On CBC Radio last week, Contrarian’s old friend Ralph Surette said Nova Scotia Liberals had dumped their last nine leaders — every one since Gerald Regan — before they could fight a second election. That’s not quite true. The Liberals have had only seven leaders since Regan, and two of those took the party through two elections. Still, the record is fratricidal: The operative question is whether the Liberals will repeat this pattern when they review leader Stephen McNeil's leadership Friday. A covert campaign to unseat McNeil has featured an inept website and a mass mail-out using a purloined copy of the...

08 May, 2010

As we noted last month, Wendy Southgate was captured 43 times on Google Street View while walking her dog near in Elmsdale, Suffolk, UK. Today, it's a hapless Google Street View driver who captured himself while indisposed on lonely High Rock Road outside Reno, Nevada: Scroll around at the same location and see the disembodied Google Street View Car door flung open by the desperate driver as he sought the pause that refreshes: Hat tip: TWIG 41...

07 May, 2010

One hates to discourage any American foray in Canadian political analysis, but Fivethirtyeight.com [bad link fixed], the normally reliable US political blog that draws on the statistical tools of Sabermetrics, badly bollixed one such attempt yesterday. The website, which is predicting a near Conservative majority in today's British election, carries an article by research assistant Thomas Dollar, urging Tory Leader David Cameron to follow Stephen Harper's example and "Go Big or Go Home." Moneyquote: Harper's 2008 budget would have cut Federal funding of parliamentary elections--to the benefit of the Conservatives. All opposition parties formed an ABC coalition--Anyone but Conservative--to defeat...

06 May, 2010

Using data from Flightradar24.com, a site that tracks most European flights, the British firm ItoWorld produced this animation of European airspace between between April 16 and 21, as traffic resumed after the ash cloud shutdown: Hat tip: Silas...

03 May, 2010

At a web app developers' conference on April 21, Facebook unveiled a breathtakingly ambitious program to reorganize the way personal information is shared on the Internet. The changes, known as Open Graph, are hard to summarize simply, but they include the use of cookies, login codes, and Facebook "like" buttons on other companies' websites, to automatically share user information and preferences with other websites, which then use that information to personalize a user's browsing experience. More detailed explanations here and here. With 415 million users, Facebook offers web developers a powerful incentive to play ball, and they have flocked to embrace the...

02 May, 2010

The news media sessions often last 25 minutes, with 5 minutes left at the end for questions from anyone still awake. Those types of PowerPoint presentations, [retired Marine Corps Col. Thomas X.] Hammes said, are known as “hypnotizing chickens.” From We Have Met the Enemy and He Is PowerPoint, a New York Times story by Elisabeth Bumiller about the growing cadre of military strategists who think PowerPoint dumbs down decision making. More on this when I have a few minutes to string together. Hat tip: Andrew Weissman...

28 April, 2010

Brett Domino and Steven Peavis use a variety of electronic folk instruments to perform a medley of Justin Timberlake tunes: Featured instruments include Stylophone Beatbox, DigiDrummer Lite on the iPod Touch, Kazoo, Thumb Piano, Shaker, Stylophone, Cowbell, Recorder, Ukulele, Theremin, Spoons, and Roland AX-Synth. Via: Andrew Sullivan....

26 April, 2010

A source I trust tells me the consultant's report on gambling Labour Minister Marilyn More won't release truly is substandard. Let's assume that's the case, and More was right to reject it after many attempts to get the contractor to fulfill the his obligations. Barring public access to the report is still the wrong thing to do. In effect, Minister More is saying interested Nova Scotians aren't sophisticated enough to understand or evaluate the report. It might cause them "anxiety" and "confusion." Such matters should presumably be left to their betters—people like More, and the Gambling Corp. honchos who talked her...

25 April, 2010

In answer to concerned queries from readers: No, I do not personally get up at 3 a.m. to send out the daily Contrarian e-mail. Google's Feedburner service does that for me. At 3 a.m., Google automatically sends every item I have posted over the preceding 24 hours to everyone who has signed up for the daily Contrarian email (option 1 in the box at right)....

25 April, 2010

Photographarian writes: Photographic representations of  pretty sunrises—like pretty pictures of sunsets—are a trifle cliched. While Contrarian may take pleasure in his sunrise snapshot, Photographerian would like to point out that it does not make any meaningful contribution to photography, or to the well-being of humanity. Contrarian is but the humblest of snapshotists. He welcomes any contributions to photography (or the well-being of humanity) that Photographarian wants to send along....

25 April, 2010
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