service is involuntary or unpaid, it is slavery. It is bad enough that the government is stealing our freedom, now they want us to help. ”
    Read the whole thing. It gets darker and darker. Big barf alert!”
    http://thecanadiansentinel.blogspot.com/

  32. bluetech wrote:
    “One talk show host asked us to call in about what we have noticed wrt polar bear extinction…?!”
    Huh. Now that you mention it, I haven’t seen any polar bears in my neighbourhood lately. Case closed.

  33. Another CNN journalist (Soledad O’Brien) finished a distant 3rd on Celebrity Jeopardy last night. At least she beat Blitzer, but only seemed to manage to stay in positive territory when answering entertainment-related questions.

  35. Rally Saturday October 17 10am on Parliament Hill to demand that Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty call a public inquiry into the eHealth 1 billion dollar scandal.PC Leader Tim Hudak may address the crowd.
    October 13 Hudak called for an inquiry and McGuinty has refused.
    Thursday, October 08, 2009
    The eHealth Scandal
    Madely in the Morning – 7:40am — Steve Madely is joined by Liberal MPP for Ottawa West – Nepean, and Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing, Jim Watson, to discuss the new eHealth developments revealed yesterday by the Ontario auditor general.
    http://www.cfra.com/chum_audio/Jim_Watson_Oct08.mp3

  36. Mao Stlong say, goody. Hully up befole Moi dies.
    Say Hi fol me to my nephew Boob Lae, Canada’s “Liberal leader”.
    “a world government is going to be created.”
    …-
    “Obama Poised to Cede US Sovereignty in Copenhagen, Claims British Lord Monckton”
    “Here were Monckton’s closing remarks, as dictated from my audio recording:
    At [the 2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference in] Copenhagen, this December, weeks away, a treaty will be signed. Your president will sign it. Most of the third world countries will sign it, because they think they’re going to get money out of it. Most of the left-wing regime from the European Union will rubber stamp it. Virtually nobody won’t sign it.
    I read that treaty. And what it says is this, that a world government is going to be created. The word “government” actually appears as the first of three purposes of the new entity. The second purpose is the transfer of wealth from the countries of the West to third world countries, in satisfication of what is called, coyly, “climate debt” – because we’ve been burning CO2 and they haven’t. We’ve been screwing up the climate and they haven’t. And the third purpose of this new entity, this government, is enforcement.
    How many of you think that the word “election” or “democracy” or “vote” or “ballot” occurs anywhere in the 200 pages of that treaty? Quite right, it doesn’t appear once. So, at last, the communists who piled out of the Berlin Wall and into the environmental movement, who took over Greenpeace so that my friends who funded it left within a year, because [the communists] captured it – Now the apotheosis as at hand. They are about to impose a communist world government on the world. You have a president who has very strong sympathies with that point of view. He’s going to sign it. He’ll sign anything. He’s a Nobel Peace Prize [winner]; of course he’ll sign it.
    [laughter]
    And the trouble is this; if that treaty is signed, if your Constitution says that it takes precedence over your Constitution (sic), and you can’t resign from that treaty unless you get agreement from all the other state parties – And because you’ll be the biggest paying country, they’re not going to let you out of it.
    Read the rest of this entry”
    http://wattsupwiththat.com/

  38. Six ‘authorities’ hard at work, pounding on a 160lb 21 year old student. Nice work guys, y’all a real class act (especially the left-hander). Watch the video, and enjoy the action!
    YouTube video sparks uproar at Western
    Shows what appears to be six campus police holding a man down and periodically punching and hitting him
    Anna Mehler Paperny and Elizabeth Church
    Toronto — From Friday’s Globe and Mail Published on Thursday, Oct. 15, 2009 10:56AM EDT Last updated on Friday, Oct. 16, 2009 6:52AM EDT
    Half a dozen officers cluster around a writhing, prostrate student in a fluorescent-lit university hallway, quiet save for the officers yelling as they repeatedly kick, punch and knee the suspect.
    The video, shot on an iPhone and posted on YouTube by a politics professor, is sparking controversy beyond the University of Western Ontario, where campus and London police arrested a student they say was violent and disoriented Wednesday evening…..”
    Meanwhile, in related news, the best idea that has come along in awhile:
    eHealth mess needs police investigation
    By CHRISTINA BLIZZARD, SUN MEDIA
    It’s time to call the cops to probe eHealth.
    That’s the only way to ensure we get to the bottom of what actually went on with the out-of-control spending, untendered contracts and lavish expenses that sloshed out the door at the agency charged with getting health records online.
    Opposition leader Tim Hudak called for a public inquiry this week, citing the need for a probe into apparent, “bid-rigging,” (his words) reported in last week’s report by Auditor General Jim McCarter……”
    Boy, talk about killing two birds with one stone. Justice can be served as simply as putting a little pepper in the right place!
    (BTW – are those campus guys off duty RCMP? Guess we’ll know when they testify :-))
    http://www.torontosun.com/comment/columnists/christina_blizzard/2009/10/16/11420321-sun.html
    http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/youtube-video-sparks-uproar-at-western/article1324695/

  39. If you ever had any doubt that British Columbia public school teachers were anything other than devout socialists, this will clarify your thinking.
    I feel so sorry for the young kids who have to spend endless hours with these absolute NUTCASES!!!

  41. “When are we going to hear the CPC counter the lies about shrinking arctic ice and polar bear extinction?”
    Posted by: bluetech at October 16, 2009 7:48 AM
    You won’t bluetech. The Cons, the bagmen, and the lobbyists who own them are all lined up at the public teat – waiting for the inevitable latch on to the treasury.
    Corporate welfare, politicians, and a willing list of business failures are lining up to get at public cash.
    The horse left the barn years ago.
    And the Cons don’t have the character nor courage to address the nation’s needs. They’re only looking after their own.

  45. What’s obnoxious?
    Liberal Jeancula Ad$Cam Chretien Sidewinder: the link here*.
    Liberalism is a mental disorder.
    …-
    “Economic Action Plan website links to Harper tickling the ivories
    Obnoxious: That’s right, a government website devoted to the Canadian Economic Action Plan linking to a video of Stephen Harper tickling the ivories.” (nnw)
    …-
    *China and the Asian triads affair in Canada Sidewinder Report …
    The Sidewinder Report, as readers recall, examined links of Chinese-triads and the Chinese government to Canadian-based corporations. (The WatchDog)
    http://www.primetimecrime.com/Articles/…/Chinaasiantriads.htm
    …-
    “Conservatives Flirt with Majority as Ignatieff Momentum Plummets
    Angus Reid: The start of the fall season finds the governing Conservative Party with its biggest advantage since the October 2008 election… Con. 41%, Lib. 27%, NDP 16%, BQ 8%, Grn. 6%”
    (nnw)

  47. Islam Alert: mysogyny, suicide murderers, cannibals: Death.
    …-
    “Somalis misunderstand Sharia’s “gender justice,” flog women for wearing “deceptive” bras
    Sharia Alert: “Whipped for wearing a ‘deceptive’ bra: Hardline Islamists in Somalia publicly flog women in Sharia crackdown,” from the Daily Mail…A hardline Islamist group in Somalia has begun publicly whipping women for wearing bras that they claim violate Islam as they are ‘deceptive’. The insurgent group Al Shabaab has sent gunmen into the streets of Mogadishu to round up any women who appear to have a firm bust, residents claimed yesterday. The women are then inspected to see if the firmness is natural, or if it is the result of wearing a bra. If they are found wearing a bra, they are ordered to remove it and shake their breasts, residents said.
    Hmmm. I’ll bet Al-Shabaab has a lot of applicants for these inspector jobs. Al Shabaab, which seeks to impose a strict interpretation of Sharia law over all Somalia, also amputated a foot and a hand each from two young men accused of robbery earlier this month. They have also banned movies, musical ringtones, dancing at wedding ceremonies and playing or watching soccer.
    ‘Al Shabaab forced us to wear their type of full veil and now they order us to shake our breasts,’ a resident, Halima, told Reuters, adding that her daughters had been whipped on Thursday.
    ‘They are now saying that breasts should be firm naturally, or just flat.’.”
    http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2364044/posts
    …-
    “Suicide bomber kills 12 in Pakistan’s Peshawar
    Reuters – Alamgir Bitani, Augustine Anthony – ‎33 minutes ago‎
    PESHAWAR, Pakistan, Oct 16 (Reuters) – Pakistani warplanes and artillery pounded a Taliban stronghold on Friday, as a suicide bomber killed 12 people in the city of Peshawar in the latest in a bloody wave of militant attacks” (google)

  48. The Red-Green Show Cabaret*: Velcome to Showbusiness.
    …-
    “Berlin brothel cuts rates for ‘green’ customers
    Seattle Times ^ | 10/16/09 | Mary MacPherson Lane
    BERLIN — Part of Berlin’s red-light scene is going green. One bordello, hoping to stave off falling demand in the economic crisis, has begun offering discounts to customers who pedal bicycles to the door. “It’s very difficult to find parking around here, and this option is better for our environment,” said Thomas Goetz, who owns the brothel Maison d’Envie, or House of Desire. Local residents in Prenzlauer Berg – a part of former East Berlin now home to scores of trendy boutiques, restaurants and clubs – had staunchly supported the Green party in recent elections and have welcomed the bordello’s offer to emphasize the environment. The bordellos in the capital of Germany, where prostitution is legal, have seen business suffer with the global financial crisis. Patrons have become more frugal, and there are fewer potential customers coming to the city for business trips and conferences.”
    http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2364040/posts
    * “Willkommen! Bienvenue! Welcome!
    Im Cabaret, Au Cabaret, To Cabaret!
    Meine Damen und Herren-
    Mes dames et Messieurs-
    Ladies and Gentlemen,
    Guten Abend! Bon Soir! Good Evening!
    Wie geht’s? Comment sa va?
    Do you feel good?
    Ich bin eur confrencier!
    Je suis votre compère,
    I am you host!”

  49. Sympatico.ca weekly political survey
    Which federal political party do you currently have the most faith in?
    conservative 53%
    liberal 11%
    ndp 6%
    BQ 1%
    other 29%
    34033 respondents
    *note Other, 29% & No Green indicated.

  50. David Suzuki says he’s ashamed to be Canadian.Hey Dr.Fruitfly,us Canadians aren’t doing much bragging either.

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