No, I'm not talking about how surprisingly well the Bills are playing this year.
Rather, I'm talking about how the supposedly sensitive and endangered nation of the US needs to be so careful about itself that it can't produce the appropriate constitutionally-required evidence against John Perry Barlow in order to prove or disprove his claim of being duped.
I know I believe him, but believing isn't enough. They're supposed to give up the evidence in court and so far, his attempts to get them to produce evidence and testimony have met with the blanket statement that it is all so "sensitive" that it threatens "national security".
Yeah right. Reason 326 I'm glad I'm Canadian right now.
Sunday, December 19, 2004
Wednesday, December 15, 2004
Missing online shopping
Despite the depressing media doomsday dialogue about online shopping, hackers, fraud, theft, blah blah, I'm not afraid to do it. I like the convenience of it, the selection, the fact I can do it in my bunny slippers at home (or would if I actually owned bunny slippers).
Since Canada is finally starting to get it and more and more stores are putting up an online presence complete with shopping cart ability, I'd love to do more and more of my shopping online through real stores rather than just eBay.
Don't get me wrong - I still love eBay. But when you're trying to buy a gift for someone and don't necessarily want to have to worry about whether it will cross the border in time for the big day, you'd much rather keep your money north of the 49th and buy from a store with a true money-back guarantee and liberal return policy.
So why don't I? Because the lack of a simple little piece of plastic prevents me. A credit card.
Used to have one, but ran it up scarily high. The stress of the debt was too much for me. So it got paid off and cancelled. And I'm now CC-less. Feels good...until I go try and shop online.
What I don't understand is why the Canadian banks don't get together and offer an online form of debit payment like the Interac system used in stores, restaurants and even for at-home pizza delivery now too. Heck, apparently 2/3 of the population of this country now use debit cards instead of cash.
Paypal is nice, but few large reputable etailers really want you to "wire" them cash like that. Switch-style debit-cards unwritten by Visa would be even nicer. I had these in Bermuda when I lived there in 1996 and adored it. I could use it as a Visa in places where debit cards don't tread, but the effect was still the same - money direct from my account, rather than ringing up a debt I'd have to pay off eventually.
It's not like it would be that difficult - Canada's banking system is much more homogenized than the US, given banking regulations here. But alas! The banks haven't yet figured out we'd depend on them even more if they offered this kind of service and thus I must live without access to the clicks-and-bricks shopping for the foreseeable future. And they wonder why Canadians lag behind the US in online shopping? Humph!
So when people ask me this year why I didn't do my Christmas shopping online this year, I'll end up mumbling something about the lack of plastic in my life and changing the subject quickly.
Since Canada is finally starting to get it and more and more stores are putting up an online presence complete with shopping cart ability, I'd love to do more and more of my shopping online through real stores rather than just eBay.
Don't get me wrong - I still love eBay. But when you're trying to buy a gift for someone and don't necessarily want to have to worry about whether it will cross the border in time for the big day, you'd much rather keep your money north of the 49th and buy from a store with a true money-back guarantee and liberal return policy.
So why don't I? Because the lack of a simple little piece of plastic prevents me. A credit card.
Used to have one, but ran it up scarily high. The stress of the debt was too much for me. So it got paid off and cancelled. And I'm now CC-less. Feels good...until I go try and shop online.
What I don't understand is why the Canadian banks don't get together and offer an online form of debit payment like the Interac system used in stores, restaurants and even for at-home pizza delivery now too. Heck, apparently 2/3 of the population of this country now use debit cards instead of cash.
Paypal is nice, but few large reputable etailers really want you to "wire" them cash like that. Switch-style debit-cards unwritten by Visa would be even nicer. I had these in Bermuda when I lived there in 1996 and adored it. I could use it as a Visa in places where debit cards don't tread, but the effect was still the same - money direct from my account, rather than ringing up a debt I'd have to pay off eventually.
It's not like it would be that difficult - Canada's banking system is much more homogenized than the US, given banking regulations here. But alas! The banks haven't yet figured out we'd depend on them even more if they offered this kind of service and thus I must live without access to the clicks-and-bricks shopping for the foreseeable future. And they wonder why Canadians lag behind the US in online shopping? Humph!
So when people ask me this year why I didn't do my Christmas shopping online this year, I'll end up mumbling something about the lack of plastic in my life and changing the subject quickly.
Google keeps its eye on search
Google is planning on scanning the collections of a variety of huge libraries in the US, including Harvard and Stanford universities and the wonderful New York Public Library and making them searchable through it.
Think it will let me take out books online using my Concordia U student card and have them USPSd to me? I'd certainly get much better access to digital culture books than I do here - Concordia has only 73.
Think it will let me take out books online using my Concordia U student card and have them USPSd to me? I'd certainly get much better access to digital culture books than I do here - Concordia has only 73.
Friday, December 10, 2004
Joke of the week
In the spirit of the Holiday season and the impending end of the semester, I found the following "Truth about Reindeer" while procrastinating hard on my sociology of fear and risk paper...
According to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, while both male and female reindeer grow antlers in the summer each year, male reindeer drop their antlers at the beginning of winter, usually late November to mid-December. Female reindeer retain their antlers till after they give birth in the spring. Therefore, according to every historical rendition depicting Santa's reindeer, every single one of them, from Rudolph to Blitzen - had to be a girl. We should've known.
Only women, while pregnant, would be able to drag a fat man in a red velvet suit all around the world in one night and not get lost.
Tuesday, December 07, 2004
The empowered porn blog
What is beauty? What is pornography? What is empowerment? All key questions in the lives of the post-modern woman.
These are questions that the group blogcommunity SuicideGirls (warning! nudity!) takes head-on through their self-portrayals of actual digital-minded alterna-grrls in all their tattooed, pierced, goth, tech-loving glory, rendered in brutal honesty. It's a commmercial blog too - to browse it, at some point you've got to pay for it.
Found this via the Journal of Media and Culture, who said:
Truly a post-modern phenomenon - females using the Internet to willingly participate in former disempowering tactics (taking off their clothes for money) with the intention of showcasing a style of female beauty that has nothing to do with a $30 lipstick and $3000 set of silicones, all with the goal of self-empowerment outside the boundaries of the mainstream.
These are questions that the group blogcommunity SuicideGirls (warning! nudity!) takes head-on through their self-portrayals of actual digital-minded alterna-grrls in all their tattooed, pierced, goth, tech-loving glory, rendered in brutal honesty. It's a commmercial blog too - to browse it, at some point you've got to pay for it.
Found this via the Journal of Media and Culture, who said:
SuicideGirls.com is an adult community that offers a mix of eroticism, creativity, personality and intelligence. SuicideGirls is about so-called empowered eroticism; it provides a site where girls outside of mainstream culture can express their individual style through soft erotic images, and web logs
Truly a post-modern phenomenon - females using the Internet to willingly participate in former disempowering tactics (taking off their clothes for money) with the intention of showcasing a style of female beauty that has nothing to do with a $30 lipstick and $3000 set of silicones, all with the goal of self-empowerment outside the boundaries of the mainstream.
Sunday, December 05, 2004
Cool vacation for music lovers
While doing some serious procrastinating on my SOCI 460 end-term work this afternoon, I was browsing through my favourite online new music site, Aware Store. In addition to finding out about two new artists whose albums I'll have to get (Marc Broussard and The Virginia Coalition) I also found out about the Rock Boat cruise tour that will take place next fall. It's a four day cruise on the Mississippi and the lineup of artists made me breathless. oh do I want to go! Might need to start saving my loonies....
Thursday, December 02, 2004
One more reason I miss you, TO
While browsing Hodder's blog, I came across a post of hers about the term "album". What interested me is not the debate about what to call the digimusic we now all consume today (okay all of us who live any kind of wired lives). Rather, what interested me is the side note she posted below her primary post in which she says she's looking for a website or "podcast" that deals with the history of new music (okok I'm deliberately misinterpreting her, 'cause she was looking for history of "pop"). Still, it got me thinking about my favourite radio station on the planet, 102.1 The Edge out of my favourite city on the planet, Toronto.
So I clicked over to find that Alan Cross, Edge 102's resident new music historian, has put together an excellent historical overview of one of my favourite bands, Coldplay, whose song "Daylight" is one of my favourite ringtones on my LG5550.
(For those of you curious about this stuff, Alan has written a few good books about the history of new music, including this one).
Reading it and browsing the site makes me wistful and annoyed in equal measure.
Wistful because dammit I miss that city.
Annoyed that I can't find a station here in Montreal half as good - everyone here seems to want hiphop/pop, dance/house or "oldies). While I can tune into The Buzz out of Burlington, VT, their endless ads for VT merchants, annoying DJs and complete lack of Cancon bugs me. That, plus the fact their signal isn't strong enough to come through with distinct crackle.
And as cool as satellite radio is, it isn't really properly available in Canada yet.
All more reminders (as if I needed them) of why Toronto is so cool. The city of my heart.
God, I miss you, TO!
So I clicked over to find that Alan Cross, Edge 102's resident new music historian, has put together an excellent historical overview of one of my favourite bands, Coldplay, whose song "Daylight" is one of my favourite ringtones on my LG5550.
(For those of you curious about this stuff, Alan has written a few good books about the history of new music, including this one).
Reading it and browsing the site makes me wistful and annoyed in equal measure.
Wistful because dammit I miss that city.
Annoyed that I can't find a station here in Montreal half as good - everyone here seems to want hiphop/pop, dance/house or "oldies). While I can tune into The Buzz out of Burlington, VT, their endless ads for VT merchants, annoying DJs and complete lack of Cancon bugs me. That, plus the fact their signal isn't strong enough to come through with distinct crackle.
And as cool as satellite radio is, it isn't really properly available in Canada yet.
All more reminders (as if I needed them) of why Toronto is so cool. The city of my heart.
God, I miss you, TO!
Going digital
A friend sent me a link to this Wired article about the "digital life" and the trends towards living it. While the article is interesting in a general way, it would have been more interesting by far if they'd spent more time on the social aspects of the life Mary Hodder lives in the digital, rather than dredging up tired stats about how people currently use the net.
The article cites an Online Publisher's Association poll that states that people currently use the net more for content than for communication or searching. Am I the only one that sees the flaws and biases in that statement?
First of all, searching isn't an activity -- you don't approach your web browser saying, "oh I'm going to spend an hour or so using Google to search the Internet". Searching isn't an end, it's a means. If I didn't see stats, then, that say that people use the net more for content than for searching, I'd be worried.
Another part of that which bothers me is the focus on "communications". I'd like to see such lists drop searching and add a different term: "sociability". In the sociological sense, sociability is the act of being social, of interacting with others, of connecting and sharing with other people in those uniquely human ways.
How is that different from communications? In its purest sense, communication is about sharing information; thus the end goal of communication is content. When used to talk about the net, as it was in the article, Communications is a lump-sum term that has come to stand-in for sociability, interactivity, tool-use, etc. As a result, it has been devalued. I'd like to see communication return to its roots as a term that really describes one-to-one exchange of information. In effect, the kind of communication I envision is a sub-set of sociability.
On the net, the term communication tends to mean email. Yes we all know that now, 10+ years after the dawn of the web, email is still the "killer app". It is the reason most people get their first access to the net and it is the reason why many people keep it. So yes, communication as done through email between individuals is important. So keep the term, preserve it for that.
I'd like to see sociability added in, though, to track, chart and allow us to ponder the myriad ways we use the net for social purposes. While I recognize that I may still be a bit on the vanguard of this style of sociability, I honestly do not believe it will be long before the rest of you follow closely behind me and start joining (or even forming?) your own online social spaces. So why not start studying and measuring it?
Of course, as you know if you this space often enough, that's exactly what I'm trying to do.
So ... yeah....sociability. Important term, especially for the net and web. Had the Wired article paid sociability more attention, it would have been far more interesting and thought provoking.
The article cites an Online Publisher's Association poll that states that people currently use the net more for content than for communication or searching. Am I the only one that sees the flaws and biases in that statement?
First of all, searching isn't an activity -- you don't approach your web browser saying, "oh I'm going to spend an hour or so using Google to search the Internet". Searching isn't an end, it's a means. If I didn't see stats, then, that say that people use the net more for content than for searching, I'd be worried.
Another part of that which bothers me is the focus on "communications". I'd like to see such lists drop searching and add a different term: "sociability". In the sociological sense, sociability is the act of being social, of interacting with others, of connecting and sharing with other people in those uniquely human ways.
How is that different from communications? In its purest sense, communication is about sharing information; thus the end goal of communication is content. When used to talk about the net, as it was in the article, Communications is a lump-sum term that has come to stand-in for sociability, interactivity, tool-use, etc. As a result, it has been devalued. I'd like to see communication return to its roots as a term that really describes one-to-one exchange of information. In effect, the kind of communication I envision is a sub-set of sociability.
On the net, the term communication tends to mean email. Yes we all know that now, 10+ years after the dawn of the web, email is still the "killer app". It is the reason most people get their first access to the net and it is the reason why many people keep it. So yes, communication as done through email between individuals is important. So keep the term, preserve it for that.
I'd like to see sociability added in, though, to track, chart and allow us to ponder the myriad ways we use the net for social purposes. While I recognize that I may still be a bit on the vanguard of this style of sociability, I honestly do not believe it will be long before the rest of you follow closely behind me and start joining (or even forming?) your own online social spaces. So why not start studying and measuring it?
Of course, as you know if you this space often enough, that's exactly what I'm trying to do.
So ... yeah....sociability. Important term, especially for the net and web. Had the Wired article paid sociability more attention, it would have been far more interesting and thought provoking.
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