the pod bay door

¦¦ The Edmonton Journal published a feature on blogging in the Friday 14 March 2003 edition. Written by Mairi MacLean, the two pieces feature comments from a number of locals, including Geoff, Robert (in Lethbridge), Jen, myself, and a mention of Kelly‘s site as well. Given the small amount of coverage available in a newspaper, I thought Mairi did a good job introducing blogging to the EJ readers. My only quibble: the URLs for the websites mentioned were not included in the print or online(!) versions of the articles.

¦¦ In the world of You-Gotta-Be-Sh*tting-Me, a woman in Germany began emerging from a 6-year coma when her parents took her Regensburg to listen to a Bryan Adams concert. My favorite take on the story left me in tears from laughing. Previously Bryan Adams was known only for Waking Up The Neighbours, not comatose fans. Meanwhile, in Kenya, sadly, three people died trying to retrieve a mobile phone that fell into an open-pit latrine.

¦¦ It’s unfortunate that you need to subscribe to read stories from the NYTimes Magazine online. The March 9 issue features three fascinating articles on: face transplant surgery, “smart-mobbing” the antiwar movement, and a disturbing piece on Mel Gibson and his father, orthodox Catholic theologian Hutton Gibson. Discussed is The Passion, Mel Gibson’s upcoming movie on the last 12 hours of the life of Christ, with the actors speaking in Latin and Aramic only. There will be no subtitles. “Gibson has has said that he hopes to depict Christ’s ordeal using ‘filmic storytelling techniques’ that will make the understanding of the dialogue uncessary.” (NYTimes, 9 March 02, p53) The publication of the article has infuriated the younger Gibson. What is disturbing about the article in the NYTimes Magazine are some of Hutton Gibson’s beliefs such as: the Sept 11 jets were not flown by Al-Qaeda operatives but were remote-controlled, and that the Holocaust never happened.

¦¦ Why are there not enough hours in the day to do what you want to do?

¦¦ Forthcoming project: to record in a notepad every song that appears in my head in one day from wakeup in the morning to going to sleep at night the same day.

The temperature in Edmonton at the moment is -33C. The long range forecast for next Friday is +12C. There is hope.

¦¦ This is so annoying. But if you look closely, notice that the template of symbols changes every time. That has to have something to do with how it works. D’oh!

¦¦ For those interested in the Sept 11 building performance information, two good engineering publications exist, one online. The American Society of Civil Engineers has just published The Pentagon Building Performance Report. The report concludes that original design features, modified by recent upgrades, limited the collapse of the building after the airliner crashed into it. Within the report is a blurry picture taken by a security camera that catches the plane, barely a few feet off the ground, if at all, just before it crashes into the first floor of the Pentagon. Some illustrations from the report are available for viewing.

ASCE was also involved in the World Trade Center building performance study , released in the fall of 2002 by FEMA.
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¦¦ Look carefully before you decide to close this window after it opens. Thanks, Sharon.

¦¦ I am friggin’ tired tonight.

¦¦ I didn’t know that “yo la tengo” means “I have it” in Spanish. I did know that “husker du” means “do you remember” in Norwegian and/or Danish.

¦¦ Blogging is moving into the mainstream very quickly. Now, Harvard has hired Dave Winer to head up its new Weblogs at Harvard Initiative. So the question is begged: if blogging has made it to Harvard, have blogs moved into the mainstream? If so, I’m wondering what comes next, in whatever embryonic stage it might be at this time. Will blogs become passé? I don’t think so, at least not for a while. I think blogs will continue to evolve and mutate and morph into other formats. Time will tell.

¦¦ Norah Jones and Christopher Cross? Will she suffer his fate? I doubt it.

¦¦ Napster, seemingly forgotten these days, is set to return later this year.

¦¦ The Captions Game, from the site, Edgecurve, is hilarious. My favorite so far is this one with the baby in the box of styropopcorn.

¦¦ Geoff and I were contacted today by Mairi MacLean, a features writer at The Edmonton Journal today. Mairi is writing a story on blogging for the paper. She interviewed each of us by phone, and her questions were thoughtful and probing. Of course, I’ll be checking the paper tomorrow morning first thing to see if we made it to press!

As well, Geoff and I submitted an edited version of a 2,500 word article we wrote on weblogs and how they might work in the library world. The paper, written for Feliciter, was edited down to 1,900 words, and I’m hoping we can keep it there, and not reduce it further. As well, we’ve been asked to present a session on weblogging for Academic Technologies for Learning, at the U of A. This seems to be happening all too fast!

¦¦ The City has been cleaning our side streets for about a week. My street was
cleaned on Monday. I live in a cul-de-sac, so the grader pushed the snow into the middle until it melts in the spring. Then the little guy followed to clean up our driveway entrances.

¦¦ Read why reality tv isn’t reality tv. Of course, if your cerebral cortext is functional, you already know, but I digress. (No, I’ve never watched any of those shows).

¦¦ Recently it was announced that editors from some of the world’s preeminent scientific publications had discussed the concern of the potential use of new information published in research journals for malicious reasons, including bioterrorism. Subsequently, the editors released this Statement on Scientific Publication and Security.

¦¦ The end of my favorite comic strip, For Better or For Worse (proudly Canadian) slowly approaches. Thanks, Derryl.

¦¦ I know that most US states and Canadian provinces have official flags, crests, birds, floral emblems, trees, songs, mottos, and so on. I didn’t know there were official soils. We’re a bit behind in Canada, with only two provinces on board. Manitoba is apparently still debating the issue. My favorite state whatever list has got to be California. Among others, it has a state insect, state prehistoric artifact, and a state fife and drum corps. Thanks, Mike.

¦¦ In the late 1950s, as US networks began broadcasting selected shows in colour, they would preface each broadcast with a color presentation logo.

¦¦ I successfully installed Moveable Type 6.22 yesterday. The world didn’t end, my web site didn’t implode.

¦¦ Spam seems to be getting worse by the day. This morning my work e-mail Inbox had at least two XXX-rated messages waiting for me, along with the daily e-mail from Nigeria asking for money, offers of mortgage and loan assistance, and a note to help me get my Bachelor’s degree from home. In the 9 feb 2003 edition of the New York Times Magazine, James Gleick, author of Chaos, Faster: The Acceleration of Just About Everything, and most recently, What Just Happened, examines the worsening spam epidemic, and what’s being done to (attempt to) deal with it. Mentioned in his article are SpamAssassin, and SpamSieve, two programs that attack spam on your computer.

¦¦ Sometimes you discover a site on the ‘net, and you start singing the line, “I’ve got…too much…time on my hands“. (Not that I admit to having ever been a fan of Styx.) Anyway, here is such a website that put the song in my head: ticketstubs.com. The deal here is that you upload an image of a ticket stub from an event you attended – could be a movie, live theatre, music, standup, what-evah. Together with the pic of the stub, you tell a story surrounding the event. The site is new, so there is but one story from Canada to date. Now that I think of it, this may be a cool idea. Still, the creator must’ve had, well, too much time on his hands…