Saturday, January 28, 2012

Rant: Dear Toronto News Media...

... I do so love how you're looking at Karen Stintz's new transit plan and being positively gleeful about Rob Ford being "dealt another defeat". You even went out and got quotes and everything from "supporters" on council "hopeful" that the mayor will "come on side".

What you seem to be ignoring is a simple reality: Rob Ford is going to be quite happy to run his next campaign with a list of "those big bad councillors" who "prevented him from getting things done".

In other words: he doesn't give a shit if he loses; it's just more ammo for next time.

The longer you twits at the Toronto Star continue to shove your head up your ass gloating while ignoring the reality that the people who "support" Rob Ford aren't going to end up that list and, in fact, are likely running cover for what basically amounts to the Mayor's office becoming increasingly aware that the private sector isn't inclined to foot the bill for one metre of the Sheppard extension (as I pointed out would likely happen), the longer you're giving him press to point to to back up his claim. Now, because we're at the point where consensus is that there's little to no money for extending Sheppard coming from the private sector, this means anyone with an ounce of sense realizes we need to come up with money from somewhere to get a token station built. Token? Remember: even while saying he's having problems lining up money Gordon Chong, the man in charge of finding the fictional private sector money, has maintained an expectation that getting another station done on that line is the minimum goal to show that the "Mayor has done something".

So, going forward with knowledge of the actual purpose of this station, the worst part is that we need to come up with money to get a token station built at the wrong end of the fucking line.

Why do I say that? Well, consider the following: in 2015 the Spadina Subway extension will be opening so... how are we planning to move the people to be coming in from the 905 from the Spadina line to the Yonge Line? How about those from the Yonge Line looking to go north? Ahhhh, yes... busses. In other words, increased traffic on the already overcrowded Finch bus line and/or the continuation of the Express busses on Sheppard. In the later case, busses you'd otherwise be looking to take off the route once the subway runs to York University since that's the primary reason for their existence at the moment.

But, what happens if you run the Sheppard line West to Downsview instead of East one stop to Victoria Park/Consumers Road? You move all those people looking to move to/from the Yonge line off of busses and onto a 2-3 stop subway trip, that's what. This serves much more of a purpose than shaving 5 minutes off a bus trip along Sheppard to Don Mills station. Even more relevant, this stretch of Sheppard is also seeing significant redevelopment and a bit of a condo boom - especially closer to Downsview station.

Because of this, there's more sense going West than East in the grand scheme of things if your goal is to improve the interconnectivity of the transportation network. On the other hand, the only reason to goto Victoria Park is entirely political and going to be praised by the Mayor as a win even while he's lambasting his opponents for putting the far end of the Eglinton Crosstown above ground (along a stretch of road 7-8 lanes wide. i.e.: where there's room). The Toronto Star in particular could stand to be slapped out of their current "Looossssinnggg" Charlie Sheen-esque drug infused daydream in that regard.

Saturday, January 21, 2012

Lazy Friday: Two Hours of Your Life...

... you decide if it was worth it or not. StarWarsUncut was a crowd sourcing project in which the challenge was to shoot a 15 second section of the film and post it to the site. This:

Is the end result. Enjoy, but pay attention because there's things slipped in there you'll miss otherwise.

Saturday, January 14, 2012

TotD: You Know...

... with all the whining, kvetching, and general "Everyone's in fear for their lives!!!" headlines leading up to Rickey Gervais' second run at the Golden Globes quite possibly the biggest joke he could pull would be to walk out on stage and be unbearably nice to everyone.

Or would that be too meta?

LS: Someone's Monday Productivity = 0%

Transmog Fashion

Saturday, January 7, 2012

TyL: Balsamic Fig & Maple...

...marinade from Sobeys should have a: "Only Use in Well Ventilated Spaces" warning on it. Stuff is seriously fucking toxic on the senses. I just had to wash up every thing that I cooked it in and ate it off of 'cause it was starting to irritate my throat and make me feel like I needed to vomit well after the actual meal itself.

Then I bleached the sink because it was still wafting up the drainpipe.

I'm not remotely joking here. Avoid.

Friday, January 6, 2012

DGtCDB: The Siege of Wyrmrest Temple (LFR Edition)

My Annotated Video Guides to the four Siege of Wyrmrest Temple fights in LFR. I'm undecided if I'm going to do this for the last four. Too much griefing and general bullshit happens back there and I'd rather not have to spend a month chasing clean feeds.

Morchok:


Yor'sahj the Unsleeping:


Warlord Zon'ozz:


Hagara:


Happy hunting folks.

Rant: Lion Scroll What???

So, get the computer back with two shiny new fans installed and decide now is as good a time as any to do a clean install and move to OS X.7 Lion. Get it in, goto play WoW and... wait a second.... why am I zooming in when I should be zooming out. Hmm... I can flop mouse up for mouse down in Keybinds and that fixes it but why is it doing this in the first place?

This is why:



"Move Content in..." + "Scroll Direction Natural" are linked; the later is what makes the page scroll down when you use the two finger up on the Trackpad and up when you two finger down. Unfortunately, because they're linked this also makes the mouse scroll wheel behave the same way and you can't set them individually so you can have them act in ways you're used to. It would be really nice if that were not the case because the wheel on the mouse is conceptually different in use from the trackpad and it's behaviour should not be tied to that device; especially when the settings are individual on the control panel.

Monday, January 2, 2012

Rant: WTF is it Doing, Line Auditing the Code?

I've gotta take my laptop in 'cause there's a processor fan that definitely doesn't like being under load anymore and I'd really like to get at least 3-8 months more out of it. Soooooo, for giggles I'm like: "Lets see how WoW runs on this NetBook I've got in the meantime. Low res, AMD Graphics instead of Intel, who knows, maybe marginally playable...." Just to be safe, I'd started it running WindowsUpdate at about 23:15 local time.

It's now 1:37 and we're on patch 28 of 30 with the end nowhere in sight.

If I'm lucky, maybe it'll be done in the morning. Or it'll find more.

Sunday, January 1, 2012