What with the current state of Web 2.0 design, the upcoming release of the documentary film Helvetica and this soon-to-be-available timeline poster below, I’m ready to declare 2007 “The year of Helvetica”.
Category: Uncategorized
The "X is the New Y" Chart
Here’s a chart, courtesy of Miss Fipi Lele, shows which X is the new Y (as in “blue is the new black”, “Park Slope is the new West Village“, “gin is the new vodka”, “Samsung is the new Sony”). But where’s “accordions are the new guitars”?

Click the picture to see the whole chart.
(Got any theories as to why Canada is the new Estonia? Let me know in the comments, ’cause that one’s got me stumped.)

Here’s another job opportunity at Tucows: Network Engineer! If you’d like to know more, go check out this entry in the Tucows Blog.
Tucows Job Fair Tomorrow!

Job Fair!
Tomorrow, Saturday, February 10th, from 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., the company for whom I work as Tech Evangelist — Tucows — is having a job fair! We’ve got openings for the following positions:
“Tucows? You Mean the Shareware Company?”
If you’re thinking “Tucows? You mean the shareware company?”, make sure you read about the sort of business we’re in. There’s a good summary in this article; make a note of the What Does Tucows Do, Anyway? and the The Sort of Person We’re Lookng For sections.
What Happens at the Job Fair
At tomorrow’s job fair, you’ll get to meet one-on-one with actual managers. The managers are people with hiring authority for the open positions; you’ll have a brief interview with them where you can talk about your skills and experience and ask questions about Tucows. Successful candidates from tomorrow’s interviews will be invited to come back for a more in-depth interview on the week of February 12th.
What to Bring and Where to Go
If you’d like to attend tomorrow’s job fair, bring your resume and your “‘A’ game” to the Tucows offices, located at 96 Mowat Avenue, Toronto (Mowat is a block east of King and Dufferin — you can get here via the Dufferin 29 bus or the King 504 Streetcar; there’s plenty of nearby parking too). Each interview is expected to last about 15 minutes, but you should be prepared to spend an hour here to allow for some administrivia and waiting for your interview to come up.

After some relative quiet in the comments of this blog, we’ve got ourselves some good ol’ fashioned internet-style arguin’!
Last week, we had my high school friend, who prefers to go by “Ignatz” in the comments, go on about his dislike for Accordion City Mayor David Miller and his appointment of a mere 29-year-old slip of a lad, Adam Giambrone, to be the chair of the Toronto Transit Commission. The article and comments are here.
This week, it’s my friend David P. Janes arguing with me about National Reviews columnist Jonah Goldberg’s wager offered to Juan Cole made back on February 7, 2005, that “Iraq won’t have a civil war, that it will have a viable constitution, and that a majority of Iraqis and Americans will, in two years time, agree that the war was worth it.” The article and the comments are here.
Feel free to read and even join in on either side of either debate. Just keep in mind is that this blog is my online living room, and I expect that in return for my following the rules of hospitality, you’ll follow the rules of comity.
There’s Always Someplace Colder
While it’s been cold here in Accordion City with temperatures in the negative teens (on the Celsius scale), it’s been much, much colder in Winnipeg:

Photo by Wayne Glowacki, Canadian Press
Here’s the text that accompanied this photo:
The Winnipeg skyline, seen from the city’s Arlington St. bridge, is shrouded in steam at sunrise yesterday as southern Manitoba awoke to a second straight day of extreme cold. Temperatures plummeted to record lows earlier this week in six communities – including 40.6C in Gimli and -41.9C in Fisher Branch and Winnipeg endured its chilliest day in 11 years on Monday, shivering at -41.7C.
For my American readers: -40 degrees is where the Celsius and Fahrenheit temperature scales meet.
I’m looking forward to next week’s trip to San Francisco and San Jose. 13 degrees celsius sounds positively balmy right now.
Links
Jonah Goldberg Loses His Bet
I’d nearly forgotten about it, but thanks to the link list over at the blog Making Light, I remember this little bet placed two years ago by National Review screed-ist Jonah Goldberg during a nasty blog debate with Juan Cole:
Anyway, I do think my judgment is superior to his when it comes to the big picture. So, I have an idea: Since he doesn’t want to debate anything except his own brilliance, let’s make a bet. I predict that Iraq won’t have a civil war, that it will have a viable constitution, and that a majority of Iraqis and Americans will, in two years time, agree that the war was worth it. I’ll bet $1,000 (which I can hardly spare right now). This way neither of us can hide behind clever word play or CV reading. If there’s another reasonable wager Cole wants to offer which would measure our judgment, I’m all ears. Money where your mouth is, doc.
One caveat: Because I don’t think it’s right to bet on such serious matters for personal gain, if I win, I’ll donate the money to the USO. He can give it to the al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade or whatever his favorite charity is.
What a jackass.
Well, two years to the day have passed, and Mr. Goldberg will be hard-pressed to weasel word his way into convincing anyone that he won the bet, what with stories like Gallup: Bush Approval Rating at 32%, Hits New Low on Iraq and Bush Approval Rating Hits Low of 30% in Newsweek Poll (Update1).
He won’t be able to donate any winnings to the “Pointless Sock-Puppets of George W. Bush” fund, or whatever his favourite charity is.
The question remains: will he pay up?
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