Pure funky music geek gold: The Paul’s Boutique Samples and References List site examines every song off this seminal Beastie Boys album, sourcing its samples used in every song and explaining every reference in its lyrics. Shhhhake your rump-ahh!
(0100 is one possible binary representation of the number 4.)
Mathew Hoy at HellaBoss got tagged to make a few lists of four items. He then tagged Grant Hutchison at splorp, who made his lists. Grant then tagged John Martz at RobotJohnny, who made his lists. Johnny tagged Deenster at pony, who made her lists and then tagged me.
It’s my turn now, so here goes:
(This article was also posted to Tucows Developer.)
Last night, the second Toronto
DemoCamp — a monthly series of meetings of
developers where they show the projects they’re working on — was held
at the offices of Radiant
Core in the “Liberty Village” area of town (the same
neighbourhood as Tucows). Judging by the crowd, which was around 60
people at its peak by my count, I would have to call the event an
success.
a video [5MB QuickTime] that I shot. I’m panning from one end
of the room to the other to show you just how crowded it
was.)
Last night’s demonstrations
were:
Foundation:
A very user-friendly web contentmanagement system developed by Radiant Core, a web design and
development shop run by my friend Jay Goldman. Radiant Core developed
Foundation so that they wouldn’t have to reinvent the wheel for every
new client. It boasts and easy-to-use interface that minimizes the need
for clients to run to them for help and also exposes an API for clients
with development teams who want to do some serious
customization.
user-friendly web tool for business: this time, it’s a web invoicing,
timesheet and support ticketing application. It’s a good example of the
type of business application that can be moved from the shrink-wrapped
pay-once desktop app model to the subscription-based web app one. They
also brought up some a very important point about pricing schemes that
they learned through experience: simpler is
better.
software project that harnesses “the collective wisdom of the net to
predict the future”. It allows you to pose questions and suggested
answers, track the responses and search for questions by
tag.
application of the evening, WaveDNA is a “music reverse engineering
tool” whose purpose is to analyse music for patterns. It breaks down
music into fundamental units of pitch, duration and “feel” and perfoms
analysis on those elements and their arrangement. The potential uses
for this application are vast and interesting, ranging from analysing
what makes a good commercial jingle (by analysing the most-remembered
ones and seeing what their common qualities are) to a Ph.D. thesis
project in which a researcher is trying to determine what makes a song
a lullaby. The University of Toronto and a local music recording
studio, MetalWorks, are involved in this
project.
application: this one’s a “bulletin board” where people who need
favours — perhaps they need work done, or advice — can post those
needs and people who can help can see them. It’s an excellent blending
of social software technologies and local community
involvement.
tax rebate program
was explained by WayneBradley from Development Associates. This tax rebate program gives
money to Canadian companies to encourage them to work on R&D.
You don’t have to provide a business plan or promise profitability —
in this case, the criterion for qualification is that you’re breaking
new ground or advancing the field. You can make up to 66% of your
salary investments if you qualify.
As with the
first DemoCamp, which was held in December, it was a good opportunity
to meet with other developers in town and see what they were working
on. Even better was the palpable feeling of inspiration that came from
being in a gathering of people who want to write cool and useful
software. I expect great things from DemoCamp in the months to come. My
heartiest congratulations to David
Crow for making it a success!
The next
DemoCamp, which will be held in February, is already being planned.
I’ve offered Tucows as the location — watch this space for more
details!
David Crow: DemoCamp 2.0 Rocks the
House
Here’s a flickr photoset
of TorCamp photos.
The BarCamp
wiki. Here’s the wiki’s DemoCamp
page.
An explanation of what BarCamp
is.
Foo Camp — short for Friends Of O’Reilly Camp — which led
to the creation of
BarCamp.
Yesterday, Michael Oliveri from the Canadian Press conducted a phone interview with me about the election and Sam Bulte.
“So, judging from your blog, I take it that you’re pleased with the outcome of the election?” he asked.
“If you’re talking at the federal level, I wouldn’t say ‘pleased’. Maybe ‘satisfied that the outcome was the least abhorrent of the realistic ones’ would be more accurate.”
The resulting article, Bloggers Take Some Credit for Ousting Former MP, also features quotes from Michael Geist and Cory Doctorow.
Because this is my blog and tooting my own horn is its primary purpose, here’s the snippet featuring me:
In 2004, the NDP’s Peggy Nash got 34.5 per cent of the vote in the Parkdale-High Park riding and fell 3,526 ballots short of Liberal incumbent Bulte. This time, Nash captured 40 per cent support and won over Bulte by 2,201 votes.
While bloggers are stopping short of saying they’re the reason for Nash’s 5,700 vote turnaround, they credit the Internet community with being a major contributing force and influencing the decision.
“I think it’s premature for anybody with a blog right now to start saying, ‘OK, now that I’ve got a blog I am a kingmaker,'” said Joey deVilla, a resident in the riding and author of the blog, The Adventures of Accordion Guy in the 21st Century.
“But I believe (the online campaign) did help. It stirred some discussion online and at the candidates’ meetings, it got the attention of the media, and it became a story.”
For more on the role of the Parkdale-High Park election result and its relationship to the blogosphere, I point you to Michael Geist’s article, Lessons Learned.
The picture below comes from Stephen Taylor’s blog — it’s a shot of strategists from the three major Canadian political parties: Susan Murray (Liberal Party), Brad Lavigne (New Democratic Party) and Sandra Buckler (Conservative Party). If I had to sum up the election results using only one picture, I’d use this one.
Back in 1999 — this is the pre-accordion — I lived in a condo at the corner of Yonge and Carlton and sometimes got together with friends and friends-of-friends at Fiddler’s Green and talked over beer and pub grub. One particular night at the Green stands out in my mind: I think we all drank a little too much and one of the girls, in one of those “Too Much Information” moments, told us stories of her offbeat sexual proclivities. You can’t unhear such things once heard; I will simply say that thanks to this story, I cannot ever again watch A Charlie Brown Christmas — especially the ending — without cringing.
The night after that, I got into the only bar fight I have ever started in my life: I clobbered my gay friend at a gay bar. It wasn’t a queer-bashing thing; he was monopolizing the girl with whom I was on a date. He has since forgiven me and The Code of Dudes clearly exonerates me in this matter (statute 5: “Cock-blocking is wrong, dude”).
Ah, good times, good times.
Anyhow, this is all preamble to my reminding you that the Blogstravaganza, which I mentioned earlier, takes place this Friday at good ol’ Fiddler’s Green. Organized by Bob “Let it Bleed” Tarantino (and supposedly by Jason “Cherniak on Politics” Cherniak, but I’ve been plugging the event harder than he has), it’s a gathering of Accordion City’s bloggers, blog readers, curious onlookers and people who just need to know the details behind the Charlie Brown Christmas story.
I’ll let Bob do some of the talking:
Everyone walks away from last night’s excitement with something to keep
them happy: Conservatives have a victory, the NDP has an increased seat
count and the Liberals remain a relatively strong Official Opposition.
Which means everyone should be in a good mood for Friday night’s blogstravaganza!
C’mon down! Once again, it takes place at Fiddler’s Green, located at 27 Wellesley Street East, on Friday, January 27th at 8 p.m..
Fiddler’s Green is a decent Irish pub that I used to frequent back when
I lived at the corner of Yonge and Carlton. It’s a nice central
location that’s also right on top of Wellesley Station.
A couple of days ago, Damian “Daimnation!” Penny wrote a blog entry in which he speculated how various characters on The Simpsons would’ve voted in last night’s election. It’s an amusing read, and the comments range from the funny to the foamy (I suspect that that commenter is shopping for Asian mail-order brides and some marital brass knuckles).
I’ll throw my hat in the ring by suggesting that Harper use the speech that Sideshow Bob made after getting elected mayor of Springfield, with the appropriate word substitutions. I think it shows what attracts people to the Conservatives and how their policies simply replace the “nanny state” they despise with a “nunny state”:
Because you need me, Springfield. Your guilty conscience may move you to vote Democratic, but deep down you long for a cold-hearted Republican to lower taxes, brutalize criminals, and rule you like a king. That’s why I did this, to save you from yourselves.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a city to run.