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Just in time for Christmas, users of Facebook application Big Photo - which allows you to share a larger copy of the photos you've uploaded online - were informed that their application is being taken over and will now be users of the SpeedDate application. At the moment that probably means that someone paid the Big Photo developers a lot of hard cash to gain access to an audience of over 700,000 users who use one application. This isn't exactly the same thing as Microsoft buying out all the Apple users in the world, and telling them that OS X will be Vista in a week's time, but it's something along the same lines. Here's the official message all users received - the lump of coal in their stockings: "Next week, Big Photo's name and functionality will be changed to SpeedDate. Data entered into the original app won't be used anymore. Soon you'll be able to try SpeedDate, the fastest way to meet new people, so stay tuned! P.S. If you want to opt-out of...
I got one of my friends Water Rant for his birthday - it's a book based on the blog written by The Waiter; he recently wrote about his short field trip to buy coffee and ask questions at a Dunkin' Donuts shop, where he learns that monthly tipping has fallen from $500 to $350 for the two young men running the shop . That's a 30% drop - though he adds that the employees report that people aren't spending less on food, just on the tip side of things. Of course, you can't extrapolate a donut shop - a single data collection point - to cover an entire 300 million person nation, but it's an interesting insight nonetheless. Conducting research at a fancier place: would it make the economic situation look better, or even worse? I wonder if economists have given much thought to the "food service tipping index" as another measure of consumer confidence? But, given the fixed prices and - let's assume this is true - similar spending rate on donut shop products...
One of my friends just pointed out this article in the Globe, which explains how the buyout of Bell Canada by one of Canada's largest Teachers' Pension funds is on the verge of falling through completely. A teacher's pension plan buying one of Canada's largest corporations? Yes, our teachers have deep pockets saving for their retirements Of course I'm going to illustrate this post an artsy edit of one of my photos of the BCE Place atrium. I found it interesting to see this paragraph in the article: The helpful little solvency clause, however, became the deal's Achilles heel in recent weeks as financial market carnage sharply lowered solvency thresholds, leaving the company vulnerable to KPMG's stunning decision . I suppose "decision" is one way of describing an auditor's conclusion - unlike the journalist, auditors themselves tend not to think of their conclusions as "decisions" though - that smacks of a subjective call similar to that...
Flying to Washington on three private jets to ask for billions of dollars ? Clever. I feel bad for the workers in the auto industry, but if I was working in that field, I would be planning an exit strategy around now, unless I was in a position to improve things. Especially because the heads of the companies aren't exactly inspiring confidence right now. From the Dana Milbank article: But the executives were not helping their own case. When Rep. Paul Kanjorski (D-Pa.) tried to find out when GM would run out of cash, Wagoner hemmed and hawed until the lawmaker protested that "I don't quite understand what the hell you just told me." When Rep. Ed Perlmutter (D-Colo.) asked about GM's outlook for the quarter, Wagoner informed him that "we don't provide financial guidance in earnings." So it was hard to feel sorry for the executives when Rep. Peter Roskam (R-Ill.), late in the hearing, reminded them again that "the symbolism of the private jet is difficult...
No matter how bad things are, something invariably comes along to put things in perspective. And I say that while knowing things actually aren't bad at all. This past morning was another good day - it seemed like everything was going well. And in general, it was. With a CD playing Arcade Fire, my car purring along nicely to return me to the audit site, everything seemed okay. Except for one strange fact. The opposite lanes of the highway were absolutely empty. Oh, the highway is closed. But in the morning rush hour? Must be some kind of serious crash. I had no idea how grave it was until I switched on the radio and learned I was zooming towards a nasty accident. Driving instructors love to harp on you that there's no such thing as an "accident", that collisions are avoidable and preventable. Sure. But they don't envision a truck falling off an overpass and crushing you to death . Surviving something this bizarre is simply a matter of luck or fate. At first - though...
Ages ago I linked to GarfieldMinusGarfield , and was in awe of the hilarity created by removing Garfield from the comic strip, and instead making the focus on inept Jon Arbuckle. Restoring my faith in humanity, Jim Davis, the original Garfield's creator not only likes this crazy concept , but they've given the green light to making a book featuring both the original and "minus" strips . My anti-hoax radar, well honed from being both a veteran internet user and auditor, started pinging high and is still on high alert for someone jumping out from behind a bush yelling, "gotcha, it's a hoax", but so far everything points to this being the real deal. And in this sentence I drag this short post kicking and screaming "on topic", albeit ever tangentially. Not that being "on topic" matters, of course. Assuming that isn't another devious gag, I say congratulations to Dublin's Dan Walsh for his wonderful accomplishment. I say my faith in...
I'm not at all surprised that you'll find my site if you Google big four Canada overtime - I already pointed out that three of the big four are paying out overtime to their non-CA staff and seniors . n.b. provincial laws treat CA, CGA, CMA and CPA and students registered to study for those designations as "professionals" ineligible for overtime pay, regardless of rank. Well now it turns out that all of the big four are doing it - Deloitte & Touche has joined the party . A kind reader who worked for Deloitte pointed this out to me - Deloitte's non-CA staff's overtime hours are about to stop being "unpaid". The news isn't that fresh, but this isn't the sort of thing you see on the front page of the newspaper - unless you Googled "deloitte Canada overtime" you might not be aware of it. All the facts for Deloitte are available at the website they setup otplan.ca - a URL which redirects straight to a deloitte.com page . The general details...
Before I continue - there's been enough misreporting on various other sites that I have to make this very clear: Chartered Accountants in Canada do NOT get paid overtime at CA firms and are NOT going to be paid overtime. More on that in a moment, but basically CAs are exempt under most labour laws - and that's the way the system works. With that in mind, don't forget that not everyone at CA firms is a CA, or even a CA student. Much has been written about KPMG not having paid overtime to people who, it turns out, were supposed to receive it after all. KPMG's story was especially bad because, from what I've read, they had people who you might commonly refer to as a "technician" or "administrative support staff" doing work that is normally done by "client serving" staff, as reported by the Star and other media outlets. As reported in the Globe, KPMG will pay out the overtime it figures it owes in an attempt to avoid getting hit with punitive...
Way back in university I developed an intense dislike for psycho activists. You know the kind. You say something innocuous. Say, for example, that they should buy the green bike instead the blue one, and they start screaming "HATE CRIME!!!!!!" in your face. Above: Alternate Strike Vehicle #1 The news from Steve Munro's blog is worth reading, especially the comment by an operator - click here - who explains that it looks like another conspiracy by the psycho activists . As a T.T.C. Operator, let me give you my take on this situation. I was shocked when I found out from Bob’s phone call that the members voted against the contract. 3/3/3 increases, upgrades to benefits, and most importantly, no concessions. However, this wasn’t good enough for the maintenance department. They want guaranteed lifetime jobs. The commission is buying new vehicles and like all new vehicles they have warranties. The maintenance people don’t like this as they think they will be laid off because the...
It's been a good three weeks. Returned to British Columbia, saw an old friend in Seattle, meet new friends in Portland, then spent time in California, Las Vegas, New Mexico and Colorado before heading home. And now that it's time to work, I found myself at the streetcar yard, with someone who I surmise was Ashley Hutcheson, taking photos at the TTC streetcar yard . She was doing it for the Globe & Mail , while I was doing it for ACS . In the culture of the TTC, removing your uniform shirt while operating a vehicle is considered beyond gauche . This operator was roundly mocked for his faux pas by the small crowd of operators milling about the Roncesvalles streetcar yard. If I had trouble paying the bills with my day job I'd give freelance photographer a serious shot. I'm not yet an artist or a photojournalist - yet, but I seem to have a knack for showing up at the right time in the right place with my camera in situations where "something" is happening. But...
You no doubt already heard about the big KPMG overtime lawsuit . But if you haven't, and you used to work for KPMG in Canada in the past few years, then you do now! That's because you recently received a letter disclosing what your share of the settlement is going to be. If you were an administrative staff person supposed to work 40 hours a week, no more, no less, the letter will indicate some dollar figure, your share of the almost $10 million settlement . Intriguingly, you'll get that letter even if you weren't an administrative person - that is, a young CA student or similar 'overtime exempt' professional employee. And what will the letter will tell you? It will say that your share of the settlement is zero dollars. Wow. Thanks for your service, this doesn't apply to you, have a nice day. I wavered between thinking "well, that makes sense", and "that's completely insane, why would you rub salt in the wounds of someone who presumably left...
Wow, the federal government is doing a budget "consultation" (which is "not a poll", they say). Interesting . Thanks to Nancy Z for the link. It's a 1-7 scale. I assume 1 means top priority. Interestingly the government insists on knowing your income level when you complete the survey. No, "I prefer not to say" option. I guess they think we can trust them - or else we'll lie and make up a fake answer?
Toronto is besieged by waves of idiots. People are driving their cars into the city and parking them on the snowy streets, blissfully unaware that their car is up to a METRE away from the curb, and therefore jutting out into the path of passing streetcars. Every single trip I took this week was delayed as TTC operators carefully edged their streetcars past parked cars. And tonight their luck ran out on Roncesvalles: 504 streetcar service was disrupted for an hour due to, as you can see above, the careless Jaguar driver's horrible parking job. Sometimes a car is carelessly parked by someone running inside a store to retrieve their wallet or other lost item. Fine. It happens to everyone - emergencies happen. This was not one of those situations. The car's owner disappeared, and was nowhere to be found. The delay stretched on interminably - three streetcars ended up getting backed up. Most people living nearby disembarked and walked home. Others had longer trips home and couldn't...
It's sad to see people pass away. Or to read something they prepared in case of their death. Major Andrew Olmsted wrote online since last May and died alongside Capt. Thomas J. Casey - both shot by a sniper.
Inflammatory but true . Rest in Peace, Mr. Dziekanski. Never have I been more ashamed of the police or Canada . Strange that the cops' names don't seem to have been released. I'm looking for support for this claim - ah, thank you Google, found it - Mr. Pritchard had to sue to get his video back . This doesn't surprise me at all, sadly. I was doing some freelance journalism photographing nearby a crime scene recently and had a cop on his high horse chase me right off, once he finally arrived on the scene and tried to impose control. Police cover-up? Yes. And there's news that there was already a report in 2005 telling them not to go around killing people with tasers . As if you need a report to know that only highly trained officers should be using devices like this! When tasers first came out they pointed out that only the tactical response unit in Toronto - the Emergency Task Force - was equipped with tasers, the devices being too experimental and dangerous for the...
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