New house

We're working through a deal to buy a new house here in Vancouver. Did I say house? I meant "tiny little 71 m² condo". Have a look at it. Note: in real life, the building is finished.

Web 2.0 valuations

If you saw my post about LinkedIn, you saw how I thought it was taking off. Yes, but is anybody paying for its services?

By the way, the combined cash flow of Spot Runner, LinkedIn and Facebook is less than that of one Costco store. -- Carl Bialik, WSJ.

Swimming in Brown

Due to recent shipping issues, I'm afraid I'll have to dissuade friends from shipping things to me here in Canada through UPS. Though I've always been impressed by UPS customer service in the states, here in Canada they really miss the mark. Between customs difficulties and the apparent inability to put a note on a door, or to recover well from either of these situations, I recommend using one of these three services instead: USPS/Postes Canada Post, FedEx, or Purolator/DHL.

James Brown Is Dead

Too bad he's dead... the Bush White House will need another spokesman after Tony Snow loses steam, and this guy can avoid a question like nobody else.

LinkedIn

This was recommended to me today, and I was somewhat dubious. Ah, another Friendster clone, I thought. Well, yes, in fact, it is -- but built for business. This is the sort of thing that, if done right, could wipe out ACT! and take over the contact management market. Hell, if it synced to my cell phones I'd even shell out actual money for it. What really surprised me was that in my first pass through my address book 34 people I knew were already members. Some of them actually even seem to have used it (though there were only about 8 of them with more than 2 contacts). An old friend even found me, though he has ~400 contacts and probably takes it pretty seriously.

Podcast menu

Here's what I listen to on the bus and at the gym:

• Escape Pod: The Science Fiction Podcast Magazine (short stories)
  
• Paris DJs: Eclectic music mixes from two DJs in northeast Paris
  
• StaCCato: The best of creative-commons music
  
• Cory Doctorow: Short stories and talks by Cory Doctorow
  
• Pseudopod: The Sound of Horror (short stories)
  
• Radio-Canada: La Première à la carte: Quotidien et commentaires de la première chaîne du Radio-Canada
  
• Radio-Canada: Les bulletins de nouvelles nationaux: Le quotidien à dix minutes, chaque heure
  
• RFI - Le journal en français facile: Le quotidien à dix minutes, chaque jour
  

Families don't include men

Yorkdale Mall in suburban Toronto has redefined the family to exclude men. I fully support this... who knew the Canadian 'burbs were such a hotbed of lesbianism?

When buildings collide, part deux

Seattle got it even worse than Atlanta.

Wal-Mart goes green

Though I do hope Wal-Mart will follow through on this, I can't help but remember Wal-Mart's "Bring it home to the USA" campaign, with which the company wrapped itself in the flag and positioned itself as the place to shop in order to support domestic manufacturing jobs. You may notice that the company got over that -- and the numbers show that even when it advertised itself that way, it never actually delivered. My hope is that the economics of sustainable development truly make sense for the company, because otherwise Wal-Mart will jettison its green initative the same way it ditched its Buy American campaign.

Smut in The Star

I was shocked and appalled when I read Francine Kopun's column "Toronto family plays tourists in their own city." After all, it contained actual, unveiled references to bare buttocks and oral sex! Honestly, it ruined the entire paper for me today. Such columns should obviously have flourescent warnings ("WARNING! SMUT!") printed above them to shield the eyes of the innocent such as myself. After all, a newspaper should always cater to the most prudish, intolerant, and sheltered reader (such as myself), regardless of the subject matter or the intended audience.

Though I sympathise with the author's predicament at the Art Gallery of Ontario and at an (adult-only, nocturnal, big-city) comedy club, I say shame on her for dirtying my poor, chaste mind with such thoughts and images. But really, what did she expect to encounter in an evil, libidinous metropolis like Toronto, much less in such dens of iniquity as an art gallery (shameless libertines!) and a comedy club (humour is the devil's work)? Frankly, she was fortunate to escape with her honour and her life. However, she must be condemned for dragging the rest of us down with her. Shame!

Linux unwelcome in hotels

In three different hotels I've had the same problem using my Ubuntu laptop with the free internet service. I run into an old "reply from unexpected source" error. This is a side effect of how hotels implement redirection to their terms-of-service warning page from any URL. Unfortunately, they're incompetent spoofers. The ISP providing support is GuestDirect, telephone number 1-866-221-6440, and they supply internet service to La Quinta Inns.

When buildings collide

Google maps has satellite images that are cleverly stitched together. But due to parallax, sometimes those images don't quite line up exactly as they should. It would be fascinating to see the image stitching algorithm.

Google takes on payment processing

Analysts are billing it as a "paypal killer" but I think that's off the mark.

Being me, I have to search for an apt analogy: if this is a PayPal killer, then mammals were a coelecanth killer. Which is to say: I think Google has a bigger target in mind than Paypal, which is a small piece of the pie (which everyone hates anyhow). Instead they're taking on the banks, First Data, and (since the acquisition of Verus) Sage.

Let's see, add together Google Base, Google "office" (gmail, spreadsheets, etc), and now Google Checkout? That's starting to look like an ERP or NetSuite-type solution pretty fast.

And now, a cautionary tale:

In 1974, IBM created SNA (the Systems Network Architecture). They built something with the ultimate depth of (mainframe) functionality in preparation for the explosion they saw coming in computer networks. I picture the Big Bluers sitting around a conference table in Poughkeepsie, chainsmoking Pall Malls and saying, "by gilly, someday there could be as many as a thousand machines networked together! We must make sure we defend IBM's mainframe market share in that environment!"

SNA has disappeared from view. Sure, there must be a couple of SNA networks out there... coelecanths. TCP/IP and other smaller, more flexible network stacks were what carried us to where we are today. I once read that OSI (another dead network protocol stack) was a "mammal designed by a saurian committee."

When the climate changes species either mutate or become an evolutionary niche player. Reproduction doesn't cut it anymore.

Going down in flames

I remember the flame-retardant polyester flannel pyjamas I used to wear: they were so stiff they practically didn't bend. I used to take off the shirt because it was too uncomfortable, chafing my tender pre-teen flesh. At least I didn't burn to death. Heck, I probably could have used the shirt pocket as an ashtray. Since it was the 1970s, that was probably the design goal. At that point, Phillip Morris was trying to figure out how to get every child in America puffing away on cancer sticks while lying in bed.

So now we can add flame retardants to the long list of things we should worry about. Thankfully I'm too old for infant immunizations, and I don't wear pyjamas. I can't help eyeing my nonstick pans with some suspicion -- I'm not getting rid of them, though I won't be huffing them anytime soon.

So far we have a culprit for cancer, hyperactivity and ADD, birth defects, low sperm counts, and depression. Now I'm waiting for the bad news on fabric softeners, which I'm hoping will provide me with a handy excuse for my lack of discipline.

Twelve signs you might be a shower troll

Nobody likes to think of himself as a shower troll. It's easy to fool one's self... there's not exactly a bright line between a dedicated athlete who just likes to shower (leisurely) in company and admire the beauty (in passing), and the leering perv who soaps his pendulous genitals for hours at end. A strict definition is tricky. Since shower trolldom is terribly subjective (like sluttiness), I've come up with these simple twelve indicators – and if any two ring true, it indicates that you might want to take the occasional shower alone, under your own bridge.

1) You pay the extra $50 for the special anti-fog treatment for your new glasses.
2) Line-of-sight is the most important consideration for you in choosing a showerhead. Hot water is secondary.
3) After tiring of refilling your little travel shampoo bottle every two days, you give up and take the one-litre bottle with you. The bottle you buy at Costco because shampoo seems so darn expensive lately.
4) You switch to contact lenses because your glasses fog over.
5) After a long search, you finally find shower slippers with arch supports.
6) You have switched to Johnson's Baby Shampoo (“No Tears!”) to avoid stinging your eyes.
7) You change jobs so you can be at the gym during the busiest hours.
8) The shower stall in your home is occupied by a filing cabinet, boxes of old magazines, a fishbowl full of matchbooks and a funerary urn.
9) You get Lasik surgery because your contact lenses slip off your cornea too much.
10) Water cascades over your face without triggering a blink reflex. (And don't even pretend that's the only reflex you've lost.)
11) You maintain memberships at more than two local athletic facilities and use them regularly (“them” meaning the showers).
12) You have developed an antifungal-resistant case of athlete's foot.

And if you're still in doubt: yes, you are a shower troll.

Sex toys not a right

A US federal court has found no right to sex toys... and as Xeni Jardin points out you can buy a gun in Mississippi, but not a dildo.

Well, somebody has to suggest it: from now on, sex toys in Mississippi will have to be sold only at gun shops, and will have to be produced as a dual-use weapon: destruction and pleasure. That way they'll be protected by the 2nd amendment.

Taking that a step further, in Mississippi gun shows will now also be sex-toy shows. Gun oil will be dual-use as well.