Bike Lanes One Pager Assignment

Bike Lanes Daniel Szajnzinger January 30, 2019

As a citizen of Victoria, the bike lanes has been a large issue among the people who live here. Whether or not the bike lanes is good for the city of Victoria, there are many problems with the way the plan has taken place.

The Times Colonist interviewed a number of business owners who have lost money due to the new bike path. Almost all of the businesses that were on the street where the bike path was built have lost revenues over that year. The Times Colonist found that over the first quarter of 2018, the average lost revenue is 29% versus the previous year. While this could be fine if the City had done anything to alleviate the business losses, there has been nothing done for them. In addition the bike lanes will further hurt revenues with how little parking is available now, which may result in further losses and even put the businesses in the red.

A taxi driver that also writes for the Time Colonist, Wil Richardson, has also noticed that there has been an issue for customers on Pandora Avenue. Quite a few customers have stopped ordering taxis as they block traffic while loading and unloading, which adds to the problem. This is an issue for the elderly who depend on taxis or HandyDart as they have to find ways over the big curb in their wheelchairs.

The Times Colonist has also looked into the positives of the bike lanes. The bikes lanes have proven to have many more cyclists travelling through Fort Street and Wharf Street. This is better for the environment and allows cyclists to save money by bicycle instead of spending on gas.

The bike lanes are a good idea and having them built can help the environment and provide a way for cyclists to save money. However, if the plan continues the way it has been, it is sacrificing others livelihoods, and ability to travel outside of their homes. It is best if the City of Victoria rethinks the bike lane plans, providing ways to help or avoid hurting those who are disadvantaged by the bike lanes.

Wil Richardson Times Colonist Taxi Problems

Bill Cleverly Times Colonist Business Lost Revenues

Todd Litman Times Colonist Bike Lane Positives

Camosun and Media Assignment

Camosun and Media Szajnzinger January 23, 2019

Outside of when it is required by school, or when I hear about something by a friend or acquaintance, I spend little time listening to news reports in any form. I hardly ever read the newspaper as the medium is lost on me if I were to read something like that its generally online. Outside of when my phone is dead or I am in someone else’s care I do not listen to the radio, preferring to listen to music off of my phone. I exclusively watch television online, Netflix or otherwise, which means that I see few news reports through that medium. Finally online, is where I get the few news reports I do read, whether it’s through Reddit, YouTube, or occasionally Facebook. Most important news that I might be interested in, I learn about through others, and then look them up on my own.

Public relations for Camosun College is certainly necessary to some extent. The announcements for the beer garden, and the week each semester with all the stations are good PR for the school. Providing an avenue to develop a closer relationship with the school for some students. It is also important to spread information about the school to nearby high schools and though I don’t know how it’s done having a relationship with other countries for international students. However, outside of minimal public relations it may not be important for the school to continue running. There will always be a number of students coming in as long as the school teaches programs well. The part of it where the school is on an island demands in some ways for students to simply go to their local college. This may be out of laziness or because it is simply not cost effective to do schooling elsewhere, however this is a fact that many students go to Camosun because it is the closest college to where they are born.

News Release Assignment

NEWS RELEASE

FOR RELEASE: January 17, 2019 9:00 AM

National Release Assignment

            The National Widget Company are announcing today that 200 employees will be rehired in the coming weeks. 50 of these employees are from head office in Victoria.

            “We have sent recall notices to all employees who were laid off in June,” says President Andrew Bryce, “as a family-owned company, it was heartbreaking to lay off so many loyal people so we are thrilled to be offering employment to people we consider part of the family.”

            The sales of widgets have increased steadily over the past few months, though the market for widgets has primarily been the Middle East, the NWC have found new markets in China. Widgets must be installed in every new building in the country, and the NWC are the first to approach and make a deal with the Chinese.

            President Andrew Bryce says, “the opening up of the Chinese residential market represents opportunity and a secure market on which to expand our capacity.”

            The traditional use for widgets has been in the oil business, with the incorporation into residential construction, a whole new world of widget sales is possible.

-30-

For more information contact President Andrew Bryce at: 1 (111) 111-1112

Blog Analysis Assignment

The blog post, Because Reading is Fundamental, by Jeff Attwood is about how many readers of a finish an article before commenting. The article is targeted at people age 18-40, bloggers, and journalists. The intended audiences will be mostly high school graduates up to college/university graduates. People under the age of 18 are unlikely to be interested in the statistics of who finishes reading articles. Bloggers and journalists are the primary audiences for this blog post as it directly affects how many people are interested in their blogs or articles.

Attwood introduces the piece by showing an account profile, and the important part of the profile is the post count. Showing an image is a smart way to draw in the reader as it immediately draws interest. It is also important that it reflects the article well, as his intention is how to make people interested in reading posts instead of immediately commenting. The main argument of the piece is to show that people focus on commenting on a post and not reading it, since it appears on their profile. On most websites, commenting on posts rather than reading them is rewarded. Rewarding comments is a bad strategy for people to gain interest and read since a person can immediately comment without even looking at the first word of the article. Attwood is trying to prove that enforcing reading is a better plan than using comments.

Attwood uses two pieces of research to convince readers of his message. The first piece of research is the Ars Banana Experiment done by Ars Technica in 2011. In this experiment, they wrote an article which asked part way through for readers to comment banana below. This shows that not many people read an article before commenting. The first person to write the word banana was on the third page. This is an effective example of how few people read an entire article.

 The second piece of research is the Slate Experiment by Farhad Manjoo, This bit of research has Manjoo collecting research on the number of people that finish an article. Many visitors to an article do not even scroll down the page, and 50% read around half of it. This example shows that most people will not finish an article they have started.

Attwood lists a few solutions to the problem. The first of which is to prevent pagination. Pagination is when a person reaches the bottom of a page and cannot be bothered to click to the next. One possible fix would be to automatically load the next page once the reader reaches the bottom. The second solution is to record the time spent reading. This is like displaying post count but instead measures the time read to make a person more intent on reading and caring less about commenting. The third solution is to reward reading, adding a badge after reading a long article is one example. The fourth solution is to load new content without sacrificing a person’s reading place. For the most part, the article is well written and encourages people to think about reading more than commenting.