DarrenBarefoot.com

Just a quick note to those software developers among my dear readers. Everyone else, well, move along. Programmers might be interested to check out the latest QA Podcast, which features a conversation with XP guru Kent Beck. Here's a quote:

In XP-style development, two people typically write code together. They're having a conversation--the keyboard is going back and forth. So you already have that second set of eyes looking at the code. Say you're working on the code, I might be thinking about the next test that we could be writing.

From a media relations perspective, I really dig things like QA Podcast. Instead of being at the media's mercy to pick up stories, we surpass the media entirely. Mind you, it's not like the site's getting the readership of the SD Times, but it's doing all right.

Darren 10:34 PM | | (0)

This looks pretty cool--it's an online music locker for your digital music collection. Here are some notes from the entry on Boing Boing:

You can store all of your own music, making your entire music collection playable from any browser in the world. Plus you can also sync that entire music collection and play lists to multiple computers with a single mouse click....

- Oboe is the only online music locker. There are photo lockers, email lockers, general purpose storage, even video lockers but no music lockers and music is ideal for lockers because it's used repeatedly from multiple locations.
- $39.95 per year for unlimited storage and unlimited bandwidth. No per gb billing for either storage or bandwidth.
- Works on Mac/Win/Lin with MP3, AAC, WMA and Ogg files.

You know, the more I think about this, the less I like it. Currently I have five versions of my music library:

1. The 'master' version on my desktop computer.
2. A slightly out-of-date version on my backup external hard drive.
3. A subset (maybe 60%) on my 20 GB iPod.
4. Another sizable subset on my Apple PowerBook.
5. Another sizable subset on my wife's PowerBook.

Presumably Oboe (which reminds me too much of Odeo, the podcasting directory) would enable me to dispense with numbers 2, 4 and 5. However, I often--nay, almost always--want to listen to music on my PowerBook when I'm not connected to the Internet, so that eliminates 4 and 5. All I'm doing is replacing one local archive for a synchronized archive on the Web, and paying CAN $45 per year for the privilege. I'm not sold yet.

That said, I do like the Oboe website--it's tres 2005 (rounded corners for everyone!).

A few weeks ago I checked out Streampad, a free service that enables you to access your locally-hosted digital music collection from any browser. Unfortunately, I couldn't get it to work. It's in beta, so I might give Streampad another try in three months.

UPDATE: I misunderstood the Boing Boing notes. It turns out they have a basic, free version and a premium version at CAN $45 a year. This chart explains the difference. Well, it doesn't so much explain, as throw a bunch of curious terms at us. What the heck do 'Webload' and 'Sideload' mean? I'm sure I could figure it out by digging around the site, but I ought to be able to do so from this page.

Darren 06:56 PM | | (3)

Cape Clear Software makes Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) Software for SOA, BPEL, EAI and Web Services.

Darren 03:57 PM | | (0)

Somebody commented on an old post, pointing to IHateTelus.org. It, as you might imagine, is a site where 'the future is fugly'.

This site is a mockery of Telus, showing you the real side of who they are and what they are up to (yes, they really are blood-sucking vampire chameleons!). Here you will always find factual and accessible information on Telus as well as a healthy space to voice comments and opinions (and, if required) frustrations about experiences with Telus customer hate representatives (CHRs).

Check out that design. I sense a cease and desist letter jetting its way to IHateTelus.org as I write this.

This is kind of the antithesis of my recent entry about fan songs. You know you've really arrived when people make hate sites dedicated to your corporation.

Here's another anti-Telus site, entitled TELUS, the present is hostile. The goal here is to "show you how blatantly disrespectful the Telus company is to its customers".

Darren 02:20 PM | | (11)

Despite the apparent explosion in digital music sales in 2005, apparently it's not a big enough bang to staunch the bleeding for regular old music retailers:

According to Fulcrum Global Partners, the number of digital tracks sold grew 192 percent from Q1 2004 to Q1 2005. That rate slowed to 175 percent from Q2 2004 to Q2 2005. In Q3 the rate slowed even more, to 129 percent from 2004 to 2005. So far in Q4, the rate has fallen to 111 percent from 2004 to 2005. With physical music sales declining at a 6.9 percent clip a year, the report estimates that digital downloads will have to maintain rates of growth upward of 150 percent.

“Digital sales have grown dramatically year-over-year in 2005, but with growth slowing drastically, it appears increasingly hard to believe that digital will grow fast enough in 2006 to offset mid-to-high single-digit declines in physical music sales,” said Richard Greenfield, one of the authors of the report. “It will take several months for this problem to begin to manifest itself.”

Another interesting factoid: While the installed base of iPods quadrupled from 2004 to 2005, the average number of downloads per iPod was almost halved, from 31 to 16. That's mainstream adoption for you. Every Tom, Dick and Harriet has an iPod now, and fewer of them are alpha customers. Also, if they're including the iPod Shuffle in that analysis, there's less room and therefore less motivation to purchase music.

The article doesn't offer any analysis, so we can only speculate on what's causing the slowdown. to do so, I'd look at competing entertainment options, and see which of those are enjoying increasing growth: DVD sales, PVRs, gaming consoles, online games. It's just a guess, but I'd imagine they're impacting digital music sales.

Darren 11:28 AM | | (3)

Remember the Flickr song? It's now joined by the somewhat off-key tune "I Love My Mac" (thanks, Steve). Both songs demonstrate the torch that users carry for Flickr and Apple, and reflect well on the user-centricity of the organizations.

That got me wondering--when we will hear the first fake paean to a corporation, manufactured by the corporation itself? We've had fake fan blogs, why not fake songs? And why not fake celebrity podcasts? Get an actor or somebody who can do a decent imitation of a celebrity, and go to it. You'd get found out (possibly sued), but you'd probably get a ton of attention in the meantime. And attention can mean cash. I don't recommend it, but it'll happen sooner or later.

UPDATE: Here's a Gmail songhttp://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3911498298767970557, with the video made machinima-style inside The Sims 2.

Darren 10:11 PM | | (4)

I particularly like the Fark.com headline: "Canadian government falls. One down, 192 to go." Nelson also comes from that Fark discussion thread.

This is the first time this has occurred since 1979, when Joe Clark's conservatives were similarly bounced. Here's the low-down on the impending date in January:

Federal elections have to be held on a Monday and the campaigns have to be at least 36 days long. Martin is expected to call for a slightly longer campaign, setting the vote for mid-January, either the 16th or the 23rd, with an agreement among the parties to take a holiday break and stop campaigning between Dec. 23 and Jan. 3.

I recommend you go on over and participate in James Bow's Election Pool. Because nothing says federal politics like gambling.

For the record, here's my naive guess:

Liberals: 115
Conservatives: 107
Bloc Quebecois: 60
New Democrats: 26
Green Party: 0
Independents: 0
Turnout: 57% of eligible voters.

If you're trying to remember how things turned out last time, here's the appropriate Wikipedia entry.

Darren 05:14 PM | | (5)

Saturday night's game between the New York Rangers and the Washington Capitals featured the longest shootout yet. Fourteen pairs of players took shots without deciding the affair. As you may know, each player on the roster must shoot before any player can shoot again. At this stage, then, the coaches were looking at the two or three poorest scorers on the bench.

The Rangers coach, Tom Renney, mustn't have held out much hope when he sent Marek Malik (a former Canuck, incidentally) over the boards. A small man in a big body, he's an average defensemen with little offensive upside. In fact, he hadn't scored a goal all year, and only had five points.

Every jaw in Madison Square Garden dropped, then, when Malik scored the shootout goal of the year (thus far). Check out the video. You may want to save that badboy to your desktop, as opposed to clicking on it. The latter made my browser freeze worryingly for about 15 seconds.

Darren 01:58 PM | | (14)

Quick question. I've done some research into recording Skype calls, and the options are manifold. From the altar of Google:

• Good old Audacity. However, apparently it's a little touchy when recording Skype calls.
• Others recommend a simple line-out recorder like Total Recorder.
• Or something more sophisticated like Hot Recorder VoIP.
• Alternately, there's Skylook 1.0.

What do you recommend? I'm sorry Macophiles, but this has to happen on my Windows desktop machine, so keep your fracking Audio Hijack to yourself.

UPDATE: I eventually followed a link somewhere and happened upon Pamela, which works like a charm.

Darren 09:58 AM | | (10)

This week, I was the recipient of eight bizarre emails to a Gmail account I never use or give out. They were all from a numerical email account that looked like this: 2194985492@clarotorpedo.com.br (I changed a couple of digits). Each contained a photo taken with a phone camera, and no accompanying text. All eight photos were pictures of jewelry displayed in sundry shop windows.

Clearly this is just a case of mistaken identity, and I emailed the sender to notify them of their mistake. Still, it's a little mystery in eight photos. I'm fairly certain they were taken in Brazil because:

• Obviously, the 'br' domain on the email address.
• 'Clarotorpedo' almost certainly comes from http://www.claroideias.com.br, a Brazilian cellular company.
• North American mannequin generally don't have nipples. I think. I've got no supporting evidence on this point.
• I don't have the CSI magic that enables you to read a fly's tattoo with a 20-year-old security camera, but I do have Photoshop. When I tweak some settings on and reverse this photo, I get this decent view of the reflected background. A sign is visible. I can't be certain, but it appears to read "something e something". I don't know a word of Portuguese, but I do know that apparently 'and' is spelled 'e'. Of course, the photographer could be traveling somewhere in the Spanish-speaking world, because the letter could also be a 'y'.

You can also see the photographer and her phone. Can anybody identify which phone that is?

Any other conclusions we can draw? Don't worry, I'm not going to start stalking some poor Brazilian woman--I just dig the mystery.

Darren 10:35 PM | | (3)

Julie asked me that question as I sit here watching some of the Grey Cup, the championship game of the Canadian Football League. I knew that their salaries were meagre compared to bigger professional leagues, but I wasn't sure of specifics. TSN Magazine to the rescue:

Minimum salaries in the CFL this year are $30,000 for rookies and $32,000 for veterans. The minimum increases to $35,000 next year as a result of the CFL's new Collective Bargaining Agreement. The average CFL salary is about $45,000 Canadian.

Starters, excluding quarterbacks, can command anywhere between $60,000 and $120,000, depending on their position. Quarterbacks are generally the highest-paid players, making between $150,000 and $300,000.

Later, the article discusses other jobs many CFL players take:

The effect of low salaries donned [sic] on me while I was interviewing Edmonton kicker Sean Fleming during practice at Commonwealth Stadium Wednesday. "I work full-time year-round at Price Waterhouse Coopers. I've done that for a year and a half. Before that, I was an investment advisor with National Bank Financial. So basically I've got one full-time job and this is my part-time job," he said...

Before joining the CFL, Edmonton quarterback Ricky Ray was delivering Frito Lay potato chips for $43,000 U.S. a year - more than he's made in Edmonton this year. That's just plain sad.

I don't think it's sad. I think it's probably fair. These guys are being reasonably reimbursed for doing something that they love. The only sad part is that they couldn't stick in a league that paid them more. I'm guessing the owners aren't shafting them or anything--the league is simply small, and small-time.

On a related note, I see that the Black Eyed Peas' corporate whoredom continues.

Darren 04:15 PM | | (6)

Remember Rachel Marsden? Ever since her false harassment allegations against an SFU swimming coach, she'd fallen entirely off my radar. As it turns out, she's apparently a prominent and controversial conversative pundit, with a column in the Toronto Sun and regular appearances on Bill O'Reilly's show.

As Western Standard reports, she was asked to run against Jack Layton in the Toronto Danforth riding. Apparently Ms. Marsden declined, but I like this analysis nonetheless:

Up until last year, I lived in Toronto Danforth for some time, and I was probably one of the 10 non-socialists that did. It's full of CBC journalists, public school teachers, gay and lesbian couples and immigrants who came over 30 years ago but still think they owe Trudeau a favour for it. The Tories wouldn't stand a chance in that riding if Shania Twain was their candidate. But sticking a loose cannon who revels in making obnoxious comments about gays and Muslims, smack dab in the backyard of the Toronto media would not only earn the Conservatives no points in that riding, but would almost certainly ruin their campaign nationally.

I don't know. I'm certainly no politico, but I think it might have proved an effective distraction tactic for the Conservative Party. Marsden would have lost, but she'd have drawn some media attention away from Layton.

As this Wikipedia entry (a little too obsessively) describes, Ms. Marsden's personal conflagrations apparently didn't end when she left SFU.

Darren 03:48 PM | | (3)

I just read this amusing list of 77 things which are better in theory in Esquire magazine. Here's a sample:

• Unwinding at a drum circle
• Handball
• Telling it like it is
• Charlie Chaplin's silent antics
• Cinco de Mayo

I thought I'd give my own list a try:

• New Coke
• Gwen Stefani
• Convertible Hummers
• Robert De Niro doing comedy
• Cross-Canada road trips
• Microsoft Bob
• The New NHL
• Dancing the lambada
• Camping
• Any nautical museum, anywhere

Darren 11:11 PM | | (0)

Seth Godin points to this blind taste test for search engines. As you'll see, you enter a search term and are shown three sets of results. You identify the set of results which you think is most relevant. Ideally, you should choose a search term which you know something about. I tried it three times

Godin uses the results to highlight that a majority of people didn't choose Google. That's a reasonable point, I suppose, assuming this survey's methodology is sound (and it looks all right to me). I'd say that 80 to 85% of incoming searches for this site come through Google, followed by Yahoo and MSN.

Godin then goes on to claim that "Music sounds better through an iPod because we think it does". This is foolish. No thinking person believes that music sounds better through an iPod--they just know they look cooler with one.

Darren 05:56 PM | | (2)

Just a quick note. I'm on the board of directors of the Vancouver Fringe Festival. Due to some facilities issues, they're suffering an IT crisis. If any l33t IT types feel like doing some contract work this weekend, drop me an email.

Darren 11:04 PM | | (0)

Isn't that hard to believe? That's what Damien Mulley reports this week (thanks to Tom Raftery for the pointer):

The biggie was that 60% of people have never used email and that only 45% of people either at home or work have access to the Internet. 14% of people surveyed have DSL at home and 37% have regular Internet access. I'm waiting on clarifications on these figures especially the "never used email" bit.

Damien runs an organization called Ireland Offline, which lobbies for "affordable, unmetered and broadband Internet access in Ireland". As I understand it, there's a broadband monopoly in Ireland, and penetration has essentially stagnated. What's particularly striking about the 60% number is that if you removed Dublin from that stat, it'd probably be more like 80%.

Of course, I'm highly skeptical of ye olde surveys, so I'll have to wait to check out the methodology before I give it my personal stamp of veracity.

Darren 10:58 PM | | (6)

I didn't recognize it at the time, but at some point during my twenties my voicemail message bit flipped. As a teenager and university student, I was keen to get voicemail messages. After all, the more voicemail messages you had, the more popular you were, right?

At some unspecified time in the late nineties, I discovered that I wanted less instead of more voicemail. These days, I breath a sign of relief when the perky cell phone woman says "nothing to tell you!" Which, of course, is something to tell me, but never mind. The same goes for the curt Telus lady and her assurance that I have "no unheard messages".

I feel vaguely the same way about email, but it's less of burden. I suppose it implies less human interaction.

This feeling is particularly familiar on American Thanksgiving. As Tim Bray, a Canadian, says:

This is the day where those of us around the world who are in the US-centric high tech business, but not Americans, give thanks for the fact that our phones are silent and for the certainty that no major high-tech announcements or initiatives will occur.

I'm confident that tomorrow will be quiet too, as I understand many Yanks are making it a four-day weekend.

Darren 03:11 PM | | (2)

Songbird is a music player and browser built on top of Mozilla Firefox. You can't download it yet, but they've got a pre-release blog with screenshots. Here's some background:

Songbird is a complete desktop media player or "jukebox" with a uniquely open approach to Internet digital media network services.

Songbird is developed by Pioneers of the Inevitable, a small, chirpy team of digital media innovators whose previous incubations include the Winamp 5 and Y! Music Engine media players and Muse.Net, a location-independent digital media network service acquired by Yahoo!.

iTunes has been my music player of choice for quite a while now, but I'd be willing to give this badboy a shot. Here's a methinks-they-doth-protest-too-much comparison.

Darren 02:44 PM | | (2)

Last year, I complained that Indeed, a meta-job search site, promised "One Search, All Jobs" and only offered jobs in the US.

Last night, Paul Forster (who apparently remembered my complaint) emailed me to let me know that they're launching Indeed Canada. I dig their simple interface, and the job index seems pretty comprehensive. A search for marketing jobs in Vancouver returns 517 results.

Darren 11:28 AM | | (21)

On Rocketboom, I watched some curious behaviour on the streets of New York: people dumpster-diving for food. Importantly, these weren't homeless people--they had houses and gardens and so forth. Instead, they were freegans.

"Freegan" is an amalgamation of the words "free" and "vegan". Vegans are people who avoid products from animal sources or products tested on animals in an effort to avoid harming animals. Freegans take this a step further by recognizing that in a complex, industrial mass-production society economy driven by profit, abuses of humans, animals, and the Earth abound at all levels of production from acquisition to raw materials to production to transportation.

Darren 08:47 PM | | (35)

Via Digg (which, increasingly, fails to only be the "technology news website" it purports to be), I discovered The Writings on the Stall, a blog of lavatory graffiti:

One day I, Jonathan Horak (Janitor in Chief), was musing at the writings on the stalls when one in particular immediately drew my attention. I started thinking not of what it read but more of what stalls can reflect in general society: a whole lot.

They serve as (informal) forums for politics, pop culture, humor, and so forth. What better, then, than to bring the best of these writings out to the world over this thing we call the Internet? Thoughts and ideas that once were localized can now be made globally available. Huzzah!

I submitted my favourite from back in my university days. After a lengthy conversation of scrawled vulgarity, someone had written simply "I love my parents". The level of irony was unclear.

Darren 09:32 AM | | (1)

Doesn't that sound old-fashioned? In truth, I don't really want to cyber-squat, I just want to have a website that's fairly static and may not see much action for a few years.

Some time in the future, the powers that be are likely to turn Steven King's seven-part masterpiece, The Dark Tower into a movie or HBO-type mini-series. As I'm a fan of the books, I thought it might be fun (and eventually profitable, in terms of ad revenue) to start a site dedicated to the potential movies. Today, in terms of search results, there's Stephen King's own site and the good-looking TheDarkTower.net.

What URL do you think I should use? As I said, the book series is called "The Dark Tower". The first book is called "The Gunslinger", a term used prominently throughout the books. Obviously you'd want to include something about a movie in there. The obvious URL is something like www.thedarktowermovie.com, which is available (in fact, I already registered it, for safe keeping). Do any SEO experts have any suggestions? Any fans of the books have a snappier alternative?

And for your father's sake, don't put any damn spoilers in the comments. I'm halfway through the last book.

UPDATE: I was talking about this to Monique, who knows a thing or two about publishers, movies adapting books and fan sites. She suggested that I not use a trademarkable word, as I'll get my ass ceased and desisted when and if the time comes when they're producing the movies. This makes sense. As I understand it, TheForce.net is the number one Star Wars fan site. Likewise, MuggleNet.com is the most popular Harry Potter site.

So, I need a clever, like-minded URL, probably related to or recognizable from the first book of the series, The Gunslinger.

Darren 01:49 PM | | (10)

Last night I caught most of an episode of CSI:Miami. The deeply inplausable plot was concerned with four or five college-age gamers replicating the events of a violent video game in real life. The video game was a clone of Grand Theft Auto. They knock over a bank, take a captive, raid the police department for evidence and so forth. IGN has a summary with plenty o' screenshots.

CSI:Miami is a decent enough show. I even like David Caruso's. Incredibly. Slow. Delivery. This show was utter bollocks, though, from start to finish. The plot had enormous holes, and the whole gamers-are-evil theme was paranoia, plain and simple. I thought it laid bare the film and television industries' increasing fear of playing second (and third) fiddle to the game industry.

Darren 11:21 AM | | (13)

Richard is trying out Peerflix, which is essentially a (nearly) free floating library of DVDs. He explains the system (which sounds slightly complicated) and does the math:

My theory is that if you can send out 10 DVDs, then you’re likely to have a Peerbux balance of 20-30 which can be good for 10-15 DVDs, and then you’ll only have to pay the brokerage fee of $0.99 per DVD you order. Well, you also have to pay postage on anything you send out, but that’s about 50 cents per disc, as you only send the discs, and not the boxes.

He's also got some justifiable complaints about annoying search results and user interface issues.

Darren 09:48 AM | | (3)

With apologies to anyone, throughout human history, who has ever made a rhyme:

Cult of Apple, heed my call,
Yee are the brightest of them all.
Help me with this strange request,
Cheap and easy would be best..

PowerBook and G4, they must chat,
Across the Internet, and stat!
What application do I need,
To make this work, and end this screed?

Darren 09:39 AM | | (7)

Today I received a dubious-looking invitation from the people at Television Preview. Here's the opening paragraph of the letter (emphasis and caps, theirs):

DEAR TELEVIEWER:

YOU HAVE BEEN SELECTED TO PARTICIPATE IN A SURVEY WHOSE FINDINGS WILL DIRECTLY INFLUENCE WHAT YOU SEE ON TELEVISION IN THE FUTURE.

YOU HAVE BEEN SELECTED TO EVALUATE NOT-YET RELEASE TELEVISION MATERIAL THAT IS BEING CONSIDERED FOR NATIONWIDE BROADCAST.

YOU HAVE BEEN SELECTED TO HELP REPRESENT TELEVISION VIEWING PREFERENCES OF THE ENTIRE COUNTRY.

The language is crucial here. 'What you see on television' and 'television material' are intentionally ambiguous, suggesting that you'd be watching and evaluating new TV shows. According to my 5 minutes of research, they show you a couple of dated TV pilots, complete with commercials (the invitation is unambiguous about that).

They've been showing the same pilots for years, because the real purpose is to test the ads. After watching the shows and ads, you complete a lengthy questionnaire on the ads. All for the chance to win part of $250 worth of prizes. As there are typically at least two hundred people in attendance, your odds aren't fantastic.

There's a clever old-school marketing tactic in the invitation. They include four printed tickets, complete with the location details. These look impressive, and are influential in encouraging the recipient to attend or pass them on.

Here are a few of the Television Preview scam (or at least sham) reports I found:

• Spot the TV Ad
• I've Been Scammed!
• Television Preview
• Viewer Discretion Advised
• I Decide Television's Fate!

Darren 06:39 PM | | (6)

It's been incredibly foggy in Vancouver for the past couple of days, but that's not what I'm talking about. As a (ahem) faculty member at the Banff Centre for Blogs 'n' Dogs, I just received my 48-page Banff Centre Handbook. Under "Animal Awareness", it advises:

Elk are dangerous, especially during the spring calving season and the fall rutting season. If you see elk on campus during daylight hours, please contact Security via the Switchboard by dialling '0' and Security will haze the elk off campus.

There's no way I'm calling Security! Those poor elk are going to end up duct-taped to a flagpole with shaved genitals and a beer bong forced down their throat!

Ah, wrong definition of 'haze'. I looked high and low for what they meant, as I'd never heard this usage before. Finally, on page 1201 of my edition of the The New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, Thumb Index Edition, Volume 1, A-M, I found the following:

haze. v. [Origin uncertain: cf. Fr. haser tease, anger, insult] 6. v.t. Drive (cattle, etc.) while on horseback.

Well that's a relief.

Darren 01:14 PM | | (3)

My friend Sarah Carey writes a column for the Irish edition of the Sunday Times. This week, she discusses the daunting array of latent homosexuals in her neighbourhood:

Rugby matches are a fertile source of rich, macho latents. Scrums, communal showers, collars standing up, plenty of sexist jokes and a fondness for big-arsed women. Latent, latent, latent.

I don't necessarily agree with everything she says, but it's kind of amusing. Having both lived in Ireland and the much more out-and-about Vancouver, I think that Catholicism and all its fingers in Irish culture keeps a lot of Irish men deeply in the closet.

Darren 10:58 AM | | (2)

I caught the Superman Returns teaser trailer before Harry Potter and the Gobbling Tire on Friday. It features a voice-over by Supe's father:

Even though you have been raised as a human being, you are not one of them. They can be a great people, they wish to be. They only lack the light to show the way. For this reason above all: their capacity for good. I have sent them you, my only son.

Sounds like another familiar story, doesn't it?

Darren 08:46 AM | | (6)

Yesterday we had a municipal election here in Vancouver. Today the Vancouver Sun published a special Sunday edition to report on the results. The top story in section B, "Chinese voters backed Sullivan" by Miro Cernetig, drew some highly dubious conclusions from tiny sample groups. I know I've complained about polls before, but I couldn't stop myself from writing a letter to the editor. It's after the jump. [more]

Dear Mr. Cernetig:
The Vancouver Sun completed an exit poll of 375 voters. 14% percent, or about 52 people, identified themselves as Chinese. Of those 52 people, 71% or about 37 people, report voting for Sam Sullivan.

Based on the word of 37 people, you’ve concluded that Sam Sullivan "received massive support from the city’s voters who are of Chinese heritage". You’ve boldly extrapolated 37 to "roughly 14,000 voters". Any statistician will tell you that you're playing hard and fast with the numbers.

Did you, for example, report that the margin of error of a sample group of 52 people out of 19,000 Chinese voters is an astounding 14%? That means the variance of Chinese support for Sullivan could have been as high as 85% or as low as 57%. Isn't it highly irresponsible to draw conclusions from such a tiny data set, particularly when you fail to report on its size or margin of error?

As it does for each election, the editors at the Sun distort statistics to fit the story they want to tell. When I emailed Managing Editor Kirk LaPointe with similar concerns during the federal election, he said "we've worked to de-emphasize poll results in our election coverage." That's not evident in the 8 full-colour pie-charts on page B1. When will you and your colleagues stop intentionally deceiving your readership?

Sincerely,
Darren Barefoot

Darren 04:31 PM | | (8)

I don't read much fiction. I'm currently listening to the final book of the Dark Tower series by Steven King, but the current book queue is all non-fiction. I picked up The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon on the strength of Wonder Boys (the movie, but I hoped it indicated good things about Chabon in general) and the fact that it won the Pulitzer. I bought it in an airport book store, so I may have jet lag to thank as well.

It's a fantastic book, full of high adventure, nostalgia and clever homages. I've tried to read Underworld by Don DeLillo three times, and abandoned it after 100 pages or so. I feel like Kavalier & Clay is Underworld-lite. The book also seems to be that increasingly-rare commodity--a popular novel written for men.

I'm a shite book reviewer. Here's a review from Salon:

Many contemporary issues -- homosexuality, the role of women in the arts, censorship, anti-Semitism -- are addressed, though never with the cloying revisionism that can bog down books that try to use history as a Parable for Our Time. This is definitely New York, the old-school version. In the fusion of dashing young men in fresh new $12 suits, the smell of newsprint and burned coffee and laundry, and the courage to face unrelenting evil with pluck and humor, Chabon has created an important work, a version of the 20th century both thrillingly recognizable and all his own.

And here's one from the Guardian for the paperback edition. Coincidentally, it connects the book to Don DeLillo as well. Read the reviews, and if you haven't, read the book. You won't be disappointed.

Incidentally, there's apparently a film adaptation in production.

Darren 10:24 PM | | (1)

The past few days, I've noticed that this site is running very slow. In particular, people have complained of the dreaded hourglass (for Windows) or Gay Spinning Wheel of Death (for Apple) when they try to leave a comment. Over the weekend, I'll try to locate an Alpha Geek with strong IT diagnosis kungfu to root around and see what the deal is. In the meantime, if you want to leave a comment, please be patient with the hourglass or wheel, they do seem to get through eventually.

Darren 06:27 PM | | (2)

Today I went to Harry Potter and the Hooded Fang...er...the Goblet of Fire. I didn't go on opening day because I'm a huge Harry Potter fan (in fact,I'm not one at all). It just happened to be the most promising movie which I hadn't seen in the time slot I had available.

IMPORTANT: If you haven't read the books or heard about the casting of this movie, this review contains minor spoilers. I stuck the whole thing after the jump, to be safe. [more]

More of the same. That's what a Harry Potter movie promises these days, and that's largely what it delivers.

Absurd game of quidditch? Check. For the life of me, I don't know why each team just doesn't deploy seven seekers, so that the game becomes a fourteen player game of Chase the Bumblebee. After all, you catch the little thing, you win the game.

Hogwarts is infiltrated by gruesome figures with nefarious intent? Check. You'd think the school would hire a couple dozen rent-a-cops and a private detective.

Popular British actors are unrecognizable under incredible makeup? Check. Why is the English Patient hunting Harry Potter?

Though the stars are growing up rapidly, the movie still seems aimed exclusively at children. There's an onslaught impressive special effects, chase sequences and flashy bits of wand wielding (why don't they just give them Glocks and be done with it?). There's nothing wrong with a movie just for kids, but there are plenty of examples of movies which work on multiple levels and are entertaining for both kids and adults. The Incredibles springs immediately to mind.

This is too bad, because the two male leads--Daniel Radcliffe and Rupert Grint (1976 called, and it wants its hair back) are becoming better actors, and have much more natural chemistry. Unfortunately, they rarely get to chat. Between the introductions of new characters, dragon avoidance and long shots of sweeping, foreboding vistas, they rarely get a moment to themselves.

Hermione Granger is an increasingly cruel role for Emma Watson. She struggled in this film, having little to do but huff and puff at Harry and Ron in turn. There's a pissed-off-teen-girl-at-the-dance scene which fails miserably. This isn't all Watson's fault, the script and the direction fall flat as well (not to mention the utter undesirability of poor Ron). This is despite the fact that there are dozens of examples in teen films of the last two decades to draw upon. Watson acts through Goblet of Fire like she's completing a particularly tedious homework assignment.

The adult portion of the cast is excellent, though a little wasted as each gets so little screen time, and in such short scenes. Dumbledore (Michael Gambon) pronounces, McGonagall (Maggie Smith) tsk-tsks, Hagrid (Robbie Coltrane) worries, all briefly and effectively.

I haven't read the books, but each film has felt, to some degree, overly loyal to the text. Which is to say, about a half hour too long. The plot centres on Harry completing three tasks as part of the Triwizard Tournament. Unfortunately, we have to wade through the World Cup of Quidditch, an undead Ku Klux Klan attack, and a dream sequence to get there. The same goes for the epilogue, which doesn't commit the felony of Return of the King, but deserves to be charged for a like-minded misdemeanour.

If you enjoyed the other Harry Potter movies, I can't imagine why you wouldn't like this one. I was occasionally entertained and occasionally bored. Maybe the films will get more adult with teenage stars. If so, hopefully we'll see a little more conversation and a little less action.

Darren 03:15 PM | | (17)

Currently, the only podcasts I listen to with any regularity are Coverville (see this posting on why I dig it), Ebert and Roeper and NPR on the Movies. Those podcasts have, however, opened me up to listening to some audio books. I listened to Steven King's Bag of Bones, read by the author. I'm not ashamed to say that it creeped the hell out of me. Mr. King has a, uh, distinctive voice.

A couple of colleagues have emailed me recently and asked me to plug podcasts. I've given them only a cursory listen, and they sound compelling enough to pass on to those who might be interested:

• Monique sent along her new Raincoast Book initiative: author podcasts. This seems like a natural fit, as it's essentially a free, virtual reading. Here's the announcement and here's the feed (RSS).
• Monsieur Scoble is in Ireland at the moment, and Tom Rafferty Raftery recorded an interview with him. Tom notes "Robert talked about the advantages of blogging for businesses, attention data and about social software, kind of as a preview to his addresses at the IT@Cork Annual Conference'.

Finally, Travis mentioned another movie-related podcast that might interest me--Variety Screening Series 2005 (RSS). As he says:

A series of 30 minute interviews with directors, actors, etc. being interviewed by good Variety reporters -- this isn't talk show style. They're talking in front of an audience who has just seen their film, so it's pretty insightful. Good stuff, especially if you like finding out about the process of film making.

I haven't listened yet, but it sounds like a promising, very un-Entertainment Tonight format.

Darren 10:57 AM | | (5)

I can't find the post at the moment, but a few months ago I mused about whether one could use the Google API to find all the keywords which delivered your site in the top ten results. People way smarter than me told me that it wasn't possible from outside Google, and I've no reason to expect that they're not correct.

This clearly isn't the same thing, but it's vaguely related. Steve Rubel points to a little feature inside Google Sitemaps that shows you the top five most popular queries to Google that return pages from your site. Why only five? Here are my results:

These are a reflection not so much of my site's PageRank, but more of the sheer volume of people searching. For example, I'm ranked a meagre 21st for 'online sex games', but I assume that that search is executed roughly 37 zillion times a day. The same goes for the amusing misspelling of 'wikipedia'. Should I correct that or not? Hard to say.

On a related boring site note, I finally got around to using this Movable Type template to generate a sitemap for this site. It's not entirely complete, as I didn't include all the static pages (outside of MT's view), but I suppose it's sufficient.

Darren 10:08 AM | | (0)

Briefly, Travis points to some Rube Goldbegesque Flashy Flashness that's guaranteed to bring a smile to yourself and waste at least 7 minutes of your time. It's called the Blue Ball Machine, and has nothing to do with sexual frustration.

While I'm at it, here's an amusing fan-made commercial (MOV) that's just a touch sardonic.

UPDATE: In talking about the aforementioned blue balls, I'd meant to reference the wonderful kinetic sculpture by George Rhoads outside of ScienceWorld.

Darren 02:44 PM | | (3)

Back in September I mentioned this forthcoming bit of MIT magic--the $100 laptop for the developing world. Now Nicholas Negroponte is showing off the lime-green prototype at the World Summit on the Internet Society:

The laptop itself is about two-thirds normal size and will contain a 500MHz processor (about half the processing power of most modern laptops), plus contain Flash memory rather than a normal, moving hard drive, to make it more durable. A crank on the side can be used to power it in low-power mode, with Mr Negroponte claiming that one minute of cranking will provide 30 minutes of use.

Man, I wish my iPod came with a little crank like that--I'm tired of running out of battery power. Here's a big photo of the pint-sized laptop, as well as a link to a webcast (though I'm perplexed by the RTSP protocol in that URL--it's no doubt some Real Audio bollocks). Additionally, here's some thoughtful analysis of the project, and a discussion of the hurdles it has yet to overcome.

UPDATE: In my previous entry, I mentioned my bread-before-books philosophy. Clive Thompson disagrees.

Darren 09:54 AM | | (1)

Via Boing Boing, here's the (somewhat dubious, if you ask me) story of a rent-a-geek who accepts sexual favours for services rendered. Here's his pay scale:

It's basically all about the time I spend: If I'm working for one or two hours, I'd like a blow job. An orgasm for every two hours of service is pretty fair. If it's something simple that I can fix in 15 minutes, I'd like to get a foot massage.

Hurray for the barter economy. That said, a foot massage don't pay the cable bill. Interestingly, his (or a copycat's--there appear to be several) ad has been removed from the Sacramento Craigslist.

Darren 09:48 AM | | (2)

My friend Matthew and I were at a local public house this evening to watch the Canucks pay-per-view game. We were at the back of the bar, watching the game projected this enormous--say, 15 feet across--screen. The game finished (the Canucks won), and the bartender went to change the channel. It was one of those digital systems where the current program on the next channel displays along the bottom of the screen. We had just long enough to read "Asian Cheerleader Cavity Search" and catch a half-second glimpse of pistoning flesh, before the bartender surfed back to the post-game show.

Darren 11:09 PM | | (2)

Busy day today, so I'm not sure how much I'll have to say around here. As such, I'm fobbing you off with a Flickr set (here's the slideshow) I assembled the other day when I had a few spare minutes and Internet access. They're the 35 best photos I've taken (that are on Flickr) over the past 18 months. At least, they're the 35 photos I figure are the best.

I'm a fully noob photographer, so hopefully the next best 35 will be an improvement.

Darren 11:47 AM | | (0)

I was musing on this question in bed this morning. I'd just woken up from one of those dreams where you're in class, but haven't done your homework.

Tthe only recent college/university shows I could think of are Felicity and the genius that is Tommy Lee Goes to College. I don't know a lot about television production or show selection, but you'd think there'd be more of these. After all, don't most people remember university favourably?

I suppose duration is an issue. If you're going to adhere to current practice, you can only justifiably have the same cast for four or five years.

Darren 07:10 PM | | (15)

A couple of weeks ago, I admitted my ignorance about our upcoming municipal election. As time has permitted, I've done what I can to read the paper and online resources and get, if not up to speed, then off the starting blocks.

Yet, as I scan pages A4 and A5 of today's Vancouver Sun, I'm confused. On the one page we've got COPE candidate Tim Louis ignorantly criticizing the downtown soccer stadium proposal as 'corporate welfare' when, in fact, private money is going to pay for the entire thing. On the other page we've got the NPA criticizing Southeast False Creek plans.

Vision Vancouver seems to be making more promises than a sixteen-year-old boy on lover's lane, and Sam Sullivan is clearly kind of nuts. And the other day I read about Tim Louis's support of a non-profit brothel for Vancouver prostitutes, which doesn't sound like a bad idea. What's a barely-informed voter to do?

At least at the provincial and federal levels there are lines of delineation. They're wavy lines, but you've got a sense of where the parties stand. I may just borrow a parakeet, bring it in into the voting booth, and let it decide who I'll vote for.

On a related note, here's the website for the new Whitecaps soccer stadium. Both the site and the stadium look pretty slick--check out the artist's renderings.

I know I'm a blogging advocate, but is there a better example of a site that could use a weblog? Let's see...timely information? Check. Provide photos, audio and video from an ongoing project? Check. Foster public involvement? Check. Have dialogue with stakeholders? Check.

And shame on Radiant Communications, the site's developers, for not at least including an RSS feed. I tell every one of my clients the same thing: in two years, every site will have an RSS feed. You can get one now, or get one later, but you'll need one.

UPDATE: Just saw a piece on another mayoral candidate, with a familiar name: James Green.

Darren 11:09 AM | | (3)

As au currant geeks already know, Google recently launched Google Analytics, their entry into the web stats market. This Web-based solution is built on top of Urchin's technology, a company they acquired back in March. The price? Free.

I tried out the service, using this site's home page and Geeky Traveller as test subjects. Unfortunately, I didn't read the manual (and a former technical writer at that!) and put the Javascript in the wrong spot. I've amended that issue this morning, so I'll get a better look at things this afternoon. All the fancy charts look promising.

Feature requests? It's not one that I want, but I can imagine that people might want to make their web stats publically available.

I don't want to sound like I'm wearing a tin foil hat, but Google's planetary data set is getting a little daunting. Consider a hypothetical alpha-adopter and Google-lover named Uter (no, not that Uter). Here's what Google knows about Uter:

• Everything he emails, and who his friends and colleagues are.
• Everything he views on the Web, and everything he searches for, including the location of every address.
• Every feed he subscribes to online.
• Tons of data about who visits his website.

I'm no data analyst or criminologist, but I'm guessing we can build a pretty complete picture of Uter with that information. And then, of course, we can sell him things.

Darren 10:36 AM | | (2)

Heron writes to send along this extraordinary panorama of Vancouver. For the locals, it was taken from the top floor of the parkade at the Holiday Inn on West Broadway (from this thread). Judging by the completeness of certain Yaletown buildings and the snow on the mountains, this image was taken in the past couple of weeks.

Coincidentally, Boris is writing about panorama stitching tools.

Darren 08:43 AM | | (2)

Somebody has assembled an enormous list of all the movie tie-ins associated with Peter Jackson's forthcoming King Kong:

Yum. There are King Kong Cotton Candy & Sour Gummies, Apple Jacks, Klik Dispensers (like Pez), Sweet Spin YoYo, Power Pops, Mighty Chew Bubblegum, Movie Camera Bubblegum Packages, and Light & Sound Candy Dispensers with "Lights, sound and candies all sure to keep you excited". Nestle also has "Kong" related Crunch, Butterfinger, and Baby Ruth Bars. Even Pepsi (in Russia) seems to be in the act - one ad visible here.

And those are just the edible tie-ins. The weirdest? Possibly the King Kong snow globe.

Darren 08:38 AM | | (0)

Telus and Shaw are the two biggest broadband providers in BC. Derek is switching from the former to the latter:

Had Telus shown instead that it got the new competitive telecommunications landscape, by treating me and my family as valuable customers worth keeping, it would have been in line for tens (or maybe hundreds) of thousands of dollars of further revenue from us during the rest of our lifetimes. Now their share of our communications dollars is likely only to decline from that baseline, possibly to zero.

If you're in sales, marketing or broadband, read the whole thing--it's thoughtfully written and reflects thousands of customers' view.

In the piece, Derek bemoans the fact that loyal existing customers are ignored while new customers are offered free iPods. Is it fair to expect, as an existing customer, to receive special offers to new customers? I'm not really sure, but he makes a good point.

Anecdotally, I've heard more complaints about Telus's quality of service than I have about Shaw's. Also, there are plenty of other reasons not to like Telus.

The Fringe Festival, incidentally, has drawn the same conclusion (I'm on the board). They recently moved offices (about 500 feet or so), and it's been an utter fiasco trying to get their Internet and phone lines reconnected.

UPDATE: You can read other hilarious stories of appalling Telus customer service over at Travis's blog and Caustic Sense.

Darren 05:39 PM | | (10)

JBoss, as the geekier among you may know, is a popular open source middleware platform (and, ironically, a competitor to one of my clients). Paul Tamaro works at Novell, and he's built a theme for for JBoss Portal web app. With my permission, he integrated a photo I took of Ernest Hemingway's house (part of this set--don't miss the lizard in a jar) outside Havana in the theme.

It's not available yet, but will be shortly (in the unlikely event any of you are crazy-mad JBoss nuts) at the JBoss PortletSwap. Here's a full size preview.

I've fielded a few requests for my images, from a teacher who wanted to use these impalas (impala? Apparently both are acceptable) in the classroom, to this Dell box scan in a tech magazine.

Darren 12:29 PM | | (0)

To their credit, our local hockey team has a blog. They were doing all right, getting players to post reports from training camp, and so forth. Unfortunately, lately they've had Bill Ranford (former NHL goalie and, I think, Canucks' goaltending coach) running a gamelog. It's a somewhat abstract description of the game in realtime with some commentary. I'm not sure who it's for, but not for anybody watching TV or listening to the radio.

Regardless, I read about Jennifer Good via The Vancouverite and Kitsilano.ca:

I've finally decided on the ideal job for myself. Blogger to the Vancouver Canucks. What I would do is follow them around, watch every single game and then blog about it--but the twist is, it will be from the perspective or point of view of a girly girl. I would lay on the "duh". Kind of like...hockey is the new black - always in style. Instead of talking actual stats I would create my own. Instead of knowing how many goals they got in a season people will know their astrological signs, birthdays, favorite pick up lines, you get the idea. I will talk about all the puck sluts. I'll mock the other teams. It'll be great.

I think I'd vote for the actual stats and analysis. Regardless, Ms. Mrs. Good recognizes that a little skin goes a long way, which might help sway the skeptics. That's a shoddy Photoshop job on the logo, though.

Darren 10:59 AM | | (5)

Via Slashdot, I read about this charming turn of events in Ontario. A Waterloo mother of three become concerned about apparent construction deficiencies in her subdivision, and started a website to document them. Now she's being sued for libel by the developer, Activa Holdings Inc (couldn't find a website):

On Sept. 16, Lanteigne received news that she was being sued for libel by developer Activa Holdings Inc., one of the largest developers in the region.

The statement of claim said "the malicious, high-handed and arrogant conduct of the Defendant warrants an award of punitive or exemplary damages to ensure that the Defendant is appropriately punished for her conduct and deterred from such conduct in the future."

Here's a Google cache of her website (without photos, unfortunately). Her (heh) Geocities site exceeded capacity--somebody ought to host it for her. It looks like Canada could also use some anti-SLAPP legislation.

UPDATE: From Slashdot, here are the contact details for the CEO of Activa Group, Werner Brummund.

Darren 02:09 PM | | (6)

I'm probably among the oldest people (at least, without getting into the real outliers) who learned to type on a computer. Though I think we had a word processor/typewriter thingy, I started typing correctly and in earnest around 1985 or 1986, when we acquired our monster IBM PC. I didn't take typing in school, which seemed to me to be an enormous bore and a waste of time.

There were few, if any, cool games to help teach me. Thanks to Suw, I just discovered this nifty typing game. I got 723 on my first try--I don't know if that's lame, excellent, or somewhere in between. I think I type about 60 words per minute normally.

Darren 07:54 PM | | (8)

This is an entirely unjustifiable complaint, and I've no right to ask anybody to change their behaviour on this point, but I'm just going to say it: It weirds me out when people, in talking to thier pets, describe themselves as "Mommy" or "Daddy".

You'd think this was the strict domain of the eighty-year-old woman with twelve cats, but I frequently hear young people in my apartment get all paternal on their pets. The most recent example saw a woman in her early twenties mewing to her chihuahua in the elevator about "Mommy feeding her". What can I tell you? It just creeps me out.

Darren 06:27 PM | | (7)

Today we attended the Remembrance Day ceremony we attend every year, at East Vancouver's South Memorial Park. There are fewer war veterans every year, but otherwise the ceremony's always the same. Despite the inclement weather, there was a good turnout of observers. I took some photos.

I pretty much post the same thing every year (see 2003 and 2004)--attended, good turnout, and so forth--and then usually cite a familiar poem. This year, I thought I'd choose something more obscure, about a rarely-mentioned war and a different kind of loss:

Buried
by Michael Ondaatje

To be buried in times of war,
in harsh weather, in the monsoon
of knives and stakes.

The stone and bronze gods carried
during a night rest of battle
between the sleeping camps
floated in catamarans down the coast
past Kalutara
   To be buried
for safety.

To bury, surrounded by flares,
large stone heads
during floods in the night.
Dragged from a temple
by one's own priests,
lifted onto palanquins,
covered with mud and straw.
Giving up the sacred
among themselves,
carrying the faith of a temple
during political crisis
away in their arms.
   Hiding
the gestures of the Buddha.

Above ground, massacre and race.
A heart silenced.
The tongue removed.
The human body merged into burning tire.
Mud glaring back
into a stare.

Darren 01:33 PM | | (0)

To my eternal shame, my friend Rob (you may recall him from previous missed concerts) purchased Depeche Mode tickets for next Tuesday. Now he can't go. Here are the details:

General Motors Place, Vancouver, BC
Tuesday November 15, 2005 8:00 pm

Seat location: section 108, row 25, seats 8-9.
Asking essentially what I paid - $200 for the pair (you're saving $2.50).

Leave a comment if you're interested (and willing to admit it publicly). It's first come, first served, so email Rob at robgoehring at hotmail dot com.

Darren 04:31 PM | | (4)

Today I received an email from the folks at Pandora, one of several find-new-music services. I wrote about them a while back, and wondered if their service was worth $3 a month to me. Apparently now they're offering a free, ad-supported version:

In addition to many new features (bookmarking, station editing, playlist improvements, etc.), Pandora v2.0 includes a free, ad-supported version. Listeners have the choice to subscribe and stay clear of ads, or use the free service, which will gradually incorporate advertising. What does this mean for you? You can now come back and listen to Pandora as much as you'd like for free--and all the stations you've created remain intact.

I haven't heard or seen an ad yet, and I've probably listened to 15 songs. While listening to artists associated with Natalie Merchant (I know, my musical taste is dubious), I discovered a band called Snow Machine. They're apparently the new solo project of Katherine McElroy, who's also a member of a band called Nineteen Forty-Five.

Amazon associates them with the Decemberists and Johnathan Rice, while iTunes says Iron & Wine (among others). I'd go with a more-melodic Julianna Hatfield meets Frente and Teenage Fanclub for brunch. You can hear a couple of songs: Birmingham and Camel Lights.

Darren 01:25 PM | | (3)

Just a quick plug for my day-job. We recently redesigned and rewrote Atimi Software's corporate site. I'm really happy with how it turned out, in terms of both design and content. If you refresh most pages, we've got some PHP goodness that displays different content boxes. There are a few bugs to work out, but it's more or less ready for prime time.

Darren 01:02 PM | | (2)

My friend Kennedy writes to inform me that today is the thirtieth anniversary of the sinking of the S. S. Edmund Fitzgerald. From the Wikipedia entry:

SS Edmund Fitzgerald was a ship that sank suddenly on Lake Superior, November 10, 1975. The ship went down without a distress signal in a November gale. It sank in 530 feet (162 m) of water at a position 46° 59.9' N, 85° 6.6' W, in Canadian waters about 17 statute miles (15 nm) (27 km) from the entrance to Whitefish Bay. All 29 members of the crew were killed.

As loyal Canadians know, the sinking was commemorated by Gordon Lightfoot, with his classic song The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald (glorious midi awaits). Kennedy bemoans some of the rhyming:

I forgot just how poorly rhymed the song is... he sets up a fairly obvious and implicitly strict structure and then give such appalling 4-word rhymes as "Wisconsin/seasoned/Cleveland/feelin'." The only way you can tell that Wisconsin and seasoned are supposed to rhyme is that the structure exists in every other stanza - occasionally he uses two pairs instead of four, but those first two are always a (ahem) match.

We're currently discussing whether the instrumental version I have is, in fact, a cover by the Tragically Hip, or was mislabelled when I found it years ago on some Napster-clone.

Darren 11:04 AM | | (5)

As regular readers know, I've tried several massively multi-player games, and failed every time. That is, they haven't stuck for more than a couple months. I wrote a short piece about my disinterest in Star Wars: Galaxies (where now anybody can become a frickin' Jedi--what's with that?).

It'll no doubt be fruitless, but I'm going to give World of Warcraft a try because, well, it's free for ten days:

With over 4 million players online, World of Warcraft has made gaming history. Now you can experience the intensity of Blizzard's "massively epic" role-playing game for 10 days - absolutely free. Just fill out the form to the right, click Submit and follow the instructions to create your World of Warcraft account.

I'll take any introductory tips anybody has, such as "don't take the brown acid" and so forth.

Darren 09:29 AM | | (12)

I've been vaguely aware of the ribald comedienne Sarah Silverman for years. Most recently, she had a memorable turn in The Aristocrats (second only, perhaps, to Bob Saget). Via Robot Wisdom, I read a profile of her in Rolling Stone, which coincides with her upcoming movie, Sarah Silverman: Jesus is Magic (questionable content and wacky Flashness ahead):

"People have said that it's going to be my year for the past twelve years" is how Silverman looks at it, but this year people might be right. There she is, as Hadassah Guberman on Comedy Central's Crank Yankers; one of the high points of The Aristocrats; the second-most-memorable person on the televised roast of Pamela Anderson ("I'm glad [Courtney Love] is here" was one of Silverman's lines. "I left my crack in my other purse").

Assuming you're not offended by humour about sex or race, you may enjoy these bits from the film, or at least the trailer.

Darren 09:56 PM | | (2)

A friend sends along these amusing revision of famous Group of Seven paintings:

The exhibition is a telling 21st-century comment on Canadian identity; the artists mess with the Group’s nature/culture divide, subvert its rugged, manly virtues with feminist comment and give some multicultural dimensions to its predominantly beef-eating British-Canadian outlook.

Sadly, the works were auctioned off on October 27 by Winnipeg's PLUG IN ICA, so there's no picking up "Jack Pine with Approaching Sasquatch".

Darren 09:48 PM | | (0)

Clay McLeod, a teacher in Kelowna, has written a wrong-minded editorial about why he doesn't wear a poppy. Here are a couple choice bits:

What would Gandhi have done in Poland or Germany if he were faced with the advance of the Third Reich and witness to the holocaust?

Perhaps, in protest, he would have joined a line up of Jewish people waiting to board a train to Auschwitz. Would you have the courage to make that sacrifice? Would I?

And later...

That is why I oppose war and refuse to wear a symbol that justifies and glorifies it. While I'm glad that I don't live in a country ruled by Nazis and I don't have to protest observations of the glory of the Third Reich under penalty of death or imprisonment, I do insist on exercising my freedom by not honouring the fictitious efficacy of military solutions that divide humanity rather than renew it.

As you might imagine, the comment thread on this article is long. Happily, it's also articulate. A couple of people dissect Mr. McLeod's argument better than I can:

The poppy does not symbolize war. It is not a medal or a flag. Not everyone who died on the battlefield believed in what they were dying for. The poppy stands alone, away from the political and economic justifications for war. It is a symbol of remembrance.

And even better:

War is what happens when world leaders blunder headlong into crises. This is why a free press is so vitally important to a free and enlightened society -- to peace.

The blood red poppy is a cry of anguish for what was lost -- not a howl of triumph for something supposedly gained. I observe Remembrance Day each year, and wear the poppy, to remember that lesson. You know: "Lest We Forget."

Mr. McLeod, wearing the poppy isn't about nationalism, it's about remembering and honouring sacrifice. Your Ghandi example is foolhardy, because while the sacrifice of the Jewish people was mighty, the sacrifice of voluntary soldiers who died was greater still. They went willingingly to the fight and their death, to win freedom for those who couldn't. You can be certain, Mr. McLeod, that had no one opposed the Nazis with the warfare you disdain, that today the European Jew would be as rare as the snow leopard.

I wear the poppy for my great-uncle, whose grave is in Kiel, Germany. I also wear it for the three or four hundred men lying next to him. Most of all, I wear it because I'm free to do so, just as you are free not to. My great uncle and millions of men like him helped win us those rights, and they deserve your respect.

Darren 11:37 AM | | (12)

Chris Anderson has a good summary of what's up and what's down in the world of mainstream media. Here's what's down:

• Box Office: down by 7% this year (tickets per capita have fallen every year since 2001). 
• Newspapers: circulation, which peaked in 1987, is declining faster than ever and is down another 2.6% so far this year. 
• Music: Sales are down another 5.7% this year; although digital downloads (still just 6% of the business) are climbing nicely. 
• Radio: down 4% this year alone, continuing a multi-decade decline.
• Books: down by 7% in 2004 (but see comments  below for discussion)

I was under the impression that newspaper readership peaked in the mid-seventies, though Anderson says it was 1987.

Meanwhile, Cory Doctorow likens your local cinema to a police state.

Darren 10:47 AM | | (2)

Like most people, I regularly assert that Powerpoint is evil (I wrote something about this a couple of years back). I often use it when I present, but I've been undertaking ongoing experiments to make it work the way it should. It should augment what I'm saying, as opposed to distracting from or summarizing what I'm saying.

Much has been said about Julie Leung's excellent presentation at Northern Voice and Gnomedex. She only used photos--no (or few) words.

This was very theatrical, and resonated with me. Projections are regularly used in modern theatre, and are exceptionally effective when done right. Back in the mid-nineties, I directed a theatre-in-education show called "The Cost of Living" by Dennis Foon. It's a one-man show about sexual responsibility and AIDS. Near the end of the play, the performer delivered a speech only by the light of a projection--a giant vial of blood that fell across his body. Obvious? Yes, but it seemed to resonate with the kids.

I gave a talk on Web 2.0 stuff a few weeks ago, to a small audience in a company. I used the pictures-only strategy (photos and screenshots). I thought it went over well, so I'm thinking of trying it again at my upcoming CPRS talk. I've also admired Dick Hardt's (apparently nicked from Lawrence Lessig) rapid, highly synchronized monologue style. It's highly formalized, and would require more rehearsal, but very slick. I wonder, does Dick have some kind of functionality in his presentation software that displays the next few slides, so that he can keep ahead of what's on-screen? I did read on Dick's blog about this cool app for turning your phone into a remote control for your computer.

All of this, I suppose, is a very long winded route around to this interesting examination of the Apple and Microsoft schools of Powerpoint.

Darren 09:34 AM | | (2)

This is your final warning--speak at Northern Voice or suffer the consequences. The deadline for submissions is next Tuesday, November 15. Boris has a decent paragraph on what we're looking for:

So, any EduBloggers? Knitting Bloggers? Food Bloggers? From journalists to home makers to gardeners to people just telling stories, we want speakers that have things to share. It's a wide audience, from lots of local Vancouverites wanting to find out more to lots of top bloggers and techies from around the world.

Of course, Boris thinks tomorrow is November 16th, so I'm not sure how dependable he is.

Yesterday we visited UBC Robson Square, the conference venue, and checked out some rooms. We're pretty psyched about the probable location for Moose Camp--it's a very flexible space, complete with some couches and little round tables. Roland tooks some photos, but he hasn't posted them yet. Get on that, would ya?

UPDATE: Here are Roland's photos. Here's part of the swish area.

Darren 09:26 AM | | (0)

My colleague is having some difficulty with her Mail application, running under the newest version of OS X (Tabby? Tigger? Something like that). Basically, her Junk folder indicates that there are messages, but when she clicks on the folder, she's unable to see them (to verify, for example, that there are no false positives).

I'm no Apple guru (I'm not the guru of any fruit, actually), and have a busy day, so I spent 90 seconds trying to debug and then had to move on. It's a POP account, and I ran through all the Junk mail settings, and nothing jumped out at me. I took a quick screenshot, which does little other than prove I'm not making all this up. Any suggestions?

In exchange for your group expertise, let me offer you some random video of a goat (AVI). There's no punchline or anything, just a goat on a table.

Darren 03:20 PM | | (4)

Tonight I was lucky to watch a conversation between Jay Ingram, Discovery Channel Canada dude and Hal Wake, CBC producer. Ingram told stories from his new book, Theatre of the Mind (hurrah for a dedicated website). It's about a very complex and controversial subject: what is consciousness? Here's the spiel:

In Theatre of the Mind, popular science writer Jay Ingram looks at some of the most fascinating and baffling cases in consciousness research: what the world looks like to a man whose vision is restored after 50 years of blindness; how a roomful of people missed seeing a man in a gorilla suit walk through their midst; what bats think about when they're hunting for insects; whether split-brain patients have two separate consciousnesses; if dreams are rehearsals for the waking world or merely neural noise; and how we might reach a higher level of consciousness.

Here's an article on Ingram and the book.

Ingram (and, presumably, the book is too) was full of tales of experiments into the mind. He discussed the myth that we only use 10% of the brain, the curious results of severing the corpus callosum, and the bizarre phenomenon that is childhood amnesia. On the latter point--at two years old, we can apparently remember things from when we were one. However, by the time we're roughly four years old, we've forgotten everything from before the age of three.

Ingram's a good, if meandering storyteller. If the book is the same way, it'll be fascinating.

The session was part of UBC's Talk of the Town series. They're free, but be sure to pre-register if you're going to attend--we barely got in. The session was recorded, but I don't see any audio files or streams from previous sessions on the website. Too bad, it seems like a natural podcast.

The session was in the same theatre as the main sessions at Northern Voice. I liked the interview style, with a host and an expert. It wasn't as random as a panel, but more informal than a regular keynote.

Darren 10:51 PM | | (6)

I've recently seen trailers for three promising Hollywood films:

• Munich (MOV) is the new film from Steven Spielberg, due out just before Christmas. Written by the excellent playwright Tony Kushner, it tells of the aftermath of the tragic 1972 Munich shootings, and how a reticent Israeli assasin hunts down the killers. I don't care for Eric Bana, but the rest of the cast--David Craig, Geoffrey Rush, Hanns Zischler--are excellent.
• A political thriller about the oil industry, Syriana is written and directed by Stephen Gaghan, who wrote Traffic. He looks to be a protege of Soderbergh. The film has a great cast--Matt Damon, George Clooney, Chris Coope, the list goes on and on.
• The campiest movie in Camptown, The Producers is an adaptation of the hit Broadway musical, originated created as a 1968 film by the broad comedy master Mel Brooks. I think. Regardless, it stars Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick, reprising their stage roles. They star as two down-on-their-luck producers running a scam to close a show as quickly as possible. Their choice of libretto? "Springtime for Hitler", written by Franz Liebkind, who's played with wild abandon by Will Ferell.

Darren 10:12 AM | | (0)

I stumbled across this piece of paper while out walking one day. It was actually folded up into a pretty slick paper airplane. When I unfolded it, this message was inside:

Dear: Mr and mrs, I am so happy to talked with you and what a beuteful day and Here's a maze. rules: you Have 30 minites to go so Hurry up!

Admittedly, the maze is pretty Dadaist, but I was pleased to be the recipient of this serendipitous flight.

Darren 07:14 PM | | (3)

After my grandmother passed away, I found this in my grandfather's workshop. There were a bunch of them, at least 15 or 20--one for each year. They're plans for my grandparents' large garden. These images are two sides of the same piece of cardboard--maybe from the packaging of my grandfather's shirts? One side is dated 1975--the other doesn't have a date. I'm not sure whose writing this is--I need to ask my Dad. Click for larger versions:

Darren 07:05 PM | | (2)

I've been going through some long-ignored papers. The next three entries are some finds I dug out of a huge pile of stuff. The first is this column I wrote for a 'citizen sounds off' type column in the Vancouver Sun in 1993. My Mom saved it. When she read it, she asked me if I actually believed what I wrote. At the time I said I did. I'm afraid that I still do, but less so. I was younger and stupider then.

Click for readable size.

Because I'm a digital pack rat, I still have the Word file with the original draft of this piece. It's after the jump. My original headline was 'Man always kills the thing he loves'. Perhaps the Sun editor felt that was a little too gloomy.

Man Always Kills the Thing He Loves

I admit it. I am nineteen years old and an environmental defeatist. I have given up hope for the oceans, the forests, the ozone layer and everything else precious and dying. My children will suffer for my misdoings and lack of foresight, just as I have for my parents'. For this reason alone, I would consider not having children at all.

I am as aware as most people concerning the state of the earth. I took environmental geography in high school and university. I left both classrooms with two impressions. One, that the world is in jeopardy in uncountable ways and two, that the work required to even begin to correct these problems is gigantic.

My pessimism stems from a situation that I have witnessed and will continue to witness for the rest of my life. An environmentally-sustainable planet requires each and every member of the "global village" to sacrifice. We must ask the Brazilian farmer to stop cutting down rain forest, even though it his family's sole means of survival. We must ask Kenya poachers and Norwegian whalers to stop praying on dying species. And we must ask you and I not to drive the biggest, fastest car or eat at McDonald's or throw away that plastic bag. We must ask the planet to stop keeping up with the Jones's. This, unfortunately, works against a basic trait of humanity - ambition.

I can ask no more of anyone else than I ask of myself. Certainly, I recycle. I car-pool whenever possible. This essay is printed on recycled paper. But am I (or anyone else) willing to forfeit my car or take a pay-cut so that my employer can increase his environmental standards? I think not. Recycling will not save this planet. Radical changes to the way we live might, but we are not (and perhaps never will be) ready to accept them.

It is a simple task to lay blame for our problems. There is no one, save perhaps the newborn babe, who has been completely environmentally responsible? I dare say no one I know. And responsible is what we must be. To have anything more than a trivial effect, every one of us would have to consider the implications of every one of our actions. A radical change, indeed.

American naturalist Aldo Leopold said "man always kills the thing he loves, and so we the pioneers have killed our wilderness. Some say we had to. Be that as it may, I am glad I shall never be young without wild country to be young in." Perhaps these words were premature for his era. However, with each generation, they become truer and truer. That thought saddens me profoundly.

Darren 06:56 PM | | (4)

While walking home today from the excellent Shopgirl (possibly more on that later), I was prevented from taking my usual route by a young woman in an orange vest wielding a walkie-talkie. She assured me that, past the array of ambulances and fire engines, there was a car full of explosives. It turns out they were shooting a scene (a 'stunt preformance' as one sign proclaimed) from the Jon Avnet film 88 Minutes starring Al Pacino.

I diverted around the block, and stood with the other looky-loos. A few mninutes later, the car exploded in a sizable ball of flame, and three people (I didn't really note, oddly, if they were recognizable actors or stunt people) raced out of the 7-11 towards it.

The Vancouverite has a couple of photos from Saturday's shooting. There was a guy near me with a camera, but another young, vested production assistant asked him to stop taking photos. He protested, and she explained that the cop standing nearby would escort him away if he persisted. That got me wondering what the legalities of this situation are--is one allowed to take photos of public spaces when they're used as film sets?

Here are some other photos and notes from 88 Minutes locations around the city.

Darren 03:19 PM | | (2)

Via John Dvorak, the Herald News Daily ('Voice of the Dakotas') reports an unorthodox but potentially effective strategy for ridding a neighbourhood of a strip club:

The owner of a strip club says he’s considering a six-figure offer from a church to buy and shut down the location. Bill Martin, owner of the Just Teazin club in Painesville Township, 25 miles northeast of Cleveland, declined Thursday to identify the church or when he might decide whether to accept the unsolicited offer.

Apparently it's worked in the past. Another church bought another club "in 1996 for $36,000 and became a recreation center and eventually was sold for use as a homeless shelter".

Darren 06:48 PM | | (2)

STRUNK: I'm in a pickle! I've got a dangling participle!

WHITE: Don't be fickle! Here's a nickel!

STRUNK & WHITE: Buy our book!

Sorry about that.

The Creative Generalist reports that Strunk and White's classic tome of cogent writing has been adapted into an avant garde musical:

Although lyrics like "Revise and rewrite" and "Do not use a hyphen between two words that can better be written as one word" suggest the didactic thrust of "Schoolhouse Rock," Muhly's work is more in the minimalist-modernist mold of Philip Glass and Steve Reich but with an absurdist dash of Spike Jones...Their brief mandated the making of sounds incorporating duck calls, meat grinders, bells, Slinkys, mallets, pillows, eggbeaters, megaphones, "chattering" cups and saucers, a typewriter and the slamming closed of a large book.

You can hear a discussion of the opera on this episode of the Newsweek Arts Extra podcast.

Darren 11:57 AM | | (1)

Regular readers will recall that last week I confessed my ignorance about municipal politics. Right around that time I got put on Vision Vancouver's (Andrea's right on their shite SEO) media release list. Since then I've been getting press releases about events and policies and such. Nobody asked if I wanted to be added to their list, which bugs me, but that's not the point of this entry. The point is that the latest media release was entitled "Sullivan's Agenda a Recipe for Disaster". Here are the first three paragraphs (I'd link to it, but there's nothing on their site newer than Oct. 27): [more]

Sam Sullivan's plans to cut policing and services to the most vulnerable is a recipe for disaster, Vision Vancouver mayoralty candidate Jim Green said today.

"Sam Sullivan is sounding more and more like Stephen Harper run wild with his talk of cuts to the police and too much money being spent to fix problems of drug addiction and homelessness," said Green. "Imagine a city with fewer police and more desperation. That's a recipe for disaster."

Green was responding to comments made by Sullivan at a meeting of the Vancouver Sun editorial board. Sullivan is quoted as saying he is "willing to risk the support of the Vancouver Police Department by insisting that it implement internal efficiencies". As well he is reported to have said "enough money has been poured into the Downtown Eastside" and the social support sector "can sometimes do harm by trying to help."

The opening paragraph alleges that Sullivan has been talking of 'cuts to the police', then fails to substantiate that claim. Sullivan's 'willingness to risk the support of the Vancouver Police Department' does not, as far as I can figure, even imply that. It's unlikely that a guy who has (pretty silly, if you ask me) 'Safer Parks' ads all over the city would reduce the police budget.

Furthermore, Sullivan is 'reported' to have made comments about the Downtown Eastside. The Vision camp can't or won't provide the source or context for those comments.

At the moment I'm a somewhat-less-ignorant, undecided voter. This sort of nonsense, however, is enough to drive me to the Sullivan camp. Negative electoral politics is ugly, ignorant and plays to the lowest common denominator. If Jim Green seeks to deceive us in the run-up to the election, how is he going to be remotely reliable if he wins?

UPDATE: Clay Suddaby from the Vision campaign has replied to this post in the comments.

Darren 06:05 PM | | (18)

On November 15, I'm giving a talk called Blogs, RSS and Web 2.0 - A Primer for the PR Industry to the local chapter of the Canadian Public Relations Society. Here's the spiel:

Buzzwords like 'blogging' and 'RSS' are on every PR professional's radar, but what do they really mean? And how are they changing the industry? This talk provides a non-geeky introduction to these 'Web 2.0' technologies, and explains how they're having a profound impact on public relations and marketing. This talk is full of real-world examples of successes and failures in the 'blogosphere', and attendees will come away with information and ideas about how to integrate these trends into their day-to-day work.

$45.00 for members and $60.00 for non-members is pretty steep, if you ask me. That buys you two full days at Northern Voice. Ah well, in most cases I imagine a company is paying for it, not an individual.

If you're already drinking the Web 2.0 Koolaid, then this session will be of no interest to you. I'm gathering some resources together in Delicious with the tag cprstalk.

Darren 05:40 PM | | (0)

Vancouver, as you probably know, is Hollywood North. Vancouverites regularly recognize locations in movies and television (in particular, the lame ones). I've been meaning to gather a list of these locations in one spot for a while, but haven't gotten around to it. Lex is doing so (apparently for her marketing class), so I'm starting with her list, and soliciting help from you, my dear readers. I know that IMDB can do this, but without much accuracy and it's too exhaustive for my taste.

Fire away, and try to be specific. Let's stick to films, as TV shows would be, literally, all over the map.

Is this the sort of thing one would use Google Base for? Alternately, what's the least painful, Web-based, technological solution to this problem? A wiki?

Darren 12:12 PM | | (22)

Engadget ran a Halloween costume contest, and the results were pretty spectacular:

We had some freaking amazing entries in our first annual Halloween Costume Contest (though no one actually wanted to be really scary and dress up as Peter Rojas). But when it came down to it, we had to pick some winners; we actually wound up having more runners up than we'd originally expected because there were so many great entries, but our grand prize goes to Komei H., and his functional Canon PowerShot S200-with working rear LCD viewfinder!

Don't miss the follow-up entry, with more iPod costumes than you could scratch a stick at.

Darren 10:47 AM | | (0)

A designer in the Netherlands has developed a wall of breasts (via Boing Boing) for retail stores. They'll enable men to more accurate assessments of size before purchasing lingerie. Women of the world rejoice:

"Most men have a selective memory," she explained. "They know all about their car, but never seem to know their wife's bra size. "When trying to buy a sexy bra for their wife or girlfriend, usually they point to other women in the shop or, when asked about size, they say a 'handful'."

I tried to find a photo, but had little luck at the Piet Zwart Institute or Het Nieuwsblad Online (I even Zoekened at the latter).

UPDATE: Steve sends along these 'very disappointing' photos. I'd have to agree--why not have pairs of them at remotely chest level? Really, how hard is it not to screw up a wall of breasts?

But seriously, there's a usability issue here. As a man who occasionally buys lingerie for his wife (this wall would be no help for cross dressers, would it?), I'd feel pretty sheepish about feeling up a wall to identify the correct bra size. Besides, I already know it.

Here's a little pragmatic tip to men of the world. Every once in a while, get your significant other to write down all her sizes--from hat to feet. She may feel a little awkward about this, but reassure her that:

1. You have no idea of what you're doing, so any help will only pay her dividends later on.
2. You have no sense of women's sizes anyway, so you're not going to pass judgement on what she writes down.
3. You're going to keep it in a safe place.

Now, no boob wall required. You just sail in to any women's clothing store with your list of sizes in hand. Of course, there's the (one of many) cruel reality that a size 6 dress in Store A doesn't fit anything like a size 6 dress in Store B, but you can't be expected to account for that.

As for not choosing the dress with the big purple polka dots, well, that's on you, my friend.

Darren 10:34 AM | | (6)

As a kind of Halloween footnote, I recently read about an annual public re-enactment of Michael Jackson's "Thriller" video in Lexington, Kentucky (via Robot Wisdom). There's a video clip at that link as well. Apparently this dance studio runs the even, and here's their Flickr photo set from the big number.

Darren 10:00 AM | | (0)

I didn't believe Derek when he made this point, but then I hadn't actually looked at the official report (it's got it's own URL, too). For those non-Canucks out there, Justice Gomery is investigating a major political scandal that recently occured in Quebec.

As Derek notes, "Gomery wrote the report itself in the first person, using the active voice in places you'd never expect it." Here's a sample paragraph from the Who Is Responsible section:

The notion that Mr. Pelletier and Mr. Gagliano could provide political input without strongly influencing the decision-making process is nonsense and ignores the obvious reality that the expression of an opinion to a subordinate official by the Prime Minister’s Chief of Staff or the Minister amounts to an order.

Well done, Mr. Gomery! My only complaint is that the individual sections of the report are apparently only available in PDF.

Darren 09:14 AM | | (2)

Nic's Garage is an auto mechanic nearby our office. They're a mechanic with original and, in my opinion, really effective marketing. Their ads prominently feature a fifties-style illustration of a woman, and the tagline 'Vancouver's only non-intimidating car service'. It's simple and brilliant. Most people are intimidated by things automotive--Nic's recognizes this and uses it to differentiate themselves. From their website:

NIC's is owned and operated by a woman, Sandy Spicer. She comes from a small town in Saskatchewan. Her Dad was a mechanic and his name was Nick. When she left Saskatchewan one of her concerns was where she would have her car serviced. Someplace where she felt, as a woman, she wouldn't be patronized or talked down to. Thus began the idea for her own garage.

Classic Purple Cow marketing. My friend recently took her car there and her experience was as promised--respectful, thorough, informative and non-intimidating. The best part? They left a daisy on the dashboard of her car.

I should mention that I've been very happy with the family-owned Tremblay Motors, but if they were to disappoint me, I'd head on over to Nic's.

Darren 12:41 PM | | (1)

Cross-posted from Geeky Traveller.

When travelling, I've always felt sheepish about taking photos of other people, especially children. You obviously don't want to exploit them, or treat them like animals in a zoo. On the other hand, it strikes me as kind of tacky to give them money (though poverty trumps tackiness, so I'd probably give them cash in many developing countries)

Regardless, I recently read (somewhere, maybe in National Geographic's Traveler magazine) a great tip for photographing the locals while travelling. Bring along a Polaroid camera (even something simple like this iZone 200). Take a photo of your subject with that camera first, and give them the polaroid as a little gift. Then take photos with your own camera. Then you both get a keepsake of your meeting.

Darren 12:24 PM | | (1)

A student was killed when he was hurled more than 30 meters through the air from a catapault (or trebuchet, if you're a stickler for details). The incident happened three years ago, but the inquest is ongoing:

Oxford University student Kostydin Yankov, 19, suffered multiple injuries when he missed a safety net after being flung from a medieval-style trebuchet catapult.

Mr Yankov, a biochemistry undergraduate known as Dino, was part of the university extreme sports club - the Oxford Stunt Factory - who had visited the trebuchet site in Middlemoor Water Park near Bridgwater, Somerset, in November 2002.

Yankov was apparently a member of a 'dangerous and extreme sports club' called The Oxford Stunt Factory. So, he was hardly some naive tourist, but it's still pretty awful.

I found some photos and personal account of a successful, uh, launch from the same device: " I did a couple of somersaults before I hit the net".

Darren 11:56 AM | | (3)