Notes from the end of term

Just a few quick things, since I feel like I haven’t been posting enough.

  • I’ve been reading through an extensive — some might say exhaustive — review of Mac OS 10.4 (AKA Tiger). He goes into a lot of technical details, some of which I follow; this is clearly a man who Knows His Shit. I haven’t finished reading through it all yet, so I don’t know whether the total impression is positive or negative; it’s that sort of piece.
  • Classes are over, exams are upon us. I’m expecting tomorrow’s office hours to be quite busy with last-minute crammers who sat through the complete review of relevant material on Thursday last without absorbing any of it, and who then proceeded to not pick up their notes and texts until Monday at about noon. Or maybe I’m being unfair.
  • Kitsilano in Vancouver. Lincoln Park West in Chicago. The Annex in Toronto. I’m trying to put my finger on exactly what it is these neighbourhoods have in common, because I feel that whatever commonalities are represented define my ideal urban environment.
  • British Columbia is contemplating changing their electoral system from the first-past-the-post (plurality) system (that’s currently used provincially and federally all across Canada) to STV on multi-member districts. It’s not perfect, of course — but then Kenneth Arrow’s taught us that no voting system is perfect. And this one’s a damn sight better than the current system IMO. I was chatting about this with an old friend earlier this evening, and he was telling me that the NDPs (avowed socialists, for the Americans out there) have been pretty lukewarm about the whole thing, despite being strong proponents of proportional representation in general; apparently this wasn’t the flavour that they had in mind. This seems rather short-sighted to me: if an incremental improvement is available for the taking, why not go for it?
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