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October 30, 2002

Big Electric Cat

Yuka found this picture on some Japanese guest book I think it is a fake cat picture. What do you think? According to Guinness World Records : õ NATURAL WORLD << FANTASTIC PETS << LONGEST CAT Longest Cat Snowbie, the world†s longest cat, measures 103 cm (40.8õin) from nose to tip of tail, yet stands just 33 cm (12.9 in) tall. Snowbie was officially measured at this length on November 21, 1997, at four years of age. Lorna always had a feeling her feline was a record breaker. ""Our local vet says he's the biggest cat he's ever seen."" Most cats have to leap onto the kitchen tabletop to sneak a lick of the family leftovers. Not Snowbie, he simply stands on his back legs and grabs whatever he likes with his front paws."

Posted by jason at 08:20 AM

October 29, 2002

Workstudy Rulz

I just got the paperwork done for three workstudy students this year. Kat is going to work on building some special gizmos for the Project Achieve CVE. Muddy's going to finally get a blog, and research Jeff Noon and some dracula stuff, as well as help out with the triangle project. And Jasjit is going to help research appropriate digital technology and the digital divide. You just have to love government funding."

Posted by jason at 07:26 AM

October 26, 2002

Akage no An

Here's the rough pictures that I took, at Yuka's request at the Japan Foundation today, for the symposium on the 50th Anniversary of the translation of Anne of Green Gables into Japanese. We'll add text soon."

Posted by jason at 05:59 PM

October 25, 2002

Pazuzu!

Yuka and I were on our way to pages so that I could buy some books. And between our house and Queen Street. We saw PAZUZU! Haven't seen Pauzu for months, as she's been doing an archaeology dig in northern manitoba, and has recently returned. Plans to get together with her and Simsim. [Newbie alert: Simsim and Pazuzu are ex-students and research assistants, and dangerous women in their own right.] Oh, books A reader's Manifesto - BR Myers Aesthetics of Dissapearance - Paul Virilio Pataphysics: the poetics of imaginary science - Christian Bok Nostalgia for teh absolute - george steiner Simulacra and simulation - baudrillard Book Business - Epstein Flesh Unlimited : Surealist Erotica - Apollinaire/Aragon Martyrology 1/2 - bp nichol Paradoxia: A Predator's Diary - Lydia Lunch The poetics of space - Bachelard Literature and Evil - Bataille Postmodernism Explained - Lyotard Narratives as Virtual Reality - Marie-Laure Ryan Cyber_reader - Neil Spiller These are the ones I bought. I'm so happy."

Posted by jason at 04:58 PM

Dog Shoots Man

Yuka's going to love this: The Globe and Mail: Dog Shoots Man Pheasant season took an ugly turn for Michael Murray when he was shot by Sonny, his year-old English setter pup.The puppy knew something was very wrong when Murray dropped to the ground with blood spurting from his ankle. "Sonny just laid by my side," Mr. Murray said. "He knew something was bad.""

Posted by jason at 08:28 AM

October 24, 2002

Boom

My poor TiBook finally exploded after 18 months of over use, on my part. The litany of problems. corruped b-tree that couldn't be repaired - CD stuck in side - battery stuck - airport wireless card not working - latch broken - rubber feet that keep screen from touching the keyboard disappeared - some plastic widget on one side is pushed in Groan"

Posted by jason at 10:25 AM

October 23, 2002

The DoS Rears Its Head.

The Globe and Mail: Powerful Internet attack thwarted An unusually powerful electronic attack briefly crippled nine of the 13 computer servers that manage global Internet traffic this week, officials disclosed Tuesday. But they never say where the attack came from."

Posted by jason at 09:36 AM

Just Happy

A strange adventure. How could I have imagined tonight. Something was up. Obviously. Dad was totally planned. Limo picked me up at 6:15, and I didn't have to do my usual, which was to take the bus, as I prefer. It was totally overwhelming: Blake, Kenny, Diana/Rod, Richie/Mr Woodall, Tula/Marika et al., Richard/Susie, Gokiburi Sue, Jack B, Dad & Cheryl, Cats and Emily, Kelly/Siobhan/Charlie, Mom & Lars, Irene. All in attendance for dinner at the four seasons room of the Inn on the Park. Like I said. Something was up. The biggest hint was that as we got into the hotel, I could hear something going on in the four seasons room, and across it all, I could hear my mom and dad's voices. The last time they spoke at a social gathering was 1995. So, you know somthing's up. For the entire night I spun around the room, chatting with people I love, but never get to see. Totally unexpected. Totally over the top. It was the best birthday party in my life, even if my birthday 40th birthday was really July 7th. And it was the best graduation party I ever, even if it was 18 months after I graduated. Don't get me wrong. That's not snarky. It was even better for being out of time. And that everyone would show up. I can never thank everyone enough. Goodnight!"

Posted by jason at 03:03 AM

October 22, 2002

Blogging is

I've just finish a solid draft of an entry for the Encyclopedia of Community on blogging. Please read it (click on more...). I'd like some feedback and opinions. Please don't copy it or archive it anywhere. THANKS! Blogging, keeping a blog (web log) or online journal, is the process of creating, organizing, interacting with and archiving posts to a web environment. Blog entries focus on an individual, theme, or organization. They may be posts that explore someoneˆs personal thoughts, update users on a software product, or organize news of the day around a specific issue. Most blogs are updated daily, or more often, functioning as a window onto the authorˆs world. The web site where you keep your journal is called a blog. You are a blogger. And the act of updating your site is called blogging. Blogging is less a private act of keeping a journal than it is personal publishing. Every blog has an audience, intended or unintended. Most sites have comments functions built-in or as add-ons like blogchat and enetation (See Weblogs Compendium.) that allow visitors to contribute to the discussion. Unlike other online tools that allow for dialogue between individuals, blogs are primarily monologues representing the voice of the blogger(s) who run the site. In terms of knowledge community, blogs are conceptual tool for sharing stories and personal narrative, allowing individuals to manage and present an online identity. And many blogs become linked to each other through various means. Most blogs have a permanent link (permalink) for each post which is a link to a specific archived entry. Constellations of narratives and community develop as blogs and specific blog entries are linked in a dynamic hypertext of interwoven communication. Tools such as Blogdex track this web, making it possible to locate an individual within the hierarchy of bloggers. Oneˆs position in the community is determined by who reads you. If a blog maven links to your blog visits can rise from a half dozen a day to thousands. Blogs have be traced back to 1997, though the exact genesis of the term is in dispute. According to Rebecca Blood, they were termed weblogs by Jorn Barger, and only 23 were known to exist when úPeter Merholz announced in early 1999 that he was going to pronounce it 'wee-blog' and inevitably this was shortened to 'blog'.î (Blood, 2000) Blogs are children of older online technologies (Krol 1992), but the blogging revolution comes from the ease at which it is possible to update and maintain a blog. Tools for blogging can be anything that allows you to maintain a chronological lists of entries, and are often open source or free to individuals. Early on, blogs were updated using a text editor, hand-coded html, and FTP. The main tools are Blogger, Livejournal, Moveable Type, Greymatter, Radio Userland, Bloxom, Manila, Zope, Slash. Blogger is the easiest to use. Bloxom is barebones. Live journal has the best community features. Moveable Type excels at flexibility and power. Userland targets corporate and organizational users. Zope and Slash are group environments. The rest fit in between, with specific features and options to make them all the best choice in various circumstance. Blogging is hyped as publishing for the masses. Children and seniors, homemakers and industry executives, programmers and poets are keeping online journals, but these masses are overwhelmingly English speaking individuals in the developed environments. They are relatively technologically literate and have regular access to the Internet. As blogs are inherently about me, they are more of interest to cultures that privilege individualism. Western mountain climbers on Everest keep blogs, chronicling their day with text and pictures, updated by satellite. Their Sherpas do not. There are claims that blogs are without bias, and a location for free speech, because they are not controlled by corporations. However, there is much self and community censoring, and corporations are starting to notice. And viral marketers may already targeting the community. Blogs are also criticized for clogging up the internet with meaningless, irrelevant and irresponsible content. Often this comes from professional journalists and individuals who feel content needs to be vetted, reviewed and edited. Blog Software Blogger - http://www.blogger.com Livejournal - http://www.livejournal.com Bloxsom - http://www.raelity.org/lang/perl/bloxsom/ Manila - http://manila.userland.com/ Radio Userland - http://radio.userland.com/ Moveable Type - http://www.moveabletype.org/ Slash - http://www.slashcode.org/ Zope - http://www.zope.org Group Blogs Metafilter - http://metafilter.org/ kuro5hin - http://www.kuro5hin.org/ Memepool - http://www.memepool.com/ Alienated - http://www.alienated.net Personal blogs Crabwalk - http://www.crabwalk.com/ - Blog personality Meg Hourihan - http://megnut.com ì Blog personality Neil Gaiman - http://www.neilgaiman.com/journal/journal.asp ì Fiction Author [thanks for the correct Gaiman URL Kat!] jill/txt - http://cmc.uib.no/jill/ - Academic Joots - http://www.backwash.com/content.php?id=127 - Columnist Catspaw - http://www.insanecats.com/ - Student blog Blogging Tools and misc. Weblogs Compendium - http://www.lights.com/weblogs/tools.html Weblogs - http://www.weblogs.com/ Blogphiles - http://www.blogphiles.com/ blogrolling - http://www.blogrolling.com/ Bloglet - http://www.bloglet.com/ Salon Radio Community Server - http://blogs.salon.com/ Dallas Forthworth Bloggers - http://www.dfwblogs.com/ Blogdex - http://blogdex.media.mit.edu/ Blog Articles Archive - http://edublog.com/~laurel/blogs/index.htm GTA Bloggers ì http://www.gtabloggers.com References Blood, Rebecca. (2000) úweblogs: a history and perspectiveî http://www.rebeccablood.net/essays/weblog_history.html Doctorow, Cory, Rael Dornfest, Scott Johnson, Shelly Powers, Benjamin Trott and Mena Trott (2002). Essential Blogging: Selecting and Using Weblog Tools. Sebastopol: OˆReilly. Krol, Ed. (1992). The Whole Internet. Sebastapol, OˆReilly. Nolan, Jason. (February, 2002) úCeci n'est pas un blog!î E2K http://netauthor.org/e2k/jan2002/features.html111"

Posted by jason at 02:34 PM

Strange but it caught some fans.

Yuka, Kat and Muddy have all gone mushy over this flash movie that Yuka found called Shii's Song. Trust me, the singing is English. Are you next? And Yuka made me transcribe it. Just wish I could type fast like Rochelle. But don't read the transcript if you haven't watched the flash first. That's not fair. Wind's Nocturne Wishing on a dream that seems far off hoping it will come today. Into the starlit night foolish dreamers turn their gaze waiting on a shooting star but what if that star is not to come? Will their dreams fade to nothing? When the horizon darkens most we all need to believe there is hope is there an angle watching closely over me? Can there be a guiding light I've yet to see? I know my heart should guild me but there's a whole within my soul. What will fill this emptiness in side of me? Am I to be satisfied without knowing? I wish then for a chance to see. Now all I need Is my star to come..."

Posted by jason at 09:05 AM

A new category of small

I'm trying to keep track of teachnologies that will lead to a ZeroCost Computer. This adds to the list I have offline: globetechnology.comPhilips puts more on a disc. 4 gigs of storage in a 0.5 centimetres thick, 5.6 cm long and 3.4 cm wide drive. To cost $150 and be out in 2 years."

Posted by jason at 08:45 AM

Jesus (Yeshua)

From NY Times: 'Jesus' Inscription on Stone May Be Earliest Ever Found (login requires). I guess it is just me, but what's the point. If you have a religion based on faith, why bother proving things? I guess it is just me."

Posted by jason at 08:29 AM

October 21, 2002

A winner

This image should not be on the internet. But it still is. And that's not good. Where are parental controls when you need them."

Posted by jason at 11:35 PM

"AAUP - List of Censured Administrations"

Who says you can't find everything on the Internet? This site lists US colleges that have been blacklisted for not living up to the responsibilities that institutions have to their faculty. ""Investigations by the American Association of University Professors of the administrations of the institutions listed below show that, as evidenced by a past violation, they are not observing the generally recognized principles of academic freedom and tenure endorsed by this Association..."""

Posted by jason at 06:32 PM

October 20, 2002

Puckish Ben

Got the pictures of Ben as well. Yuka helped choose them, of course. "

Posted by jason at 01:00 PM

reappointed

I just got the word that I have been reappointed Scholar in Residence position at Knowledge Media Design Institute for the up coming school year. With all the moving into new offices and all that, we sort of didn't get around to discussing it. Glad that's over and done with..."

Posted by jason at 07:49 AM

October 19, 2002

LMM

Spent the day with Ben and Yuka at the Leaskdale manse. We were invited guests for the opening of phase one of the manse resstoration project. Lucy Maud Montgomery lived in the manse for a number of years, and it is being restored as a national monument to LMM. So far, they've removed the stucco, and replaced the door. And the budget is gone. I took 107 pictures. Yuka's processing them, and a site will be up soon. addendum Pictures are up. And I might add, that I did spend a couple of minutes having coffee with The Honourable Janet Ecker, Minister of Finance. I didn't tell her that I was a crypto-postmodernist-ivory tower academic. But then again, she never told me that she was Minister of Finance. And we had a nice chat."

Posted by jason at 07:15 PM

October 18, 2002

Disconnected Technologies

I just had a thought. First one of the day... and resulting from the recent intersection of coffee and cookie. That and proofreading something. And chatting on AIM with someone about the fact that my spellchecker is suggesting that the correct spelling, of every mispelled word, is ""Street Kids."" Ask me why and I'll scream. At that point, I realized something. I have many friends online. Some I email. Some I MOO with. Some AIM. Or ICQ. Or Blog. Though many of them are on multiple technologies, I only communicate with them on one. Someone with MOO/ICQ/AIM, I may only know his MOO point of acces. Someone else, her AIM account, even though I know she MOOs. And in a way, this is good. I don't talk to everyone with every technology. If someone doesn't want to talk with me, they know that they can ignore me, by sticking to technologies that I don't know them on. And if they do want to talk to me, they know where to find me. This selective dexterity points to the maturing of online communication where the goal is not to always be in touch, but to be selectively in touch. And often not in touch at all. In the end, that's what friendship is all about."

Posted by jason at 12:33 PM

October 17, 2002

Home coming

Catching the 5pm bus from Midland to toronto. Should be home by 7 or 8. Productive visit. And great to spend all this time with my dad, with no one else around. I only get to see him 3-4 times a year, and will probably not see him again until May/June. I did not spend enough time just staring out into the lake. But that's good, because I should have been working. And I was. [KMD1000 students: I'll be in my office from 12-4 tomorrow, and the same on Monday if you want to come in to talk about your assignment.] And Saturday, Yuka, Ben and I (And hopefully Rochelle) will be going up to leaskdale for an LMM event. We're not quite sure what is going on, but Yuka said that we should be there by 10am. So I'm picking up the car at 7:30."

Posted by jason at 12:04 PM

October 13, 2002

Writing writing...

Got my job application sent off to Dalhousie today. It was a facinating exercise. And I heard that at least one of my letters of reference is out the door. Working on my blogging article for Barry. Only 500 words!!!! My god it is impossible. Then typing and typing and typing. Working on editing a secret project. Other wise it is lots of quiet by the lake. Not alone as I'd expected, but quiet nonetheless."

Posted by jason at 07:12 PM

October 12, 2002

"Oh, I have a family?"

It was Emily's 8th birthday yesterday. She's my youngest sister. And as cute as possible. A little barrel of horse fanatic. So, we're at the Inn on the Park, in the Four Seasons room, which is about 20' wide and 80' long... one of those attempts to have an elegant private dining room. The crew included dad and step mom (cheryl). Her parents Wendal and Joyce. Yuka My sisters Kelly (42) and Caitlin (12). Kelly's husband and two kids, Siobhan and Charley (aka Duncan). Emily's regular riding buddy Dani and her mom Tula. They are official family, as Dani lives with Emily during the summer riding season. So, long table for 12 guests plus Emily, and the kids are running around and around and around. And no one worries, because of the heavy doors. Actually not a bad place to have a party. But don't ask me about the food and wine. moan."

Posted by jason at 07:40 AM

October 11, 2002

My CV... in a nutshell

I finally decided to upload and make public my Curriculum Vitae. I've thought a lot about this, but since it is the season for applying for positions, and that is a pretty public experience, I figured that I'd share it with the world. Sorry for it being 90k. It is a word > windows document in XML, and as Salmon knows, it takes for ever to exorcise XML from Word > html documents. Please let me know if you see any typos or errors, since most of you who read this blog are mentioned in it somewhere. But don't worry about the missing ). from time to time. That's something that Word does as a special touch of its own that I can't remove. Ugh. Ok, I get the picture. Here it is in .doc and .rtf as well"

Posted by jason at 01:34 PM

From the Ha Ha! department

Microsoft reveals another 'critical' flaw Redmond, Wash. %uFFD1 Microsoft Corp. disclosed a security flaw Thursday of "critical" severity in its Outlook Express e-mail programs.The flaw, which affects the free e-mail software bundled in Microsoft's Internet Explorer Web browser, could allow attackers to crash the e-mail program or to potentially take over the user's machine."

Posted by jason at 07:57 AM

Olde Fashion Service

Last week I sent an email out to the University of Guelph Archives: > I'm looking for the following item in the archives ""Summary list of > books in L.M. Montgomery's personal library / compiled by Mary > Doody-Jones."" Call number XZ1 MS A094176 in box Box 01A. And I started to beg Rochelle to get it for me, and mail it, and I'd cover costs &c. But LO! I get a wonderful response from one of the folks there saying that they're mailing it to me, no charge!!! It just doesn't feel like the start of the 21st century when you get a wonderful response like that, does it?"

Posted by jason at 07:38 AM

BUL c00l

We had our BUL (Bell University Labs) demo of Project Achieve last night. Kat and Muddy helped out, probably thought they were just sitting there doing nothing, but *looking* involved and engaged is what it is about, and we very appreciated. Various Bell and higher UofT admin d00ds came by to see what we're doing, and were suitably impressed. Then we found the food. Shucked oysters, shrimp and salmon on sticks. Varous things on various breads and pasteries. Wine and such. It just didn't feel like I was in the humanities any more. And the night ended when I found Kat and Mud playing with the 60"" digital whiteboard... playing solitaire and watching quicktime trailers for various movies. Finally, people who understand how to make technology meaningful."

Posted by jason at 07:34 AM

October 08, 2002

Quote of the day

Acutally yesterday. Talking with Roger and he couldn't understand why I love Baudrillard until I told him: ""Baudrillard's French poststructural trailer trash."" And somehow that made it all better."

Posted by jason at 07:53 PM

October 07, 2002

Bell University Laboratories at the University of Toronto Open House

[Note: Kat, Mud and I will be presenting Achieve as part of the openhouse.] Bell University Laboratories at the University of Toronto Open House Thursday October 10, 2002 Bell University Laboratories invites you to an Open House to celebrate the success of the Bell University Laboratories at the University of Toronto and our new home in the Bahen Centre for Information Technology. Please join us for tours of the Bell University Laboratories facilities and demonstrations of research within the Bell University Laboratories research laboratories. Thursday October 10, 2002 3:00 p.m. - 6:00 p.m. Bahen Centre for Information Technology 40 St. George Street Room 7256 RSVP by October 7, 2002 to rsvp.bul@utoronto.ca"

Posted by jason at 06:40 PM

Poetry != spamm

Bev, in my KMD1000 class pointed me to this one in light of Salmon's lecture for us last week: Haiku'da Been a Spam Filter"

Posted by jason at 06:20 AM

October 06, 2002

"Yes, I'm watching you."

"

Posted by jason at 08:19 PM

October 04, 2002

AoIR

I had a good Meeting with LISS and salmon About the 2003 a.(o).i.r Conference to be held in Toronto October 2003. Mostly about funding, keynotes, and budget. But still It is neat to re-learn how to dothis stuff. I have not been Involved In any Conference Since 1995. (excuse the randan caps and stuff. l am still testing the handwriting soft.)"

Posted by jason at 10:12 PM

Slavish Promotion

Catspaw's Guide to the Inevitably Insane has gone over the top. She's split the whole program with her new flash movie. Of course she's getting intertextually self referential, and pandering to the EntertainmentTonight mentality by having guest shots of a bunch of B actors so that they'll slavishly promote her work. Like me!"

Posted by jason at 08:58 AM

October 02, 2002

Redesigning the Zoo

Had a neat meeting with someone from the Toronto Zoo today. Topic: redesigning the Toronto Zoo web site. Don't panic. I'm not going to do it. Just a preliminary discussion with one of the main dudes on what needs to be considered. We discussed Jakob Nielsen, community based designs, blogs, phpWhatevers and slashdottiness, and of course the webcamification of the Zoo. All in the context of building community of course. It was loads of fun, but after 2+ hours of rambling, I'm happy to not have to speak for a bit. The key thing is that I got the important ideas in before anyone starts talking about design, backends and shite like that."

Posted by jason at 01:45 PM

Dr J Revisited

I got my PhD today!!!!!!! Seriously. I may have defended January 2001, and convocated June 2001, but I never actually went to pick up my degree until just now. I found all my old degrees under a bookshelf gathering dust, so I got to thinking about whatever happened to my doctorate... and voila! I found out that the office you get it from is next to my present office. A 5 minute walk, show some ID, and I got a degree. Couldn't have been easier."

Posted by jason at 01:36 PM