Petter only has one more try at PIN before Booster Juice rejects his card.
Horoscopes: June 11th
Aries (March 21 – April 20)
The stars have no idea where those 10 bucks went? What you do mean you don’t believe them? Are you calling the stars a liar?
Taurus (April 21 – May 21)
Sometimes death is meaningful, profound. Sometimes, you’re crushed to death by afalling jet turbine.
Gemini (May 22 – June 21)
Looks like today’s going to be a real ‘gem’ of a day. (Submitted by Will Ross)
Cancer (June 22 – July 22)
Vague cosmological forces will cause a vending machine to eat your money this week because to be frank, the universe thinks you could stand to lose a few.
Leo (July 23 – August 22)
Looks like Venus is in your sign this week. I mean you specifically asked the waiter for no Venus, and made sure he circled it. But whatever.
Virgo (August 23 – September 23)
Good news! That skittering noise in your walls isn’t raccoons. Just ghosts. The ghosts of dead raccoons
Libra (September 24 – October 23)
Money will once again slip out of your hands, as you continue to refuse to stop buttering your palms.
Scorpio (October 24 – November 22)
You unhealthy obsession with cats will reach a tipping point, when you begin sectioning off your apartment into cat counties.
Sagittarius (November 23 – December 21)
The stars don’t have anything to say to you. Not after the ‘quasar’
incident last Thursday.
Capricorn (December 22 – January 20)
Awkwardness will ensue, when you can’t decide which family to spend Sunday with, your regular or your secret one.
Aquarius (January 21 – February 19)
Ooh, yikes. You know what, you might just want to get back in to bed. Just ride this week out under the covers.
Pieces (February 20 – March 20)
This week all Pieces will be forced into a global battle-royal for amusement of the astrological signs.
Jubilee Hi-jinks: An infographic
By Gary Lim and Colin Sharp
Last week, Queen Elizabeth II celebrated her diamond jubilee, commemorating her 60-year-long rule over England, as well as the 45th anniversary of Prince Charles wondering if “he’ll ever get a crack at that throne, because at this point this is just goddamn ridiculous.” Anyways — in commemoration of the commemoration, The Peak has decided to show our respects to our favourite monarch with a little English history lesson. Queen Elizabeth II, this is your life!
1948 — Prince Charles is born, presumably as a 55-year-old man.
1952 — Coronated as queen, spends the day calling up old duchess friends to flaunt
it in their face.
1953 — Jokingly shouts “OFF WITH HIS HEAD” at servant. Promises never to do
that again.
1961 — Switches places with a commoner who bear striking resemblance to herself.
Learns valuable lesson about stepping into other peoples’ shoes.
1966 — Poses for face on money. Feels awkward paying for things with pictures of
self. Then realizes will never have to pay for anything again.
1969 — Man walks on moon. This doesn’t have anything to do with the Queen of
England, but she’s been there for a while.
1977 — Celebrates Silver Jubilee. Has fun, but not that much fun. For that is the
English way.
1990 — Amasses personal fortune in swimming pool and dives into it a la Scrooge
McDuck from the current and relevant DuckTales cartoon.
1994 — Contemplates war with France for old times sake.
2002 — Celebrates Golden Jubilee, getting kind of sick of jubilees at this point.
2012 — Celebrates Diamond Jubilee, ugh.
2052 — Centennial anniversary of rule. Quiet night in the royal burial plot with the
throne they were unable to remove from her cold dead hands.
Call me maybe: The trouble with telemarketers
By Denise Wong
TELEMARKETER CALLING
We’ve all gotten unwelcome calls from telemarketers, even cursed them or hung up on them. “About 30 per cent would just hang up [on me],” confirms Dana, who used to work as a telemarketer. “Reading that script over and over all day made you sound like a recording after a while. I . . . had one man get angry and say that we’re robots.”
Last winter, I was on the receiving end of a negative telemarketer experience: a telemarketer called me, telling me about a new telephone add-on service, which I politely declined. I expected the conversation to end there, but this guy was persistent. After several painful minutes of varying my refusal, he switched gears and asked me: “So what’s your name?” Despite being no expert on the telemarketing business, the question was unsettling. A complete stranger (who, for all I know, may not even be a real telemarketer) had access to my phone number and now wanted to know my name? Call me paranoid, but a voice in my head was screaming “stranger danger.” Since I was in no mood for conflict, I politely told him that I did not think it was necessary to disclose that information if I had no interest in his offer. He told me that my “nice voice” had sparked his curiosity. That got me thinking: what is the point of telemarketers, and could our society do without them?
THE FACTS
The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) regulates and supervises Canadian broadcasting and telecommunications. It exists to make sure those services actually serve the needs and interests of Canadian citizens, industries, and interest groups, and its policies are guided by the Broadcasting Act, Telecommunications Act, and Unsolicited Telecommunications Rules. One of the most important provisions of their existence is to protect Canadians from unsolicited communications — which means that no telemarketer is legally allowed to contact a household or person against their wishes. On CRTC’s official website, there is a National Do Not Call List (DNCL) where Canadians can register their number if they do not want to receive telemarketing calls. Once registered, the number will be added to the list within 24 hours. Telemarketers have a legal obligation to update their information on a monthly basis to make sure they do not call anyone that registered their numbers. The number will remain registered on the DNCL for five years, after which time, they must be registered again. Some calls — registered charities, newspapers, political parties and candidates, and any business you permit to contact you — are exempt from the DNCL.
The Unsolicited Telecommunications Rules set guidelines that telemarketers must follow. A telemarketer is expected to identify who they are, and to be able to provide a valid fax or telephone number upon request. The number they are calling from must be displayed, and they are only allowed to contact you between certain hours. They are also not allowed to use devices that make automatic calls with a pre-recorded message, unless it is from the police or fire department, schools, hospitals and/or appointment reminders.
THE GOOD LIFE DEBACLE
Automatic calls — recently getting press as “robo-calls” — are a much bigger deal than they may seem: GoodLife Fitness Centers were ordered to pay a $300,000 fine to the receiver general (who, among other things, accepts money on the government’s behalf) for their violation of this specific provision in 2011. The calls were only meant to notify club members of new club openings and to invite them to the opening events, but the problem was that they used automated calling devices without first obtaining consent from their clients. “Telemarketers that inundate Canadians with unwanted phone calls are not engaging in a legitimate marketing practice,” said Andrea Rosen, the CRTC chief compliance and enforcement officer in a statement regarding this event. “We expect the business community to follow the rules at all times, and we will vigorously investigate breaches.” In addition to the fine, GoodLife agreed to stop breaking the CRTC’s rules, organized a business education event in association with the CRTC to endorse compliance with telemarketing rules, and published corrective notices.
However, is it only big companies like GoodLife that are held to a higher standard of accountability? If and when shit hits the fan, smaller startup companies are less likely to be held accountable because less people know and care about them — why bother with the little fish in a big vast ocean? Let it flap around a while and it’ll tire itself out, right? Maybe not. In a February 2010 Globe and Mail article, “Only the lonely heed the call of the telemarketer,” Leah McLaren postulated that workaholics (or in our case, students staring at a book or computer screen for an extended period of time) eventually become desperate for social interaction. That makes them potentially defenseless against telemarketers and all their ploys. And this is indeed something that telemarketers sometimes play on. “From listening to the older people who did this daily, you would learn how to be sly and work your way to convince people,” admits Dana. “I would say kindness was key [in convincing people to talk to you].”
The CRTC takes their National Do Not Call List very seriously: in April of this year alone, 11 small companies were penalized with fines totaling to $41,000 for more serious breaches, while Bell Canada received a $1.3-million fine for calling Canadians who had registered on the DNCL in December 2010. Since its establishment in September 2008, the list has grown to approximately 10.6 million registered phone numbers, with so many people trying to register online on the first day of registration for the DNCL that the server crashed approximately nine hours after it was launched.
Ironically, Bell Canada was the company responsible for operating the DNCL and fixing the crashed server at this time. The amount of people registering their numbers on the first day of the initiative greatly exceeded expectations, which is a pretty good indication of how desperate the general public were — and evidently still are — to be free of telemarketing calls.
Everything seems set in place for telemarketers to be held accountable to the public, but is the Do Not Call List just another good idea that works well in theory, but not necessarily in practice? In March 2010, the federal government revealed that although they had imposed $73,000 in fines for violations regarding the DNCL since 2008, only $250 had actually been collected. None of the companies had officially refused to pay the fine, they just didn’t pay it. The point isn’t whether or not the CRTC is doing their job, but that they have made multiple attempts to make telemarketing less of a nuisance for Canadians. The CRTC can continue to review and revamp their system and find new ways to ensure accountability from companies and individual telemarketers, but why waste all that time and effort to maintain and control something as trivial as telemarketing? Other strategies, like advertising in newspapers or on websites such as YouTube, would be much more effective than calling home after home only to have random people hang up on you. It’s a depressing job for the telemarketer, a pain for whoever has to answer the call, and rarely earns the small company any business.
THE TELEMARKETER EXPERIENCE
“The older people were very kind and helpful, [but] the management didn’t care about you at all,” says Dana of her experience. “You made your own hours and did as you pleased. But you made $10 an hour, and minimum wage was $8.25 at the time. Money is money.” On one side of the line, there are Canadians who want to have their privacy protected and their rights respected — and the CRTC is working towards that goal. On the other side, however, telemarketers themselves might be pleasant people caught doing a job they don’t like. But they wouldn’t need our sympathy if they had an alternative.
Callers aren’t particularly fond of telemarketers, telemarketers aren’t particularly fond of telemarketing, and with all other media available, new businesses do not absolutely need to rely on telemarketing methods. “It was an experience,” admits Dana. “But I would never do it again.”
Change ahead for Canadian hockey
Image by: Mark Burnham
Hockey is a part of Canadian culture. If you ask just about anyone, Canadian or not, they’ll tell you this. Despite this, Canadians seem to be growing tired of their beloved sport, with many choosing to forgo watching the Stanley Cup Finals. Yes, this is largely because of the lackluster performances from the Canadian teams, but if that’s what it takes for us to stop caring, one wonders how much longer hockey will be able to maintain its prominent role in Canadian society.
This has not been a good year for Canadian hockey teams. Yes, the Canucks won the President’s Trophy for a second straight year, but when a team loses to an eighth-seeded team in the first round of the playoffs, that counts for very little.
In addition to this, we saw the most successful hockey team ever in the NHL, the Montreal Canadiens, fall to last in the Eastern Conference, a new Winnipeg team fare little better than they did while they were in Atlanta, and the Maple Leafs do what everyone expects them to do anyways: lose. When the Edmonton Oilers having the first overall pick in the draft once again is the biggest story about a Canadian team in the offseason, there’s clearly reason for fans to be frustrated. But what impact will this frustration have?
For starters, there’s the immediate impact on broadcasters. Canadian broadcasters that hold the rights to the playoff games simply don’t get their money’s worth when Canadian teams aren’t faring well. Companies looking to advertise know that when we don’t have reason to watch, we probably won’t. But what effect does that have on hockey? Well, when it comes to NHL activity in Canada, we may actually see an improvement. It has long been speculated that the NHL has been less interested in developing new teams in Canada when considering either expansion or moving teams, because Canadians would watch the games anyways. If the playoffs this year have proven anything, it’s that this is clearly not the case. If Canadians don’t have an investment in the game, they won’t watch it. Period. Once the league notices this, they may realize that they cannot expect the market to grow if they ignore it like they have in the past.
While increasing teams may encourage more Canadians to watch the sport, the ratings in the playoffs this year have suggested something far more serious: we are no longer watching hockey for hockey’s sake. When we stop watching because our team isn’t in the playoffs, we show that it is not the love of the game that is driving our commitment to the sport, but our love of our team. This change isn’t inherently good or bad, but we must consider what it means for Canadian hockey. If we are no longer paying attention to professional hockey for a love of the game, fewer people will play the sport, and with less enthusiasm. If kids are not raised for the game, but rather for a team, they may follow that team religiously, but will be less enthusiastic to actually play. Again, this isn’t inherently a bad thing, and may aid the profitability of Canadian teams, but it is a serious departure from the past outlook, when we considered it a point of pride that we not only had successful teams, but that we produced successful players. Sure, Lemieux played for the Penguins, Orr for the Bruins, and Howe for the Red Wings, but they were Canadians, so we loved them anyways.
The changing attitude towards hockey in Canada may encourage the NHL to actually pay more attention to the market. But this pales in comparison to a much larger issue that we are facing. As we stop caring about hockey for the sake of hockey, we are turning a page in our county’s culture, forcing us to gauge our priorities: do we want more Canadians in the NHL, or do we want more Canadian teams?
Campus Shorts: June 11th
Breakthrough in time travel
SFU professor Henrik Lieberman, an associate professor in the faculty of theoretical physics, made his way into the history books quite literally last week when he successfully sent several cesium atoms 3.8 milliseconds into the past.
Lieberman was part of a national team of scientists funded by a grant from CIFAR. Over the course of a five-year period, the team delved into the mysteries of time and space, eventually constructing the groundbreaking time-machine device.
CIFAR ethicist Jillian Opsa hails the breakthrough as “monumentous, unparalled in its significance.” But she warns that the austerity of such technology should not overshadow its potential danger. “Any application of this technology, if we even decide to use it, would need to be strictly controlled. Even slightly altering the time-stream would have incredibly destructive results. Causality is not something to be trifled with.”
The news comes just in time for the annual Hitler day parade, when the fuhrer will be stopping in das kanada to inspect the technology himself.
– Sara Sehra
SFU introduces fleet of therapy dogs
In order to improve the student experience on campus, the SFSS have instated a new “therapy dog” program, where free-wandering canines would be present across the campus for students to pet and play with.
The dogs, four dozen adult male rottweilers, would patrol the campus 24 hours a day, seeking out students displaying tell-tale signs of depression or stress and consoling them with brutal efficency.
Natalie Georgovic, an SFSS representative, spoke with The Peak about the new initiative. “It’s tough being a student, these therapy dogs will go a long way to relieve the stress that accumulates over a semester. Best of all they can pick up even the slightest hint of anxiety or fear, so even if you don’t think you’re stressed, the dogs will know. They will always know.”
“We tried using dobermans, pit bulls, even german shepherds, but in the end, we chose rottweilers for their group intelligence. You would be amazed at the tactical capabilites of these dogs.”
– Francine Francis
Man with bachelor’s of calligraphy now has 147 degrees
Evan Smith, the only graduate of the calligraphy program of the Bachelor of Fine Arts, made history this week as the most decorated student to graduate SFU, graduating with each of the 147 different degrees offered by the institution.
Not only has the 23-year-old prodigy broken the record for most degrees issued, he also boasts the greatest range of fields of study, spanning accounting, actuarial science, anthropology, archaeology, astronomy . . . and zoology.
A notable step up from humble beginnings, when Smith was the only graduate of the now-defunct calligraphy program last spring.
Leon Chompala, the dean of mathematics (one of the over 12 dozen faculties that Smith has graduated from) told The Peak, “No, I don’t recall ever seeing [Smith] around the math department, or in any classes. But look at how accomplished he is; he was probably busy with one of his other 146 degrees.”
In other news, a ream of blank official SFU certificates has gone missing; anyone who finds the missing documents is advised to immediately return them to a university official.
– Eric Erikson
By Gary Lim
Graduands look forward to receiving well-paying, satisfying jobs after graduating
By Gary Lim
BURNABY — Triumphant cheers and graduation caps flew through the air last Friday as the final graduating class of summer 2012 completed their convocation ceremony.
The Peak spoke with Valerie Burkhart, a recent communications graduate. “[laughs] It’s been a long time coming now. These last few weeks really snuck up on me, I’ve kind of been lost in a perpetual daze of exams, essays and ‘graduation pending approval.’
“But now, after walking across that stage and with my diploma in hand. I’m positive that I’m now ready to step out of this gown and into a six-figure, emotionally satisfying job downtown.” Burkhart is just one of thousands of graduands across the country who will be making the transition from classroom to executive high-powered boardroom.
As always with this time of year, hundreds of engineering firms, general practices, and political offices are being opened across Canada in anticipation of the flood of bachelor’s degree recipients.
One of these newly constructed facilities is the Pandorica Marketing Agency building. This brand-new skyscraper, located in the heart of metro Vancouver, offers ample covered parking and an adjacent shopping complex. The building features an innovative dodecagonal design, allowing up to a dozen corner offices per floor. Each office overlooks the cityscape, providing breath-taking, majestic views.
Jasmine Gupta, a recently staffed nurse at one of the 17 new hospitals opening in downtown Vancouver, spoke with The Peak about the influx of doctors, researchers, and specialists that comes with every spring and summer.
“These young people are just the lifeblood the industry needs. People with no real-world experience who only know they’ve learned from Wikipedia and PowerPoint slides. Just last week, I was speaking with an associate, when he and I realized that we needed an essay on the evolutionary adaptability of Alaskan trout or the hospital would shut down, or something. Luckily we still had someone on staff who’d graduated last summer at that time, but she’s since moved on to become the chief of medicine.”
Meanwhile the publishing industry is dealing with their yearly rush, trying to keep up with the overwhelming demand for books, memoirs, and essays written by English majors, and the major political parties are vying after the latest batch of political science graduands.
But while most graduands immediately seize the juicy oyster that is the bristling job market, a select few choose to further their studies by enrolling in graduate school, presumably to become astronaut millionaires or something.
The UK government will not pardon Turing for being gay
By James Formosa — Wilfred Laurier University (CUP)
Image by: Bernt Rostad
Alan Turing, an English mathematician, logician, cryptanalyst, and computer scientist, is considered by many to be the father of computer science and artificial intelligence. Turing has been credited for his substantial contributions during the Second World War, when he was instrumental in deciphering the Enigma Code for the Allied forces.
He was also largely responsible for the development of the first reprogrammable computer. Yet many of Turing’s achievements remained classified until after his death due to their pivotal tactical role during the war; that he never got the acclaim he deserved in life only makes the way he was treated in 1952 more tragic.
This year marks the 60th anniversary of his conviction of “gross indecency.” Turing had a homosexual relationship at a time when a draconian legislation dating back to 1885 still applied in Britain. Turing was faced with the options of imprisonment or hormone therapy that amounted to chemical castration.
Turing opted for the latter and, in 1954, he was discovered dead at home, having ingested cyanide. Turing’s genius in the emerging field of computer science was well understood by his colleagues; at 41 years of age, a career with unimaginable potential was cut short. The greater tragedy, of course, is that this man was denied his humanity.
In 2009, Prime Minister Gordon Brown made a formal apology to Turing following a large public outcry and massive online support for a petition to this effect. Despite expressing deep regret and acknowledging the unjust manner in which Turing was treated, Brown never announced an official government pardon for Turing.
In recognition of Turing’s centenary, a petition is calling for this pardon; online it already carries over 30,000 signatures. The motion for this pardon was recently considered and rejected by the British government. Aside from the potential for homophobic prejudice still existing within the government, there are other, more disturbing possibilities as to why this happened.
Perhaps their concern sits with the precedent that this case will set. Legislators are supposedly worried about having to give the same sort of pardon to thousands of elderly victims of this archaic law, as well they should.
Some argue that Turing rationally chose to break the law, and offering his pardon would lend credence to a civil disobedience can of worms for any other current laws which society at large deems unjust.
Instead of focusing on righting past wrongs, the government is worried about the current consequences of raising public awareness about their own fallibility. Yet fallible it is: it once expected many of its citizens to deny an integral part of their beings. To be expected to forsake one’s humanity, to be forcibly prevented from forming a bond with another person was the crime in this case.
Another caveat made by opponents of the Turing pardon has been the very nature of pardon-grants in Britain. They are typically reserved for cases where the act was committed, but the persons involved are morally innocent. This clause of moral innocence was used to posthumously pardon soldiers who were shot for cowardice in the First World War, for example.
I do not see a distinction here between the moral innocence of those who refuse to take another human life and those who choose to act on their love for another human being. This was not a case of Turing making a rational choice to break the law; the law was a broken one to begin with.
Granting Turing this pardon would acknowledge that he was a morally innocent victim of an unjust law, as were the thousands of other men and women faced with imprisonment or chemical castration by virtue of an essential quality of their being.
As a pioneer of computer science and hero of the Second World War, the tragedy of Turing’s final years has finally entered the public consciousness; thousands are demanding that governments admit they are not infallible and atone for their transgressions. Hopefully, with mounting public disapproval for the government’s handling of the Turing case, justice will be served for this man and for every victim still living with the consequences of prejudiced legislation.
