A new home now...

If you've checked recently, this domain has been up and down. I am retiring my iMac server that has hosted about 7 domains, and I'm moving most of them to aventurehost.com. Just about done with this one. Have a fresh new version of Moveabletype installed on a nice new MySQL database. Should be fun. And will be less work.

What it is...

Where to begin. Perhaps with spending the afternoon changing the hard drive in my Powerbook. Jeremy said it was easy. And he was right. One of the easiest swaps. I took out my old 10 gig drive which is full, and replaced it with a 60 gig, that I got when I was in Japan (thanks Larry). Slight problem though. And this is why it is worthy of blogging. You see, you should always back up your data before you do things like swapping drives. And of course I did. I backed it up to the drive I was swapping IN, assuming that I'd be able to plug in the new drive and have it running. Nada. You see, internal drives are formatted like good old unix drives partitions everwhere. External drives do not. So, it took me 3 tries, of taking drives out and putting them back in, but I finally backed up my computer to Yukas, swapped the drives, reformatted the drive, and copied the data over.

Server smoked again today too. Edublog.com, jasonnolan.net, yukazine.com, projectachieve.net... Same problem. The computer forgets where the ethernet connection is. So I just have to go up to the office, unplug the ethernet cable, and plug it back in. I'm so so very bored with running my own servers. As well, achieve.utoronto.ca is on its last legs. Tape drive and monitor dead. Powersupply fan grinding something nasaty. Gonna get rid of them both, and just pretend that I don't have any server related experience.

Thanks Bill Gates...

Thanks for the latest virus bill. And all of you who bought microsoft products... you're part of the problem. :)

http://www.noc.utoronto.ca/net-ops/security.htm

lists all the ports blocked at UofT to protect the university from Microsoft.

ProjectAchieve on the MOOve...

For those of you that know and use ProjectAchieve collaborative virtual learning environment (or MOOktiMOO or EdenMOO for that matter), the MOO is on the move. The hardware that has hosted these servers since 1998 is kaput. Tape backup dead. Fan for the powersupply dead. Monitor dead. And it is only a Pentium II 350 anyway. Time to die.

I'm moving everything over to my old iMac DV (G3 450). This is the machine that hosts edublog.com, jasonnolan.net and virtuallearninghandbook.net, and some others. Note that http://projectachieve.net will be the correct address. The other two older addresses http://achieve.kmdi.utoronto.ca and http://achieve.utoronto.ca will work again soon enough, but they're not the ones you should be using anyway.

That's all... oh, except for the twiki. It will probably be down for a bit. or up only as an archive.

Ok, what really happened

Thursday
- Updated the http://edublog.com server to OS X 10.3, in anticipation of moving all the services from the http://projectachieve.net sever over to the iMac. Only one machine to maintain and whatnot. Easy beans. I hope.

Also had lunch with Megan Boler, a new OISE prof and friend of Jeremy's from VT. As a side comment while talking about other things, she mentioned that Donna Haraway was her supervisor. I freaked out quietly.

Friday
- As noted in the KMDI Diary about 30 of us went for a retreat to discuss the past and future of KMDI. It was much more dynamic and interesting than I thought it might be. Luckily KAT! was there. As was Brian Cantwell Smith, the new dean of FIS. He seems like a d00d I'd like to work for.

Saturday
- Started the morning by marking 40 really interesting bookmarks assignments recently done by the ECE folks at Ryerson.
- But Saturday WAS fun. I met my sister Kelly, and her kids Duncan (aka Charley) and Siobhan, for coffee and mess (provided by Duncan). Kelly took Duncan off to the Eaton's Centre, and Siobhan and went west, shopping. For her birthday. Mostly we just walked in and out of stores on our way to the Japanese Paper Place. Which she wanted to see. I got a nice fountain pen. We did a turn through Garrison Creek park, then back along queen. I 'forced' Siobhan to buy some CDs she wanted, the sound track to Brazil, a NIN CD, and something else I know not what.

- And before dinner, Yuka and I went to the video store so she could pester Normy the big orange cat.

Today
- Yuka and I are going to see Tequila Vampire Matinee at the Theatre Passe Muraille with Elizabeth Miller... of course we're going to the Sunday Matinee. Until then, I'm going to my office to fix the FTPd so that yuka can update her journal.

Zooo

I was out at the Toronto Zoo today for the quarterly meeting of the Educational Advisory Committee... The big topic for me was the Pandas, but we were really there to talk about the Educational plan for the Zoo. I stayed on topic, mostly. There were some interesting discussions on Wifi which really perked me up.

Joel, who is also my drive, had to stay for another meeting, so I spent some time visiting the Children's Zoo, which is under construction. Made it about 50m inside before I was forced to go and get a hardhat. I took lots of pictures, some of which I'll get up soon. It is really going to be great... for those with kids.

Barry on NPR tonight.

In a late breaking development, I am doing to spend much of an hour being
interviewed tonight on US National Public Radio (NPR). The show is called
On Point. My time slot is 8-9PM EST, but the show may be shifted by your
local station to another time slot.

The starting point for the discussion is the new US legislation that
permits a person to have the same cellphone and wired phone number. In
essence, there is seamless communication (we hope), whichever phone is
being used. I am going to talk about the social implications of this --
including my favorite concepts of "networked individualism", groups =>
networks, and "glocalization". And of course flog our _The Internet in
Everyday Life_ book. The show is usually broadcast live, so it will be
especially interesting to avoid flubs, etc.

If you can't get NPR live, you can still listen if you want. Try either
of: www.onpointradio.org or www.bur.org and look for the Listen Live
link. On the first site, you may have to hit the Quick Links menu.

If you do have a chance to listen, I'd appreciate some feedback.
Barry

Today...

something happened today. it happened a lot. but I was far to busy to notice, and then it was time to take a bath and go to bed. a lot happened today. but no one is quite sure what. just let's all hope that that much doesn't happen again soon.

A quiet manic day...

Spent the day putting the finishing touches on a major project proposal that has to get sent off by courier before 7:30 pm tomorrow to the other ends of the globe. The nice thing is that it required a lot of walking around town today, in the nice weather and all that. After tomorrow, I seek a return to normalcy. You?

Off to RCAT to speak on blogs and scholarly communities

I'm giving my talk on Blogging and the The Significance of 'Communities of Scholars' in the Academic Environment at RCAT in 30 minutes. Hope some of you can come by. Here are my notes: Community of Scholars if you can't.

What's the Wallah Word

Alan send word that his partner Yuko's displaying some of her artwork at the International art event "Design Festa" & Harajuku's artists stomping ground Design Festa Gallery (very multilingual web site) in the ever fashionable artificial islands district of Tokyo. If you're in the neighbourhood, check it out. I wish I had some pictures of her stuff to show online. I'm sure it would be particularly interesting. Alan?

Two new web sites...

http://kmdi.utoronto.ca has been revised
and
http://osconf.kmdi.utoronto.ca is a great new site for our upcoming Open Source conference.

The Royal...

Yuka and I were at the Royal Winter Fair yesterday. You can see why.

Gaiman responds... from SlashDot

Gaiman Responds to questions asked of him via SlashDot. I just saw the BBC video version of Neverwhere recently. I like it.

24 hours without jasonnolan.net

The Internet lost its heart and soul yesterday when http://jasonnolan.net fell off the face of the earth.

I knew it was going, but was otherwise occupied, and I didn't think that a day without it would cause much trouble. I'd just not taken the 5 minutes required to go online and pay for the domain name for another year. What I forgot was that my email would immediately fail at 12:01 am November 1. Silly me. As soon as I realized this, around 11am, I paid up and had to wait for the next 12 hours until the internet knew it was back. And here we are.

Enriched Bread Artists 11th Annual Open Studio

Enriched Bread Artists 11th Annual Open Studio

Opening:
Thursday, October 23, 6-9 p.m.

Continues:
Fridays: October 24 and 31, 6-9 p.m.
Saturdays: October 25 and November 01, 11 a.m. -5 p.m.
Sundays: October 26 and November 02, 11 a.m.-5 p.m.

Kenneth's Artist Talk/Performance:
Saturday, November 1 at 1 pm

951 Gladstone Ave (west of Preston)
Ottawa, Ontario

Info: 613-729-7632
Web: www.artengine.ca

Admission is free. Housed in the former Standard Bread Factory building, the Enriched Bread Artists Studio is one of the most dynamic spaces on Ottawa's contemporary visual art scene. Since 1992 this group of 20 artists has opened its doors inviting the public to tour the studio and gallery spaces at 951 Gladstone Avenue.

As part of the open studio, Kenneth will present a combination of an artist talk and performance focusing on his work in progress exploring the intersection of sculpture and dance.

This will take place on November 1 at 1 pm

Kenneth gratefully acknowledges the support of the Canada Council for the Arts which last year invested $1.7 million in interdisciplinary work and performance art throughout Canada

Gala Dinner

I actually went to my first conference Gala dinner... and enjoyed it. I know it was the general crowd, and my table in particular. Though it was extremely loud for someone as hard of hearing as I am, most of the shouts got through.

When I got in there was only one table left that wasn't full. Just two folks quietly chatting until we joined. It was Gary Natriello and Brian (forgot to get his full name) of TCRecord at Columbia. I'd never met them, but I quickly realized that this was GARY from TC Record. Joel Weiss is getting a big honking article on the history of the school year published with them, and Gary's doing something for our handbook.

We just had room to fit in keynote speaker and collective intelligence d00d Pierre Levy, Daria (forgot to get her full name), and Barbara Reinhalter, who also works at TCRecord.

Oh, we are Katie and Brandon Barr.

After dinner, and some all so fun and short speeches, we all headded off. "We" ran in to Bernie and Tracy Kennedy netwoman and were invited up to a party in room ****.

Katie, Brandon and I took off on a strange combination of above and belowground walking paths, through the rain, to get to the LCBO at Yonge and Dundas, not only to find that it was closed, but that it was 10pm. So, undaunted we hopped into a cab up to the Summerhill LCBO, which is about the size of a football field. Stocked up with stuff, andheadded back down to room ****, for a bit of a party. At this point, I'll mention no names... or what happened, or where brandon got those 6 glasses. But **** happened until we were all politely turfed out of the room... and I turned away from a group working their way along Queen Street at McCaul, and know not where they went.

Blogs and the Za

Bernie and KAT!are coming over at 3 to discuss how we'll organize blogging at the AOIR Toronto conference next month... then Za with JuliaD and Alan.

Kensington Harvest Festival

Yuka and I went down to the Kensington Harvest Festival today. I've been shopping in Kensington for around 20 years, with longish breaks, it has only been in the past couple of years that we've gotten back into it, probably because I don't have time to go down to St Lawrence market on saturdays, and that I used to meet Salmon there before she fell off the face of the earth, with her return to the classroom.

Anyway, we met Vlad and Masako, spontaneously, and it was one of those ideal autumn days.

Panda's in Toronto!

Toronto Sun: NEWS - Pandas set to pack for T.O.

"It's going to be panda-monium in Toronto! So says the top banana on the Toronto Zoo Board who successfully led a three-member delegation to Beijing last week in a bid to bring Mel Mel the panda and his one-year-old sister to the city zoo."

As you know, gentle reader, I'm on the educational advisory committee of the Toronto Zoo. I've been waiting to announce this, but was sworn to secrecy. But now the word is out. Panda's in Toronto!

This is the weekEND... my only friend, the END...

Something was going to happen this weekend. Something apocalyptic. Something now. I didn't plan for anything. Just assumed that it would happen of its own accord. But nothing came my way. So I rearranged the furniture.

something bloggy this way comes

But the question is what? Yuka said that I was supposed to add something, but my mind is a big of a morning fog... Ah, got the word from Yuka.

Two nights ago, at around 2am, I was up mindlessly looking at the TV or computer. Allergies had done their work and prevented me from sleeping. And the phone rings, getting my attention. But it is not the normal ring, rather the ring that means someone is dialing up from downstairs and wants to be let into the apartment. Some nefarious character no doubt. So I ignore it, and it stops.

I go out to the balcony to see who may be there, and there are two ambulances 3-4 police cars and a couple of fire trucks. Strange! Especially because there was no blaring alarms, as would usually announce their presence. Stealth safety workers. And in the middle of the group down there, I see Joshua, the be-dreaded art person from the ground floor who likes my ugly building cam (on the right).

So I shuffle down to see him, somewhat worried that something bad has happened. It turns out that the police are ringing all the apartments in the hopes that someone will let them in, in response to a phone call that a body was seen hanging from a rope inside an apartment. Joshua tells me that there are even a fire captain and police supervisor here... expecting heavy stuff, it seems.

Joshua and I chat for about 15 minutes, he's explaining some circuitry he's designing for graphics, and the difference between parallel and concave geometry in relation to it. I pretty much missed the point. And while doing this, he's directing the odd cop car and fire truck wandering by for a bit of late night rubbernecking.

Finally the paramedics come out, wheeling their gurneys. With no body on board. The verdict? A large doll hung from a rope. A bit of a gruesome living room decoration. Or more likely, for this neighborhood, an art project or movie prop in preparation or discarded after a production.

Joshua wonders about how much money was wasted on this night's adventures. And I wonder if the poor folks who were just pulled out of sleep by all these public safety personnel walking in on their dreams, because of a bit of fun they left hanging around, will ever get back to sleep tonight. I know I will. This kinds of excitement makes me sleepy.

Working along quietly

Rhonna and I are working on a chapter about MOOs for a forthcoming publication. Can't remember the book title at the moment, but be sure that you'll hear about it. So, I'm at home, quietly working away, and slightly suffering from allergies. Not too too bad this year. Hope you're all working hard.

No power? No worries... or few

Yes, I lost power, along with the rest of you, but it was an interesting evening, worth sharing.

Servers...
http://projectachieve.net is on a nice smart server; an old linux dell. Though I didn't have it set up to restart the three moos (Achieve, eden(telnet), MOOkti). So I had to come in and turn them back on manually. Nothing lost though. The server did restart itself, AND still backed up the server at its appointed time (around 4am) successfully.

http://edublog.com didn't fare quite as well... it hosts this blog, Yukazine.com, http://roomofbensown.net, http://lmmontgomery.net, and probably something else. I had to come in and manually restart it.

As for the rest of the night... everything you heard about "Toronto the Polite" was true. We didn't have any impromtu traffic wardens at Dundas and McCaul (Where the Art Gallery of Ontario is located.) but we didn't need them. Everyone just moved through the intersection a few cars at a time, giving space to the other cars and pedestrians. The only place that was lit up was Steve Mann's Deconism gallery. He was open for the event I blogged about earlier this week. He had his own power, and had put a neon "OPEN" sign on the street, and a 12" TV showing the news. But I'll blog on that event as soon as I get a chance to arrange my notes from last night.

Yuka and I immediately filled up all my wine making containers with about 100 liters of drinking water, enough to share with neighbours, in case the water dried up. Yuka had heard on the radio that many condos lost their water power immediately. And I was worried that many of the old folks in our building, most who don't speak English, might have not thought to store water.

Then we both had a wonderful BBQ on the balcony, and quaffed the slowly warming Guinness in the fridge by candle light. I'd been putting off buying one of those hand crank radios (Freeplay S360), and now I wish I had one. And no doubt they'll be sold out for a while.

And then I was off to Steve's to watch Three Men in a Tub.

Summer Jobs

Missed the opportunity for a nice summer job, by one day, with Adult Ed @ OISE. Hmmmm.... going to be a quiet summer, which may in itself be good.

A world crammed into a few daze.

I just have to blog. Just to make sure that i'm still here and haven't gotten caught in a tapeloop of some sort. On Tuesday was the last day of the Project Achieve and Triangle month long virtual reality workshop on gender and identity for queer youth. It was co-sponsored by the KMDI and OISE/UT.

It was wonderful. The kids were wonderful. Patty and Jim, their teachers were wonderful. The guys at the OISE Education Commons were wonderful. When their virtual sites are done, I'll post a link, but anyone can visit Project Achieve any time they want and look around.

Now I have just rush rush time. Finishing marking 12 grad papers. Preparing for the Nexus Conference, finishing a book chapter for Jim Hewitt, and getting ourselves ready for Romania et al. on Monday. Fun? Wow! I'm just going to be happy to be out of town and relaxing for a moment.

So, that's where I am. You?

Barry Wellman's Sars Report (UPDATED)

[Barry said that I could post this. If you don't know Barry Wellman, for shame. Barry's the ranking d00d on Internet sociology, publisher of the major studies, editor of the major works (like Internet in Everyday Life), consultant to the sultans, yada yada. And an all around learning experience all packed into a single office at the corner of Spadina and College streets. He originally wrote this for the AoIR exec, because we're holding the AoIR conference here in the fall. Thought you might like a sober view of the situation.]

The SARS Situation in Toronto [Updated and Edited]

Barry Wellman, Tuesday, April 29, 2003

PREFACE

In the past few days, Bev Wellman and I have dined out in some lovely
restaurants, walked the streets in a nice spring day, and went shopping in
some normally crowded areas. In short: life as usual. We would not know
that there is a SARS epidemic in Toronto except if

(a) we tune in to the news media,
(b) didn't get concerned messages from friends, or
(c) passed by hospitals whose employees are masked.

(a) and (b) are instances of poor news reporting -- what is often called a
"media panic" -- although (c) is a real, but marginal concern.

In the beginning, we too were concerned. Now, as the facts and experience
accumulate, we are confident that SARS is both limited and contained.
Right now, I take SARS seriously but as a watching brief, not as a panic
or action item.

I am more concerned about the concerns of my friends and colleagues
elsewhere than about getting SARS myself. They've listened to CNN and
heard about the World Health Organization advisory, and they have
questions. (I address the now-rescinded WHO advisory at the end.)

To address the concerns of friends and colleagues, I've put together what
is known about SARS in Toronto, based on my observations, responsible
reporting (the Toronto Globe and Mail is the best
[http://www.globeandmail.com/]), and discussions with a friend at the
(quite professional) City of Toronto Department of Health. I think I got
things right, but of course, our information is developing (right now, for
the better). I take responsibility for what I say, but do want to
acknowledge the advice of Helena Fil, Emmanuel Koku, Monica Prijatelj, and
Beverly Wellman.

THE DISEASE

SARS stands for Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome. The U.S. Center for
Disease Control calls it an "atypical pneumonia". It's a disease of the
breathing system, and not of the nose, stomach, etc. When coupled with
fever (38C; 100.4F), the key indicators are dry coughing and shortness of
breath. Sneezing, stomach aches, etc. are more symptomatic of routine
colds or allergies.

SARS is probably a coronavirus, similar to a cold virus, although
obviously more serious. There has been some debate about this, as not all
cases seem to have the coronavirus.

It starts in the upper respiratory tract and then migrates to the lungs.

SARS may weaken in its impact as it passes through a population. This is
what Hong Kong experts report, and what Toronto may be experiencing. Thus
the first-hit in Toronto were hit hard, and died. Moreover, these two
initial cases each infected about 30 others. In social network analysis
terms, they were "hubs".

Only a small minority of cases are fatal. For a while, it looked like 4%.
I am sad to say, it is a bit higher in Toronto, about 8%. I caution that
these numbers are changing daily and subject to definitional issues as to
what cases are SARS or other forms of influenza, pneumonia, etc.

I believe that the majority of those who have died are health care
workers, from physicians to room cleaners, or their family members.

Given their risk, long hours and difficult working conditions (masked,
gowned and goggled), health care workers in Toronto are heroes.

Although I grieve for the people who died (and am distressed that good
protective and quarantining measures were not used early enough), I want
to emphasize that for the great majority of people who actually have SARS,
they experience an unpleasant pneumonia, get better, and recover fully.

The majority of the Toronto cases who have had SARS have been discharged
from the hospital and gone home as cured.

TRANSMISSION

Transmission apparently needs intimate contact. My reading of the
incidence accounts suggests that this means that two persons have to
breathe together in close contact. In practice, family members have given
SARS to each other, patients have given it to health care workers and to
other patients, and members of a closely-knit religious sect have passed
it around (one of them was a health care worker). You don't get SARS from
walking the streets, shopping or eating in restaurants. However, I have
stopped riding one densely packed streetcar (tram) line for a while. Now
that the scare is subsiding, I may resume soon. Fortunately, it is nice
weather for walking and bicycling.

SARS is spread through droplets from coughing. It is not a fine aerosol,
and it is not "in the air". It is direct transmission only.

It does last for 24 hours on handles, banisters, etc., but reportedly is
not actively infectious in that state. Nevertheless, we try to use gloves
and paper towels in public places, and we wash our hands a lot.

It seems that you have to be visibly ill to transmit it. Although SARS can
have a prolonged incubation period of up to ten days, the only
transmissions have happened when someone who already was coughing, etc.
transmitted it. This means that potential cases (and transmissions) are
easily identifiable. There are no "sleepers" wandering around who are
spreading SARS inadvertently.

All Toronto cases are traceable to the original woman who came back from
Hong Kong with it. She gave it to family members; she and they gave it to
health care workers and fellow patients, who passed it on in some cases.
Mistakes were made at the beginning: not enough isolation of those already
sick; not enough quarantining of those potentially infected. These
mistakes are not being made now.

These transmission details are important because they mean that SARS has
not gotten out to the general public. There is no SARS "in the community"
(to use the term of quite reliable Dr. Sheela Basrur, Toronto's Medical
Officer of Health). No new ones are springing up from unknown sources.
Anyone who might have been infected from the traceable cases is now under
strict quarantine.

NUMBERS

The cumulative number of "probable and suspected cases" is 265 on Friday,
April 25 2003. Of course, this number almost has to be increasing because
it is cumulative. However, it did go down by 10 between Thursday and
Friday because some cases were found not to be SARS, but other forms of
pneumonia, etc.

It is important to note that the actual number of cases is undoubtedly
lower than 265 because the medical authorities are quite properly being
overly cautious in defining all suspected cases as SARS. On Friday, April
25, there were 107 active cases in the greater Toronto area.

Indeed, the number of active cases is now decreasing, as quarantining has
worked and the spread has stopped.

The rate of new active cases of SARS is zero, or close to it.

I understand that more than half of those hospitalized have been
discharged.

A few more deaths are anticipated than the current number of 20 (as of
Sunday, April 27). The total might hit 25. These are people who already
are known, critically-ill cases. They are not new cases.

As in many medical situations, all but one of those who have died are
frail, elderly, or have had serious pre-existing medical conditions. The
others got sick, and then got better.

The greater Toronto area has a population of about 5 million.
265/5Million = 0.0053% of the population
107/5Million = 0.0021% of the population
25/5 Million = 0.0005% of the population.
This is Not the Black Death or the Plague, despite the alarmist reporting
of CNN, etc.

Think of it this way:
About 3 people per Week have been dying from SARS in Toronto.
Another one person per Week is murdered in Toronto.
Contrast this with a large American city, such as New York, Los Angeles or
Chicago, where at least 3 people per Day are murdered. As of yet, these
have not had SARS deaths. Do the math:
In Toronto, the death rate from SARS and murder are 4/Week
In Chicago, the death rate from SARS and murder are 21/Week, more
than Five times greater.
Yet people travel to these American cities all of the time, even though
their lives are at greater risk.

Moreover, SARS is not randomly distributed in the Toronto population. It
originally was confined to people (and their families) who had been in
Hong Kong. As they lived in one suburb (Scarborough), they went to
hospitals there, and that's where patients and health care workers got the
disease.

This means that SARS is generated through social networks and not through
random contact among strangers.

We do not know about any cases in the centre of Toronto -- where we live
and work, and where all the tourist and convention activities are. Yet,
this is the most crowded area of the city.

No one we know has SARS. Nor have we hard of anyone who knows someone who
has SARS. This is very epidemiologically clustered.

QUARANTINING

The best form of prevention has been quarantining. As a precaution, entire
schools, offices have been told to stay home because one person is
suspected of having contact. We are taking this seriously, and our
municipal health departments are reporting straight news. (Fortunately,
the health departments, and not the politicians, have been in charge.)

As of Friday, April 25, there were 663 people quarantined in the province
of Ontario, almost all in the greater Toronto area.

There have been even larger numbers quarantined in the past few weeks, for
example an entire elementary school and an entire high school. However,
when no one at these places got SARS during the potential incubation
period, the quarantine was lifted. Thus the number of people quarantined
is much larger than the number of people who will get SARS.

Quarantining is hard, because there is a symptom-free incubation period of
up to 10 days. Hence, people wonder why they are being told to stay home.

As Canadians are more collectively minded and less individualistic than
Americans, quarantining has been largely effective. (Where the Preamble to
the American Constitution has "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness"
as the national goals, the Canadian constitutional equivalent is "peace,
order and good government.")

Because quarantining cuts off livelihood of some people, compliance is
difficult, especially for people at the economic margins. Even a few
normally obedient Torontonians have broken quarantine, gone to work or
school. The province has just announced financial aid for the quarantined
needy; this should alleviate the temptation to sneak out to earn some
money.

Quarantining is principally enforced by making random phone calls to
people's homes.

A few Torontonians have been charged with violating quarantine and are
under more coercive control.

Toronto may -- and I think should -- go to "house arrest" bracelets.
Singapore has put webcams in quarantined homes and may use bracelets.

I go about my life as normal, except for more frequent hand washing and
using a paper towel to grab handles in washrooms.

Outside of the hospitals, I see only one person a day wearing a mask (out
of the 1,000 or more I encounter on the street, on public transit, at
work, and in restaurants).

Hospitals are a different story. All workers in them are masked and
gowned, with those in SARS areas being doubly protected.

Contact between the hospitals and the outside world is minimized. Routine
visits to doctors, non-emergency surgery, and visiting hospitalized
friends have all been severely curtailed. My medical researcher friends
now have their meetings in Starbucks.

Indeed, for the general public, the most serious current impact is that it
is harder to get medical treatment for anything else, because of these
preventative measures and because the system is concentrating on SARS. For
example, transplant operations have been postponed, and I have a routine
medical checkup postponed because my doctor's office is in a hospital.
This is more of a concern for residents than for visitors. However, with
the improving situation, hospital access should go back to normal soon.

THE OUTSIDE WORLD

The World Health Organization travel advisory of April 22 understandably
caused widespread concern. Paradoxically, it came just as the situation in
Toronto was coming under control. Having just heard (April 27) WHO head
Gro Brundtland interviewed, I understand where the WHO came from.
They are mandated to be concerned about epidemiological spread. They are
not really worried about people from developing countries, but are
concerned about a spread from Toronto to developing countries that do not
have good treatment and quarantine facilities. (Toronto, as a highly
multicultural city, has many links with many countries.)

However, the spread of disease is a worldwide concern about all illnesses,
and I think Toronto was unfairly singled out. Some WHO statements suggest
that they may have acted on out-of-date information, but I understand why
they were overly cautious to contain the spread of SARS. The WHO's
advisory was originally announced for 3 weeks. The good news is that it
was cancelled much sooner (April 29) as Toronto's evidence of containing
SARS was digested.

The U.S. Center for Disease Control is not nearly as alarmed (see
http://www.cdc.gov/travel/other/sars_can.htm). My analysis and the CDC's
are quite similar. (I developed mine independently.) On April 23, after
the WHO alert, they pointed out that there are no cases in the general
population, and that people should avoid hospitals or contact with
quarantined individuals. "SARS transmission in Toronto has been limited to
a small number of hospitals, households, and specific community settings."
CDC also recommends washing your hands frequently, which is just plain
good advice. Most importantly, CDC DOES NOT recommend avoiding Toronto or
that travellers from Toronto be shunned.

And then there is CNN cable news network. They spread the alarm on April
24, just as things were getting under control in Toronto. They don't
report news in perspective; they report events. They have pocket
calculators, Google and brains. They just don't appear to have ever used
them.

Many friends have asked me about our mayor, Mel Lastman, who embarrassed
us during a CNN interview on April 24. Mel has been embarrassing before.
He formerly headed a chain of discount appliance stores. He is retiring
soon, has a chronic illness, has been spending most of his time in
Florida, and has been on the job too long. Fortunately, he doesn't have
anything to do with dealing with SARS.

To sum up, SARS is real. Yet, it is contained. Residents and visitors are
extremely unlikely to get it. If they do, almost all will recover fully.
There are many other, more likely ways to die in big cities around the
world. I do have continuing concerns that SARS may continue to travel from
developing countries, but that is a problem that all cities would have to
worry about. New York, L.A. and London are as likely to be hit as Toronto.
Thanks to the Toronto experience (and expertise from other countries such
as Singapore), we all have a better understanding about how to deal with
it quickly, firmly and competently.

Hmmm...

I've been marking papers. And the less said about that the better. But all is not dross. Luckily. I've been repairing a couple if iBooks, trying to get two working computers out of three non-working ones. Two of them belonged to my little sisters, Cats and Emily. Cats' is a total mess, keyboard broken, case cracked and apparent salt water damage. Emily's just had a broken keyboard and damaged battery. The third, I broke. Spilling wine onto it a couple of years ago and frying the mother board. It was up for sale cheap then, so it wasn't that much of a loss.

The best working computer is going as a gift to a teenager in a single parent family who can't afford a computer. Don't know who, friends of my dad's. Putting as much spit and polish into that one as I can, because there's no use getting something second hand that falls apart too quickly. Putting in a brand new battery, and all the ram, so that it will have a fighting chance. I was going to put in a larger harddrive, but I've taken iBooks apart before, and they're about the harddest things to take apart, and only slightly harder to put back in one piece. I think there are 33 screws required to get to the harddrive. Better if I don't.

The other computer is going into my resurrected mini audio studio, along with all my other derelect audio odds and ends. Poor yuka's ears.

Red Whine

Last week, Yuka and I got all the way out to the far end of queen street last week, and came home with 22 liters of grape juice. Well, Friday we dumped it in a bucket, with some yeast. And after two days fermentation is making wonderful smells in the kitchen.

I'll keep you posted. This is the first time making wine with unconcentrated juice. It is twice the price, costing about $4 a liter, so it will be good to know if it is worth it.

Just outside the window...

We've been waking up to strange views out the window... and this one was worth sharing:

They're building the ugliest building on the planet across the road, as part of the OCAD's program of making fools of themselves. Here's the hole.

If you want to see the final product, here it is. I'll be gone by the time that monstrosity comes to fruition.

Travel Wrap-up

Here's a brief overview of recent travels, with a focus on the florida conference that I posted to The Harrow's dicussion list. Thought it might wrap things up neatly.

February found me in northern japan working at Future University, and coming home with lots of nice tech toys. Early march I drove to Austin for SXSWi, a big web and interactive conference, got to trash the notion that blogging and for more than an elite group of the privileged. This was great, cause all the A-list bloggers and blog designers were in the audience. But that's of scant interest to you all.

Last week I was in florida (palm island) to write a paper on 12th C Latin Vampires, and then present it at IAFA in ft lauderdale. My knowledge of all the cool people in sifi and fantasy is limited, but the first person I met was Brian Aldiss. Just by luck, as he was just standing at the bar. Got to talk about philip pullman and living in south east asia. He pointed out all the regulars I should know. I only recognized the name Peter Straub, not being much of a horror person (sush! don't tell dru), I'd not read any of his books. I was there for the vampires.

I did run into my parenial fav Joe Haldeman, and got him to autograph my 10th copy of The Forever Wars. 10th because I always give my copies away. Not this time. I commented that I thought it was a particularly interesting read in light of the attacks that had just started. He cringed and muttered something about not wanting to profit from this war. If you don't know Joe, he teaches Sifi and writing at MIT.

Also got to chat with David Skal (Hollywood Gothic) a half dozen times. He has done great vampire work, and knows as much as anyone. though he says he's mined the field out.

I spent the most time, dumb luck on my part with Chelsea Quinn Yarboro, after I'd been warned to only call her quinn. She is best buddies with Elizabeth Miller, who had dragged me to the conference in the first place, and made sure that I wasn't sitting alone in the corner tooo much. Never read any of her St Germaine series, but i did read one of her earlier books, which she also thought fondly of. Couldn't remember the title, but she did. :)

The reason for mentioning her, was her willingness to discuss the struggles of someone who's been published for the past 30 years, and has made a living out of it. Mostly, she says, because she and her sister inherited the family home in berkely, and the fact that she can pound out 3 novels a year (I don't think she's really done 90 novels though). The impossibility of dealing with insane publishers who don't understand books, the future of epublishing (which she likes) and other things.

If you can guess, everyone at the conference was also a presenter, so you didn't feel that the authors didn't feel hounded by fans, but just chatting with other marginally employed people in similar fields. Everyone should consider attending at some point in their writing careers... what you can learn just at the poolside bar is worth the price of admission.

There as a film crew over to shoot a documentary for the DVD version of the upcoming movie "Van Helsing". They interviewed all the folks who will not be coming with us to Hungary and Romania in May. There are two more vampire conferences there, and the crew's coming along with us. They couldn't care about me, but Elizabeth's the ranking Dracula Scholar d00d.

Anyone who wants a bit of dirt from Dracula's 'real' castle, let me know.

Oh my god!

Just had to share. I'm sitting here with Salmon's crew in front of a pile of polite and attentive people who are listening to us talk... see previous post to see what we're talking about. Since there is always a geek tradition of blogging while sitting listening to presenters. So I just figured that I'd see if I had the gutz to do it too. But I'm too nervious to actually think of anything to say. Except that to say that it is so great to have the opportunity to share our thoughts in the SXSW forum.

Massages for the Masses

I have fixed the cam software on my computer, mostly due to patience on my part and the most recent OS X system upgrade, but I had to do some hacking about, so there is some sense that I participated in the fixedness. I'll have the cam going as much as I can down in Texas, and will probably have it going on the road in archive mode, to see if anything interesting happens in front of the car. Like in the TV cop shows.

As well, and bloggers take note, I have paid for a premium account with blogrolling.com. All the stuff down the right hand side of this page used to be coded by hand. Then I got 2 blogrolls to manage my Fav Blogs and Linken. By paying $15, I get 10 blogrolls, and help Jason (another jason) provide the free part of the service. It is a great tool. If you are a chronic and want to handroll all your links, fine, but for the rest of us who hope to have social lives, blogroll is it.

And now a massage from the Swedish Prime Minister.

Still no coffee but buttons work...

It is true... the links above to courses, papers and projects are now more than dead hotlinks. They're live, new and improved, hotlinks, with shiny content behind it... though the font's probably too small.

Shaping up and shipping out...

It is a strange time of year... stranger than you might think. I've had one job interview already, and have at least one more before I head out to Japan. I think I've mentioned it 200,000 times this fall, but I'm going over to spend a month working with Larry Davies at the Future University in Hakodate, Japan. Going over for the month of February. What I wasn't expecting was that February is job interview month. What has been very nice is how accommodating people have been in trying to schedule interviews such that I don't have to fly back from Japan for one.

The world is full of sweetness and light today. Good time to send out some more job applications... Guelph and Ryerson, here it comes!

Conceptualizing makes you hungry.

Sure, some of you are shoveling sidewalks. But I have other things to shovel. I've spent every waking moment for the last week planning for a presentation that I have this week. And I'm just about all conceptualized out. Unfortunately, I have meetings packed in all day monday and tuesday as well. I just can't wait until Wednesday afternoon, when it will be too late, and I can take a nice trip over to Ryerson with David Mitchell from UCalgary to talk tech with folks there for the upcoming AoIR 2003 conference. Oh, did I say that I have 5-6 job applications that I should send out, and 3 abstracts for the VLE handbook?

Well, I'm done for the day. All typed out. Gonna have sausages and the healthfood version of kraft dinner. And wash it all down with some cranberry wine from Bala.

Repair day!

Just a warning that the blogs on jasonnolan.net and edublog.com may be off line a bit today. Trying to fix up some of the problems that they've been having lately. Hope it won't inconvenience anyone much.

If I only knew.

How come no one told me that many of the media pages on the right have bad links? Well, I'll fix them now...

Things I do today...

Uploaded a wack of powerpoint slides, and pdf documents to the KMD1000 web site. Still have to link some of them. But it is nice to FINALLY get lecture notes to put up for half of the course. I got mine done, in so far as I was able, and now have most of the outstanding stuff.

Then went shopping for holiday presents. Just back for coffee and going out to get more. Presents. Then off to Le SÈlect Bistro for dinner with the girls tonight. Feels like a holiday already if you ask me.

Let's not talk about all the work I have to do tomorrow. Ugh.

cleaning day

Spending the day cleaning. After getting a pile of job applications out this week, and getting the KMDI1000 students' assignments back, I need to get the homelife in order... in time for yuka to come home. Got pizza dough defrosting even. Gonna go and get a movie in a bit. But cleaning first. Time to go and clean the tiles in the bathroom... heavy duty. Got that done. Then wash the humifier and get it ready for the season. Done. Cleaned out the vacuum cleaner, washed the 2 filters, and got 'em drying. Did some industrial plant watering and fertilizing. Then went through my wine making equiptment, cleaning up stuff, and throwing out the old stuff that was getting ratty. I'll have to buy more tubing mostly. That was the easy stuff. The hard stuff was cleaning the balcony, which I've left lay fallow for months. Had to cut down the old hops vines, and bring the heather plant inside. Also the two big hopvine roots need to be removed from the soil, and wrapped up and put in the freezer to keep them dormant until spring. THEN cleaned up the rest of the balcony so that it looks less like a rubbish tip.

Now what? hmmmm.... clean the kitchen.

I've got the web cam on, and it is set on 'motion sensor' so all you can see is blurrs of me walking by... but it proves I'm moving still...

The Bloofer Lady!

Just in from Elizabeth "The bloofer lady" Miller. If you don't know her, check out her home page: Dracula's Homepage - Fact and fiction.

"A reminder that on Tuesday night Nov 26 on the Learning Channel, watch "Vampires Among Us". Hmmmm... One of those featured on the program is the Vampire Bloofer... :) Program is at 10pm Eastern. Hope they don't butcher my interview..."

News of the Day

Would Jesus buy an SUV?. That is the question of the day on CNN. CNN also asks "Does religion have any place in your purchases?"

Silly d00ds.

Hanging out with Wojar

Had fun today helping Roger rebuild his OS. Got him up to 10.2 the same day that 10.2.2 came out. But I'll try that on my computer first, before doing it to anyone else. I feel soooo rusty when it comes to using OS9.x now. I forget where everything is, and I feel like a bit of an idiot searching for extensions that I used to know by heart. I figured this out as I was up at the Carley's, getting James to write me a letter of recommendation for my York job application, and helping Ann back up her computer to James'. Eeek. Appletalk, Apple Share, Chooser!?!? Ghosts from the past returned to haunt me. Luckily it was a comedy of errors rather than an Jason XXIV horror movie.

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.

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

Yes, I'm watching you.

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.)

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!

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.

Ah... truth and the fictions of science.

From the "It's just one bad apple that spoils it for the others, or is it?" department

Panel Says Bell Labs Scientist Faked Discoveries (free login required)

The case also raises questions about the core of the scientific process, in which scientists critique each other's work for errors but rely on trust that the data is honest. If the panel is correct, Dr. Sch%uFF9An pursued his fabrications in one of the hottest areas of research, working with a revolving cast of co-researchers, and managed to continue the charade for several years.

TORONTO POET WINS TOP PRIZE

"Maureen Scott Harris of Toronto has won the 2002 "Poem of the Year" contest, it was announced today in Ottawa. The prize, sponsored by Arc, Canada's National Poetry Magazine, carries a cash award of $1,000. Harris's poem, "Be the River," won over approximately 1300 entries. Her first book of poems, A Possible Landscape, was published by Brick Books in 1993."

Maureen is a dear friend who helped me teach ENV321 for a number of years. Congratulations Marueen!!!

Where's Jason

Twice in one week I have been stalked. Catspaw and Jon Pipitone both showed up at my office. They didn't know where it was. They didn't know what building it was in, but they were smart... both bloody CompSci and CogSci program types. Figures. They searched my blog and found the address posted long ago.

So, to stop this from happening, and to help all of you who are not as methodically wierd, I put the contact information at the bottom of this page.

You may now return to your regular morning reading and coffee drinking.

Surreal really!

Went to the AGO with Yuka, Salmon and BillyBear to see AndrÈ Masson Inside/Outside Surrealism. I was less impressed with the bits I knew than the ones I didn't. And the automatic writing, and nightmare images did more for me that squirrl beer glasses. Like salmon, we were all caught up by some 15th to 17th century surreal images. I can't wait until she finds out more about them.

Just checking

Into the final leg of the journey. First time I've been online since in more than a week. Wow. It sure is nice to be far away.

Hanging with the Horsey set

Went to watch my sister Emily in her first equestrian event of the year. For the 9 and under group. She got a first and a second, and was tied for whatever you call the top position in her age group. Lost by a coin toss. Her buddy Danny, who is 2 years older got 2 firsts and a fourth and won the top position in hers.

And yuka got to see a 2 month old foal of a miniture horse.

A good time was had by all... though it took us 70km to get to an event 20km away, cause I was following a ship of fools who didn't know where they were going.

Oh, and...

I finished teaching my summer course, which is cool. AND, that last day I got a package with 2 books in it. Two copies of "Building Virtual Communities: Learning and Change in Cyberspace" with a copy of my article "Learning Cyberspace: An Educational View of Virtual Community" published by Cambridge UP. The coolest bit is that the cover includes two of my web pages with Yuka's cartoons right there! yay yuka....

Fishy fishy

Salmon came over for dinner tonight. I gave her a pair of infinity speakers. And they're still here. Next to the coffee grinder I gave her last month. This is getting interesting. What I'm working towards is to get her to BRING stuff here and leave it. I think we're getting that to happen.

She showed up with 6 beers, and there are still 3 left. And she gave me some of the coolest neatest most wonderful shit that has ever passed my doorway. Get this. A copy of Pollen. Yes, I have a copy of Pollen. Had it for many years. But this is a autographed copy!!!!!!!!!!!!!! As if that wasn't enough to catapult her beyond godhead... a 12 piece Alice puzzle in a match box. And 3 post cards Boda/Charry and Dodo! And a poem on sneezing printed on a tissue, that I don't understand. Heaven.

Had pizza with da fish, Yuka, Nei-chan, Marie-chan and Masako... Nei-chan (sister in law) brought yuka a DVD by the guy who did Totoro and Kiki's Delivery Service called Sen to Chihiro no Kami Kakushi... English title: Spirited Away. Our DVD player rejected it because you can't use DVDs from other countries. BUT, I hooked up my puter to the TV, and forced it to show the movie. Amazing bit o' manga.

Brin Needs Fluvogs.

Please send me money, because Brin needs Fluvogs!

Size 13 pope shoes to be exact. Please send me enough to cover half the $100CND cost. Ok?

Such a lou reed day.

Why today is a cool day...

Listened to Salmon's Pollen Two.

My replacement Airport basestation arrived today, and after a bit of fiddling, Yuka and I have a wireless network at home again. yayayaya.

Then, I spent the day reading and marking essay outlines and annotated bibliographies of my students. Wild bunch. I can't wait to read their papers.

After a year of wondering, I finally found found out how to get the LambdaMOO server to compile on Mac OS X. First I had to download and install the apple developer utilities so that I had c-compilers and stuff like that. Only 250megs, but it took 4.5 hours!!!!!!! Lucky I was busy marking. It took a bit of making changes in the C libraries then to recompile and voila... jasonnolan.net can run a moo now!!!

That, and the fact that I bought the coolest new computer case down at a store on King, just next to MEC. I can get my willow case inside, and it has a billion pockets. It is like a courier bag, but with accoutrements. And it was yellow. A steal at $120. But it was 70% off, so I paid $40. I think I'll go get another one.

Of course, my propellor beanie is too cool for words, and with my office window open, it twirls all day.

Ghost Writers in the Sky

I spend the day cleaning the apartment, in preparation for some folks over for dinner tonight, and working on my book review of Cryptomimesis: The Gothic and Jacques Derrida's Ghost Writing. Slow going. Slogity slog slog. Great book. Learned tonnes. It's PoMo, so I can't tie it up into a neat package. But a draft is done. Now to Kensignton market for some smoked salmon and brie.

Wireless Bandit

Wireless Bandit
"This blog is here to document the wardriving and warwalking the streets of Toronto to find open/unsecure WLAN access points. "When you just need a Net connection anywhere, look here."

Hmmm... I wonder if my home network is available.

Jason Unlocked!

Faster than you can shake a stick in a clear-cut, I'm in my office. Actually, I was to move in on June 17. I moved in July 8th. And today, July 17, they finally got the door to open for my key. Not bad, eh? One month to get my key to work. Of course it was a computerized swipe thingy.

That said, Peter my co-office mate who has been able to let me into our office this entire time decided, today, to learn how to install OSX on a Mac. He's 99.5% windows. He did it in 30 minutes, and was sharing software (running software from another computer across a network) before he knew what hit him.

Just goes to prove, using a Mac is easier than just opening the door.

Camel!

Yuka and I went to the Toronto Zoo on Sunday. We took the bus, if you can believe it. It takes only 1 hour from Yonge and Bloor. Amazing. Amazing is also this:

And now we have a pile of animal pictures including more of yuka on the Sally the Camel.

Haikoo! - the haiku-based directory

Haikoo! - the haiku-based directory

Site Listings for United States:

… Canada burned it,
Bushes live inside of it,
Shrubbery outside

Birthday

Happy 19th Birthday Mud!!!

[I didn't think Mud had a web page, but she does.]

Garbage Fears in Toronto

The Toronto Garbage Strike of 18,000 city workers is a great summer fiction. Let me explain. I live in Toronto. To me, and everyone until the provincial government forced, by imperial caviat, otherwise, Toronto is the downtown bit from the lake to around Eglinton Avenue, and from Victoria Park Avenue to the Humber River. It is surrounded by 4-5 other cities: Scarbrough, East York, North York, York and Etobicoke. They are suburbs to me, and all right thinking Torontonians.

We don't have much of a garbage problem downtown, in the central part of Toronto. Yes we have garbage, and there are some piles, and they are a bit stinky. Nothing majorly health hazardous.

Now, there may be some problem out in the burbs, but as usual, the problems of the other cities get exported to pollute the whole, just like the waste of living space, commuting cars, and piles of suburban party goons that trash downtown on the weekends.

We have one pile of garbage, and it is the burbs, if anything, not the real toronto.

My rant for the summer.

DNS'r'US

I'm 'trying' to manage my own DNS these days, using Free DNS service - Easy, web-based domain manager - ZoneEdit.com. It is all set up and running, but who knows what the net knows. Sympatico's running so strange today, either that or my wireless network router is borking, that I'm not sure if the new DNS has taken over from the old one. If you go to jasonnolan.net and end up at a pretty cartoon of two cats,LET ME KNOW!.

Pride Day Parade

Yuka has announced that we're going to the Pride Parade today. Usually she only drags me to one parade per year... the Labour Day worker's parade. I don't mind it, because usually no one goes to see it, so it is sparse. I hate crowds, but if I can find a nice vantage where I'm not standing in a crowd, it should be fun. And yes, I'll have pictures.

jasonnolan.net

Jasonnolan.net may be going off line for a bit, due to my non-payment of my hosting service fees. I'm sure I'll get around to making alternative arrangements at some point.

Salmon, the Musical

Thanks to fellow GTA Blogger Jen Vetterli (Circadian Shift), here's Salmon on DNTO (2.2meg MP3). I'll rip a high rez version later, but this is fast and sweet.

Salmon on DNTO!

Salmon was on DNTO this afternoon for her much anticipated segment on blogging! It was great. I listened to it has her house with some of her buddies. She recorded it and is getting me a copy.

When Mom Comes to Town

I bought some shoes today. Mom came into town spontaneously and we went out for lunch at Konnichiwa, and then toured my now-locked office, and went shopping. Found the shoes at the end.
Thus goes the last day in a week long headache. Wheeeee@

Saturday Storms and Drangs

Nothing special. Got a headache today, and a back ache. And I'm thirsty. And a bit hungry. But I did give an insulin injection to the neighbour's cat this morning! Yes, she did need it. I don't go around sticking pointed metal things into cats.

I would like the headache to go away so that I can do my final edit on a paper I'm co-writing, that should be done today.

Then I can go shopping.

E2K nominated for e-zine award!

The ezine, for which I'm editor-at-large, and web site designer, E2K: a journal for the new literary paradigm, was nominated for an Independent e-Book award under the category of Favorite e-Zine: Announcing the Short List for the 2002 Independent e-Book Awards by the Digital Literature Institute, to be announced at the Digital Literature Festival, November 1-3, 2002 in Santa Barbara, California.
Congratulations RR and Rhonna!
(Publisher and Managing Editor)

From TV to DVD

Yuka and I watched the A&E version of


last night. God I needed something diverting and as monolithically unencumbered as it was. It was a total failure as a soapopera... which is what I thought it might be. Thank god for that too. Now, do I dare read the book? Or just get the Neil Gaiman comic version?

The Griffen for EUNOIA

As I found on Salmon's blog The Griffin Trust for Excellence in Poetry goes to her friend Christian for EUNOIA. Congratulations. I got it a couple of months ago, and got through chapter A. Perhaps it will be another letter this month.

Today was a nice feel good day.

Spent the morning working through things, as per usual, an sauntered off to the KMDI collaborative program planning meeting around 10:30. We're reviewing applications and whatnot. And planning KMD1000 that I'll be co-teaching this fall. Good bit of news is that the course will be open to UofT students not enrolled in the program. Lots of questions as to how we're going to present the course, but we have everything we want to do, and are whittling away to what we can do.

On my way back I stopped in the InfoCommons at UofT to see if I could get some help setting up my on campus wireless connection. Couldn't. It is an ongoing snafu, but I'll get it done at some point. Medium Priority.

There was some prof lined up at InfoCommons. He didn't speak much english, but luckily the InfoCommonsGuy spoke french. Turned out that he wanted to print out his paper. InfoCommons only can handle floppydisks, not profs with computers. Seeing that he had an iBook, I told him to come with me. We walked back to my office, I plugged him into the network, no fuss, no problem, printed off the paper and we went our separate ways. Very nice guy. Why can't all computer problems be solved in that manner? I love Macs.

Came home and wasted the rest of the day.

Hazy Dayz of Zummer

Not quite. But there is news afoot. Or a foot of news.

1) I read and signed my contract to teach this summer at OISE. Teaching CTL1000, foundations of curriculum, if you don't know that already. It is something that I can do. And I love it. I have been wondering where to start the foundations. The present plan is the "art of courtly love" which everyone I know has heard me talk about. It is 13th C book on how to be a knight. BUT, I was just thinking of St Augustine on Education as a prelude to that. Tasty.

2) While reading the fine print on the contract I noticed the words "Graduate Appointment" on the contract. Checking with PeterT, I can therefore say that I'm 'visiting professor' at OISE this summer... and last for that matter. YOU may not care, but it makes a big difference for my poor CV. Wheeeee!

3) I have been boxing books in preparation for my move, which now looks like it will be somewhere between June 17 and July 8. The servers moving on the 8th after the switch goes in, though I may have to move them to the ePresence lab before that. No problem there. I can move my own stuff in as soon as the locks are activated on the doors.

4) After 4 days of trying, I finally convinced Sympatico that they had removed the DSL card from the other end of our neighbour's HSE connection. THey put it back in within 6 hours, and she's back to normal.

And I was wondering why I'm tired. And we're not even discussing the Kluwer handbook meeting... which I'm saving until next week to talk about.

On the rock

Yuka and I went climbing at The Rock Oasis Inc. yesterday... it was the first climing experience since December, which was the first since last June. We've been bad. But we're going to get gooder. The goal is once a week all summer, at least. And since we've been keeping up with our 'evening constitutional', I can't see why we can't get back into climbing. Yuka was able to work on a 5.8 and I was able to get one 5.10a done, and half of another, before the fingers religated us to lesser activities. But she should be able to get up to a 5.10a, and me back to 11b's before too long. Then we'll get out the camera for some pictures.

Anyone wanna joing us? Rock Oasis has done some major renovations since December with new changerooms and showers, and a large cave structure and boldering complex, and one new wall.

Looks very coool.

What's going on?

I guess there's some explaining to do.
I've moved my blogging to Moveable type from Blogger.com. Blogger has too many arbitrary outages and generic strangenesses for me. I wish it luck. It is one of the best tools for getting new folks blogging. I'll miss that aspect of it. But I've come to the point that I need more control over the information and archiving. And if something screws up, I want it to be my fault.

The set up of Moveabletype was not easy. Much worse than one would expect, because edublog.kmdi is a BSD unix-based Mac OS (OSX), and it does not conform easily to Moveabletype's instructions. That and it asks you to do some strange things that I'm not too comfortable with. But I love how it runs. I've been co-blogging with Salmoon on Pollenation using Moveabletype and it has been a stellar success.

As for moving the blog to here? Nothing special. I just direct control over the server. Both emma and I got tired of my pestering her, so I figured that this would be easier all around. Maybe I can even figure out how to move my domain to hang off this server too... wouldn't that be an indication that I'd finally learned apache.

Don't worry though. I'll make this site jason-ugly again soon. But today I'm cleaning the apartment.

[oh, ya, and the images are mostly broken. That's because I nuked my /images/ directory, and can't be bothered to fix it at the moment. It won't hurt much.]