Kitchener is a city located next to the city of Waterloo, so close together that it’s hard to tell where one city stops and the other starts. They are two separate legal entities however, and in Kitchener there is a raging debate about limiting or banning backyard fires (Waterloo banned them some years ago). The debate boils down to the rights of individuals to use their property as they see fit, versus the rights of their neighbours to clean air. On technical grounds, I would side with the people who are seeking a ban, based on what we already know about wood fires and air quality. Continue reading
In the News
Engineering Admissions by Lottery?
The Tenured Radical blog on the Chronicle of Higher Education website has a post reflecting on the possible use of a lottery system for admission to competitive universities. Under this system, we would just identify everyone who meets our minimum admission requirements (maybe an 80% average for the required courses?), then run a random selection process that fills the seats. There are some tempting reasons to do this. Continue reading
Meeting your Waterloo
June 18 is the anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo in 1815, the final major clash between Napoleon’s French Imperial forces and the Anglo-Dutch and Prussian allies arrayed against him, near a small village in modern-day Belgium. The battle clearly resonated throughout the western world, resulting in the eventual use of the name “Waterloo” for a county and village in Ontario, and a university named after the city where it was founded. There is also a Waterloo in Quebec, Iowa, New York State, New Zealand, and many other locations according to Wikipedia. You might wonder what history has to do with the theme of this blog, but I’ve managed to find a connection. Continue reading
Exam Anxiety in China
The Toronto Globe and Mail recently ran an article about China’s university entrance exam system, the “gaokao”. I didn’t know that “gaokao” meant “big test”, but it seems like an apt description. The article nicely summarizes some of the pros and cons of such systems, as well as the impact on Canadian university entrance. Continue reading
Climate Change Nonsense
I read an article in the National Post discussing climate change. I try to avoid reading NP articles about climate change, because they usually just irritate me. However, I couldn’t resist this time, and regretted it as usual. Continue reading
A Professor in Waterloo Engineering 