Like this: A 50-year-old man faces numerous charges for firearms and public mischief after an armed standoff with police at a Swiss Chalet in Toronto's west end on Friday afternoon.
The word Numerous is being used here as short form for "a really large amount", when it really means "beyond number".
The legal system is a precise world. There is an actual number of charges that this man is facing, but the journalists in question realize that the reading public really don't care what this number is. And because writing something like A 50-year-old faces a really large number of charges [...] sounds like you are in grade school, the word "numerous" has been inserted instead.
It is lazy, imprecise use of language.
2010-07-24
2010-07-09
I Like This Idea
This is going to sound a little strange when compared with past opinions, but...
This idea of extending LRT to Landsdown is an idea I like.
It seems to me that thinking about things this was is exactly what you want to do in order to promote "smart" growth. If we are going to do LRT, and if we are going to do Landsdown, then gluing the two together is to me a no-brainer.
It occurs to me that any LRT which improves the lives of those of us who live out in the suburbs is only going to encourage the growth in those suburbs. If you are serious about densification, then you have to do two things:
You still have to deal with the problem that the same money in the city buys a fraction of the living space that it does in the city. There is probably no real solution to that problem. But by making the surrounding city more inviting goes a long way towards correcting the perceived imbalance, especially since you are not actively trying to make life in the suburbs more convenient.
(Timely: the Bulldog on roadworks projects.)
This idea of extending LRT to Landsdown is an idea I like.
It seems to me that thinking about things this was is exactly what you want to do in order to promote "smart" growth. If we are going to do LRT, and if we are going to do Landsdown, then gluing the two together is to me a no-brainer.
It occurs to me that any LRT which improves the lives of those of us who live out in the suburbs is only going to encourage the growth in those suburbs. If you are serious about densification, then you have to do two things:
- make the core of the city an inviting place to live through public works improvements like this, and
- stop making the places you want to discourage people living in more inviting.
You still have to deal with the problem that the same money in the city buys a fraction of the living space that it does in the city. There is probably no real solution to that problem. But by making the surrounding city more inviting goes a long way towards correcting the perceived imbalance, especially since you are not actively trying to make life in the suburbs more convenient.
(Timely: the Bulldog on roadworks projects.)
2010-07-03
More, On Comments
Drew Curtis, founder of irreverent Fark.com, disputes the "wisdom of crowds":
I can't decide which is more ironic -- the fact that Slashdot carried this, or the fact that TheHill.com has comments below this story.
Curtis pointed to his own experience moderating comments on Fark, which allows users to give their often humorous take on the news of the day. He said only one percent of Web comments have any value and called the rest "garbage."I have no illusions as to which side of the 99%-1% divide I reside on.
I can't decide which is more ironic -- the fact that Slashdot carried this, or the fact that TheHill.com has comments below this story.
Movie Fan Fail
Epic hate for Avatar: The Last Airbender:
My favourite? The fan who's dressed up, who says "I should have gone to see Twilight."
Epic.
My favourite? The fan who's dressed up, who says "I should have gone to see Twilight."
Epic.
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