Category: Etc

Does anyone else remember the Heritage Minutes that used to (probably still do) run all over the Canadian TV networks talking about Canadian heros and turning points?
I’m writing a paper about Marshall McLuhan right now and kept coming back to that 1 minute spot where he spontaneously generates “THE MEDIUM IS THE MESSAGE” while lecturing to a class. Turns out you can watch the whole thing on the Historica website, as well as all the others you know and love (did anyone else go to Wilder Penfield elementary? Smell burt toast?)

It’s almost kind of sad that these were likely the best thing that Canadian television ever produced, but also kind of uplifting. It’s probably a good thing that we’re better at forcing ourselves to learn despite the medium of television than we are at creating tube-drivel like everybody else.

Maybe Kerry’s not the perfect choice, maybe he’s even a serious suckass choice. Doesn’t really matter to me, as long as I don’t have to live near a coutry led by Dubya.

Impressive election-time efforts from bright people:

Marc Perkel spends a couple grand setting up a direct line to offer Fahrenheit 911 for download off his site. You can just go there and get it if you haven’t seen it, especially if you are an American voter. (My personal issues with Michael Moore aside, this is an important film for everyone to see, if only to balance the unbelievable bias of most American media institutions)

Also, Errol Morris. documentarian of the century and creator of the Apple Switch ad campaign, has created a series of “switch” themed ads for toppling the Bush regime (former republicans saying they won’t vote for Shrub) , worth checking out.

Bummer: My American teacher, and apparently a large group of other ex-pats from Pensylvania, won’t be voting this year because whoever’s in charge dropped the ball on absentee ballots. Democracy shows itself to be circumstantial once again.

(mostly via BB)

It had to happen someday, so I now officially work for the Quality-Control element of Decima Research, rather than the Public-Probing department, this means that I will no longer have to call people and bother them, but will instead listen to other people do it. You are very jealous.

Also of note, for the first time in my life I dropped a course I had already started. It was a Presocratics-to-Plato philosophy course, and, ironically, the drop was brought about partially because of the time commitments involved in my participation in the philosophy students union, which I am no longer really elligible to be a member of as I can no longer even pretend to be doing a double-major.

Pirates and Emperors, an amazing animated film about the mystifying nightmare that is US foreign policy, set to the beat of those catchy old “School House Rock” edu-toons (remember: “I’m just a bill!” ?)

Seriously it’s super fun. Also, it points to something I’ve been dealing with lately, namely that pirates aren’t nearly as cool as people make them out to be. Why the hell does everyone love pirates so much, they’re just thugs and rapists. Not unlike the mythically defined USA, the image everybody seems to hold of them is so distracted from their real essence that it completely obscures what’s actually going on.

I mean, why can’t the hackers get any love?

(linked by BB)

Also, while I’m already lifting content from boingboing, quoth Cory Doctorow concerning Sony’s attempt to shut down a ligitimate piece of entrepreneurial irony (or physical hackery depending on how you look at it) :

“From defending consumer rights in the Supreme Court in the 1984 Betamax case to this in 20 years: what a pack of sellout assholes. Hey, fuck you too, Sony.”

(emphasis mine. link to BoingBoing article)

Wild ARTICLE about a 25 year old quadriplegic who had 100 electrodes implanted in his brain, and can consequently control computers and television with the force of his mind. He can check emails and change channels, and, the researchers say, even do more than one thing at the same time (i.e. move head and change channel).

I wrote about another article a while ago describing a similar but less invasive (also less effective) technique with the same goal, jacking those unable to interact with the real world into the digital one, and giving them the same power there that we have here. Everyone should be excited about this. The company responsible for the “cyberkinetic” technology used in this new experiment has started implementation of four new subjects.

These guys are going to rule the world. Just you watch.

Pretty much finished this site for the Philosophy Students Association at Concordia, the Vice-President-Communication of which I became even though I didn’t even attend the election.

The cool part? It validates as strict XHTML. That means I am officially a huge geek.

The Alpha-Geek in fact.

Certain incindiary remarks inscribed on the belly of a certain promiscuous puckerer mysteriously led to my participation in the temporary pigmental re-affirmation shown here. As Jeff Goldblum implied, beige is boring.

(art and photo by the intangible Sarah Tracy)

Randomly stumbled across this government of Canada sign while walking through Halifax a few weeks ago:

Someone had actually snuck up with some kind of knife and glue and completely reworked the text of the sign to have a funky haloweenish typeface instead of the bland Arial that plagues the signs of our fair nation, and in a way that wasn’t even terribly noticeable to the casual passerby (no one else seemed to anyway).

Could this be the next big thing in graffiti? Subtlety applied to the (generally) least subtle of art forms? Or would the unconscious effects and delicate nature of font and typeface design imply that their corresponding vandalism would be equally inconspicuous?

Notice that they didn’t add any new elements, but just used what was already there for their own ends, making something fun from something boring (which, it so unconvincingly happens, already belonged to them in the form of public property)
Could this be where the cool kids are headed?

Seeing as I had some dollars that weren’t allocated for something else and hadn’t bought anything cool in at least six months I bought my first cellphone a few days ago (Siemens m55). Already I am a far more popular guy.

Best Part: Ridiculous flashing lights on the side of the phone that strobe with a total disregard for logic or usefullness.

Other best part: the German engrish (ünglish?) on the manufacturer’s web page…

“With its extraordinary design and convincing functionality, the M55 is the perfect all-round talent for individualists”

(if you think you should have the number and don’t email me.)