Jeffrey Cameron, Community and Family Services Worker st The Salvation Army York Community Church.
Here's a few Torontoist articles I've put together over the last few weeks.
The Delta Chelsea, Miles From Accurate! I went down to Yonge-Dundas Square to see if an image of the Delta Chelsea, which appeared in an ad, could actually be reproduced. At the southeast side of the square you can sorta see the Delta Chelsea's logo, but it's hardly the towering monolith that's depicted in the ad.
Just like the West, China's is population is rapidly aging. Since China instituted its one child only policy in 1979, its dependency ratio—the proportion of people in the labour force versus their dependents—has been on the rise. To keep its high economic growth rate, which has been partially fueled by its youthful labour force, the Chinese government may have to repeal, or at least loosen, its one child only policy.
Since I activated Adsense on November 16, 2009 I have earned a whopping $26.74 (approximately $0.69 a day—about $0.68 higher from my average earnings in mid-November). So if things stay the way they are, I should earn my first hundred dollars by mid-April. Sweetness! And I'll I've had to do is plaster my site with ugly-ass ads.
Here are the articles that have earned me the most money so far:
Some of you may have seen or heard of a YouTube video in which the facial-tracking software didn’t work for a customer. We thank Desi, and the people who have seen and commented on his video, for bringing this subject to our attention.
We are working with our partners to learn more. The technology we use is built on standard algorithms that measure the difference in intensity of contrast between the eyes and the upper cheek and nose. We believe that the camera might have difficulty “seeing” contrast in conditions where there is insufficient foreground lighting.
Bell, Rogers, and Telus are a cloud of pure fucking evil!
Yesterday, Torontoist published it's villains list as part of its annual roundup of Toronto's heroes and villains (here are the heroes).
I wanted my hero and villain to compliment each other, so I chose Jesse Brown, the host of TVO's Search Engine and an outspoken critic of the telecoms excesses, as my hero, and Bell, Rogers, and Telus as my villain, because, well, they just suck.
But as Geist points out, Sookman's analysis is faulty, as he's only looking at English-language sites while cherry picking both hosting and registration data to make Canada look like the leading den of copyright infringement, when the Netherlands is actually home to the most BitTorrent sites.
Here's Geist's list of the countries with the most BitTorrent sites.
Sookman concludes that Canada's high ranking is due to its lax copyright laws. But ultimately, this list doesn't prove a thing. The United States has strong copyright laws, but that hasn't prevented the three sites there from setting up shop. Even if Canada does adopt stronger copyright laws a la Bill C-61, BitTorrent sites will continue to thrive and multiply.
It looks like a three-year-old planned the Olympic Torch's trek across Canada. Or maybe the organizers took a few too many hits of the spliff shaped torch.
This was the man they chose as their Vice Presidential candidate in 2000. Who then turned on them to support George W. Bush's reelection in 2004 and McCain's Presidential candidacy in 2008.
Of course, there's always the possibility that Lieberman's change of heart has something to do with that sweet sweet Connecticut health insurance lobby money he's grown accustomed to. Or maybe he's planning to run as Republican in 2012.
Frankly, I'm surprised that Wikipedia hasn't had to lock Lieberman's profile to keep out angry democratic vandals.
HMI has an interesting report [PDF] out this week on how we consume information and how our sources of information have changed. Clearly, the big losers here are print and radio, and the big winners are computers and phones. Though I'm surprised that television and radio are still such dominate sources of information.
The animation above was created by labour writer LaToya Egwuekwe, using the U.S. Department of Labor's Bureau's statistics. As of October 2009 (the most up-to-date statistics) more than thirty-one million Americans are unemployed.
Although health care and Afghanistan are vexing issues, Obama's biggest problem—at least for the upcoming mid-term elections—is unemployment.
Obama knows this, which is why on Tuesday, in a speech at the Brookings Institution, he proposed a series of job growth initiatives aimed at encouraging hiring, including tax cuts for small businesses, opening up new lines of credit, using some of the leftover TARP to help small businesses, and infrastructure and clean energy projects.
"Small business, infrastructure, clean energy: these are areas in which we can put Americans to work while putting our nation on a sturdier economic footing," Obama explained. "These have been a tough two years, and there will no doubt be difficult months ahead. But the storms of the past are receding. The skies are brightening."
Most official reports peg unemployment in the U.S. somewhere at 10%, but the real figure—when you take into account the people who have stopped searching for work and the underemployed—is probably around 18%.
Now there's just one question: with America's manufacturing sector practically annihilated and middle-class white collar jobs almost extinct, where are these new jobs going to come from?
I peeked into the restaurant today, and it looks like New Gen is undergoing a complete makeover. The sushi bar at the front of the restaurant also looks like it's being altered. (If that is the bar. It might be a workbench.)
In the meantime, if you're looking for a New Gen fix, New Generations Grill Fusion is across the street, and it has the same menu and prices.
This week for Torontoist, I interviewed Ismail Atiev about his amazing stop motion video of Yonge Street.
It took fourteen hours to capture the photos necessary for this video. Atiev and his friend, D.J. Tataev, stayed ten metres apart for the duration of the trip, and turned to take each others' photos every thirty steps or so.
The two walked forty-two kilometres from Yonge and Wellington Streets in Aurora to the beginning of Yonge Street at Queens Quay in Toronto.
According to the table below, which was put together by Environment Canada, Toronto has a 57% of having a white Christmas, and only a 13% of having a perfect Christmas (snow on the ground and in the air).
In comparison, Ottawa has an 83% chance, Calgary has a 59% chance, and Vancouver only has a 11% chance.
Locations
Probability of A White Christmas
(At least two centimetres of snow on the ground)
Greatest Snowfall on Christmas Day
(centimetres)
Probability of a Perfect Christmas
(Snow in the air and at least two centimetres of snow on the ground)
Tusker, which is brewed by East African Breweries, is the most popular beer in Kenya. It was first marketed in 1923, and named after the elephant that killed Kenya Breweries Ltd's founder, George Hurst, while on safari.
That has to be the best origin story I've ever heard for a beer.
The back of the can.
The text on the back of the can even celebrates the story of its founder's demise.
Now, there's something else that's a little odd here. Why is Tusker, Kenya's most popular beer, brewed in Ireland under the supervision of Kenyans?
Outsourcing production to a country with lower wages is a typical practice in every industry, including beer. Carlsberg, for instance, is now brewed in Turkey under the supervision of Danes. But this one seems a little backwards. Wouldn't it be cheaper to produce Tusker in Kenya?
Then again, perhaps Kenya just doesn't have the infrastructure or the expertise to operate a large scale brewery.
Dubailand is an entertainment and commercial real estate complex currently under construction in Dubai. It's slated for completion in 2020, but who knows if it'll be finished now.
"I call the story an improbable fairy tale," Greenfield said. "Anything that could be fantasized could be built. It really was the land of opportunity. It’s more Las Vegas than Las Vegas."
Photo by Lauren Greenfield. See the entire photo essay here.
The Olympic Torch is lit inside a bus outside of Resolute Bay, Nunavut.
Boston.com's The Big Picture has an excellent photo essay up this week about about the Olympic Torch's journey across Canada. At the moment, the flame is about a third of the way through its a hundred-and-six day, 26,000 km relay. On its journey, the torch will pass through twelve thousand hands and more than a thousand communities before it reaches its final destination in Vancouver.
Although the photos in this essay are fantastic, in many ways, I feel like I've seen this all before. The Olympic Flame has already been carried through almost every environment in every gimmicky way imaginable, which unfortunately dulls each progressive journey.
AND, thousands of people have already told Tony Clement to stop Big Telecom companies from taking control of our Internet use. Considering we've successfully pushed the CRTC to develop open Internet guidelines and convinced the two major political parties to support Net Neutrality, we can win this if we send Clement enough letters. If you haven't already done so, please take a few seconds to send Clement a letter.
Although I had a good time at the event, which was held at the Learning Enrichment Foundation in Weston, at times I felt like I was exploiting the kids for their journalistic value; especially after half of Toronto's media establishment showed up.
Whenever I cover a story, I try to let things flow naturally, especially if I'm taking photos. However, most of my colleagues had absolutely no qualms about staging shots, or having kids rewrite their letters so they could get some good photos. While I don't usually mind when this kind of thing is done with adults, it was gross to see the kids shuffled around, and I felt bad that I was a part of it.
This week for Torontoist, I answered this question for Ask Torontoist, a column where site staff answer readers' questions.
In Ontario, construction workers can direct one lane of traffic in the same direction if they have the required training; are competent; have the proper safety equipment; and are not preforming another task while directing vehicular traffic. Police officers are only required when traffic signals are disrupted; when pedestrians and vehicles cross the same space; or when someone has to direct multiple lanes of traffic, or traffic in different directions.
"There might already be quite some traffic light time counters around today, but few focus on informing the car drivers in a physically integrative and visually glanceable way like this proposed design concept."
Very cool. Now I won't have to crane my neck to see the pedestrian signal's countdown. You can read more about it here.
Jeffrey Cameron, Community and Family Services Worker st The Salvation Army York Community Church.
