I went on a road trip Saturday with my friend Adam K., down to my parents’ place, and his grandparents’ farm. On the way around southern Saskatchewan, we saw close to 150 deer and antelope, a snowy owl, a dozen hawks, a handful of Canada Geese, smaller birds, two dead
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Saskboy's Abandoned Stuff: Transportation: Where to go, and how to get there in #YQR
– Most of my speech as heard in the video above, and posted to my Regina politics blog: I’m very pleased to have been asked to speak at Campion College about transportation issues. I got my Computer Science – co-op degree from here a decade ago, and I never imagined
Continue readingLeft Over: Oh, wait………
Peeved Harper aims at ‘remaking Canadian labour force’ ‘Too many kids getting BAs and not enough welders,’ one Conservative insider says The irony of this pontificating ConJob is that one of Harper’s favourite sycophants, Gordon Campbell, single-handedly destroyed the wonderful apprenticeship program here in BC so that his political
Continue readingSaskboy's Abandoned Stuff: Not A Lot
Not much to say tonight, except it was a busy and fulfilling weekend, with lots of community gathering, and plenty of optimism for the Spring, gardens, cycling, busing, and all sorts of improvements ahead. How very much I look forward to being able to catch buses more easily on Sundays,
Continue readingSaskboy's Abandoned Stuff: Thinking Is Not Hard
Thinking is not hard to do, but some people treat it like others should do it for them. Clicking that link may be painful, as it has details of a state representative saying cyclists pollute worse than car drivers because they are exercising and breathing out more CO(2) in doing
Continue readingSaskboy's Abandoned Stuff: Russian Dash-cameras
The meteor strike last week made more people realize the prevalence of dash-cams in Russia. I’d seen shocking vehicle footage on YouTube before, one of a brick flying from a truck and killing a passenger in a car going the other way. The Guardian put together an assortment of unusual
Continue readingSaskboy's Abandoned Stuff: SGI Bike Uprising
Doesn’t SGI know it’s not cool to cause an uprising amongst those most likely to ride motorcycles up and down the streets of SGI brass? The increase in motorcycle insurance rates cannot be to just break even, since the value of the insurance is past the value of the object
Continue readingSaskboy's Abandoned Stuff: Regina Transit Petition
Regina Transit is planning to rearrange existing service to provide a few efficiencies. I see that more investment is needed to make significant improvements that transit riders have been requesting for well over a decade already. As Regina is growing, we’re reaching the limit our streets and parking lots can
Continue readingSaskboy's Abandoned Stuff: Regina Related Video
Electric car infrastructure finally in place along the Trans-Canada Highway! == University of Regina Cougar Cheer Team wins nationals again.
Continue readingThings Are Good: A Greener Asphalt
Roads are often overlooked when it comes to the impact of cars on the environment, but we can’t ignore the roads have on the environment when discussing the practicality of cars. Asphalt is used to make roads and the process of creating asphalt is very energy intensive. In Vancouver, they are looking into ways to […]
Continue readingSaskboy's Abandoned Stuff: Sandy Wind Blows
The largest hurricane recorded is underway, and it’s hitting the US and Canada. Is it because of climate change? The short answer is, yes. If you’re asking that question because you’re wondering if climate change is real, the answer is, yes it is real and we have to make a
Continue readingThings Are Good: Bike Lanes Save Lives and Lower Risk from Cars
It should come as no surprise that bike lanes are safer than merging bicycle traffic with heavy metal boxes on wheels. A new study from the University of British Columbia confirms this and goes one step further by analysing which type of bike lane is in the safest. Well designed
Continue readingSaskboy's Abandoned Stuff: Martian Automobile Association
Years ago I created the Martian Automobile Association (MAA), and tried selling memberships on eBay. I forget if I managed to sell any membership cards, but remember creating at least one (and have a photo of it), so I probably did. That member hasn’t stayed in touch, probably because they
Continue readingUpcoming Scion FR-S, the sexy coupe that’s sleek on the pocketbook
The soon to hit production Scion FR-S, a twin of the Subaru BRZ, has to be the best value and best looking coupe hitting the streets in 2013. Not exactly a marvel of engineering, the idea for the car was patched together by Toyota, owner of the Scion brand, in an attempt to rejuvenate
Continue readingSaskboy's Abandoned Stuff: Progress
In Grade 10 I read The Chrysalids, a John Wyndham science fiction that starts out describing an agrarian culture where they talk of God-like old people who could move the Earth into walls and hills. There were enough clues in the first chapter that I soon figured out that the
Continue readingThings Are Good: Bike Lanes Makes Road Safer for Everyone
The worst mayor in Canada hates people who don’t drive automobiles and thinks cyclists deserve to die. The mayor of Toronto wants to remove bike lanes (while every smart city is installing more) despite the fact that the number of cyclists has increased. So where’s the good news you ask?
Continue readingThings Are Good: What’s in a Lot?
Here’s a challenge from Eran Ben-Joseph: name a great parking lot. Couldn’t do it, could you? Neither could I, and neither could Ben-Joseph. In a new book ReThinking a Lot: The Design and Culture of Parking he explores the horribleness of all that space that car drivers demand. If you
Continue readingSaskboy's Abandoned Stuff: Head-Free Driving
Hands-free exemptions in cell-phone driving laws are nonsensical. That much has been obvious to me and a lot of other people for years. The problem with phoning while driving isn’t just that your hands and eyes are busy with the phone, it’s because your BRAIN is busy in a remote
Continue readingSaskboy's Abandoned Stuff: Arguing Against Sustainability
On the weekend I had an argument with @unambig (Adrian), a former blogger turned journalist in BC, and @BSnowsell (Brandon) a Saskatoonian Conservative. They’ve said they are against government involvement in making infrastructure for sustainable transportation. Adrian is upset by the carbon tax, and Brandon wants no money put into
Continue readingArt Threat: Volkswagen bends to critique, pulls sexist ad
Still from the Volkswagen Passat television ad in question. Volkswagen Canada has pulled the 2011 Passat TV ad “It pretty much sells itself” from its official YouTube channel and from TV rotation, including a prominent pre-roll spot on CBC News. Judging from Volkswagen Canada’s official Twitter account, the decision to
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