Steve

Shaolin monks are considering rolling out an IPO. It seems that the travelling shows of martial artistry have been successful enough that the monastery is looking to make improvements to handle more international tourism, and perhaps launch a film studio.

-- Steve sorta likes this version of high-flying financiers. Wall St. could probably do with a few more vaulting bicycle kicks.

Amalgamated Transit Union Local 741 has ratified the tentative contract offer with the London Transit Commission. So the strike is over.

The bad news is that they won't hit the roads for at least 4 days while the skilled trades inspect and recertify the idled buses as well as catching up on deferred maintainance. So don't get out your tickets or bus passes just yet. Also, after that (Friday or Saturday) return the service will be limited due to the limited availability of coaches... so it'll be at least another two weeks after that before full service returns.

On the plus side, though, LTC will refund students and others with season passes for the idled time, and will credit that amount to people buying monthly passes for next January (such as moi). It's a meagre plus, but I'll take what I can get.

-- Steve was hoping for a faster resumption of service, but at least now we know when things'll be back.

Tentative deal reached between the London Transit Commission and the Amalgamated Transit Union last night. The deal, whose details have not been disclosed, faces ratification votes on Monday by both sides but both seem to be recommending acceptance.

That doesn't mean that buses will run on Tuesday, though; it could take up to three weeks to restore the fleet to full operation as many of the buses now require safety recertification. No schedule for the restart is announced yet, but LTC says they'll release plans on Monday. (After ratification, I guess?)

-- Steve'll be out of town for much of the restart period, so if this goes ahead he'll miss most of the teething pains. However, this does mean that he still needs to take cabs to work; it also means that buses won't be running for Christmas shopping, dangit.

Dr. Peter Watts was pepper-sprayed, arrested, and charged with assault on the night of December 8. Dr. Watts and the passenger of his vehicle both vehemently deny the charge, but the charge alone will prevent him from crossing the border (unless it is dismissed) and will cost him greatly; BoingBoing is coordinating a defense fund of sorts.

-- Steve's had some unpleasant moments at the US/Canada border, but nothing this egregious. Alas, though, they were grim enough he can't discount Dr. Watts's account off-hand; there are some very peculiar people on that service.

spotted via a sizable portion of my Friends list

Blue Shield, along with US health insurance industry trade groups, now offer bribes in virtual currency to Facebookers to write letters to the US Congress opposing health care reform. What a peculiar and vile form of astroturfing...

-- Steve never did view Farmville and Mafia Wars with much warmth, and that cooled even further after learning of this.

spotted via theweaselking

Toronto woman facing charges of witchcraft.

Well, actually, she's charged under the section of the Fraud statute that covers faking witchcraft, drafted in 1892 to cover fortune tellers and mediums then fleecing their victims with scary prognostications. Actual witchcraft is fine so long as its conduct doesn't violate other statutes.

-- Steve'll ask folks to extinguish their torches in non-smoking areas and to ensure that all pitchforks are carried in a safe manner.

So they've gone and done it; the Amalgamated Transit Union membership voted down the latest contract offer by the London Transit Commission... which included, among other concessions, a 10.3% wage hike over three years. It's going to be a long strike. They're talking about picketing City Hall, but if they do I think they'll be shocked at how little support they'll have... as for me, well, I work not too far from City Hall and upon hearing this I turned to fantasies about turning a fire hose on the lot and watching them freeze. Soak me, and I'll soak you back. Then again, given the miserable weather coming up I suspect I'll have my vengeance without having to lift a finger. (Freeze, you miserable bastards.)

-- Steve should look at alternatives; cabs were fine as a stopgap but they're just too expensive to serve as a long-term replacement for public transit.

Go to Google Maps and search for 2071 Portage Ave, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada.

Switch to "StreetView".

According to the Winnipeg Free Press you'll see a nice surprise.

-- Steve wishes he'd have known when the GoogleMobile was passing by.

"I'm getting the axe, but still in charge of the Christmas party. What should I do?"

"If this were an old Batman movie, I'd say, yes, organize the party: Organize it in such a way that, halfway through, the doors snap shut, sealed from the outside, and the musicians, in reality your henchmen, don gas masks, while a green mist begins to emanate from the vents."

-- Steve should note that the above is just a tease... it gets better.

IBM creates a computer that simulates the cerebral cortex of... a cat. Mind you, it's a pretty intellectually-slow cat given that its "neurons" only fire at 1% the rate of a live cortex's, but recreating in silicon the brain of the most sociopathic creature on the planet is just another step towards SkyNet.

-- Steve just hopes that when the inevitable felinoid Hunter-Killer drones come for him they can still be distracted by a rolling ball of yarn or a laser pointer.

There are times when I'm proud of the human race, amazed by what we can accomplish within the limits of our minds and bodies. And then there are times when my perspective shifts, and I'm appalled at what these turd-stuffed meatbags pull off.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/community/?userid=16917218&plckUserId=16917218

Case in point, this ongoing yammerer in the comment section (yeah, I know) of the Globe & Mail pulling Stupid Statistical Tricks and cherry-picked citations to raise a ruckus about the adjuvanted flu vaccine in use in Canada. This willing, indeed eager, mutilation of reason drives me squirrelly... but, alas, I'm ill-equipped to demolish his points as I'm only good enough statistics to smell when they're being fudged but not good enough to formally prove it. (He didn't like my bringing up the Dunning-Kruger Effect, though.)

This flu isn't the terror we feared last spring, but it's not "just" the seasonal flu either. Anybody working to undermine the pandemic plan is, in my opinion, shouting "fire" in a crowded theatre.

-- Steve'd leave it alone better if it weren't happening at the Globe, which he holds in (likely unwarranted) great fondness ever since his days delivering the ol' rag.

No buses today. Dammit. The Amalgamated Transit Union, despite their promise of last month, has walked out after rejecting a last-minute offer from the London Transit Commission last night. Grumble.

What good news I can salvage from this is that I'm on my late shift this week so it should be easier for me to get a cab to work today. However, it's a damned expensive bit of good news.

-- Steve hopes this doesn't last long.

Man recovering from being run over receives a cybernetic arse. He required extensive pelvic reconstruction and, in earlier times, would have required a permanent colostomy as a result of the damage. However, by taking muscle tissue from his legs and implanting it (and control electrodes) in the appropriate places surgeons were able to construct a workable replacement anus. This does mean having to use a battery-powered remote control in order to void his bowels, but it beats carrying a colo-bag around for the rest of his life.

-- Steve's uncertain why the article says the muscles need replacing every five years, unless the report actually intended to say that the electrodes did.

Happy birthday, Sesame Street!

-- Steve thinks that Big Bird looks rather dignified at 40.

Thought I'd remind/inform folks that Halo Waypoint is now available on Xbox Live for everyone, and not just participants of the Dashboard beta, for the low-low price of Free. You'll need to download the app (~100MB) for it, link for which should be in with the other "what's new" stuff. Once downloaded, you can launch it out of your Games library.

Waypoint acts as an "Achievement" aggregator, looking at all the 360-based Halo games (so far Halo 3, Halo 3: ODST, Halo Wars) and showing what Achievements you've attained so far in all of them; then, based upon the number of Gamerscore points you've gotten from them, will unlock Avatar awards. (Again, for no charge.) My Avvie is sporting an ODST t-shirt and has a pet Monitor now.

Waypoint also acts as a news aggregator of sorts for Halo stuff, though that's still in the early stages.

Most urgently, though, Waypoint will also grant free viewings of some of the episodes from the upcoming Halo Legends anime collection DVD/BR... but only for 24 hours each Saturday. Today the short "Babysitter" is running, in which an ODST team acts as support for a SPARTAN-II on a mission behind enemy lines. Next Saturday, a "behind the scenes" documentary on "Babysitter" will run. Saturday after that, another short, then another "making of" doc, and so on.

So if you want to see the video you'll have to download Waypoint really soon.

-- Steve's looking forward to seeing the vid when he gets back from work.

This 14' shark was caught "smiling" for the camera in the waters off of Mexico last Autumn.

-- Steve just thought he'd share.

Photo cribbed from the Daily Mail website.

Desire Munyaneza got twenty-five to life in Montreal today for his role as mastermind behind the Rwanda genocide of '94. Munyaneza attempted to immigrate to Canada in 2004 as, ironically, a refugee claimant and was arrested under Canada's new war crimes statute. He is the first of hopefully many to be sentenced under the statute.

-- Steve doesn't think that Canada should be the world's policeman, but certainly thinks we should bust the crooks we do find.

I just got notified that I'm now part of the Xbox Live Update Preview... I put in for that on Monday, and thought I was perhaps too late when other folks started being added yesterday. It's downloading to my console now as we speak.

-- Steve'll have to give it a thorough testing tomorrow; the movies-on-demand feature particularly tempt.

... but in this case I'll make an exception. Canada's National Film Board has released a free iPhone app to stream the NFB film library of documentaries, dramas, and its famous animation collection. If you are already a slave to the Turtlenecked One, then you really should take a look.

-- Steve'll stick to the desktop version, himself. He's just not a smartphone type.

Today's London Free Press has an interview with the president of the Amalgamated Transit Union local here, Pat Hunniford, who claimed that ATU members "plan to come to work every day." They might decline to work overtime, which may reduce service in some cases, but according to the ATU they do not want to shut down bus service in London during the dispute.

-- Steve's hoping they honour this pledge, and that LTC doesn't resort to a lock-out.