Toronto, the High-Tech Hub
For the past six months, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about my career in high tech, where I want to take it, Toronto’s role in my high-tech career and conversely my own role in Toronto’s standing as a hub for high-tech. I said “Watch this space!” in an earlier article [...]
Category Archives: Toronto (a.k.a. Accordion City)
Toronto, The High-Tech Hub: A Lesson from the Sex Pistols
February 25, 2008 – 3:41 pm
Queen/Bathurst Panorama
February 22, 2008 – 4:58 pm
The block of buildings on Queen Street West between Portland and Bathurst Streets — the one pretty much destroyed by the recent six-alarm fire — has been my backdrop for accordion busking since my very first day.
In its memory, here’s a panoramic shot of that block of buildings, taken by my friend and first boss [...]
Demos and Ignite Presentations at Monday’s DemoCamp
February 22, 2008 – 11:27 am
[This article was also posted on Global Nerdy.]
This Monday, February 25th, marks the 17th DemoCamp Toronto, the regularly-held gathering where the bright lights of Toronto’s high-tech and startup scene get together to show off their current projects and presentation and exchange information and ideas. Instigated by David Crow, Toronto’s hardest-working tech evangelist and stewarded by [...]
TTC: “No Major Disruptions at This Time”
February 20, 2008 – 9:54 am
Photo by Colin McConnell, Toronto Star.Click the photo to see it on its original page.
The six-alarm fire at Queen and Bathurst has caused massive disruptions to the Queen and Bathurst streetcar lines all morning, but you wouldn’t know it from looking at the TTC’s service disruption web page:
Mirabelle Wine Bar
February 17, 2008 – 11:51 pm
Wendy and I went to Mirabelle Wine Bar (2112 Yonge Street, a couple of blocks south of Eglinton) for Valentine’s Day dinner, and it was excellent. For that night, they cancelled their regular menu and presented a special menu with three appetizers, three main courses and three desserts. We both opted for the prawn cocktail, [...]
How ICT Toronto Sees the Local Tech Community
February 17, 2008 – 4:12 pm
ICT Toronto is a City Hall initiative whose goals are, in their own words, to make Toronto a place that “will become, and be acknowledged globally, as one of the 5 most innovative, creative and productive locations in the world for ICT research, education, business, and investment by 2011″. They’ll be lucky if they manage [...]
Responses to “Ideas to Steal from Silicon Valley and Seattle”
February 17, 2008 – 3:49 pm
A couple of articles have already appeared in response to Ideas to Steal from Silicon Valley and Seattle:
Chris Ragobeer: An Open Letter to Toronto’s Technology Community
Over at The Toronto Marketing and Technology Blog, Chris Ragobeer wrote an article titled An Open Letter to Toronto’s Technology Community. In the article, Chris lists these things:
Things that Toronto [...]
More About Those “Obay” Ads
February 17, 2008 – 11:25 am
Photo by Jonathan Goldsbie.Click the photo to see it on its original page.
Kudos to Torontoist, who’ve been looking into what the mysterious ads for “Obay” (which I wrote about in this entry) are all about. According to their article, The Ones That Mother Gives You, although it would be more fun if Scientology (whose anti-psychology/psychiatry [...]
TSOT Ruby/Rails Project Night: February 12th
February 10, 2008 – 1:09 pm
Here’s a photo to remind you that TSOT’s Second Ruby/Rails Project Night is just over a day away:
For more details about Ruby/Rails project night, see this blog entry.
DemoCamp 17: February 25th
February 10, 2008 – 1:00 pm
Here’s a photo to remind you that DemoCamp 17 — the “show and tell” gathering of the bright lights of Toronto’s tech community — is just over a week away:
For more details about DemoCamp 17, see:
My earlier blog entry on DemoCamp 17
David Crow’s blog entry on DemoCamp 17
Radiant Core’s blog entry on DemoCamp 17
Leila Boujanane’s [...]
SciBarCamp: March 15th and 16th
February 10, 2008 – 12:40 pm
Here’s a photo to remind you that SciBarCamp — the unconference where scientists, technologists, artists and other thinkers come together for a weekend of exchanging knowledge and ideas — is just over a month away:
Photo by Matt “Black Belt” Jones.Click the photo to see it on its Flickr page.
For more details about SciBarCamp, visit:
SciBarCamp’s official [...]
“Alice in Wonderland” at Toronto’s New City Hall
January 30, 2008 – 10:00 am
Here’s a great photo from a performance of Alice in Wonderland outside Toronto’s New City Hall taken by Sam “Daily Dose of Imagery” Javanrouh. The show was performed by Theater Gajes, a troupe from the Netherlands, and they’ll be performing it again this Saturday and Sunday at both 2 and 5 p.m..
Click the photo to [...]
Ajax Pub Night in Accordion City - Monday, January 14th
January 12, 2008 – 3:08 pm
It’s the only time you should mix Ajax and beer: at Ajax Pub Night, which takes place here in Toronto on Monday, January 14th. Here are the details:
Where: The Rhino (1249 Queen Street West, just west of Dufferin)
When: Monday, January 14th, starting at 7:00 p.m.
Who’s behind this? Brent Ashley, Pete Forde, Kristan Uccello and Gabriel [...]
Mark Kingwell’s Essay: “Toronto: Justice Denied”
January 8, 2008 – 11:23 am
BlogTO pointed to Mark Kingwell’s essay in The Walrus, Toronto: Justice Denied, which is subtitled Is Toronto being taken over by hucksters, fauxhemians, and the “knowledge economy”?.
Here’s an excerpt:
Suppose we are an idea city. Suppose being so means everyone is somehow better off. We could go on chasing our own tails as a leading creative [...]
Really, It’s Safe to Take Off That Winter Coat
January 8, 2008 – 10:59 am
Riding the subway today, I saw a number of people still wearing winter coats and sweating bullets, despite the fact that we’re in the middle of an unusually warm January thaw. It was already 12 degrees C (about 54 degrees F) and will climb to 15 degrees C (just shy of 60 degrees F) by [...]
Toronto’s Language Quilt
December 31, 2007 – 1:27 pm
“Language Quilt” map taken from the Toronto Star.Click here to download the full article (20 MB PDF — you’ve been warned!)
Yesterday, the Toronto Star published a map titled The Language Quilt, a map of Accordion City and surrounding areas colour-coded by prevalent mother tongue based on 2006 census data. If you’re willing to download a [...]
