Yale University has banned all sexual relationships between faculty and students. According to the Yale Alumni Magazine, the new rule extends a previous ban that applied only when the faculty member had "direct pedagogical or supervisory responsibilities" over the student. Now all undergrads are off limits. Yale is a bit slow clambering aboard the sex panic bandwagon. When Dean Henry Rosovsky sought to impose a similar rule at Harvard in 1983, Prof. John Kenneth Galbraith reacted with a confession: [caption id="attachment_4928" align="alignright" width="250" caption="Kitty and Ken Galbraith, wayward couple"][/caption] Just over forty-five years ago, already a well-fledged member of the...

08 April, 2010

The New York Times has an excellent interactive graphic showing the underground layout of the Upper Big Branch mine in Montcoal, West Virginia, where at least 25 miners died in a methane explosion Monday. The Times also detailed the Massey Energy Company's dismal safety record: In 2008, one of its subsidiaries paid what federal prosecutors called the largest settlement in the history of the coal industry after pleading guilty to safety violations that contributed to the deaths of two miners in a fire in one of its mines. That year, Massey also paid a $20 million fine — the largest of its...

07 April, 2010

Received a note this morning from Colin Doyle in Osaka saying Contrarian was working just fine in Japan. Alas, within hours, an even more severe breakdown set in. Hostpapa's own systems were down throughout the day, so beleaguered help desk agents couldn't even get in to see what might be wrong with the servers that run Contrarian and CBFilm.ca. This is one of North America's biggest (and, I say again, normally most reliable) hosting companies, so the Oakville offices must have been going nuts. Service came back early this evening, and seems to be brisk once again. Let's hope the...

07 April, 2010

Some reaction to yesterday's Wikileak disclosure of horrific footage from an American helicopter gunship mowing down unarmed* civilians, as crewmen gloated over the killings. James Fallows: I can't pretend to know the full truth or circumstances of this. But at face value it is the most damaging documentation of abuse since the Abu Ghraib prison-torture photos. As you watch, imagine the reaction in the US if the people on the ground had been Americans and the people on the machine guns had been Iraqi, Russian, Chinese, or any other nationality. As with Abu Ghraib, and again...

06 April, 2010

Over the last two days, Contrarian readers in Halifax, Sydney, and England have reported that the website is loading slowly or not at all. HostPapa, my normally reliable hosting service, confirmed tonight that the server is responding slowly. The customer service rep has escalated the problem to the technicians who work on Hostpapa's servers. I hope they fix it soon. Apologies for the inconvenience. In most cases, apparently, if you are patient, the page will eventually load. The strange thing is, it works perfectly here at Kempt Head. (And yes, I appreciate the fecklessness of using a website people can't load...

05 April, 2010

On the morning of July 12, 2007, US soldiers aboard two Apache helicopters used 30mm cannons to kill about a dozen people in the Iraqi suburb of New Baghdad. The US military caimed that all the dead were anti-Iraqi combatants, but among them were two Iraqi employees of the Reuters News Agency, driver Saeed Chmagh, 40, a father of four, and photographer Namir Noor-Eldeen, 22, described as on of the best war photographers in Iraq. Two children were also injured. Reuters demanded an investigation. US authorities concluded that their forces acted properly. Using the Freedom of Information Act, Reuters unsuccessfully sought...

05 April, 2010

In 1950, Max Klein, President of Detroit’s Palmer Paint Company, was looking for a way to jack up demand for paint. Dan Robbins, a commercial artist employed by the company, remembered Leonardo da Vinci used to give numbered patterns to his apprentices. The following year, Palmer introduced the Craft Master line of paint-by-number kits with the slogan, “Every man a Rembrandt,” and a craze was born. The company sold 12 million kits. Robbins became the most exhibited artist in the history, a title he still holds, according to the on-line Paint by Number Museum, entry portal pictured above. Palmer went on to...

05 April, 2010

Our old friend Ivan Smith's ears perked up at our mention of an independent advisory panel to offer suggestions on how to improve a government website. He wonders if anything similar is planned in Canada. Smith points to copyright activist Michael Geist's interesting testimony March 25 before the House of Commons Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage (available, sigh, not on the committee's website, but on Geist's.) Moneyquote: In recent years, many countries have embraced open data initiatives, including both the U.S. and U.K.  Others, such as Australia, have adopted open licenses to make government content more readily usable and...

04 April, 2010

Gary Lauder calculates the wasted fuel and time caused by one intersection's stop signs at $100,000 per year. Roundabouts work better, but how about a "Take Turns" sign? Hat tip: Crest Halifax....

04 April, 2010

President Barack Obama has appointed visual data guru Edward Tufte (previously mentioned: here) to the Recovery Independent Advisory Panel. Tufte will advise on such things as the Recovery.gov website, where citizens can punch their zip code into a track-the-money map and see all the recovery projects in their area. Bob Garfield of New York public radio's On The Media interviewed Tufte about the appointment this week (audio embedded below; transcript here). GARFIELD: Tufte has inspired a generation of innovators with his ideas for the efficient, clean and rich presentation of information. He’s a fan of The New York Times website,...

04 April, 2010
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