Election Prediction Project: Canadian federal election 2008

The Election Prediction web site is making AND TRACKING its predictions for federal and provincial elections.

The current predictions are these:

Changed/Les prévisions ont changés: 2:48 PM 08/10/2008

Conservatives
Conservateurs
119
Liberal Party
Party libéral
75
N.D.P.
N.P.D.
29
Bloc Québécois 41
X Other
Autres
2
Too Close
to call
42
Total 308

Centre for Inquiry Toronto

Free talks on science and skepticism can be found at the Centre for Inquiry near the University of Toronto.


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Hiroshima

It’s that time of year again. The anniversary of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, with their horrific toll of civilian deaths, devastating burns, and lingering radiation sickness, are upon us again.

A burned victim of the atomic bomb at Hiroshima

A burned victim of the atomic bomb at Hiroshima

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Cyclon 2008

I’m not there. I’m here. This is a long weekend in Ontario.

Cyclon 2007

Cyclon 2007

Horrific car-bike accident in Mexico

One thing that bothers me about getting around by bike is the fragility of the vehicle. Drivers don’t often see us; in fact, the other day I saw a driver turn left into the path of a cyclist who had the right of way, strike him amidships and bounce him off the hood. Luckily, the car was going slowly; but the driver had just seen the cyclist and discounted him because “cyclists don’t move that fast.” The cyclist was unhurt and went on his way after a brief lecture on rules of the road and a sarcastic comment. So that’s one car-bike interaction that won’t get into the city’s statistics.  This cyclist was in the right, but about 80% of those I see make dangerous and unpredictable moves. I’m amazed that more don’t get hurt.

Still, the nightmare is to be riding along, minding your own business, when a car ploughs into you or your group. It happened a few weeks ago in the U.S. when a deputy “fell asleep at the wheel” and killed someone. He may have been drunk but we won’t know because no one took a blood sample on the scene and secured it. Any blood sample that turns up later is questionable. And it happened the other day in Mexico when a driver, apparently drunk, “fell asleep at the wheel” and slammed into a bicycle race at speed.

car slams into cyclists, Mexico

Ålesund landslide and fire

On March 26, part of a cliff in Ålesund, Norway, broke loose and slid, demolishing the lower two floors of an apartment building and pushing part of the building into the street. A 3-ton propane tank caught fire and had to burn itself out before rescue workers could go in. Five people were missing.

Geologists said as much as 7,300 tons of stone — some of it in huge slabs — slid down a steep hillside near downtown Ålesund in the early hours of Wednesday. The rocks slammed into the back of the six-story building, causing the lower floors to collapse as the whole structure was jolted up to 23 feet forward.

It seems that geologists had warned that there was a fault in the rock that could let go, but planners and builders assumed it wouldn’t happen soon—like Canadian Prime Minister Harper assuring everyone that we didn’t need a backup power supply for one of our nuclear cooling systems because he guaranteed there wouldn’t be an earthquake in the next three months.

Aalesund, Norway, landslide

Links:

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STC Toronto’s previous meetings

I stopped updating the STC Toronto Web site in 2004, after my two-year term as Webmaster. Until then, we have meeting descriptions and speaker profiles. That is useful for prospective members.

2008

2007
Programme Manager, Todd Race

  • December - Wine & Cheese
  • November - DITA in the Trenches, Steve Manning
  • October - DITA - Michael Priestley, IBM Canada
  • September 11 -
  • June 12 - Chapter Wine & Cheese party plus Technical Publication Contest awards
  • May
  • April 10 - Chicken Soup for the Tech Writer’s Soul - Andrew Brooke
  • March
  • February
  • January - Top 10 Mistakes People Make When Looking for Work - Jack Molisani, ProSpring Staffing

2006
Programme Manager, Todd Race

  • December
  • November 14 - chapter Town Hall meeting
  • October - Kent Taylor of Acrolinx spoke about a software copy editor with artificial intelligence. Richard Mann spoke about the upcoming STC Annual Conference in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis-St. Paul (May 13-16, 2007).
  • September 12 - Intuitive images: evaluating and enhancing the usability of visual information with Patrick Hofmann
  • June
  • May 8 - Office 2007: The Future is Here, with Neman Syed
  • April - STC Meeting on Networking, with Patrick McCormack
  • March
  • February 16 - Single Sourcing SIG meeting - Introduction to XML, with Bernard Aschwanden
  • February 13 - Championing Standards in Technical Documentation - with Ralph Robinson
  • January 19 - Single Sourcing SIG meeting
  • January 9 - Content Management, with Ann Rockley

2005

  • December
  • November 26 - Workshop: Winning strategies for tough job matrkets, with Pamela Patterson
  • November 15 - 16 - Workshop: Implementation Strategies for Content Management workshop, Ann Rockley
  • November 8 - Technical Editing with Robert Milkovich
  • October 20 - Single Sourcing SIG meeting, Practical Authoring with DITA, with Bill Rabkim from Idiom Technologies and Jerry Silver from Blast Radius
  • October 11 - Help and Documentation Authoring in Doc-To-Help, With Michael Eisenstein of ComponentOne
  • September 29 - Single Sourcing SIG meeting,
  • September - Adobe FrameMaker 7.2, with Bernard Aschwanden; 2004-2005 chapter-level awards
  • September 7-8: Workshop: Content Modeling and Structured Writing - The Rockley Group
  • June 16 - Single Sourcing SIG meeting - round-table discussion of single-sourcing projects
  • June 14 -
  • May 19 - Single-Sourcing SIG Meeting: Developing EDDs for Structured FrameMaker, with Bernard Aschwanden
  • May
  • April 21 - Single-Sourcing SIG Meeting: Semantic Content, Alex Povzner, Chief Technology Officer from SiberLogic
  • April
  • March 17 - Single-Sourcing SIG Meeting: Michael Priestley presents a DITA Update
  • March
  • February 8 - STC Annual Wine & Cheese party: Going ‘Head to Head’ with Information, Presented by Barry Clegg
  • January 20 - Single Sourcing SIG meeting
  • January 11 - An Introduction to Information Architecture for Technical Writers, with Steven Lemay

2004

2003

2002

2001

  • December 11 - Can technical writers bridge the usability gap? Solving social problems by design - Prof. Kim Vicente, University of Toronto
  • November 13 - An XML architecture for documentation - Michael Priestley, IBM
    Canada
  • October 9 - Low-cost single-sourcing - Tim Grantham, CRS Robotics
  • September 11 - Creating usable PDFs - Shlomo Perets, MicroType, Inc., Israel.
  • June 12 - Report on the STC’s annual international conference. Presentation
    of annual chapter awards.
  • May 8 - Getting the most out of your graphic designer - Brian Grebow, We Are Your Type; David Hines, Riça Night (moderator)
  • April 10 - Dealing with difficult people - Bill Byrd, Toronto District School Board
  • March 13 - Challenges of online learning - Cherie Ferrari, CDI Learning Inc.
    February 13 - Wine and cheese party - Knowledge Management
    - Jamie Conklin
  • January 9 - Training is not documentation - Kathleen McAleer and Karen Conlin, Financial Models Corp.

2000

  • December 12 - Writing for the Web - Kate Baggott, Blast Radius
  • November 14 - panel discussion on Management - Berktin, Morgenstein, Paterson, & Anderson
  • October 10 - New printing technologies - John Negru, Leading Graphics
  • September 12 - Getting paid what you’re worth - Mona Albano, David Gow, Laurie Pearce
  • June 13
  • May 9 - Effective usability techniques for Web-based design - Deb Maskens, Patrick Hofmann, Leanne Logan
  • April 11 - Single Sourcing panel - Ann Rockley, Steve Chalastra, Bob McIlvride, Dawn Curtis, moderator Jane Aronovitch
  • March 14 - Humour in Technical Communication - Carolyn Watt, Mark Hanigan
  • February 8 - Wine & cheese party with Software Tools café
  • January 11 - Words, Pictures, and Practice in Technical Communication - Bob Krull, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

1999

  • December 14 - Web-based training and the future of knowledge management - Michelle Hutchinson of Hutchinson Communications
  • November 9 - Corporate Portals - Doug Knox of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and John Wooden
  • October 12 - STC competition: display of 1998 International Competition winning entries. Discussion of STC competition - Jane Aronovitch, Catherine McNair, Deb Maskens, and Roy Hartshorn
  • September 14 - Fantasies, fears, and science in the public mind - Bob McDonald of CBC’s Quirks and Quarks science programme
  • June 8 - Finding your Niche — “Technical Communication: What We Do and How We Do It” - Joe Cooper, Patrick Hofmann, Pamela Kostur, Gordon Miller, Ralph Robinson, Gilda Spitz, and Mary-Ann Wilson
  • May 11
  • April 13
  • March 9
  • February 9
  • January 12

1998

  • December 9
  • November 10
  • October 13
  • September 8
  • June 9 - field trip to the Bell Centre for Creative Communications, Centennial College - Nancy Paterson and Scot Cameron
  • May 12 - Pushing the information envelope: New information retrieval strategies
  • April 14 - Richard Reynolds, CBC Newsworld
  • March 10 - Electronic document management systems - Ann Rockley
  • February 10 - wine & cheese party - Leading the Internet revolution - Dr. W. John Reeves and Michael Lordly of infinet Communications
  • January 13 - Preventing repetitive strain injury - Dwayne Van Eerd

1997

  • December 9 - Designing user-centred interfaces - Paul Eisen, CIBC
  • November 11 - Less is more: Web publishiing systems for wired communities - Ron Reisenbach, Telepresence Systems Inc.
  • October 14 - What makes a winner? - STC Publications contest
  • September 9 - Lessons learned - Jane Aronovitch, Stephanie Copp, Roy Hartshorn, Michelle Hutchinson, Ben Keevil, Leanne Logan, Ralph Robinson, Ann Rockley, and Carolyn Watt
  • June 10
  • May 13
  • April 8
  • March 11
  • February 11
  • January 14

1996

  • December 10
  • November 12
  • October 8
  • September 10
  • August 13 - executive meeting
  • June 11 - Education for Technical Communication - Roy Hartshorn, Stephanie Copp, Cherie Ferrari
  • May 5 - 8 - International Technical Communication Conference in Seattle
  • April 9
  • March 12 - The Value of Technical Communication - Saul Carliner (or a presentation by Art Young and Linda Meissenheimer)
  • February 13
  • January 9

1995

  • December 12 - The Value of Online Documentation - Ann Rockley; Christmas reception
  • November 14 - Project Management
  • October 10 - travelling exhibit - last year’s competition winners
  • September 12 - Marketing Technical Communication - Jamie Conklin
  • June 23 - executive meeting
  • June 13
  • May 9 - introduction of executive and their duties
  • April 11
  • March 14
  • February 14
  • January 10

1994

  • December 13
  • November 8
  • October 11
  • September 13
  • June 14 - ISO standards and documentation - William Zub of QMI
  • May 10 - How technical writers write - Dave Goodwin (planned)
  • April 10 - Competitive analysis of online documentation software (planned)
  • March 8 - Audience and task analysis - David Sigatich, Instructional designer at CIBC (planned)
  • February 8 - Show and Tell our of work (planned)
  • January 11 - Translation issues (planned)

1993

  • December 14 - Christmas dinner and dance
  • November 9 - Demo of online documentation from the competition- Tony Alderson
  • October 12 - What is SGML? - Phil Robataille (planned)
  • September 14 -
  • June 8 - new executive and next year’s programme
  • May 11 - Reading theory - Dale Willows
  • April 12 - Research from University of Waterloo
  • March 27 - STC awards night
  • March 9 - Usability - Desirée Sy
  • February 9 - Contracting and the Contractors’ SIG
  • January 12 - Online documentation demos - Dov Lungu, John Cameron, Ann Rockley

1992

  • December 15 - STC Toronto Christmas party
  • December 8 - dinner meeting followed by The editing process - Ann Stilman - and collection of children’s books for Christmas donation
  • December 1 - executive meeting
  • November 17 - Consulting Professional Interest Committee dinner meeting followed by general meeting
  • October 13 - Graphics with text - Mike Rosen
  • October 5 - executive meeting
  • September 19 - Picnic and corn roast in Niagara-on-the-Lake with Rochester Chapter
  • September 8 - Contractors’ SIG dinner meeting followed by general meeting
  • August 11 - Contractors’ SIG dinner meeting
  • July 14 - Contractors’ SIG dinner meeting - Estimating
  • July 13 - executive meeting
  • June 9
  • May 12
  • April 14
  • March 10
  • February 11
  • January 14

1991

  • December 10
  • November 12
  • October 8
  • September 10
  • June 11 - Plain Language
  • May 14 - Annual conference - no Toronto meeting
  • April 9 - Education and course evaluations
  • March 12
  • February 12 - Persuasive writing: ethos, rhetoric, sales
  • January 8

1990

  • December
  • November
  • October
  • September - Hypertext
  • June - ITCC recap and presentations
  • May - International TC conference: no Toronto meeting
  • April - Training
  • March - presentation of competition awards
  • February - Time management and project management
  • January - Design and production

1989

  • December - Training videos
  • November - Employment and free trade
  • October - Desktop publishing exhibition
  • 10 - 13 September - Technicom ‘89 conference; Keynote speaker: Ed Weiss. No general meeting
  • June 12 - ITCC recap and presentations - Roy Hartshorn, Don Hinson, David Gow, Steve Vincent
  • May
  • April
  • March
  • February
  • January

1988

  • (executive meeting: Tuesday before meeting)
  • 13 December - Time Management - Joan Lee
  • 8 November
  • 11 October
  • 2 October - STC dinner meeting
  • 13 September
  • 14 June
  • 18 May - Freelancers’ (”Gypsy”) SIG dinner meeting
  • 10 May
  • 13 April
  • 8 March
  • 4 March - STC competition awards banquet
  • 23 February - STC Ventura Publisher SIG meeting
  • 9 February
  • 26 January - STC Training SIG meeting - Ed Weiss
  • 20 January - STC Freelancers’ SIG dinner meeting
  • 12 January - Career night

1987

  • December
  • November
  • October
  • September
  • June
  • May
  • April
  • March
  • February
  • January

1986

  • December
  • November
  • October
  • September
  • June
  • May
  • April
  • March
  • February
  • January

Links to the Toronto STC Web site:

STC Toronto meeting: Writing to sell

Kara Kuryllowicz shares what she’s learned from assorted clients and editors over more than two decades as a corporate and magazine writer.

Good writing starts before the writer gets anywhere near a keyboard. It all begins with the right attitude. Then you do the appropriate research and ask the right questions. She’ll give you tips on writing the first few lines – the hardest part for many of us.

Kara takes you through a process that produces marketing copy that will help sell your firm’s products and services. She’ll also share:

  • the rules she’s learned to write by
  • ideas on how to conquer (or at least manage) writer’s block
  • feeding your creativity

Kara has kindly provided a copy of her slides on Writing to Sell (opens a PowerPoint file).


Kara has tackled such wildly disparate topics as scuba diving with sharks, ice machines, beer ,and industrial coatings, both online and in print.Kara Kuryllowicz is BizWrite. Independently employed for the past 16 years, she has provided content and copy for clients such as Labatt Breweries of Canada, Cadillac Fairview, Maclean’s and a host of small to medium-size corporations. She writes for a range of consumer (Profit, SOHO, Toronto Star) and business press.

Kara is a graduate of Ryerson Polytechnic University’s School of Journalism. She worked full-time for Maclean Hunter, Southam Communications and Imperial Life of Canada before striking out on her own.

She’s a member of the Editors Association of Canada, the Periodical Writers Association of Canada, Digital Eve and of course, IABC.

She’s also the author of tourist guides on Ottawa and Chicago and a coffee-table book on the Canadian Rockies.

Wayne MacPhail takes aim at bad websites