My netizen pal Angela Mombourquette makes a good case for the proposed seven story housing project that has stirred opposition in the otherwise low-rise, middle-income neighborhood where church elders want to build it. Venerable St. John's United Church, which currently occupies the lot at Windsor and North in a residential neighborhood of Halifax's West End, has reached its best-before date. The congregation proposes to replace it with a building, called "Spirit Place," that will house both a place of worship and an independent living facility for old people — all wrapped into a seven-storey structure. Furthermore, St. John's specifically promotes Spirit Place...

13 February, 2011

CBC Weekend Mornings' take on school snow days, rain days, bad Camry days, and damp snow pants days: [Those without a Flash-endowed machine, go here.] H/T: Doug Barron, director. Cast: unknown....

13 February, 2011

If someone asks you that on a first date, they could be asking a proxy question. OK Cupid, the dating site that uses its database to research the sociology of romance, has been considering the best questions to ask on a first date if your real goal is to find out something altogether different: Among all our casual topics, whether someone likes the taste of beer is the single best predictor of if he or she has sex on the first date. H/T: Nathan Yau...

10 February, 2011

Holland's Theo Jansen sculpts PVC pipe into incredible kinetic beasties. H/T: Tony Comstock....

10 February, 2011

An A.W. Leil crane capsizes while attempting to place a large wall panel during construction of the new Yarmouth High School January 28. The fun begins at about the 2:40 mark. No one was hurt in the incident. H/T: Richard Stephenson....

10 February, 2011

Overheard on the 'net: Zadie (Age 4):    Look in my nose Zadie's mother:    I don't see anything in your nose. Zadie:    Oh. I don't smell anything in your eye....

05 February, 2011

Engineers from Google, Twitter, and SayNow, a voice messaging startup Google bought last week, put their technical chops to work over the weekend devising a way around the Egyptian government's Internet shutdown. From Google's Official Blog: Like many people, we’ve been glued to the news unfolding in Egypt, and thinking of what we could do to help people on the ground. Over the weekend we came up with the idea of a speak-to-tweet service—the ability for anyone to tweet using just a voice connection...

01 February, 2011

Our old friend Ivan Smith, retired teacher and citizen Internet pioneer, takes up the suggestion that distance education could play a big part in reforming Nova Scotia's unaffordable education system: Identify a topic in grade 4 math (or grade 3 or 5) that currently is particularly troublesome for students. (This topic should be something that can be covered properly in not more than three or four class periods.) Identify four teachers, two male and two female, who have substantial experience in teaching this topic, and who have had results significantly better than average. Arrange for each teacher to teach this topic in...

31 January, 2011

Many assume the Dexter Government made a mistake when it asked school boards to consider—and report back on—the consequences of a hypothetical 22 percent cut in their budgets. They say this gave the boards and the NSTU a license to frighten voters, and thus rally support for their comfortable status quo. Contrarian reader (and retired Education Dept. bureaucrat) Wayne Fiander puts the case vividly: Having served two premiers in this province, I can say with some confidence that a real education "right sizing exercise" is necessary to preserve public education. No government has yet tackled this issue correctly. They start...

31 January, 2011

In 1995, when Jim Nunn left the host chair at what was then called First Edition and moved to Toronto to take over co-hosting duties on the CBC Show Marketplace, some of his chums produced a tribute music video called, "Jim Nunn is in the Smoke Room." There are a few CBC in-jokes, but the piece, starring Jonathan Torrens, Mike Clattenburg, Keith Bradley, and Brian Heighton, never fails to crack me up. Other credits: Producer/Director: Cynthia Kent; Editor: Keith Bradley; Shooters: Steve Lawrence & Doug Carmichael. H/T: Sharlene Woods....

29 January, 2011
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