At its recent Data Expo, the American Statistical Association held a contest for the best graphical display of the factors involved in commercial flight delays. This image, the second prize winner, from a team at Iowa State University, shows the prevalence of delays by day of the week and time of the year over a five year period. The more delays, the redder the square. Notice how 9/11 really did change everything. Contestants were given a 12-gigabyte dataset consisting of flight arrival and departure information for all commercial flights within the USA, from October 1987 to April 2008. There were...

10 September, 2009

Two weeks ago, AllNovaScotia.com, the excellent online journal run by daughter-father team Caroline Wood and David Bentley, ran the latest in a series of occasional pieces by Larry Hughes, a computer engineering coordinator at Dalhousie University. Hughes is something of an energy policy gadfly. He expects energy will soon be in short supply globally, so he places a lot of emphasis on energy security, by which he appears to mean energy produced within Nova Scotia. Nevertheless, Hughes opposes Nova Scotia Power's plan to mix wood waste with coal to burn in its thermal generating plants. His piece, in the August 25 edition...

10 September, 2009

Elizabeth May is moving to British Columbia. From both provinces' perspectives, it truly is more blessed to give than to receive....

10 September, 2009

- Carol Kennedy photo Cape Breton's Fall colors peak between the first and second weekends of October, and this year foliage tourists have four worthy festivals to chose from. The Hike the Highlands festival offers 23 guided hikes in a variety of distances, difficulties, and locations around the Cabot Trail from September 11 to 20. The festival also features workshops on nature photography, GPS, and geocaching, together with various social and musical events. The first annual inaugural Cabot Trail Writers' Festival in North River, October 2 to 4, features readings and workshops by authors Donna Morrissey (Kit's Law & What They Wanted),  Douglas...

09 September, 2009

After blocking a proposed rock quarry two years ago, Digby Neck is fast establishing itself as the NIMBY* capital of Nova Scotia. Developments of any kind on the Neck are sure to face opposition that is relentless, emotive, and impervious to evidence. So it was a relief this morning to hear Barry Zwicker of Scotia Windfields, co-developer of a 20-turbine, 30-megawatt wind farm on Digby Neck, stand up to project critics on Halifax's Information Morning program in a manner that was calm, rational, and persuasive. Doing this is harder than it seems. An emotionally appealing lie can be across town before the...

09 September, 2009

Dating from April 23, 2005, the first video ever uploaded to YouTube is a 19-second clip showing one of the site's founders, Jawed Karim, talking about elephants. To Virginia Heffernan, writing this morning in the New York Times, the clip echos a technique used by Jean-Luc Godard. When this technique of redundancy was used in the films of Godard, it was considered the height of sophistication, a comment on the way movies pile on information: they show, they narrate and they describe. The elephants are unmistakable to viewers, and yet Karim identifies them. Then he names the iconic shape right in...

05 September, 2009

Deep in the Cape Breton Highlands lies a magnificent vista not shown on most tourist maps. Cape Clear is a 1000-foot precipice overlooking the uppermost reaches of the Margaree River's Northeast Branch. At left, the spectacular ravine formed by the river's headwaters. Below, the valley widens as the province's premier salmon stream wends its way to the Northwest and the sea. [Photos taken September 2.] ...

03 September, 2009

Tucows Inc., the Toronto-based company best known for its online library of free and modestly priced software, has produced a trenchant submission to the federal government's copyright consultation. The company commissioned David Weinberger, renowned US Internet marketing pundit, to examine the contention that strong copyright protection and robust creativity march hand in hand toward the New Jerusalem. His witty, insightful rejection of that canard stands out from the pack in this debate. Moneyquote: The argument seems simple: (a) If every time you put apples out on your fruit stand, they’re immediately stolen, pretty quickly you’ll stop putting out apples. (b) What’s...

01 September, 2009

CTV Anchor Steve Murphy writes: Have you had an opportunity to watch Cindy Day's very measured approach to forecasting these recent storms?  Cindy constantly stresses that tropical cyclones are extremely difficult to predict with precision, especially when they are several days away.  Her forecasts employ likely and anticipated storm tracks and include ranges for rainfall and wind speeds.   A review of last week's coverage would confirm that Cindy Day's prognosis for Hurricane Bill was remarkably accurate even several days ahead of time.  Our news coverage of the arrival of the storm focused mainly on surf conditions and danger from the waves....

29 August, 2009
After hectoring us for five days about Bill, a hurricane that was actually a tropical storm, the media took an only slightly more restrained approach to Danny, a weak tropical storm that actually appears to be a half-day rain shower. CBC still wrung its hands for much of the week, but didn't cancel regular programs. Many contrarian readers responded to the hype, starting after the jump with CW.
29 August, 2009
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