The World Will Be Better Off Without You

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** I wrote this article last year on another site, but given recent events I wanted to repost it on my site. I'll talk about it more in a future entry ** I came across this article the other day, and found it particularly distressing given the prevalence of online social websites such as Facebook and MySpace these days: Megan Meier thought she had made a new friend in cyberspace when a cute teenage boy named Josh contacted her on MySpace and began exchanging messages with her. Megan, a 13-year-old who suffered from depression and attention deficit disorder, corresponded with Josh for more than ...

Another Year Gone By

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Well, that's it folks -- 2007 is basically all over. For me, it was undoubtedly one of the hardest years in my life. I have usually always been able to find the good in things that sometimes turn out bad, but this last year is one that for the most part I am happy to leave behind. That being said, I have lots of good memories from this last year. Rob's wedding. Massey Hall show in Toronto. Crazy halloween eyeball smashing party. Las Vegas. The Dominican Republic. Drunk Camp. Finland. New friends. Old friends. Tomorrow night I'll be bouncing around Toronto, and for the first time in quite a few ...

Lost In Some Loopholes

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A while ago I wrote an entry about Megan Meier, a 13 year old girl who was driven to commit suicide by means of a fake MySpace user account. Megan, Image from CNN A few minutes ago I read this article which indicates that no one involved in this tragedy will be prosecuted whatsoever. St. Charles County, Missouri, Prosecuting Attorney Jack Banas said an 18-year-old woman posed as "Josh" on MySpace to find out what Megan was saying about a neighbor's daughter. The message said Megan was "mean" to her friends, Banas said. "There is no way that anybody could know that talking ...

The Dead Of Winter

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Vancouver, being a coastal city surrounded by mountains, has one of the most moderate climates in all of Canada. The average temperature in the summer probably hovers around 20C or so, and in the winter, rarely drops below 0C. Last time I checked, only one out of every five Christmases in Vancouver is white. And despite the relatively warm temperatures here, walking the streets of this city in winter you'll see the homeless struggling to keep warm, often forced to cover themselves with newspapers, cardboard boxes, or whatever damp clothing can be found in the dumpsters. Every night, they find ...

The Theory Of Everything

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In 1905, a research paper was submitted that forever changed how science views the world. In it, the author postulated that the laws of physics, which were at the current time regarded as universal, actually depended on the relative motion between the object and that of the observer. The consequences of that paper are far reaching, for it implies that even the passage of time itself depends on motion. That is, two clocks that are absolutely synchronized at rest will no longer be synchronized if the clocks are forced to travel at different speeds. That result, proven time and time again in many ...

Vacation Entry 3 - Ottawa

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Well, I made it. I got to the hotel at around 10:30am and prompt went to sleep. I just woke up, and feel a bit more energized now. I'm going to go take a few quick photos and then try to find the group. ...

Ottawa Bound

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In exactly two weeks from today, I will be getting on a plane (business class -- fuck you Air Canada), and heading out east for some time in Ottawa and beyond. I'll be taking the red-eye, (which I swore last time I'd never take again, since I rarely sleep on planes, and that's basically the whole point of the red-eye) and will get into Ottawa sometime early in the morning on the 24th of August. From there, I imagine I'll head to my hotel, which is only a few steps from the Supreme Court of Canada and Parliament Hill, and probably grab an hour or two of sleep. And then, I'm gonna wake up, have ...