I was perusing the options for electric vehicles the other day, such as the Volt, Leaf, Focus, etc. Whenever we do need to buy a new car, I would be interested in looking at electrics, but wow they’re expensive. It doesn’t look like you can get a pure electric vehicle
Continue readingAuthor: nthier
Critical Brain Candy: Good week for Apple and Google, but wow RIM
I say it’s a good week for Apple and Google just because Google upgraded/added a bunch of apps that are awesome for me. They upgraded the Gmail iOS app to finally be a usable alternative to the stock iOS mail client. Then there was the Google Drive app, and to
Continue readingCritical Brain Candy: The most educated country in the world
Interesting list of the Top 10 educated countries in the world. I was surprised to see Canada at #1 with 50% of the population having post-secondary education. I’m sure we’ll now see the conservatives gut funding for post-secondary.
Continue readingCritical Brain Candy: How to codify anti-discrimination in law
This is great: Ontario amends Human Rights Code to extend protections to transgender people, but really, can’t it be possible to write the law in such a way that we don’t have to list out each new criteria of groups of people that are discriminated against? I assume it’s not possible,
Continue readingCritical Brain Candy: Pushing students through high school
Alberta teacher kicked out of class for giving students zeros Edmonton apparently has a no-zero policy. Parts of the intention of the policy sound good, like trying to get teachers to follow up with students to submit late assignments. But, I think a zero needs to be given eventually, otherwise
Continue readingCritical Brain Candy: How to become more sustainable
There’s a new article up over at YouSustain called How To Become More Sustainable that turned out well. I think it’ll give a lot of people some perspective on where to get started. I really like this, as some perspective: “The average passenger car, driven the average of 12,500 miles
Continue readingCritical Brain Candy: Pirating helps music sales? Uh huh
A new study says BitTorrent piracy found by study to boost music sales. Right. BGR even points out the obvious way this study seems suspicious. Look, everyone “pirates” stuff to some degree or another. It’s become marginally acceptable in society, and I do believe there’s a spectrum on the morality of it.
Continue readingCritical Brain Candy: Obama and same-sex marriage
I can’t believe it’s finally happened, but Obama’s declaration of support for same-sex marriage is huge. I read an interesting comment somewhere describing how this is a very good political move. The reasoning was that he won’t lose too many votes over this but will energize his base. I agree
Continue readingCritical Brain Candy: When Mayors attack
Apparently, Toronto’s esteemed Mayor Rob Ford got into a tussle with a reporter: Daniel Dale on what happened near the mayor’s home: “At some point, perhaps 10 or 15 seconds into the encounter, he cocked his fist near his head and began charging at me at a full run. I began
Continue readingCritical Brain Candy: The morality of atomic bombs
I’ve been listening to Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History podcasts for a while now and they’re fantastic. I look forward to episodes of his show more than any other media I consume. The most recent episode is especially thought-provoking as it covers the morality of dropping the atomic bombs on Japan.
Continue readingCritical Brain Candy: Windfarms apparently don’t hard bird populations
Windfarms do not cause long-term damage to bird populations, study finds. Maybe this will put that part of the debate to rest, although climate-change deniers don’t tend to listen to facts I guess.
Continue readingCritical Brain Candy: More bad news for RIM, but what does it really mean?
Last night’s earnings report from RIM brought more bad news, even prompting BGR into a sensationalist headline of Research In Motion is dead. The comments in response to the BGR article are interesting to read, most tending towards a sentiment of “Why are you saying this, don’t you know you’re affecting
Continue readingCritical Brain Candy: Sustainable ideas
There’s a new list of Top 10 Easy Ideas For A Sustainable 2012 over at YouSustain. This years list seems extra informative because of the ability to show what the CO2 amounts discussed actually mean, via links to the new tool How Much CO2 Is That? Let me know of any
Continue readingCritical Brain Candy: The drumbeat of war
The last few weeks have seemed eerily similar to the build-up towards war with Iraq. First you have the pundits flooding the media with talk of how war is inevitable, then eventually the political leaders follow. At least it sounds like there’s a reasonable adult at the helm: ‘This is
Continue readingCritical Brain Candy: Canada’s sub fleet
Our defense minister claims the sub fleet we bought from the British 14 years ago, which has been in dry-dock for most of that time, and won’t hope to be fully operational until at least 2016, is a capable force. That may well be true. However, it takes less than
Continue readingCritical Brain Candy: Getting perspective on CO2 emissions
I’ve just put up a tool at YouSustain called How Much CO2 Is That?, which I think is pretty neat. You can enter (or pick) an amount of CO2 emissions and it will show you how much of lots of other activities/things would generate that much. One of my favourites,
Continue readingCritical Brain Candy: 5 iPhones a second
The world is buzzing with news of Apple’s most recent incredible quarterly earnings and profit. Their profit was $13 billion on revenue of $46 billion. Also staggering was the number of iPhones sold in 3 months: 37 million. I thought it’d be interesting to see how that number broke down.
Continue readingCritical Brain Candy: Bob Rae for the Liberal Leadership
I’ve never understood why there was a supposed agreement that Rae wouldn’t run for the leadership. Doesn’t that seem a bit un-democratic? I have no idea if him running would be a good thing, but if he ran and won, who should argue with that?
Continue readingCritical Brain Candy: First impressions of the BlackBerry PlayBook
A few days ago I received a BlackBerry PlayBook. I’m not really in the market for tablets, just because we have enough computers and iPhones in the house that I don’t see a need for one. I do want a tablet for a few things, like as an eReader and
Continue readingCritical Brain Candy: Meat and sustainability
I posted a new article over at YouSustain: Meat and Sustainability: The Facts. It has some interesting comparisons of how resource-intensive it is to produce various types of food. Let me know of any comments and please share it if you like it!
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