Urban Vancouver

We were in the US this past long weekend, so we only got news of last night’s election when I logged into the AT&T wifi at SeaTac. To no one’s surprise, we got ourselves another Conservative minority government. I have read just about zero analysis of the results, but it seems to me that most of the parties hopped on the fail boat:

• The Liberals, obviously, were the biggest failure. They haven’t won so few seats since 1984. Adieu, Monsieur Dion.
• The Conservatives failed to secure a majority.
• The Greens failed, yet again, to win a single seat.
• Jack Layton failed to become Prime Minister. Though, admittedly, the NDP’s showing was one of its strongest ever.

I guess the Bloc Québécois has to be reasonably happy with their 50 seats, as the best they’ve ever done is 54.

Personally, I don’t mind minority governments. They feel democratic. And I don’t mind that the average Canadian is asked to pay attention to national issues every couple of years. Is it really that much of a burden to have to vote every 18 months instead of every five years?

UPDATE: Apparently the folks at Comedy Central agree with me.

Back in August, I mentioned the Conservative government’s cuts to arts programs, and their controversial grab for greater control over funding for film and TV production.

In roughly $5 billion worth of programs spending, Prime Minister Harper’s $45 million cuts feels like a rounding error. Did they hope to make the cuts quietly, or make a bold statement about tightening belts and, maybe, cultural funding? I’m not sure, but it feels like the issue broke the wrong way. Arts funding became an unexpectedly prominent issue in the campaign, providing fodder for the opposition Plus, the move may have provoked some previously apathetic non-voters to action.

As the Globe and Mail reports, Prime Minister Harper has repealed the problematic clause in Bill C-10. It feels like damage control:

The Conservative Leader’s about-face comes as Tory hopes of a majority fade, and support for the party is sagging in the crucial battlegrounds of Quebec and Ontario.

The move appears to be aimed at appeasing voters incensed at the provision in C-10, and at the nearly $45-million in recent cuts to a swath of other arts and culture programs.

The Globe also notes that all four opposition parties have promised to reinstate the $45 million in cuts.

digg_url = \'http://digg.com/politics/Tag_Clouds_for_Canada_s_Election\';

I’m a big fan of Wordle. Everybody likes pretty tag clouds, but until recently, I’ve had no practical use for the tool.

What with the forthcoming election and all, and being in marketing, I thought it might be interesting to use Wordle to distill each of the four national parties’ websites into a tag cloud. The cloud would reflect the terms that the party uses most frequently on their English-language websites. With an assist from Ask Metafilter, I got them done. I’ll explain a little more about how after the clouds.

As usual, click for larger versions:

That’s more a question for you than me, as I haven’t spent much time trying to grok what these clouds tell us (yes, I used ‘grok’). What jumps out at you?

First, I grabbed a complete copy of each party’s website. I just stuck with HTML files, so if a party hosts a lot of PDFs with unique content, then that’s not reflected. The sites, of course, ended up being different sizes, and I’m relying on my site-copying software, so I can’t be certain I got all the pages.

Then we concatenated each set of HTML files into one gigantic file. Using some scripty-magic, we generated the top 100 or 250 words, each appearing as many times as they appear in the original site.

I went through each of these to clean out most or all of the leftover HTML code, navigational terms like ‘email’ or ‘newsletter’ and French words. The French is why we used 250 words in some cases. For some sites, I downloaded both the French and English version of the site, so I needed to remove the French. By working with a 250 word file, I was able to clean out the French and still have a sizable database of words.

In short, it’s somewhat unscientific, but I’m optimistic that the clouds represent a reasonably fair reflection of each site’s top content. If anyone wants to work with the content I copied, I’m happy to share it. I’m not going to publish the complete sites here, though, as I expect that would constitute a copyright violation.

I’m reading and cautiously enjoying Everything is Miscellaneous, David Weinberger’s newish book. It’s not the most gripping read, but it’s skillfully written, well-researched and occasionally insightful.

In a section on information gatekeepers, I was amused to read how, in 2003, the owners of the Dewey Decimal system sued New York’s Library Hotel for labeling their floors and rooms after topics from Dewey:

The hotel opened three years ago at Madison Avenue and 41st Street. From its imitation card catalog in the lobby to its stately second-floor reading room, it is designed as a siren for book lovers. Each floor is devoted to one of the 10 main categories of knowledge in the Dewey system: Social Sciences, Languages, Math and Science, Technology, the Arts, Literature, History and Geography, General Knowledge, Philosophy and Religion.

Hotel guests can request a specific floor or themed room, furnished with the corresponding books. History buffs might consider the ninth floor, with Biography (900.006) or Asian History (900.004). A technology aficionado might give Computers (600.005) a try.

As it turns out, the OCLC and the hotel settled out of court. You can see a complete list of their room and floor names on Wikipedia.

I snapped this photo while having a quick dinner at the Fernwood Inn before an event at the Belfry Theatre. It’s the lower-right corner of a TV set showing Monday Night Football. As far as I could figure, there was no sound issuing from the TV:

Interface designers never fail to surprise me in the ways they can screw up. What do you suppose ‘1/2 Mute’ means? Because, as it happens, mute means ’speechless’. So you really can’t be half-mute, can you?

I’m reminded of a story about a decade old, which I recount with affection, not mockery. My aunt come over to our house. She’d just arrived, and turned to notice our TV. “Oh,” she said, “there’s a mute on the screen.” In fact, the TV had been muted, and was displaying ‘MUTE’ in the lower-right corner.

An a related note, I tried to search for a URL for the Fernwood Inn. Claiming that I was headed for the Fernwood Inn, Google pointed me to an Australian fitness centre. The following screenshot illustrates the unusual error:

I was walking down to Cook Street Village the other day, and noticed a couple of pieces of paper folded up in the crook of a tree. Thinking of Found Magazine, I grabbed them and stuck them in my pocket.

When I got them home and unfolded them, it turns out they’re school work by a young man named Alan. There’s a one page essay on B. B. King, largely cribbed from Mr. King’s Wikipedia article. Alan scored 5/5 for that one:

He didn’t fair so well on an accompanying quiz (’Music Exploratory Quiz #1: The Blues’), in which he only scored 3/5:

One of the questions he got wrong was ‘what gives the blues its groove’? He incorrectly answered ‘the rhythm’. What does give the blues its groove? Whiskey? Getting dumped? I’ve got nothing.

Yesterday I was talking to somebody about voting. She asked, and I told her (as I told you) for whom I planned to vote.

She mentioned that her parents always kept their voting decisions a secret, possibly even from each other. I have a vague memory of my parents not discussing who they voted for either. Am I making this up, or was there a prevailing opinion in their generation that you didn’t disclose for whom you cast your ballot?

The essence of this notion seems to be (or have been) “your vote is nobody’s business but your own”. That’s true, and I suppose it was designed, in a Miss Manners kind of way, to avoid heated conflict in otherwise civil conversation. However, times and social norms change.

Plus, if you care about politics and your choice, I’d imagine that you’d want to try to convince other people of your position. And how can you do that without disclosing who you’re planning to support?

Do you discuss who you’re voting for among your family and friends? If not, why not?

Stephanie made a great looking map showing Vancouver neighbourhoods, in the style of Ork Posters:

If you have a big monitor, you may want to check out the full-size version. I see Yaletown didn’t make the cut, but I expect that was a space consideration. I wonder what she used for her source material?

And it’s educational, too. I had only the vaguest notion that there was a part of town called Killarney. It’s yet another Lower Mainland place name borrowed from Ireland.

She should make novelty place mats. Or something.

I voted today. Unfortunately, I’m going to be in the US on October 14. I voted for the Green Party, as I have done so in the last two (maybe three?) elections. For pretty much the same reasons. I have no expectation that my candidate will win, but I believe in supporting the party whose values most closely align with my own.

I’m not a big fan of strategic voting. Even if I was, I’m pretty sure that the Conservative candidate in Victoria has about as much chance as winning as, say, the Christian Heritage candidate. Er, that’s not technically accurate, but Victoria hasn’t elected a Tory since 1988. Besides, VoteForEnvironment suggests that I can take my pick.

When voting, how much consideration do you give to your local candidate and how much do you give to the national party? I’ve asked this question before, and some thoughtful discussion resulted. Four years later, I can’t think of a good reason not to ask it again.

As I indicated, my choice skews heavily toward the party. Why?

• I care more about national policy than local issues. I’m totally ambivalent about how my MP represents Victoria in Ottawa.
• It’s kind of by default. I lived in Vancouver for many years. Can I describe even one of Hedy Fry’s accomplishments as my MP? Can you? I’m no political news junkie, but I think I’ve been as informed and well-read as the average Vancouverite over the past decade. It’s much easier for me to identify with a national party that holds particular values and positions, as opposed to my local MP whose accomplishments and goals I can’t imagine.

My perception of the party leader–of their competency and character–matters as well. Less than the party, but more than the local candidate.

How about you? Do you vote for the candidate or the party?

UPDATE: On a vaguely-related note, somebody sent me this video featuring local Vancouver candidates talking about their parties’ platforms on climate change.

UPDATE #2: Speaking of videos, I love the aesthetics of this one (thought its message could be clearer).

I’m no economist. In fact, I don’t deserve to live in the same town as the guy who hands out the ‘economist’ name tags. With that in mind, I have two ill-informed reactions to today’s signing of the US $700 million billion (whoops, wishing thinking) bailout bill into law:

• For many, many years, Wall Street demanded and received decreased regulation. They repeatedly called for less and less government intervention into the free market. Now, having royally screwed the pooch in this unregulated atmosphere, they get saved by what? Government intervention. Does anybody else find this repellent?
• I have yet to hear a clearly articulated explanation of the alternative outcome–no bailout–for the average American (not to mention the average Canadian). Yes, it’ll be bad news, but I have no sense of how bad. And, you know, I’ve been paying attention.

It must be pretty weird to live in the US these days. On top of impending (and possibly averted) economic disaster, you’re living through one of the weirdest presidential elections in history. I watched some of the US vice-presidential debate last night (and some of the Canadian leadership debate and some of the hockey game), and I continue to be shocked that Governor Palin might one day run this country. If Americans put Senator McCain and Governor Palin in the Whitehouse, they get the governance they deserve.

Here are two tangential links that political junkies have probably already seen: the Sarah Palin debate flow chart, and the hilarious earmarks and pork attached to the bailout bill.

Do we do this–attach all sorts of irrelevant extras to legislation–in Canada? I’m embarrassed that I don’t know.

Former classmate, founder of Theatre Skam and occasional reader of this blog, Amiel Gladstone, has adapted and directed Chekov’s classic “Three Sisters” in a new production entitled “My Three Sisters”, running this week at the Metro Studio.

I saw the show last night and it had the pacey energy and unpredictability that I’ve come to associate with Skam productions. Ami has (mercifully) reduced the typical three-hour Chekov to a mere 85 or 90 minutes. In doing so, I think he’s shaved a lot of scenes down to their essence. The result is more energetic and dreamlike production than I’d usually associate with Chekov’s work. The play has always had an ephemeral quality for me, and Ami’s direction makes it all the more surreal. A cake (yep, it’s a lie) hangs suspended over the corner of the stage. One of the leads plays the ukelele. The three sisters-looking like lost brides–glide across the stage in blousey, satiny white dresses.

You can’t go wrong adding a few songs to a play, and Ami’s got the cast singing blue-grassy tunes by the likes of Neko Case and Veda Hille (who seems to be a fairly regular blogger). Combine this with the white dresses, surreal undertones and warm hues in the lighting and set, and the whole production reminded me a bit of Oh Brother, Where Are Thou?

The cast is terrific–they’re a wonderful, talented ensemble. But here’s the best part: the three sisters of the play’s title? They’re actually played by three sisters. The Stubel sisters are all performers (here’s a profile from the Georgia Straight on the youngest), and it’s a rare pleasure to watch their natural sisterly chemistry on-stage. One of the sisters, Camille, is actually eight months pregnant. So that adds an extra frisson of danger to the entire affair.

It’s rare that I’d recommend Chekov, but there’s too much to like about Skam’s production.

We bought these frozen shrimp the other day. They’ve still got the shells on, and I noticed that the packaging advertised them as ‘easy-to-peel’:

In what way are these easier to peel than the average shrimp?

On a related note, I’m becoming a bit of a Roland with my iPhone. That is, snapping and automagically uploading photos of random, mildly interesting stuff. You know, stuff like old card catalogs or strange signs or discarded roses or vaguely-yonic yoga posters. If that stuff interests you, you might want to subscribe to my Flickr feed. Or just pay slightly more attention to the thumbnails on the right side of my home page.

Because Tuesday is social change day. Right?

• At BarCamp, Jordan and Joe ran a session called Marketers for a Cause. We split into three groups, and went to work to help three causes: the Union Gospel Mission (Julie and I support them), Kiva (a team was formed), and Hands up for Africa. You can donate to and learn more about the latter cause on Megan’s blog.
• Speaking of Kiva, I’ve already received most of my first Kiva loan back. I’ve loaned $25 of the returned money to Rika Ally Ibrahim, a Tanzanian juice and clothing seller who wants to expand her inventory. Maybe you want to help her (or any of the other worthy folks on Kiva) out, too?
• The Global Election site lets the world mock-vote in any national election. Here’s Canada’s page. I encourage my non-Canadian readers to go forth and vote.
• Traces of Hope is an alternate-reality game being launched by the British Red Cross. I’m both fascinated by and skeptical about ARGs (plus, I have a bit of a crush on ARG guru Jane McGonigal). I suspect that they’re way more effective for social marketing for causes than for corporate promotion. I may write a little section of our book on ARGs, just so I have an excuse to do more research about their efficacy.
• VoteForEnvironment.ca is a side project by Kevin from DeSmogBlog. It evaluates the likely outcome of each riding, and advises you who to vote for if the environment is your number one issue. Currently, there’s no guidance for my riding. If you live in downtown Vancouver, you’re supposed to vote for Hedy Fry. They’ve got a cool Google Maps thingie to help you find your riding.

And to my Jewish readers, let me say “shana tova umetukah”. Or, at least, that’s what Wikipedia says I should say. I was going to go with ‘mazel tov’, but what do I know?

We had a couple of no-shows at the planned post-BarCamp hockey pool, so we weren’t quite quorate. I thought I’d take one more kick at this particular can and suggest a virtual pool, run in real-time over Skype.

I was thinking next Monday, October 6 between 5:30pm and 7:30pm. I know four games will have been played by then, but I don’t think that particularly matters.

I figure Skype is probably the most ubiquitous, simplest tool in which to run the draft. If you’ve got another suggestion–I guess Twitter would be a possibility–fire away.

If you’re interested in joining said, uh, Automagical Virtual Hockey Pool, leave a comment.

If we get enough, I’ll run it. If not, I’ll watch the 2008-09 season with a stake in only one, meagre, non-playoff team. And if there’s a torrent of interest, the maximum number of participants is 15. All other rules are as on the BarCamp wiki.

Springwise is definitely my favourite new discovery of recent months. They featured two projects which caught my attention. They are, in different ways, partially concerned with gender:

In Good Company is a coworking space for women, in the Flatiron district of New York. It looks pretty swish, and seems reasonably priced. $375 gets you a desk for 20 hours a week, plus two hours in a meeting room and sundry other perks. Thinking about this in terms of gender, I had a number of conflicting reactions:

1. With the website’s promise of “cocktail minglers and salon forums provide fun and flavorful networking opportunities”, it feels a bit like the post-modern woman’s answer to the old boys’ club. Call it ‘the new girls’ club’.
2. Of course, for 99% of civilized human history, we’ve used male-only spaces to deny women opportunities of all sorts. This still happens in much of the world (I’m currently reading Reading Lolita in Tehran). So, surely women have the right to women-only spaces anywhere and time they wish.
3. Who’s right? The woman who demands access to the men’s bar at the golf course, or the woman who denies men access to a gender-specific workspace. Or, in light of millennia of injustice, can they both be right?

So, obviously, I didn’t come to any profound or enlightened conclusions.

In a world without discrimination, I fully support gender-specific spaces. I think it’s human nature to want to spend time among your own gender. In a world without discrimination, the market could decide what, if any, men or women-only spaces we want and need.

Until then, things are muddier. I care about fairness, so men don’t really have a leg to stand on in complaining about women-only institutions. That said, I would be bummed if Vancouver had no Workspace, and only had an In Good Company.

From the Springwise post about Sidetaker:

In even the best of relationships, disagreements are bound to arise from time to time. For those with no clear resolution, a new site offers a way for each member of a couple to tell their side of the story anonymously and let the crowds decide who’s to blame.

Launched earlier this month, Pittsburgh-based SideTaker begins the dispute-resolution process when one member of a couple submits their side of the argument on the site. A link is then e-mailed to that person’s significant other, inviting them to add their own side. Only when that happens does the story go live on SideTaker for the perusal and ruling of the visiting crowds.

And the Too Much Information bar gets raised yet again. I think this is more just an entertaining vehicle than, you know, actual conflict resolution. I assume that their early marketing efforts have been to women, as a quick skim of the questions (consider those concerning money) are all, uh, wife generated.

I don’t think they’re going to save any marriages (and I found the UI a bit baffling), but it might provide some salacious and amusing anecdotes.

In several recent talks, I’ve opened with a story about the De Witt sketch. It’s a depiction, in 1596, of the stage of London’s Swan Theatre. It is, for all intents and purposes, the only image that theatre historians have that shows the interior of an Elizabethan theatre. It’s the best picture we have of the stages that Shakespeare acted upon and for which he wrote.

The man who drew the sketch was Johannes De Witt, a Dutch visitor to London who recorded his observations in his journals. In fact, De Witt’s original sketch is lost. The ‘De Witt’ sketch is actually a copy by fellow Dutchman, Arendt van Buchell.

Then I show photos of the Globe Theatre (here’s a big panorama of the interior), a present-day replica that sits on the Thames river, very close to its original location. For theatre and history buffs it’s a real pleasure to stand inside this space, which is reknowned for its historical accuracy. In fact, if theatre historians discover new information about the Globe, they modify the building to match .

Then in my talk I jump to images of the New Globe Theatre in Second Life. It’s a model of a proposed actual theatre on Governor’s Island in New York. It doesn’t look much like the original or the replica, but I like the connection of the past to the future, and of the actual to the virtual. I then make some connections to De Witt’s sketch as user-generated content, his journal as a blog and Arendt’s copy as a copyright violation. And things roll on from there.

That’s a long-winded introduction to say that somebody recently emailed me with a link to an actual, apparently accurate replica of the Globe Theatre. This appears to be a sort of showcase piece for a Second Life architect named Ina Centaur. It’s a pretty impressive accomplishment, and will make for a smoother metaphor in future talks.

Fareed Zakaria: Palin Is Ready? Please..

Can we now admit the obvious? Sarah Palin is utterly unqualified to be vice president. She is a feisty, charismatic politician who has done some good things in Alaska. But she has never spent a day thinking about any important national or international issue, and this is a hell of a time to start. The next administration is going to face a set of challenges unlike any in recent memory. There is an ongoing military operation in Iraq that still costs $10 billion a month, a war against the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan that is not going well and is not easily fixed. Iran, Russia and Venezuela present tough strategic challenges.

Zakaria suggests she might announce she wants to "spend more time with her family." Has a presidential candidate ever announced a new running mate this late in the game? If not, there's always a first time! The plot thickens.

We’re back from Tofino–we had a productive week away. Here are some photos. I was amused to see how much visibilities tsunamis had around Long Beach and Tofino. These signs were all over the place:

That guy on the sign is totally screwed, eh? I’ll tell you what happened there. He went to the beach to watch. From the information book in our hotel room at the Long Beach Lodge:

That is a tsunami of bad grammar, too.

I’ve been coming to this region off and on for about 25 years, and it’s only in the past year or two that they’ve been so, uh, tsunami-aware.

For future reference, apparently the center of the town of Tofino is considered a safe zone from tsunamis. Given its location, I was skeptical, but I’ll trust the experts.

I just sent this note to a minor television celebrity, concerning her apparently insecure website:

Hi, I randomly visited your site after watching an episode of [your show]. I was clicking around a bit, and discovered that your gallery section permits access to what’s called the ‘admin’ section of your site. Or, at least that’s how it looks to my (only semi-informed) eyes.

That means that a naughty person could upload any photos they want to that section, change the password or otherwise mess with the site. You should send this email to your web designer or administrator who can verify my suspicions, and close this security hole.

Best of luck, and I enjoyed your work on [the former show]. Cheers. DB.

I didn’t actually try to upload a photo, but it sure looks like I can. It also looks like I can change the admin password. But I’m certainly no system administrator, so I could be wrong.

There’s an email address on her site. What are they odds that anybody actually checks it? She’s not a household name, but you might recognize her as that actress with a small role on that popular show.

Because I’ve been thinking about this weekend’s hockey pool, and the forthcoming season. Heck, I even caved and ordered cable so I could watch some Canucks games at home.

• The Red Wings will repeat as Stanley Cup winners, beating out the Habs in the finals.
• Sidney Crosby and Evgeny Malkin will finish one-two in the scoring race, but a lack of healthy defencemen will prevent Pittsburgh from reaching the finals.
• Los Angeles and the New York Islanders will battle it out for worst in the league (and thus the best shot at drafting phenom John Tavares). I’m giving it to the Kings (despite Barry Melrose’s presence in Tampa Bay).
• Mats Sundin will bide his time until December and sign with a team that promises to make a playoff run. That won’t be the Canucks because…
• The Canucks won’t score enough goals to make the playoffs.
• The Sedin brothers will give up hockey and become Mormons. Doesn’t this photo scream “we’re wearing temple garments under our golf shirts”?

I guess those are all pretty safe bets. What are your predictions?