Archive: Posts from December, 2004
December 31st, 2004, 7 Comments »
I guess I haven’t mentioned that. From January 1st to 10th, I’m going to Cuba. We’re going to spend four nights in Havana and four in a resort at Varadero. So, posting will be light to nonexistent over the next week and a half. If you’re looking for something to read, check out one of the 260 sites on the sidebar there. Surely there’s something to your liking.
In preparation for the Cuban trip, I decided to upgrade my digital camera. While I was happy enough with our PowerShot A75, and a better camera certainly doesn’t make a better photographer, I’ve been wanting a digital SLR since we went to Africa. On that trip, we used our great old Pentax K-1000, which takes great photos (with brilliant colour). However, animals move a lot. I’m not a skilled-enough photographer to focus the zoom lens, track the animal, check the settings and take a quality shot. We were successful occasionally, but not consistently. So, I thought I’d make it easier on myself by getting an SLR with an auto-focus option and digital output. I got a Nikon D70. It’s the pick of the litter in its price range, and Heather (who takes way better photos than me) kindly let me fondle hers to ensure that it was the right fit.
Today we went to Pender Island to look at a few prospective pieces of land. I took the camera to test it out and document the lots we were looking at. Mostly, there are a lot of photos of trees. I did get to sit up in the front seat of the float plane on the way over, though. I have much learning to do with the camera, but I certainly liked how it responded on its first day out.
7 Comments »
December 30th, 2004, 1 Comment »
Chaminda writes with this announcement of a local candlelight vigil and memorial service, organized by Vancouver’s Sri Lankan community:
Date: Sunday 2nd January 2005
Time: 3:30PM
Place: Vancouver Art Gallery, West Georgia Street, Vancouver.
The Sri Lankan community in the Greater Vancouver area is getting together at this time of national tragedy. Religious leaders from the Buddhist, Hindu, Christian and Muslim communities will be conducting services and leading prayers in the memory of all those who perished as a result of the massive ocean waves which washed ashore in so many countries in the South East Asian region.
1 Comment »
December 29th, 2004, 1 Comment »
Mirabilis references an article about Ellen Shonsta, known to Vancouver’s homeless as “Mom”. The Vancouver Sun article is registration only, but here’s a chunk:
At 7 p.m. each night, Shonsta and 10 volunteers pack up sandwiches, stew, Chinese food, hot tea, Kool-Aid, water, cookies, doughnuts, licorice and vitamins, and head out into the night to feed the hungry and the destitute.
Shonsta cruises in her motorized wheelchair along Davie, Denman, Robson and Granville Streets, bags of sandwiches dangling from the arms of the wheelchair. Her helpers pull the remaining food and drinks in a trailer attached to a mechanized scooter.
I believe she keeps her scooter in the mini-storage building across the street from my apartment. I frequently see her and some volunteers loading up for the evening, and am awed by their commitment and selflessness.
Mirabilis points to two other articles which are accessable online. One from the Vancouver Courier, and another from UBC’s newspaper.
1 Comment »
December 29th, 2004, 6 Comments »
Various pleasures for your eyes, ears and twitchy fingers:
- Via BoingBoing,
a great,
hyper-speed Beatles mashup featuring over 40 Fab Four tunes. Why are the
Beatles featured in so many popular mashups? I guess it’s a whole medium-is-the-message
thing, where they provide a cultural baseline for other artists. Mind you,
this is all Beatles, so that logic doesn’t really apply.
- Hurray for Boulderdash!
One of the earliest graphical games I played on my IBM PC.
- I recently read about this crazy, 23-member, band-cum-cult called Polyphonic
Spree. They look and sound a bit like the Rheostatics meet the cast of
Hair. Here’s an
article about them.
- Tetris.
Just Tetris.
- This
robot can run. It’s pretty amazing, actually. I’m thinking it’ll be another
10 or 15 years before it’s running into the beachhouse to get me some sunblock.
6 Comments »
December 29th, 2004, 5 Comments »
Richard points to his favourite weblogs of 2004 (thanks for the honourable mention). Among them is Hanzi Smatter, a blog whose sole purpose is to identify the true meaning of kanji characters in Western culture. Mostly, he clarifies the meanings of tattoos (such as this one).
I’ve written before about impulse tattoo purchases, and this email from a tattoo artist confirms my suspicions:
I have been a tattoo artist for 8 yrs. and will tell you why. A kanji is the cheapest thing that you can get at the tattoo parlor. For the most part they require no thought and are chosen on impulse right before getting tattooed. Most of the people who get these tattoos don’t care what it is, they just want to be “cool”.
Richard also nails the feast-or-famine writings of Dave Pollard.
5 Comments »
December 29th, 2004, 3 Comments »
This morning I was looking at Lycos’s top 100 search terms for 2004, and I didn’t recognize three names in the top twenty-five: Nick Berg (#5), Michelle Vieth (#9) and Catherine Bosley (#23).
A quick search determined that Berg was the unfortunate freelance contractor who was beheaded by Iraqi insurgents. Catherine Bosley was a new anchor who famously joined in a wet t-shirt contest while on vacation. Vieth, as it turns out, is a D-level actor and the latest distributor of her own amateur sex tape (Paris Hilton, in all her lime-green glory, held on to the #2 spot). I clearly need to read the newspaper more thoroughly.
It’s no surprise, but still slightly demoralizing that the top twenty-five searches include 9 celebrities, 3 diets and the WWE. Is this really how we want to spend our time?
The most surprising entries? IRS (#27), Green Tea & Weight Loss (#30), Apollo 11 (#41) and, most oddly, Abraham Lincoln (#52). Lycos is clearly at the back of the pack in terms of search engines, but I’ve always enjoyed the analysis they do as part of the Lycos Top 50.
3 Comments »
December 28th, 2004, 4 Comments »
Bacon’s Information is a quizzically-named but very large media monitoring agency. Companies and government agencies (such as National Geographic and 7-11) pay them to monitor the media for stories that pertain to them, their competition and their industry.
Today, via Jeremy Pepper, I read about how Bacon’s “will now monitor the most reputable online news blogs”:
The company will introduce new blog content in MediaSource’s Premium Research module and track blog coverage in the Monitoring module to help clients determine the possible impact on business decisions and company reputations. Blogs have played an increasingly important role in influencing opinion of select audiences, including opinion about candidates in last November’s local, state and presidential elections.
Right now Bacon’s is going to monitor “250 blogs of quality”. A whole 250? Gosh, where are they going to find the personnel to do that?
Read more…
4 Comments »
December 28th, 2004, 7 Comments »
Every time I go to my parents’ place, my step-mother has a list of computer questions for me. I don’t mind–they’re generally easily solved and I’m happy to help. This Christmas’s tasks were all about getting the music collection and my old iPod sorted on their new PC (plus installing Firefox and the usual spyware detection ). I also installed a wireless hub so that I could have Internet access through their townhouse. My sisters were staying in the room with the computer.
Jeremy reminded me of this phenomenon when he referenced Ross Mayfield’s family tech support and Gina Trapani on how to fix Mom’s computer. I was also reminded of this Slashdot thread, which discusses the millions of people-hours spent fixing computers over the Thanksgivings weekend.
7 Comments »
