n-grams and iambs

Citizen's Assembly on Electoral Reform UPDATED

2006-04-28T15:40:00.000-05:00

I just received a letter in the mail from The Office of Chief Election Officer of Ontario telling me I have been selected to participate in the Citizens' Assembly on Electoral Reform.

In an attempt to improve the electoral system in Ontario, the government has selected at random 103 individuals -- 52 female, 51 male (and at least one member will be Aboriginal) -- to talk about and debate the current electoral system in Ontario. The individuals selected were all from the Permanent Register of Electors of Ontario list.

Letters were sent out to 120, 000 individuals throughout the province asking them is they would be willing to participate in the assembly. Those who choose to participate will have their names placed in a random draw. The draw is to determine who will be the primary candidate and two alternates.

The assembly will recommend either to keep the current system or change it. The assembly is not to go without leadership. Former judge and deputy minister, George Thompson will head it up, bringing the total number of members to 104. If changes are recommend by the assembly, a referendum will be held to determine whether or not to implement those changes.

Apparently, no knowledge of the electoral system is necessary and, "members will learn about different electoral models during an extensive learning process," according to the assembly website.

The assembly will meet twice a month, mostly weekends and usually in Toronto, for eight months beginning in September. The assembly will also host public meetings across the province. Participation is voluntary, but apparently we will be compensated $150 per work day and are eligible for travel expenses. It seems sort of like jury duty, but a whole lot cooler.

The selection process is scheduled to be completed in July.

Interactive Advertising

2006-04-25T15:29:00.000-05:00

Taking the subway back from my internship, I noticed this Lord of the Rings ad poster.

What caught my eye wasn’t what the poster was advertising, but the little red symbol on its right side. The text said I could download a free ring tone on to my phone, using either Infrared or Bluetooth. Pulling out my spiffy new Motorola V3 Razr, I turned on my Bluetooth and tried to download the ring tone – with no success.

The company behind this little idea is called Hypertag. Their website totes that companies can “Get direct access to your customers.” Hypertag states that customers can download not only ring tones, wallpapers and/or icons to their cell phones or PDAs, or view a website--all hosted by the poster itself.

A lot of people own portable digital devices and are looking to customize these devices to their own liking. I got so sick and tired of not finding a proper Boondocks ring tone and theme online for my phone that I made my own. Now, imagine instead I could find what I wanted by simply walking up to an advertisement for the Boondocks DVD set and downloading that theme or ring tone.

But will it work? I'm still trying to figure out what went wrong. More on this soon.

UPDATE: I've figured out why my phone didn't work with the Hypertag. According to the companies website, my phone is not compatible. Considering that the Razr is one of the hottest phones in the market right now, I don't see how Hypertag wouldn't make an effort to improve their compatibility to include the Razr.

CBC on South Park - Part Two

2006-04-19T19:12:00.000-05:00

It almost feels like Trey and Matt read my previous post, because they put up the screenshots from Cartoon Wars Part Two yesterday, and the second one was this nice, clean shot of the CBC president.

I still can't say for sure if they were going for a charicature or not, since the Canadian figures are all so basic (having been intentionally left out of all the visual enhancements of the last few seasons). In any case, I've posted the official photo of Robert Rabinovitch from the CBC image gallery, so you can make your own decision.

You've probably noticed the South Park character's mug says "C". Canadians in South Park are in the habit of wearing their initials on their shirts, but I'm not sure what the custom is for coffee mugs. It probably stands for "CBC", or just "Canada".

UPDATE: New $2,500 Apple MacBook Pro fixed by Library Card

2006-04-18T12:18:00.000-05:00

After a trip to the local Apple store, and spending a total of four hours -- two hours roundtrip and two hours waiting -- I had the CD removed from my laptop.

The computer booted up fine; no data was lost and all was well -- until I got another CD stuck in the drive. A note to Boot Camp users: do not burn CDs in Windows. Luckily, I have MacGyver'd my way out of my problem!

Not wanting to go back to the Apple store, I took matters into my own hands. Pulling out my trusty library card, I slid it into the CD drive and nudged it up against the CD. I turned on the laptop and heard no noises of distress from the drive. After two failed attempts to spin up the CD the laptop spit out the offensive piece of plastic, and then booted into OS X.

And that is the story of my New $2,500 Apple MacBook Pro, disabled by $0.25 CD, and fixed by a free library card.

Drops from Def Jux

2006-04-04T13:45:00.000-05:00

I had a chance to talk with nearly the whole Def-Jux team when they were in town for Canadian Music Week at the beginning of last month. It was the day after Mr. LiF finished mastering his new album Mo'Mega, which is available for pre-order.

At the interview, I got some word on the status of El-P's and Aesop's new albums, as well as the possibility of a new Cannibal Ox disc. El doesn't plan on finishing all the projects this year, but his album, to be titled I'll Sleep When You're Dead, is a top personal priority. Aesop Rock says he is taking his time and accumulating tracks rather than working to a deadline or a concept (though he notes that the album will include several "childhood stories"), and it seems like details on the CanOx album are still being hammered out.

Watch out for LiF's disc, and start reading the news on Darfur. LiF wants us educated, and he's right to, so don't wait for Mo'Mega--plus this way you'll jive with all the references I know he plans on making to Sudan. Also, Urbanology will feature a story on Def-Jux with more details and more from my interviews two issues from now (August 2006). It will have the goods from El, Aesop, Cage, LiF, Camu-Tao and Big Wiz.

CBC on South Park – Literally

2006-04-14T18:57:00.000-05:00

In a throwback to the second season premiere, South Park began Cartoon Wars Pt. II by joking that, instead of the second half of their redeemingly well-written attack on Family Guy and the news media, we would be treated to the made-for-TV movie Terrance & Phillip in Mystery at the Lazy J Ranch.

An even more unexpected thing happened soon after: the flatulent duo went to the CBC buildings to protest the censoring of a Mohammed character in their show, which eventually led to a transition into the real story--the one we were all waiting to hear.

But I thought it was amusing to see, for a moment on the screen, a boxy brown building labelled Canadian Broadcasting Company. Then there was the argument between Terrance and Phillip and the Network President. I can't tell for sure if they were going for a subtle parody of Robert Rabinovitch or not. Trey and Matt usually post official screenshots on South Park Studios a few days after each episode, so I'll be back with a link for all to see.

New $2,500 Apple MacBook Pro disabled by $0.25 CD

2006-04-14T18:09:00.000-05:00

Some friends have called me a traitor for buying a brand new MacBook Pro. Anyone who’s gotten their hands on one of these can tell you how sweet they are to use.

Apple seems to be getting really serious about increasing their market share in personal computers, especially with their introduction of Boot Camp – which I installed and found quite stable.

But any new product has it problems, the first model always having the most defects, and the MacBook Pro is no exception.

Daily Tech: One Week with Apple's MacBook Pro - Despite its popularity as a "must have" Apple product, the MacBook Pro is encountering a lot of issues. Many users are reporting similar issues to the ones I pointed out. To recap from my blog:

AirPort does not automatically rejoin a preferred network after waking up from sleep mode. This does not happen with my PowerBook. Settings are the same.
AirPort would drop down to nearly 1 block randomly once in a while. This also does not happen with my PowerBook.
At the lowest screen brightness setting (one block), the LCD's backlight flickers noticeably. This is pretty annoying.
Heat is a big issue. The MacBook Pro gets so hot that I cannot place it on my lap if I'm wearing shorts. And even if I am wearing pants (instead of shorts), it's still very uncomfortable. Using the AC power, the palm rest area becomes very warm, and the area above the F keys is very hot.

Apple is aware of these problems and has released different revisions of the laptop. My current laptop appears to be revision E, but still suffers from the extreme heat issue. Still, the heat I can stand; what has me fuming is the fact that my laptop has been completely disabled by a mis-burned CD.

Anytime a recording program burns a CD, it locks the disk into the drive so that it cannot be ejected in the middle of recording. When a burn goes south, the recording software sometimes forgets to tell the drive to let go of the CD. The easy solution to this problem is to reboot your computer and reset your CD drive, which should let you release the disc.

Unfortunately, this does not work with the new MacBook Pro. The CD stuck in my drive is preventing the laptop from booting, because the system cannot determine whether the CD is bootable or not. The drive continually spins up and down trying to read it. No commands can be issued--not even the emergency CD eject command. After some searching on the Apple support forums, I found the answer: send the laptop to Apple for repair so that they can replace the drive.

The problem does not appear to be with the hardware but rather the firmware. The new Intel Macs use something called EFI, not the standard BIOS system. And the first revisions appear to have no retry-limit failsafe.

Hopefully, Apple will provide a firmware update to fix the problem.

David Miller at Humber

2006-04-12T11:38:00.000-05:00

Mayor David Miller opened his press conference at my college today by reinforcing an often forgotten fact: Toronto is only eight years old.

At least, it has been only about eight years since the Megacity formed and Mike Harris dumped a tonne of new responsibilities on the municipal government. Miller also criticized the 135 year old legislation that still binds the hands of the city, and talked about the importance of the new City of Toronto Act.

From these problems he draws his highest mayoral goal: to fix both the financial and legal problems that limit Toronto's potential.

He then went on to discuss his two major concerns and projects in the city.

Safety

This is the obvious topic, of course, but Miller spoke to it well. He made a point of reminding us that, though gun violence has gone up, crime has gone down 7% since last year--and later criticized the news media for paying these two trends such unbalanced attention. He noted that fighting crime is about "balancing enforcement with prevention", and then made a very important statement: that you can't prevent crime when there is poverty and discrimination, because some people will inevitably feel that the best opportunities for them lie in gangs and drugs.

Of course, such a basic level of decency and understanding should be prevalent in our society, but it isn't. I would be interested to see how (and if) Miller expresses these sentiments to a more conservative crowd, and I intend to keep my eyes open for a chance. As I said to my friend after the conference, anyone who tried to actively convince a group of hard-liners to be more understanding would win my vote for a long time.

When it comes to guns, though, Miller seems somewhat out of character. He put a lot of emphasis on the idea that cutting off the supply of handguns would solve the problem--a sentiment I have difficulty sharing. After just talking about the city's various initiatives to help youth in various neighbourhoods (their carpentry apprenticeship program [.pdf link], for example), I was surprised to hear him take such a short-sightedly pragmatic stance.

He talked about the two main ways guns end up on Toronto streets: being stolen from legal owners (and Miller does agree with a Liberal-style national handgun ban that decreases the number of loopholes), and coming across the border. "You're exporting murder to the streets of our city," he said of America, "and it's time you stopped."

His point that, for any handgun strategy to be truly effective in Canada, the U.S. must at least begin to be sensible about their own gun problem, was well taken. I simply wish he had continued to put emphasis on prevention and positive programs, instead of switching to a "no guns, no problem" stance.

Modesty

Next, the mayor talked about the importance of making Toronto a city its residents can be proud of. He says he dislikes constantly hearing Toronto described as a derivative of another city (New York run by the Swiss, or the University of Toronto as the Harvard of the North), and plans to help carve out Toronto's identity in various ways through the Beautiful City initiative.

First, he dealt with environmental issues, where the main topic is the fleet of hybrid buses, garbage trucks and park vehicles being introduced, which will supposedly be the largest in North America. I was personally impressed by his stance on pesticides: he payed no heed to the notion that people have a "right" to use poison on their lawns, and clearly stated that, in a city of 2.6 million people, it just can't happen. I believe we need a level of Draconian environmentalism to begin dispelling the entitled attitudes of so many people--many of whom sound as if they believe driving an SUV is a fundamental human right.

He summed it up with a simple analogy: "You should always leave your campsite with less of a human footprint than there was when you got there."

He took an equally admirable stance against building a new power plant in Toronto--something so many seem completely resigned to--calling it "out of date thinking" and "embarassing". He offered a list of alternatives, beginning with an emphasis on comsumption and demand management. Toronto Hydro, for example, offers a program for houses with central air conditioning, under which they can help avoid the need for rolling blackouts by agreeing to a slight drop in their airflow on peak days. He also asserted that a "green roof" project, covering 20% of buildings, would decrease the whole city's temperature by about two degrees on the hottest days.

Questions

Several Humber students asked questions of the mayor, but one (asked by friend and colleague Alistair Tennant) garnered a very pleasing response. Alistair asked about Toronto's garbage crisis, and Miller was quick to mention one of my own personal sore spots: provincial packaging laws.

"I just got a razor, and there was more packaging by about a factor of six than the razor," he joked--and it is funny, really, in an absurd kind of way. With all the garbage and environmental problems in this province, you would think a reduction in product packaging would be a natural step. Unfortunately, a lot of the ridiculous and unnecessary packaging you see on so many products is not only allowed, but actually required by the provincial government.

In terms of raw numbers, he brought up the plan to divert 60% of waste from landfills by 2007--and admitted that it wasn't going to happen outside of single-family homes. Always optimistic, though, he said the next goal will be 80%, with the dream of ending the city's disposal contract with Michigan by 2010.

All in all, an excellent conference. David Miller was concise and well spoken, and seemed to know which issues were of special importance to college students. I'm not sure if he knew there were reporters from Planet Oz (Humber's environment magazine, for which I was Editor-in-Chief last year) present--or my own still-critical ear, for that matter--but he payed us a good turn nonetheless.

I look forward to the Mayoral elections with a renewed optimism about municipal politics.

Pick a Green and Roll With It

2006-04-11T10:46:00.000-05:00

Times-News - ACCENT: "'This field of greentech could be the largest economic opportunity of the 21st century,' [John] Doerr said. 'There's never been a better time than now to start or accelerate a greentech venture.'

As one of Silicon Valley's most respected investors, Doerr's decision to champion green technology as the next big thing is generating buzz in the venture capital community."

Overwhelming scientific evidence? Declining fish stocks? Violent hurricanes? Laughable. But when the man who got in on the ground floor of Netscape, Amazon and Google says it, people listen. His concern for the environment (expressed a bit later in the story) sounds tacked on to his economic opportunism.

But for me I suppose it's idealism speaking. It might be that the only way to get the ball rolling on environmental reform is to develop some genuine, capitalist motivation instead of all that tree-hugger crap about biodiversity (latest study) and global warming.

Ugh.

Payola Strikes Back

2006-04-10T22:20:00.000-05:00

Techdirt: Radio Stations Claim Payola Probe Limiting New Music: "Some radio stations have gone on an interesting PR offensive against Eliot Spitzer's payola investigations. They're claiming that DJs and music programmers have become reluctant to play new music, out of fear that it might draw unwanted attention to them."

The story originally comes from the Baltimore Sun, which gently took the side of the DJs. As Techdirt points out, there are a lot of holes in their argument. Apart from the fact that Spitzer's suit targeted big label, insta-fame artists (not emerging ones), all of the programmers' paranoia seems rooted in the idea that a slight shred of circumstantial "evidence" will ruin them. From the Sun article:

"I don't want anyone to look at my playlists six months from now and speculate about why I added a particular song, when our competition didn't add it," said one programmer. "People have been fired for less."

Well, I'd like to know what people--and if it's true, it sounds like the fault of reactionary station owners, not Eliot Spitzer.

Quantum Spun

2006-04-09T13:15:00.000-05:00

Nerdshit: "Mr. A, 37 years old, used ecstasy between the ages of 21 and 30. For the first 2 years, he took 5 tablets every weekend, escalating to an average daily use of 3.5 tablets for the next 3 years, and further escalation to an average of 25 tablets daily over the next 4 years. An estimate of lifetime consumption yielded a total intake of more than 40,000 tablets."

The psychiatric profile goes on to describe Mr. A's disjointed perception of time, memory problems and inability to concentrate. Interestingly, "a structural MRI brain scan revealed no focal cerebral lesions; specifically, both temporal lobes showed normal symmetrical hippocampal areas. The structural areas of the “Dealy-Brion” system were normal."

It's always fascinating to see what happens to the brain when it is heavily influenced by outside forces. Mr. A's unfortunate life is certainly out of the ordinary. I'm not a neuroscientist, but I found the lack of physical damage to the brain curious, given the extreme circumstances and effects on his thought process. I am reminded of research into quantum spin states being responsible for consciousness, because at least one group was experimenting with ketamines and other anasthetics and their effect at a quantum level.

Wikipedia has an excellent chart explaining different theories about consciousness, and CogNews recently posted a link to a summary of questions about human neuroscience raised by quantum physics.

Involved in Ontario

2006-04-10T11:18:00.000-05:00

A friend of mine just introduced me to something most surprising: Ontario's Environmental Registry.

If you are an Ontario resident, check it out. It's been around since 1994, but I'd never heard of it, and I admit to being impressed. The site lists all the recent applications made by companies for equipment, operational or other changes that will effect the environment. It then gives the public a chance to respond with letters that will be added to the official proceedings--similar, I suppose, to the way building and zoning permits work.

A quick look at the last week's postings turns up several requests to increase exhaust emissions, and a curious little application by a group called The Brethren of Early Christianity, who are renewing their permit to extract water from four wells in the town of Bright.

Practical Environmentalism

2006-04-04T21:34:00.000-05:00

The Student Sustainable Living Initiative is hosting a lecture tomorrow (Wednesday) evening, at which they will discuss practical solutions in environmental issues, with a focus on personal contributions in an urban environment. The centrepiece will be their new club and guide for building compact, low-cost wind turbine generators.

From freeliving.org/club:

Power the Future

Learn, Act, Engage: Enact Change.

Join us on Wednesday, April 5th at 6:30 pm for free information and food at Innis Town Hall, 2 Sussex Ave. (St. George, South of Bloor) We will be hosting a free lecture on the environmental and social consequences of Canadian energy use and the possibilities for change through the development of renewable resources.

Featuring:

Professor Danny Harvey [Department of Geography, U of T] - Topic: Climate Change
Professor Nazir Kherani [Department of Electrical Engineering, U of T] - Topic: Innovations in Solar Panels
Prof. Bryan Kharney [Department of Civil Engineering, U of T] - Topic: Our issues with energy & possibilities for change

Have DVDs, Will Scratch

2006-04-04T19:01:00.000-05:00

I recently spent a weekend in Manhattan--the first time I've been there, incidentally. I swung out to Long Island while I was there to meet Reed Baker and DJ Big Rich of Sophist Productions, whom I recently interviewed for an Urbanology story (to be published in the May 1st issue).

The first thing I have to say about these guys is that they were really friendly, and excellent hosts. They also have a beautiful studio (see the photo? When Big Rich looks up, he'll be looking out giant windows onto the East River and the Manhattan skyline. 22nd floor, I might add).

Performance-wise, they have a really good thing going. Big Rich scratched a diverse set for us on his DVJ decks, from Slick Rick classics to 50 Cent's latest hits. He spliced them with a feed from a video camera through an intense effect filter that made ghostly images of us sitting on the couch dance overtop of the rappers. I can only imagine the outcome with a bouncing crowd.

Later, they played us a few tracks from Reed's soon-to-be-released album One in Six, as well as a few beats-in-progress. Definately check their album when it drops, and if you're going to be in New York in December, you might want to check this free concert out. And hurry, because there is limited space.

The green label was much appreciated, guys.

A Gab with Gab

2006-04-04T20:08:00.000-05:00

This is yet another way-late post, but I wanted to say that the Blackalicious concert at the Opera House (March 28th) was fantastic. I spoke with Gift of Gab and Chief Xcel beforehand, so watch out for the story in Urbanology in August, along with some incredible photography by Matt Barnes (not this pic--this one's mine).

In the mean time, I want to pass along two things about Gab. The first is that he absolutely loves The Real Jerk at 709 Queen Street East in Toronto, and indeed, they do make a good jerked chicken. Secondly, as I had predicted (or hoped, at least), he told me about a book on Buddhism he had been reading when he wrote The Craft. I had assumed that some keywords from the title and a crude, phonetic rendering of the name would be enough to track the book down, but so far I have been unsuccessful. If anyone can help, here is what I know:

Title: Contains "Process of Discipline", perhaps, and contains the word "Meditation" as well
Author: Sounds like "Osho"

Yes, I know it is a little bit stupid of me.

Keeping Up with the Scovilles

2006-04-05T14:32:00.000-05:00

I got this from C|NET: there is a new contender for worlds hottest pepper, possibly ousting the Red Savina's Guinness Record.

I have never had a chance to try Red Savina peppers, though I have always been a huge fan of habaneros in general, especially in chip form from Blair's Death Rain. If this pepper does indeed rank at 923,000SHU, that would place it up at nearly two-hundred times the level of your average jalapeno.

Interesting, though, is Wikipedia's SHU chart, which lists a few items tested in the multi-million SHUs. Police grade pepper spray is a staggering 5.3-million, though it is apparently still trumped by The Source hot sauce. From their website:

Registered at 7.1 million Scoville units, The Source Hot Sauce is the worlds hottest. There's nothing hotter out there...unless you count pure capsaicin extract!

The part about "pure capsaicin extract" is interesting here, because Blair Lazar got some press last year for his hottest sauce ever: the 16 Million reserve. It costs a fortune for only a few crystals of the stuff, and its a limited reserve, but it ranks at up to 16-million SHU. Of course, the only reason it can trump The Source is because it is, indeed, pure capsaicin extract, requiring several tonnes of peppers to produce only a pound. The Source's subtle attack aside, I hope I one day get a chance to try it.

"The human race is in big trouble."

2006-04-06T00:00:00.000-05:00

Those are the words U of T Geography Professor Danny Harvey used to sum up the state of the environment. Harvey joined Profs Hazir Kherani (Electrical Engineering) and Bryan Kharney (Civil Engineering) at the Student Sustainable Living Initiative's Power the Future event yesterday evening.

The SSLI, founded by Brandon Gamblen and Ashleigh Ingle (two close friends of mine), is a U of T organization that focuses on practical, personal applications for sustainable technologies. Their current project is a small, low-cost wind turbine that is easy for the average person to build. The event was organized to educate students, professors and Toronto residents about environmental issues and possible solutions.

Harvey's lecture covered the basic facts of global warming and climate change, and included some excellent numbers on the obstacles we face if we hope to stabilize our atmosphere. I find that certain parts of environmental science--like the obvious proof of global warming and its dangers--are in a strange limbo, whereby they are on one hand essentially common knowledge, but on the other hand so stubbornly ignored that they seem to need constant reiteration.

But Harvey's lecture included some new and suprising facts as well. The most moving to me, personally, was a simple comment: "Really it's probably too late for coral reefs." It made me think of visiting the Caribbean 11 or 12 years ago (the only time I've been back since I was born there). My dad had told us several times about the wonderful reefs off the Tobago Cays, but when we finally got there they were almost entirely dead. I have always known reefs are delicate ecosystems and certainly in danger, but I had never stopped to think about the fact that saving them may be out of the question. Unfortunately, it does seem a likely assertion. Harvey pointed out that the extra warm "bleaching years" that threaten the reefs--and have been getting closer and closer together--could be occurring as frequently as every other year by the quarter-century, making it impossible for the reefs to sustain enough algae to survive.

Kherani's lecture focused on photoelectric technology, its development and its application. Solar power frustrates me so much, as I'm sure it does millions of scientists--there it is, all the energy we need just pouring over us in abundance, and we can't quite harness it. Most interesting was Kherani's photos of some sustainable colonies around the world, and his observation that such colonies would be much more difficult here, since the average North American uses twice as much energy as the average European or Japanese.

Kharney's lecture put an unexpected spin on the evening. He played half civil engineer, half motivational speaker as he called out the depressed and apathetic among us, who are daunted into inaction by the millions of complex, intertwined problems in the world. Several of my friends commented afterwards that they felt as if he was speaking directly to him at points--something I felt as well.

His goal, clearly, was to help people find motivation in a difficult world the same way he has: by appreciating life and beauty, finding dialectic compromises and reading Calvin and Hobbes. His presentation was full of introspective questions to ponder over, and suggestions on how to deal with the conflicts that arise. He also spend some time discussing dialectics, and his philosophy that life is about a series of overlapping situations in which you have to find the balance between two opposites.

Keep an eye on the SSLI hompage, for they will have more events in the near future. You can also sign up to learn how to build your own wind turbine!

360s in Circles

2006-04-06T20:59:00.000-05:00

I was lucky enough to attend the Xbox 360 Spring Showcase today at the Drake Hotel on Queen Street West. I got a chance to play some games-in-progress as well as new releases--but most importantly, I got to play with the 360 some more, since my income is not quite disposable enough to buy my own.

Full coverage of the event will be in the August issue of Urbanology (also see the upcoming May issue for coverage of The Art of the 360 event that took place a month or two ago.) In the mean time, here are a few of my thoughts:

Deadrising

The guys at Capcom are still working some kinks out on this one(the first time I played, the level rendered without any ground, so all I saw was zombies spawning, falling, dying, respawning, falling, dying...) Nonetheless, its shaping up to be a lot of fun. I'm always interested in the newest "open-ended" game designs, and Deadrising has an especially interesting one: you play a photojournalist with 72 hours of free reign in a zombie-infested town, trying to survive and shoot a good photo essay--and not necessarily in that order.

Kameo

I know this is old news, but I'd never played it before. It is a really fun game with fantastic model design (I find the spikey snow-gorilla especially endearing), though I thought what's-her-name's idle sequences were a little much. It's enough that every game tries to have sexy characters nowadays, without them cocking their hips and picking at their skirts every time they stand still. Maybe I need to work on appreciating digital women... Aaron McKenna has some excellent insight on videogame sex and VirtuallyJenna.

Ninety-Nine Nights

This game was something of a mystery at the showcase, in that it had no real representatives that I could find. Besides that, it was all in Japanese (except for the title, and the word "Start", for some reason) , and there was only one playable level. One of the Xbox MVPs told me about the creative promotion in Japan.

Regarding the game: I'm not sure if I've ever felt so powerful. Like God must feel, when he's cutting swathes through a horde of goblins in a flurry of acrobatic swordplay.

The Food

Microsoft and The Drake were very generous and creative in their catering. I especially enjoyed the prosciutto wrapped shrimp.

Oh my god, is that Tim McGraw?

2006-04-07T15:11:00.000-05:00

I'm watching the new episode of South Park, entitled Cartoon Wars, for a third time, and wanted to make a couple of comments on it. Firstly, I enjoyed it a lot, and I was happy that they took on a more interesting topic (I thought that the message of not being smug about driving a hybrid car was a little too esoteric to dedicate a whole episode to). Admittedly, I also liked it more simply because I agreed with Trey and Matt's stance this time, and I didn't feel like they went over the edge as they have so often lately.

The FAQ at their homepage raises a very interesting point that hadn't occurred to me: South Park already featured a Mohammed character in the Super Best Friends episode. But then, they weren't attacking Family Guy for something so particular (and no, Family Guy didn't display a Mohammed cartoon to my knowledge,) but rather for their attitude about offensive content, and their poor (or at least oversimplified) humour--and their imitations of classic Family Guy cuts were beautifully executed. Though South Park sometimes gets in your face with offensive or gross stuff, people should remember that it is rarely that simple. The Mohammed character, for example, was part of a comical but sincere message of religious inter-acceptance.

So far my favourite episode of the tenth season.

2006-04-04T10:16:00.000-05:00

High and Mighty

On Saturday, Peter Kuitenbrouwer published a column in the National Post about a panel discussion he participated in at Centennial College. The event was hosted by STEPS (Showcasing the Endless Possibilities of Scarborough), a youth-run community group that recently published a magazine with the help of my Editor-in-Chief and Art Director at Urbanology Magazine.

I conjured, in my head, a glorious picture of the event. I would sit with other sober, thoughtful professionals behind a nice table, each of us with a name plate and a glass of water beside our microphone, and we would engage the audience and one another in erudite debate.
That is not what happened.

I will not go into great detail about my objections to the piece, since many were personally expressed to Peter by my editor after she read it yesterday. Suffice to say that I feel it is a good example of a particular sort of rac- / cultur-ism: the passive prejudice that has arisen from the avalanche of hip-hop culture into the mainstream. In what I must optimistically assume is a conscious attempt to be progressive, some people make comments of acceptance and understanding that, tainted by a subconscious bias, end up sounding downright dehumanizing.

I'm perfectly willing to acknowledge it: I am so programmed by the media to associate rap fashion with drugs and gang violence that when I see a scene like this, I feel uneasy. That is what made it a good experience: It forced me out of my comfort zone, not to another Scarborough crime scene, but into the real world of these youth. They are a pleasant bunch once you get to know them.

Since this was an anti-violence event, attended by youth who wanted to become involved in bettering their community, I can only assume his initial reaction was based on the fact that:

Hip hop music blared and the crowd, many dressed like extras for a Jay-Z video, cheered.

2006-04-04T12:42:00.000-05:00

Chickens, Eggs and Therefores

New Scientist has summarized a report from the Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine, and it makes more of the assertions that I find so bothersome when it comes to the situation of North American children. The fact is that we live in a stressful and confusing society that is bound to mix a little cocktail of neurosis for each of us--starting at a young age--whether we like it or not. I fully support work and research to change this, but I feel like it is often shortsighted. In a landscape of many problems that interact in a complex network of causes and effects, I don't see how it is possible to draw generalized conclusions like:

Playing a violent rather than a benign video game makes children more accepting of using drugs or alcohol, and having sex without a condom, because, the researchers suggest, it increases general disregard for the safety of yourself and others

Again: there is certainly some truth to this. But I also am quite confident that today's children, who have been warned about drugs (from pot to heroin), cigarettes, sex and violence all in the same breath and all with the same urgency, are rebelling more against exaggeration than rules in general. In the above example, I picture a child who discovered that violent videogames were fun and even skill-enhancing, far from the "evil" label his parents have always used, and set out to see if they were being similarly dishonest about drugs and unprotected sex. Perhaps he then smokes some pot and realizes how benign it is, despite it having been lumped in with crystal meth and ecstacy in the blanket War on Drugs (in the U.S., at least, where ridiculous amounts of money are spent). Next he wants to see if they were lying about those drugs too...

Check out George Bush's declaration of National D.A.R.E. Day on April 14th, noting his support for random student drug testing.

I also take issue when studies like this shift blame from generals to specifics:

Toddlers who watch more than two hours of television a day are more likely to be overweight at ages 3 and 4-and-a-half.

It should be fairly obvious that weight is a function, primarily, of exercise and intake. Common sense (or simple math) tells us that someone who watches more television does less exercise, and probably eats more junk food. Children who spent those 2+ hours a day reading or sitting and staring at a wall would likely show similar results, but the data is used to explicitly attack television.

2006-04-04T11:52:00.000-05:00

These drivers will go straight to my kernel...

C|Net News is reporting that the designers of those $100, crank-shaft-powerable, wi-fi enabled mini-laptops for developing nations we all keep hearing about are facing an O/S impasse. They have always planned to use Linux, but now say even it is too large for the system:

"People aren't thinking about small, fast, thin systems," said Nicholas Negroponte, chairman of the One Laptop Per Child nonprofit association, in a speech at the LinuxWorld Conference and Expo here. "Suddenly it's like a very fat person (who) uses most of the energy to move the fat. And Linux is no exception. Linux has gotten fat, too."

His lovely choice of analogy aside, I wonder if the folks at One Latop per Child have experimented with Damn Small Linux? It would work just fine on the 512MB of flash memory in the systems, and even leave plenty of room for some of the myDSL Extensions. What's more, its ability to scan and start communicating with hardware is impressive--except for wireless technology. Come to think of it, this is an opportunity to work on the messy state of mobile wireless compatibility in Linux.