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Notes from Underground

2011-10-29T23:25:53Z

Ben Soo and I went on the Un Métro la nuit tour late late Friday night along with 3 dozen others. I’ve posted a quick photographic travelogue here with explanations.

It was great fun to see the stuff you never see and the aperçu really did give me a better appreciation of the constant effort that keeps the metro system running day to day.

To answer a question asked here on the blog: why can’t the system run 24/7 like the New York or London subway systems? The answer is that in most of our system we run both tracks through the same tunnel. In those older systems, with separate tunnels, at night you can run alternating trains in one tunnel while you clean and repair the other. Here, we’ve got to close the system for a couple of hours every day to do the maintenance work.

514 Buses - get Montreal bus schedules via cell phone

2011-10-11T05:11:13Z

If you are one of the two thirds of Canadian cell phone users who do not have a smart phone, you might find yourself late at night at a bus stop, waiting a very long time for the next bus home. If you had a smart phone with a Google maps app or the new STM app, you would probably have checked when the next bus comes, and waited longer inside that warm bar, or at the party where you were.

Sure, you could get the paper flyers of the relevant bus schedules, if you know where to get them, but it's still all very cumbersome. You could also use the phone service of the STM, telling you the next buses for one given stop. But it will only tell you the schedule if you know the 5-digit stop number and bus line - and you'll only find those once you are at the stop, so you still gotta wait there. And you won't find out about other nearby lines and stops.

So at last weekend's Back to School Hackathon, I thought it would be a good idea to try to make life a bit easier for those of us who still have that dumb phone, and developed a simple sms-based application that will tell you the next buses near a given address. You can just text your current address, intersection, postal code or point of interest to

514-600-1287 (that's 514-6001-BUS)*** and it will find nearby bus stops, and give the next scheduled departures.

Try the web-version:

address: Submit

As you can see, the app returns a very compact result**:

At the top it shows the time relative to which the schedule is displayed
It will show a compact name for each bus stop, with the distance (in metres) from your supplied address
for each bus stop, it will show the buses, together with their direction (W,E,S,N), and the next couple of buses, in minutes relative to the displayed time

The app properly deals with weekend days, holidays, night buses. It will also deal with special characters that show up in the original schedule (">" or "+"). They will be displayed, and usually mean that the bus is taking some alternate route. The system knows 96% of the bus stops (although some might be located incorrectly). and supports the following options:

the first word can be set of option characters. W, E, S, N will display only buses in the supplied direction, H will display wheelchair accessible buses using '*'. Multiple characters can be used in one word. Example: "WEH 688 Sherbrooke" will show all westbound and eastbound buses, and show handicapped access.
You can add a trailling "in number", where the number is in minutes. This will provide the schedules relative to a time in the future. Example: "h3a 2t5 in 30" will show buses near postal code H3A 2T5 in 30 minutes.

This application, given the 160 character limitation, naturally does no actual routing. It just gives scheduled departures. You still have to know your lines. This fits the idea that many people do know the routes of buses that are relevant to them, even if their don't know the schedules. This complements the idea of the frequent service network - you know how to get there, but you would like some independence regarding schedules. By making this an sms app rather than a smart phone app, I hope for this to be useful to more people.

Some argue that smartphones are not a game changer for transit. But tools like this should help reduce some of the stress associated with taking buses - the wait at the stop - and maybe will make some travelling a bit more enjoayble.

disclaimer: This is currently beta. The phone number may change. The phone system may not respond at times (in which case try resending your request).

**Update: Due to a recent outage at tropo, the sms service, I changed the system to respond via another service, twilio. So the system will now respond with a different number (which should also accept requests - but it is a US number). Along with this change the format of the response changed to show absolute times rather than relative times. ***Update: After the service called twilio started offering canadian phone numbers with sms support, I have switched over the service to this new number. The old number ((514) 418-0428), should still work for a while.

I See You’ve Already Found Out Why This Is a Bad Idea

2011-09-02T11:00:00Z

Well maybe if I hold it like this….

~NSHA

Submitted by: k4be

Has a Nice Ring To It

2011-06-14T21:00:00Z

Despite the ridiculousness of this workaround, I highly doubt the kind of person who stole your doorbell with have any qualms about stealing your crappy rock bottle. ~NSHA

Submitted by: Rob

Nouvelle victoire contre Remstar pour les ex-employés de TQS à Québec

2011-05-31T00:08:51Z

Dans un jugement unanime rendu en fin de journée, la Cour d'appel fédérale a donné raison au Syndicat des employés de TQS-Québec (SCFP 3946). Selon la Cour, Remstar était bel et bien l'employeur des syndiqués lorsque les salles de nouvelles de TQS ont été fermées en violation des conventions collectives. Cela signifie que Remstar doit être tenue responsable des conséquences du non-respect des droits des employés.

Concrètement, cela veut dire que la soixantaine d’ex-employés de la salle de nouvelles de TQS à Québec ont droit aux pleines indemnités de départ prévues à la convention collective. La Cour n’a pas retenu la position de Remstar voulant que les anciens employés soient de simples créanciers de TQS ayant droit à une petite fraction de leurs indemnités et de leurs ajustements d’équité salariale (moins de 15%). Seul un éventuel appel en Cour suprême pourrait invalider cette décision. (Cliquez ici pour accéder à cette décision du 30 mai 2011 de la Cour fédérale d'appel.)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO US!

2011-05-10T04:59:00Z

11:30 PM

Ten years ago this week I remember thinking that maybe I shouldn't be getting up at 4:00 AM. U2 played the Bell Centre and I couldn't go straight home as wired as I was. Needed to unwind a little. Finally made it home by two, dragging my ass into The Team 990 studio wondering if my previously strong recuperative powers had suddenly left me in my early 40's. Then I looked across the table at Ted Blackman who was nearly 60. He had also been at the concert. But Ted would be gone in less than a year and a half.

I think of Ted Blackman a lot these days. And Lee Hambleton, our first GM who died in 2005. And George Balcan and Danny Gallivan and so many other broadcasting greats who inspired me to join their wacky world. What a treat it was to meet and work alongside so many of them, especially Ted & Lee & George & Danny who were always so supportive and helpful. I remember thinking many times that their words of encouragement meant so much more to me than any ratings point. I was blessed.

I have a great deal of respect for almost anybody who works morning radio. Personally I tried but couldn't do it. Even napping didn't help my state of perpetual fatigue. So when a radio consultant - and a good one - named Rick Scott told me that he thought the station would be better off if I moved to the drive home slot, I was beyond relieved (after initially feeling that I was being demoted). Almost born again, you might say.

I honestly don't remember the exact date I changed shifts - Shaun Starr probably does because that's when we split and he stayed in the AM - but I did feel a seismic shift at the station. We had survived the toughest parts-the initial launch, the attacks of 9/11 one week into out first major Fall ratings period and the deaths of Ted and Lee. Cathy Newton fled as far away from me as possible (3,000 miles west to Kelowna) leaving me woman-less (professionally; if I had a dime for every damn rumour spread about me and the wonderful women who helped me out I'd have quit the station years ago) for the first time since the late 1980's. And then along came Andie.

Denis Casavant coming on board to join Elliott Price and Starr in the morning was a pivotal moment. So was Tony Marinaro getting his own show. Our sales department, led by Wayne Bews, never wavered.
We have, by a country mile, the best radio spots in the country, thanks to our creative department named Scott Saxon.

But what I'm most proud of in 10 years on the air is the number of young (and not so young) broadcasters we've developed at The Team 990 including Tony, Shaun Starr, Andie Bennett, PJ Stock, Rod Francis, Noel Butler, Conor McKenna, Sean Campbell, Marco Campagna, Mitch Gallo, Ben Raby (now in Washington), Gabriel Morency, Vinny Barrucco, Jimmy Spencer, Dave Simon, Matthew Ross, Dwight Walton, Moe Khan, Dave Kaufman, Jessica Ruznak, Amanda Stein and several others. If you're not sending young people out into the work force then you've become stagnant and stale. We've had our share of rough moments but we've been anything but stagnant or stale.

I've had a very good time at The Team 990. Most of it's been a lot of fun. Don't know if I enjoyed anything more than the first of two seasons in the broadcast booth working alongside Elliott on Expos broadcasts. That was a blast. Kind of a flashback to the couple of years we shared a living space (Pickwick Arms at 5010 Sherbrooke W.) and would provide a running commentary on games we'd watch. Now we were actually getting paid to do it (at least he was).

The Alouettes first Grey Cup since the 1970s was fun to cover, especially the parade in the bitter cold on McGill College Avenue. Last spring's run by the Habs had, it seemed, the entire city listening. Our commitment to community has been especially strong over the last five years including our participation in Hockey for the Homeless and our first foray into large scale event planning that was our SPOY Awards (Sports Personality of the Year) at Place D'Armes & Nelligan Hotels in Old Montreal.

Most of all we owe a great deal of thanks to our clients, some of whom have been around since May 2001, and especially our listeners, many of whom have also been around since Day One. You're the best.

I havent seen U2 since that week in May 10 years ago. Lord knows I heard enough with Ray Lalonde in charge of the "in-game experience" at the Bell Centre. But it's time. I purchased some tickets for their highly anticipated show at the Hippodrome originally set for last July. I've been sitting on them for over a year. I know Shaun Starr will be next to me. Might even keep a seat empty for Ted.

La leçon de journalisme faite à Maclean’s

2011-04-13T01:45:40Z

Le Conseil de Presse du Québec a rendu publique ce mardi sa décision concernant le fameux dossier de Maclean’s “The most corrupt province”.

Bon pour les ventes, mauvais pour la crédibilité...

L’utilisation de Bonhomme.

Concernant l’utilisation du Bonhomme pour symboliser le Québec, le CPQ estime qu’il “s’agissait d’une utilisation caricaturale de ce symbole, servant à illustrer le sujet principal du magazine. Cette pratique ne contrevient pas aux règles déontologiques reconnues.”

Je suis d’accord.

Le titre: la province la plus corrompue.

Le jugement du CPQ tombe comme une brique:

Puisque le Conseil considère que jamais l’article de M. Patriquin ni aucun autre article du magazine n’apportent la démonstration du fait que le Québec serait la province la plus corrompue du Canada, il retient à l’unanimité (7/7) les griefs pour manque de rigueur journalistique et expression de préjugés contre la direction du magazine Maclean’s pour avoir coiffer la une du magazine et l’article de M. Patriquin d’un titre affirmatif (The most corrupt province) laissant croire à une analyse comparative alors que l’affirmation n’est jamais démontrée et que l’article porte plutôt sur des perceptions.

Le commentaire d’Andrew Coyne

Le columnist vedette du magazine avait affirmé que les Québécois étaient pathologiquement corrompus. Il est évidemment difficile de sanctionner une opinion, même outrancière. Le CPQ se limite à relever les erreurs de faits.

Une majorité de ses membres (4/7) lui reprochent de s’appuyer sur des préjugés et des opinions non fondées, notamment lorsque Coyne affirme que:

les scandales de corruption qui ont frappé le Québec sont «more likely if politicians are operating in a general climate of public acceptance of such activities » (plus probables si les politiciens évoluent dans un contexte où le public accepte de telles activités), une affirmation qui est cette fois-ci visiblement contredite par la réalité, considérant la forte réaction du public au dévoilement des scandales en question.

Le texte principal

Le Conseil est particulièrement dur, et à 6/7, contre le texte principal, de Martin Patriquin:

Après analyse, le Conseil constate que M. Patriquin s’est limité à recueillir plusieurs points de vue rapportant l’existence d’une série de cas de corruption au Québec, mais n’a jamais démontré le fait que le Québec serait la province la plus corrompue au Canada. Le journaliste ne présente aucune enquête comparative, rigoureuse et exhaustive menée au Canada permettant de comparer le Québec avec les autres provinces. Le seul élément de comparaison qu’évoque M. Patriquin est un commentaire approximatif de l’historien américain, M. Samuel Huntington qui a écrit en 1968 que la province « is perhaps the most corrupt area (in) Australia, Great Britain, United States and Canada ». Le Conseil considère que cet élément d’information est nettement insuffisant pour considérer le Québec comme champion canadien de la corruption.

De plus, M. Patriquin évoque les derniers déboires du gouvernement Charest en les qualifiant de « long line of made-in-Quebec corruption that has affected the province’s political culture at every level ». Cette phrase soutient que la corruption a atteint toutes les sphères de la culture politique québécoise, une affirmation qu’il ne démontre pas.

La majorité des membres du Conseil juge que ces deux affirmations, lourdes de sens, ne sont pas suffisamment étayées par l’auteur, M. Patriquin, et estime, en conséquence, qu’elles témoignent d’un manquement aux impératifs de rigueur en matière journalistique. On est ainsi forcé de conclure qu’elles relèvent de préjugés, d’autant plus condamnables dans les circonstances qu’ils portent préjudice à l’ensemble des Québécois.

Maclean’s n’a pas présenté de défense devant le Conseil. Sans doute n’en avait-il pas.

Pour lire ce que j’ai écrit à ce sujet, et qui rejoint en plusieurs points l’avis du Conseil, voir ici.

Prévention du décrochage FAIL

2011-03-08T00:32:27Z

Tout est dans le titre. Un crayon donné aux étudiants d’une école pour souligner la semaine de la prévention du décrochage scolaire.

Merci Mekk-Heaven.

50 Years of CJOH-TV Ottawa in a nutshell

2011-03-08T03:05:38Z

CJOH's Eye On Ottawa promo 1989

Following in the footsteps of CFTO and CFCF, now CJOH-TV is also celebrating 50 years of local TV. As a result, I thought it would be a good idea if I, once again, gave myself permission to republish an edited and updated version of the trivial facts of Channel 13 from my old TV Hat website (now defunct). The Ottawa television station began broadcasting, for the very first time, on March 12, 1961, at noon. The CTV Ottawa website has a special section dedicated to its 50-year history.

CJOH (CTV)

Before they became stars

A number of well-known people got their start at CJOH-TV including Peter Jennings and Alanis Morissette. Jennings was a local news anchor, although he actually made his TV debut as the host of the station’s teen show called Saturday Date in 1962. Alanis Morrisette’s first TV appearance was on a kids show called You Can’t Do That On Television where she was a regular. YCDTOT was syndicated to other Canadian channels, such as CFCF, and to the Nickelodeon cable channel in the States. YTV also picked up the show later on in reruns.

CJOH was also the former flagship centre for CTV’s national newscasts, the very first of which originated from the Ottawa studio in November 1962. Sunday Edition with Mike Duffy also originated from the Ottawa station where it was distributed to other Canadian channels (mostly Baton but CFCF as well). Later it became an official CTV show.

CJOH (CTV) Ottawa Night Court promo 1980s

CJOH was for Montrealers too

Ottawa’s CJOH-TV is also Montreal’s alternate CTV station since it has almost always been carried on local cable in Montreal. Even today, while CJOH may no longer be available on analog cable, it’s still on the basic digital cable line-up.

Since the CTV Network schedule once consisted of only 40 hours of network programming, back in the ’80s, CJOH provided an almost completely different schedule than that of CFCF. CJOH was like an extra English channel in Montreal. But that is no longer the case, now that both stations are owned-and-operated by CTV Globemedia.

Because of CJOH, CTV Network programming has always been easily available in Montreal, even during CFCF’s anti-network phase while owned by WIC. When CJOH’s parent company, Baton Broadcasting, took control of the CTV Network, Montrealers had access to the entire newly expanded CTV schedule. Actually, most of that schedule consisted of Baton programming which automatically became rebranded as CTV, but nevertheless, CFCF was still limiting itself to about 45 hours of CTV programming per week.

Transmitters

CJOH now has four transmitters serving Eastern Ontario. The first repeater station came along in 1963 when the original owner, Ernie Bushnell, bought CJSS-TV channel 8 in Cornwall (a CBC station until that point) and changed the call letters to CJOH-TV-1.

Since then, the Cornwall station has pretty much always been a full rebroadcaster of CJOH (CTV), airing the exact same programming, local news and even commercials. But there was at least one exception to the rule back when CTV carried the Blue Jays. The games were often blacked out on channel 8 (but not on CJOH’s other channels), because of Cornwall’s close proximity to Montreal. Channel 8 was from where Montreal cable subscribers got the CJOH signal from (and perhaps still do). So on Wednesdays (baseball night on CTV) in the late ’80s, I often saw a substitute CJOH feed with commercial-free programming. Sometimes you wouldn’t even know exactly when the alternate programming would end because of the tendency for ball games to go into extra innings.

By the way, if you’re wondering how CFCF handled the blackouts, they simply didn’t bother to carry any of the Blue Jays games at all, as they preferred to devote their baseball coverage to the Expos.

CJSS-TV had been on the air since October 18, 1959.

CJOH started a second repeater September 27, 1972, on channel 6, to serve the Belleville-Kingston area. The CJOH-TV-3 transmitter is located near Deseronto on Mount Carmel.

The final repeater came about when Baton Broadcasting decided to transform CHRO in Pembroke, still a CTV-BBS station up until that point, into an independent station to be sold to CHUM. CHRO was given permission to open a rebroadcaster in Ottawa on channel 43 and, in exchange, CJOH was also allowed to set up a repeater station in Pembroke, on channel 47, so that town would still have an over-the-air CTV service.

The meaning of call letters

The OH in CJOH is for Ottawa Hull.

50 years of CFTM-10 TVA. Remember Télé-Métropole?

2011-02-09T17:00:31Z

CFTM-10 1969 logo

CFTM Channel 10 in Montreal went on the air on February 19 1961, just a few weeks after CFCF, and like CTV Montreal, TVA has also put up a whole bunch of vintage clips and pics on their website.

Happy 50th CFTM-10!

To me, you will always be CFTM-10 and not TVA. Now here are some interesting trivial facts about the TVA-CFTM relationship from the TV Hat archives (edited and updated):

And the owner is…

CFTM-10 was formally owned by Télé-Métropole. At one point, Télé-Métropole bought out Pathonic which owned four TVA stations including Quebec-City and Sherbrooke. The Sherbrooke station, Télé-7, used to be available in the Montreal area via cable, and had a radically different schedule compared to CFTM. With the exception of local news, all four Pathonic stations carried the same schedule as its Quebec City flagship station, Télé-4, while the other TVA stations carried Télé-Métropole programming. When Télé-Métropole bought Pathonic, they decided to change their name to Groupe TVA Inc. Now all stations carry more or less the same programming. TVA was purchased by Vidéotron Ltée. which itself is currently owned by media giant Québécor, by way of a deal approved by the CRTC in 2001.

CFTM ID - late 80s

CFTM has its own time shifting feed

TVA is available on the west coast but, unlike Radio-Canada, TVA doesn’t actually have any local stations in British Columbia. The TVA West feed is nothing more than a machine which records the CFTM signal from Montreal and then spits out the exact same programming 3 hours later for the benefit of cable and satellite viewers living on the other coast. Therefore, it can be argued that CFTM is the only local station to have its own time shifting feed.

Fin du conflit au Journal de Montréal: l’opinion publique partagée

2011-02-27T03:26:35Z

La fin du conflit au Journal de Montréal annoncée plus tôt aujourd'hui a été accueillie de différentes façons par la population du Québec. C'est du moins ce que révèle un sondage téléphonique effectué par Mauvais Œil.

Are Wisconsin's state and local workers overpaid?

2011-02-19T19:50:22Z

"Republicans say that public-sector employees have become a privileged class that overburdened taxpayers," write Karen Tumulty and Brady Dennis. The question, of course, is whether it's true. Consider this analysis the Economic Policy Institute conducted comparing total compensation -- that is to say, wages and health-care benefits and pensions -- among public and private workers in Wisconsin. To get an apples-to-apples comparison, the study's author controlled for experience, organizational size, gender, race, ethnicity, citizenship and disability, and then sorted the results by education. Here's what he got:

If you prefer it in non-graph form: "Wisconsin public-sector workers face an annual compensation penalty of 11%. Adjusting for the slightly fewer hours worked per week on average, these public workers still face a compensation penalty of 5% for choosing to work in the public sector."

The deal that unions, state government and -- by extension -- state residents have made to defer the compensation of public employees was a bad deal -- but it was a bad deal for the public employees, not for the state government. State and local governments were able to hire better workers now by promising higher pay later. They essentially hired on an installment plan. And now they might not follow through on it. The ones who got played here are the public employees, not the residents of the various states. The residents of the various states, when all is said and done, will probably have gotten the work at a steep discount. They'll force a renegotiation of the contracts and blame overprivileged public employees for resisting shared sacrifice.

Which gets to the heart of what this is: A form of default. There's been a lot of concern lately that states or municipalities will default on their debt. This is considered the height of fiscal irresponsibility -- an outcome so dire that some are considering various forms of federal support. But the talk that states or cities will default on their obligations to teachers or DMV employees? That's considered evidence of fiscal responsibility. And perhaps it's a better outcome, as defaulting to the banks makes future borrowing costs higher, and can hurt the state economy in the long-run. But it's not a more just outcome.

That, however, is how it's been presented. State and local budgets are in bad shape. They'll need deep reforms across a variety of categories, from tax increases to service cuts to changes to employee compensation. But the focus on public employees -- and the accompanying narrative that they're greedy and overcompensated -- obscures a lot of that: It makes it seem as if the decisions that have to be made are easy and costless and can be shunted onto an interest group that some of us, at least, don't like. It's the Republican version of when liberals suggest we can balance the budget simply by increasing taxes on the rich. But it's not true.

See All the Disney Princesses Reinvented As Snarky Hipsters

2011-02-22T16:25:47Z

Ariel had this meme before it was cool, but Snow White makes a pretty legitimate point about firsts and posers. More captioned delights here and here.

[RatsOff/Tumblr]

Graph Jam: Gonna Shower It Right Into the Danger Zone

2011-02-25T02:30:27Z

Check out more of life’s little things graphed out at Graph Jam

Parenting Handbook: Father Hand-Paints Super Mario Bros. Mural in Son's Bedroom

2011-02-09T15:15:00Z

Anyone accepting nominations for parents of the year? Because this guy deserves it. On a whim, a Tennessee man named Casey Fleser—a self-professed "software developer, hobby collector, family man, and all around good guy—decided to decorate his sons' room in a Super Mario Bros. theme. "I didn’t really think about it," he explains, "except that it would be cool." Well, sometimes cool equals expensive, and Fleser came face to face with a set of decals that would help make the coolness happen—for $1,100.

The aim was to recreate World 1-1, the video game's uber-recognizable first level:

"I worked it out so each pixel would work out to 1/4″ square and my scene would be 232 (58″) pixels tall by about 2060 pixels wide (515″). Since the vast majority of it was sky, it surely wouldn’t be that much work, right?
So we got to work and quickly had our three background color painted: black on the bottom, an orangeish stripe along the middle that would be the ground, and the blue sky above. The next day we’d pencil in a grid and start painting pixels."

Later, Fleser reflected on the process. "Now if I can just avoid blurting out any more ridiculous ideas," he writes.

· This Year's Stupid Idea [SGnTN via Boing Boing]

Signalisation routière FAIL

2011-02-09T18:22:24Z

Vu à Mascouche, désolé pour la photo de nuit!

Merci Djeepy.

La «taxe TV»: où vont ces millions?

2011-01-28T10:00:00Z

Vous avez peut-être remarqué sur votre facture du câble ou du service satellite une augmentation...

Véronyque Tremblay se joint à Gilles Parent

2011-02-08T14:21:00Z

La chef d'antenne Véronyque Tremblay quittera LCN et TVA dans deux semaines pour se joindre à...

La mission de L'Itinéraire

2011-02-03T12:22:43Z

C'est le défi que doit relever Catherine Girouard, qui dirige les pages de L'Itinéraire depuis un mois aujourd'hui. Après trois années passées au quotidien gratuit Métro, la jeune journaliste avait envie de réconcilier deux valeurs importantes à ses yeux: l'information et le sentiment de ...

Best Of 2011: Cracking The Scratch Lottery Code | Jonah Lehrer | Wired | 31 January 2011

2011-12-23T08:04:00Z

http://b.rw/dIMaiU

Extraordinary account of how MIT statistician cracked the code behind lottery scratch tickets. Achieved 90% win rate. "The visible numbers turned out to reveal essential information about the digits hidden under the latex coating"