Updates from July, 2021 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts

  • Kate 17:17 on 2021-07-13 Permalink | Reply  

    (I’m going to put municipal election pieces under one daily post for now. Some other method may be needed later.)

    Verdun councillor Véronique Tremblay has left Ensemble to join Projet. The Gazette notes that a second Ensemble councillor, Pierre L’Heureux, elected in 2017, has also chosen to run in Verdun this time with Plante.

    Ralliement pour Montréal mayoral candidate Marc-Antoine Desjardins wants to charge motorists to cross Mount Royal. Jean-François Cloutier, who gave up on his attempt to start a party called Équité Montréal, is giving his support (such as it is) to Ralliement. I suppose one shouldn’t laugh at these splinter parties, because over time they can grow to be forces in the land (cough ADQ cough).

     

    • Kevin 19:11 on 2021-07-13 Permalink

      The only issue with the ADQ is that Mario Dumont was unable to demonstrate he had a team able to lead when he became opposition leader in 2007. He flubbed it and taught Legault an important lesson in 2008.

  • Kate 17:06 on 2021-07-13 Permalink | Reply  

    TVA says Little Burgundy is on edge following the murder of a young man in a car, not long ago, and the sound of other shots going off in the area.

     

    • Kate 16:50 on 2021-07-13 Permalink | Reply  

      Horsing around in a boat parade with the Stanley Cup, members of the Lightning managed to damage it so badly it has to come to Montreal for repairs.

      In other hockey news, Dominique Ducharme has been named Canadiens head coach, after being interim in the role since February.

       

      • Bert 18:22 on 2021-07-13 Permalink

        It’s coming home?

      • Kate 18:44 on 2021-07-13 Permalink

        To have the dents hammered out, yes.

      • MarcG 20:40 on 2021-07-13 Permalink

        This is great

    • Kate 16:03 on 2021-07-13 Permalink | Reply  

      Authorities have dismantled a homeless camp on Notre-Dame and d’Iberville in Centre-Sud. According to Radio-Canada, the city is disposed to be much less tolerant of such camps this summer than it was last year.

       

      • Kate 15:45 on 2021-07-13 Permalink | Reply  

        Loto-Quebec is constantly producing new runs of scratch cards with different gimmicks and themes, but it’s had to withdraw its recent Record de chaleur scratch card bearing the catchphrase “Plus il fera chaud, plus vous pourriez gagner GROS.”

         

        • EmilyG 16:12 on 2021-07-13 Permalink

          Yikes. I saw a picture of that on social media and thought it was a joke.

        • ProposMontreal - Martin 16:52 on 2021-07-13 Permalink

          People get offended way to easily. It’s a summer scratch ticket. No where does it say, “damn you lucky, since we’re killing the planet it’s better for you right?” and no one is going to “let’s kill the planet so I get more money on my scratch ticket”

        • MarcG 18:18 on 2021-07-13 Permalink

          A summer heat wave scratch ticket pre-climate change is cute – in the middle of collapse with full knowledge is pure idiocy and enables the idea that what we’re experiencing is normal.

        • Kate 18:42 on 2021-07-13 Permalink

          After that whole town got wiped out by fire in B.C., I thought it was in poor taste at best.

        • Blork 08:38 on 2021-07-14 Permalink

          It’s even worse than it appears at first glance. The premise of the tickets is that the prize is linked to the temperature on the day you scratch it; the hotter the day, the bigger the prize. So it’s basically turning climate change into a game and making players wish for hotter weather. That message is just wrong.

        • Kate 09:28 on 2021-07-14 Permalink

          The only good thing to say about it is that weather really does give us random numbers. I have deep suspicion about the true randomness of things that state lotteries do, although without any scientific foundation. But true randomness is hard to achieve, and one of the ways you could do it is tie it to weather conditions.

          Some day somebody should investigate and write up the old hockey ticket system I used to hear about as a kid. This was an illegal lottery before the existence of Loto-Quebec and the winning numbers were determined by the exact moment of hockey goals at the Forum. You can see how these would not be riggable – nobody was asking anybody to throw a game or anything like that, and it was irrelevant even who won. You just used the period, minute and second of any goal as the winning numbers.

        • Joey 10:22 on 2021-07-14 Permalink

          Kate, is your suspicion that Loto-Quebec (and other state lotteries) rig the numbers to pay out less frequently than they otherwise would or that they rig the numbers to direct payments to certain people/sellers/regions? In the former case, don’t jackpots keep growing until someone wins?

        • Kate 11:34 on 2021-07-14 Permalink

          Joey, I have absolutely not done any analyses of winning numbers. It’s just a hunch.

          Loto-Quebec collects all the bets and has all the numbers, and it also pulls out the winning numbers every cycle. Along with other Canada-wide provincial lottery commissions, Loto-Quebec could easily choose not to award a jackpot for a few weeks now and then, to inflate the prizes and stimulate sales.

          I don’t think they could direct the wins to specific people. But it would be so easy to write a program to select six or seven numbers that nobody happened to pick. Just keep drawing number sets and invalidating them till you hit on one that nobody chose. That’s a Programming 101 task.

          I have a secondary hunch that there’s some algorithm they use to distribute the big jackpots across the country, so nobody can complain that Ontario gets all the wins, or something like that.

          Fundamentally, I don’t trust their randomness. They used to have that moment on TV years ago where some guy in a suit would operate a machine with numbered balls, and read them out. It was kitsch, but it introduced a concrete sort of randomness. Too much goes on behind the curtain with our state lotteries.

          Edited to add: I only ever started thinking about this at some point a long while ago when two guys I knew were playing a VLT slot machine in a local bar. It had no mechanical workings inside, but they kept talking about odds and so forth as if it did. I remember pointing out to them that there was no guarantee the machine gave out fair odds – a computer program is not like flipping a coin – and that the program could be biased in various ways to empty their wallets. They either didn’t understand my point, or more likely didn’t want to understand it.

        • mare 12:17 on 2021-07-14 Permalink

          As far as I know, they still use that rotating cage with balls machine. Operated by a notary and watched buy a couple of others. They use similar machines for sports draws and games, because today have proved to be truly random. Unlike computers.

        • Ant6n 09:50 on 2021-07-15 Permalink

          I once spoke to somebody who designs algorithms for slot machines, they’re basically set up to give some money now and then to keep you playing and get addicted. He mentioned going to conferences where psychologists talk about addiction etc.

          It’s one of those things where I realized that people can rationalize all sorts of behavior by creating a moral standard drawing a line at whatever is worse than what they’re doing: „hey I get ppl addicted to gambling, and waste their meager earnings, but I dont do that to kids, thats where i draw the line!“

        • steph 09:57 on 2021-07-15 Permalink

          Even randomized results can lead to gambling addiction.

          Loto Quebec profits are not a secret and the odds of winning each game are public. This lady in 2019 ate crow: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/class-action-rejected-loto-quebec-odds-winning-1.5130641

      • Kate 09:57 on 2021-07-13 Permalink | Reply  

        Living under a flight path I’d become aware of a growing number of planes daily, and this La Presse piece confirms that Trudeau airport is steadily getting busier again, with more flights on July 9 than on any day since the start of the pandemic.

        Le Devoir says there’s a list of businesses circulating that no longer require a mask indoors. Although I’m fully vaxxed, I plan to wear a mask inside stores (and, obligatorily so far, on public transit) to show willing. The pandemic isn’t over, and while I understand the urge to put it behind us, we’re not there yet. In the work I’m doing I recently encountered a woman who bragged of her stubborn refusal to get vaccinated. They are among us.

         

        • DeWolf 11:41 on 2021-07-13 Permalink

          It’s not a surprise to find out that many of the businesses on the list were added without their knowledge or consent. Places like Jean-Coutu, Couche-Tard and Maxi can’t be happy that some crybaby who can’t wear a mask for 20 minutes has unilaterally decided they are amenable to breaking the law.

        • JP 12:03 on 2021-07-13 Permalink

          I know a few people who are not vaccinated. I refuse to be around them socially, even outdoors. We need to remain cautious. I suspect I’ll be wearing a mask indoors in public places for at least another year, especially as international travel picks up and others let their guards down as we’ve been seeing.

        • Bert 15:02 on 2021-07-13 Permalink

          If a business can do a “no shirt, no shoes, no service” or no dogs, or whatever, they can say masks are required. What I am reading is that many governments are saying that mask wearing is no longer required but business and stores can choose to enforce.

        • JaneyB 22:57 on 2021-07-13 Permalink

          Also, the Dutch case and vax numbers were like ours are now, they dropped the restrictions three weeks ago and…Delta everywhere now eg: 500 cases then, now 10,000 per day. Delta’s less serious for the vaxxed but…we could wait a bit and see what happens elsewhere (while we madly finish vaccinating our remaining population). See: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/dutch-leader-says-easing-lockdown-was-error-of-judgment/2021/07/12/9579447c-e314-11eb-88c5-4fd6382c47cb_story.html

        • DeWolf 02:41 on 2021-07-14 Permalink

          They really weren’t, JaneyB. When the Netherlands dropped all restrictions, they had 2.5 times more daily cases per capita than Quebec, their R factor was above 1, and less than half of people in their 20s had received a first dose. We’re in a much better position.

      • Kate 09:46 on 2021-07-13 Permalink | Reply  

        A semi got jammed under the train viaduct on Guy Street Monday night. Despite warnings of a low bridge and a sign saying the clearance is only 3.7 meters, this happens fairly often.

        Previous posts here on similar incidents (with discussions) from May 2019 with followup, and July 2019.

         

        • PatrickC 12:26 on 2021-07-13 Permalink

          Is there a fine for doing this?

        • John B 12:56 on 2021-07-13 Permalink

          Usually yes. And it goes on both the drivers’ and company’s record, I believe, which affects their insurance and their ability to operate. Despite its reputation as an industry full of cowboys on speed, trucking is highly regulated.

        • Ephraim 19:07 on 2021-07-13 Permalink

          Maybe it’s time to start a Montreal version of http://11foot8.com/
          All I have running through my head is that accordion music from Looney Tunes when something gets squeezed.

        • MarcG 20:46 on 2021-07-13 Permalink

          It makes no sense to me, do they not know the height of their vehicle? I think part of our local problem is that truckers are forced to pass through the island on their way to points beyond – is there a petitiion somewhere to build a highway for them that passes around it?

        • John B 12:57 on 2021-07-14 Permalink

          Sometimes truckers don’t know the height, or it’s a few inches off depending on the suspension settings. It could also be that the driver had some other number in their head from a previous trailer, as they’re not all the same height. Of course it is their job to know the height & weight of the vehicle and avoid roads where it does not fit, this driver appears to have failed at that.

          The 30 was built. It is a Montreal bypass for east-west traffic. Anyone going down Guy probably had a pickup or drop-off on the island.

          An 11foot8 for Montreal would be fun, but we have a lot fewer incidents than they do! (I heard somewhere that that bridge was getting raised or the road lowered, which is sad for my entertainment).

        • MarcG 14:00 on 2021-07-14 Permalink

          Thanks John, shows how much I know about driving. It’s amazing how many big trucks you see in the city.

      • Kate 09:31 on 2021-07-13 Permalink | Reply  

        Construction has begun on a building in Sud-Ouest borough that will serve as a shelter for indigenous women, including women who need to be helped along with their children.

         

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