August 31st, 2005, 3 Comments »
For a few years now, my friend Todd (who recently retired his blog) has been taking photos of shoes flung over telephone wires. He’s now up to 105, and has uploaded them all to a Flickr pool:
Shoes hanging from wires, the silent witnesses to urban street life; koans for an age of mass consumption.
I made it 106 by uploading one of my own (which you see depicted at left).
August 31st, 2005, 18 Comments »
Longtime readers know that I used to regularly post link round-ups. These were groups of links with extremely short blurbs, sometimes organized around a theme (here, for example, are some links about the beast with two backs). I posted these lists because I wanted to share these links, but didn’t have much to say about them.
Over time, I naturally posted these groups less and less. Why? I guess it was a quality control issue. If I didn’t have the time or inclination to excerpt some content and write at least a couple sentences, then it probably wasn’t that compelling to me in the first place. Seeing as this site is all about what interests me, it seemed wise to deprecate the round-ups. None of you, dear readers, complained.
I no doubt learned this practice from some other blogger. However, the social bookmarking tool Delicious has made these clusters of links much more popular. Influencers like Roland, Jeremy and Steve post them regularly. While I read those sites pretty closely, I inevitably skip their lists of links. I guess I’m extending my logic to the rest of the Web. I am, after all, reading those guys’ sites for their perspective, not a bunch of links. Plus, of course, those links will surely show up in a longer post on somebody else’s site.
I may be alone in this. Maybe I want some thoughtful analysis while everybody else wants a quick fix. Do you dig the daily links list?
August 31st, 2005, 5 Comments »
Travis reports that Zip.ca has purchased VHQ Online. According to the Globe and Mail, Zip.ca is the largest DVD by mail company in the country, and they just ate their biggest competitor:
Terms of the deal were not disclosed. However, Zip.ca chief executive officer Rick Anderson said the acquisition of VHQ Entertainment Inc.’s on-line DVD rental business in Canada gives the company an inventory of 220,000 discs, more than twice the size of any other firm in the country.
I’ve never used either service, but my very unscientific impression has been that Zip.ca has traditionally offered lousy service, while VHQ has offered decent service. A quick Google search gets you some very negative reports on Zip.ca in the top ten (Boris’s page is one of my favourite examples of not owning the online conversation). This site, with a very small sample group, ranks VHQ slightly better.
Heather, a former VHQ Online customer, is bummed about the move.
August 31st, 2005, 7 Comments »
In an admirable effort to get the word out about unread blogs, somebody (with the unlikely name Nir Ofir) started Blog Day.
In one long moment In August 31st, bloggers from all over the world will post a recommendation of 5 new Blogs, Preferably, Blogs different from their own culture, point of view and attitude. On this day, blog surfers will find themselves leaping and discovering new, unknown Blogs, celebrating the discovery of new people and new bloggers.
It’s like Up With People, but with blogs.
If I may, I’d like to switch things up a little. Instead of my hunting down five random blogs, I’d like to hear from you, my dear readers. Please post about a blog that deserves more readers, and maybe a few words about why you dig it. I’ve promote all the links up from the comments into this message. Feel free to choose your own. Ideally, they’d be blogs that I haven’t mentioned or don’t currently link to, but I’m not going to be super picky. That said, I don’t want to hear about Boing Boing and Fark.
Some blogs have been suggested:
August 31st, 2005, No Comments »
American RadioWorks hosts a radio piece and article from September 2002, that discusses the dangers that extreme weather pose to New Orleans:
Researcher Jay Combe has reached a troubling conclusion. He’s told his supervisors at the Army Corps of Engineers that if The Hurricane hits New Orleans, most of the buildings in the city would probably be destroyed. If the water didn’t demolish them, the hurricane’s horrific winds would. And Combe says that raises a question: How many people would die?
Actually, glancing through the article, the reality wasn’t as bad as predicted.
August 31st, 2005, 2 Comments »
In a peculiar but apparently effective marketing ploy, Future Shop is housing six university students in a glass box for five days. From the press release:
The Dorm Rooms are voyeuristic, glassed-in living spaces outfitted with the latest in technology. Competitions will be staged throughout the day, and the 24-hour a day, weeklong competition will challenge each player’s stamina and skill. Throughout the week contestants will compete in a series of outrageous, reality TV-inspired challenges in an effort to take home the top prize of the over $10,000 in tech gear outfitted in the “Roomsâ€, including a laptop computer, MP3 player, home theatre system, mini-fridge and more.
Neither the release nor the site gives much detail on how, precisely, players will be eliminated. Musical chairs? Guillotine? Regardless, the prize package is pretty phenomenal.
I learned about this promotional curiosity from Daily Dose of Imagery, who has some groovy images of the Toronto contestants. It must get pretty hot in that box. For the locals, the Vancouver contingent is (oddly) in the little plaza beside the library.
August 30th, 2005, 1 Comment »
Knowing that I used to live in Dublin, Chad wrote to ask what I’d recommend he see and do when he and his partner visits the Old Sod next month. Here are notes from my reply, should anybody else be considering a trip there (links generally go to my photos or external sites):
August 30th, 2005, 3 Comments »
Last week Lex wrote about being invited to a same-sex wedding, and she was having a really hard time finding ‘gay wedding cards that don’t suck’:
Another card read, “For the Newlyweds, Justly married,” which seemed a bit too political for me. I realize that it’s an important act, but I think it’s more important to focus on the actual wedding and commitment and the people themselves during that day instead of politicians.
At the Vancouver Public Library gift shop, where I buy a lot of my cards, I saw a card with two suits which read, “You suit each other perfectly, Congratulations.” It’s not a bad idea, but that card is so cheesy that I need crackers to go with it.
She did find Raindrop Cards, which offer a pretty ordinary set of same-sex cards. One way to be the uncool straight kid at the gay wedding: give a card with a big rainbow on it. All the weddings I’ve attended were hetero, so I’ve never faced with this problem. I tipped off my friends at Hailey Kim cards–they ought to get into this emerging niche market.
