Devon 8

Article, back from August 2015, two months before the most recent Canadian federal election:

While they might seem juvenile, one political scientist suggests they’re an interesting backlash to the slick, stage-managed political advertising we now take for granted...

They certainly create the opportunity for an impact on the election, said Prof. Jonathan Rose, a political scientist at Queen’s University whose interests include political advertising.

“Because it is a sort of grassroots, clearly designed to be amateur campaign it creates the argument that there is this grassroots sentiment to stopping Harper,” Rose said.

“I think where it might be effective is providing a counterpoint to the professionalization of campaigns.”

---

There were many factors stopping Stephen Harper’s conservatives winning the 2015 federal election, but “Stop Harper” was a motif that could be seen across the country.

Months after the election, I see little analysis on the impact of this meme, though I believe it had an effect on the thinking of Canadian voters.

“I feel relieved, and finally we can change the sign from saying “Stop Harper” to “We Stopped Harper,” DePape said. “I really feel there’s a lot more hope these days.

“I feel so grateful for all the people who went out and organized to get out the vote and who voted because together we finally stopped Harper”...

I’ve been doing many non-internet things...

Not spending a few hours a day on social networking site(s) seems to free up a lot of time... funny how that works...

And I keep learning new concepts and information every time I go check back here, and I generally enjoy what I see, but I have yet to, like, find a way to sustainably integrate social networking into a functioning, productive way of living. Even when not online, I’m thinking about and distracted by whatever I’ve come across while online. Keeping myself offline, my wandering thoughts go to… planning what needs to be done. Then I do the things (mostly).

Being online has been a part of a large part of my life. It has shaped who I am. I wonder what I would’ve been without it, but I won’t ever know. The time I’ve spent online has given me many skills, but it’s also meant I haven’t worked on developing other ones.

Anyway.

Over the years there’d be people I’d see around online, and their accounts would go dormant, and I’d wonder about them, hoping things were ok for them. So, in case you were wondering- things are basically good, but I’m just not in front of screens as much these days.

Then there’s this video.

You know, some kind of “friends list” like FB or LJ.

Some people post very frequently, which is ok, but then others post less frequently and those posts can be missed.

I find it would make keeping track of things much easier.

Like, you could call them what you want, but, say, a “frequent poster” stream full of a bright cacophony of ideas. “Not on much” for those who only post once or twice a week but whose posts are enjoyed. And single-topic tumblrs could be sorted as desired. (”I’ll add this one to my ‘sharks’ feed... and this one to my ‘language humour’ feed” and so on.)

I mean, you can make an extra tumblr, but not an extra feed?

Predicting how quickly sea levels will rise is a challenge. However, two other studies just published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that the Antarctic ice sheet could melt more quickly than previously thought, and thus contribute to relatively rapid sea level rise. Over the past century, global sea level has risen faster than at any time in the past two millennia, and most of the recent sea level rise is due to human-caused global warming. Several feet of sea level rise this century is likely, with a possibility of 5 feet or more...

Right now we’re in a warm interglacial period, having come out of the last ice age (when New York City and Chicago were under an ice sheet) about 12,000 years ago. During that transition, the Earth’s average surface temperature warmed about 4°C, but that temperature rise occurred over a period of about 10,000 years.

In contrast, humans have caused nearly 1°C warming over the past 150 years, and we could trigger anywhere from another 1 to 4°C warming over the next 85 years, depending on how much more carbon we pump into the atmosphere.

What humans are in the process of doing to the climate makes the transition out of the last ice age look like a casual stroll through the park. We’re already warming the Earth about 20 times faster than during the ice age transition, and over the next century that rate could increase to 50 times faster or more. We’re in the process of destabilizing the global climate far more quickly than happens even in some of the most severe natural climate change events...