Archive for the 'News' Category
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I’ve finally hit the 500 post milstone. It has taken a while, but I never would have thought that I’d still be posting to this “temporary” blog. A big thanks to all the readers. Merry Boxing Day.
Black Donut by Heaven‘s Gate (John)
In an elaborate robbery scheme that’s one part The Thomas Crowne Affair and one part Pineapple Express, a crook robbed an armored truck outside a Bank of America branch in Monroe, Wash., by hiring decoys through Craigslist to deter authorities.
It gets better: He then escaped in a creek headed for the Skykomish River in an inner tube, and the cops are still looking for him. “A great amount of money” was taken, Monroe police said, but did not provide a dollar value.
Continue reading ‘Robber uses Craigslist and an Inner Tube to Fool Police’
Google has released a web browser of their own. Dubbed Chrome, the program is set to compete with Mozilla’s Firefox and Microsoft’s Internet Explorer. Wired Magazine has an interesting article detailing the people and rationale behind Google’s newest endeavor.
Being very happy using Firefox, I have yet to try Chrome, but you can download it for yourself here. So far, the reivews seem to conclude that while Chrome is simple and fast (or not so fast), it still has a long way to go if it wants to compete with Firefox and IE8. We will have to wait and see what the future holds for the browser market as Chrome matures. This could end up being yet another instance of Microsoft’s competitive edge slipping away.
When Ron MacLean wears a suit that’s wilder then Don Cherry’s, you know something unthinkable has happened.
Finally.
From the day that Apple’s flagship mobile product was released in the United States back in June 2007, this blog has seen speculation, waiting, whining, and even some heavy drooling over the iPhone. It’s understandable that Canadians have felt a little jealous of our neighbours south of the boarder, being so close and yet so far away from the current must-have tech device. Using certain tools, some adventurous Canucks have even been playing with the iPhone for a while now. But for the rest of us, the phone has been hanging in front of our noses, just across the boarder and out of reach. Now, after almost a year, Rogers has finally announced that the Apple iPhone will be available for purchase in Canada… sometime in the future.
The TSB report on the sinking of the Queen of the North has been released.
On the night of March 22, 2006 the BC Ferries’ passenger ship sank off Gil Island in northwestern B.C. while traveling south towards Port Hardy. Speculation had been placed on fourth officer Karl Lilgert and quartermaster Karen Bricker, the two officers who were in the bridge room with the lights dimmed at the time of the collision. The ship took less then an hour to sink, and of the 101 people on board, two are presumed dead as a result of the incident.
Almost two years later, the Transportation Safety Board report has been released. It has concluded that:
… Karl Lilgert, the senior officer on the bridge, failed to order a course correction and that the quartermaster, Karen Bricker, never made any course corrections because they might have been distracted by three factors in the minutes before the crash:
- They were engaged in personal discussion.
- There was a squall making navigation difficult.
- They had lost track of fishing vessels in the area on the ship’s radar.
The Transportation Safety Board report also found that a number of basic principles of safe navigation were not observed by the bridge team, including:
- Reducing speed when the vessel encountered an area of reduced visibility.
- Failing to call senior officers to the bridge when a squall hit the vessel.
- Failing to maintain an effective lookout.
- Failing to locate and identify navigation lights (on nearby islands).
While the report details the procedures not followed by the two crew members on the bridge that night, it still does not explain why the crew failed to steer the ship away from Gil Island on March 22, 2006.
My original post on the issue is located here. Photos of the incident can be seen here. A detailed history of the ship and it’s demise can be found at wikipedia. See below for more links and information.
Continue reading ‘TSB Report on BC Ferries Queen of the North Released’
Gabriola Island Ferry by Buffett Jr
More bad press for B.C. Ferries.
Canada’s transportation safety watchdog warned Wednesday of widespread marijuana use by BC Ferries crew members on the company’s northern routes, a revelation that had the government-owned ferry operator calling for mandatory and random drug testing.
The Transportation Safety Board said the information surfaced in the investigation into the sinking of the Queen of the North in March 2006, which killed two passengers.
“We interviewed enough people who told us the crews were regularly smoking cannabis and a pattern began to emerge,” spokesman John Cottreau said from Gatineau, Que. The follow-up interviews, however, turned up no evidence the bridge crew on the former BC Ferries flagship was high.
Read more at:
- The Canadian Press: Marijuana use by B.C. Ferries crew prompts call for random drug tests
- CBC News: Marijuana use by B.C. Ferries crew prompts call for random drug tests
- CTV: Test ferry crews for drugs, BC Ferries chief says
Update 1: The TSB report on the Queen of the North’s sinking has been released.
Photo courtesy of Graham Clarke/Vancouver Board of Trade
Lights of the stricken ferry the Queen of the North after it ran aground on March 22, 2006
Photo courtesy of Graham Clarke/Vancouver Board of Trade
Passengers prepare to abandon the Queen of the North after it ran aground on March 22, 2006
Photo courtesy of Graham Clarke/Vancouver Board of Trade
Preparing to deploy lifeboats aboard the stricken ferry Queen of the North after it ran aground on March 22, 2006
Photo courtesy of Graham Clarke/Vancouver Board of Trade
Rescued passengers from the Queen of the North after it ran aground on March 22, 2006
Photo by Mark van Manen/Vancouver Sun
A giant oil slick near the water where the BC Ferry Queen of the North ran aground and sank at Gill Island on March 22, 2006.
These photographs are from the Vancouver Sun | Photo Gallery. More information on the BC Ferries’ Queen of the North sinking on March 22, 2006 can be found here.
Update 1: The TSB report on the Queen of the North’s sinking has been released.
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