It’s all determined by your birth month and date and the colour of the shirt you’re wearing right now. Yes, it’s one of those silly diversions making the internet rounds, but for some reason I like it.

I rather like my team: Tyrion “The Imp” Lannister from Game of Thrones, Batman and Scarlett Johnansson.

And yet Ken doesn’t care:

Byron Sonne, dubbed by some folks in the media as the “G20 Geek” was found not guilty on all counts today.  Byron is a computer consultant and a freedom-and-technology activist who wanted to expose the 2010 Toronto G20 Summit’s “security theatre” — measures taken by security that serve little actual purpose except to present a false image of security and to justify the security team’s budget — and wound up being arrested and accused of planning to detonate bombs at the event.

Byron faced some pretty tough opponents: a police force who’d pretty much used the summit as an excuse to make mass arrests and crack some skulls, detective Tam Bui playing the bad cop’s bad cop, and Liz Nadeau as the prosecutor determined to justify the security theatre. His house was raided, he and his wife were arrested, he was put in prison for nearly a year, his stuff was confiscated and his ability to use a computer — the tool of his livelihood — was seriously curtailed. In the process, he lost not just his freedom, but also his wife.

While I don’t agree with the way in which Byron went to point out the security theatre of the G20 Summit, I believe that as the citizenry that is supposed to be served by the security mechanism put in place (and we were very badly served), we have the right to call it out. Byron’s arrest and the prosecution’s actions during the trial were just extensions of that security theatre, and his exoneration is one small step to justice being served. He would be justified in taking legal action against the police — they’re the real criminals in this case.

Congrats, Byron! I’m buying you a freedom beer when we next see each other.

Recommended Reading

• FreeByron.org: A site providing information about Byron Sonne’s case put together by his supporters.
• How Byron Sonne’s obsession with the G20 security apparatus cost him everything: A Toronto Life article covering his case as it was last year.
• Everything You Need to Know About the Byron Sonne Trial: His case explained, in timeline form.

I took this photo yesterday on the south side of Adelaide, just east of Jarvis. There wasn’t anybody using the door to load stuff on or off a supply truck, nor was anybody using or watching it:

Here’s a close-up of the sign:

Be warned, it’s pretty sweary, but the show itself has gratuitous cursing, violence and sex. That’s why we love it, and that’s why Anitra and I like to call the show “Boobs and Beheadings”.

Here are the stars of the 1986 film Top Gun (which you can probably see playing somewhere on TV right now), as they appeared in 1986 and as they appear today:

Somewhere in Tom Cruise’s cellar, there’s a portrait of him aging and bearing the mark of every act he performed in the service of the Church of Scientology.

Ah, Top Gun…

I’m a little tied up doing some Mother’s Day stuff, so this is going to be a quick post. To all of you who are moms, whether it’s biologically or because you played that role in someone’s life, Happy Mother’s Day! The world’s a better place because of you.

I hate it when my fellow techies say “so simple your mom could use it”. My mom is the chief of cardiology at a major metropolitan hospital and can tell the difference between a healthy heart and one with a blockage just by listening. To me, it all sounds like fluid rushing through pipes. She could kill you and make it look like natural causes. And she was the one who suggested that I do my science fair project on computers, a path from which I’ve never strayed since. So I never use “mom” to refer to a naive, technophobic user, and really , neither should you. Moms have more going on than you might think, and Alexandra Samuel explains this in Thank Your Mom — She Taught You How to Tech.

In closing, here’s a graphic courtesy of George “That’s Captain Sulu to you!” Takei for all you fans of Mother’s Day and Alien:

Here’s an interesting idea for a film: newspaper reporters try to find out what’s going on with a guy who places a classified ad that reads:

WANTED: Someone to go back in time with me. This is not a joke. You’ll get paid after we get back. Must bring your own weapons. Safety not guaranteed. I have only done this once before.

Funny thing: the movie’s plot traces its origins to an actual classified ad placed in Backwoods Home Magazine back in 1997:

I think I’ll have to catch this movie when it comes out.

If you’ve been thinking about selling stuff online and looking for the right ecommerce software, consider this offer. Shopify, the easiest to use hosted ecommerce software, can be yours for free for the first 90 days (as opposed the to usual 30) if you register for Shopify at this URL:

http://shopify.ca/joeysentme

It looks like the standard Shopify page, but under the hood, it’ll add an extra note to your account that says “Joey sent them, so triple their free trial period!”

You don’t have to do much to get started — at the start, we want to just fill three fields:

Once again: if you want a Shopify shop that’s free for you to try for 90 days as opposed to the usual 30, head to this URL and register now:

http://shopify.ca/joeysentme

“The economy may be in recession,” writes the site for FHM, the companion to the men’s magazine, “but there’s plenty of growth out there in the UK at the moment. The bad news is that it’s all under girls’ arms.”

This in reference to a recent appearance by research student Emer O’Toole, who came to the conclusion 18 months ago that shaving conforms to artificial gender norms. I’ve posted the appearance below:

While it’s not my preferred style, hairy armpits on a woman has never been a dealbreaker for me — but then again, I’ve made out with my share of hippie-chick types. What do you think?

He should also have a smoking jacket.

Here’s the cover of the current US edition of Time. I think the kid’s old enough to have been weaned, but it would seem that Hot Mom doesn’t think so:

Here’s the cover of the current European edition, which as usual, features a weightier topic.

And here’s a great parody of the US edition:

Cathay Pacific is one of my favourite airlines. They live, eat and breathe service, from having great planes with reasonable layouts (as compared to say, United Airlines’ “Economy Minus”) and amenities (they’ve had individual seat-back entertainment units since the late ’90s) to niceties I haven’t seen any other airline provide (such as a HK$50 coupon for food at the Hong Kong airport if you’re going to stay there for over an hour).

Unfortunately, I don’t fly on Cathay Pacific either frequently or expensively enough to merit a pass to their amazing first class/business/elite traveller lounge, featured in the video below:

That changed as of yesterday. Cathay Pacific signed a deal with Klout, the web service that assigns people a score based on their influence across social media, such as Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and so on. If you have a Klout score greater than 40, you can use their lounge at San Francisco’s airport as if you were a first class passenger. Next to me, The World’s Greatest Accordion-Playing Tech Evangelist and the Thrilla from Manila, I qualify by a decent margin:

All you need to do is walk up to the lounge’s front desk, call up your Klout score on your phone, show off your score and if you’ve got the juice, you’re in!

This isn’t the first of a few perks that I’ve qualified for with my Klout score. The best one was still the free flight to San Francisco on Virgin Airlines.

I’m now waiting for perks based on your Klouchebag score, the rating based on your Klout douchebaggery:

I have no clear idea why Klouchebag thinks I have English problems. I’m told that it considers the use of exclamation marks to be “misuse”.

I’m working away in my hotel room, prepping some stuff from Big Omaha. Here’s what some of it looks like.

I’m going to be in Omaha this week, from Tuesday afternoon through Saturday morning to represent Shopify at Big Omaha, the startup conference that’s been described as “like South by Southwest, before South by Southwest got crazy.”

I flew from Accordion City’s Pearson Airport to Chicago’s O’Hare. I caught this shot of downtown Chicago from the air a couple of minutes before we landed:

Taxiing into the terminal, we passed by a good chunk of the United fleet, including this “Classic”, the aviation nickname for the Boeing 747. I haven’t been on one of those planes in ages — probably since 2000.

Here’s Butch O’Hare’s plane — they named the airport after him:

Good old O’Hare with its familiar curved ceilings. I’ve passed through this airport a fair number of times in the past couple of years. I know that I lot of people hate connecting through it, but I’m kind of fond of O’Hare.

If you’re at O’Hare, hungry and have a reasonably long stopover (at least an hour), you should make your way to Concourse B…

…and make your way to the spot between gates B10 and B11. That’s where you’ll find Tortas Frontera, a restaurant by Rick Bayless, whom you might have seen on the Food Network. He’s the chef behind Frontera Grill and Topolobampo, twin Mexican restaurants with amazingly good food that are always booked solid.

As the name implies, this place specialized in tortas — sandwiches — and they’re far better than your standard airport fare. They do take about ten minutes to prepare, so you shouldn’t go here if you’ve got little time to catch your next flight. They will box your torta if you need it “to go”.

I picked up my torta and started making my way to Concourse C, where the gate for my Chicago-to-Omaha flight was. Concourse C is separate from the rest of the airport and requires either taking a bus or using a tunnel which goes underneath the tarmac. Here’s what you see as you descend into the tunnel:

And here’s the tunnel itself. They could’ve gone “ugly and utilitarian”, but they didn’t:

The coloured panels on the wall look like something out of a 1960s science fiction movie:

And on it goes…

…and goes…

…and goes.

Here’s the approach to Omaha. It’s brownish fields…

…giving way to green…

…then the river…

…and then you land.

I saw this sign at the end of the jetway. You know you’re in the midwest when you seen these things:

You also know you’re in the midwest when you see ads like this. I’m familiar with RFD TV because it was home to The Big Joe Polka Show, which is wall-to-wall accordions. Ethan Zuckerman showed me an episode ages ago, and it was pure polka-and-accordion magic.

Click the picture to see it at full size (it’s very wide!)

Having played in more than my fair share of rock bands, I can assure you that the poster above speaks the truth.

And then there’s this:

“Bass” guitar photo found via Abby Fichtner.