The Vancouver Sun from Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada • 46

D10 The Vancouver Sun, Wednesday, December 11, 1996 NETWORKS NATIONAL CHRISTMAS from page D20 Yearly jobless tab $91 million Pajama Sam, a game to promote teamwork jobs because of moves or other reasons. The output losses include direct budgetary costs to federal and provincial governments. Since fewer goods are produced, governments collect less in taxes and pay out more in social assistance and unemployment benefits. Bedard says this means that if the economy had been performing up to its potential, the 1994 federal deficit could have been about $23 billion instead of the actual $28.5 billion. In examining the social costs, Bedard looked at extensive reports done for the U.S.

Congress in 1976 and 1984, as well as several Canadian, British, Danish, Finnish and Italian studies. Bedard estimates the 1994 social costs of unemployment at $14 billion based on the findings of a 1984 Canadian study that looked at the rise in rates of death, homicide, suicide, heart disease, admission to psychiatric hospitals and imprisonment due to unemployment. "Economic costs are easier to measure than social costs, and the estimates that can be done show that these are very substantial," concludes Bedard. The department, seeking further insight into the social cost of unemployment, is looking at the adjustments being made by two specific groups workers in Elliot Lake, who lost their jobs, and a number of former Defence Department employees. SouthamStar Network.

sulting in chronic disease. Generally higher stress levels in low-income groups, associated with mental disorders, alcoholism, suicide, accidents, heart disease and other illnesses due to high blood pressure. "The unemployed are not the only ones to suffer the consequences of these problems," says Bedard's study, completed in June. "Taxpayers also pay a price, in terms of additional costs for health care, policing, social tension, loss of human resources and so on." Much of the previous research has taken a narrower path, limiting the cost of unemployment to lost revenues from un-produced goods and services. Bedard's number-crunching puts the 1994 productivity costs of unemployment in a broad range of between $29 bilbon and $77 billion.

He comes up with the figures using a complex formula that plugs in estimates from different economists and takes into account: Cyclical unemployment, the difference between the actual jobless rate and the benchmark rate of about 7.5 per cent to nine per cent the level at which prices remain stable, keeping inflation under control. Structural unemployment, the difference between the actual jobless rate and full employment. The full-employment rate was about four per cent in 1994. It can never be zero, as a certain number of people are always between Figures indicate Canada again stands to lose billions of dollars because of unemployment. JIMBRONSMLL Southam Newspapers OTTAWA What price double-digit unemployment? As much as $91 billion a year, says a ground-breaking federal study.

The research paper pegs the price of Canada's 1994 jobless rate of 10.4 per cent at up to $77 billion in lost productivity and another $14 billion in health, crime and other social costs. The figures indicate Canada, with an unemployment rate stuck at around 10 per cent this year, once again stands to lose tens of billions of dollars to joblessness. The Human Resources Department study takes a rare look beyond the direct productivity costs of unemployment to measure the toll on physical and mental health, marriages and communities. "We have to take account of those costs when we are talking about unemployment," said study author Marcel Bedard, a researcher with the department He reviewed existing research and discovered, if not a certain link, strong indications that unemployment can cause higher levels of illness, premature death and crime. Experts agree on the reasons: Malnutrition among the poor, re GAMES from page D20 dia, $36.95) brilliantly blends a suspenseful interactive adventure with vast amounts of information on daily life in a 14th-century casde.

Your mission: to enter Baron Mortimer's castle in disguise, attempt to discover certain facts about castle life, find five pieces of a missing map, discover a hidden tunnel and avoid being thrown into the dungeon. Enter beautifully rendered 3-D rooms and interact with their contents, watch live-action video, listen to evocative sounds of the era and click on detailed drawings for pop-up text Check out the portcullis, the armory and kitchen. What did people eat? How did they keep armor from rusting? Who was the ale-wife? If your older (or adult) child wants to learn about casde life, there surely cannot be a more compelling, fascinating and informative source than Casde Explorer. Some other candidates for your Christmas shopping basket: KidPix Studio (Broderbund, $39 to $44 the kids multimedia program, is a perennial staple no home should be without. Mighty Math Zoo Zillions (Edmark, $39.95) teaches basic math concepts to five- to seven-year-olds in a highly visual and appealing manner.

The "entertainment" layer is less intrusive than in many competing products the math is central, not peripheral to the game. For instance, addition and subtraction are taught by way of a railway line with cute characters who hop on the train if you stop at the right place. If you make a mistake, Zoo Zillions provides increasingly helpful hints. Stanley's Sticker Stories (Edmark, about $29.95) and Imagination Express (Edmark, about $25) are story writing and illustrating programs that a number of teachers are recommending for the kindergarten set and older children respectively. Both are highly sophisticated programs that allow kids to select backgrounds and "sticker" characters to illustrate their stories as well as embed stock sound or their own recorded voices into the resulting "story books." 3-D design makes Virtua Cop parental tests.

Pajama Sam (Humongous, about $55). This interactive cartoon adventure features Sam who is a little scared of the dark until he turns into the world's youngest superhero and sets out to confront his fear. Unfortunately, his trusty flashlight, lunchbox and mask are confiscated and scattered throughout the Land of Darkness. Now the decisions are all yours. Which route should Sam take? How can he recover his gear? How can he get the basket and pulley contraption to lift him into Darkness' treehouse? (Add stones to the counterweight basket.) This deceptively simple program changes every time it is played, so it'll take a while for players to experience the same game twice.

We're talking pure entertainment, but kids three to eight will adore the program which is violence-free, promotes teamwork and demands lots of thoughtful problem solving. Magic School Bus Explores Inside the Earth and Magic School Bus Explores In the Age of Dinosaurs (Scholastic, about $54.95) are the most recent additions to this series for kids 6 to 10. In Inside the Earth, children can explore six different terrains from geodes to canyons. Visit a geode to discover that "Pencil lead is not lead at all, but a soft mineral called graphite. Graphite is made of the same ingredient as diamonds." Throw sandstone into the Rock Transformer and it'll come out as building blocks.

Pumice comes out as scouring powder. Tired of exploring? Do some cave painting on your own, or "stamp" bison on your cave and color them in. There's plenty to do and lots of intriguing information although I suspect it's better suited to six-year-olds than 10s. DK Multimedia, whose parent company publishes the phenomenally successful Eyewitness reference books, exceis in creating elegantly designed, top-notch multimedia reference material, but until now, most haven't been truly interactive and that can become boring. Castle Explorer (DK Multime i ft fL-2 W--y4 to warn you of an enemy approaching, and a brief countdown ensues as you're given anywhere from .05 to three seconds to react If you're too slow, a crack appears in your visor to show you that your body armor has been breached.

And with only four lives to live, bringing your combat skills up to scratch is the first priority. If you suck, the computer lets you know right away. At the end of each game, the player is ranked according to a hit-miss ratio of shots fired to targets hit. Bonus points are awarded for "justice shots" shots aimed at the weapon arm of the bad guy or the weapon itself (shoot the gun from an enemy's hand andyougetniarewards)g tlivv' mm WWM i-- mi! i 3 'Landscape 2 incomparable Before you applaud the move for humanity however, note that bonus points are also awarded for hitting your target three times before the body fades off the screen. Ratings go from the dreaded klutz cop (bottom of the rung) to rookie, average, good, top cop to hero and getting better each time makes for a very sizable repeat-play desire.

I played this game for a solid weekend and still I had a hard time packing it up and sending it back to Sega. I was stuck at "Top Cop" and wanted to go higher. I wanted to shoot more bad guys. I wanted to rescue the world all by myself. I wanted to be a terminator.

As it was, I was merely a player with plastic gun in my hand but oh baby, 'rUbebaclCSI i 11? til Wist Fidelity Fund hat a simplified praspwlui, which contain 1 (1 v. The first file is called Big Chase, and right away you can feel the huge advances in software design in this second version of Virtua Cop. For starters, the three-dimensionality of the design is beyond comparison. Second, you're given moving targets in car chases, luxury cruises, helicopters even an underground subway system. Lush, detailed environments let you shoot almost anywhere on the screen and get some reaction whether it's shooting out a window or flattening tires with a well-sighted shot almost every pixel has been programmed to respond.

Your targets, as always, are the bad guys in sunglasses who appear out of nowhere to stop you in your tracks. Electronic cross-hairs appear on screen i A Vast OX f'vv Ai Octotrar 31. 1996, Fidelity before investing. There it no nsffior iii RRSP pporcLumiei; lor Li vzz tors i cantullv and comnII vour advisor loss or gain when telling their units. 17 0fa FMalitjr Important Information.

Please obtain a coov. read it hiwslnwnte managed over $525 billion worldwide. Each assnrante that any fund will achieve Itt Investment objective. Net asset value, yield and investment return will fluctuate with market condition. Investors may experience a.