People fearful of coyotes snatching dogs and cats must learn to live with the wild animals and take precautions, says Toronto Councillor Doug Holyday. In the wake of increasing concern, Holyday said Sunday he will recommend city parks officials look at preparing tips about living with coyotes in their neighbourhoods.

“If we want natural areas in the city, it’s going to attract wildlife,” he said.

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Gagne scored at 17:09 on a quick wrist shot and Briere converted a cross-ice pass from Braydon Coburn at 18:25.

Jeff Carter scored the other goal for Philadelphia (34-25-4). The Flyers are sixth in the Eastern Conference, four points ahead of the 8th place Montreal Canadiens and six ahead of the 9th seed Atlanta Thrashers.

Leighton (15-7-2) is 14-3-2 with the Flyers since they picked him up on re-entry waivers from the Carolina Hurricanes on Dec.15.

Nikolai Kulemin scored for Toronto (20-33-2) as they fail to win back-to-back road games since the beginning of December when they beat Montreal 3-0 and Columbus 6-3.

Jean-Sebastien Giguere (6-12-6) stopped 22 shots for Toronto.

Philadelphia opened the scoring at 13:22 of the first period with a power-play goal when Chris Pronger threaded a slap pass from the high slot to Carter, in the right face off circle, for the quick redirect by a diving Giguere.

The Leafs tied the game at 3:55 of the second when Carl Gunnarsson took a wrist shot from the right point that hit Braydon Coburn and lay at the top of the crease for Kulemin, who backhanded the puck by the glove of Leighton for his 13th goal.

Two goals in 1:16 gave the Flyers a 3-1 lead after two periods.

Gagne got the winner at 17:09 courtesy of an offensive face off. Pronger’s shot from the point bounced behind the net and Dan Carcillo picked up the loose puck before centring it to Gagne, who kicked the puck to his stick and beat Giguere to the short side with a quick shot for his 11th.

Carcillo appeared to score under 30 seconds later when he went in alone on Giguere and beat him with a backhand but the play was ruled offside at the Toronto blue-line.

Briere made the score 3-1 for the Flyers at 18:25 when he corralled a pass from Coburn and beat Giguere with a shot over the right shoulder from close in for his 23rd of the year.

Giguere made several big stops to keep the game within reach, stopping Claude Giroux while on his stomach with under 13 minutes remaining and foiling Gagne with a left leg save with less than seven minutes left in the third.

The Leafs pulled Giguere with 1:19 left but could get no closer.

Chris Bosh’s dramatic return to the court had little positive effect as the Toronto Raptors dropped a 114-101 decision to the Philadelphia 76ers at the Air Canada Centre on Sunday afternoon.

Bosh was held to 12 points and 12 rebounds in over 32 minutes of action.

Thaddeus Young dropped in a career-high 32 points for the 76ers.

Philadelphia roared out to a 13-point lead in the first quarter and the home side couldn’t recover.

The 76ers outscored the Raptors 15-0 from three-point range in the first half and shot a crisp 75 per cent from downtown for the game.

Jrue Holiday had 21 points and Andrea Iguodala had 16 points and 12 assists as the 76ers (23-39) snap a five-game losing streak. Philadelphia improves to 13-20 on the road.

Jarrett Jack had 20 points and nine rebounds for Toronto (32-29). The Raptors have now lost five of six games and cling to sixth in the Eastern Conference, two games ahead of the ninth-place Charlotte Bobcats. The Raps are 22-10 at home. Hedo Turkoglu did not play because of an ankle sprain.

Phil Kessel scored in regulation and had the shootout winner as Toronto brushed by Ottawa 2-1 in a chippy affair at Scotiabank Place.

Kessel scored in the first round when he came from the right boards and skated to the middle of the ice, cut back and beat Pascal Leclaire with a backhand. Nikolai Kulemin scored the other shootout goal for the Leafs.

Jonas Gustavsson (10-13-8) stopped 21 shots in regulation and blanked the Senators in the breakaway contest. This was his first start since the Olympic break.

The Leafs (20-32-12) improve to 2-3 in shootouts. Toronto is still winless in overtime with an 0-9 record. Tomas Kaberle still leads in scoring with 46 points, four more than Kessel. John Mitchell and Frederik Sjostrom left the game with upper body injuries.

Chris Neil scored for the Senators (36-25-5) as they move into a tie with the Buffalo Sabres for first in the Northeast division and third in the Eastern Conference. Ottawa is 0-2-1 following the Olympic break. Daniel Alfedsson and Peter Regin were left out of the line up due to the flu.

Leclaire (11-11-2) turned aside 28 shots, including 11 in the third period. He was pulled 6:23 into the first period in his last start against the Carolina Hurricanes, allowing two goals on five shots.

The Leafs lead the season series 3-2 with three left to play. Four of the five games have been decided by one goal.

Ottawa opened the scoring at 17:03 of the first period when Neil backhanded a rebound by Gustavsson for his 8th goal of the year.

Jason Spezza took a shot from above the right faceoff circle that Gustavsson couldn’t handle and the puck bounced out to Neil who found the net.

Kessel tied the game at 6:50 of the second when his wrist shot from the right circle beat Leclaire to the blocker side for his 22nd goal of the year.

Toronto out shot the Senators 11-3 in the third period.

Miroslav Satan scored in regulation and got the shootout winner, as the Boston Bruins squeezed by the Leafs 3-2 at the TD Banknorth Garden on Thursday night.

Satan faked Jean-Sebastien Giguere to his knees, skated around him and threw the puck into the empty net before Giguere could get his skate to the left post.

Tyler Bozak had to score to extend the shootout but Tim Thomas closed the door with a right pad save.

Johnny Boychuk scored the other goal for the Bruins (28-23-11). The win snaps a 10-game home winless streak for Boston. Their last home win was an overtime decision over the Flyers in the Winter Classic on Jan. 1 at Fenway Park. The Bruins lead the league with 18 shootouts this year.

Thomas (14-15-7) stopped 24 shots, including all three in the shootout, in his first start since Feb.2 against the Capitals.

Viktor Stalberg and Bozak scored for Toronto (19-32-12). Luca Caputi got an assist in his first game with the Leafs, coming over from Pittsburgh in the Alexi Ponikarovsky trade on Mar. 2.

Giguere (6-11-6) turned aside 29 shots

Satan scored his fourth of the year at 9:36 of the first to give the Bruins a 1-0 lead. He took a stretch pass from Shawn Thornton and went in alone, beating Giguere between the legs with a wrist shot.

Toronto tied the game at 15:27 of the opening period when Stalberg blasted a shot past Thomas from the right face off circle for his third of the season.

Boston took a 2-1 lead at 15:24 of the second period when Boychuk beat Giguere with a slap shot from the left point.

Marco Sturm muscled Stalberg off the puck and sent the pass to Boychuk, who beat a screened Giguere to the glove side for his third goal.

Bozak tied the game at 6:12 of the third period when he went hard to the net and redirected a Nikolai Kulemin pass by Thomas for his fourth of the year.

Caputi set the play up when he fought off a check in the Bruins zone and passed the puck to Kulemin, who quickly fed a racing Bozak by the left post for the tap in.

The owners of an exotic fish store say a vandal with knowledge of how fish tanks operate killed hundreds of fish and expensive coral in their store Wednesday afternoon.

Adam Ghavari, co-owner of Indoor Jungle at 1285 Kennedy Rd., believes someone poured either chlorine or bleach into a central system that connects a wall of fish tanks, killing 700 fish and 200 pieces of coral.

(More …)

More Toronto news

This year’s theme was George Bizet’s Carmen, the well-known and instantly hummable opera about a seductive gypsy who lures her lover into deserting the army, only to reject him.

The event’s name is based on “Habanera”, the instantly-familiar aria from Carmen which looks at the passion and uncertainty of love.

The occasion was a sea of Toronto’s young and beautiful.

Operanation co-chair, and COC board member Fayaz Dossa enjoyed his share of the party but was still realistic about its job as a fundraiser.

“Opera is a unique art form that is very expensive to put on,” he said. “About 40 per cent of our budget is covered by ticket sales and we’re sold out every year. We need fundraisers to bring in the rest of the money.

He added that events such as Habanera help make opera more accessable to the next generation of enthusiasts.

Along with the usual gala dinner, raffle, both live and silent auctions and an open bar the evening’s attractions included the improv troupe National Theatre of the World, who performed Carmen-based skits throughout the night and a performance by by Toronto’s own Lauren Segal, who sang selections from the opera.

Surprisingly, a 70-inch plasma screen TV was set up in a hallway of the centre’s third level, or “ring”, so that patrons could watch the Olympic hockey game. DJ Nick Fiorucci masterfully spun pop tunes, Latin dance music and pieces of the Carmen score to delight guests who danced the night away below in the first ring.

Unlike Bizet’s tragic opera the night ended on a happy note, with tired revelers heading home after injecting cash and optimism into a vital cultural institution.

The 3 p.m. (EST) deadline is closing and I am live blogging.

I have too much time on my hands in Canada.

Today is NHL trade deadline day and it is an unofficial national holiday in the land of toques and Timbits.

In Toronto there are two competing television networks, over 20 talking heads and 26 total hours of combined coverage to let us know the Edmonton Oilers acquired Ryan Jones off waivers from the Nashville Predators or the Montreal Canadiens traded Matt D’Agostini to St. Louis for AHL standout Aaron Palushaj.

James Duthie and Jermaine Franklin, both of TSN, are discussing the Calgary Flames depth chart on defence. Now Darren Pang, Craig McTavish, Pierre McGuire and Duthie are talking about the desperate need the Flames have for offence.

McGuire said, “Matt Stajan is not a number one centre in the NHL…Olli Jokinen completely bombed out there.”

Now things are heating up!

The Carolina Hurricanes traded Scott Walker to the Washington Capitals. Darren Dreger of TSN is on his Blackberry right now and Bob McKenzie, laptop in overdrive, says it’s for a seventh-round draft pick in 2010. Well, actually, it’s the Washington Post that reported that.

Over to Sportsnet: what a scoop! Darren Millard is interviewing Aaron Ward right now in regards to his trade to the Anaheim Ducks. Ward went west for Justin Pogge and a fourth-round pick. Compelling stuff.

Gord Miller of TSN reports that Yan Stastny is off to Vancouver in exchange for Pierre-Cedric Labrie.

Now things are heating up!

Dreger! Get off the damn Blackberry!

Off to Sportsnet: Mike Brophy, R.J. Broadhead and John Shannon report that Peter Mueller and Kevin Porter were traded to the Avalanche for Wojtek Wolski. Five minutes later they’re still talking about the trade.

Off to TSN. No! Damn commercials!

Back to Sportsnet: Marty McSorley and Gary Roberts are giving their opinions on the Phoenix-Colorado trade.

“I have no doubt he (Wolski) will be an impact player,” McSorley says.

I guess that’s why the Avalanche traded him, so he could be an impact player with someone else. McSorley’s hair has some serious grey in it now.

Live check in on Leafs practice at MasterCard Centre as Sportsnet goes to commercial.

Back to TSN: well worth the wait for this: Duthie reports the Red Wings and Rangers have made a deal involving Chris Newbury and Jordan Owens. Never heard of either of these guys.

Where the hell is Nick ‘Kipper’ Kypreos?

Too bad… Matthew Barnaby reports that Marty Biron is not going back to the Buffalo Sabres.

Both networks on commercial. Good. Just enough time to grab an scrambled egg sandwich and wonder what the weather is like in Slovenia. Where is Alan Eagleson these days?

Nice scoop… TSN has Scott Walker on the line regarding his move to the Caps.

Walker says he is “so excited… I would buy my own damn plane ticket (to Washington).”

Katherine Dolan of TSN is live in Buffalo and telling us what the Capitals are looking for at the deadline. She is now muttering about expiring contracts with the Sabres…

She says, “they (Buffalo) could be sellers or they could be buyers.” Shocking.

Steve Simmons, Michael Farber, Dave Hodge and Damien Cox are giving the Oilers a mild thrashing because they’re the 30th ranked team in the league. McGuire is blasting the Oilers for trading Ryan Smyth for a bag of nobodies.

Had enough yet?

Breaking news! Vancouver deals Mathieu Schneider to the Coyotes. The same Schneider who hasn’t seen the ice since the Dead Sea was sick. McSorley loves the deal.

He says, “Dave Tippet (Avalanche head coach) trusts Schneider… good marriage… he should have fun… lots of young players…” Blah. Blah. Blah.

Kipper!! He looks sharp in his black blazer, blue and white striped shirt and ducktail hairdo. I wonder who dyes his hair?

The Sportsnet T.V. graphic says there is 1:31:25 remaining until the deadline but TSN says there is 1:31:22.

Dreger reports, “Thomas Kaberle says he would consider waiving his no-trade clause if the right deal comes along.”

And the wheels on the bus go round and round.

TSN reports that Jeff Halpern leaves the Lightning for the Los Angeles Kings. Barnaby and Michael Peca are gushing over it.

A Mike Keenan appearance… nothing useful from him.

Ted Purcell and a 3rd round pick in 2010 go the other way for Halpern. Pang calls him (Purcell), “a dynamic player.” Hmm.

Pang and McGuire are getting into a pissing match over Eric Belanger’s line mates when he was with the Minnesota Wild. He isn’t anymore because they just traded him to the Capitals. McGuire calls Belanger a “poor man’s Guy Carbonneau.”

It’s 2:52 p.m. now and I’m going to find what’s left of my pathetic life. Where is Doug MacLean?

00:7:22 and counting…

It showed in a distracted and dispirited effort as Toronto lost 5-1 to the Carolina Hurricanes on Tuesday night at the Air Canada Centre.

Jussi Jokinen got the winner just 46 seconds into the second period when Ray Whitney feathered a saucer pass to Jokinen streaking down the slot, the winger let a quick wrist shot go that beat Jean-Sebastien Giguere to the glove side for his 24th goal.

Brandon Sutter, Tuomo Ruutu, Sergei Samsonov and Chad Larose also scored for Carolina (25-30-7) as they extend their winning streak to six games. Justin Peters (3-0-0) stopped 32 shots in his third NHL start.

John Mitchell scored the lone goal for Toronto (19-32-11). Giguere (6-11-5) was shaky in the Leafs net, stopping 25 shots. Jamie Lundmark made his first appearance for the Leafs after being picked up on waivers from the Calgary Flames on Feb.13.

Alexi Ponikarovsky didn’t dress on Tuesday for Toronto. He is rumoured to be on the move to the Pittsburgh Penguins. Defenceman Aaron Ward and forward Stephan Yelle, also rumoured to be on the trading block, were healthy scratches for the Hurricanes. All three players are unrestricted free agents come July 1.

Larose got his fourth of the season for the Hurricanes at 2:53 of the first with a short-handed goal. Giguere fumbled the puck behind the net, allowing Larose to swoop in and pick Giguere’s pocket before depositing the puck into the empty net.

Sutter scored his 15th of the year to make it 3-0 at 9:57 of the second when he took a Larose pass and banged the puck into the net.

Over three minutes later, Ruutu converted a pass from Joni Pitkanen, and fired a shot over the glove of Giguere from the left faceoff circle for his 13th goal.

Samsonov’s 13th of the year at 8:17 of the third made it 5-0. He shot the puck from a severe angle but it squeezed between the post and body of Giguere.

Mitchell scored his fourth of the season with less than five minutes remaining to break the shutout bid for Peters.

Note: Ponikarovsky was traded to the Penguins for defenceman Martin Skoula and forward Luca Caputi.

The Thunder started the game with a 12-0 run and weren’t really challenged at any point during the game. The closest the Raps came was a 42-36 deficit, midway through the second.

It is obvious Toronto misses Chris Bosh. They won their first two games without him but have lost three straight since. Bosh injured his ankle on Feb.17 against the Minnesota Timberwolves and is listed as day-to-day.

Jeff Green had 20 points and four steals, Russell Westbrook added 14 points and 10 assists and Serge Ibaka had 13 points and 10 rebounds for the Thunder (35-23). Eastern Conference opponents haven’t fared well against the Thunder this year, as Oklahoma City is 18-6 against the East. They are 25-3 when scoring 100 points or more.

Andrea Bargnani and Sonny Weems scored 14 apiece to lead Toronto (31-27). DeMar DeRozen chipped in with 13 points and Jarrett Jack had 11. The Raps have now lost three consecutive for the second time this year and are 10-18 on the road.

Up next for the Raps is a Monday night game in Houston against the Rockets. Tip-off is slated for 8:30 p.m.

Vinc stole the spotlight and the game, turning aside 52 shots as the Orlando Titans defeated the Toronto Rock 16-12 in front of 10, 984 at Air Canada Centre.

Vinc (4-2), the 27-year-old St. Catharines native, has the pedigree of a top goaltender so this performance should come as no surprise. Vinc, a former Minto Cup winner and Ontario Lacrosse Association Jr. A MVP was also instrumental in backstopping the Titans to the National Lacrosse League (NLL) championship game last year. He has continued his stellar play this season, allowing 57 goals in six starts.

Toronto goalie Bob Watson (5-2) matched Vinc until a fourth-quarter hiccup. With Orlando leading 10-8, Watson allowed four goals on four shots and got the hook 10 minutes in. He stopped 26 in the loss. Steve Dietrich allowed one goal on two shots in back up duty.

Sandy Chapman (3), Colin Doyle (2), Garrett Billings (2), Stephan Leblanc (2), Mike Hominuck (2) and Kasey Beirnes scored for Toronto.

Casey Powell (4), Matt Alrich (3), Ryan Boyle (2), Pat Maddalena (2), Pat Merrill, Bill Greer, Mat MacLeod, Jordan Hall and Chad Thompson scored for Orlando.

The Rock (6-4) started the season with an impressive 6-1 record but have lost three straight.

Due to a superior win percentage, the Titans (4-2) now slip into first place in the NLL East Conference.

Toronto have played the most games in the league and now have a week off to ponder their recent slide.

But seriously, I began this post with the angle that Canadian athletes performing in Vancouver may ultimately be at a disadvantage because of the enormous pressure that comes with performing in front of the home crowd.

From this I can actually draw on my own personal experiences. I remember being more nervous for my house- league hockey games when my whole family came out as opposed to just my dad (okay, I’m not actually serious about this terrible comparison).

I agree this is a simplistic and predictable point of view, easily made from the comforts of a living room or pub (or lounge or condo theatre room or LiveCity venue) but it’s worth bringing up since its a much debated topic in sports.

Pick a non-Olympic sport. Pick an Olympic sport. Is there one you can think of where the home fans don’t give the home team or individual a boost?

Year after year, in professional leagues like the NHL or NBA,  the stats don’t lie: teams play better at home than on the road. Like Dorothy from Kansas once said: there’s no place like home.

Keep in mind these stat are spread over an entire 82-game season.

When it comes to an Olympics type situation of do-or-die, that supposed advantage goes out the window.

For example, a typical world-class skier races down a hill at over 100 km/h and finishes his or her race in under two minutes. How much of an influence can the home crowd have in this situation? Can the skier feed off the energy of the crowd and cut through the gates at a tighter angle, while maintaining speed?

This segues me to another much discussed topic, especially during these Olympics: Canada’s much-publicized ‘Own the Podium’ program.

From the beginning of the program I believed the Canadian Olympic Committee’s (COC) ultimate goal of winning the medal count to be an ambitious goal. But I’ve also been a firm believer that anything is possible.

Look at Norway when they won the medal count in Lillehammer in 1994. Or the Australians when they won 58 medals during the 2000 Olympics in Sydney. So it’s quite possible with enough funding, coaching and commitment you can really pile on the medals.

After a disappointing medal count in the first week the critics were out in force to slam the COC’s program as a failure (just check out the Calgary Sun’s Michael Platt, Winnipeg Free Press’s Jim Morris and Vancouver Sun’s Cam Cole among others) . Before this week even began, the headlines were already reading ‘Blown the Podium’ or ‘Groan the Podium.’ This was with a week to go.

Knee-jerk reactions like this are always expected in the press. Let’s face it, the medals weren’t there during the first week and the COC was an easy target. But c’mon guys, there was still an entire week to go!

Also take into account the odds of Canada, a nation of only 35 million people, beating out perennial winter superpowers like Germany, Norway and Russia (and now, apparently, the United States). Really? Did anyone actually believe this might happen as soon as Canada decided to throw over a $100 million at amateur athletics?

For us to win the final medal count, almost every thing would need to go Canada’s way. With the human element involved in sports that’s a hard goal to attain.

I was disappointed that we didn’t win more medals during the first week. But, as it turned out, that may have actually been a good thing.

How you ask?

Well, say Canada did have a good week and were first or second in the medal table, I think we may have started focusing too much on the grand total, taking away our focus from individuals and their performances.

Have you ever seen a week with more amazing stories for Canadian athletes than this one? The list is huge!

Scott Moir and Tessa Virtue’s gold-medal winning ice dance performance or Jon Montgomery’s skeleton win and his post race celebration with a pitcher of beer.

How about Clara Hughes winning a bronze to cap one of the most amazing and decorated Olympic careers ever and Ashleigh McIvor’s gold in ski cross.

Perhaps the best story but the most tragic is Joannie Rochette coming third after the unexpected death of her mother. To perform under a cloud of grief makes her a true Olympic champion and an early sentimental favourite for the Lou Marsh Award.

The stories are endless.

We have won 12 gold medals people and that leads all countries and shatters our previous high of seven.

Not only that, if all goes well with Kevin Martin against the Norwegians and if the men’s hockey team gets revenge on the U.S., we could conceivably double our previous record with 14! But let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves.

How could you not see these Olympics as anything but a great success for Canada?

Say it with pride: we may actually win the MOST gold medals. That’s pretty damn cool. Perhaps the COC should change the name of their program to “Owning the Top Spot of the Podium.”

So, with my rant out of the way, let’s get it on with the fun part: the vids from my travels over the week.

To start, I finally got a chance to hang out in Whistler for a few hours this past week.

On my second day here, I actually got a chance to drive there to drop off a colleague. What an eye-candy drive! They should have a disclaimer before you get on the Sea-to-Sky Highway reading: “Warning: Driving makes it seem like you are ascending to the heavens because of the beautiful view of the mountains and ocean ahead. Please remember to your keep eyes on road!”

So naturally I decided to film this view while driving. It was worth the risk. I had to share the drive with all of you. The only other thing I should add is this drive must be done during the day. Preferably a clear one.

This also happened to be on the day when the men faced Switzerland in round-robin action.

Once in Whistler, I had about an hour to kill before I had to head back to Vancouver. My mission: find a television to watch the game.

Amazing atmosphere no? Packed bar patios, huge crowds in front of the televisions. Again, this was only Canada-Switzerland. Unfortunately I left before the overtime and shootout, but I went to check out the Whistler Celebration Plaza.

Every night they hand out the medals from the events of the day (or the day before) in Whistler and then it turns into a giant party with either a band or DJ.

Once back in Vancouver I took in the action at Robson Square. They have this zip-line running a couple 100 metres over the square. It’s actually free but it takes six hours of your life away for about 15 seconds of fun.

I also have to show you the madness that has surrounded the Olympic Cauldron since it was lit by Wayne Gretzky during the opening ceremonies:

The next few videos come from last Sunday where I had the entire day off to enjoy the pre-game festivities before the Canada-US men’s hockey game. Just a tons of things going on:

Such as:

And if you liked that, here he is again with a snowboard this time:

While wondering around looking for a place to watch the game, I saw skiers on stilts. Yep, probably the first and last time I’ll ever see something like this:

Then, just a few days ago I got the amazing opportunity to take in an actual event at Cypress Mountain!

Wouldn’t you know it, it happened to be the women’s ski cross. A few amazing things happened during my time there: first, it actually snowed!!!

What I found more incredible was witnessing Whistler’s own, Ashleigh McIvor win gold in front of the home fans.

I was convinced I was bestowing bad luck upon our athletes because every time I watched an event, they would just miss out on a medal. So frustrating! Ashleigh came through for me and I cannot thank her enough for giving me something I’ll never forget.

Here is my footage of the last part of her race i.e. the only part I could see (I apologize for the horribly shaky camera work. My hands were numb by the time McIvor finished the race and I could barely hold the camera).

And here’s the flower ceremony immediately afterwards (the medal ceremony was at B.C. Place later on).

Before all this happened, I captured a little comedy from one of the greatest crashes of the day.

Rocio Delgado of Spain should win the ‘Olympic Spirit’ award for keeping her sense of humour after a truly disastrous race, where she got a mouthful of snow in front of the thousands in attendance.

I’ll end this post by apologizing for how long it took to get this up after Part 5. I hope it was worth the wait. More posts coming, I promise!!!

P.S.

In case you missed it, here’s Gretzky lighting the cauldron back during the Opening Ceremonies:

Fireworks!!! from man plus on Vimeo.

Toronto’s once-sleepy island airport is going to get a lot busier.

More passengers, more flights and more destinations are planned for Porter Airlines, which unveiled the first phase of its new $50 million terminal Monday, marking the latest step in the burgeoning company’s ongoing expansion.

(More …)

More Toronto news

They were stopped in traffic when a vehicle coming up behind did not brake early enough. It hit their car and pushed it into the vehicle in front of them. Luckily they were not seriously injured.

After enduring three months of heachaches, a stiff neck and back and four months of physiotherapy after being rear-ended myself, I’m now nervous when vehicles creep up behind me or I ride with a driver who follows the next car too closely.

Lack of distance between cars has become a personal pet peeve.

Two seconds.

It’s what the Ministry of Transportation recommends as a minimum safe driving distance between vehicles. Two seconds when the weather is good, meaning dry roads and there is nothing, such as a large vehicle, impeding the view ahead of you.

The ministry website explains how to figure out two seconds.

”Pick a marker on the road ahead, such as a road sign or pole. When the rear of the vehicle ahead passes the marker count, ‘One-thousand-one, one-thousand-two.’ When the front of your vehicle reaches the marker, stop counting. If you reach it before you count ‘one-thousand-two,’ you are following too closely.”

The beauty of the two-second rule is it works no matter how fast or slow you’re moving. Just pick out any marker and count.

The Ontario Road Safety Annual Report for 2006 indicates that there were 398,385 accidents that year. Of those, 59,221 were rear-end crashes, more than 80 a day!

There are many reasons why drivers don’t leave enough space behind the vehicle in front of them: general ignorance of what a two-second distance actually looks like, trying to “nudge” the next car out of the way by tailgating its bumper at 120 km/hr, not increasing distance to a safer three or four second space in slippery conditions.

The excuse is always, if I leave space then another car jumps in. True. Just let up on the gas and re-adjust. Hitting the newcomer in the rear end is the same as hitting the car you were just following.

I’m not the only one getting annoyed with tailgaters. One blogger posted the picture of a truck sitting almost  in his rear seat.

Pretty scary since it takes a truck much more time to stop than a car.

Still, it makes me also wonder how this blogger was able to take the picture while exiting on a ramp.

Two seconds from the vehicle in front: that’s all it takes to make it home or to work safely.

Two seconds to avoid hitting a car transporting a baby which, for safety reasons, will always be in the back seat.

As for my relatives who were rear-ended, their Florida vacation is on hold until their new car is repaired, front and back.

Hopefully the drivers along I-90 will know about and respect the two-second rule.

HTML5

I talked earlier about how Google is pushing for HTML5, and web standards in general. I suggested a reason: Google wants you to be able to use its web-based applications from whatever device you happen to be on. It wants to replace your desktop (or your mobile interface, etc.) with a browser. You’ll do everything, in Google’s vision, on the open web, rather than in walled-off applications on various devices that may or may not talk to each other.

Advertising against web content (especially search results) is where Google makes almost all of its money, so it stands to reason it wants more web on more devices.

Faster Internet

Google’s announcement last week that it will enter the high-speed ISP arena with tests of one gigabit per second (1 gbps) connections to tens or hundreds of thousands of American homes is actually not a sign that it wants to get into the ISP business, any more than its WiFi network in Mountain View was a sign.

It says instead that it wants to demonstrate  new and creative ways for the FCC to reach the goals of its National Broadband Plan. They want to show the world how to get high speed. Why?

This refrain should look familiar by now:

Next generation apps: We want to see what developers and users can do with ultra high-speeds, whether it’s creating new bandwidth-intensive killer apps and services, or other uses we can’t yet imagine. (Link)

And what would these killer apps be? I have two ideas for you, and one of them is TV. Also known as live or real-time video, which, presumably, you will watch on the web through a browser app built in HTML5 on your Google-powered desktop in your Google-powered device connected via high speed Internet over IPv6.

The other concept here is cloud computing. If you’re expected to do everything you used to do on your desktop over a web app, there can’t be delays or lag. Especially if you’re doing something that involves a lot of data transfer, such as editing video.

Geotagging

First Google beat up on Mapquest and Yahoo! Maps with a better mapping product in 2005 (it seems like it’s been around much longer). Then it added satellite view, a route finder, and StreetView. Then it started consuming user-generated KLM files and letting map users annotate the geo-web.  Businesses can locate themselves on maps in Google Local. People using mobile devices can geolocate themselves in Google’s new Buzz social media service (more about that later). And just last Thursday they announced Google Maps Labs.

Mapping and geolocation is important to Google, and the reason should be obvious. They want to connect you with information that’s important to you. And they reckon things happening close to you are more important to you than things happening far away. And whenever Google can connect you with important content, they realize an advertising opportunity.

As a side note, here at NewsFIX we’ve had geotagging baked in right from the beginning. In fact, at one time our unofficial slogan was Pins on Maps! Almost all our stories have GeoRSS tags on them, which could be consumed by new aggregation services that we expected to pop up. We have since downplayed the maps in our UI, but we still put the pins on the maps hoping that some aggregator or social media service will someday arrive that can use it.

When I saw little maps next to some posts in Google’s new Buzz service, I was elated. They were using geolocation data to differentiate people’s buzzes when they came in from GPS-enabled smartphones. Maybe they would do the same in Buzz? I asked Google’s Chris Messina about it, participated in the Buzz API bug system, the Reader bug system, and made a suggestion on Google Moderator’s How to Fix Google Buzz thread. We’ll see how it turns out. It looks promising.

Smartphones

Google started off the year with their very own smartphone, the Nexus One, which runs their own mobile operating system, Android. People love it,  such as Linux operating system creator Linus Torvalds who said he’s a “happy camper” and the phone is a “winner”.

My feeling is that Google no more wants to get into the smartphone business than it does into the ISP business. I think it really just wants a platform to show what can be done on that platform, hoping that others will follow suit. Oh, and maybe they want to disrupt Apple a little bit, and disrupt the way cellphones are currently sold (i.e. contracts).

But the main point is that Google knows that smartphones are a big deal. They know that if smartphones come down in price (through competition and the demise of the contract), and 4G wireless gets going, there will cease to be any such thing as the cellphone and SMS. People will talk on their mobile phones over IP telephony, instead of expensive texting they will e-mail, and the full power of the web will be on every mobile phone in the land. Give it two or three years.

Social media

Last week Google announced Buzz, its foray into the land of the social. A Twitter-killer, some say, and a challenger to Facebook. One day there it was, a Twitter in my inbox. I’m using it, and I like it, though I won’t bother going into its positives and negatives. You can find that all over the web at this point in time.

Why is the social web important to Google? Here’s a hint. Here’s another. Google is mighty concerned about the walled garden of Facebook becoming the new web. Remember, Google wants everything out on the open web for you to find using its search tool, and to get an advertising opportunity in the process. It can’t do that if everybody’s sharing drunk party photos and tending cattle where its spiders can’t reach.

Summary

Let’s recap the trends we’ve looked at so far.

There’s IPv6, which will allow every device to have an IP address and Google to push information to those devices.

There’s HTML5, which will provide a standardized application platform and allow Google to challenge the traditional desktop model and have you do all your computing out on the web.

There’s faster Internet, which will enable live video streaming and cloud computing.

There’s geotagging, which will connect people using location-aware devices  to nearby news.

Smartphones will replace cellphones within a few short years, ending cellphone telephony and SMS text messages, and putting everything back on the web.

And social media will enable us to connect to relevant content more easily through our social graphs.

More devices, connected directly to a high-speed Internet consuming content, made more relevant via social connections and location awareness  -  and all delivered on the web through regular old web pages.

Did you get that last part?

All these advances in technology, all pointing one thing: more of the same. Web pages. The web of links. More devices, faster and more relevant connections, but still pulling down one primal content format: web pages. The more things change, the more they stay the same. Only more of it. More web.

So what does this mean for news publishers?

1. Don’t bother investing in fancy new technologies, developing mobile applications or Flash applications. Focus instead on making mobile-ready web themes. Keep or re-hire your good HTML layout people, your web programmers, and your database guys. Keep your geeks. You’ll need them more than ever.
2. Video will be more and more important. Although I would still recommend, as I did years ago, that newspapers do what they’re good at and TV stations do what they’re good at. If you don’t have particular expertise in video, leave it to someone who does.
3. Never mind a web-first strategy. Think mobile first. I’m not the first guy to say this, but I hope I’m one of the last. What this means in practice is on the editorial side, get smaller bits of information out on the web (which is where, after all, you’ll be getting the news on your phone) as fast as possible. Continually update it and flesh it out on the web, and pick the better bits to flesh out even more for the paper. On the technical side, make sure your website works well on small screens. That’s not just a layout issue. Make sure it’s optimized for fast download times. Make sure it comes with geolocation data where relevant.
4. Social media services, aggregators, bloggers, mobile and search from a web ecosystem. All the parts are important. They all play a part in driving traffic to news sites and forming community with and around news content. It’s time to revive an old-fashioned concept: a webmaster. A person that ensures all these parts are working smoothly together. The webmaster is technically-minded, but doesn’t necessarily do the programming. Instead he figures out what programming needs to be done. He sits between the programmers and the editorial staff and the salespeople and makes sure that what is done on the website is what’s best for the website. I’ll have more to say about this mythical creature in a future post.