Speaking of silent majorities, during the 2016 election, there was a secret FB group of ~3 million (!) Hillary Clinton supporters called “Pantsuit Nation”. I got in via MetaFilter soon after the election when the group became more widely known but haven’t seen much lately, at least until today when I got a FB notification because this song was getting a lot of attention.
I’d encourage you to watch the whole thing – very well done!
Of course Christmas Eve is not an “official” stat holiday but it’s still a day that many workplaces (not just libraries) recognize as a slow time and/or a good time to close early so that staff, who are often traveling to be with families or who simply want to maximize time with families on a special day, have their work-life balance recognized and respected.
Now that it’s Thanksgiving, I thought it might be interesting to do a similar survey to see how many Canadian libraries are moving towards a more “retail” approach to the service they offer by staying open on the stat holiday.
I figured I might as well start with the list of cities I used last time which is a mix of places by geography and population…
Barrie Public Library – Closed Sunday and Monday
Brampton Public Library – Closed Sunday and Monday
Brantford Public Library – Appears to be Open Sunday, Closed Monday
Burlington Public Library – Closed Sunday and Monday
Calgary Public Library – Open Sunday, Closed Monday
Edmonton Public Library – Open Sunday, Closed Monday
Halifax Public Library – Open Sunday, Closed Monday
London Public Library – Open Sunday, Closed Monday
Milton Public Library – Open Sunday, Closed Monday
Ottawa Public Library – Open Sunday, Closed Monday
Regina Public Library – Closed Sunday, Mixture of branches being open full, part or closed on Thanksgiving Monday (RPL is conducting a public survey on opening on the holiday Monday if you’re interested in sharing your opinion)
Richmond Public Library – Open Sunday, Closed Monday (and interestingly, they appear to have reduced hours on the Tuesday after the closed day as well)
Saskatoon Public Library – [I honestly couldn’t find their holiday open hours on their web site!]
Surrey Public Library – Closed Sunday and Monday
Toronto Public Library – All Branches Closed Sunday and Monday
Victoria Public Library – Open Sunday, Closed Monday
Whistler Public Library – Open Sunday, Closed Monday
Whitby Public Library – Closed Sunday and Monday
Windsor Public Library – Closed Sunday and Monday
Winnipeg Public Library – Open Sunday, Closed Monday
So my main takeaway is that RPL appears to be the only library in Canada experimenting with opening on a stat holiday (or at least this particular stat holiday.)
I was also a bit surprised that even bigger centres like Toronto close all ~99 or however many branches they have) especially since Toronto is Canada’s most diverse city so some might want to keep the library open for the many citizens who don’t celebrate Thanksgiving.
Otherwise, the libraries I surveyed seem pretty evenly split between opening on Sunday and closing on Monday which eleven libraries on my list do or closing on both days which nine cities on my list do (which has also been RPL’s approach prior to this year’s experiment.)
For some unknown reason, I still get a daily digest from Digg.com. I rarely look at it but today, it included a story about a guy called Alex Honnold who is considered the best free solo climber (ascending sheer cliffs without any ropes) in the world.
Went out to Indian Head today for an early Thanksgiving supper with Shea’s parents and my parents plus us and the kids.
And since it’s that time of the year, here’s a list…
10 Things I’m Thankful For
That we get to have Thanksgiving supper with all four grandparents. Many people I know aren’t so lucky – either because the grandparents don’t live nearby or because the grandparents don’t get along or in the sad case where one or more of the grandparents have passed away.
That we live close enough to both sets of grandparents that we get to see them regularly throughout the year – not just at family holidays like Thanksgiving.
That all four of our in-laws genuinely likes and enjoys each other’s company – again, as I mentioned, not something all families enjoy.
That Shea is off to a conference in Halifax next week and both sets of grandparents will be checking on me pretty much every night between them while Shea’s gone (for the record, no one bats an eye when I’m off at conference for a few days and Shea’s left alone with the kids! Hmmm…) 🙂
On a day of really sad news from south of the border, I’m thankful I live in Canada. We’re not perfect but our conservatives are still people we can (mostly) get along with and “agree to disagree” with without the level of partisanship and vitriol that exists in the US.
I’m pretty thankful for the life I have – I live in Canada, my wife and I have good jobs we enjoy, our kids are happy and healthy, we can afford to go on a big trip in the winter and have a seasonal campsite in summer, etc. etc. As I’ve said before, I’m not religious but still feel pretty blessed. 🙂
Little things – my commute is literally five minutes. The enjoyment i get from watching hockey and drinking craft beer. Literally any book I read and how I can feel it changing my brain. Snuggling with Sasha. Watching in awe as Pace does stuff at his parkour I never could’ve done as a kid.
Long weekends.
The many people I know who, in big ways and small, are fighting important battles – for better working conditions, better living conditions, better wages, better equality, better respect for all people, better education, better libraries, better everything in the face of opposition from people who are selfish or self-righteous or similar.
This song which, again, is such a Saskatchewan thing for me – the singer is the sister of a guy who married somebody from my hometown that I was on our high school yearbook committee with…
In computer science, the Turing Test is intended to tell if you can differentiate between who is human and who is a computer programmed to model human-like conversation in a text exchange between the two.
The Turing test, developed by Alan Turing in 1950, is a test of a machine’s ability to exhibit intelligent behavior equivalent to, or indistinguishable from, that of a human. Turing proposed that a human evaluator would judge natural language conversations between a human and a machine designed to generate human-like responses. The evaluator would be aware that one of the two partners in conversation is a machine, and all participants would be separated from one another. The conversation would be limited to a text-only channel such as a computer keyboard and screen so the result would not depend on the machine’s ability to render words as speech.[2] If the evaluator cannot reliably tell the machine from the human, the machine is said to have passed the test. The test results do not depend on the ability to give correct answers to questions, only how closely one’s answers resemble those a human would give
I was quite proud to pick the word that, more than any other, has been picked by other humans to show they’re living, thinking beings but Shea took a bit of the wind out of my sails when she said we’d discussed this previously and I’d forgotten about it.
Who knew when we went parasailing at the Beach Palace (a sister resort to the Moon Palace where we were staying) last winter that we’d end up taking a picture of the resort we’d be staying at the following winter?
But almost as soon as we got home from our amazing two-week getaway last year, I began researching and dreaming about where we might go the following year.
* We’ve had a couple years of trips in recent years to great resorts with not great beaches. So this resort, right at the tip of the peninsula which houses Cancun’s Hotel Zone, is not only in an area known for some of the area’s best beaches but it is a rarity in that its location means it has beaches on either side of the resort, not just out front like most places. So that’s a great fit for Shea’s who’s the biggest beach fan in our family (though we all love a good beach of course!)
* One of the Hyatt Ziva’s “restaurants” is actually an all-you-can-eat candy store so I knew that would appeal to the kids (though we all love a good candy store of course!)
* And perhaps the most unique feature of the resort – it is the only all-inclusive I’ve ever come across that features a micro-brewery right on site (though that might be a feature mostly for me and not Shea or the kids!) 😉
Those are just a few of the main things that made us pick Hyatt Ziva Cancun for this year’s trip but there are many other things I’m looking forward to experiencing at this unique resort!
When Trump won, the Republicans filled that vacancy with Neil Gorsuch instead of Garland and now, they’re trying to fill another vacancy with someone who, by all appearances, is an entitled, frat boy turned political operative who has failed to show any semblance of fairness or impartiality.
This has led to lots of speculation about what the Democrats might do if they win the House (likely) and Senate (less likely) in just over a month to redress these unfair situations (I’m not an expert on this stuff so I have no idea if any or all of this is possible, if they’d need to control certain levels of say, the Senate, or what the longer-term repercussions might be.) What I do know is there’s a growing sentiment that Democrats have played too nice for far too long and the Republicans continue to crush them because of this.
* codifying a lot of the generally accepted practices so it’s clear how things like filibusters, recess appointments and various other loopholes and exemptions that allow some of these tricks to work (or not work) can be tightened.
* create a formula so that every President gets to select a minimum of one new judge during their term even if no one steps down or dies.
* expand the number of justices on the Supreme Court and fill it with more liberal judges
* fix/eliminate the electoral college so situations like 2000 and 2016 where the candidate winning the popular vote still doesn’t become President can’t happen
Borrowed from an atheist I know on Facebook, here’s some self-criticism of some of atheism’s “untouchables” which I (mostly) agree with…
In honour of International Blasphemy Day:
Christopher Hitchens was an over-rated warmonger.
Sam Harris frequently comes to conclusions first and then tries forcing the evidence to fit those conclusions.
Richard Dawkins has probably done more good than harm for the world but his defensiveness has also made him him bitter and blind to his own privilege.
Science is a tool, not a conclusion.
Atheism is no more likely to make someone a “good person” than it is to make them a bad one.
