Trending Now
We have updated our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use for Eurasia Group and its affiliates, including GZERO Media, to clarify the types of data we collect, how we collect it, how we use data and with whom we share data. By using our website you consent to our Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy, including the transfer of your personal data to the United States from your country of residence, and our use of cookies described in our Cookie Policy.
{{ subpage.title }}
Hard Numbers: Costly emoji, South African firefighters, snowbird visa extension, dawn of Anthropocene
82,000: 🤞this never happens to you… a Saskatchewan court ordered a Canadian farmer to pay CA$82,000 in damages in a dispute over the meaning of the 👍 emoji. A buyer had sent the farmer a photo of a proposed contract, to which he responded “👍”. Although the farmer argued in court that this simply meant he had received the document, the buyer thought it meant he’d accepted its terms. The court agreed. 👍 or 👎?
428: South Africa has so far sent 428 firefighters to Canada this year to help put out the country’s raging wildfires. The yellow-and-blue clad brigades, which do tours of 35 days at a time, are famous for singing rhythmic songs as they work and train.
8: Good news for snowbirds! A bipartisan bill in the US Congress would extend the length of time that some Canadians are permitted to stay in the US without a visa from 6 months to 8. The measure applies to Canadians over the age of 50 who own property in the US — people you see LOTS of in Florida between, say, December and May.
73: This week, a group of scientists picked Crawford Lake in Milton, Ontario, as the location of the dawn of the Anthropocene, or Age of Humans. The lake's sediments show a huge spike in man-made environmental disruption beginning 73 years ago. That’s when human activities — from testing nukes and guzzling fossil, to destroying forests and expanding global trade — began to have a clear impact on the planet's geology. Is seven decades long enough to know?