Canadian Government Trucking Generations of Scientific Data To the Dump 209
sandbagger writes "Canada's science documents are literally being taken to the dump. The northern nation's scientific community has been up in arms over the holidays as local scientific libraries and records offices were closed and their shelves — some of which contained century old data — emptied into dumpsters. Stephen Harper's Tory government is claiming that the documents have been digitized. The scientists say, 'The people who use this research don’t have any say in what is being saved or tossed aside.'"
Re:But they haven't digitized the material (Score:4, Funny)
I'm sure they digitized it. Now was that face up or down on the flatbed scanner? I can never remember.
Re:He who fails to learn from history... (Score:5, Funny)
... is doomed to repeat it.
Does anyone else get the impression that we're on the downside of civilization?
It's hard to learn from history when the records of it have been shredded.
The documents have been digitized (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah, it's all ones and zeros now.
Harper - 1
Science - 0
Re:I don't normally bitch about headlines but, (Score:4, Funny)
what does this mean, "Trucking Generations of Scientific Data To the Dump" ?
Tricky. I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that it means that they're taking recorded scientific data, sticking it in a truck and then driving that truck to a dump. In truth they might actually be putting the data in a skip (or dumpster for you North Americans) then lifting the dumpster on to the back of a truck then driving that truck to the dump, rather than loading the data directly into the truck. The headline is admittedly unclear in this aspect.
Presumably after the trucking (with or without a skip) they then empty the truck/skip into the dump rather than return it to the depot full of data or simply park the truck (with or without a skip or possibly just the skip alone) at the dump in perpetuity. I admit that this part is implied but I feel it is not an unreasonable inference.
Is trucking something to somewhere meant to be a pejorative
Yes. It would be much more acceptable if the data was delivered to the dump by an army of bike couriers. Then there would be no complaints whatsoever.