Imagine if you will a 7 year old girl who said that the male adult in her home had molested her; the police were called and said that while they found substance to the allegation, they thought the girl was too fragile to be a witness in a prosecution, and
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Yappa Ding Ding: The attack on peace
Twice this weekend I heard the local Talk Radio station lead their news broadcast with these words: “A handful of university students have hopped aboard the left-wing Rideau Institute’s “white poppy” bandwagon for Remembrance Day, promoting their pacifist ideology by piggybacking on the Royal Canadian Legion’s red poppy campaign.” I
Continue readingYappa Ding Ding: King & University: Density node? Neighborhood? Mess?
The density at King & University has been a long time coming. When I was a teenager in the 70s, there were already large apartment buildings on Regina Street North. University Avenue in the King-Regina area has been steadily growing with apartments and strip malls. WLU is building more and
Continue readingYappa Ding Ding: Cell phones > Smartphones > Superphones > ?
Just fooling around here, but with the rapid evolution of smartphone technology, you have to be wondering where it’s going. Earlier this year we learned of an imager chip that lets mobile phones see through walls, clothes, and other objects. With Square, we see an evolution to peripheral devices that
Continue readingYappa Ding Ding: Musings on love and freedom in the Ring Cycle
Wagner’s Ring Cycle is about a curse on a ring, but in another (even larger) sense it’s about a curse on women. Four women in the four operas are forced to marry and submit to a man against their will. The first we encounter is Freia, who is Wotan’s sister-in-law.
Continue readingYappa Ding Ding: In praise of bus bays
A lot of rush hour traffic jams are at least partially preventable. If we had bus bays that let GRT buses get off the road when they stop to pick up passengers, cars wouldn’t have to queue up behind them. The reason we don’t have bus bays, according to local
Continue readingYappa Ding Ding: In praise of speed bumps
The reason we have roundabouts is that they let traffic flow without stopping through intersections. The problem with roundabouts is that having traffic flow without stopping is extremely hazardous to pedestrians. Roundabouts seemed like a great idea when when we were building them on roads that don’t have pedestrians, but
Continue readingYappa Ding Ding: Rob Ford’s not drunk
A video was released today of Rob Ford in a living room, ranting about someone he wanted to kill in a boxing ring. Almost immediately, Ford went on camera and said he was very inebriated in the video; his mother went on TV and said Ford doesn’t do drugs but
Continue readingYappa Ding Ding: Will/Should John Chen move BlackBerry to California?
I worked at Sybase for eight years under John Chen, the new CEO of BlackBerry. He was an interesting CEO – refreshingly (almost appallingly) frank. I remember he once came to the Waterloo office and told us that our market was shrinking, and that he felt like the captain of
Continue readingYappa Ding Ding: Bubbles of Earth
My brother has started a blog about poetry, pictures, and co-creative science”. It’s quite wonderful.
Continue readingYappa Ding Ding: Failing the modern Turing test is so vexatious
Here’s a CAPTCHA I just got. As you can see, my attempt was not accepted. Other characters I can see in this captcha, starting from the bottom left and moving clockwise, are h (or upside down 4), a backwards K, b, M, W, O, S, an oval, G, M or
Continue readingYappa Ding Ding: More for Uptown, Part 3: Accessibility
I first understood accessibility issues in uptown Waterloo when my mother started using a walker. My mother lives in easy walking distance of the uptown. Her health and emotional well-being were enhanced by a daily walk to uptown, but accessibility problems often prevented her from getting there. When my mother
Continue readingYappa Ding Ding: Let’s rethink the St Jacobs Farmer’s Market
Waterloo woke this morning to the sad news that the main building of the St Jacobs Farmer’s Market had burned to the ground. Already there is an outpouring of sympathy and support to the owner, Mercedes Corp. I am afraid that this post has a somewhat different tone. I think
Continue readingYappa Ding Ding: Musings on Manning
I worked for Reuters back in the 80s and 90s, and still get email sometimes about things that happen to Reuters employees. I got one today concerning the murder of Reuters journalists that was exposed by Pfc Manning, the US soldier recently convicted of leaking confidential documents to WikiLeaks. The
Continue readingYappa Ding Ding: Rally round the Ex!
I feel terrible about the illness at the Ex yesterday. As it happened, I myself was at the Ex yesterday. I had fantastic food there: roasted corn on the cob, an ice cream waffle, a Korean taco, freshly squeezed lemonade, ice coffee. I saw the stand that was selling Cronut
Continue readingYappa Ding Ding: Woolwich walking trails
There’s a lovely trail in Woolwich township, about a five minute drive from the Waterloo market (and from my workplace). It’s at the first bridge on Three Bridges Road. The bridge is an old Mennonite horse bridge. It isn’t fancy but it’s a nifty design: when the river is in
Continue readingYappa Ding Ding: More for Uptown, Part 2: Parks at King and William
At the corner of King and William there are two little parks of identical size and shape. This one, on the east side of King, is called Heritage Green. You can see Knox Presbyterian church in the background. Some years ago the park was partly covered in concrete in an
Continue readingYappa Ding Ding: Demand more for our uptown
Development in Waterloo is booming. Four large high-rises are going up: 144 Park, 155 Caroline, a condo building in the Barrelyards (Erb and Father David Bauer Drive), and a rental building in the Barrelyards. Many projects are recent or almost finished, like 186/8 King South (The Red). Other large high-rises
Continue readingYappa Ding Ding: Libertarians return to school
The Wall Street Journal published an article this week that, in line with its usual far-right stance, argued that a libertarian approach to education is far superior to the American system of hiring permanent, accredited teachers. The article started with the premise, “South Korea’s students rank among the best in
Continue readingYappa Ding Ding: Uptown Waterloo: Where trails go to die
The Iron Horse Trail officially ends at Caroline Street. A few years ago, the Trails committee managed to get the trail unofficially extended along the west side of Caroline as far as William Street: the narrow sidewalk was replaced with a smooth, three meter wide asphalt trail. But even that
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