The Canadian Broadcast Standards Council (CBSC) issued a ruling today which censored Dire Straits’ mega-hit song from over 25 years ago, Money for Nothing. The CBSC said the song should either be banned, or suitably edited, for its use of the homophobic word “faggot”, three times. (CBC, Jan 13 2011; CSBC Decision)
(I’d have embedded the actual music video but those *^&*@$ at YouTube have all these copyrights rules now that don’t let them be seen in Canada and other countries).
I understand the principle to censor the song, but completely disagree with the psychology of the action. For the sake of an ideal, the fight against homophobia just took a step backward rather than a step forward.
For about $1 of tax per person per year, or a $2 (toonie) charge per use, the Halifax Skating Oval can be sustained, at the highest cost estimates. It could be as low as 50 cents per use. I’m not encouraging this, but if paying for use of the Oval were a last resort, it could be very affordable and definitely worth its value!
There’s a big debate on whether or not to keep the Canada Winter Games Skating Oval on the Halifax Commons (CBC, Jan 4 2011). A lot of the public is enjoying the facility, but the worry is the cost of maintaining the Oval after the Canada Games are over. The hope is that business support can be found to pay the costs, rather than increasing taxes or having to charge skaters. However, that’s a political solution. This analysis looks at the business case of keeping the oval if the public had to pay for it.
Everything below from the original post still applies. The link immediately below is for a MS Excel 2010 version so you don’t have to put up with “compatibility issues” of the old log. I hope you’ll like it. The MS Excel 97-2003 version is far below if you’re still using that version of Excel.
This is a much updated version of the year long Excel spreadsheet running log I had posted two years ago. You may want to refer to that post for some instructions. Thank you to all of you who had downloaded it, used it, suggested improvements and recommended it to others. If you liked that log, I think you’ll love this one! This new log has some great features I think you’ll love like a spot for your training plan next to what you did. While the focus is on running, there is room for other exercises and things you might want to track, like sleep, injuries, supplements, heart rate averages and maximums, etc. There is a race predictor using Jack Daniels’ running formula, with a short, simplified, but effective and practical explanation on how to use it. There is a calculator to determine any of time, distance or pace you need to run if you know 2 of the 3 variables. There is also a routes table to help calculate routes you take that are not your normal ones, but piece together bits of various routes you have ran. There is no new “summary” feature where what you input is number crunched, but that was because I didn’t perceive the need for any. Otherwise, most cells you shouldn’t touch are still locked up, but you have the ability to manipulate some partially for your use, like if you write a long comment one day and want to show it all rather than have some of it hidden away. As you use this spreadsheet, change the view size if the info is too small for your comfort. It can be at least twice as large. Don’t strain your eyes over using this or feel like you have to put on glasses to use it. You’ll use it less frequently for every little annoyance like this. The best way to see all this is to jump in so here goes! There are a lot of features to this log so don’t be intimidated by all the description. You need very little instruction to start and the rest should be pretty intuitive once you get going. Please click here to download the Advanced Excel Running Log by Minh Tan, 2011 version 2 (2.1 MB) The file is MS Excel 2003 version for greater compatibility for people. If you use a version later than this, please do a Save As and choose the latest version so you won’t get the “compatibility” pop-up each time you close the file. Continue reading →
The Seattle Seahawks have just defeated the St Louis Rams to win the comical NFC West this year, with a losing record of 7-9. Yet, by existing NFL rules, they will get to host a playoff game next week. Should this rule be changed?
My personal feeling is yes, it should. However, I have an appreciation for “business” to involve teams from all parts of the country to maintain a true “national” interest in the game, so I propose a compromise.
Division winners should get in as they currently do. However, Division winners without a winning record (so .500 won’t cut it) should not be allowed to host a playoff game.
You still keep the national interest this way because the team is still in. Their fans will just have to travel or watch it on TV.
I think that’s just sick that Seattle got in with a 7-9 record and gets to host a playoff game. I want to see a competitive playoff game, not a butt kicking. Furthermore, it’s an absolute insult to all the good teams in the NFC with better records than the Seahawks.
You know, I thought football was a man’s game. Alas, if it were, the Seahawks should man up and let someone else in the NFC get in, or offer to travel to New Orleans to take on the Saints. But maybe it’ll be appropriate that their fans will get to see the Saints kick their butts as a lasting momento to end the season.
But to be a man, I’ll congratulate the Seahawks on making the playoffs and stepping up when they needed to and win a do or die game. I will thoroughly enjoy their annihilation next week.
What do you think of this rule about automatic playoff hosting for division winners?
The performance summary below was a nice little features the people at WordPress.com did for their blogs. Now if only I could find a way to turn it into some monetary income.
WordPress.com should set some traffic rewards where you can get credits to use to purchase their services, like storage space, or domain mapping. I pay for these things just to make this blog function the way I want it to. To think, I donate all this time to work on this personal interest, and people came here as much as they did (2.3+ million page views and about 700,000 downloads), and I still had to pay money to maintain it.
That small possible improvement aside, in my opinion, I would like to genuinely thank WordPress.com for all the hard work they do to provide such a wonderful blogging platform! I did do a review of most of the other well-known platforms before deciding on using WordPress.com and I am glad I did!
The stats helpers at WordPress.com mulled over how this blog did in 2010, and here’s a high level summary of its overall blog health:
Jan 2 2015 update
Digital Citizen 