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Habfanman

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  1. Habfanman

    Vidéos sur Montréal

    Habfanman a répondu à un sujet de mtlurb dans L'actualité

    BIXI New York- hehe! [video=youtube;Kz14vP-vUEU]
  2. Habfanman
    Wisdom from Joey Saputo. Too bad that the Problem Industry has already taken over the show. Justin Time Trudeau has weighed in with his vote-fishing opinion therefore Pauline Marois must automatically take an opposing stance. It's like an automatic trigger: One side says this, the other must say that. Common sense is lost in the shuffle. Too bad, as there is no hope of coming up with an intelligent solution now. It's Officially Political. And you tell me: Could we, all the people who are members of MTLurb, have not have solved this problem before it even became a problem? Could 90% of Québécois - regardless of their language or ethnicity - have solved this 'problem' before it became a 'problem'? I think so, and I think we are all being manipulated by the Problem Industry. Put an end to the Problem Industry! Le Président de l'Impact de Montréal Joey Saputo a émis la déclaration suivante : « Personnellement, je pense qu’on ne devrait pas empêcher un enfant de jouer au soccer au niveau mineur parce qu’il porte un turban. Toutefois, je comprends la décision de la Fédération de soccer du Québec qui a été prise selon un règlement de la FIFA, qui laissait place à interprétation. Les commentaires accusant la fédération de racisme sont déplacés compte-tenu du contexte dans lequel la fédération a dû naviguer. L’Association canadienne de soccer a fait une recommandation et n’a pas statué précisément sa position auprès des fédérations provinciales. Par ailleurs, la décision de l’Association canadienne de suspendre la fédération est donc nettement exagérée. Toutes les instances en cause doivent trouver un terrain d’entente pour le bien du sport.»
  3. Habfanman
    I'll attempt to 'get in touch' by running home and looking up lists on the internet every day. Fuck all this travelling and living in different places. Who needs it? Knowledge is but a mouse click away...
  4. Habfanman
    With all due respect Sir, I doubt that there is a more mediocre member of this site, than you.
  5. Habfanman
    I'll ignore the list-obsessed Village Idiot. It's difficult to respond to this particular study (which is just one of thousands) as they don't supply any specific breakdown on any of the Canadian cities other than a number. 57.5? Euh.. OK, what does that mean? But any study from the Economist will put a great emphasis on financial centres, so much so that the study could be more accurately named "What 55 year old bankers look for in a city" That's fine, but what if you're not a 55 year old banker? What if you're a 30 year old aeronautical engineer? A 25 year old visual artist? A bio technician? A musician? I'm sorry but there's more to life than "What business guys want" because all they really want to do is make money and anything that gets in the way of that will fall by the wayside - if you let them run the show. And we've seen where they've taken the world over the past decade or so: to the brink of collapse. The more bankers get their way it seems the more fucked up everything becomes. So I wouldn't place too much emphasis getting our 'Economist ranking' up. At least not to the detriment of all else. When I look at the rankings and I see cities like Berlin, Montreal, Melbourne, Hamburg finishing well below a dump like Toronto, I know that my idea of a great city and the Economist computer's idea of a great city differ widely. I'd like to take the Economist computer (I hope it's a laptop!) to each of these cities and see if it changes its mind. Of course these conclusions weren't arrived at by actual humans who have lived in or even visited these cities. These conclusions are reached by taking data that is important to bankers (but not necessarily to the rest of us) and feeding it into a machine. The results are predictable with the 3 or 4 financial powers that really matter finishing at the top and the rest - that are interchangeable and don't really matter at all - arguing over who gets to carry New York, London or Tokyo's briefcase to the next meeting. Somewhat like the world's 25 largest army bragging because it has 75 tanks and the 35th largest army only has 65 tanks. It doesn't really matter when the U.S. army has over 8000 tanks. That said, I do want us to continue to do well and there are many things we can improve upon. But it's important that these improvements are made with the emphasis upon making life better for us - the people who live here - and not simply on providing better data for the Economist computers. The most important improvement that needs to be made IMO are in transit and infrastructure. We need to extend the metro, AMT, LRT NOW - not 5,10 years from now. We need to take down the Turcot, Bonaventure, fix the roads NOW. These will have direct benefits for citizens and the economy. Every dollar spent (wisely) on infrastructure NOW gives economic benefits of 2 or 3 times that amount in the future. Expand the Palais de Congès, fix the Stade, build the airport train. Enough with the endless studies, start NOW! And the language issue. I can't help but think that if we took that dossier out of the hands of hardline politicians on both sides of the issue and gave it to the 90% of us who get along fine every day, it could be solved over the weekend. Instead, it keeps being passed from one group of idiots to the next who continually use it to pit each of us against the other simply to garner support from the extreme minority at either end of the nutbar spectrum. As an anglo transplant, I don't really see much of a problem in my daily life yet I READ about problems Every. Single. Day. Most of them are manufactured by the local Problem Industry who only benefit from creating trouble where trouble doesn't actually exist. End the Problem Industry! Otherwise, concentrate on our strengths: aerospace, life sciences, pharma, digital arts, cultural industries. Broadcast our 'uniqueness' to potential tourists. Plan our development properly, decrease the gap between rich and poor, send mark_ac to Toronto.. Smart stuff that will immediately improve the city.
  6. Habfanman
    LOL! You don't think that he actually read it or understands it do you? This is all he saw: Some study about something...... Toronto.. 10....... Vancouver.. 28......... Montreal..36!!!!!!!!!! HAHA!!! SKY IS FALLING ONCE AGAIN!!!!!
  7. Habfanman
    Considering the disaster of Trum in Toronto (ugly building, falling glass, investors backing out and suing, still haven't installed the 'P' a year after opening, the 'art installation' doesn't work) why would anybody want to be associated with that buffoon?
  8. Habfanman
    Obviously, everybody should move to New York or London. That's what the Economist computers say! I'll rough it out here. I'm not a computer.
  9. Habfanman
    Nicolas Van Praet, Financial Post · Jun. 6, 2013 | Last Updated: Jun. 6, 2013 2:23 PM ET MONTREAL • Green Mountain Coffee Roasters Inc. is revamping its Canadian manufacturing operations in Montreal as investors savour a tripling in the company’s shares over the past year. The Waterbury, Vt.-based company, which bought Quebec coffee chain Van Houtte in 2010, will announce Friday a $40-million to $50-million investment to modernize its plant in Montreal’s Saint Michel neighbourhood with new packaging equipment, two sources said. More than 100 new jobs will be created in the move. It’s all part of a larger effort by Green Mountain Canada President Sylvain Toutant to fortify and grow the company’s presence in Montreal since the $915-million takeover three years ago. Building on initial moves to purchase property around the company’s Van Houtte coffee facility in the city’s north end and to occupy a new country head office, Mr. Toutant is now expanding the Montreal manufacturing operations. “This is really a great piece of news for a neighbourhood that badly needs it,” said Frantz Benjamin, the municipal councillor representing the district, adding the company’s modernization is only the first phase of what could be a larger economic development project for the neighbourhood. Related “In the medium term, we’d really like to develop an entire Quartier du Café (Coffee District) in the area,” anchored around Green Mountain, he said. Montreal has other geographical clusters of business activity, but this one in Saint Michel’s industrial district would be among the more remote. The coffee maker sought financial support from the Quebec government for the manufacturing modernization, which it is believed to have won. The funds would be used to add a production line in Saint Michel and diversify commercial activities, the company said in a filing with Quebec’s lobbyist registry. Shares of Green Mountain rose 3% to $74.68 in Nasdaq trading Thursday. They’ve more than tripled over the past year. In December, Mr. Toutant articulated a three-year plan for Green Mountain’s Montreal site to add 50,000 square feet of production space, boost the payroll by 150 workers to 1,000, and refurbish the roasting plant. The site currently encompases the head office, a roasting factory and two distribution warehouses. Green Mountain dominates the single-serve coffee market in the United States with its Keurig-brand coffee makers and K-Cup pods, making money from most of the coffee sold for those machines. The company lost more than two-thirds of its market value during the year ending last October, but has since staged a remarkable recovery, proving that despite the expiry of its K-Cup design patents it can still generate earnings growth. Green Mountain’s product innovation will be an important performance driver in the years ahead, Imperial Capital analyst Mitchell Pinheiro said in a research note Thursday, initiating coverage on the shares with an outperform rating and $95 price target. “We believe the company’s potential on the cold beverage side of the at-home beverage category could create an opportunity that is as large, if not larger, than its current coffee, tea and hot cocoa segment,” Mr. Pinheiro said, forecasting earnings per share growth of 15-25% over the next three years. http://www.nationalpost.com/Green+Mountain+boost+Montreal+operations+with+much+investment/8490304/story.html
  10. Habfanman
    The problem with you is that you only look for lists where Montreal finishes lower than some other city. When you find one - whatever the topic or however dubious the source - you hail it as THE definitive indicator that everything is a disaster and that everyone is accepting "mediocrity". Meanwhile, you ignore every positive indicator that doesn't fit with your predetermined doomsday scenario. Lists where Montreal tops other cities are irrelevant and don't interest you as they go against your "everything is fucked" mentality. To top things off, you don't seem to have the intelligence or desire to weed out the bullshit or to understand anything within its context. You see a list, it has negative connotations, you launch into a nonsensical diatribe. "Montreal only has 6 startups!!!!!!" says some list. Whereas an intelligent person would likely question this because it doesn't sound correct - and do a .5 second search which reveals at least 51 startups http://www.montrealtechstartup.com/#. Not mark_ac, he believes everything he reads (but ONLY if it puts Montreal in a negative light of course - good lists are irrelevant and to be ignored). I'd be willing to bet that you've never lived anywhere else in the country or the world because your posts reek of someone who has no clue and no basis upon which to make comparisons between different cities - other than looking for lists on the internet. You come off as a miserable little wretch of a human being who does nothing but complain and blame everybody else while you do nothing but look for lists that will make you more miserable. I have to give you credit though, if I were as deeply unhappy as you are I probably would have put myself out of my misery by now. And don't pm me again - EVER!
  11. Habfanman
    Ah yes, big internet balls! The bravery of an anonymous online serial-complainer! Bravo. Such immense courage surely deserves a medal! You are a true hero.
  12. Habfanman
    He probably never heard of a startup or knew what one was before the article was posted! I certainly agree that we could use more entrepreneurial spirit in MTL but I wouldn't take anything written by blowhard Richard Florida very seriously. His 'Creative Class' schtick is getting tired. He thinks everybody should be designing apps while painting murals on the walls of their converted lofts and eating organic cupcakes with ground unicorn horn icing on top. From the comments section of the article: Erik Bruvold • 8 hours ago "We ALL need to take anything coming out of Florida's shop and published on this site with a HUGE grain of salt. I took a look at the underlying dataset he referenced. It is populated in an open source fashion. So one bias that is there is that start ups with better PR (that know about the source) are going to be overrepresented. Secondly, just a quick browse through the source suggested that what it spits back as start ups are far from scrubbed (I saw university institutes and 20 year old VC firms come back, while at the same time scores of start ups I personally am aware of didn't appear). Is the geography of start ups very interesting? Absolutely. But let this (along with a ton of stuff Florida posts) be a lesson to us all - the analysis is usually only as good as the dataset and sometimes the urge to "get something posted" trumps trying to do good (or really even half way decent) social science."
  13. Habfanman
    If you're so concerned about it then why don't you do something about it? Like get off your fucking ass and create your own startup. Your useless whining and complaining on the internet isn't accomplishing anything.
  14. Habfanman
    Yeah you're right. I thought everything was going well until I saw this. This is absolute proof that life is over and we should all just commit suicide! What were we thinking??? I've emailed my friends in Australia who weren't aware that their country was swirling down the drain to hell (according to this extremely important indicator of absolute global importance). They didn't know about this definitive study which all the people of the world should use as their guide. They thanked me and are making plans to move from Sydney and Melbourne now that they realize how hopeless and desperate the situation has become there. They had no idea how horrible and useless they were until they read this: The Most Important Study In The Entire Fucking World. Me and my Aussie mates are all moving to Bangalore India.
  15. Habfanman
    Un sondage de l’ACP démontre que moins de Canadiens vivent d’une paie à l’autre. Les employés épargnent davantage, mais plusieurs sont encore loin de leurs objectifs de retraite. TORONTO (6 septembre 2012) – Ce sont de bonnes et de mauvaises nouvelles qui ressortent du sondage auprès des employés qu’a réalisé l’Association canadienne de la paie (ACP) dans le cadre de la Semaine nationale de la paie de cette année. Commençons par les bonnes nouvelles : Un moins grand nombre vit trop près du seuil Les réponses de 3 500 employés de partout au Canada ont permis de découvrir qu’un moins grand nombre vivent d’une paie à la suivante. Bien que 47 % d’entre eux maintiennent qu’ils éprouveraient des difficultés financières si leur paie était retardée d’à peine une semaine, il n’en reste pas moins qu’il s’agit d’une nette amélioration sur les 57 % de l’an dernier qui avaient du mal à joindre les deux bouts. Les provinces ou régions qui comptent le pourcentage le plus élevé d’employés vivant d’un chèque à l’autre sont : les Maritimes (54 %), le Manitoba (53 %) et l’Ontario (52 %). C’est au Québec que le pourcentage est le plus bas (33 %). Épargner davantage Le quatrième sondage annuel de l’ACP comprend un signe encourageant puisqu’il démontre qu’un plus grand nombre d’employés trouvent qu’ils sont mieux en mesure d’accroître leur épargne. Bien que seulement 40 % employés tentaient d’épargner davantage et le faisaient l’an dernier, ce nombre a augmenté à 66 % en 2012, un saut énorme. Au Québec, les employés sont les meneurs en ce qui a trait à leur capacité d’accroître leur épargne (71 %). Réévaluer les besoins de retraite Les employés au Canada semblent également se préoccuper davantage de leurs besoins de retraite. Un plus petit nombre croit que des économies de 500 000 $ à un million de dollars suffiront pour leur assurer une retraite à l’aise (34 % cette année, 42 % l’an dernier), alors qu’un plus grand nombre croit qu’il leur faudra plutôt entre un million et trois millions de dollars (38 % cette année, 27 % l’an dernier). Et maintenant, les mauvaises nouvelles : Un taux d’épargne toujours bas Bien qu’un plus grand nombre d’employés au Canada économisent, le taux d’épargne demeure bas. Près de la moitié (46 %) affirment qu’ils réussissent à épargner à peine 5 % ou moins de leur paie. Les spécialistes de la planification financière recommandent généralement un taux d’épargne de 10 % de la paie nette. Très éloignés des objectifs de retraite Ce bas taux d’épargne se reflète dans un autre constat inquiétant. Lorsqu’on leur demande jusqu’à quel point ils se rapprochent de leur objectif de retraite, 73 % des employés disent avoir épargné moins du quart des sommes qu’ils aimeraient avoir accumulées. Une conclusion particulièrement préoccupante : même chez les employés qui se rapprochent de la retraite (50 ans et plus), 45 % mentionnent qu’ils ont amassé moins du quart de l’épargne qu’ils avaient souhaité pour leur retraite. Devoir travailler plus longtemps En ce qui concerne les employés, qui se sont fixé une date de retraite : 41 % disent qu’ils devront maintenant travailler plus longtemps – cinq ans de plus en moyenne – qu’ils ne l’avaient prévu en 2007; la principale raison qui explique cette nécessité de travailler plus longtemps est « Je n’épargne pas assez pour ma retraite »; l’âge médian de retraite est de 60 ans. L’endettement est le principal obstacle à l’épargne Deux employés sur cinq au Canada dépensent leur paie nette ou davantage. En résumé « Le sondage de cette année montre qu’un plus grand nombre d’employés au Canada sont maintenant en mesure d’épargner davantage et que moins d’entre eux vivent d’une paie à la suivante », a remarqué Caroline Bernard, présidente du conseil de l’ACP. « Toutefois, à peine 13 % ont épargné la moitié ou plus de leur objectif de fonds de retraite. » Patrick Culhane, président-directeur général de l’organisme, affirme que l’insuffisance d’épargne-retraite est particulièrement préoccupante parmi les travailleurs les plus âgés. « Plusieurs d’entre eux quitteront le marché du travail dans quelques années à peine, pourtant la plupart d’entre eux sont bien loin de leurs objectifs de retraite. » Les professionnels de la paie peuvent souvent aider les employés à épargner automatiquement en demandant qu’une partie de leur paie nette soit versée dans un compte d’épargne distinct ou dans un régime enregistré d’épargne-retraite (qui contribue à réduire l’impôt sur le revenu personnel). Consultez le site http://www.payroll.ca pour une synthèse des conclusions du sondage (sous le volet Salle de presse) ou pour toute autre information. Les porte-parole de l’ACP sont accessibles pour des entrevues. [...] http://www.payroll.ca/Content/NavigationMenu2/Salledepresse/Communiqusdepresse/Communiqué_de_presse.htm
  16. Habfanman
    Valeant proche d'un accord pour acheter Bausch and Lomb Le groupe pharmaceutique canadien Valeant (T.VRX) est proche d'un accord en vue de racheter le fabricant américain de produits ophtalmologiques Bausch and Lomb pour un montant d'environ 9 milliards de dollars, a indiqué vendredi une source proche du dossier à l'AFP. La transaction pourrait intervenir dès la semaine prochaine, a précisé cette source, qui confirmait des informations du Wall Street Journal. L'essentiel du capital de Bausch and Lomb (87 %) appartient au fonds d'investissement Warburg Pincus, qui l'avait payé 4,5 milliards en 2007, dette incluse, et retiré de la Bourse de New York. L'autre actionnaire significatif de la société est le fonds Welsh, Carson, Anderson and Stowe, qui détient environ 11 %. Warburg Pincus avait, selon la presse, cherché un acheteur à la fin de l'année dernière, mais aucun n'avait proposé de prix à la hauteur de ses attentes, soit une dizaine de milliards. Il avait donc entamé fin mars des démarches en vue d'une réintroduction en Bourse de la société. Bausch and Lomb est une entreprise fondée en 1853 qui fabrique aujourd'hui notamment des lentilles de contact et des produits pour leur entretien, ainsi que du matériel utilisé en chirurgie ophtalmique. Il a enregistré l'an dernier une perte nette de 68,3 millions, pour des ventes de 3 milliards, et emploie 11 200 personnes. http://affaires.lapresse.ca/economie/sante/201305/24/01-4654169-valeant-proche-dun-accord-pour-acheter-bausch-and-lomb.php
  17. Habfanman
    By Eric Moskowitz | GLOBE STAFF MAY 19, 2013 The city’s on-street bike lanes are marvels to US visitors. We had pedaled half a block from the vibrant Jeanne-Mance Park, past tennis matches, a youth league football game, and the filming of a music video, when it dawned on me: We were biking in one direction, and the cars were pointed in another. But this was no rogue move by our tour guide, leading us the wrong way down a one-way street. Pavement markings invited it. Stopping ahead, guide Martin Coutu pointed out a defining feature of the city’s residential neighborhoods: the cast-iron outdoor staircases leading to the upper floors of thousands of two- and three-story walkups, allowing the homes to achieve a gracious sidewalk setback without ceding interior space for shared entries and stairwells. Still, I couldn’t help marveling over that bike lane, beckoning two-way cycling down an otherwise one-way street. I could picture just a single block like it in Cambridge and none in Boston. But as we followed Coutu along Fitz & Follwell Co.’s ’Hoods and Hidden Gems tour, it became clear that, in Montreal, it was one of many. Coursing through the city, we followed all manner of on-street bike lanes — plain old painted lanes, two-way lanes, lanes protected from traffic by plastic rods or concrete curbs — and off-street bike paths. We even saw some bicycle-specific traffic lights. Painted markings guided us through intersections, and signs told drivers to give us the right of way. More remarkably, they obeyed. Related If you go biking in Montreal... On that four-hour tour, and again riding around the city on the bike-sharing network known as Bixi, no one honked at us, not even once. It was liberating, allowing us to follow Coutu — a cheerful character with the whippet build of a bike messenger, unafraid to give a playful squeeze to the bulbous retro horn affixed to his handlebars — without any white-knuckled worry about staying alive. “The majority of our customers are American,” Shea Mayer, Fitz & Follwell’s founder, told me later, “and they all say, ‘It’s unbelievable. I live in Boston, I live in New York’ — or California, or wherever it is — ‘and not only can I not believe the amount of lanes you have, but I can’t believe we haven’t been run off the road yet.’ ” And there was plenty to see following those bike lanes, on a tour inspired by Mayer’s idea of a perfect day off in Montreal, often ranked as the most bike-friendly city in North America. Riding a stylish set of Dutch-inspired upright bikes, we weaved through the colorful neighborhoods that fan out to the east and northeast of the verdant peak known as Mont Royal, including Mile-End, Outremont, and Petite Italie. We stopped to sample wood-fired, sesame seed-covered bagels on Rue Saint-Viateur; sip exquisitely prepared cappuccino at Café Olimpico; and explore the open-air stalls of the Jean-Talon Market, the larger, locally minded cousin to the tourist-choked Atwater Market on the waterfront. Mayer started Fitz & Follwell as a one-man outfit in 2009, soon growing it into an eight-guide business and a boutique in the hip neighborhood known as The Plateau, where he rents and sells bikes and offers locally made, bike-friendly products such as a leather crossbar holster for wine bottles. The outings now include a food tour by foot and winter toboggan and snowshoe expeditions in the city’s famed parks, but the bread and butter is still the April through October bike tour. It is designed not as a stop-and-go sightseeing tour that happens to be by bicycle, but a two-wheeled immersion in, and celebration of, a place with a deeply ingrained bike culture. Having written about Boston’s push under Mayor Thomas M. Menino to end its status as the scourge of the biking world, starting from zero to add 60 miles of bike lanes, and launching the Hubway bike-share network, I was aware of the basic facts about Montreal. It boasts hundreds of miles of bike lanes, and its Bixi system, with more than 400 stations and 5,100 bikes, is four times as extensive as Hubway. But the numbers tell only part of it. This is a rare city beyond Europe where bicycling is not just a form of daring recreation or reluctant transportation but an essential, accepted part of everyday life. It is the way urbanites get to the pub, the park, the office, the grocery store. I saw bikes as fashion statements and bikes outnumbering cars, three or four fastened to every parking-meter post on the bar-, cafe-, and boutique-laden Saint-Laurent and Saint-Denis avenues. Not that I had come to Montreal intent on geeking out on the bike infrastructure and scene. My girlfriend, Hannah, and I had been drawn by the city’s traditional allures: food, culture, architectural charm, and proximity to Boston. Before we went, Hannah made a Facebook appeal for suggestions, and a friend in New York quickly responded, declaring Fitz & Follwell “the best thing I’ve ever done as a tourist” — anywhere. A Google search yielded similar superlatives on TripAdvisor, where the company holds the top ranking among all manner of Montreal tour providers, so we booked. What distinguishes Fitz & Follwell was never clearer than at the end of the tour, after we had admired more outdoor staircases and followed Coutu through a world tourists rarely see: the intricate network of back alleys that were once the unremarkable setting for so many anonymous coal deliveries and trash collections, but that have been enlivened recently with lush gardens, ivy-draped terraces, and candy-colored murals. Winding down, we ducked into a boulangerie and pedaled behind Coutu to Parc La Fontaine, where he laid a blanket on a rare stretch of unoccupied grass and we sat down to a spread of ripe strawberries and cherry tomatoes from Jean-Talon Market, made-to-order sandwiches from the boulangerie, and ice-cold craft beers. As we sipped, ate, and laughed, another group biked into view on the far side of the lawn, gathering around a leader. Not only were they not enjoying a picnic, but they were clad in matching fluorescent vests, like members of a prison road crew. “That’s the other bike tour,” Coutu said, grinning impishly. “They’re people who get lost easily.” Watching them, it was easy to forget we weren’t locals ourselves — or, at least, visitors being shown around by a savvy friend. When we got back to the shop, we lingered, reluctant to let go of the leather grips on those Dutch-inspired bikes. So we did the next best thing, renting Bixis to explore places suggested by Coutu as we had buzzed by — only so many eating stops can be squeezed into one tour. Undaunted by intermittent rain, we rode in the evening along part of the Canal-de-Lachine, a 35-year-old bike path that traces a canal abandoned after the 1959 opening of a shipping channel in the mighty St. Lawrence River, and followed another bike path along part of the city’s active industrial port and over the low-slung Pont de la Concorde bridge, reaching Île Sainte-Hélène, the leafy epicenter of Expo ’67, still anchored by the Biosphere and an amusement park. Darkness settling in, we followed a path to the other side of the island and found a trail leading to the Jacques Cartier Bridge, an 11,000-foot steel truss span that rises 162 feet above the St. Lawrence, similar in size and design to Boston’s Tobin Bridge. However crazy the idea of biking the Tobin might sound, here we found an inviting bike lane — and an exhilarating one, high above the jet-black water — running along one side of the Cartier, protected from traffic. Pedaling back to downtown, I thought about something Coutu had said: Montreal wasn’t always so bike-friendly, it just had an earlier start. I considered Boston, where bicycle counts are rising, and new lanes, albeit unprotected ones, are striped every year. As the city lights came closer, I realized I wasn’t just pedaling toward the most bikeable city on the continent. I was seeing a vision of Boston’s future. http://www.bostonglobe.com/lifestyle/travel/2013/05/18/bike-tour-montreal/Q7r2F3g6TIuwiiITu0ypGL/story.html
  18. Habfanman
    How Quebec Cree avoided the fate of Attawapiskat On the eastern shore of James Bay, a very different story. By Terry Milewski, CBC News Posted: May 14, 2013 9:33 PM ET Last Updated: May 14, 2013 11:07 PM ET Read 119 comments119 Freezing, mouldy homes. Sewage contamination. Sick kids. Unemployment. A blockade on the road to the mine. A hunger strike by the chief. That, it seems, is the news from the Cree of James Bay — at least, as it's defined by the desperate community of Attawapiskat, in northern Ontario. Before that, there was the news from nearby Kashechewan. Flooding. Despair. Suicide. And both James Bay towns endured fresh emergencies this spring as the annual meltwaters exposed, again, their rickety infrastructure. But bad news makes headlines and good news usually does not. So we've heard all about the mess on the Ontario shore of James Bay — and next to nothing about the success on the eastern shore, in Quebec. Little noticed by the world outside, the Cree of northern Quebec are writing a startlingly different story than their cousins on the western shore of James Bay. Self-government. Revenue-sharing. Decent schools and new development. Mining companies being welcomed instead of blockaded. And no hunger strikes. Schoolchildren in the northern Cree community of Wemindji, Que., enjoy decent schools, in contrast to their Ontario cousins in Attawapiskat, who have been in portables since their school closed more than a decade ago. It's taken 40 years, but a long struggle is paying off. The neat streets of Wemindji or Oujé-Bougoumou feel like they're on a different planet than Attawapiskat. If the stop signs weren't in Cree, you'd think the rows of warm, solid homes were in a suburb down south. Shiny new courthouses, band offices, recreation centres and police stations are being completed. There's no crisis to summon reporters from Toronto or Montreal. So why is it so different on the Quebec side of James Bay? [...] http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/story/2013/05/14/pol-james-bay-cree-northern-quebec-attawapiskat.html
  19. Habfanman
    I find the attitude of Montrealers - particularly on development sites such as this, SSP, SSC - to be weirdly defeatist. The "sky is always falling" and even if it clearly isn't, then it's about to at any minute. I find that the biggest complainers have never lived anywhere else and therefore lack any sense of perspective or ability to make any realistic comparison to anywhere else. Also, the overwhelming emphasis on building heights and skylines, bigger and more, over the much more important aspects of urbanism and how a city or society should function seems to be at odds with the 99.9% of the world population who care less if a building is 40, 50, or 60 storeys. Most people don't live in helicopters or spend their free time comparing skyline pictures on the internet. People spend most of their time on the ground and like to go out and do things and a 60 floor building is really not going to add anything to their quality of life. The complete opposite of Montrealers on these sites are Torontonians. To them, everything in Toronto is the most superfantastic thing ever - even if it's complete shit - and no bad news is ever posted or discussed and no problems or fuck ups are ever talked about. If your only sources of information on 'The World Class Centre of the Universe' are skyscraper sites, you're not getting a very balanced view. I'm not saying that Montrealers should become fanboy homers like them but geez.. some of the stuff I read on here makes me wonder if I living in the same city as some of the manic depressive, miserable people who post on this site. I found myself constantly complaining about Ontario and Toronto when I lived there so I did the only logical thing and moved! They weren't going to change to suit me and it doesn't make sense to me to remain in a place that you do nothing but complain about. There are 1,000's of places in the world, no one is forcing you to stay in any one of them.
  20. Habfanman
    Excellent. There are about 20 buildings around Concordia that could benefit from this treatment!
  21. Habfanman
    I really like how the top of this is turning out. Much nicer than I was expecting.
  22. Habfanman
    We have an opportunity to make something amazing here. Let's not waste that opportunity. BTW: acpnc pour maire! Premier ministre!
  23. Habfanman
    Voila! Toronto Style baby!
  24. Habfanman
    Vice video - Mile End Deli http://www.vice.com/watch-slice-of-sneaker/munchies-mile-end-delicatessen-slice-of-sneaker
  25. Habfanman
    .... oups ....
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