Archive: Posts about About This Site
December 4th, 2008, 2 Comments »
Frank Rich has been a New York Times columnist for at least five years. Scott Rosenberg recently twittered about a post by Edward J. Delaney, in which Delaney interviews Rich about a practice that sets Rich apart from nearly all of the other Times columnists: he includes hyperlinks in his work.
Adding links, he says, “came about very informally…I’d say the biggest single breakthrough was to realize, as my assistant Benjamin Toff realized, we have the capability to insert links into the pieces easily, electronically…without going through the bureaucracy. If every link had to go through a bureaucratic procedure that was time-consuming on deadline, we couldn’t do it.
As Scott notes, it’s shocking that, 15 years into the web’s popular existence, we’re still talking about this issue. Rich says that “columnists at The Times are free agents”, and yet hardly any of them link to other stuff. Bizarre, eh?
There is hope, however. Mathew Ingram points out that the New York Times has started linking to third-party sources from its front page.
Both Delaney and Ingram reference smart media thinker Scott Karp, citing two articles on the value of outbound links.
2 Comments »
November 25th, 2008, 8 Comments »
There’s been plenty of talk lately about how social media creators will fit in with the 2010 Olympics. Dave Olson wrote an open letter to VANOC Media Relations and Press Operations:
In brief, we’d like to have a conversation about how to allow fans and amateur media makers to document their Olympic experience while keeping out of the way of the IOC IP lawyers…
We are aware of your obligations to media rights holders and are seeking to provide an entirely different sort of coverage than the accredited media provide. We are not looking to cover events per se but are instead interested in covering the cultural stories, athletes’ families’ stories, and stories from fans who saved and traveled from around the world for this experience.
That led to an article in the Vancouver Sun, and a response from a VANOC spokesperson.
This feels like a good place to start. As Dave says, social media types aren’t expecting all-access passes to the gold medal hockey games. He’s right to point out that there’s a big hole to fill in the media coverage for such an event. I was thinking about it, and drew this little Venn diagram:
The CTVs and CBCs are going to have the major, breaking news covered. It’s all that green space–that’s where social media creators can live. Through various channels, I’m seeing several ways forward for benefits for both parties. Social media creators get some tools, resources and access to help with their citizen journalism efforts, and VANOC enjoys a whole new layer of news coverage. Such a partnership would also highlight Vancouver’s place as a global for new media, citizen journalism and the like.
8 Comments »
November 24th, 2008, 4 Comments »
I write this entry mostly because I wanted to include the title “Greenlanders Go To the Polls”. How often do you get to say that? In any case, the 39,000-strong population of Greenland is voting in a referendum on greater independence from Denmark:
If the “yes” side wins, the local Greenland government has the chance to take control of new areas such as natural resource management, justice and police affairs and to a certain extent foreign affairs.
There are potentially lucrative revenues from the natural resources under Greenland’s seabed, which according to international experts is home to large oil deposits. Greenlandic would also be recognised as the island’s official language.
In case you were wondering (and I sure was), Greenlandic is a close cousin of the Inuit languages.
4 Comments »
November 24th, 2008, 4 Comments »
We’ve got a really old Sunbeam mixer. I’m not sure how old–it comes from Julie’s side of the family. But, off the top of my head, it might be nearly as old as I am. I found only one reference (and that’s a slightly different model) to the awesome name it applies to the speed setting: Infinite Speed Governor Control”:
They’re hard to read in the photo, but each of the 12 speeds has an accompanying term associated with it. As a former technical writer, I’m troubled by the willy-nilly use of both gerunds (”mixing”, “folding”) and specific foods (”quick breads”, “puddings”) in the list. Do they still do this on new mixers and blenders? As you might imagine, I’m not much for the baking.
4 Comments »
November 14th, 2008, 1 Comment »
I confess near-complete apathy towards local politics. I voted in Vancouver once or twice, but it was from a position of near naivete. My interest in politics declines as it becomes more local. People try to convince me that local politics is where my vote counts most. That may be true, but I care a lot more about, say, saving the Great Bear Rainforest (more on this next week) or our troops in Afghanistan than a sewage treatment plant for Victoria.
Both issues matter, but one matters a lot less in my worldview.
In any case, tomorrow I’m getting out to vote in my local election. That’s because our personal trainer, Nick Baker, is running for city council. He’s a thoughtful guy, and makes sense on the issues that seem to matter to Victorians:
I applaud the efforts made by the city to handle the homelessness problem, but it feels like too little, too late. The emphasis on homelessness, while definitely an important issue, neglects or even directs blame to the wrong people for the mess our downtown has become. Drug use and addictions need more aggressive tactics to rid our streets of the drugs and crime. by focusing on providing safe detox centers with ongoing rehabilitation, we can save lives and money.
Debating strategies for combating drug addiction has also made working out slightly less miserable.
Nick’s also got a Facebook page.
On the Vancouver Front
I spent some time trying to identify the major differences between Peter Ladner and Gregor Robertson, the two leading candidates in the Vancouver mayoral race. I’ve met Mr. Ladner, and he seemed like a savvy, straight-up guy (and apparently a former editor of Monday Magazine). He gave me a straight, non-politcal answer to a question I asked about (of all things) landfills. A bunch of my peers advocate strongly for Mr. Robertson.
Looking at their platforms, I’m having a hard time picking between them. I don’t have a vote in Vancouver, so happily it’s academic.
Who are you voting for, wherever you live (assuming, you know, that you live in BC)?
1 Comment »
November 14th, 2008, 8 Comments »
Insert phallic joke here. I was at Blenz last night, and spotted these measures of cup size:
Didn’t Blenz used to eschew crazy Starbucks-esque sizing? What’s with ’supremo’?
Incidentally, this post shows off the new site design’s ‘light box’ functionality. If you click the above photo, you should see a kind of pop-up thingie that shows you a bigger version (speaking of the tyranny of size). I hope it’ll be handy for instances when I want to share a big image. The cup lids aren’t example a great example, but you get the idea.
UPDATE: At least, that’s what it should do. The light box thingie doesn’t seem to be working at the moment–I’ll trouble shoot as time permits.
UPDATE #2: Yeah, that works for me now, too. Don’t know what’s up with that.
8 Comments »
November 11th, 2008, 17 Comments »
We’ve finally gotten around to launching the newest version of this website. It’s about nine years old, and I think this is version 4.0. There are still plenty of bugs to squash (and the Jobs section is going to be ‘coming soon’ for a while), but all the basics are in. I also need to think about what the best stuff to include in the sidebars of the site is. I welcome any suggestions on that front.
I didn’t have a lot of grand plans for the redesign. Mostly I just was tired of the old design, and thought it was high time for a new one. Plus, I wanted to broaden the main column space a bit, make the site widget-ready, implement threaded comments, get all the static pages into WordPress and tweak sundry other bits and pieces.
One Mashed-Up Header
I am particularly pleased about the way the header graphic came together. Regular readers may recall that, back in March, I ran a competition on Pixish (now defunct, sadly) to get a new header graphic designed. It looked like this:
That was designed by a guy named Sam, who lived in Brighton. It combined a photo that Roland took of a film lot directional sign (that really said ‘DB’–no Photoshopping required) with a photo of me that Phillip took at BarCamp.
I handed the header graphic to Tzaddi, who tweaked it and built out the rest of the site’s aesthetic. In early previews of the site, people weren’t keen on that photo, so we replaced it with one that Scott Beale took at Gnomedex.
The header is the happy result of an ad hoc collaboration between five people and powered by Creative Commons. Plus sixty4media did the installation and upgrading of WordPress, so I suppose that’s seven people.
Feedback Welcome
I welcome any and all feedback. I’m pretty happy with the aesthetics at this stage, but I’m open to suggestions. If you spot anything that’s funky aside from the obvious, feel free to leave a comment. And do let me know if you have an opinion on what belongs in a site’s sidebars.
17 Comments »
November 7th, 2008, 6 Comments »
Hence, activity around here is going to be light for the next few days.
6 Comments »
November 4th, 2008, 6 Comments »
I’m certainly no expert in real estate marketing. However, if I’m identifying the six bullet points I want to put on my new building’s sign, should ‘fully sprinklered’ really make the list?
Let’s ignore, for the moment, that ’sprinkler’ is not a verb. Does this really matter to their buyers? I’d imagine that their target demographic would be empty-nesters and young professionals, most of whom have lived their entire lives in ‘unsprinklered’ accommodation. Is the omnipresence of sprinklers going to convert them to buyers?
Maybe I’m just biased. In our Yaletown apartment, a neighbour’s sprinkler-related mishap caused a flood.
6 Comments »
October 23rd, 2008, 4 Comments »
As bloggers know, old blog posts can continue to receive comments for the entire life of the blog. I don’t mind, because I often learn stuff from these late commenters, and I occasionally hear some fascinating (and creepy) stories. And sometimes you get hilarious comments like this one, complaining about ICBC:
DEAR READERS MY NMINIVAN GOT STOLEN ,IT WAS 1994 PLYMOUTH VOYJOR VERY NICELY KEPT LIKE COLLECTER CAR , BUT ICBC GAVE ME A VERY SOUR DEAL ,REASON RACIAL PREJUDICE . I HAVE BEEN PAYING FOR MY INSURACE SINCE BILL BENET BROUGHT ICBC , I DID COMPLAIN TO OMMBADS MAN OFFICE BUT NO AVAIL , IF SOME ONE CAN HELP ME PLEASE !TOTTLE LOSE DEPT WOMAN HAD SO Awe attitude . i know in icbc all workers are cousins , as this is just society ! may be too much !
I’m not sure what “Tottle lose dept woman had so” means, but it’s not good news.
4 Comments »
