City
Morning Brew: March 30th, 2009
Photo: "on the tram @ 6am" by Dmitry Kichenko, member of the blogTO Flickr pool.
What's happening in the GTA (and sometimes beyond):
A quick catch-up for those of you who weren't with us during the weekend:
The Queen's Quay Loblaws parking lot had a flood, Sushi on Bloor got shut down by Toronto Public Health, Earth Hour in Toronto topped expectations, and Dimitri the Lover exposed himself.
Higher than acceptable carbon monoxide build-up caused by monster truck motocross mayhem forced the temporary evacuation of the Skydome [Sun], and the restaurants and hotels within last night. I guess the remedy was to roll the window (aka the retractable roof) down for a bit?
I had high hopes for Feist and Tokyo Police Club. Despite the fact that Nickelback makes absolutely terrible music, they still managed to take best group, best album, and the fan choice awards at the 2009 Junos last night [CityNews]. Toronto's Kardinal Offishall took best rap song, and Lights scored best new artist honours.
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GO Transit is looking to go green with Lisgar Station (near the 401 and 407 intersection) in Mississauga. A wind turbine is expected to be able to provide as much as 80% of the station's electrical power needs [G&M], paying for itself quickly.
Although minimum wage in Ontario is going to go up to $9.50/hr tomorrow, there's talk that next year's planned increase to $10.25 may be delayed [G&M]. This combined with increased cost of living associated due to harmonized GST+PST doesn't sounds like the ideal situation for our province's poorest working class.
City Councillors won't be asked to freeze their salaries in 2009 [Star], despite the same being asked of civic workers. Once again (recall the special provisions in the TTC employee contract), salaries for comparable jobs elsewhere in the GTA are cited as a reason for jobs within Toronto to be more highly compensated. I don't get this. It's an argument that makes no sense.
And it's Monday, which means that if you're on Twitter and you're having lunch today, you should make it a sandwich and take part in the weekly Twitter Monday Sandwich Fight. Make a sandwich, enter it in the battle, and follow the results by searching hashtag #mondaysandwichfight.
Discussion
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Totally wacky fact: the minimum wage in Kansas? $2.65! Yikes.
That said, I think we have too high of a minimum wage here in Ontario, especially with many having problems finding jobs, an increase in costs of this much for the companies that employ those on minimum wage is large. As someone who has worked on minimum wage quite a bit in the past, I honestly didn't see much of a difference in my paycheck after some of the earlier raises.
I agree with the statements about the new tax and its effects on Ontarians. Seems like the government has its head shoved up its own wazoo so far it thinks it's on right way up.
The only advice I can offer, and this is strictly from personal experience, is that people should start looking at things like employment a bit more radically if they want to break through these times intact.
http://www.torontocitylife.com/2009/03/26/will-work-for-nybbles/
As much as I despise McGuinty, taxes, and the new HST, at least there's income tax cuts of something like 10% if you make under 80K/yr, among other tax cuts.
What worries me is how much is being spent by the government in the next few years...
If anyone reads this comment, I strongly suggest you check your computer for viruses tonight and do a windows update. You have less than 48 hours before a dormant virus (which has infected an estimated 15 Million computers, and has the possibility to infect up to 30 percent of ALL windows computers) is set to activate and ...well, nobody knows what it is set to do. All they know is it is designed to connect to tens of thousands of domain names, one of which will upload a package to your computer, which could do anything from using your computer to send out spam or wipe your harddrive and do all other sorts of nasty things.
If we are going to reduce minimum wage, we'd better stop creating more and more minimum wage jobs to replace the lost higher paying jobs in manufacturing.
There is a difference between a teenager taking a minimum wage job to have a bit of extra spending money while in school and someone with kids, a home and a car just trying to scrape by after losing their job.
I've wondered if solar panels could be lined up along GO train lines that run N-S. They could be fitted in the spring and stored in the autumn (so that the sun could assist snow melt). In the summer, they would shade the tracks, reducing buckling during peak heat intensities and reduce the need for weed control.
argh - I meant "that run east-west" so that the panels would face south.
Its a delay in an increase - not a reduction.
And if you're supporting a family on minimum wage, its still going to be tough even if it is 10.25/hr. When parties suggest $15/hr+ is where I start to get worried, because while its nice to be able to provide good wages, its expensive and potentially not worth it for employers.
Quite frankly, I think a better solution would be re-examining people who've spent years on welfare (there's a big difference between losing a job and being on wf for a year, and having no disabilities or problems but choosing to spend 30 years on public assistance), and diverting some of that a subsidy for families relying on minimum wage. I understand that welfare is a safety net and can be invaluable if you fall on hard times, but speaking from personal experience, I know a large amount of people who've lived off of it for decades for no reason. I rather reward those struggling than some who don't seem to be changing.
Yeah, I'm not sure why every new house isn't built with a roof made of solar panels.
Is the cost of these things so high that they DON'T pay for themselves in any reasonable timeframe?
How many Junos does Nickelback have now? 50? How do they not accept them without laughing anymore?
A wage freeze is a reduction when you take inflation into account.
Anyone wanting more info on the virus mentioned by Ryan L, check out this article on CBC:
http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2009/03/27/f-conficker.html
Good thing my Mac can't get infected :)
Don't worry sweetie, someday someone will care enough about macs to make a virus for them too.
More details about the virus and removal:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Downadup#Removal
"A wage freeze is a reduction when you take inflation into account.
"
That's true, but very few of our paycheques have kept pace with the cost of living in recent years.
And now, in 2009, the boogeyman is suddenly DE-flation, where prices are starting to fall and cash is king. Don't expect anyone to get raises until this ship stabilizes (and inflation comes roaring back with a vengeance).
We're in a pickle, friends. These aren't normal times.
The people who think macs are immune are just as naive and stupid as those who think that Macs are not as troubled with viruses due to market share.
Its been proven time and time again that, whilst not invulnerable like the fanboys think, the Mac OS X and its UNIX underpinnings are more secure Windows. And believe me, people are trying their best to hack Macs because of the fact that it would get a lot of attention - being the first to find a gaping flaw in a popular OS will get far more attention than finding yet another bug in a flawed OS.
I can't believe I live in a society where people are so insipid that they're "hate" what computer other people use. Who gives a fuck what someone else is using? Its not like you're paying for it. ts impossible to read anything about technology without douchebags from the anti-Apple and Pro-Apple camps duking it out.
Oh and excuse any typos or grammatical errors above, I haven't slept since sometime saturday :)
People have been saying that for YEARS, and it's never happened yet. In the meantime, I'll stick to my Mac, thanks.
Whoa, I'm just relieved I don't need to worry in this instance - I'm unemployed and can't afford to lose my computer. No reason to get all PC vs Mac.
Thanks for calling Nickleback's shit like it is.. *wretch* ..proves how poorly the Junos gauge good music.
I also have a Mac, but let's not be naive:
http://www.itwire.com/content/view/23941/53/
Guy hacks fully patched Mac in 10 seconds. Yeah, the 10 seconds thing is a bit deceptive since he wrote the exploit in advance, but it doesn't exactly inspire confidence.
What is the yearly salary of someone who makes minimum wage?
The canadian music scene needs another ballsy shot of adrenaline like the 80's and late 70's....today's canadian music scene is chalk full of wannabe Green Day punks and lilith music, not to mention tiresome jazz ...
Tomorrow it will be $9.50 and hour. The salary for a full-time (40 hours a week) job would be $19,760. Before reductions and assuming they work every weekday during the year.
At 10.25 an hour (the future minimum wage) the salary would be $21,320 (a difference of $1560 a year)
And for reference, $18,200 is the amount it -used- to be and continues to be for the next 12 hours.
Thanks Ryan.
McGuinty backtracks on minimum wage:
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/610502
However, like my younger brother will tell you, minimum wage jobs (almost universally) come with absolutely no promise of hours. One week he might get 2 or 3 shifts, the next they'll be asking him for six days. It makes it very difficult because to keep one minimum wage job you're expected to basically be on call for them so it's hard to get a second job to make ends meet unless you have two employers who are much more understanding than the majority of people who pay minimum wage.
Re: Exploitability of Macs.
Take a look at the market share which Windows holds worldwide. Then look at the combined market share for OS X and *NIX variants, which doesn't even come close. The creators of malware and trojan and all sorts of malicious code have no interest in attacking a platform which holds such a low market share - the impact will simply never be as great or widespread as it's Windows counterpart.
Don't fool yourself; OS X is just as insecure as the best Windows PC's out there. It's simply not a worthwhile target.
I was trying to be liberal with my numbers so I wouldn't get blasted for underexaggerating. I used to work in retail and I've seen people get as few as 4 hours every two weeks. And like you said, it is tough for people in those situations to have multiple jobs due to scheduling conflicts. No business wants to come second in a list of job priorities so very few are willing to work around another businesses work schedule.
So Kansas doesn't teach evolution and pays $2.65 minimum wage... maybe that's fair, considering how ignorant their workforce is.
That is such a myth.
Let's get some facts straight shall we?
Mac OS 9 (Classic) had a couple of hundred viruses for it, with hardly any market-share. In 2001, Apple rebuilt the OS and called it OS X. Since then, Apple has seen over a triple market-share of OS X. It is now 2009 and there is still not one virus for OS X.
So there goes the market-share myth...
I'm not saying I believe that OS X is not hackable (of course it is, everything is, even Linux). But to make such statements as:
>Don't fool yourself; OS X is just as insecure as the best Windows PC's out there. It's simply not a worthwhile target.
Clearly shows that you have no business talking about this subject.
Oh and before you call me a fanboy, I use Windows, OS X & various flavours of Linux/Unix on a daily basis. I don't care which OS is better, I only care about which OS makes my life easier (that WAS the whole idea of the personal computer wasn't it?).
Spare your time, facts are useless to someone like him.
Again, YES Mac OS X is not immune to breaches, but it is a more secure operating system than Windows and it does not relate to market share.