(Part 2) Top products from r/Calgary

I just finished reading this book to try and expand my background on this subject. I've always been against these kinds of massive events (and others, like publicly funded sports stadiums) as the benefits are always massively overstated and the IOC/FIFA/Team Owner walks away with everything.

https://www.amazon.ca/Circus-Maximus-Economic-Hosting-Olympics/dp/0815726511/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1487867513&sr=8-2&keywords=circus+maximus

That said, within the book lays out a couple of scenarios wherein hosting the games has been successful. The 1984 LA Olympics were a success, partly because they were in a similar scenario to what the IOC is in now. After Munich and Mexico City, the Olympics were seen as tainted. LA was able to leverage that in to a deal where they could use existing infrastructure, secured significant private funding, and actually had the IOC guarantee all operating losses.

Secondly, the 92 Barcelona Olympics. These were a success, to parrot the author, because the City used the Olympics to help achieve goals that it was already striving towards. After Franco fell, committees were put in place to revitalize Barcelona. Infrastructure, arena's, etc were already planned and did not have to be purpose built for the Olympics. The influx of tourism and global attention helped demonstrate that Barcelona was a world class city, so it proved to be a net positive.

When we look at other recent Olympics, nearly all of them have seen significant cost overruns. While Vancouver may have been profitable from an operations perspective, I don't believe that captures the actual infrastructure spend. The way the games are set up, the Organizing Committees come out ahead, while the City's themselves are left holding the bag. The IOC often asks specifically for new, purpose built facilities to host the games. These costs are massive and leave cities with older, useful stadiums and new, white albatross stadiums. The upkeep costs are then frequently overlooked when talking about legacy.

In light of Budapest dropping out of the 2024 bidding, and with many Scandinavian countries rejecting Olympic bids, I think the IOC is losing leverage. I believe it was a Dutch study that said it will only be countries with limited democracy who can host the Olympics/World Cup (I.e. Russia, Qatar, China) as they are the only ones who can divert enough funds to make it work.

Calgary has some significant infrastructure spends coming up, some of which would dovetail nicely with hosting the Olympics. If we can continue those programs and put forward a reasonable bid, I can live with that. If we instead have to build a bunch of purpose built stadiums that require additional money to repurpose (i.e. London's Olympic Stadium did not provide the legacy it was planned, costing more money and providing terrible atmosphere to West Ham United) then I am against it.

Edit To expand on these points now that I've done the survey, my biggest concern is that whatever benefits would be gained from hosting the Olympics can simply be gained by spending the money on those projects without the actually having the Olympics.

Within the book mentioned above, there was a study completed in the 90's looking at tourism and knowledge boosts. The '88 Olympics did provide a boost in recognition world wide for Calgary (mostly that it looked cold), but that boost was lost be 1989.

London actually saw a decrease in tourism during the year of the Olympics, which I think makes intuitive sense. While that does bring a huge number of people to a country, many more people who may have wanted to visit are going to be turned off by the prospective crowds and construction.

Long story short, I think the benefits are always overstated, because the folks pushing bids are those who stand to gain the most (hotel operators, construction companies, etc). The true benefits are minimal and can be achieved for the greater populous with smart civic planning.

The UBC engineering program is one of the best in Canada. U of S is great if you want to get into Civil Engineering, but is still very competent for Mechanical. I did quite a bit of research on this before I decided to go to SAIT for their Mech Eng Tech program instead; but limited to those two choices based on school performance alone, I would most definitely choose U of S.

"Wait, what?" I hear you saying.

Well, that's the thing. Your friend's daughter is likely not thinking about post-school factors even while she should be. In chapter 3 of the book David and Goliath by Malcom Gladwell, he explores this specific issue. What school you choose to go to as a young person determines almost everything about the rest of your life. A lot of research has been done on this concept, but the part that he chooses to focus on is based on the Big Fish-Little Pond effect theory. Essentially, if you go to a bigger, more prestigious school (Gladwell uses the example of UMaryland vs. Brown), you can reduce your chances of graduating by almost 30%. Given that the engineering discipline is already high-stress and a significant percentage of students do not finish their degrees, why would you make it tougher on yourself than you have to? All engineering programs, more or less, will teach you the same maths and concepts, and it's going to depend more on your motivation to learn them than anything else. In the book, Gladwell goes on to explain that students who graduate at the top of their class in smaller schools have better job prospects than those of the same initial SAT marks who went to 'prestigious' schools.

But seriously, buy your friend that book and make the girl read it before choosing. And tell her to go to U of S.
Please.

Edit: I may have found a PDF of the book online. This is probably not legal. I'll just leave it here on the internet for all to see.

If you're a beginner, those are some good resources to start with for reading, including Tae Kim's Guide to Learning Japanese. For Kanji, I'm using "Remembering the Kanji" by Heisig. Japanese Skype partners or using HelloTalk is great if you're looking to have a conversational partner with. Your Chinese background will definitely help with your Kanji, so that's great.

Keep in mind about payout, though. It doesn't make practical sense to study intermediate or advanced levels of a foreign language if you're not going to be working or living there for an extended amount of time (e.g., spending three years to study advanced Spanish for a month long vacation in Mexico makes zero sense sans personal enjoyment).

Best of luck on your never-ending adventure of learning.

As were Bush, Reagan, and numerous other high ranking US officials, both military and civilian. There have long been close links between Riyadh and DC. For good reason.

The House of Saud, while now a convenient boogeyman for those with no sense of even recent history, has provided not just oil for many decades when there were inadequate supplies in North America (and Europe), but more importantly has been a key ally in the gulf, a place where instability is the natural state, and where Wahhabism especially would rapidly fill a power vacuum.

Is Saudi Arabia an ideal ally? No. We have many differences with them. But they are far better than the alternative. Through taking donations from the Saudis, Clinton was shoring up an important relationship while furthering the impact of her family foundation.

So you can criticize Clinton's relationship with the House of Saud, but see how quickly Trump cozies up to them.

I guess in summary, two things. One, these things aren't black and white, as cute as it may be. And second, keep your friends close and your enemies closer.

For more detail you can read the following:

https://www.amazon.com/Inside-Kingdom-Modernists-Terrorists-Struggle/dp/0143118277

https://www.amazon.ca/Prize-Epic-Quest-Money-Power/dp/1439110123

That's interesting, because a few of these ideas come out of Harvard. Daniel Goleman has done a lot of good work on leadership. If you want to improve your people skills, I'd recommend reading a bit of his work:

• Primal Leadership
  
• Emotional Intelligence
  

This rumour supposedly has to do with the high mineral content of the water creating greater crunch in the crust. It was disproven by Kenji Lopez-Alt in his book The Food Lab (https://www.amazon.ca/gp/aw/d/0393081087?psc=1&ref=ppx_pop_mob_b_asin_title). It’s a great read if you’re looking to understand the why behind food science.

This is correct. Good Work! People who downvote this are retarded. Only problem is there are humans involved (like the ones down voting common sense) and they are good at fucking everything over for their own personal gain.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Late_merge


Though I almost always go out of my way to never let Escalades merge no matter the circumstances are!!!

Edit: Everyone should have to read this book before getting a drivers license. You can read the late merging section in the preview.

http://www.amazon.ca/Traffic-Drive-What-About-ebook/dp/B00328ZUT8/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1369792448&sr=8-4&keywords=traffic

http://www.amazon.com/dp/0307277194/ref=rdr_ext_tmb

In addition to everyone's recommendations here, as an additional tool I highly recommend picking up one of Eckhart Tolle's books

This book is not a bunch of "spiritual mumbo jumbo". It contains tons of practical advice that we all can use. If it carries more weight with you, Oprah considers Eckhart's book one of the 10 favorite books from the last decade.

Mostly religious reasons, traditional taboo, etc.

Here's a fantastic book on the subject overall - https://www.amazon.ca/Here-Eternity-Travelling-World-Death/dp/0393249891/ref=asc_df_0393249891/?tag=googlemobshop-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=293027174108&hvpos=1o2&hvnetw=g&hvrand=7916633068069963334&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=m&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9001326&hvtargid=pla-304773371916&psc=1

This is a Cradle of Filth t-shirt, seen it at many metal shows around town lol.

https://www.amazon.ca/Cradle-Filth-Vestal-T-Shirt-Medium/dp/B07KNW2NN9

This happens every year, often several times per year. The ants that fly are both males and virgin queens, and this is called a mating flight. Ants are really cool in that they are able to time the flight across different colonies and huge distances, so all the colonies send out their males and queens at the same time.

In about 24 hours all the males will have died, and the queens will land and lose their wings. They now have a few months to get the basics of a colony going before winter begins, and naturally only a small percentage will be successful.

Source: I've read this book.

EDIT: It's also called a Nuptial flight, and here is a Wikipedia article about it.

> The flight requires clear weather since rain is disruptive for flying insects. Different colonies of the same species often use environmental cues to synchronize the release of males and queens so that they can mate with individuals from other nests, thus avoiding inbreeding. The actual "take off" from the parent colony is also often synchronized so that predators cannot eat the ants one by one.

Not magic.

That would be quite the twist: https://www.amazon.ca/Naked-David-Sedaris/dp/0316777730/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1506615196&sr=8-3&keywords=naked+book

I started on my own with [this book] (https://www.amazon.ca/Piano-Adults-Beginning-Lessons-Technic/dp/0849773024).

You should read this book if you get the chance:
http://www.amazon.ca/Guide-Good-Life-Ancient-Stoic/dp/0195374614
You can find a torrent for it on IsoHunt (w/ the Oxford press) or track it down at your local library.

Edit: Why? You seem to have a lot of negativity in your mind, and replacing that negativity with other emotions can do great things.

There shouldn't be a minumum wage period.

Economists debunked that garbage back in the 70's.

Now instead we have a ton of TFW's , Slaves being brought up from Mexico, and huge unemployment among youth/low skilled workers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r4SIEl1j8e4&t=3s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-BGi4NIFww

https://www.amazon.com/Basic-Economics-Thomas-Sowell/dp/0465060730

This book is such a must read.

> Stats don't lie

Feel free to order these books online:

http://www.amazon.ca/How-Lie-Statistics-Darrell-Huff-ebook/dp/B00351DSX2/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1422311052&sr=8-1&keywords=statistics+lie

http://www.amazon.ca/Damned-Lies-Statistics-Untangling-Politicians/dp/0520274709/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1422311052&sr=8-2&keywords=statistics+lie

You typically get a referral to a psychiatrist from a family doctor. However, a lot of family docs will write prescriptions for the non-addictive meds. I have had a long-standing prescription to one of the more addictive/potential for abuse ADHD medications, so I have to get mine from a psychiatrist.

I highly recommend the book "Driven to Distraction"
http://www.amazon.ca/Driven-Distraction-Revised-Recognizing-Attention/dp/0307743152

You are a poor, uneducated piece of %$St. The famine in Ukraine was artificially organized by Stalin and his cronies.

Here, read and educate yourself before you continue to stomp on the graves of victims, you holocaust denier:

https://www.amazon.com/Red-Famine-Stalins-War-Ukraine/dp/0385538855

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor