“That’s actually a significant and commendable improvement. While I have no reason to visit the website, there’s...” 
“Tina do you know what it’s like to be killed for looking like someone else? Yea nor do I but it’s probably a whole lot...” 
“It turns out that the plugin broke with 2.8.1. in July which “tightens security for plugin administration pages.” The...” 
“This plugin is partially broken by the 2.8 update to Wordpress. The settings page no longer works. Attempts to modify result in the...” I’ve just submitted the (last) revision of my thesis to my advisor. Stats de jour:
Pages: 119
Total used words: 31524
Total deleted words: 22887
57.9% of the text I wrote is in use.
I should have thought of this before. I could auction off words in my thesis for vast sums of money, like the dude and his Million Dollar Homepage. I’d offer n spots, and bidders could offer me money for including some word in the thesis. Since I’m dealing with network traffic, I could even allow naughty words, and just convert them to hex in examples.
Damn. Another opportunity missed!
Those of you who live in downtown Ottawa, you may have noticed that there’s a new building going up at the corner of Slater and Bank. It’s going to be the new headquarters of Telus, and has been designed by Broccolini.
Looking at Broccolini’s project page for the building, we see some good stuff: there are LEED-certified contractors working on it, and it’s going to meet the Canadian Green Building Council’s Silver Certification level. Aesthetically, it’s a bit of a miss, however. According to the design photos, it’s going to be a generic-looking nine story metal and glass monstrosity, in a part of town that’s pretty much all brick, and, for the most part, lower than four stories.
Couldn’t Telus have done their homework, and come up with a design that would fit with Ottawa’s low-rise downtown? Couldn’t they have found space for more than a couple of token trees on the sidewalk? Couldn’t they have built something with some architectural detailing on the outside, so as to fit with the rest of the buildings on Bank? Couldn’t they have made space for stores on the ground floor?
Oh well, at least it should be energy efficient.
I happened across a Google ad for Canadian Tire Solar. I assumed it would be the usual collection of solar battery chargers and a couple of dohickies for RVs, but no. They’re aiming at full solar and wind systems. Wow.
Anyone following the ongoing saga of the thesis will be glad to know that I’ve moved one step closer to finishing it. I now have a thesis committee, and I’ve applied to graduate. I’m more or less on track to defend in late August, and graduate in the fall. w00t!
Every day, on my way to the bus stop, I pass a coffee shop. A panhandler has made that her spot. She sits outside there every morning. Sometimes she’s crying. Sometimes she’s curled up into a little ball. She’s a little younger than me, probably no older than 24, and dressed in decent clothes. Unlike other panhandlers, she doesn’t usually have a bag, or any stuff with her. She’s as skinny as hell, and her face is weirdly gaunt. I’ve spent time with people who have starved themselves, and her face isn’t like theirs. Their faces are gaunt and skull-like, but hers seems different. I wish I could explain how. Everytime I walk by her, I wonder if there’s anything I can do for her. Everytime I walk by, I wonder a little less.
This morning, there were two affluent looking middle aged ladies talking to the panhandler. They spoke quietly. She wailed her responses. I couldn’t hear what they said but, her answers were pretty clear. She kept saying that she just wanted to go home. She said that home was Toronto, and that she just wanted to go home.
I’ve never known how to deal with panhandlers. When I was growing up in Halifax, there were about half a dozen regular panhandlers downtown. I didn’t know them by name, but I recognized them. At one time or another, they all seemed messed up in some way: either talking to people who weren’t there, yelling and hitting themselves, or staring into space. I didn’t know what to do for them, so I gave them money. I thought that if I were ever mentally ill, and alone, I would need money. So I gave them the leftovers of my allowance.
Now I’m an adult living in Ottawa. And I still don’t how to deal with these people. They want my money. But I see many of them stumbling around downtown drunk or high. I don’t want to give them money. I don’t think it will help them. I’m afraid that money would just speed them on their way to an overdose.
As I got on the bus this morning, I saw the panhandler burst into tears and curl up in fetal position. The two middle aged ladies stood looking at her for a few moments, and then walked away.
When I got onto the bus, there was a copy of the Metro sitting in the empty seat. On the local news page there was a story about Terry Kilrea, one of Ottawa’s mayoral candidates. Yesterday he pledging that, if elected, he would hire another 78 police officers, and run the “vagrants” out of downtown. I don’t think that would help.
Those women turned their backs on the panhandler, and now one of our mayoral hopefuls wants our city to do the same thing.
Remember Live8? A whole bunch of public figures got together, told people to tell their elected leaders that it’s time to start giving Africa the aid it needs. At the time, I wasn’t impressed. The commitment seemed weak. It sounded like a one-off.
Then I saw DATA. It’s an organization dedicated to holding the G8 countries accountable to the promises they made in 2006. They released an extremely readable report earlier this year. After reading that, I’ve changed my mind about the Live8 people. They’re doing their homework. Sadly, the G8 isn’t.
According to the Live8 website, the G8 countries committed to:
Of those goals, the only one that is close to being met is debt forgiveness for 18 countries. Everything else is falling behind.
And where is Canada in this mess? A quick search through the DATA report makes me embarrassed to be a Canadian:
As a whole, the G8 is falling behind in some specific ways:
Oh yeah. For Canada to keep our Live8 promise, we have to increase aid to Africa a paltry $144 million. That’s 2.8% of the money the money Harper recently threw away on the GST cut. That’s 1% of the money that Harper is promising to spend on the military. It works out to $5 per Canadian.
“As a guest, the best part of the wedding was the giggling bride and groom. 
” 
