Shoot the Cliche is a Flash-based game in which you get to blow away internet and pop-culture memes that have become cliches on Fark. You can blast at Admiral Ackbar, the Fark mustard guy, Bat Boy, Trogdor, Domo-Kun, Ellen Feiss and others…but you must spare the cute kittens!
Last night, I had the privilege of dining with Rebecca MacKinnon, Jay Rosen, Jeff Jarvis and Hossein “Hoder” Derakhshan at Tempus, a Persian fusion restaurant on Yonge Street here in Accordion City.
After hearing about how Hoder and I came to Canada, Jay quipped “Isn’t history so rude, the way it just interferes with lives like that?”.
Hoder’s life was pretty much altered after the 1979 Revolution in his native Iran, while mine was changed mere weeks after my family moved back to the
Philippines in 1972, when President Marcos had his dictatorial flip-out.
In commenting on my write-ups of the PJNet conference on public journalism and blogging
(which he complimented — thanks!), he asked if my reporting style was influenced by my training as a computer programmer. I told him that I couldn’t imagine it not being influenced by it, as I’m the sort of
person who likes his information well-organized.
We also talked about the excellent but short-lived television show Max Headroom, which Jay, Jeff and I loved. Jeff said that he gave it a great review (I’m not sure if it was in TV Guide or People — he worked at both in the 1980s).
We also talked about software and hardware usability and the conceptual gaps between programmers and the people who use their software, self-expression and cultural gaps, beer, journalists’ perception of
blogging, getting Rebecca set up with a Blogware blog, Tucows and Asia.
The big topic of discussion was what I like to think of as “Changing the World”, through weblogs. It was inspired by Hoder’s blogging; he’s almost single-handedly responsible for starting a blogging revolution
in Iran. The hope is to foster the exchange of ideas, international understanding and free speech through blogging. We came up with these requirements (which I’ve cribbed from this entry on Jeff’s blog):
- Promotion. Hoder says it is important to get prominent people, like journalists, blogging in these countries to bring attention to it. He wants to set up an award for Iranian blogs — not for the best blog but for the best post, which is appropriate to the medium. We talked about the need to create a blog news service that would translate and reblog notable posts from around the world: Hey, big news guys, here are the stories you’re missing but here’s a link to where you can get them. And hey, powerful politicians, here is what the people are reporting in your country. And hey, readers around the world, here’s a new perspective on a country you’re not seeing in thepaper or on TV — either because it’s not coverered or it’s covered from a high altitude and not from a human level.
- Tools. We need to get tools and instruction translated into Arabic and other local languages. They need to be the appropriate tools — so, for example, bloggers can post via email when they can’t get Web access. For blogging to take off in a country, it has to be done in the native language. Efforts are underway.
- Hosting. If rich folks want to help the cause of freespeech and understanding, providing free and anonymous hosting that’s not under the control of repressive governments will help.
- Detours around censorship. The web technical community needs to invent new ways to get around government censors, who regularly block access to specific blogs and to blog domains (e.g., Blogspot and Typepad). Hoder’s site is now blocked in Iran, which lost him a lot of traffic that matters, but he also found that more people are now subscribing to his RSS feed instead. Separate RSS feed services, cacheing of blogs, clever redirects, and other means need to be created to keep free speech free.
It has happened in Iran. It is happening in Iraq.
Rebecca says it’s exploding in China (though I wish that news service existed so we could get an idea of what people are saying there). Where else should it be happening? Afghanistan. Turkey. Egypt. Saudi Arabia. Indonesia. Central Asia……
Thanks for dinner, Jeff, and it was great dining and talking with all of you!
Hey, it’s a comic I can forward to both Wendy (she’s Jewish) and Scott (who thinks he’s a robot): ShaBot 6000!
From the “About” page:
…who purchases a robot…
…to work as Shabbos Goy for
his household. The inquisitive robot, ShaBot, decides
that he is Jewish, and is therefore unable to fulfill his duties as
servant. ShaBot spends his days asking questions about Judaism, trying
to find logic in a religion that sometimes DOES NOT COMPUTE.
ShaBot 6000 is unlike any other Jewish themed cartoon.
In fact, the only other Jewish cartoon worth mentioning is Yaakov Kirschen’s Dry
Bones, a venerable comic strip which has been in syndication since
the 1970’s! Whereas Dry Bones is mostly about Israel and Middle Eastern
politics, ShaBot 6000 is more about Jewish faith. ShaBot 6000 looks
at the lighter side of kashrut, parshat
ha-shavuah, Talmud,
interfaith and more, often challenging Jewish principles that most
would never dare question. ShaBot 6000 is a comic strip for
the 21st century modern Jew!
Trust me — it’s pretty amusing. I may be a goy, but since five I know from funny!
Richard, in his Simpsons-quoting blog Improvident Lackwit, shows his great dislike the title of my entry about local businesses offering disparate services in a very bloggy way: via trackback.
Chill, dude.
Radiant Core Career Opportunity DSN04
Title: Senior Designer
Location: Toronto, ON, Canada. Candidate must be local.
Description:
Our Senior Designer is an integral part of our growing team. You will
be responsible for overseeing all creative produced by Radiant Core for
web, print, and corporate identities. You feel at home in a
self-directed team environment and love producing work that pleases
both you and your clients. You are comfortable with Adobe Photoshop and
Illustrator, XHTML and CSS, and are not adverse to building the
occasional Macromedia Flash movie. You understand the importance of web
standards and are often heard muttering about validation and
cross-browser compliance testing. You love to love your job and are
dedicated to making it that way.
Responsibilities:
You will work very closely with our Developers and Human Factors
Specialist as a member of our Professional Services Team. You will, at
first, provide all creative components of our engagements but are
comfortable growing into a Creative Director role as we hire more
designers.
Required Skills/Education:
• Three or more years experience designing and building
standards-compliant websites (XHTML 1.0 Strict, CSS2.0)
• Portfolio of corporate identity design
• Experience in a client-service environment and an understanding
of the politics of client work
• Expertise in design software and web tools on Mac OS: Photoshop,
Illustrator
• Knowledge of cross-browser and cross-platform issues and workarounds
• Ability to work quickly and efficiently in a self-directed environment and a
willingness to learn new things
• Bachelor degree or equivalent from a related program (Fine Arts,
New Media, etc.)
Would Be Really Nice To Have Skills:
• Print design experience
• Working knowledge of Macromedia Flash and ActionScript
• Familiarity with JavaScript and JSP-related technologies
• Familiarity with team development environments including CVS, etc.
Compensation:
This is a full-time position. Our competitive compensation package will
be based on your experience level and will include a fixed salary and
an equity-position in the company. Additional benefits include flexible
hours, relaxed working environment, prime downtown location, and the
use of a PowerBook G4.
How To Apply:
Please send your resume, in an electronic format (e.g.: Microsoft Word,
PDF), along with a link to your portfolio site, to
careers@radiantcore.com. Please reference job code DSN04 in your
subject line. Applications will be accepted until 5pm on Friday, August
20th, 2004.
About Radiant Core:
Radiant Core, Inc. is a leading Toronto-based provider of web design
and development services. Their industry-proven Website Platform,
Foundation, provides a full range of web-based publishing and
productivity tools including content and asset management,
demographically-targeted emails, and photo galleries. Radiant Core was
founded in 2003 by Jason Boyer, Jay Goldman, Michael Glenn, and Sean
Martell. Please visit our website for more information:
www.radiantcore.com.
This morning, I had breakfast at my favourite new cafe, Scene It.
Scene It is two businesses in one, being both a cafe and a travel
agency. The front portion is what’s you’d expect in a cafe: tables and
chairs, comfortable couches and a countert serving coffee and food.
There are some bonuses that although novel, aren’t completely
unexpected in a cafe: a gelato counter featuring the best cappucino
gelato in the area, bookshelves with travel magazines and the largest
library of Lonely Planet travel guides I’ve ever seen, computers which you can use for a small hourly fee and free WiFi.
What you wouldn’t expect in a cafe is travel agency. As you move from
the front to the back of the room, there’s makes a transition from cafe
to office. There’s a desk at the back of the room where you can make
travel arrangements as if you were at a regular travel agency — and
while having a coffee and biscotti!
They use their cafe setting to their advantage: they often have
information nights where someone does a presentation about a travel
destination. It’s the perfect location; after all, would you rather do
it in a stuffy travel agency boardroom or a nice cafe?
Tequila Bookworm, located across the street, has been around for years and is a cafe-meets-magazine shop-meets-bouquiniste (a French term for “seller of used books”).
The Chinatown Centre at Sullivan and Spadina
has a computer store that also doubles as an internet cafe in the
basement level. You can buy computer parts and play networked games on
their machines. They do a pretty brisk business with kids, mot of whom
like to play networked first-person shooters and MMORPGs.
R Squared at King and Spadina is a “furniture cafe”: furniture store (mostly stuff you’d expect to find in Wallpaper* magazine) and cafe all in one.
I haven’t been to Cinecycle in ages. I know that they’re still a movie theatre, but do they still do bike repair too?
Although not technically a single business offering two different services, the nearby Chapters bookstore (Richmond and John Streets) incorporates a Starbucks and will sell you internet access for a fee.
e zone at Queen and Spadina
has the zaniest combination: it’s a bubble tea lounge and hair salon
that also carries a combination of Chinese, Korean and Japanese food.
They’re a little more separate than the other combinations: the hair
salon is downstairs, while the lounge is upstairs.
How can you not want to see a movie whose unofficial tagline is:
(Despite both being outgoing, extroverted guys, neither of us did ask
Zoe out. She was a little young, had a big, mean boyfriend, and hey:
there’s the whole “she’d probably turn you into a human sacrifice”
thing. We both ended up dating cute girls without allegiances to scary
ritualistic freakshows.)
Here’s a photo of us from last year at our friend Derek Walker’s stag party:
Other “Harold and Kumar” references online include the latest Secret Asian Man comic:
…as well as…
…also, in the blogosphere…
“This film marks the first time a major studio is releasing a project
with two Asian American males as the leads. We don’t have
stereotypical accents, we don’t passively tread
through the story, we’re not asexual or hypersexual, there are no
martial arts scenes, one-dimensional cab driver segments. We play a
couple of all-American guys who happen to be of Indian and Korean
descent.”
and last, but certainly not least, Wikipedia’s entry for White Castle and the official site of the White Castle hamburger chain.