bopuc/weblog

like a bug in a rug...

Two white nights working on this here weblog design. IE bugs yet to squash (of course), but whatever. Sorry.
I love it. You?

Downloaded and watched Miyazaki's "Kaze no tani no Nausicaa (Nausicaa of the Valley of the Winds)" in preparation for going to see his classic "Porco Rosso" which is running at the Fantasia Festival. Beeeeautiful.

Right now I am sitting in a trendy bistro/bar on St-Laurent. Just read Joi's research topic description (pdf). For a multitude of other reasons, Tokyo is on my mind. I am thinking, nay dreaming, of this: in September hang out in Linz & Vienna for a few days and a few weeks in Berlin. Then jump over to Tokyo for October and November. Come home for December and then maybe three months in Austin Texas. That'd be nice.

I've also been thinking alot about "sharing" lately. Not in the "Sharing economy" sense, but in the communication between me and the people around me sense. The redesign here reflects those thoughts and is in heavy further development. Stay tuned for video snaps and audio posts. Maybe more. I'll expand on these thoughts later.

Coffee is finished. I go home now.

Mould Manifesto against Rationalism in Architecture

In 1952 I spoke of the civilization of make believe, the one we must shake off, myself, the first of all! I spoke of columns of gray men on the march toward sterility and self destruction.

In 1953 I realized that the straight line leads to the downfall of mankind.

- Friedensreich Hundertwasser

The straight line is an aberration, abhorred by nature. It is the tool by which man imposes his designs on his environment.
Thought too logical is equally a distortion of truth. The nimble mind can easily twist and bend any thing to suit its need and desire. The ego drives this unnatural machination.

I have little regard for the minutiae of philosophers' quibbles with their own neuroses. The neat little dream boxes in which we place our lives, properly labeled and dutifully forgotten. The prison bars, the lines of text, the thoughts of other men... bind me in no nutshell.

Couldn't fall asleep.

My bedroom is all white, cream to be specific, teak wood and black leather. The curtain is a thin pale yellow.

I sleep in warm glowing clouds. When I sleep.

It is 4:53am, Saturday morning.

This past Monday afternoon I felt the hallmark scratch at the back of my throat which invariably signals that I have passed the point of no return and I will now spend at least a week sick of either a cold or the flu.

Slowly since then I have followed the path of the virus, seemingly just a cold thankfully, creep from the scraping of my throat, turning on the taps in my nose and squeezing my sinuses by early Wednesday to finally setting a fog and a rattle in my chest by Thursday night. All this time I threw countless grams of Vitamin C at it, liquid liquid liquid... even tried to sweat it out by going jogging 3 days in a row in 30°C/90% humidity weather. Got a nice tan, mind you, after collapsing in the sun each time.

Friday night. I stayed home and watched four episodes of James Burke's Connections (again). I figured 3:30am was time to go to bed. Brushed my teeth, blew my sore nose and...

After tossing and turning in bed for all of 10 minutes, I sat up, coughed 3 times and the cold was gone. More or less. Four a.m. is not so good a time to get an influx of energy and health...

I figure by morning, or rather early afternoon, which is when I'll likely get up seeing as it is now 5am, the last of the phlegm will leave me and that will be that.
I hope.

The sky is fading from black to blue and the birds are starting to chirp.

WilliamShatner.com :: The Official Shatner Website - Bill's Space

That's right. The Shat has a weblog folks. Comments and all...

Following my previous post, I thought again about all the hilarious IM conversations I have on a daily basis. (Most of the really funny ones being, oddly enough, with two people who have almost the same name... )

I am ITCHING to post them, but I know I can't. Damn. ;)

Thursday, July 22, 2004 3:50:53 PM America/Montreal 03:50:53PM
Me
http://cgi.liveauctions.e...98346&category=12527#

Steve
wikkid! you bidding?

Me
u on crack?

Steve
heh
we can put our money together and buy it

Me
suuure

Steve
you can drive it during the week
i'll take it on weekends

Me
let's ee.. how do i put this? ... um ... NO.

Steve
fine!
your loss.
can't wait to see the look on your face when i jump by in my talking car

Me
mahahahaha

To initiate a war of aggression, therefore, is not only an international crime, it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole.
/.../
if certain acts in violation of treaties are crimes, they are crimes whether the United States does them or whether Germany does them, and we are not prepared to lay down a rule of criminal conduct against others which we would not be willing to have invoked against us.

- Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson, U.S. Prosecutor, Nuremburg 1945-6 WWII Nazi War Criminal Trials.

See also:
Attorney General Ramsey Clark to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan: U.S. War of Aggression

Balthasar Gracian's The Art of Worldly Wisdom

47. Avoid incurring obligations. This is one of the chief aims of prudence. People of great ability keep extremes far apart, so that there is a long distance between them. They always keep in the middle of their caution, so they take time to act. It is easier to avoid committing yourself to something than it is to come out of it well. Such affairs test our judgement - it is better to avoid them than to conquer in them. One obligation leads to another and may lead to an affair of dishonor. There are people so constituted by nature or by nation that they easily enter upon such obligations. But for those who walk by the light of reason, such matters require long thinking over. There is more
valor needed not to take up the affair than in conquering in it. When there is one fool ready for the occasion, one may excuse oneself from being the second.

If you try to access the Showtime US site from outside the U.S.A. it gives you this lockout message:

We at Showtime Online express our apologies; however, these pages are intended for access only from within the United States

If you go through Anonymization, you get through. (Merci Karl)

Only to see that Showtime's tagline is "NO LIMITS".

Ya can't make this kinda crap up.

The New York Times > The Hostess Diary: My Year at a Hot Spot

Not only is this an entertaining read, it is also an interesting account of one of the friction points between two very different realities: Celebrity and Mundanity.

(Some antonyms of mundane are: dreamy, idealistic, impractical, pretentious, unrealistic)

(and by extension, in social software enabled content management systems, especially moblogging ones)

Currently, Flickr timestamps everything in it's developers' timezone, Pacific Standard Time. To anyone not on the western seaboard of North America, this is pretty much useless. Who bothers doing timezone conversions when looking at friend's pictures? ;)

So, two options: display the timestamp based in the timezone of the poster or, even better, in the viewer's. The former is arguably also just more metacrap, the latter is a far more useful frame of reference for the viewer.

"Ohhh he/she posted this 20 minutes ago / while I was making coffee, he/she was in a restaurant in Shibuya / etc..."

Brings you closer to me, you know. :)

This Modern World by Tom Tomorrow: July 04, 2004 - July 10, 2004 Archives

Three days ago, a German TV newsmagazine called Report Mainz broadcast an eight-minute segment reporting that the International Red Cross found at least 107 children in coaliton-administered detention centers in Iraq

/.../

Meanwhile, there's not a damn thing -- I mean, not a single word I can find -- about this yet in the U.S. media, but it's starting to pick up speed on the rest of our tiny planet, so far showing up in Der Spiegel (roughly Germany's equivalent to Time), an Australian ABC Radio report, and TV2 and NRK television in Norway, where the story might even lead to a change in Norway's participation in the U.S.-led coalition.

the fan is on.
the shit is in the hands of the thrower.
he's winding up...
wait for it...

Thx Steve.

Some little stories from the last 24 hours of my life. Not in any order.

Generic brand mouthwash.
Unlike seemingly everyone on The Plateau (the part of Montreal where I live), I like going to the new PharmaPrix pharmacy. It's big, clean and since it seems to be being boycotted by everyone, it is always a quiet and expedient shopping experience. Not to mention they always have plenty of everything in stock AND reduced prices. (Probably for the same reason... ;)

By far the best part, however, is their generic brand, "Life". Everytime I go I discover a new knock-off, literally half the price of the brand name. I love it. The packaging designers at "Life" must have a field day copying "juuuust close enough" the packaging of the brand they are cannibalizing, and doing so in quite tasteful and appealing way.

Today I discovered their Listerine killer. At half the price, and 0.01% more of each of the medicinal ingredients, what more could I possibly ask for? I wish they didn't have to use artificial and carcinogenic colorants like Yellow #9 and Green #7, but eh. I ain't drinking the stuff. Yet.

Cable Television Decoder
Decided to ditch my cable TV service. I haven't watched the tube in 6 months, so hasta la bista baby. Pack the box up and drive down to the Videotron outlet. On the way I think "Now why am I coming to this one when there is one around the corner from my house? Sheesh... Oh man and these one way streets around here... what a pain..." Whatever, I'll stop in at the asian grocery store nearby and get some daikon so I can enjoy some Tsuyu Soba again.

So I walk in with the box, buddy behind the counter opens it up to inspect... "Ah, you forgot the remote... that's ok, you can bring it by later or tomorrow." Ok.

As I walk out I think: "Now that was stupid... I could have kept the box and just walked up to the other Videotron later... Now I have to come back down here, during downtown rush hour traffic. Argh." Tough life.

Cancelation of old cellphone service
Having switched to a new carrier about 3 weeks ago, i figured it was high time to cancel my old service. This went quite smoothly actually, and even provided some comedy.

Note to self: next time make it very clear from onset that I do not want to be sold anything.

"May I ask what is the reason for your canceling your service with us today?"
"Um, I am leaving the country" (A lie I thought would spare me any "please stay with us" drama...)
"Oh! You're SO LUCKY!"

At this point a dizzying array of silly replies and presumptions filled my mind...

"Wow you must really hate your job!"
"I am moving to Afghanistan."
"I've inherited a chicken farm in Abu Dhabi, where an arranged marriage with a half-cousin awaits..."

Being quick as lightening I answered: "Uh, yeah."

"Ok well... let's see... Oh! It says here that you are still eligible for to-the-second billing! Are you sure you want to cancel your service?"
"Ummm... Well... I'm leaving the country..."
"Right... Ok let me just double check your address here. Oh and do you have an email address?
"What for please?"
"So we can send you promotional materials from time to time..."
"Ummm..."

This is where I almost started name calling...

"You see, I am leaving, and I'm not coming back..."
"Oh right! You are SO LUCKY!"

Poor girl.

Debugging a display issue on Joi's blog when viewed via Internet Explorer 6 on PC (a.k.a. "The Most Vile Web Browser Whore of Babylon")
Two hours of save & reload while Steven graciously served as my remote eyes on his PC and relayed results to me via IM.

It came down to a "padding: 0;" CSS directive which PC/IE apparently does not like when applied to malformed (hehe) blockquotes. "padding-left: 0;" solved the issue.

I hope.

Late breakfast
Somehow, by the grace of the Almighty, Chez José had piping hot fresh apple turnovers today at 12:30pm. Bliss.

Fox Networks Group to Launch Fox Reality Channel in Early 2005

Fox Networks Group President and CEO Anthony Vinciquerra today announced the creation of a new cable and satellite network, Fox Reality Channel. The new network is scheduled to debut in first quarter 2005.

Somehow this should have been a joke at The Onion...

Then again... Fox does seem to know a whole heck of alot about reality manufacturing...

One simple way to reduce comment spam

Adriaan thought up of one more very powerful way to stop comment spam (assuming your blog is on a server you have access too... and is running Apache... and the .htaccess directive is on...)

Simply have the webserver deny requests to whatever does the comment processing, if the request comes from anywhere other than the site itself!

Bravo!

The U.S. Constitution

Amendment X
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

Digital Chosunilbo (English Edition) : Daily News in English About Korea

Samsung 3mp camera phone: Digital Photography Review

Essentially, it seems they took a Pentax Optio S (the model of digicam I currently own) and built a phone around it.

Current cellphone networks won't even let you send such high res pictures anyways (too slow/too much bandwidth), but at least 1- you have two devices in one and 2- the image quality is quite good...

Friend Steven Mansour started up a blog over a month ago and I just clued in:
stevesgallery.com | Nil magnum nisi bonum.

Kinda embarrassing to only realize it now as he's been asking me questions about blogging, and blogging software and blogging issues for the past 2 months... sheesh. My attention span is like... oooo butterflies!

;)

Steven is deep into wireless networking (see his company, it's services, it's developed products and projects), as well as a professional photographer. I suppose I should also say he's a pretty good guy and etc etc, but hey.. i don't wanna give him TOO much exposure... ;)

Welcome Steven!

"The True IQ Test"
(URL removed - it's a marketing stint and after some thought I figured I don't want to encourage 'em.)

Congratulations, bopuc!
Your IQ score is 127

This number is based on a scientific formula that compares how many questions you answered correctly on the True IQ Test relative to others.

Your Intellectual Type is Insightful Linguist. This means you are highly intelligent and have the natural fluency of a writer and the visual and spatial strengths of an artist. Those skills contribute to your creative and expressive mind.

And that's just some of what we know about you from your test results.

I fear what else they may "know" about me... hahahaha. Silliness...

FlickrBlog - The Underbunny

There was an IM/email buzz around our offices when a Flickr member with the handle 'Underbunny' posted this image, the hands of a 102 year old woman at an open casket funeral

Some, er, *nice* pictures in Underbunny's photostream... not for the weakly constituted...

I am in a severely nasty mood today. Just a warning. ;)

I just took the first step in terminating a business relationship with a client who's been paying my rent for over 3 years. It isn't a question of money (I'll have to replace the income somehow) and it certainly isn't personal; the client is a group of very old friends. I just don't want to do it anymore. So many ideas never implemented, so many avenues never explored... at one point you just realize "this isn't going to happen, and it isn't fun anymore either."

One less needless source of anxiety, guilt and frustration off my shoulders. Well, almost anyways.

I want to work with people who "get it". I mean, who actually have a clue and really "get it"...

A quick note on Michael Moore/Fahrenheit 9/11...

Yes, it is propaganda (not a dirty word, remember... propaganda is not always a synonym for "lies"...), yes he may present things out of context sometimes, yes he's making alot of noise...

But where there is smoke, there is fire. You may not see the fire, heck you may even want to argue what fire is... but there it is...

I don't need much context to scratch my head in wonder when presented with scenes and quotes like:

"Some call you the elite, i call you my base." - GWB

"I call on all nations to fight these murderous terrorists... Thank you... Now watch this drive (golfing...)" -GWB

"Let the eeeeeaaaagle sooooaaaar..." -J.Aschcroft

"If I had GWB in front of me right now, I'd ask for his resignation" - Soldier in Iraq

When informed of terrorist attack on his nation, for 7 minutes he sat happily immobile.
(Here the context paints him as an idiot puppet of his handlers. Give me another valid explanation.)

Etc, etc, etc...

It is VERY easy to distort "facts", but a distorted fact requires an originating fact and here we have legitimate video footage. It may be a collage, but it certainly is NOT fabricated. Smoke requires fire.

You may not agree with Mr. Moore's message or delivery, but go see this movie, and then look at the current administration through the same critical lens you viewed it through.

Furthermore, if everything were "ok", do you think so many people would be up in arms about it?

They canceled the rest of the tour. So no party tonight. Dang.

The weirdest thing about this is that the marketing company that came up with this silliness is located two blocks from where I live.

The bottle reads:
"My values are those of a generation that has taken control of its existence and future."

Cough.

At least it *looks* good...

I love it.

After posting the previous post (about culture democracy blah blah blah) I, of course, went out to have a drink. Ended up staying until closing, but not without having some great conversations with Boris (the only other Boris I have ever met) and then Albert.

I return home and, not ready to sleep, poke around the web a bit. I check my flickr gallery, see if anyone has left comments (I'd LOVE an RSS feed for that, Stewart... ;) A nifty feature (one of many) of flickr is to see what pictures your friends have recently posted. Weeeell, it seems danah posted a picture of some Hundertwasser book covers! Cool! I love Hundertwasser. Grew up with prints of his all over my family home's walls. My mom knew the guy actually...

On a lark, I search my own blog, to see if I'd mentioned him here at all, seeing as he had such an influence on my visual development...

Sure enough.

One of my rambling, semi-interesting entries detailing a thread or two woven through my life and mind... and heart...
(To be fair, I loved her dearly, and still do.)

The connection of note, for me, in this is that even before my in-depth involvement with this blogosphere and everything that has become related to it in my life, I had a faint sense of what was to come... and yet to come...

I was thinking about writing about this but Tim Bray brought it up (and is in a better position to do so...)

ongoing · Party Like It's 1996!

I'm a major admirer of Safari and of its primary author Dave Hyatt. But a couple of Dave's recent notes have caused me serious discomfort. Here he notes that Safari will support a new search= attribute on the input element, and here he discusses a new canvas element. Even more troubling is the opening phrase: Another extension we made to HTML is... I'd be really happy if someone explained to me how this is different from what Netscape and Microsoft did to each other so irritatingly back in 1996 (<MARQUEE> anyone?). What the W3C and Web Standards Project were created to stop? [By the way, there are namespaces, there are class= attributes, there are legitimate ways to extend HTML.] Someone please explain to me why I'm wrong, because I really hope this isn't what it looks like.

My thoughts and concerns exactly...

"I think a general government necessary for us, and there is no form of government but what may be a blessing to the people if it is well administered; and believe farther that this is likely to be well administered for a course of years and can only end in despotism, as other forms have done before it, when the people shall become so corrupt as to need despotic government, being incapable of any other..."

"Benjamin Franklin to the delegates of the Constitutional Convention, prior to the final vote

1. To destroy or subvert the honesty or integrity of.
2. To ruin morally; pervert.
3. To taint; contaminate.
4. To cause to become rotten; spoil.
5. To change the original form of (a text, for example).

in-formed
adj.

1. Possessing, displaying, or based on reliable information: informed sources; an informed opinion.
2. Knowledgeable; educated: the informed consumer.

1. 1. The totality of socially transmitted behavior patterns, arts, beliefs, institutions, and all other products of human work and thought.
   2. These patterns, traits, and products considered as the expression of a particular period, class, community, or population: Edwardian culture; Japanese culture; the culture of poverty.
   3. These patterns, traits, and products considered with respect to a particular category, such as a field, subject, or mode of expression: religious culture in the Middle Ages; musical culture; oral culture.
   4. The predominating attitudes and behavior that characterize the functioning of a group or organization.
2. Intellectual and artistic activity and the works produced by it.
3. 1. Development of the intellect through training or education.
   2. Enlightenment resulting from such training or education.
4. A high degree of taste and refinement formed by aesthetic and intellectual training.
5. Special training and development: voice culture for singers and actors.
6. The cultivation of soil; tillage.
7. The breeding of animals or growing of plants, especially to produce improved stock.
8. Biology.
   1. The growing of microorganisms, tissue cells, or other living matter in a specially prepared nutrient medium.
   2. Such a growth or colony, as of bacteria.

An "informed culture" is a strong culture; aware of it's history, building on it's ancestors' knowledge and experience, with no room or time to entertain the frivolities of superficiality and repetition. A weakened, un- or under-informed culture is prone to disease; corruption. The uninformed, bewildered, follow any trend or seeming novelty the wind blows their way. And what happens when one has such a situation, where there are a few informed and many uninformed? You guessed it: the informed have control of the uninformed.

How does one weaken a culture? As with so many things in history, we cannot point the finger to any one player. Rather, a long chain of developments - technological, economic, political - have brought us here. A good starting point is the arrival of mass-production... and plastics. Without wanting to recount the wonderful explanations of the threads of events that James Burke gave us in his books, articles and BBC Television series, "Connections", suffice it to say that with mass production, we get mass consumerism: in the extreme, the annihilation of the individual.

So begins the corruption of the people. With a view to fiscal growth, and with the power to mass produce any desire at the snap of a finger, one creates a marketing machine which, combined with policy changes which, amongst many other things, slash education funding and restrict rights on knowledge (ahem, intellectual property), the stage is set. The culture is weakened, and progress slowed.

Is this not what we are witnessing today? Mass marketing culture, the frightening stance of the domestic and foreign policies of "America", the aberration that is copyright? These are intricately related, woven together so finely, with a myriad other threads and patterns, as to be almost imperceptible.

In this weakened culture, one cannot help but to find ourselves in a bewildering vortex of confusion, unsure of anything, questioning and counter-questioning any number of trivialities simply because the majority can see only the superficialities fed to them.

Myself included, then, with my limited and superficial knowledge and views, find precious few moments where I can even begin to believe I see something in the haze. My eyes are straining... and what they do see makes me uneasy.

Ho-ly hell... (9.5Meg WMV)

Escapable Logic

I like to believe that people in the long run are going to do more to promote peace than our governments. Indeed, I think that people want peace so much that one of these days governments had better get out of the way and let them have it.
                                – Dwight Eisenhower

Here is an example of information hunting and establishing connections between bits of data online. This story will remain intentionally vague and short on specific URLs for two reasons: to protect the individual's privacy and to keep my Google rank low for a specific bit of technical wizardry involving a certain mp3 player and a certain make of automobile. Unlike others, I am not interested in becoming the support desk for this little bit of information.

This story begins because of an entry a few days ago where I mention in passing the aforementioned setup. This evening I received an email from someone asking me kindly how I had done it, as his brand new car doesn't allow him to use the (to remain nameless) radio frequency interface solution.

Now the name of the person sounded very familiar, as it is a common name in these parts. To boot, buddy had his own domain, named after himself. Nevermind that I'll sometimes Google people whom I come across, but give me a vanity domain name and for sure I am going to whois you.

I now know where Monsieur lives and even got a map pin-pointing his address specifically. Not that I needed to since I know the neighborhood quite well, it being only a few blocks up from me... small world...

So okay, I hit reply and start writing some of the basics. However my car and my mp3 player are 2-3 years old and surely stuff's been updated. A quick trip to the web forums on the most popular, and useful website dedicated to owners of this particular make of car and I see that indeed, things have evolved. Copy and paste a few URLs and "good luck mon ami!"

This all took about 5-10 minutes. Slow compared to if I had had all this information in my head and/or we were all connected pseudo-telepathically but hey... it used to take weeks to ship cargo across the Atlantic, today it take days, if not hours... and that's atoms, not bits...

It is all about technology. If I were a faster typist... or if my interface to my computer and by extension to the Net wasn't through a clunky keyboard and primitive pointing device...

A couple of weeks ago, Mie blogged about some "new office members" at 6A. "Neato" I thought, "cheap basic robotics hitting the market..."

A couple of nights later, I walked into my usual hangout, Blizzarts, only to find 7 of these little robots dancing on the dance floor, and three patrons happily toting around their boxed up raffle prizes (3 more Robosapiens). Turns out the girlfriend of one of DJs works for the company and they had a little promo event.

"Hunh?" I thought, "Works for the company? Here?"

I shelved the whole thing in my mind, labeled "too investigate".

Karl just IMed me a link to Loïc Le Meur's blog entry about his Robosapien which he picked up in California.

Google Robosapien. Company called Wow Wee. Wowwee.com... Whois wowwee.com ?

Wow Wee Group Inc. (WOWWEE5-DOM)
4480 Cote De Liesse #320
Montreal, Quebec H4N 2R1
CA

/me swells with Montreal pride, again... ;)

I am a huge Bran Van 3000 fan. Their music IS Montreal, to me at least. Especially in the summer. For the past week I've had them on heavy rotation in my song lists.

However, this song (temporary - 4.5meg MP3) pretty much sums up my summer thus far. It is by far NOT my favorite of their songs, but again, this is a feel of my life right now.

I'd post the lyrics as well but out of the context of the song itself, they seem idiotic... Somewhat like my summer...

From What is The Message? (McLuhan Program at UofT Weblog)

The Reversal of America. In a democratic country that values the rule of law, that has a constitution with enshrined "God-given" rights to due process of law and public trials, an innocent man, wrongly incarcerated and abused, should not fear what the government would do to him if called to testify in a court of law. So-called war or no war, this is a shameful situation.

Discussing this story of one Purna Raj Bajracharya, an innocent tourist locked up and fundamentally mistreated.

Am I indulging in hyperbole when I describe Mr. Bajracharya's ordeal worthy of comparison to the Soviet-style gulag? Judge for yourself:

He had spent almost three months in a 6-by-9-foot cell kept lighted 24 hours a day. The unit of the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn where he was kept has become notorious for the abuses documented there by the Justice Department's own inspector general, who found a pattern of physical and mental mistreatment of post-9/11 detainees. Videotapes showed officers slamming detainees into walls, mocking them during unnecessary strip-searches, and secretly taping their conversations with lawyers.

Every day, worse.