Categories
In the News Toronto (a.k.a. Accordion City)

The Accordion City Terror Arrests

In case you hadn’t heard, let me give you the cut-and-paste of the big story in Accordion City this weekend:

In the largest anti-terrorism operation ever undertaken in Canada, more than 400 police officers conducted a series of raids in southern Ontario on June 2-3, 2006, and arrested 17 suspects.

Police arrested the group for buying ammonium nitrate, which becomes an explosive when mixed with fuel. The men had bought triple the amount used in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, which killed 168 people, and allegedly planned to bomb the Toronto Stock Exchange and Ottawa’s Parliament buildings, according to newspaper reports.

Ten of the 12 adults arrested were from Toronto or its suburbs, and the others were from Kingston, Ontario. There also were five youths arrested. A bail hearing will be held tomorrow in a Toronto-area court, the Toronto Star said.

The accused were “inspired” by Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda terrorist network, police have said. They have no known connection to the U.S. or to al-Qaeda, and are charged with crimes including contributing to the activity of a terrorist group and making property available for terrorist purposes.

I expect that this will be a hot topic of discussion for the next little while (this blog included), so I thought I’d present you with some links I quickly dug up on the story:

I’d write what I think, but I’d like a little more time to digest — that, and the interesting changes at work (about which I’ll write too) are keeping me busy.

Got something to say? Let yourself be heard in the comments!

Categories
Geek

Thank Pod It’s Friday!

Thank Pod It's Friday

Over at the blog I get paid to write — Tucows Farm — I’m back on a regular podcasting schedule and a new podcast name: Thank Pod It’s Friday (feel free to groan). In this podcast, I interviewed Bob Gibson and Greg Weir of our Content division — the branch of the company that people think about when they hear the name “Tucows”: software downloads. We talk about the “try before you buy: model of software, what Tucows and its Author Resource Center have to offer to aspiring software developers who want to sell their products, how to promote your software and how to measure the effectiveness of your promotion.

You can download it from this entry.

If you missed the previous podcast — an interview with Alain Chesnais (VP Product Development) on the Tucows platform — you can download it here.

Categories
Music

The History of the "Amen Break"

Here’s a treat for those of you who like drum and bass or have an interest in copyright and creativity — a YouTube video that covers the history of one of the most-sampled drum breaks in current pop music, the “Amen Break”, named after the drum break in the song Amen, Brother by the Winstons. Although it’s a video, the visuals are mostly of a record player spinning — it might as well have been an audio recording.

Categories
Toronto (a.k.a. Accordion City)

David Janes’ Take on the Toronto/Silicon Valley Topic

Work and life have been keeping me busy, so I haven’t found the time to finish the next part of my “How to be Silicon Valley” series. Luckily for me, David Janes has taken the topic and run with it on his blog, Ranting and Roaring. Go check it out; I’ll most likely incorporate some of it into my next blog entry on the topic.

Categories
Music

Clawjob’s Nerdy Space Rock Opera

By way of the MP3 blog The Catbirdseat, I found an interesting album by Clawjob called Space Crackers. It can very aptly described as an Space Rock Opera Concept Album. That may not be descriptive enough for you, but luckily the folks at The Catbirdseat have come up with this diagram that graphically explains what the album is like:

The first four tracks on the album are available for download at their site. I’ve listened to them and enjoyed the nerdy sci-fi lyrics and indie-pop chords and plan to buy the whole thing. Give it a listen!

Categories
Uncategorized

A New Source for Saturday Night Live’s "MySpace" Skit

YouTube got told to yank the video of the Saturday Night Live skit on MySpace that I linked to earlier, but I’ve found another site with the video. Even better: it’s on a MySpace site!


Click the picture to watch the video.

Go watch it, if only for Horatio Sanz’ perfect “creepy lisping guy” character.

Categories
It Happened to Me

The Trick to Assembling the IKEA "Expedit" Bookshelf

IKEA 'Expedit' shelf

I still get an occasional email or comment about my entry about the difficulty Wendy and I have had putting together the IKEA “Expedit” bookshelf. That was last August, and yes, the shelf has been assembled.

As we suspected, the trick is that the last phase, in which you attach the last side to the shelf, is easiest with three people, especially with the 5-by-5 model. The extra pair of hands makes all the difference; when Wendy and I recently helped my sister with three sets of Expedit shelves, the three of us put together all three in less time than it took to put together ours last year.