Category: Blogging

(Many) more thoughts on mesh

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

I left halfway through that last session with Dave Pollard (and two others: Tom Williams from GiveMeaning and George Irish from Amnesty International) and popped next door for the session about media with Jian Gomeshi (from the CBC), Andrew Baron (from Rocketboom; sadly, Amanda didn’t tag along) and Amber MacArthur (from TechTV).

After a quick walk, we were off to the last session of the day. I had trouble deciding which session to attend, but settled on “How and Why to podcast” with the afore-mentioned Amber MacArthur, which turned out to be pretty busy. Apparently the “Blogging 101” session earlier was packed too.

In general, it was less geeky/techie than I had originally thought it might be…which is the whole point of the “social web”. There were lots of people there from the business/marketing/entrepenurial side of things, and some from the media area as well. The most interesting session was Michael Geist’s talk on digital copyright law…which, from the title, you would think would be the most boring topic on the planet. But he used his powerpoint well, just throwing up visuals to support what he was saying, and talked about things that affect us every day and just happen to be about digital copyright as well.

Little things:

  • I love, love, LOVE the MaRS space. I’m trying to convince my boss to move us down there. Not that it’s up to him; he’d move us there in a second, I think.
  • I bumped into an old colleague from Delano. I haven’t seen him in a couple of years, so it was good to catch up. His company was just bought by Verisign, so congrats to him.
  • While standing at the registration desk the guy next to me said “Joey deVilla” when asked for his name. Without turning I said, “Hey, the Accordion Guy.” As he said, “Yep,” out of the corner of my eye I looked…and he actually carries a frigging accordion with him. I thought it was just a name, but dude actually straps on an accordion when the leaves the house. Now that’s living up to a reputation. Anyway, I was so dumbfounded for a minute that I didn’t even introduce myself or anything…I just wandered off. I’m sure he wondered who the big rude dick was.
  • My favourite 1/3 of the “15-minutes of fame”: Are You Frank?

There are lots and lots of pictures from the conference up on flickr already, including this one where you can see that I have a blurry bald spot. Lovely.

[tags]mesh06, mesh conference[/tags]

Are you meshin'?

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

Since the mesh conference began this morning I’ve heard Om Malik and Michael Geist (both of whom you wouldn’t know unless you follow technology news), and Paul Wells and Andrew Coyne (who you’d know if you read the National Post or Maclean’s respectively). Warren Kinsella (who’s a dead ringer for Bill Murray) moderated the discussion for those last two.

The next session’s about to get underway…funny, there’s a gentleman in the panel who I’ve had lunch with: Dave Pollard. Didn’t even realize he was on the agenda until an hour ago.

Also: the free brownies in the lobby kick ass.

[tags]mesh06, mesh conference[/tags]

Slashing, meshing and bombing

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

I’m a bitter critter. My Bomb The Blogosphere t-shirt didn’t arrive in time for the mesh conference (which starts Monday). I was so looking forward to stirring up some shit.

.:.

For some reason, a colleague asked me today if I remember Clint Malarchuk. Specifically, if I remembered seeing the video of the game where he had his throat slashed and nearly bled to death on the ice.

Uh, yeah. I remember that. Apparently, so do lots of people, ’cause they’ve put it on YouTube. Warning: do NOT watch that video if you don’t like the sight of blood. Seriously.

[tags]mesh conference, clint malarchuk, youtube[/tags]

In which I contemplate my own navel

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

I saw a preview of Brick (imdb | rotten tomatoes) tonight at the Varsity. I really, really, really liked it. About the only way to describe it is a juxtaposition of noir and high school styles…like an episode of Veronica Mars starring Bogart and Lorre, written by Mamet as he wrestles Hammett to the floor.* Dialogue so dense and fast that you have to work to keep up at first, a plot that expects you to pay attention, a staggering main role played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt…yup, the kid from Third Rock From The Sun who’s become an indie hero. If you like good movies, you’ll like this. At least, you should. Get thee to a cinema.

* side note: Mamet vs. Hammett is a play just waiting to happen. You heard it here first.

.:.

I’ve heard about this before but it’s the first time I’ve seen detail on it: NBC will be releasing 10 internet-only episodes of The Office this summer that’ll feature more of the background characters. More Kelly & Ryan!!

.:.

Scientists claim that “Jesus may have appeared to be walking on water when he was actually floating on a thin layer of ice, formed by a rare combination of weather and water conditions on the Sea of Galilee.” Why would they bother pointing this out? People that actually believe a bearded dude named Jesus walked on water aren’t going to suddenly believe it wasn’t a miracle just because you say so, no matter how sound a theory you throw at them. You can’t reason someone out of a position they were never reasoned into.

[via]

.:.

Sometimes I wonder why I blog. I’m not like most people who have a specific topic for their blog; I throw pretty much everything that enters my mind up here. I’ve owned single-purpose blogs before — radioDan (music & movies), skirl (general stuff that eventually became this blog), and Girlfriend Du Jour (my future wives) — but it gets to be a pain in the ass and so I consolidated the first two into this one. I still post to Girlfriend Du Jour ’cause it’s so much fun. I think being a generalist is more important, or at least more interesting, to me than going in-depth on a topic like music or movies or technology or…I don’t know, maple syrup. Whatever.

I think it has to do with how we were raised. None of my brothers or I focused on any one thing, though we were usually pretty good at a few; we were encouraged to play more than one sport, or learn more than one instrument, or read from a variety of sources. We all seemed to fit in a couple of social worlds as teenagers (at least, that’s what I remember; my brothers were basically out of high school by the time I arrived), so I could hang out with the skids or the jocks or the smart kids. I was on the basketball team, but I was also in the jazz band. I had long hair and played in a bad rock band, but I also knew more about computers than anyone in my school. I grew up on a farm but I feel at home in a city. And so on.

I think I’m still the same now. I feel like I have so many interests that I can’t keep up the way I’d like to, and it comes across in my blogging: scattershot, brief summaries of thoughts that whip through my brain. The categories over on the right are pretty much the breakdown of any given moment inside my head: music, movies, sports and the news are constants, and the hundreds of news feeds I read every day give me plenty of content. Books, food, my friends’ blogs, politics, Toronto goings-on and whatever subject I’m studying for the MBA right now are usually top of mind as well. Work keeps my mind focused on technology, especially developments in how people — the general population, not just geeks — will be using it in the next few years.

And in true Dan form I’ve forgotten why I even started writing this post. Arrrgghhhhuiworuowytwhgkfdnkf. Oop, wait, I’ve got it now: would this blog be better off if I just picked a particular topic and went with it? Or is it ok the way it is? I can tell by the stats that more than half the readers are not friends and family who just want to know what I did last night, but I wonder if my attention span could fuel (tolerate?) a single-topic blog…

OK. Bed now.

Where's Andrei Kovalev?

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

Sorry, busy lately. Bad, bad blogger.

.:.

Here’s why the Toronto Maple Leafs are just like the Republicans: they claim to be victimized, oppressed everyday joes who just want a fair break, when in fact they already get every break in the book. But by whining, bitching, moaning and crying foul at every given opportunity, they convince everyone that they’re the poor put-upon underdog and get preferential treatment. Witness the 12 minor penalties called against the Canadiens last night, including 7 in a row. The Leafs, meanwhile, got away with stuff like Bryan McCabe cross-checking Chris Higgins into the net, resulting in Higgins’ cheek smashing into Ed Belfour’s skate blade. No call, of course, and the Canadiens were called for another minor just when they were threatening to get close in the 3rd. Did the Canadiens deserve to win? Probably not. But when you’re playing your third game in four nights and the refs hand your opposition four power play goals on twelve chances, it’s pretty much impossible to pull one out. In general, the game was shit; the penalties called on the Leafs were equally ridiculous, just fewer in number.

Still on hockey, the Canadiens traded Jose Theodore to Colorado today. I, and every other Habs fan on earth, are remembering the last time Montreal traded their superstar goalie to Colorado and praying that history will not repeat itself.

.:.

Two more basketball injuries, but nothing major. My big toe got cut last week — I think I broke the nail about midway down and it cut into the nail bed — and it got stepped on enough this week that I bled through another sock. I also pulled my tricep while working with a friend; I was pretending to guard her, slipped on the dusty floor and stumbled backward for a few steps…you know, those few seconds when you know you’re going to fall but just keep stumbling backwards, and it seems to last for an hour…anyway, I knew that I was about to run headlong into the wall so I kind of let myself fall, but my right arm kind of twisted as it bore the impact and I strained the muscle a bit. Still, I got it worked out before we started to play.

Some younger guys showed up with Miggles; they started off on fire, jumping all over the place and running up and down and just oozing energy…that lasted about 10 minutes. By the end of the night one of them looked like he needed oxygen…

.:.

Wal-Mart, graduating from tacky to evil, has enlisted bloggers to say nice things about the company. They can all blow me, them and their little flying markdown happy faces.

.:.

I’ve listened to the first 1/3 of the not-yet-released Fiery Furnaces disc Bitter Tea, and I fear what we have on our hands here is Blueberry Boat v2.0. It’s too bad; I had such fuckin’ hopes for us.

I'm having a thermal event

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

No, not a hot flash.

The test server (read: unauthorized blog server) we use at work had a bit of a meltdown this morning. It seems that it’s fallen prey to a common affliction for this particular Dell configuration. This morning I noticed that it wasn’t running; when I tried to start it up it told me that the previous shutdown had been because of a “thermal event.” I’ve been around computers for a while, but that one was new to me. Anyway, as that link points out, it’s a faulty motherboard capacitor problem, not a problem with the hard drive as I thought initially, so there’s not much to be done about it. Luckily a replacement was already on the way.

.:.

Check out preview.local.live.com (in IE); it looks pretty but doesn’t seem to serve any functional purpose. Like Paris Hilton or my appendix.

Actually, come to that, both of those things are pretty fucking ugly.