Musings

By Sophia Harris · CBC News The big telcos say there are many tools families can use to monitor their shared phone plans Heather Gunn-LaBrie of Edmonton is still paying down a $5,000 Bell bill, mostly for long distance charges racked up by her 16-year-old son. (submitted by Heather Gunn-LaBrie) Heather Gunn-LaBrie is still paying off a surprise $5,000 Bell bill for long distance and talk minutes charges, racked up by her 16-year-old son late last year. Read more at CBC News

By Yves Engler, Globalresearch.ca With NATO turning 70 next week it’s a good occasion to revisit the creation of a military alliance operating under the stated principle that an “attack against one ally is considered as an attack against all allies.” Now encompassing 29 member states, the north Atlantic alliance was instigated by US, British and Canadian officials. Read more at Popular Resistance

By Murray Brewster · CBC News Wilson-Raybould brought up Norman in her secretly-taped conversation, which could factor into his trial Left: Vice-Admiral Mark Norman. Right: Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Norman's legal team is alleging political interference in his case. (Adrian Wyld, Sean Kilpatrick/Canadian Press) They're two sides of the same political and judicial coin: SNC-Lavalin and the Mark Norman trial. The all-consuming, breathless political drama over the SNC Lavalin scandal has rocked the Liberal government to its foundations. The grinding courtroom fight in the breach-of-trust case case against Vice-Admiral Mark Norman, the military's former second-in-command, is somewhat less flashy, but still high-profile. What links them — and, to a lesser degree, the extradition of Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou — is the fear that politics can trump prosecutorial independence. Read more at CBC News

By Peter Zimonjic · CBC News Reveals conversation about allegations Kim Campbell was ordered to interfere in a file Former justice minister Jody Wilson-Raybould, left, says that Gerry Butts, the former principal secretary to the prime minister, tried to argue that a justice minister could interfere in a prosecution because former prime minister Brian Mulroney asked his former attorney general Kim Campbell, right, to do so in the case of David Milgaard. (Canadian Press/Justin Tang) The additional information on the SNC-Lavalin affair that former justice minister and attorney general Jody Wilson-Raybould provided to a House of Commons committee Friday revealed a few interesting twists in a controversy that has had politically minded Canadians gripped for the past two months. They include a suggestion that former prime minister Brian Mulroney once interfered in the course of justice on behalf of David Milgaard, and shed light on why Wilson-Raybould really resigned from the federal ca...

While at first employees may have been apprehensive by thinking that new technology could take their jobs, subsequently they found that automation was not meant to replace them but to serve them by performing tedious, time consuming tasks. Now, employee time can be used to focus on more critical business challenges. No matter what industry you’re in, a constant business goal is to remain a step ahead of the competition. But what does that really mean? How can business owners quantify that in a meaningful way? The answer to those questions may evolve over time, but savvy business owners are using intelligent automation, a concept that involves executing a wide variety of tasks and processes quickly and efficiently. Read more at eWeek

By Maddie Stone EPA Headquarters in Washington, D.C. Photo: Getty PHILADELPHIA—As the Trump administration continues to attack science, scientists continue to push back, whether by joining rallies and strikes or running for office. In the next election cycle, the ranks of those choosing the latter route may include more federal government scientists, a group that has traditionally preferred to remain out of the spotlight. Read more at Earther

By Tom McKay Royal Dutch Shell PLC icebreaker Fennica, a vessel designated to conduct exploration and spill-response duties for Shell, leaving port in Oregon in 2015. Photo: Don Ryan (AP) In a major blow to the Donald Trump administration’s oil and gas policy, on Friday a federal judge ruled the president’s order opening massive swathes of the Arctic and Atlantic oceans to oil and gas drilling operations illegal, the Washington Post reported. Read more at Earther

By Bill Howard Europe will require “intelligent speed assistance” on cars produced from 2022 and later to limit their speeds. Where Volvo is putting a voluntary cap on the top speed of its cars, this appears to establish speed caps relative to speed limit signs and to road conditions, as well as in special areas such as school zones and hospitals. Read more at ExtremeTech

By Cory Doctorow On Tuesday, the Oklahoma House Judiciary Committee approved Senate Bill 614, which forces doctors to counsel patients seeking medical abortions with false statements claiming the procedure is reversible; doctors who refuse to lie to their patients would be guilty of a jailable felony. The law's backer is Rep Mark Lepak [R-9, (405) 557-7380), who falsely claimed that "medical science has developed a method for reversing the effects of a medication abortion and saving the life of an unborn child." Read more at Boing Boing

By Lee Berthiaume, Canadian Press NDP leader Jagmeet Singh speaks at the Broadbent Summit in Ottawa on March 29, 2019. Adrian Wyld/CP Jagmeet Singh is promising an NDP government would expand the tax on investment profits as part of a package of measures aimed at taxing the rich to pay for pharmacare as well as affordable child care and housing. Read more at Huffington Post

By Colin Perkel, Canadian Press Six previously licensed sites weren't approved under the province's new model. A Toronto man checks out a Naloxone kit he was given at a pop up safe-injection site. Richard Lautens via Getty Images Fifteen overdose-prevention sites across Ontario have been approved for operation under a new model, the provincial government announced Friday in a decision critics called a disaster because six previously licenced sites weren't given the green light. Read more at Huffington Post

By Chauncey Jung, Freelance writer on Canadian and international affairs The emerging crisis on canola may just be the start of an aggressive trade penalty scheme. Canola seed from a farm near Cremona, Alta. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jeff McIntosh While Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou's extradition case may take months, even years, to settle, it took less than a month for China to strike a multibillion-dollar blow to Canadian canola exports. On Wednesday, China suspended the licence of yet another major Canadian canola exporting company — Regina, Ont.-based Viterra — approximately one month after revoking that of a first. Read more at Huffington Post

By Robert Whitley, Assistant Professor of Psychiatry, McGill University A public inquiry can tell us how our mental-health system can better serve men and boys. Westend61 via Getty Images Likewise, certain male sub-groups have particularly pronounced mental-health issues. Boys suffer high-rates of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, which can contribute to school drop-out and failure to launch. Gay men have disproportionately high-rates of self-harm, male veterans of substance abuse, and Indigenous men of suicide. Worryingly, men under-utilize official mental-health services, with evidence indicating that only 30 per cent of mental-health service users are male. In other words, far too many Canadian men and boys are suffering in silence, with devastating consequences for individuals, families and society as a whole. Read more at Huffington Post

By Allison Jones, Canadian Press The lawsuit accuses the PC government of breach of contract and causing panic attacks, depression and anxiety. Ontario Minister of Children, Community and Social Services Lisa MacLeod speaks to reporters at Queen's Park in Toronto on March 21, 2019. MacLeod cancelled research on basic income that had been started by the previous government. Tijana Martin/CANADIAN PRESS TORONTO — Four people who had been receiving a basic guaranteed income under a pilot project have launched a proposed class action against the Progressive Conservative government for cancelling it. The proposed lead plaintiffs argue that the cancellation amounts to a breach of contract and has caused panic attacks, anxiety and depression among participants, and has meant some people can't continue paying tuition, for medical expenses or investing in a business. Read more at Huffington Post

By Mike Masnick You may have heard the famous line from early department store magnate John Wanamaker that "half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don't know which half." Over the past decade or so, various companies have argued that their ability to provide a ton of data, combined with whatever algorithmic magic they could throw at their platforms, could lead to a magical mythical world in which there were perfectly targeted advertisements. And, of course, in the past few years there have been literally just two places where advertisers believe they can get perfectly targeted advertisements that don't waste half (or more) of their ad spend: Google and Facebook. Read more at TechDirt

If I had four arms, I hope the extra pair grew out of my hips rather than my shoulders. Putting that extra lifting power on the shoulders would put large strain on my backbone. Putting them on my hips would save my back and make lifting much easier. I would wield weapons with them; I would yield shields. The extra defences would make me very hard to hurt. Don't stop where the ink does. CC BY-SA 4.0

By Melanie Ehrenkranz Growing up in rural Oregon, Erin Lauridsen didn’t have a lot of contact with blind people like herself. She recalls there being one other blind person in her town, but they were much older and, unlike Lauridsen, had lost their vision later in life. So when her family got dial-up internet during her high school years in the late ‘90s, she said the first thing she did was find other blind students online, people she could relate to who were already out in the world living their lives. She read their stories. She got to know them. Read more at Gizmodo

By Beth Elderkin “You know, I could use that safe word now, but really: What’s the worst that could happen?” Photo: HBO In the heat of battle—or, rather, a fake one—even the most hardcore fighters have got to make sure they stay out of real harm’s way. That’s why Game of Thrones’ stunt team has utilized a powerful, but also kind of adorable, safe word. One that might sound completely foreign to the people of Westeros. Read more at io9

By Brian Kahn UK politics is more than a seemingly endless Brexit slog. On Thursday, for instance, the Labour Party declared a climate emergency. It likely marks the first major party declaring a climate emergency at the national level anywhere in the world, in yet another sign that climate politics are rapidly shifting. Read more at Earther

By Stephanie Mlot Members of the NASA Mars Helicopter team inspect the flight model (via NASA/JPL-Caltech) On Earth, helicopters are a staple of action movies, search-and-rescue missions, medical transport, and aerial traffic reports. On the thin atmosphere of Mars, however, they are a novelty. Read more at Geek.com

By Dan Goodin Magento admins: beware of SQL flaw that requires no authentication. Attack code was published on Friday that exploits a critical vulnerability in Magento e-commerce platform, all bug guaranteeing it will be used to plant payment card skimmers on sites that have yet to install a recently released patch. Read more at Ars Technica

January erased all the losses from November and December. Katrin Ray Shumakov via Getty Images Statistics Canada says real gross domestic product grew 0.3 per cent in January as the economy bounced back after contracting in November and December. Economists on average had expected no growth for the month, according to Thomson Reuters Eikon. The growth came as 18 of 20 industrial sectors moved higher. Read more at Huffington Post

More than 85 percent of big data projects fail. A number of factors contribute to these failures, including human factors, and challenges with time, skill and impact. Here are some precautionary data points of advice. Companies are forging ahead with digital transformation at an unprecedented rate. A recent survey by Gartner Research found that 49 percent of CIOs are reporting that their enterprises have already changed their business models to scale their digital endeavors or are in the process of doing so. Read more at eWeek

When you need to get your finances in order, a good accounting software can be a real lifesaver. Today’s accounting software can help individuals and businesses alike keep track of income, payments, bank accounts, stocks and more. And with open source options, you have the freedom and flexibility to have the software suit your specific accounting needs. Read more at SourceForge

By Bryant Son Maximize uptime and minimize problems with these open source tools. Image by : opensource.com I've always been interested in web development and software architecture because I like to see the broader picture of a working system. Whether you are building a mobile app or a web application, it has to be connected to the internet to exchange data among different modules, which means you need a web service. Read more at Opensource.com

By David Both Submitting bug reports is an easy way to give back and it helps everyone. Image by : Internet Archive Book Images. Modified by Opensource.com. CC BY-SA 4.0 I spend a lot of time doing research for my books and Opensource.com articles. Sometimes this leads me to discover bugs in the software I use, including Fedora and the Linux kernel. As a long-time Linux user and sysadmin, I have benefited greatly from GNU/Linux, and I like to give back. I am not a C language programmer, so I don't create fixes and submit them with bug reports, as some people do. But a way I can return some value to the Linux community is by reporting bugs. Read more at Opensource.com

By John Paul Tasker Ontario senator describes letters calling Indigenous peoples lazy whiners as 'edgy and opinionated' Senator Lynn Beyak, in a still from a video on March 27, 2017. Beyak has refused to remove letters posted to her website that have been condemned by politicians of all stripes as racist and hateful. (CBC) More than a week after the Senate Ethics Officer ordered Non-affiliated Ontario Sen. Lynn Beyak to take down letters posted to her website that have been condemned by politicians of all stripes as racist and hateful, the correspondence is still featured prominently on her taxpayer-funded page. Crown-Indigenous Relations Minister Carolyn Bennett tells CBC News she's determined to do something about the letters, most of which were sent to the former Conservative senator after her controversial March 2017 speech in which she defended the Indian residential school system. Read more at CBC News

By Genevieve Scarano NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope captured a stunning image of this "butterfly" in space, which is officially known as Westerhout 40. (Photo Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech) Read more at Geek.com

By Joel Hruska UK officials tasked with evaluating Huawei’s network security and overall suitability to be a leading 5G partner in its upcoming deployments have released a report on their findings. The UK and Huawei have an agreement in which Huawei’s compliance with security standards is monitored by the Huawei Cyber Security Evaluation Centre (HCSEC). This organization is overseen by the HCSEC Oversight Board, who authored this most recent report. Their conclusions are quite negative — but they may also finally shed some light on why Huawei has been such a divisive topic over the past few years. Read more at ExtremeTech

By Cory Doctorow After Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez delivered a blistering rebuttal to Rep Sean Duffy's [R-WI] charge that the Green New Deal and environmentalism were "elitist" concerns that ignored the needs of rural people, Congressional Coal Caucus member Rep. Andy Barr [R-KY] invited her to visit Appalachian coal-towns and "go underground" to talk to people in the mining industry. Read more at Boing Boing

By Glyn Moody Most EU digital rights groups are still reeling from the approval of the EU Copyright Directive and its deeply-flawed idea of upload filters, which will seriously harm the way the Internet operates in the region and beyond. Matters are made even worse by the fact that some MEPs claim they blundered when they voted -- enough of them that Article 13 might have been removed from the legislation had they voted as they intended. Read more at TechDirt

Quebec engineering firm warned it would move abroad within a year, cut workforce in Canada to 3,500 Documents indicate that SNC-Lavalin's Montreal headquarters, shown here, could move abroad within a year if it fails to avoid criminal prosecution. (Paul Chiasson/Canadian Press) SNC-Lavalin warned federal prosecutors last fall about a possible plan to split the company in two, move its offices to the United States and eliminate its Canadian workforce if it didn't get a deal to avoid criminal prosecution, newly obtained documents show. The documents, part of a PowerPoint presentation obtained by The Canadian Press, describe something called "Plan B" — what Montreal-based SNC might have to do if it can't convince the government to grant a so-called remediation agreement to avoid criminal proceedings in a fraud and corruption case related to projects in Libya. Under that plan, SNC would move its Montreal headquarters and corporate offices in Ontario and Quebec to...

By Mike Masnick As we've covered over the past few months, Australian courts put an absolutely ridiculous gag order on anyone trying to report about the conviction of Cardinal George Pell, the former CFO of the Vatican (often described as the 3rd most powerful person in the Vatican). Pell was convicted of sexually molesting choir boys in Australia in the 1990s. This is obviously quite newsworthy, but the courts used what's known as a "suppression order" in Australia to bar anyone from revealing the information. The reasoning was that there was still another trial for Pell over different accusations, and knowing he was convicted for one might somehow unfairly influence a jury. Of course, in the US we've long dealt with this through a process of vetting potential jurors on their familiarity, and then simply barring just that juror pool from doing any further research on the issue -- and that system works mostly fine, without keeping the public in the dark about im...

By ERNESTO The U.S. is recommending a 12.5 year prison sentence for Paul Hansmeier, one of the lead attorneys of the controversial law firm Prenda. The Pirate Bay played a crucial role in the case, since it's where Prenda uploaded porn movies to extract settlements from alleged pirates. Hansmeier admitted his wrongdoing but is requesting a more lenient prison sentence of little over 7 years. Read more at TorrentFreak

By George Dvorsky Saturn’s ring moon Atlas. Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute During the final days of the legendary Cassini mission, the NASA spacecraft performed a series of ring-skimming orbits around Saturn, snapping unprecedented images of the gas giant’s enigmatic ring moons. These photos and other data have now been analyzed by astronomers, shedding new light on these elusive objects and the origin of Saturn’s majestic rings. Read more at Gizmodo

A solitary confinement cell is shown in a handout photo from the Office of the Correctional Investigator. THE CANADIAN PRESS/HO- Office of the Correctional Investigator TORONTO – Ontario’s top court says inmates cannot be placed in solitary confinement for more than 15 days, saying anything longer than that amounts to cruel and unusual punishment. In a ruling released today, the Court of Appeal for Ontario says prolonged administrative segregation causes foreseeable and possibly permanent harm that cannot be detected through monitoring until it has already occurred. Read more at Global News

By Rachel Lau Quebec students currently studying to work as public servants, including police officers, will have to take off their religious symbols in order to find a job in the province. This is according to Immigration, Diversity and Inclusiveness Minister Simon Jolin-Barrette, who tabled Bill 21 on Thursday prohibiting public sector employees in positions of authority from wearing religious symbols at work. Read more at Global News

DSC00115 by Vancouver Economic Commission (CC BY 2.0) https://flic.kr/p/Jcb16h The Canadian Media Producers Association has just released the latest data on film and television production in Canada which confirms that foreign sources are now by far the biggest contributor to Canadian English language television production. Despite warnings of cultural imperialism and repeated calls from some in the industry for Netflix taxes to fund production, the data suggests that it already does since foreign investment in Cancon now larger than the primary Canadian sources. In fact, when it comes to Canadian English-language fictional programming, foreign financing is now larger than private broadcaster licence fees, public broadcaster licence fees, and Canada Media Fund contributions combined. Read more at Michael Geist

By Ocean Malandra Photo by Rob Hurson, CC BY-SA Put on the U2 and The Cranberries and let’s down some green brew folks, it’s that time of year again. But while St. Patrick’s Day is cause to celebrate everything Irish-American, it’s also a good time to ponder just why more than a million Irish were forced to leave Ireland while another million were dying of starvation in such a short period of time in the first place. The answer, which also explains why millions of children are currently going without enough food in the U.S., has much more to do with market systems than Mother Nature. Read more at Paste Magazine

By Audrea Lim After years of struggling through summer heat and wildfire smoke, farmers in Washington are building their own, cooperatively run, future. Ramón Torres, cofounder of the Cooperativa Tierra y Libertad farm in Everson, Washington. (Edgar Franks) Read more at The Nation

By Sean Michael Kerner According to the latest Norton LifeLock Cyber Safety Insights Report, Americans are worried about privacy but are still willing to accept risks. The Norton LifeLock Cyber Safety Insights Report, was released on March 26, providing insight into consumer attitudes about the current state of cyber-security. Among the high level findings in the report is that 62 percent of Americans believe that experiencing cyber-crime is equally or more likely, than getting the flu. The study however also found that American want to be secure, however they are also willing in some circumstances to trade security for convenience. Read more at eWeek

By Randy Bias You probably practice CI and CD, but if you aren't thinking about continuous response, you aren't really doing DevOps. Continuous response (CR) is an overlooked link in the DevOps process chain. The two other major links—continuous integration (CI) and continuous delivery (CD)—are well understood, but CR is not. Yet, CR is the essential element of follow-through required to make customers happy and fulfill the promise of greater speed and agility. At the heart of the DevOps movement is the need for greater velocity and agility to bring businesses into our new digital age. CR plays a pivotal role in enabling this. Read more at Opensource.com

By Laura Hilliger Everyone sees something, but no one says anything—that's the bystander effect. And it's damaging your organizational culture. Image by : opensource.com The "open secrets" phenomenon illustrates the limitations of transparency when unaccompanied by additional open values. A recent article in Harvard Business Review explored the way certain organizational issues—widely apparent but seemingly impossible to solve—lead to discomfort in the workforce. Authors Insiya Hussain and Subra Tangirala performed a number of studies, and found that the more people in an organization who knew about a particular "secret," be it a software bug or a personnel issue, the less likely any one person would be to report the issue or otherwise do something about it. Read more at Opensource.com

Mozilla and a cohort of independent researchers have detailed the key traits that make for an effective ad archive API — and more transparent elections On March 28 — after urging from dozens of civil society organizations — Facebook is set to launch its advertising archive API. This tool is intended to provide researchers, journalists, and users with transparency into political ads and audience targeting on Facebook. Google also pledged to launch a similar tool ahead of the May 2019 EU Parliamentary elections (but postponed their initial March launch date.) As disinformation continues to spread across online platforms with the potential to interfere with democratic elections, it’s critical that these tools are accessible and effective. So today, Mozilla and a cohort of 11 independent researchers are publishing five guidelines that these APIs must meet in order to truly support election influence monitoring and independent research. Read more at Mozilla Blog

By Steve Emms A database is a collection of records or data that is stored in a computer system. Database tools and applications are designed to help you store and manage data in a controlled and structured manner. A database is a vital system for any organisation that stores mission critical information. The continual failure of a company’s database system will inevitably lead to the demise of the organisation; companies cannot function without a fully working database system. Read more at LinuxLinks

By Brian Kahn Photo: Getty The byzantine networks of rivers and streams that drain the Midwest is facing a flooding crisis of historic proportions. The multibillion disaster centered in Nebraska will spread this spring, with above average rainfall expected to cause floods to impact some 200 million Americans living near rivers. And it won’t necessarily end once it reaches the Gulf of Mexico. Read more at Earther Gizmodo

By Tom McKay Roundup on sale in San Francisco on Feb. 25, 2019. Photo: Haven Daley (AP) A federal jury in California has awarded $80 million to a man who said Monsanto herbicide Roundup was a “substantial factor” in him developing non-Hodgkin lymphoma, CNN reported on Wednesday. It’s a major blow to the chemical manufacturer and its parent company, German chemical giant Bayer AG, which are facing hundreds of lawsuits related to the glyphosate-based herbicide in San Francisco. Read more at Gizmodo

By Tom McKay Promotional images from Chinese lesbian dating app Rela, 2017. Screenshot: Rela (Quartz) A Chinese dating app for lesbian and queer women exposed the profiles and private data of over 5.3 million users, TechCrunch reported on Wednesday, possibly since June 2018. Read more at Gizmodo

By Joan Bryden, The Canadian Press Jody Wilson-Raybould appears at the House of Commons Justice Committee on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Wednesday, Feb. 27, 2019. (THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick) Glen Assoun's lawyer says the wrongfully convicted Halifax man suffered "every single day" as he waited to be exonerated for a murder he didn't commit -- a wait that was prolonged for months as his case sat on former justice minister Jody Wilson-Raybould's desk. Read more at CTV News

By Elise von Scheel Federal carbon plan comes into effect Monday, April 1 Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer holds a press conference on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Friday, Feb. 8, 2019. (Sean Kilpatrick/Canadian Press) The Conservatives are using a new tactic to reach voters with an attack on the federal government's carbon tax just days before it comes into effect. The Official Opposition party is deploying the usual political outreach tools — ad buys and doorstep campaigning — but it's also planning to send messages directly to voters' phones in the four provinces where the federal carbon pricing policy is being introduced. Read more at CBC News

By Bethany Lindsay Minister orders review of annual grants to Vancouver's Health Action Network Society Vancouver's Health Action Network Society claims it's not anti-vaccine, but instead interested in vaccination safety. (Sean Holden/CBC) Over the last 12 years, a Vancouver group has raked in hundreds of thousands of dollars in grants from the B.C. government, while screening anti-vaccination movies, sharing content from anti-vaccination websites and complaining about "censorship" from a social media company that blocked anti-vaccination propaganda. Read more at CBC News

Trudeau’s favourability among the public continues to sink alongside Liberal fortunes Two months of scandal have eroded support for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his Liberal Party, opening up a nine-point lead among Canadian voters who say they would vote for the Conservative Party of Canada if an election were held tomorrow. This, according to a new analysis of public opinion polling data by the non-profit Angus Reid Institute. The data was donated to ARI by Angus Reid Global Public Affairs. Read more at Angus Reid

By Charles Pulliam-Moore John Heffernan, John Simm, Dixie Egerickx, Marquis Rodriguez, and Richard McCabe. Image: John Phillips, Jesse Grant, Mike Coppola, Ben A. Bruchnie (Getty Images, AJA) Despite the fact that HBO’s Game of Thrones prequel—set ages before the White Walkers decided to invade Westeros—still doesn’t have a title, there’s more casting news today. And genre fans will know a few of the new additions. Read more at io9