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January 28, 2004

Voices Without Votes 2004

Voices Without Votes 2004 Thursday, January 29 at 6:00 p.m. at the Coach House Elections are usually national affairs, with the specific leader of an arbitrary country having a limited effect on the world at large. But when the arbitrary country is the world's only superpower, the election of its president becomes a matter for world concern.? Peter Deitz, one of the McLuhan Program's research fellows has launched a site that asks people from around the world to ""write a letter to America"" to express their views on the upcoming presidential election. The thinking behind the project is that the American president has a tremendous influence on how the entire world conducts itself, both for good and for ill. Voices Without Votes 2004 (http://www.voices04.org) provides a forum whereby those who are affected by US policy but do not have a vote in the election can help to influence the opinion of those who do. The site includes a newsy weblog, plus the submitted letters and other commentary.??? Come join us on Thursday, January 29 at 6:00 p.m. at the McLuhan Program Coach House, 39A Queen's Park Crescent East, when Peter Deitz will present Voices Without Votes 2004. Directions to the Coach House can be found at: http://www.mcluhan.utoronto.ca/visitor_info.htm? Regards, Mark Federman Chief Strategist McLuhan Program in Culture and Technology University of Toronto What are we thinking today? http://www.mcluhan.utoronto.ca/blogger/"

Posted by jason at 02:54 PM

January 27, 2004

Thanks Bill Gates...

Thanks for the latest virus bill. And all of you who bought microsoft products... you're part of the problem. :) http://www.noc.utoronto.ca/net-ops/security.htm lists all the ports blocked at UofT to protect the university from Microsoft."

Posted by jason at 04:07 PM

January 26, 2004

Papers updated...

I've put up a PDF of the following paper, in my paper's section. Nothing new, but it might be of interest. Nolan, J. (In Press) úThe Influence of ASCII on the Construction of Internet-based Knowledgeî OISE-UT Papers in Technology Education. Jim Hewitt ed. Toronto: Imperial Oil Centre for Science, Mathematics and Technology Education. http://jasonnolan.net/papers/InfluenceofASCII.pdf"

Posted by jason at 10:12 AM

January 23, 2004

Bored

I think I just got tired of blogging... took me a while. I wonder where I'm going next.

Posted by jason at 10:47 PM

January 21, 2004

Van Helsing Movie...

I'm bringing this up because Elizabeth and I, and a pile of other folks were interviewed and filmed for the documentary about this movie that will go on the DVD release. The movie is Van Helsing with Hugh Jackman and Kate Beckinsale. Here's a preview. I agreed to be interviewed provided that they either lost or ignored the footage. (pictures below) The Film Guy (note hat), Sighisoara, Romania. Film crew in Sibiu, Romania. Victoria being interviewed. Outside Sighisoara, Romania. The Documentary Director with the Baron. In Bistritza, Romania. more pictures"

Posted by jason at 08:03 AM

January 20, 2004

Even better news...

Just got an email from JJ who runs my favorite Bistro (Le Select) with a URL to an article in The Wine Spectator saying that Study Finds Red Wine Destroys Bacteria That Cause Lung Infections, Heart Disease. No wonder Yuka and I never tend to get sick in the winter."

Posted by jason at 01:40 PM

Fixed my iPod

My iPod's been broken for months. Can't play music without holding the headphone jack at a funny angle. Tried to look at it 6 weeks ago and severed the harddrive cable while opening it. Spent $75 on a new cable and then got it back to its previously broken state. This morning, I figured I'd have another look at it. NO sharp knives. Opened it with two plastic toothpicks from my swiss army knives. Turns out that the cover to the headphone jack enclosure is soldered tight. Puzzled and proded inside with bits of plastic, and realized that all the solders are bad, but one specifically was a problem. Used a tiny screwdriver for fixing eyeglasses, and realized this connection is for the ground. Wheeeee... Went through a couple of boxes until I found some old wire, stripped it of it's plastic cover, and then poked it in and around bits of the iPod, and twisted it tight, and voila. Fixed. Nothing you can't do with a bit of wire and a couple of hours without distractions. Tune time!"

Posted by jason at 01:11 PM

Montgomery heirs win Anne lawsuit

Globe and Mail and a number of other rags have articles about the ongoing foolishness of Kevin Sullivan. An Ontario Superior Court judge yesterday tossed out a $55-million libel action launched by Sullivan Entertainment Group Inc. against the heirs of Anne of Green Gables author Lucy Maud Montgomery, signalling the end of the first round of a bitter, 15-year battle. She called Sullivan's accounting of the wildly successful Anne of Green GablesTV movies of 1984 and 1985 ""a joke."" (Sullivan claimed it has never recouped its production costs for the programs, the highest-rated in Canadian history). The judge also wrote in her decision that Sullivan's bookkeeping ""is creative accounting at its very best and very worst -- depending on your perspective."" In her decision, Judge MacFarland wrote that Kevin Sullivan, who with his wife, Trudy Grant, owns the company, was ""one of the most evasive witnesses I have encountered. When cross-examined, he could not answer a question directly. The most simple of questions elicited a long, complex and essentially evasive response in many, many instances."""

Posted by jason at 08:57 AM

Net Author is Recruiting!

Message: 1
DATE: Mon, 19 Jan 2004 23:51:52 +0100 From: ""Rhonna J. Robbins-Sponaas"" Subject: Net Author is Recruiting! Or, in other words . . . . . .HELP! :-) Hei, folks! As always whenever we need help, we're starting with our list membership. And right now we definitely need help. As much as possible, Net Author uses a blind review process for submissions sent to the journal, *E2K*. For those of you who aren't familiar with the process, it means that the readers don't know who actually wrote the work, and therefore cannot be influenced by name or credentials. The problem, however, is that we've recently had one of those periods of attrition every organization has; we've lost folks to illness or professional moves as they step out into new challenges. And that means that we're searching for new readers for fiction, creative nonfiction, and writing-related nonfiction. Historically, our reviewers have often moved into associate editor or editor at large positions, and submission reading is one of the requirements for that status. Likewise, it's part of any training program we offer toward editorial status, and while we don't have one open at the moment, any current reader activity would be applied to that training program. In other words, we're looking for folks who are willing to work with us as readers. It's a purely volunteer function--as are all our positions--so there's no money involved. We average some 17 fiction and nonfiction submissions per month, but not all submissions need reviewing, so neither are we talking about huge amounts of time. The difficulty is that we need a handful of experienced writers/readers; it would be difficult for novice writers to evaluate the works with the level of discernment and sophistication we need, and at the moment, we're so short staffed that we don't have time for training. At a later time we can certainly open that possibility up for some of the younger troops, but right now we need folks who can go right to work with only a basic orientation. What you'd do . . . Basically, this is the easy part. As I receive the submissions, I'strip all identifying info from them and forward them to the reviewers. Those reviewers then read the work and send a short (less than 200 words) response back to me, following the guidelines and format I'd give you, and those reviews would then be used toward making a final decision on the work and responding to the writer. And there you have it. We need readers. Wanna help? If you think you're up for it, PLEASE check in with me. Just send me a mail with a statement of interest and a brief summary of your own experience and credentials so we can get a sense of your background, and we'll go from there. Rhonna (crossing her fingers and waiting with bated breath) *********************************************************** Rhonna J. Robbins-Sponaas Editor in Chief, Net Author http://www.netauthor.org ***********************************************************"

Posted by jason at 08:36 AM

January 16, 2004

Terry Talks

[It was one of Terry's books that first helped me understand critical theory back in the 1980s. He's great.] Terry Eagleton will be here, in Toronto, in 2 weeks time. He is speaking at U. of Toronto the week of January 26 -29 on a series of lectures concerning the Art of Terror. Below is the blurb: Jan. 26-29, The Alexander Lectures presents cultural theorist Terry Eagleton, regis professor, University of Oxfod, England on the ART of Terror. The series includes ""Terror and Modernity"" (Jan. 26); ""The Art of Terror"" (Jan. 27); ""The Metaphysics of Terror"" (Jan. 28); and ""Beyond Terror"" (Jan. 29). All lectures take place at University College, room 140, 15 Kings College Circle at 4:30 pm. (416) 978-7516 or sue.underhill@utoronto.ca"

Posted by jason at 05:21 PM

January 15, 2004

NetAuthor's January E2K is up!

E2K is a journal for people who write professionally online. It is non-profit, pays very well for online journalism, and has been rated as one of the top places to get published online. I've been working with them for a couple of years, as editor in some fashion and as member of the board. Check it out."

Posted by jason at 08:26 AM

January 14, 2004

NO music banditry... aw...

puretracks.ca is some corporate attempt to stop people from illegially sharing music. Their TV add shows people going to http://musicbandit.ca/ and mistakenly downloading porn, virii, various bad things. OF course I went to http://musicbandit.ca/ to see what was up... wink wink... and http://musicbandit.ca/ doesn't exist. So much for another example of corporate scare tactics."

Posted by jason at 09:47 AM

January 13, 2004

Ken @ NRC

My friend Ken Emig who has almost no internet presence, got an award at the NRC. Prizes for anyone who can figure out what the award is for."

Posted by jason at 11:27 PM

San Bromista Cat Ranch

I'm helping yuka do research on victorian cat clothes for her regular column in NekoShinbun (a national japanese newspaper about cats). And I found this site about San Bromista Cat Ranch which raises cats for the European Catfur market."

Posted by jason at 11:59 AM

Chemicals in the Body...

Yuka sent this to me, from Wired. Your Body, Your Superfund Site talks about how many toxins you're storing up in your body."

Posted by jason at 09:56 AM

January 12, 2004

Finding your grade 4 teacher...

Saw Mr Baxter, my grade four teacher from 1972. I remember him very well, he taught us swahili, if I remember it correctly, having moved over from Kenya in 1968. He was an inspirational teacher, one of the few I remember as being supportive when my other teachers, such as my grade 5 teacher, told my parents I was a brick or two short of a full load. Well. Saw him on the news tonight, as Elvis Priestly. Some faces you never forget. I'll scan some pictures tomorrow."

Posted by jason at 12:46 AM

January 11, 2004

Jeremy's Diversion

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Posted by jason at 03:36 PM

January 08, 2004

Updating MoveableType

I'm taking my moveable type server off line for a while to fix it up. If you have an edublog blog, it may be unavailable for the next while. I'll modify this comment with updates as they happen. The moveabletype database is busted. I can leave it alone, meaning I can't add new blogs, or I can start an new one, which means I have to back up everyone's blog and rebuild them. Nothing's lost either way, but I'm not sure how much time I want to put into it at the moment. Thinking."

Posted by jason at 02:33 PM

January 06, 2004

The Mota Insanity...

I took these pictures (click below) while KAT! was cooking dinner for the three of us over the weekend. The last one is my favourite.



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Posted by jason at 05:51 PM

January 05, 2004

The Harrow 'zine

Just a reminder, if you haven't had time to vote yet, to go and vote for The Harrow at http://www.critters.org/predpoll/fictionzine.shtml. Bring the kids along. I've been, variously, a reviewer and poetry editor for years. Our humble zine is currently in the Top Ten category, and we should hope to keep it that way."

Posted by jason at 08:40 AM

January 04, 2004

BlogSpam will die... and other stories...

Just about to install anti-blogspam scode to see how it works. But on a better note, it has be a culinary feast over the past few days... starting with dinner this week at KAT!'s pad, after we saw LotR: RotK. Fresh fried calamari and shrimp, and veggies steamed in paper. And of course Mota, the cat who left us to live with KAT! and Muddy, was there and still appreciated us. Pictures to follow. Next night it was dinner at Le Select bistro. We let J-J who 'pretends' to own the place, but apparently really just plays in the wine cellar, choose an amazing wine that we could afford. The wine's unavailable in Toronto, but when it comes in next J-J said he'd email me. And that's tough since they are reputed to have the best cellar in Toronto with wines up to $2500 a bottle. Dinner was compliments of my sister Kelly as a christmas present. And last night Arun was in town so we could price out a computer for him. We were just going to have leftovers at home, but since I'd defrosted some of the dough I made up last week, I thought we'd have a small pizza along side the odds and sods. It was amazing! Dumb luck, but the dough worked perfectly, transfirred from the wooden tray to the hot tile in the oven... covered with tomato sauce, tomatos, green onions, greek olives, ground beef, black pepper, orange peppers, goat cheddar and goat feta. Drooool. Preparing for kmd2003 tomorrow night. Looking forward to it."

Posted by jason at 06:54 PM

January 02, 2004

Dracula in Pakistan...

Yes, it was made into a movie. I'm told that it was the only pakistani movie ever to get an X rating. And I have a copy here."

Posted by jason at 11:18 AM

MP3 Request...

Anyone got an MP3 for ""Gimme that O'l Time Religion"" by perhaps Phil Harris. I need a copy for a special reason."

Posted by jason at 10:07 AM