Ntuple Indemnity

I do a number of things for the University of Alberta Debate Society over the course of the school year, one of which is the maintenance of the website to which I just linked. I put it together over the course of a few afternoons back in the summer of 2003, and the only real change I have made since was changing the typeface from the now thoroughly out-of-fashion Verdana to the slimmer, more scalable Lucida family.

Looking back at it now, there are a number of things I would do differently. In fact, when I have time, I want to give it a complete overhaul. I did that site after about two years of dormancy from the wild, wild world of web design, so it represents a kind of blend between old and new. By “old” I refer to the liberal use of <table> as a layout device in the old three-panel tradition; by “new” I mean that it was with this site that I swore off <font> tags for good and used CSS for all my formatting. As is the case with this weblog, I eventually want to redesign it with a pure-CSS layout and pretty it up with some glitzier, more flexible design elements.

Good debate society websites are hard to find – on the CUSID circuit, I see Carleton as the role model, which is no real surprise since it is by Wayne Chu, who runs Freethought.ca and served as CUSID’s Executive Director before I took on the job. (He also plays a mean trumpet – or did, anyway, back when we were both in the Sir Winston Churchill Symphonic Band under the direction of Judy Wishloff.)

The other big project I do for the Debate Society is a quarterly newsletter entitled The Times Tribune. I spent most of last night working on the latest one (split into two PDFs about a megabyte apiece, here and here), which features an, er, interesting comic strip on Page 2. I do all of the layouts in QuarkXPress, but its handling of image scaling is becoming an increasing source of irritation, as is evidenced in part by the girth of the resulting output files. Cost-related prohibitions notwithstanding, I would ideally get a hold of something like Adobe InDesign, just for the smoother integration with other Adobe tools.

The first UADS meeting of the 2004-2005 season was earlier tonight, and I was one of the participants in the annual demonstration round, arguing in favour of negotiating with terrorists. There was some serious head-eating going on, only part of which was alleviated by a reference to Star Wars. No more will be said of this.

On a Gateway-related note, yesterday’s issue featured a Letter to the Editor from Gary Wicentowich, whose turn it apparently was to deliver the ritual explanation of why it is the Engineering end of campus sees so much in the way of development, facilities and cash. This is one of those issues that pops up in the Letters page rather frequently, probably because the complainants never read the responses. I’m beginning to think the Engineering Students’ Society should just prefer a standard draft statement on the subject, they’ve had to explain it so many times.

I do, however, wonder about a slightly tangential remark on Gary’s part:

Finally, I’d like to take this opportunity to give Mr Sobchak a good old-fashioned sack beating, because believe it or not, very few engineers are “huge nerds.” Continuing to perpetuate the idea that people who are good at math and science are nerds is not only outdated and unjustified, it’s also rather offensive.

To which my immediate reaction was: really? I wasn’t aware that this commonly-propagated sterotype was either a) inaccurate or b) derogatory. More than any period in contemporary cultural history, now is the time that wearing the geek subculture on the sleeve is becoming a chic thing to do. Are the films of The Lord of the Rings not enough of a flagpole? Be proud of being absorbed in the high romances of intellect, I say.

Of course, take this here online writer’s word with a grain of salt; he’s not exactly speaking of this as an outside observer.

It is quite curious how the phrase, “to cut one some slack” is idiomatically representative of an increase in leniency, whereas a literal reading of the verb “to cut” – as in budget cuts, tax cuts and haircuts – is a directive to reduce.

So when you tell yourself and your entire readership, including the folks who can’t seem to spell “Canadian” and that one mysterious fellow from Parliament Hill, that you have all of two weeks to muse about Spider-Man 2 and deliver a really snappy treatise on what it says about madness of both science and love, this is what happens: you cut yourself some slack, and in both ways. “Next post,” he promises, “next post.” So the writer is presented with a choice, to either deliver on the promise an unspecified number of days later and in doing so leave an unsatisfied audience drifting away at intermission, or break the promise to let everyone know that he is alive and well (but also one heck of a slacker); and as he is not Spider-Man, either Mary-Jane or the little kids in the gondola car must plunge to the depths of the sea of forgotten ideas, and this tragic dilemma cannot be solved to the satisfaction of all.

If everyone in the world made the same decision and had the same philosophy – to say “I’ll do it later, but at least I’m doing something – nothing would ever get done. Fortunately, that is not quite the case.

Actually, yes it is.

For instance, De-Lovely, the musical bio-pic starring Kevin Kline as Cole Porter, hit North American arthouse screens as early as 2 July and expanded a bit each week. It has, however, failed to reach the city of Calgary. As a matter of fact, there is no sign of this movie even opening in Calgary anytime in the near future; the occasional promotional spot appears on a stateside television channel, and that has been the extent of De-Lovely‘s presence thus far. This is perhaps a sign of the distributors thinking that with all the Stampeding going on around here, everybody’s going to be off at the chucks anyway, so no use releasing a movie that appeals to the same crowd. After all, the Cole Porter aficionados who have Kiss Me, Kate down by heart and the beer-faced hooligans gambling their fortunes on the Sutherlands and Bensmillers and other cylindrical-canopy cowboys are one and the same, are they not? Or maybe it’s just me.

Another case in point: the official release date of Tales of Symphonia was yesterday, 13 July. As of the end of today, not a single video game retailer in Calgary had a copy available. Someone tell the boys at whoever distributes for Namco around here that one should never go blindly assuming that unlike, say, DVDs, nobody’s crazy enough to track video game release dates and try to snag a copy the first day it hits shelves. One would think that the first traditional epic fantasy role-playing title for the Nintendo GameCube, especially one that has received such favourable reviews, would deserve a little more respect.

Speaking of delays, here is an interesting piece of news that has not been mentioned anywhere despite its floating around since late June: according to these minutes from a meeting of the Students’ Union Executive Committee, Rob Anderson of The Independent put in a request for $15,000 in SU sponsorship in order to continue their operations next year.

You know, for a moment I thought they would clean up their act by the time they release their second issue so it would be wholly unnecessary for me to make fun of them again, but to paraphrase what Kevin Massie said about the Singapore Institute of Management in their Worlds quarter-final, “they keep saying such silly things.” We are talking about a student paper that prides itself on being objective and eponymously independent in all the ways that the real McCoy purportedly is not. So why is it actively trying to tie itself to as many organizations as it possibly can?

Never mind that, far from being an independent journalism society with its own Board of Directors and all that jazz, The Independent is a branch operation of a politically-oriented student group. You already have a dose of eyebrow-raising upon realizing that Editor-in-Chief Weston Rudd is the Edmonton Region President of the Alberta Alliance Party. Now it looks as though the guys slapping it together realized that having an ad-free first issue is screwing them over, particularly because nobody is falling for the ruse of paying twenty bucks a year to “receive all SFASA publications and copies of The Independent“ when you can pick them up for free. Looks like “independence” comes with a price, and there is no escaping SU advertising.

If the very title of this publication is some kind of uproariously clever dose of satirical irony, by all means, point it out; after all, this here writer is not really an English major. It should be noted that the Executive is taking the right approach: see a few issues, let the paper float on its own, then cash in once it changes out of its dirty clothes, if ever. To oversimplify, SU money is student money, and is not something to needlessly fork out to this latest paper-bag princess.

As for Spider-Man 2: Next post, next post. On a tangential linguistic note, did I mention how much I love the CBC?

2002-2003 Students’ Union President and professional troublemaker – er, “active citizen” – Mike Hudema has written a book, entitled An Action a Day (Keeps Global Capitalism Away), handled by Toronto alternative publisher Between the Lines. Now he can say that he literally wrote the book on absurd media stunts that are actually pretty good at drawing media coverage, but not so good at achieving any real political dialogue. The book, which will be released on 1 May, consists of “fifty-two tried and tested actions,” one for each week. Naturally, I’m hoping that such favourite hits as storming Anne McLellan’s office and eating federal ballots made the cut.

Hudema is no Mario Savio, but one can’t fault him for trying, aside from the fact that student revolutions stopped being cool thirty years ago. Even the kind gentleman from the Students’ Union at Thammasat University, the core of the Thai democratic movement in the 1970s, was quick to point out that most students are more interested in their degrees than political protest. Mind you, what activist initiatives like those conducted under the 2002-2003 SU accomplish is often analogous to being really noisy and bugging the neighbours, followed by celebrating how much news coverage you got for bugging said neighbours, so further glorifying it is probably not the most neighbourly thing to do.

In any case, I do intend to get a hold of An Action a Day for review purposes. It’s actually quite funny to see Mr. Hudema encourage people to buy something.

Or is it “Politics is useless”? Actually, it’s both, and although the singularity of its usage is sometimes dependent on context, the line between the two is not too clear. The word is plural by all appearances, but “takes a singular verb when used to refer to the art or science of governing or to political science” according to the American Heritage Fourth entry at Dictionary.com.

Whenever politics becomes especially useless, a number of things may occur. The more glaring errors merit apologies and explanations while people scramble to figure out what just happened; take, for example, Edmonton Transit’s all-too-predictable response to the recent, prematurely-conceived referendum on the Universal Bus Pass. The infeasibility of jacking the price down to $60/semester was known by every informed student prior to the election, but even among the voting population, the informed student is a rare and beautiful creature.

Another thing that happens when politics takes a dive off the cliff is that another set of politics comes along and thinks it can do better – that is to say, dive off a much higher cliff with a triple-backflip and a cherry on top. “Self-sodomizing U-Pass referendum, eh?” said the University of Calgary, “We’ll do you one better and overturn our entire election.” Word to the wise: online voting is contingent on online competence. At the same time, what co-appellant and failed candidate Phil Barski of “Barski’s Cabinet” does not realize is that even with the election results thrown out, he still won’t take the presidency; you can only hoodwink students so far and so often with a no-platform, no-clue slate. Proof otherwise would indicate that even my limited faith in the capacity of voters is excessively optimistic.

In a somewhat more legitimate political process, last night I was re-elected to the position of U of A Debate Society Internal Director by way of acclamatory approval. This means another year of fiddling with the website – let’s face it, the current layout was a bit of a rushed job – and doodling in QuarkXPress and waiting for a newsletter to magically congeal, which is fun in the sun for everyone.

First off, I finally saw The Passion of the Christ last night, but I would hardly call my thoughts on it collected at this stage.

Relatively speaking, however, my thoughts are collected regarding tomorrow’s election. Without further ado, here’s where my votes are going – noting, of course, that the candidates are treated preferentially and these are my endorsements for first place:

President: Adam Cook. It’s a win-win this year to some extent, as both Cook and Blatz are reasonable people with both enthusiasm and tact, and I would not be uncomfortable with either in the Presidential seat – that is, until they royally screw something up. Their stances on Council issues – or in Cook’s case, his voting record – has little effect here, as there I have disagreements with each of them on certain controversies. Overall, I favour Adam on account of his experience working in the system, not just through Council and the committee structure, but especially his familiarity with services and programmes such as Orientation. Blatz has repeatedly tried to pass off his LHSA presidency as sufficient experience in a similar system of smaller scale, but from what I have observed of the structure and operations of the LHSA, the comparison is faulty. However, I would like to see both gentlemen sit on next year’s Council, and only a horrendous display of incompetence or ideological wonkiness would dissuade me from ranking Blatz highly should he run again in a year.

VP Academic: Lisa McLaughlin. Vivek is running a very similar campaign to the one he ran last year, with small technology-based solutions to immediate problems concerning schedules and textbooks. This year, that campaign is even less relevant given Stephen Kirkham’s developments at Bear Scat, as Kirkham was quick to point out at Myer. Although one can see his reasoning behind how these technical issues are the easiest to ensure repairing within the span of a year, this does not justify shunting aside the bigger picture. Lisa’s campaign, albeit rife with generalities in need of a more specific plan in the near future, is extensive, broad, and indicative of a lot of preparation going into the election.

VP External: Alex Abboud. Nobody can fault Heather for her dedication and enthusiasm, but to put her in this position amidst the volatility of a triple election year is far too risky, given her emphasis on aggressive media campaigns, gearing a significant cut of student fees to political advocacy, and her having pushed a premature Universal Bus Pass referendum on the table. The lack of tact in her “What the f@#k else do you need?” poster slogan, albeit attention-getting in the same way joke candidates are attention-getting, does not bode well. While both candidates are knowledgeable, committed and demonstrably experienced, Abboud has the upper hand on the basis of moderation.

VP Operations/Finance: Josh Bazin. It’s been said elsewhere, but this portfolio has hardly been a relevant presence this election. Law finally had a platform extending beyond the cartoon of the little guy zapping the Power Plant when he got up and spoke at the Horowitz – and granted, he had some good ideas – but a last-minute salvage of a platform does not reflect well on his readiness for the position this year. Bazin ran on a similarly thin platform, but has the edge when it comes to knowledge of how the Students’ Union actually works. There are places in the SU for newcomers, but Operations and Finance isn’t one of them, unless you are a total hack who shares a name with a hockey player who sent the Calgary Flames to the Stanley Cup finals.

VP Student Life: Carmen Gustafson. For the longest time I was going to put Daignault on top, and on my ballot, he will still finish a very close second. While he does take a status quo approach to the SL position as one focused on events and programming, which is of questionable usefulness in the grand scheme of things, he is by far the best equipped to handle the portfolio as it exists. Gustafson is a radically different candidate with an approach to bring the more neglected side of SL back into the spotlight. While I am ideologically opposed to her decidedly left-wing stance on certain issues, revitalizing SL as a useful position may pay off in the long term. This, of course, only bumps her up to second. To be quite honest, my real motivation for putting her first is because she recognizes the need for a piano on SUB Stage.

Board of Governors: Roman Kotovych. He has been one of the best student representatives in the past year, and his opponent lacks a clue.

Legacy Fund Elimination: Yes. Athletics are currently overvalued, and student fees already go to them under other blanket expenses. $3/semester is a measly sum in absolute terms, but I still expect $3/semester of added value.

Universal Bus Pass: No. Personally, as a semi-regular transit user, I like the idea of having a massive discount or subsidy of some sort on the basis of being a student. In fact, even $60/semester is getting there. The problem, however, is that the referendum question as it currently stands is junk. U-Pass should not be going to anything even approaching referendum until there is an acceptable deal already in place. The current question aims to be a bargaining chip and a yardstick of demand, yet compromises this by binding the Students’ Union. This should be defeated, though it should not be an abandonment of transit-related initiatives.