Category: Uncategorized

Professional Day

Dear Waterloo Public Library,

It has come to my attention that your downtown branch is closed today for a professional day. Professional days are great. May I suggest adding some basic communication skills your next professional day. 1) update your webpage hours and location to include the closure. 2) update the google of your closure. 3) put your “we are closed today” sign on the entrance door, not buried amongst 7 other identically shaped public announcements.

It was a lovely day so I decided to sit on a bench and try and get some work done on the intertubes. As I came to realize that your wireless access point was not operational today (even wifi router’s need professional days) about a dozen peeps came, tried the doors and left. Some of these folks were not that mobile. For them the simple act of switching from inside to outside drop off was a challenge. So don’t worry about grumpy old men like me. Consider improving your communications skills for the mobility challenged.

 

Yours

Me.

 

 

Let Grace Hopper Grace the Ten Spot

Dear America (United State of),

As a humble neighbour from the North I wish for you to consider placing Grace Hopper on your upcoming ten dollar bill. Your Commander in Chief, Barack Obama, has suggested that the new ten spot sport the face of a woman. Who has had more of an impact on the world than the “inventor of programming” Grace Hopper? For those of us who are not in the knowledge sphere of geekdom Grace Hopper invented the compiler. The compiler is the thing that made natural programming languages possible. She is one of the giants that all of your wonderful tech industries stand on the shoulder of. That includes Google, Apple and Facebook. It does not include Ashley Madison, which is a Canadian Company.

In a recent discussion group, comprised mostly of rich white men, many suggestions were made who should  be on the ten dollar bill. One of those rich white men suggested Margaret Thatcher. Speaking from a Canadian perspective, we have tried having a famous English woman on our currency and it has not helped us very much.

Photo Credit: Dorthea Lange
Photo Credit: Dorthea Lange

There have been lots of wonderful other suggestions for women to be put on the ten dollar bill. However there is one reason for Grace Hopper to be on the 10 dollar bill and all those other amazing women should be put on other bills. Ten is also a binary number. So Grace Hopper could be on the 10 which is 2 in binary. Nothing more apt that than putting the most influential woman programmer in history on your binary 10 dollar bill.

Yours Truly,

Me.

 

Links:

 

 

This Is Only a Test

Recent events have helped me crystallize what kind of journos I respect and when I respect them. News today is very binary. Yes versus no. Hate versus love. Support versus destroy. Discussion is crushed by fanaticism, righteousness and positionizing. The newest and most successful media in our world have turned out to be the most destructive. However to avoid being binary about this topic myself I will rephrase this to say “most challenging.”  Reporters deliver facts without editiorial. Journalists record facts and craft a position. Both reporting and journalism need to speak truth to power. Much of what repulses us with tabloid media is that they are rarely speaking truth to power. We all will slip up, we all will make wrong choices, we all will be lazy once in a while (but not me ever). So with this we should not prejudge our friends in the fifth estate. However some are savage pundits speaking power to crush truth. Here in Canada we are fairly lucky, our press is mostly subverted by cutting of funding, corporate pressure, or bribery. These elements will always be a pressure on journalists in a somewhat civil and corporate society. There are other states where reporters and journalists are obstructed, attacked, raped and murdered. How can we help these folks speak truth to power? Amnesty International and PEN are good starts. There is a new player on the field. Check out Google Ideas 

Google Ideas

And I am also assessing WP’s new autopublicize feature.

Back to the Blog

I spent a few years posting on Facebook. Unfortunately Facebook has chosen to not play well with others. The final straw for me was when the “entity” chose to repeatedly post that I was supporting a particular political candidate in our last civic election.This caused me some personal grief, and wtf (what the Facebook??!?!) . I think doing this sort of unsolicited advertising is bad enough for commercial entities, could it not be dangerous for some people when you do it with political parties. Presentably I am still on the FB, but I am only posting to help improv comedy events at The Staircase.

Connecting Dots?

Several months ago Host Co. of the Pan Am Games gave the Hamilton Tiger Cats $100 million to build a new stadium provided Hamilton kicked in another $50 million. The Pan Am $100 million was supposed to go towards a Pan Am Athletics Stadium. This deal was brokered by the newly minted Mayor Bratina. There will be no athletics in the Ti Cats Stadium. The monies supplied by Hamilton helped drain its Future Fund. A private entertainment complex does not meet any of the Future Fund’s criteria. It was hard to understand how a both sources of cash for the Ti Cat stadium came from sources that should not to go towards such a project. A few months later, without consulting the elected council,  Mayor Bratina announced that Hamilton will pursue all day GO Service instead of LRT, and disbanded the LRT workgroup.  This allowed our Premiere to state the following:

“That was the No. 1 ask of the city,” McGuinty said. “We’ve had some important conversations with the mayor, and this is their priority. Which made it our priority. Over time, we can enter into other discussions about things like the LRT.” Link

So now instead of fulfilling a $1000 million promise of paying Hamilton’s rapid transit bill, Hamilton will instead get $7 million in funding for GO Train service. It gave the provincial government an easy out from a billion dollar promise to Hamilton. Metrolinx recommended the Hamilton LRT, earmarked $850 million for it, and is presently shovel in ground for $9500 million in rapid transit development in Toronto.

Would a mayor actually betray his own city so completely just to get his beloved Tiger Cats a stadium? I don’t know but he used to work for the Tiger Cats. I  still don’t know, but  he is publicly endorsing the provincial candidates who’s butts he saved…. Link