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I've experienced bad service from Telus - both technical and from actual people - more times than I can count. But I've never had them directly lie to me to get me into a contract. Or so I thought. Turns out, they did.
In June 2009 my 3-year contract with Telus ran out. I called to ask about renewing, and long story short they told me if I renewed with them, I could get a $25/month unlimited data plan. I agreed.
I went to pick out a new phone (I went with a Blackberry) and sign a new contract. They couldn't renew my plan, they had to give me a new type of plan and then add new features for free. I was worried that they would jack up the charges later on. "Don't worry," they said. "We won't do that." Concerned nonetheless, I had them write on the contract that my monthly plan was the plan plus features plus data for the named prices. I still have my copy of the contract.
Today I was told by Telus that the unlimited data plan I had been promised for renewing with them was now going up by $5. This is a classic bait-and-switch: get someone to sign a contract for one plan, then jack up the prices. I spoke to a representative on the phone who basically confirmed that Telus can raise their rates at any time for any reason; the only thing the 3-year contract does is require me to stick with them to receive the shafting.
Things had been looking up - I was very happy with Telus for the past 9 months. No longer.
The moral of the story is never sign a contract with Telus.
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In case you missed the news.
The wedding site has more.
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DSU Elections coverage has moved to Punditry.ca.
Join me and 6 other DSU pundits as we cover the DSU elections. You'll probably recognize most of the names, as they are known for things much more impressive than my personal "having a website and an opinion".
You can expect the same mix of news, rumour, opinion, and random unprovoked attacks that you've experienced at MikeSmit.com these past few years. Plus, enjoy a system for leaving comments that doesn't totally suck!
Come on in, the water's fine.
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Yes, that's my sister, and yes, she is engaged.
And no, I didn't *really* find out on Facebook, she called me.
Congrats to Meg & Chris!
If anyone reading this site has embarassing stories or pictures, I have started collecting. :D (Don't tell Megan, though, she regularly stands behind me with sharp scissors.)
(Just kidding, of course, obviously she'll see this page.)
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Sorry for the delay, I was having trouble getting electrons into my electronics. The problem is solved; here now, the betting pool results.
... wow man, did I ever get smacked around. I called VP SL wrong, and was off by enough on all of the margins to feel ashamed. And Senate... wow, my margins were nowhere near the studied indifference voters displayed toward the candidates, and I called one winner wrong. Luckily for me, most other people did just as poorly.
To calculate the results, I took the official results from www.dsu.ca, removed the spoiled votes, and calculated the percentages. I then subtracted the guesses from the actuals. For 2 candidate races, I took the difference between the pundit's guess for the winner, and the winner's actual results. This was the total error. As I do for all >2 candidate races every year, I calculated all of the differences, summed them, and then divided the total error by 2 to prevent the greater room for error from skewing the results.
The overall winner is "Anonymous #2". Congratulations... they didn't enter a name, so I don't even know who they are. Chris 'No One Will Ever Live Up To My Accomplishments' Ide placed second, and I somehow came in third, but I don't deserve it. All those with total error under 100 are shown here.
| Name | Total Error |
|---|
| Anon 2 | 39.8 | | Chris I | 42.1 | | MikeSmit.com | 46.8 | | Keith S | 47.2 | | Will D | 49.7 | | Anon 1 | 51.9 | | Election farce | 52.9 | | Jae-Con | 56.8 | | Mike P | 70.4 | | Eric S | 71.3 | | AEB | 72.8 | | DalStudent FTW | 75.8 | | Lisa B. | 76.9 | | Facebook App | 77.8 | | effdemocracy | 91.5 | | Malcolm X | 92.1 |
President
Amusingly, the Facebook application predicted this result, almost exactly. The best individual was C Ide. I ranked a dismal 11th, with total error of 11.74 (mostly due to my optimism regarding Hillman). Worst error was 60.
| Rank | Name | Error |
|---|
| 1 | Facebook App | 3.5 | | 2 | C Ide | 5 | | 3 | Jae-Con | 5.6 | | 4 | Anon 1 | 6.2 | | 5 | Will D | 6.3 | | 11 | MikeSmit.com | 11.74 |
VP Internal
Eric S called this to within .2%, well done. Anon 2 also did very well. In fact, most pundits did very well, with 10 guesses being within 3%. That was enough to push me to 15th. Clearly I had no idea what I was talking about. Worst was 22.
The Facebook app again called it to within 2.1%; in fact, the Facebook app did well for three exec positions (best overall), but was wildly off for both the Senate and the Referendum.
| Rank | Name | Error |
|---|
| 1 | Eric S | 0.2 | | 2 | Anon 2 | 0.8 | | 3 | Will D | 1.8 | | 4 | Keith S | 1.8 | | 5 | Malcolm X | 1.8 | | 6 | Facebook | 2.1 | | 15 | MikeSmit.com | 7.8 |
VP Student Life
I called this one completely wrong, which put me at 15th. I wasn't alone, though, a lot of pundits had Ali winning. Worst error was 28%.
| Rank | Name | Error |
|---|
| 1 | Keith S | 0.61 | | 2 | Anon 2 | 0.61 | | 3 | Jae-Con | 2.4 | | 4 | Anon 1 | 2.6 | | 5 | AEB | 5.6 | | 15 | MikeSmit.com | 13.3 |
Senate
Mike P gets it within 6, and getting it within 11 is good enough to get me 4th. Finally, a top 5 finish for me!
The worst error here was 78.
| Rank | Name | Error |
|---|
| 1 | Mike P | 6.0 | | 2 | Chris I | 9.8 | | 3 | Eric S | 9.9 | | 4 | MikeSmit.com | 10.8 | | 5 | AEB | 12.6 |
HSA Referendum
This is the only race where I actually came close, and its the referendum, which is why I say I don't deserve the third place overall... seriously boring race to call. That said, the worst guess was off by 40%.
| Rank | Name | Error |
|---|
| 1 | Election farce | 1.0 | | 2 | Anon 2 | 1.0 | | 3 | effdemocracy | 1.0 | | 4 | MikeSmit.com | 3.0 |
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The Gazette beat me to this by like 3 hours, and it was posted to this site in the comments an hour ago. My apologies; I was in the area and decided at the last minute to stop by the Grawood to see how things were going.
These are the winners; detailed results to follow.
President
Courtney Larkin
VP Internal
Dan Boyle
VP Education
Mark Coffin
VP Student Life
Kris Osmond
Senate
Kaylyn Fraser
Eric Snow
Jonathan Hughes
Graduate Senate
Yannick Tremblay
HSA Referendum
Yes (Passed)
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About half an hour to go until voting closes; 2 hours after that, the results. Looks like voter turnout is going to be around 16%.
I'll try to get the results up here as soon as they are officially published by the CRO.
Just to respond more visibly to a question a commenter asked: no, I can't see the results. This is so people don't spend their time trying to parse my words trying to figure out if I am implying something about the results. I know nothing. Since I know nothing, I cannot be accused of dropping hints. :)
(History lesson: During one of the first years we ran online elections, the elections committee had real-time access to results. They intended to keep them confidential, but worked leaked out, spread fast, and accusations were levied that this information interfered with the results. Though no policy was passed regarding this, the decision was made that no one would see the results until voting closed, and that has been the convention ever since.)
Due to my role with the elections comittee, I can see the results as soon as the polls close. Due to the separation between my coverage here and that role, I will only publish the results that show up on the DSU website.
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If the first election day is boring for everyone... the second one is even worse. In about 17 hours, the results will be announced.
Until then, let's entertain ourselves by talking about voter turnout. As of right now, we're a few votes shy of 2,000. I can remember days when the DSU voter turnout was around 5% - less than 1,000 people. I don't mean a decade I go, I mean like... 2003. 2004 saw high voter turnout (23%, if my memory is still with me). Since then we've levelled off in the 18-21% range. This year we might not break 20%. Why?
An email today went out to all students, reminding them to vote. Every year since 2004, when that email was first sent out, we've seen a major spike in the numbers. I don't have the 2004 numbers on me, but for the past 4 years, this is what the votes per hour looks like:
I've annotated it with when the bulk emails were sent out each year. You can see a BIT of spike in 2008, but not much, especially compared to previous years. It also drops much faster, another indication that the bulk email had little effect. Why? My guesses include: - Tremendous advertising work by the Elections Committee. Everyone had already heard about it by the first day, and those who wanted to voted on the first day. The spike at around 4pm on Tuesday supports this theory, as that came after a major push by the EC over Facebook and through societies.
- I understand the subject said "DSU Dispatch"; perhaps people are conditioned to delete those.
- Generally lower levels of interest among students at large; the result is they see the email, and can't be bothered. Last year's might have been artificially high because the Spaces Referendum raised the profile of the DSU among students.
- Fewer candidates. Less interesting selections. My own Union elections happened 2 weeks ago; I didn't vote. I went to the elections website, read all the profiles, and just didn't care who won. And I *never* miss a chance to vote, I voted every year at Dal, even before my DSU involvement.
Regardless, this drop in turnout worries me - if there are relatively more "DSU insiders" and friends of candidates voting, and fewer "everyman"-types voting, that's going to completely screw up my predictions. If you throw out a lot of the not-involved vote, Osmond will win by a few percent, Larkin will still win but not by as much, Hillman won't do as well as I expected, VAJ will still lose, HSA will do better, and I have no earthly idea what will happen with Senate (dsu-insiders are more likely to pick 3 candidates, friends are more likely to pick 1 candidate, and those not-involved are unpredictable... no idea what that means).
I've also graphed cumulative turnout per-hour (with the overnight hours lumped together a bit).
That shows that despite a good showing late on the first day, we're tracking low relative to previous years.
If history is any indicator, that means the aftermath will see a lot of finger pointing. Tradition is that the Elections Committee will be blamed.
I'm not sure who the leading authority on DSU elections is, but I'm pretty sure any list of the top 10 includes me. If you are a candidate for that list, you already know that the primary factors in voter turnout include a) level of the Union's engagement and visibility with students throughout the year, b) the number of candidates, c) the visibility of candidates, and d) the level of controversy. The Student Spaces referendum had turnout of 27%, and that was controversial and highly visible; also, its impact on everyone was clear and immediate. The year DSU elections turnout hit 23%, there were 25 candidates and a referendum question about DalOut.
The Elections Committee, which every year tries their damndest to get out the vote, can increase the number by some percentage, but they can only work with what they are given. Few candidates, low visibility on Carleton and in residences... it's a tough situation. So if you hear someone blame the EC for the voter turnout, I suggest you ignore them. Voter turnout is everyone's responsibility. view 13 comments - add your comments
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