November 2012
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Satellite History & "Our World"
It’s nice to be back in satellite industry, the spinal cord and central nervous system of the world’s great communications networks. Data is cool. Space is cool. Communications is/are cool.
Speaking of satellites: I recently stumbled across an interesting bit of broadcast history. In 1967 national broadcasters around the globe banded together to present Our World, an unprecedented...
October 2012
3 posts
PERSONAL MEMOIR: On the anniversary of Steve Jobs’...
About little more than a year ago I faced a crossroads in my career. A different company had been courting me for several months—they were involved in cool areas of emerging technology, but I had trepidations about their business model and track record. It would mean leaving a job where I’d been very successful, work I was proud of, colleagues I respected, but to tell the truth my old company was...
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The Facebook Conspiracy That Isn’t
Facebook has quickly and utterly become a central communication tools for many, many people. For some causes/artists/organizations it has become a preferred soapbox/gallery/newsletter.
Recently my Facebook news feed has been flooded with items claiming that Facebook is suppressing posts in an effort to get page admins to pay to promote them.
Digging a little deeper there is, of course, more to...
I heart Art + Technology
My twin passions are technology and art. Actually, technology is more my vocation, while art is more of a avocation these days (I call it my religion). Semantics aside, for years I’ve seen these as parallel paths with much in common but decidedly distinct. I felt a bit out of place as an art nerd working in tech—and a tech geek arts fan/advocate.
Recently though there has been a growing...
September 2012
4 posts
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Nuit Blanche Debuts in Ottawa: shows us how it’s...
Ottawa is a city of festivals where everything from the changing of leaves to holiday lights is relentlessly branded with corporate sponsorship.
Into this mix last weekend came Ottawa’s first Nuit Blanche, the all-night art festival Straightforward, heartfelt and unpretentious, it was a resounding success.
The name itself means “sleepless night” in French. It’s a new trend with roots in Europe,...
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Mr. Shatner and me
Last weekend at Montreal Comiccon 2012 I had the opportunity to get the following photograph with Mr. William Shatner.
I’m an old school Star Trek original series fan. I have vague memories of the show as a small child—flickering images, the scary puppet over the closing credits, the haunting theme. But I really fell in love with it as a young teen. Reruns were on every afternoon and each show...
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In Praise of Technicians & Stagehands: Honoring...
September 8, 2012: This week, a long season of protest and a hotly contested campaign culminated in the election of a Parti Quebecois minority government headed by what will be Quebec’s first female Prime Minister, Pauline Marois. The PQ victory celebration was marred by an ugly assassination attempt and the province has spent the first few days of this new chapter putting it in...
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Facebook: here's the deal
Dear Facebook,
Our relationship has to be based on trust, I have to trust that you won’t embarrass me. I know that like a doctor, you need to know personal info but expect you won’t abuse it.
This morning on Facebook I was startled to see a hipster musician friend of mine in the UK seeming to endorse a Domino’s Pizza coupon offer, but I put it in the category of careless friends that don’t...
August 2012
1 post
My New Terms of Service
It’s been a while since I posted to either of my blogs for a combination of reasons. One is being deeply immersed in doing the work that informs what I write about. The other, more difficult to describe, is grappling with something I’ll call “good internet citizenship.”
I work in technology—for the last dozen or so years at publicly traded companies. The deeper I dive into social media and...
May 2012
1 post
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March 2012
1 post
February 2012
2 posts
DC Women Kicking Ass: Kick ass artist of kick ass... →
dcwomenkickingass:
The winner of favorite Mera artist was Ivan Reis. Today we have DC’s top female character, Wonder Woman. Get your scrolling finger ready because it is going to take a while to get through this list which consists of artists from her book. I’m sure I could devote a poll to her appearances outside…
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January 2012
3 posts
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I read the Walter Issacson Steve Jobs biography so...
If you read my blog you probably should read this book, but I know how it goes. Maybe you’re one of those people who use me as a filter, (you know who you are!) or maybe you just haven’t gotten around to it yet.
In any case, for your convenience and blog-reading pleasure, here is my highly subjective summary of high points:
CAVEAT: I’m not going to tackle the issue of labor practices in Apple...
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Happy Data Privacy Day
January 28 is “Data Privacy Day“—a day we are all encouraged to reflect on the importance of privacy and protecting one’s information online.
A good way to observe the day is to sit back with a soothing cup of tea and read the Google’s new integrated privacy policy. Google is, quite reasonably, pulling together all of the different policies you probably signed up for...
November 2011
1 post
The Klout Menace
New York Times ran a breathless article yesterday under the title “When Sites Drag the Unwitting Across the Web”. The URL: “http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/14/technology/klouts-automatically-created-profiles-included-minors.html” is more stark: Minors! With “profiles”!
This is silly on the face of it. The heroine of the story got the “fright of her...
October 2011
5 posts
It’s the Priorities, Stupid!
The most common criticism I hear, from the right and the left, about the Occupy Wall Street phenomenon is that there’s no centralized “demand”.
After visiting the protest myself and mingling as an enthusiastic tourist, chatting to people young and old, countercultural and conservative, artsy and proletarian, earnest and even more earnest—one message, one demand emerged loud and clear.
It’s about...
Better Late to the Party than Never
Ada Lovelace Day 2011 Thinking (and whining) about the shortage of women to inspire me—at least in my professional life in this particular branch of technology—I missed an important one right under my nose. This year one of my colleagues came out as a transgendered woman. Not only is she now one of the rare women in our industry, she’s a transgendered woman working as a hands-on field engineer in...
Ada Lovelace Day 2011
From findingada.com:
“This Ada Lovelace Day on October 7, share your story about a woman — whether an engineer, a scientist, a technologist or mathematician — who has inspired you to become who you are today”
Sadly, my story on women in technology is not dedicated to an influential woman or women who helped me become the professional nerd I am today. There aren’t...
Dammit.
Dammit. This is not the post I hoped to write. I was going to post another “I Watch Apple Podcasts So You Don’t Have To: new Tim Cook Edition”. But cheeky commentary seems out of place when the world has lost a visionary and Steve Jobs’ family has lost someone they love.
I was going to cover Tim Cook’s debut and yesterday’s launch of iPhone 4s, Here are my...
September 2011
1 post
I watch Mark Zuckerberg’s 2011 F8 keynote so you...
Long time no tumblr! I’ve been busy with my new blog www.planet3D.org. But as a public service here’s my take on Mark Zuckerberg’s presentation at F8 today and some details on what’s next with Facebook.
After Andy Samberg silliness (fun, inside jokes) Zuckerberg takes the stage to unveil “Timeline”, the next big thing. Zuckerberg—who clearly has been on a training diet of Steve Jobs...
August 2011
2 posts
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“3D has been a wonderful exercise but I was brought up as a camera operator so...”
– Director Ridley Scott, (The Duellists, Alien, Bladerunner, Thelma & Louise, Gladiator) to Comicon 2011, http://bit.ly/qbnpxP
July 2011
7 posts
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WWDC part 2: iOS 5 (for iPhone/iPod/iPad)
At the recent Apple Worldwide Developer Conference 2011 (WWDC) Steve Jobs and team announced some major innovations—a couple of which will be game changers. This is part 2 of 3.
iOS 5
As usual, they start off with boasting. And they have mind-boggling numbers. iOS (iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad) combined has 44% of mobile OS Market. There have been 425,000 apps released in three years, 14 billion...
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WWDC: I Watch Apple Podcasts so You Don't Have To
At the recent Apple Worldwide Developer Conference 2011 (WWDC) Steve Jobs and team announced some major innovations—a couple of which will be game changers.
It’s a two-hour podcast [if you take out the it’s-that-simple’s and the it-just-works the thing would be shorter] but worth watching for fans of the OSs, Apple Corp, and the art of business presentations.
For more casual users, the...
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“I say beautiful. Every medium, I say, is infinitely deep, and every medium talks...”
– Director David Lynch on 3D speaking at the AFI, November 2010 video at YouTube (1:01 mark) http://bit.ly/m91pi8 and quoted in LA Times http://lat.ms/jiqHB5
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READ THIS ARTICLE! 10 New Rules for Saving 3D... →
Excellent summary and intelligent perspective from Maclean’s magazine (Canada) on the pitfalls of 3D digital cinema today. If you are interested in art, culture, science, business, and/or me, this article’s for you.
June 2011
17 posts
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Dispatch from the Glebe: Bank Street Needs You!
I live in an Ottawa neighborhood called The Glebe. Brick houses, tree-lined streets, and a picturesque row of shops on our section of Bank Street. After a long day of work, or a long week of travel it’s very grounding to pick up fresh produce, pasta, and cheese from Il Negozio Nicastro, fresh bauguette from the French Baker, soap from Arbor Environmental, groceries from the teeny tiny...
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“Three of the four principals in founding IMAX were in the same high school...”
– Graeme Ferguson, a founder and longtime CEO of IMAX, Order of Canada, in his master class at Toronto International Stereographic 3D Conference
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“We uncovered two Nazi 3D films, ‘So Real You Can Touch It’ and...”
– Philippe Mora, Film Historian
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Overheard over lunch: women drivers in Saudi...
I was grabbing lunch at fish place in Toronto’s St. Lawrence Market the other day. At the next table two young men, presumably from Saudi Arabia, were having a conversation. The younger seemed to be visiting or a new immigrant, the other seemed to live here in Canada. Here are the high points of their conversation.
guy #1: so women driving, eh?
guy #2: [mumble]
guy #1:...
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Wim Wenders on 3D
Notes from Wim Wenders’ master class at the Toronto International Stereoscopic 3D Conference held at TIFF Lightbox in Toronto June 11, 2011 (rough transcription of scribbles in margins of my program).
Wenders described the evolution of his 3D film “Pina” and his conviction that only 3D could serve to document faithfully and showcase appropriately the work of choreographer Pina Bausch. It was...
May 2011
6 posts
2 tags
Transcript of "Civil Society" activists' impromptu... →
Many great articulations of powerful ideas. You should watch this, all the way through! For example:
Susan Crawford {31:39} “To make things very simple, we are in a moment when government can join hands with the content industry and with the telcos to enforce scarcity, content controls, and lots of their desired goals, in a sense this is feeding a revenue model of governments and Hollywood...
