Newsstand: February 9, 2010
Duly Quoted: Adam Giambrone
Bob Kinnear isn't Greg Kinnear
Newsstand: February 8, 2010
Scale Model City, Actual-Size Grime
By winter's end, at the rate we're going, the CN Tower will be converted into luxury lofts with the world's highest ceilings. And when Toronto is nothing but condos, will we have to start slowly converting them back into dive bars? Not that the Cameron House, which just went up for sale, is necessarily slated for the residential treatment, but with an asking price of $2.9 million, it doesn't look like a bunch of artists and aspiring musicians will be able to chip in to keep the place going. Hopefully the giant ants will get a grandfathered lease, or at least be saved from the dumpster.
You know what were awesome? Adult tickets for the TTC! Nothing else gave your wallet that awkward rectangular bulge right in the middle like those tearable wads of disposable cardstock you couldn't use at automatic turnstiles. And when they used to change the colours of the tickets so that the ones you already had weren't good for a ride anymore? That so rocked. While we're stinging from the biggest fare hike in a decade, it would be really cool of the TTC to bring those babies back for a victory lap, and maybe suspend token sales altogether except at single-serve dispensing machines, to make sure everyone can get in on the nostalgic fuck-you over the next six weeks.
The AGO's ready to open its Tut exhibit tomorrow, and they promise that the king's extended stay with them will be marked by the sort of good taste, decorum, and class we've come to expect from the gallery. And for an extra six bucks, you can take the audio tour narrated by one Harrison "Indiana Jones" Ford. About half the price of admission will go back to Egypt to compensate them for Tut and Tut-related goods and services.
And, do you think you or a friend might have graduated from York? Better check and make sure. After being publicly shamed a little while back when the Star uncovered a former York student running a degree-forging scam, the school is putting their students' graduation records online to clear the air. Now, you can browse to their site, "YU Verify," where you can type in a person's name and instantly find out what degree, if any, they earned there. So far, everyone's story has checked out, but hey, you never know.
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Wowzers—how does YU Verify not violate some sort of privacy policy?
That was similar to my first thought, but then I remembered the crazy shit you sign off on when you become a student.
My friend just bought 5 tokens from the guy in booth at Spadina station this morning around 9:50. I suppose the employees aren't doing what managment has asked. Shocking!
Are people that embarrassed to be graduates of York?
Verifying degrees for third parties (potential employers, for example) is standard. And getting a degree is a pretty public act, as I recall walking across the stage at Convocation Hall in front of my classmates families.
You need to get their student number to sign in. You probably can't get that without the person's permission. One thing I noticed though is that they give the person's birth date which is not something a job applicant is otherwise obliged to give.
To secretly check in on your friends, roommates, and potential employees using their name only, just click the "search by biographical information" link near the top of the page.
Below is an excerpt from the email York University sent me in response to my question of whether this system is a breach of privacy. Translated into English, it basically says: "Quit complaining and be glad we don't sell your blood type, club memberships, and annual household income to advertisers."
Currently, YU Verify seems to have a security glitch that makes it possible to find identify current York students. Try it, it'll give you different responses depending on whether they have a degree, don't have one yet, or aren't on track to earn one. If you got around York's vintage-looking captcha test, you could automatically extract a list of all York grads and current students dating back as far as their registry goes. Not that that information has any marketing value—no one wants to pitch junk to university students, right? All this info falls under the heading of what York policy calls for "routinely" giving out to third parties. Here's the text:
"It is the University’s policy to make the following
information routinely available:
• current registration status in a particular college,
school, faculty or division in a particular session
including whether or not a student is currently pursuing
studies on a full or part-time basis;
• current field of studies (e.g., major, minor, certificate
program, stream);
• whether or not a student has received a particular
academic award, honour or distinction whether from York or
an external third party; and,
• degree(s) or credential(s) that have been conferred by the
University and the date(s) of conferral."
This Adam Giambrone "rocket talk" quote from a couple of weeks ago is more and more amusing with each passing day:
"The TTC is behind other systems in its fare collection methods, but this might just end up being an advantage in an unexpected way."
For sure, if industrial civilisation collapses we won't be reliant on them newfangled computers to keep things runnin'.
Is it just me or does it seem more and more like Giambrone & co are making this up as they go along?
Just you.
This article is clearly factually wrong. The TTC website says nothing about suspending token sales (or about pending fare increases) and I can't imagine an organization so skilled in public relations would neglect to publicize such measures on their own site. So this must be an imaginative creation of Torontoist and other corporate media.