Wednesday, April 27, 2011

misc

Been a bit crazy at work this week. When I arrived this morning 62 unread emails in my inbox and that's just the unfiltered messages, there was a bunch more shunted off to folders. Was down to around 15 unread when I left today. First time I recall ever came to work when I'd been in the previous day with over 50 emails.

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So Ben Bernanke gave a press conference. Here's some questions I wish someone had the courage to ask helicopter Ben.

Remember the good old days when you assured us that no firm was too big to fail?

Remember happy times in the past when you promised that it was not the responsibility of the federal reserve to protect individuals or corporations from the consequences of their financial decisions and nor would it be appropriate?

Ben, what is the role of the federal reserve?

Who owns the federal reserve?

math problems

A couple more math problems came to mind the last couple of days. I'll let them sit a couple of days and answer in the comments.

1) With spring weather arriving I got thinking about coastal cities like Halifax and inland cities like Fredericton. Here's the problem:

In Fredericton the winter is colder; and summer is hotter than in Halifax. Is there a time during a year that the temperature is the same in Halifax and Fredericton?


2) This is based on a NYT article on math education. Here's the excerpt.
Imagine you're playing a game for money and you lost seven dollars and gained five. Don't give me a number. Just tell me: Is that a good day or a bad day?

Wednesday, April 13, 2011

The French must love their coffee

Wow France got in a fight. http://ca.news.yahoo.com/un-french-forces-ivory-coast-fire-rockets-strongman-20110411-014952-996.html sure it was the Ivory Coast but along with the recent laws on being covered in public there may be hope for that nation.


Besides coffee and tims, prices are going up everywhere grrr. over $50 to fill a Honda Civic. $2 for bread. $3 for doritos. getting hammered everywhere these days ouch


I've been to the bmo arena a couple times recently. Very nice facility. Nice layout, everything clean and new. Parking lot is a bit tight but all in all this is a well designed facility.


The border police seem to have missed an opportunity at the Pearson terrorist arrest. I think a better scheme would have been to wait for Mohamed Hersi to arrive in Somalia, revoke his "citizenship", put him on the do not fly/do not enter Canada list; and let Islam take care of him over there. We should have just let him leave Canada then welded the door shut behind him to never return. Mohamed and how many hundreds or thousands of others could use a one way trip off our land.


Finally on Africa, I don't know if Gaddafi committed atrocities. But his stylist should be charged with crimes against humanity. I wonder if he went to the same school as Saddam's stylist.

Wednesday, April 06, 2011

Bruce Carson

I don't see what the fuss over Bruce Carson is. So the guy was convicted of some stuff in the remote past. It's not the Canadian way to hold it against him afterward. He served his sentence and then it's time to move on.

What would the critics have him do? Be a bum on Spring Garden Road? Go back to crime? There's no reason not to hire a rehabilitated criminal for almost all positions so what's the big deal. The guy is expected to work somewhere.