Sunday night at the chalet

The craving for second-rate chicken came over me. So I’m sat here in the chalet next to two couples who are having a conversation from two decades ago: how they drive out their way for Burger King, how the auto industry’s dying (but still a good place for a pension), bemoaning the lack of the Gardner extension, why recycling doesn’t work … and how John Tory’s a really nice guy who just can’t catch a break.

Just another Sunday night in Scarborough.

declined

NRCan’s Magnetic declination calculator is pretty cool (if you need that sort of thing). It was doing something weird yesterday, though: if you searched for Listowel, ON (43° 43′ North, 80° 57′ West), you actually got the coordinates and declination for Sechelt, BC (49° 28.8′ North, 123° 45.6′ West). And if you in turn searched for Sechelt, you got Fernie, BC instead (49° 30′ North, 115° 3′ West). Hmm.

Margaret’s petard (or, we’re their them)

The Globe‘s Margaret Wente is an effective opinion writer, in that she can get you riled about something without actually adding any valuable comment. Take yesterday’s piece “Yes, Virginia, there is a polar bear” (paywalled, but helpfully parroted by her friends) as a shining example.

In it she makes the following points:

  1. Experts predict (nameless, faceless, experts, of course. She might as well have written Them for true shock effect) that climate change will harm polar bears
  2. Her expert on prediction (J. Scott Armstrong, Professor of Marketing [?!] at Wharton – no doubt to her cuddlier than Knut and also firmly one of Us) says that experts are really bad at predicting things where models are complex and inputs have uncertainty.
  3. That Prof Armstrong has come up with the sew wittily-named Seer-Sucker Theory: “No matter how much evidence there is that seers do not exist, seers will find suckers.”

So, Margaret: advocating medieval ignorance, superstition and misery because your “[a]bundant research [uncited, of course; can’t have the taint of intellectual rigour here] shows that experts … are no better than non-experts at making accurate predictions”? More likely, you’ve elevated Prof Armstrong to be your seer. By his argument, then, you are your own sucker.

Instead, consider Advices & Queries 17: “… Avoid hurtful criticism and provocative language. Do not allow the strength of your convictions to betray you into making statements or allegations that are unfair or untrue. Think it possible that you may be mistaken.”

my hero

Machete-wielding grinch caught on tape deflating Christmas display

… But their Christmas card to Calgary, as they call it, was ruined early Thursday when a man came up the hill at about 3:30 a.m. and began slashing the inflatable Santa, polar bear and Christmas train with a machete.He also dismantled a sound system playing Christmas music.

Dude, if anyone was playing Christmas music in my neighbourhood at 3:30am, it’s probably just as well I don’t own a machete.

and many were the kilojoules

A new Tim Hortons across the road from my office isn’t going to help a carefully-controlled diet. This is just as well, as I don’t have one.

the awfully nice people on the 95 bus

This is a small posting of thanks to the folks on the OCTranspo 95 Orleans bus who put up with my cluelessness and large luggage on the very busy rush hour transit. I got to Ottawa station quicker than any taxi, and for only $3. I’m a fairly seasoned TTC rider, and you wouldn’t see that kind of friendliness at this time of day in Toronto.

not very walkable here

Walk Score rates our neighbourhood at 32%, which isn’t very good. There are some errors in its analysis — we have a library kittycorner on the main intersection, and not 12km away, as Walk Score claims.

But yeah, there are problems. Our nearest bookstore? Cupid’s Boutique, where I’m sure they sell many illustrated periodicals for the discerning gentleman …

You know you’ve been studying engineering law too much when …

… you think that you’d want to start a band called The Tortfeasors, with stage names derived from precedents: Hedley Byrne, Rivtow Marine, Junior Books, Donoghue Stevenson, Lambert V. Lastoplex

Then you realise that would be a bad idea. On every level. Not least that I wouldn’t know what to do in (or with) a band.

I’m resitting the legal part of my PPE for the PEO next Saturday. Was somewhat taken aback when I heard I’d failed it first time, but now studying again, and seeing my notes and sample answers from last time — what, if anything, was I thinking?

pretty much it for now

the way out of Richmond

Well, that’s pretty much all for my BC trip. Got another day in the office, then fly out this afternoon.

I managed to be a bit more sociable this time. Dinner with Dave and Leanne in a very high-tone restaurant, curry with Kelly on Davie St on Halloween, then dinner with colleagues last night.

salvadorean scran

All our usual restaurants were busy, so we stopped at El Pulgarcito at 1210 Kennedy Rd. I’d never had pupusas before; these little filled maize pancakes are the best. We’ll be back.