I saw the most obscene markup in indigo this evening: the Linux Format OpenOffice.org special edition was priced at a hefty $34.95. This costs £10 in the UK.
The thing is, UK prices are quoted tax-inclusive. The ten quid you see is the ten quid you pay. Not so in Canada. In the most boneheaded move ever, our prices don’t include tax, so that $34.95 really costs you $39.84 (in Ontario, at least).
According to Google, £10 is $20.53. Indigo’s markup is almost 100%
definitely worth it: The Canadian DMCA: What You Can Do.
I was looking to perhaps rent a hybrid for a longish business trip. My company’s preferred supplier, National, doesn’t do them in Canada, but does in the US:
Why do they get them, and we don’t? Don’t say there’s no demand; I‘d rent one …
Project Gutenberg Canada / Projet Gutenberg Canada opened its doors a couple of days ago. It’s gone through several organisers since I first heard of its imminent launch in 2002, but I’m glad it got going.
Tim Hortons finally got Interac in Ontario. Western Canadians will no longer be frustrated with their eastern siblings. (well, I’m sure there will be some other bones of contention ….)
Oh, and we technically implement Kyoto today.
I was a little bemused about Ontario wanting 21 extra MPs, so I did some sums to see how many MPs each province/territory should have:
| 2005 Population | ‘Fair’ Ridings | Actual Ridings | %age over/under represented | |
| Canada (total) | 32,270,500 | 308 | 308 | |
| Newfoundland and Labrador | 516,000 | 5 | 7 | +42% |
| Prince Edward Island | 138,100 | 1 | 4 | +203% |
| Nova Scotia | 937,900 | 9 | 11 | +23% |
| New Brunswick | 752,000 | 7 | 10 | +39% |
| Quebec | 7,598,100 | 73 | 75 | +3% |
| Ontario | 12,541,400 | 120 | 106 | -11% |
| Manitoba | 1,177,600 | 11 | 14 | +25% |
| Saskatchewan | 994,100 | 9 | 14 | +48% |
| Alberta | 3,256,800 | 31 | 28 | -10% |
| British Columbia | 4,254,500 | 41 | 36 | -11% |
| Yukon Territory | 31,000 | 0 | 1 | +238% |
| Northwest Territories | 43,000 | 0 | 1 | +144% |
| Nunavut | 30,000 | 0 | 1 | +249% |
The population data is from StatsCan for 2005, and the riding counts from Wikipedia, and checked on CBC’s election 2006 site. My analysis is a bit simplistic; everyone counted as population gets the same federal representation.
Ontario, BC and Alberta are getting stiffed. Quebec is the fairest of them all. But if you really want your vote to count, and you can’t handle the Territories, move to PEI.
I’ve been using my GPS to track roads around the wind farm. I’m most disappointed with the coverage that Garmin’s MetroGuide Canada gives. Sure, Ashfield-Colborne-Wawanosh might not be Canada’s most vibrant metropolis, but it seems that much of the MetroGuide routing is screwy around the Huron shores. A couple of frinstances:
I know I didn’t really need to use the GPS for this (except I now know how to navigate the backroads of Wingham), but some of the map choices it was giving me were downright useless.
Helps if you load the right map …
Greenpeace Canada decided I’m francophone, and so sent me their French welcome package. I don’t particularly mind, but I don’t remember being given a language option.
I’m not proud of being monolingual (in fact, round these parts I’m sometimes considered nihilingual). At school, if you wanted to take science, you dropped the arts by about age 15. It didn’t help that our school used minging old readers like Aux Pays des Flamantes Roses and used genuine 1960s reel-to-reels with écoutez et répétez <beep>!
Catherine & I have been in Canada for 5 years.
I’ve been Canadian for a year … pauses … eh?
(did that come out natural, like?)
Everyone says I don’t have a very strong accent, but I’m sick of being misunderstood. I have been offered Wild Turkey when I asked for water, and my house number – 36 – is a constant source of confusion. Bell got it wrong for a couple of hours when we first got our phone in 2002, and so the poor folks at 56 have been getting our junk mail ever since.
Last straw came during the last power outage. Toronto Hydro has an automated voice recognition system which first asks your postal code, then your street name, then the house number. It got the code and the street right, then assumed I was saying big ol’ 56 again. It took me right back to the postal code question, even after confirming it and the street name before.
Rather than going postal, I ended up having to slur out my mooshiest “thihrdheesihx” before it took it. C’mon people, consonants, consonants!
Hate to think what it’d have made of the Glaswegian ‘thehrty’, which my Gran always decried as “common” …
I was at Nicholas Stern‘s presentation to the Economic Club of Toronto today (as was Bob, David, Deb, Glenn, Paul, and about 490 others). He was very low-key; not sure if his dry sense of humour got the response he expected. The CBC covered it.
O Canada – as performed by sampled wailing babies.
What are my pictures doing here: http://www.thewindpower.net/103-windfarms-canada.php?
Either the Fair Air Association of Canada is a last-gasp attempt by Big Tobacco to overturn Canadian smoking bans, or it’s a delightful work of twisted humour. I’m unsure which.
Uhoh, there’s a huge Canada Computers opening just up the road; next to this sign, in fact. I’m glad I no longer commute past it; the temptation would be too strong.