Heather posted something this morning that’s had me thinking about this pretty much all day.
Occasionally, Tim Bray talks about “sharecropping” as related to the world of open source vs. proprietary software and APIs.
What‘s a Sharecropper?· I found a good definition at InterAction Design:
“A farmer who works a farm owned by someone else. The owner provides the land, seed, and tools exchange for part of the crops and goods produced on the farm.”
Read More
You can tell it’s springtime in Calgary when you wake up to this:
Time for another episode, this time on basic workflow - importing a few photos, deleting the crap, and processing the one(s) that don’t get nuked. This time, the dogs were quiet, and The Boy™ decided not to make an appearance. I might schedule him for a later episode…
Episode 2: Basic Workflow weighs in at 12.1 MB, and clocks in at 10:27. Or, if you want a full HD version, use the second link.
Read MoreSounds cool, but is the 90 second limit real?
Flickr’s official stance on the time limit is this:
Video on Flickr grew out of the idea of “long photos” and as such, we’ve implemented what might seem like an arbitrary limit of playing back the first 90 seconds of a video. 90 seconds?
We’re not trying to limit your artistic freedom, we’re trying something new. Everyone has endured that wedding video, where even the bride will fast-forward to the “good bit.” In fact, even Tara at FlickrHQ hasn’t made it past the first 90 seconds of her own wedding video.
Read More
There’s a big “Bike to Work Day” in Calgary on Friday, April 11. The University of Calgary is running a special event on campus as well. It’s pretty safe to say I’ll be biking to work that day (and every other day as well ;-) ) and am looking forward to seeing how many people get into it.
On campus, they’re going to set up greeting/refreshment stations (with prizes!) on all major entrances, and there’s a workshop being put on by the bike club at the Mac Hall loading dock to show basic bike maintenance.
Read MoreTake 30 minutes and watch Al Gore’s presentation at TED 2008. It’s an update to his first one, and is simultaneously more depressing because of the sheer scale of new data, and much more uplifting when framing the response as a call for higher consciousness to break out of our current democratic crises that are allowing the climate crisis to take place.
I’ve been struggling with what feels like a Twitter addiction for awhile now.
On the one hand, I love and value, even need the sense of community and connectedness that Twitter enables. I feel almost viscerally connected to the core group of people whom I consider my close friends, as well as those who are merely acquaintances and even strangers.
On the other hand, the constant sense of connectedness and the endless stream of updates became a source of discomfort - I couldn’t turn away. I couldn’t turn it off. I was constantly “checking in” to see if anything new and interesting had been posted.
Read MoreI tried to go offline from Twitter all day yesterday.
I failed. Miserably. Wound up posting all kinds of stuff.
I hate that I feel so compelled to constantly “check in” - just in case someone posted something.
I hate that I couldn’t just stop, as I said I would.
It’s not like any critical information came through the pipe. It’s not like I found out anything, except that a few of my friends have similar twittercrack habits.
Read MoreI emailed a copy of the following to the Calgary Transit Customer Feedback email address.
I was riding my bike home from work today, and pulled up to a 3 way stop on Scurfield Drive and Scenic Acres Boulevard NW. As I was stopping, a bus pulled up behind/beside me (I was in the right lane traveling north on Scurfield Drive, the bus was in the left). I waited for my turn to enter the intersection, and the bus followed me through. I stayed in the right lane, and the bus remained in the left lane through the intersection.
Read More
Michael Geist gave a talk at The University of Calgary on April 2, 2008, on the subject of copyright. He talked about the need for Fair Dealings, the dangers of the Canadian DMCA, and even touched on the benefits of open access and even open education.
Dr. Geist’s presentation was very compelling, interesting, and engaging. I believe he was able to communicate the benefits of less-restrictive copyright, and am hoping he helped plant some seeds to get an open content movement going here at The University of Calgary.
Read MoreI’m going to try producing a series of presentations in various media to document and share some of the tricks I’ve learned in my playing with digital photography. There are lots of other resources out there, so I’m not going to try to be canonical or exhaustive, but will try to answer some of the questions that people ask me.
This first episode is mostly just an intro/warmup for me, and I picked a basic topic: project and album management in Aperture 2.
Read MoreWhen I got my 16GB iPod Touch, I knew I’d run out of room. I just didn’t realize how soon I’d do it. Moving from my previous 30GB iPod Video, I had trimmed my music collection - purging all files of questionable origin - and was able to fit everything quite comfortably within 16GB.
But now, with a bunch of TED Talks, some movies, presentations, a schwack of podcasts (I think that’s metric. or is it imperial?), and a bunch of photos, I’m starting to hit the ceiling. 16GB just isn’t enough.
Read More