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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 1991-07-17, Page 5THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, JULY 17,1991. PAGE 5. Sudbury gets " the last laugh If there's one thing Canadians are good at, it's laughing at each other. There are Newfie Jokes, of course. And Hogtown Jokes. Calgarians tell jokes about Edmontonians. Oiler fans respond with knee-slappers about the flickering Flames. Chic Montrealers snicker over Toronto Wannabes, while World-Class Torontonians chortle at Lunchbucket Hamiltonians. But there's one Canuck joke you don't hear much any more: the Sudbury Joke. Sudbury jokes used to be a whole subspecies of humour in this country. What do you call a guy from Sudbury? Rocky. Sudbury: the town where you find a pretty girls behind every tree. Sudbury jokes were based on the way that northern Ontario used to look - which is to say, ugly. Years of industrial rapine had denuded the landscape around the town, leaving it looking like the arse end of some lifeless space asteroid. The funniest Sudbury Checkmate in checkers BY RAYMOND CANON 1 learned to play both chess and checkers at about the same time but, strangely enough, I learned chess in German and checkers in English which led to some interesting situations when I was playing with my sons. Chess is undoubtedly played more widely throughout the world than checkers, which is called draughts in England, but both have a considerable following. Chess is by far the more complicated of the two games which means that, when you want a nice, quick game, checkers is the one to choose. For me, that as much as anything determined the one which was played. I shall never forget the first time that I came into contact with a chess board which was computerized; that is, a person could play against, not another person, but a computer. I played and lost - ignominiously; nor did I have much luck in subsequent attempts. It seemed that the computer read my mind but in reality 1 was rather predictable in my moves. The computer was programmed to anticipate a specific number of moves and, if you were good enough to get beyond this number, you had a good chance of winning. That good, I obviously was not! However with checkers I have always been able to get by. This should not be taken to mean that I can compete with the world champion who is, by the way, Marion Tinsley, a professor at a university in Florida. So good is he, that nobody has been able to dethrone him since he won the championship in 1950. Now, you guessed it, somebody has come along with a computerized version of checkers and it came second to Mr. Tinsley in the 1990 Open World Championship. I may not have been surprised to hear about the computer which is called Chinook. What did surprise me is that this computer has been developed by a group of Arthur Blacky joke was no joke at all — back in the 60s, Apollo astronauts really did go to Sudbury to get familiar with the landscape they would soon see on the moon. I don't know where NASA astronauts train these days — the New York Bronx, maybe — but it isn't Sudbury. The city has changed. Urban cosmeticians have been busy these past couple of decades and Sudbury is almost — well, dammit — pretty. Sudbury has a lot to work with -- for starters, it's got seven, count 'em seven, freshwater lakes within the city limits. That's seven fish-bearing, swim-able lakes. Compare that with Toronto which has 13 public beaches — all of them closed due to pollution each summer. Mostly what's changed in Sudbury is that it's a heck of a lot greener than it was a couple of decades ago. What used to be stark boulders, gravel and craters is now fuzzed over with a green mantle of grasses, bush and trees. Back in the late '70s, Sudbury city fathers realized that unless they wanted to go into the Guinness Book of Records as the largest urban slag heap in the world, they were going to have to do something about Sudbury's Noriega-like complexion. So they started hauling in topsoil and throwing seeds around. So far they've spent about $14 million and reclaimed some 1500 acres of scrubland and hardpan. In the past 15 years they've planted well over a million trees. researchers, led by Jonathan Schaeffer, who are Canadian. The name should give their location away; they live in Edmonton and work at the University of Alberta in that city. Mr. Schaeffer expects Chinook to lose to Mr. Tinsley once more but confidently predicts that someday soon it will be world champion. To give you some idea of the relative complexity of the two games, chess and checkers, the former has about 36 legal moves from any position on the board while checkers has fewer than 10. It would thus be easier to program Chinook to look ahead than it would be for a chess computer. Right now it can see into the future for about 20 moves but obviously that is not enough as far as Mr. Tinsley in Florida is concerned. The question is whether he will have retired by the time that Chinook is in a position to look ahead for a whole game. The chances are that he will decide to do so since the Alberta team calculates that there are no less Writer says child support bill pits employer against employee THE EDITOR, Child Support. Does it concern you? I am wondering how many employers out there know what new legislation our NDP government is passing through now. The one that concerns us is Bill 17 which is in Third reading and due to be law in September. Come September any employee you have who is ordered to pay child support through the courts you are going to become the collector. Just as you deduct income tax, U.I.C. and C.Pr, child support will be added to your list. You. then must send that in to the government as often as your employee receives a pay cheque. I suppose a little more book work won’t be What's particularly ironic is where nearly half of those seedlings began life - three- quarters of a mile underground. In a mine­ shaft. Creighton No./ 9 shaft, to be precise. The seedlings were germinated last January, coddled under 1,000 watt metal halide lights for the next four months and finally transplanted above ground in the late spring. Creighton No. 9 shaft makes a great greenhouse. The temperature is a coastant 75 degrees. There's plenty of surplus water and electricity from the mining operations. And very few browsing moose or hungry budworms three-quarters of a mile down a hardrock mine. There's an even greater irony at work here. The Creighton mine belongs to Inco. Inco? Aren't they the folks who put up the great filthy smokestack Americans claim is the biggest single source of sulphur dioxide pollution on the continent? Yup. And Creighton No. 9 is part of a nickel mine that helped to give Sudbury it's Hobs of Hell reputation years ago. Last year, this mine shaft contributed 55,000 jack and red pine seedlings to the beautification of Sudbury. Looks like Creighton No. 9 — and Inco — are starting to pay their civic dues. Looks likes Sudbury isn't Moon Country anymore. Looks like the Sudbury Joke is on the rest of us. than 10^0 possible positions to program in Chinook and this may take the better part of a decade to accomplish. I have no designs on the world championship, nor, would I imagine, do any of my readers, although there are undoubtedly a great many checkers players among them. I can only wonder if, when Chinook reaches the ultimate, it will find that there are only a certain number of correct approaches to winning a game and, even though it is not allowed to lake part in competitions with humans, it will simplify the game to the point where it is no longer a challenge. If that takes place, it may be lime for another new game. Don't forget that Chess came out of the Middle East some place while Rubic's cube was invented by a Hungarian. Perhaps it is time for the distaff side of the human race to come up with the next world renowned game. too hard to take but what about the 'relationship between you and your employee? Another payroll deduction. Personally my husband and I don't feel it is any of the boss' business what we pay for support. We have never missed a payment or been late but we are going to be put through this humiliation regardless. If you have any concerns about this matter, call your local M.P.P. He may be able to give you some answers. He will make it sound simple and efficient, but what about government handling another part our lives? What is it going to cost our province? Thelma Dougherty Londesboro. Letter from the editor Saying goodbye to young talent BY KEITH ROULSTON It's the time of the year when we publish the names of the Ontario Scholars from the five high schools that serve our readership area - a time that brings happy thoughts for the young scholars and sad thoughts for whal our community is about to lose. For most of the scholars and the other graduates of secondary schools who'll be off to colleges and universities this fall, this is probably the last time they'll ever live in their home communities. After college and university the only place they'll find jobs will likely be in the cities. This may change if the observations of Harve DcJordy arc right. Mr. DcJordy is founding director of the Foundation for the Advancement of Canadian Entrepreneurship (FACE) and a columnist in the Toronto Star's business section. Writing recently he said that there is a change in the upcoming generation of teenagers. Rather than being prepared to become employees for life, to take vacancies in large companies, more and more are taking high school credit courses in entrepreneurial studies being brought on stream across Canada. “In view of these dramatic changes in the high school curriculum, one can believe that we won't recognize ourselves 10 to 12 years from now,” he wrote. I hope he's right because it's the one chance we have to not only keep some of our young people al home, but to dramatically change our local economy. There's nothing wrong with working for somebody else, nothing wrong with living and working in the city-if that’s whal you want. The problem is for the last 50 years there really hasn't been much alternative. Whether at the high school or university level, we have been trained, (almost programmed), to work in big companies. The results are obvious. Take any graduating grade 8 class in the last two decades and lake a look at what happened to the students. If they didn't drop out of high school and take a job in a local industry or business, the chances are they're no longer around this part of the country. Of those who went on to university, about the only ones who had the option to come home were those with a family farm or business to come home to. There just aren't many jobs available for university and college graduates on the local scene. The one way you can get a job locally is to create it. It isn't always as attractive to working for somebody else but it does give people the option of working where they want. Canada in general needs more people to go out and create new businesses. Studies show that the vast majority of jobs created come from small companies. Over the years most innovations have also come from entrepreneurs with good ideas. If we're to compete in this increasingly competitive world, we have to have a dynamic economy, fueled by energetic young companies fighting their way up. For those of us in places like Huron county the need to encourage more of our young people to create their own businesses, and in doing so create jobs for others, is even more important. Our economic base, agriculture, has been in decline for a decade. We aren't being swamped with industry. Right now our biggest export is young brainpower, brainpower that will go on to make cities even more dominant in our lives unless we can harness that talent here al nome. We should be pushing to make sure enlrepreneuring courses are included in local high school curriculums.