I would think the making of essential nutrients synthetically would cause more harm. Silly animal activists, forcing carnivores to be vegans. Here's an idea, if proper nutrition for your pet is against your ethical beliefs, don't keep a pet! Another point, how is it that you can reconcile your "morals" with keeping a pet rather than letting them roam free in the wild?
Oh look, I go to PETA and the pop-up ad features a cute white pup seal urging me to stop the Canadian seal hunt. You know, those same white pups that haven't been hunted since the 1970s or 80s because it's been banned? Isn't it against the law to mail human body parts? Might make Newkirk's will a bit illegal to follow through with if that's the case.
Episode 4 of Time of Eve has been pushed back to May 1st =( I guess it can be my end of final exams reward.
03/25/09 22:02
Illegal much? Unions and other rabble get a free pass from the law way too often.
Boo, new Zelda game announced for the DS, but none for the Wii. I might end up playing a Final Fantasy or Fire Emblem game for the Wii over the summer, but I really want to start reading novels again. Decisions decisions...
03/18/09 22:24
"The US capital is suffering an epidemic of HIV/Aids worse than some African nations ... the city's department of health says." That's... Interesting...
03/18/09 19:01
It's annoying when you hit a lousy ending when all the rest was so good. It was as if the writers decided they had to go on vacation and couldn't be bothered to come up with a better ending... Fairy Musketeers ends with a big gaping plot hole which could have easily been avoided. Still a nice series though.
So apparently the Sci-Fi channel in the US is being renamed to SyFy? I know what sci-fi is, what the hell is sy-fy? This reminds me of something that bugged me every time I saw it. Why did the Space channel have so much horror/paranormal crap on it?
03/16/09 14:20
What. You know, pharmacists spend a lot of time standing, and so have an increased risk of something to do with blood and the legs. Don't remember exactly what. The government should compensate us for that. Riding the TTC to school every day increases my chances of hearing loss. I should be compensated by the government for that too, as I think my hearing isn't what it used to be.
03/16/09 00:12
Should I be worried about all those existing and proposed wind turbines in Ontario?
Why should an "expanded autonomous Muslim region with a high degree of self-governance" be created when the majority of the area isn't even Muslim? I can see how there would be "fierce opposition" to the deal from others.
03/15/09 00:27
Am having such a painful biochem assignment. All references must be journal articles, of which all but one for each part of each different toxin must be a fricking primary one, and each part must have one reference. Spent 3+ hours and am less than 1/4 of the way through, with a huge chunk of time wasted because "drink less alcohol" is not mentioned in a journal article for preventing alcohol poisoning. Another huge amount of time was wasted because bile salt formation goes 1. cholesterol 2. use a hydroxylase or w/e to form oxycholesterol 3. ??? 4. Proft! (Bile salt formation)
Finished an anime I had been watching, Yume Tsukai, and am nearing the end of another, Fairy Musketeers. An anime with characters based on Grimm's Fairy Tales? You know you want to watch it. I wonder which fairy tale the character the king, and cat came from though. Google searches of the character names haven't revealed any possibilities. Every other main character has a connection of some sort, even Ringo as it means apple so that would fit with Snow White quite well. Well, every main character except for the male lead anyway. If there's a fairy tale connection it'll be near impossible for me to figure out. Wikipedia reveals that some people had too much time on their hands.
03/06/09 11:52
The alt-text in this xkcd comic is win.
The UN is just wasting its resources with this. Then again, not that surprised. The Sudanese president will probably be lying on the floor dying of laughter when he finds out about this latest development. I wonder what they were thinking when it issued the initial arrest warrant. Its not like it could back it up with any force as is shown now. Another embarrassment for the UN, just like its human rights conference debacle.
02/23/09 22:38
There's a virus spreading on Facebook involving 25 random notes. Actually, there's another one too involving a picture of various types of people. Must resist to prevent wastage of even more time!
Some people have too much money and/or are obsessed with Obama a wee bit too much. I could use some of that money.
Burned through another anime called Angelic Layer. The original story was written by CLAMPS, the same group that created Cardcaptor Sakura. I had actually wanted to watch it in October, but forgot about it till now. The ending theme during the 2nd part of the series is really nice.
One of my friends just told me that we might be getting the beta version of Starcraft 2 this year. Not happy about that. I was hoping for a retail release of SC2 this year, not a probability of a beta.
Kandeh Yumkella, from the UN's Industrial Development Organization (Unido), which wrote the report, said Africa had been dogged for decades by the "happy peasant syndrome".
"We show a picture of this poor guy, with his wife and five children in a hut," he told Reuters.
"We've had this concept since the 1960s that we can change this guy, and it sells because people then give money.
"It's not the Asian model - they look at competitiveness, opening up markets and manufacturing."
From the same article: "The report says wealthy nations can help poor ones recreate this success by investing in their industries and allowing them access to world markets through trade preferences." I thought we were supposed to eliminate trade barriers, not put up new ones. Yes, trade preferences are barriers because it results in a barrier to another country that would've produced the goods had those trade preferences not kicked in.
I hate business people?
02/20/09 23:54
Acrobat Reader has a security vulnerability that won't be fixed until the 2nd week of March. Not good. I don't trust my professors' computers to be virus free considering how much they struggle with getting their Powerpoint presentation working in lectures.
This is just silliness. It's quite clear that the cartoon is about the shooting of a violent chimp, and the fact that the stimulus bill is so poorly written that it's as if a monkey wrote it. I mean, what colour is a monkey supposed to be in a frigging black and white image other than dark? Also, Obama didn't even write the stimulus package, other people did. Only idiots would claim the cartoon was racist. Oh, and idiots did. What a surprise.
The Rick Mercer Report is still as hilarious as ever. Caught an episode today, and watched him help Ignatieff move into the leader of the Official Opposition's house, during which Rae and Mercer dropped and broke a TV. The look on Rae's face was awesome. Yeah, I know it was scripted (doubt Ignatieff would still be using a CRT TV), but it was still quite humourous.
Chocolate. Must eat chocolate.
02/07/09 17:38
I don't see why there's all this fuss about capping interest rates on payday loans. I mean, these loans are supposed to be used rarely, and paid off in a couple of weeks. If you keep borrowing over and over again, of course you're going to get screwed. Oh wait, but people are stupid enough to keep balances on credit cards. At least we get additional tax revenue from the business income. Too bad the same stupidity resulted in the current recession.
01/31/09 21:19
Applies to pharmacy too I think. ='(
a href="http://www.daisyowl.com/">Daisy Owl, Simulated Comic Product, and Sandra and Woo. Taking an hour off right now won't hurt, you can make up for it tomorrow.
01/29/09 19:46
An atheist advertisement on public transit that does not even definitely state the non-existence of a creator is controversial, while no comments are made on all the Bible quotations I see on the TTC everyday... No atheist driver has refused to operate a vehicle carrying those advertisements, but a religious driver gets to refuse to not drive vehicles carrying an atheist advertisement.
Woo, a general strike in France. That's sure to stimulate the economy. I think people here should pay attention to those things, and look at where our unions are going. I believe lots of university contracts with CUPE end in 2012. If it were up to me, York should set an example and refuse to concede anything major to CUPE nor accept binding arbitration. Refund the students' tuition and residence costs. In the new deal, all of the costs of the strike can be recouped through reduced employees' salaries until it's paid off once the strike ends. Their TAs are already the highest paid in Ontario. Besides, I'm fairly certain academic positions are pretty hard to get. The strikers aren't going anywhere. Besides, they're teaching at York... *cough
Um, what? Gtfo? If you and your kids are going to benefit from Canada, shouldn't we be able to expect you to help Canada too? There wasn't even a requirement to sing along. Also, many of the versions I've heard don't even have the lyrics, it was pure instrumental. Should Canadian flags be removed from the school too? I mean, if just having to listen to the national anthem is so concerning, maybe having to see the national flag is too.
01/18/09 22:40
So far my results from first semester have been pleasantly surprising, especially for the course I was insanely worried about.
Somehow I suspect the vouchers were used on items that they were going to buy anyway, so all this did was increase everyone's savings account by $107.
Unions suck. So do most of my professors this semester. By most I mean all but one so far.
12/27/08 23:00
Good thing I decided to check the National Post feed before this article got pushed off. Now why can't the CBC, BBC, and Digg mention this too...?
Some Calvin and Hobbes insight.
I think it's a sign that civilization is about to collapse when we start going back to the past and rejecting more recent technology. Coal had better not make a comeback. I want cheap solar power powering a hydrogen economy.
12/20/08 22:39
Why would our government provide insurance for automotive suppliers? If the car makers go down, I would think the they would also tank right after with no customers. Seems to just be a waste of money to me. Just watched a Starcraft 2 alpha battle between Terran and Protoss. *drool
12/15/08 21:22
Another huge financial scandal. Scott Adams' blog article explains what goes on in the financial industry really well. I also had the chance to talk with someone who is most likely going to become a CA and do auditing. One thing I got out of it was that well established companies do not take on high risk clients to protect their reputation (though this obviously failed big time with Enron), so the highest risk companies are audited by the less proven auditing companies who can't get any other business because they're small and unproven. Also, apparently how each auditing company performs their audits varies, there's no standard. Also, there is no standard for the concept of materiality. Whether something is acceptable is up to the individual auditor's opinion, though I assume their company sets some standards. Yeah.
2 hour TTC ride back. Stupid, stupid TTC delays. Curses towards those who caused the delay today.
Don't have the link anymore, but the movie Twilight has generated enough hate by some people to actually be ridiculed by a good portion of Digg users too, if not most of them. Wow. As one of my friends said, "Someone made a pile of poo and called it Twilight." During a hangman game, Twilight was also the answer to "Synonym for feces." After reading the plot summary on Wikipedia, I too also possess negative feelings towards Twilight. Seems that it is one of those things that people either love or hate. Oh, also, during the massive avalanche of ridicule poured on Twilight in the comments section, one user, after many many comments, noted that while everyone was arguing over feminism, evil, and whatnot, no one bothered to scream bloody murder over the fact that someone who is over 100 years old, was dating a 17 year old. Why, Twilight is so rife with other crap that even this is overlooked! Hilariousness!
12/11/08 22:46
It would be totally awesome if it were possible to have Dave Brody read out all of my new entries with the soothing background music found in science videos.
Kids these days. Can't even trust them with an archery set. Picture of arrow through eye in that link. If you scroll down quickly or load the page with a slow internet connection, you won't see much. I wonder how the thoughts "I don't shoot well enough to hit the centre of the target every time" failed to connect with "My friend's within range of the arrow" to form "Don't fricking shoot the arrow yet!"
Haha, the riots have spread into other parts of Europe too. The opposition party in Greece is blaming the government for not settling the riots by now. My question to them would be what their solution was, because I highly doubt they could have done anything anyway. I wonder why people nowadays tolerate such behaviour, letting mobs run rampant looting and destroying private and public property and attacking officers.
I miss reading novels =( Oh, that reminds me, new Ender book coming out. Going to get me a shiny new novel from the library this summer. Unless it gets shoved into the sci-fi reference stacks in which case I then get screwed out of an awesome novel. I hate it when that happens since I don't live near the TPL sci-fi reference library. So many books that I have wanted to read that I couldn't borrow...
12/09/08 23:18
A general strike is sure to help the ailing economy. It totally will not make things worse. I wonder if there's a correlation between larger unions and increased stupidity. In these times of economic distress, it totally makes sense for the government to funnel more money into increased wages and pensions for its civil workers even though its tax revenues (where the wages and pensions come from) are dropping and not everyone works for the government. After all, the government can just print more money whenever it wants! We'll deal with the crushing inflation that results afterward. What if the government were instead to freeze (and perhaps cut) wages, and instead spend it on improving infrastructure. I guess rioting helps in that money has to be spent, and people hired, to fix the damage afterward. It appears I was wrong and rioting is the ideal solution. Oops.
"Clearly at a time of economic difficulty, people want to make sure that everyone's playing their part, that there aren't people who are in a boat and not rowing." Clearly this is important only when you need the money and find that its all been wasted, and not important at all when there's plenty of cash flowing in. I wonder if people who can't afford their prescriptions realize that if they go on welfare, they'd be able to get it for free.
Tuition's too high! What am I eating? Oh, just some over-priced food I bought on campus rather than bringing food from home. I'm also going shopping for brand name clothing, and buying a new cell phone after lectures are over. Have you seen the latest episode of _____? I watch it instead of working a part-time job.
There is a Tim Hortons near my classes that has been looking for additional full-time and part-time employees since last year. I also see people asking for change.
Do you actually remember the grammar rules for English, or do you decide by what sounds "right"? I go by what sounds right because I can't remember them anymore. I wonder how much we would fail those Language Power exercises if we attempted them now and had to explain our answer choices without resorting to, "It sounds better that way."
How sleepy am I going to be tomorrow thanks to not crushing the impulse that resulted in this post?
How screwed am I for my exams?
How screwed are you for your exams?
12/08/08 15:50
12/07/08 19:40
Here's a question for you. Let's say you're sitting in a car with a handgun with 15 bullets. A mob of 30 attacks your car with rocks. Maybe they've got knives too, which isn't unlikely considering how easy it is to get one (open your kitchen drawers). What do you do?
12/06/08 23:58
Minami-ke is finished, now to start Minami-ke: Okawari. I'm going to miss the opening theme song.
Level 77 in World of Warcraft achieved, I've got my flight form back, and plan on abusing it as much as I can for having it forcibly disabled for 7 levels.
Ontario, and as such, Canada, is getting screwed now by the recession with it hitting the manufacturing industry as outlined by this article. There's an interesting quote from the article:
"The industry has shed 388,000 jobs since peaking in 2002 but the very fact it was peaking at the start of the new millennium, shows how far behind Canada is modernizing its economy.
"If you look at manufacturing employment scaled to 1980, Canada is just slightly below where it was back then whereas in Japan they've come down 15%, in the U.K. they're down 40 to 45% [in the U.S. its down 25%]," said Derek Holt, senior vice-president of economics at Scotia Capital. "We hid behind the cheaper dollar and didn't pursue the productivity gains that other manufacturers around the world did so now we face the further catch-up.""
So, the way I'm interpreting this, is that we're going to get more screwed than we would have, if the governments had not kept bailing out the manufacturing industry every time they hit trouble and screamed for help to prevent job losses. Damn lefties... I mean, we pour all this support into the auto sector, and then Oshawa gets hit with a 98% (or was it 95%) welfare recipient increase. So we basically bailed out the auto sector numerous times and gave them tons of what amounts to free money in the form of tax breaks and such, and they're still going to up and die on us.
Also, screw unions. 12.55% salary increase over 4 years pushing the highest salary up to $94600 annually?! That's insane! Don't forget all the benefits and pensions they receive too! Here's something else that pisses me off even more: "The rejected offer also included a reduction of workload by 40 minutes from 21.67 hours to 21 hours per week." So they're already only working 21.67 hours week, and the offer included a reduction down to 21 hours per week. That's not a full time job, that's a fricking part-time job! Seems we should go into teaching rather than what we're currently in or aiming for... High pay, lower workload... Government wastes so much of our tax dollars...
I'm glad the Governor-General decided to prorogue parliament until January. I even let out a little exclamation of joy when I first found out while surfing online at school. So do not want a coalition with the NDP and Bloc holding power over it.
Anarchists were creating trouble in Greece. I wonder how they would fare if they were all placed in an area with no government support. I predict it would quickly turn into an area ruled by gangs and fear. They'd certainly appreciate the value of government then. To help it along, Greece could release its criminals into the area to save on prison costs. Didn't I see a movie like that before? There's no risk of Greece losing any territory, because it could just invade the area to retake it at anytime. What are the anarchists going to do, organize and resist? Oh, wait, that would be kind of like forming a central authority, a government if you will. Idiots. Crush lawlessness to prevent larger future conflicts. The Canadian government should keep this in mind when faced with blatant organized violations of law. Too bad our government doesn't have a backbone.
12/01/08 22:24
The BBC just published a short article on AIDS in the US. Some interesting quotes from the article:
"With the promise of effective treatment, many lowered their guard against HIV, believing the expensive, toxic drugs would save them if necessary.
The upshot has been increasing new HIV infections, particularly among young African-American men.
Dr Marjorie Hill is director of New York's Gay Men's Health Crisis (GMHC), the world's first Aids service and education organization founded by Larry Kramer and a small group of gay men.
She notes a CDC study which found 46% of a sample of young African-American gay and bisexual men were HIV-positive."
See, this is one reason why I don't think MSF should have started, or continue to provide support for AIDS. Wish I could have pointed to this article earlier today.
"Dr Hill said: "I'm an African-American woman living in New York.
"In New York black women are nine times more likely to die of HIV than white women.
"I have never had a medical provider ask me if I would like an HIV test.""
Isn't that racial profiling which keeps being shot down and demonized all the time?
11/28/08 19:40
Did you know watching an entire anime series all at once in one day takes up a lot of time? Just burned through Serial Experiments Lain yesterday as I couldn't stop watching until I reached the end. It caused me to be very sleepy today from lack of sleep, but it was worth it, and my head's still spinning from some of the thoughts brought up by it. What is data anyway? The ending theme song sucks big time though, and the intro voice is creepy especially when the laugh is added in. If you watch it, make sure you watch it where the picture quality is good and it's subtitled properly or you'll go nuts. Somehow "left in the dust by your friends" was translated as "stripped of your friends" by one version when the character was referring to Lain's obsolete computer. Anyway, I've also been watching Nodame Cantabile. The characters are all classical music students, and you get to hear excerpts of a number of pieces. Like Shugo Chara, I'm stuck impulsively checking to see if the latest episode's been subtitled yet as they're both airing their second season now. It's second season ending theme is in French and sounds really lovely, but the opening stinks...
Global warming has opened the Northwest Passage!
Another election? Maybe we chalk the costs down as economic stimulus. Somehow, I don't think most people will be too pleased with a coalition government. Even if the Liberals lead it, the NDP would swing it too far left, and the Bloc would cause even more concessions to be given to Quebec. If a Conservative government was elected instead of a Liberal one, why would we want the NDP having such power in a coalition government?
I read somewhere about the government considering selling some assets to avoid a deficit, but I think that's just silly. It'll look good in that there won't be a deficit, but then you lose the long-term income from what you sold.
Here's an idea to the Ontario government to reduce the cost of health care. Don't extend ODB coverage to welfare patients. Seems odd to me that an unemployed person can get their Rx's filled while some employed ones can't due to the cost. Isn't the employed person more valuable to us?
11/05/08 20:21
Had such a crappy 4 weeks. Lots of stress from midterms (which still isn't over, so screwed for med chem tomorrow), the prescription count at the pharmacy I'm working at skyrocketed which caused a nice job to turn into oodles of stress, and a huge drop in energy levels. I went through days where I would have 12-14 hours of sleep nightly and still be sleepy during the day.
Between the last entry and now, I haven't really done much except go through that anime I said reminded me of CCS last time. It's titled Shugo Chara, and the 2nd season is currently airing. I like it, though the ending of the first season wasn't a proper one at all. I would've been quite annoyed were I not able to continue onto the 2nd season. Also found a great new anime titled Time of Eve. Unfortunately, the first season is only 6 episodes 15 minutes in length... And they're only releasing a new episode every 2 months which means I'll have to wait till next August to finish the season. The visual appearance is awesome though, and the show deals with philosophy/ethics of android interactions, which makes it very interesting. Also, I've been watching an old drama from HK titled War of the Genders. It's 8 years old (was 2000 really that long ago?!), and it's hilarious. I was laughing so much while watching it that my mom started watching it with me too. The show is just that good.
Am I wasting valuable studying time for med chem? Yes, yes I am. Also, the US is now screwed with Obama elected unless he changes. The left are idiots who don't know how to handle money, and the right are idiots who can't deal with science. Why, oh why, did you pick Palin as your VP McCain?
Ontario a have-not province? Well crap, time to indulge in some more Halloween chocolate then.
10/10/08 22:10
Wow, another new page. Remember 2005? Ah, the memories. We're getting too old.
I wish people would read the whole article before bashing the plan (and of course the Conservatives at the same time). People are screaming bailout, and one commentator was screaming for Harper's head and was somehow thinking that the government buying mortgages backed by the CMHC was really retarded since the CMHC was a Crown corporation anyway. These people need to understand what's happening before opening their mouths (in this case, hitting the post button). This is a solid deal for the federal government that can no way cause them a loss unless the few mortgages not backed by the CMHC are bad enough to completely override all the other ones. This is because the government is taking $25B and then buying up the mortgage packages from the banks, at discounted rates too. This means that we're getting more than $25B worth of stuff. Well what if the mortgages turn out bad and default? Well, even the ones that do wipe out the ones that don't, keep in mind that the majority of them are insured by the CMHC, a Crown corporation. What this means is that had the federal government not bought the mortgages, they'd be paying the banks anyway since it's insured. This way, we get to profit from the good ones, not the banks, rather than just paying out when the banks come seeking their insurance. Is this really all that hard a concept to grasp? Here's an example which I will make up that should be shown to the idiots out there: Let's say Bank A gives a 100k mortgage to Citizen B. The federal gov't, through the Canada Housing and Mortgage Corp. (CHMC), insures the mortgage. Let's say there's a 50% chance that Citizen B will default on the entire loan. If Citizen B doesn't default, the bank gets all their money back and makes a profit from the interest. We get our premium. If Citizen B defaults, CHMC pays the bank to cover the loss, 100k loss for us. Now, let's have the CHMC buy the loan from the bank, discounted to 75k. Citizen B doesn't default. The CHMC gets the 75k back, plus 25k, plus interest, plus our premium. A net gain of over 25k for us. Citizen B defaults, the CHMC pays itself 100k, in other words, nothing happens except we get a house. We sell it for some amount of money. We lose less than 75k. So in this scenario, if the CHMC didn't buy the mortgage, and if Citizen B doesn't default, the banks make money, we get some money. If Citizen B defaults, we lose 100k. If the CHMC buys the mortgage, and if Citizen B doesn't default, the bank doesn't make any money, we make a lot of money. If Citizen B defaults, we lose less than 75k.
Well, it looks like the Conservatives are fighting for a minority government again. I knew those poll numbers would drop once word got out that they were in majority government territory.
The current Gunnerkrigg Court chapter has been going on for a while, but it should end soon I think. I just hope we get to see what the power station's experiment was about.
I've finished going through an anime titled "The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya" recently. The idiocy and comedy in it are great, and it reminds me of Ouran. Apparently it's a very popular one, and a 2nd season will be coming out, which is just awesome (as long as I get to watch it when it does of course). I hope Yuki gets to play a much larger role in the 2nd season than 1st. I've just started another one, since it sort of reminds me of CCS. It looks to be a long one, with 51 (52?) episodes. Haven't decided if it's a good one though, and I'm only on episode 1. Hopefully it is, but since I just finished Melancholy, it won't seem as good unless it's superb. Maybe it'll be as good as CCS. Nah, nothing will ever beat that series...
