If you missed last night’s Colbert Report, you might be unaware that as of today, there are 999 days left in the Bush administration. In honour of this event, here’s a pointer to a comic I found amusing: Everything I Know I Learned from the Bush Administration. Some samples…
I love the “comic book convention” joke:
Last night marked the fifth DemoCamp, Accordion City’s monthly gathering of the tech community where we show off our current projects to our peers. It took place at the University of Toronto’s Bahen Centre for Information Technology; use of the auditorium was arranged by Greg Wilson, whom I wish was my prof back when I was a computer science student at Crazy Go Nuts University. By Greg’s count, we had 141 attendees.
The crowd, with about 5 minutes before the start of the presentations. The place was packed by the time presentations began.
Greg expressed some concern at the small number of U of T students present. C’mon, kids — it’s almost summer, some of you a graduating, and right on campus was this great opportunity to see what’s going on in the working world and meet potential employers. Don’t blow opportunities like this!
The presentations were:
After the presentations, a large number of the attendees converged on the upstairs bar at Molly Bloom’s for beer, wings and burgers. Greg, I owe you some money for my food and beer!
Here’s the view from the window on our flight to Boston last weekend, just before landing at Logan airport. We were neck-and-neck with the Song jet, which was also coming in for a landing, then pulled ahead. A little closer, and I would’ve been able to watch the in-flight movie on the other jet…
We’re coming up on that time again: the next “Ask Tucows” online chat takes place in just one week — Tuesday, May 2nd.
The first chat was quite successful and went well over the “official” scheduled length. Based on the response and length of the conversation, I have decided to lengthen the “official” time of the chat; it will take place on May 2nd from 12:00 noon to 3:00 p.m. EDT (that’s 9:00 a.m. – 12:00 noon Pacific, or 16:00 to 19:00 UTC).
I’m working out the last of the chat details right now; I’ll post them shortly.
If you missed the last “Ask Tucows” chat, a transcript is available online at Tucows Developer News.
Jane Jacobs died today at the age of 89. Among other things, she was a champion of liveable cities, a citizen of Accordion City and the author of The Death and Life of Great American Cities. Robert Fulfold said of her: “Jacobs came down firmly on the side of spontaneous inventiveness of individuals, as against abstract plans imposed by governments and corporations. She was an unlikely intellectual warrior, a theorist who opposed most theories, a teacher with no teaching job and no university degree, a writer who wrote well but infrequently.” We all owe her a debt of gratitude.
Requiescat in pace, Jane.
Whenever an airplane manufacturer releases a new model plane, they always trot out special versions showing planes equppied with cocktail lounges, massage stations and sleeping berths. However, the airlines who purchase these planes see things differently: their goal is to pack as many people as possible on a flight. Seat space has diminished by 3 inches on average since 1978 and now Airbus is proposing making the term “cattle class” less a figure of speech by proposing a standing-room concept.
I am reminded of the South Park episode where Mr. Garrison invents a new vehicle that is controlled by four suspiciously penis-like handles, one of which goes into the driver’s anus. “It’s still better than the airlines,” one character says. The vehicle, a parody of the Segway, is such a success that the airlines go bankrupt and have to be bailed out by the government.
Maybe we should write to the airlines right now and say “If you install those standing-room seats, I’m never flying with you again.”
Tucows has opened a web service to the public called Feedcache. If you’re a developer building an application that needs to retrieve RSS feeds reliably or search through them, you might find this service useful. For more information about it, see my postings on Tucows Developer and Tucows Farm as well as Ross’ posting on his blog.