Categories
The Current Situation

“Oh Beautiful, for Retail Space, for Shopping Elbow Room…”

Here’s a graph from a blog posting by Jim “Long Emergency” Kunstler titled Peak Suburbia comparing the retail space per person in the U.S., Sweden, the U.K., France and Italy. If the data on which this graph is based is correct, Americans have 6 times more retail space than the Swedes, 8 times that of the Brits and 18 times the shopping square footage doled out to the unfortunate Italians. I suspect that here in Canada, the retail space per person is similar to the American figure.

Graph comparing retail space per person in the U.S., Sweden, U.K., France and Italy.Click to read the article that features this graph.

Categories
It Happened to Me

Simplified Interstate System Map

For those of you who do a lot of road-tripping in the U.S., here’s something that you might find interesting — a map of the U.S. Interstate highway system, simplified in a fashion similar to many subway maps:

U.S. Interstate system map preview
Click the map to see it at full size.
Map courtesy of Miss Fipi Lele.

This map is a creation of Chris Yates, and you can get prints of it from the “Toys” page of his site.

Categories
It Happened to Me

A Sign That It’s Time to Leave the Airport with All Due Haste

Gilbert Gottfried

Last night, as the Ginger Ninja and I emerged from baggage claim at Peason’s Terminal 1, we saw a chauffeur from a car service holding up a sign that read: Gilbert Gottfried.

“Oh, crap,” I said to Wendy, “let’s get out of here.”

I should’ve taken a picture, but I was just too tired.

Categories
It Happened to Me

danah boyd’s “MyFriends, MySpace” Presentation

danah boyd making her “MyFriends, MySpace” presentation at the Berkman Center
danah boyd making her “MyFriends, MySpace” presentation at the Berkman Center at Harvard, Tuesday, June 19th, 2007.

One of the things I got to do during last week’s vacation was go visit the place where the Ginger Ninja worked for four years (and where I met her!) — the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard. We caught their Tuesday luncheon series and had the good fortune of meeting danah boyd, who gave her presentation titled MyFriends, MySpace.

I took notes and photos during the presentation — you can check them out on my tech blog, Global Nerdy.

Categories
It Happened to Me

Mazel Tov, Andy and Sue!

Cake topper featuring the bride dragging a drunken groom by his collar

It’s about 17 or so hours until my brother-in-law Andy Ramoniac and his fiancee Sue tie the knot. Since I expect that my hands will be full with groomsman, accordion and “chair lifting during the hora” duties, I thought I’d take this quiet moment to wish Andy and Sue my best.

In their honour, I present a poem by Ogden Nash

Tin Wedding Whistle

Though you know it anyhow
Listen to me, darling, now,

Proving what I need not prove
How I know I love you, love.

Near and far, near and far,
I am happy where you are;

Likewise I have never larnt
How to be it where you aren’t.

Far and wide, far and wide,
I can walk with you beside;

Furthermore, I tell you what,
I sit and sulk where you are not.

Visitors remark my frown
Where you’re upstairs and I am down,

Yes, and I’m afraid I pout
When I’m indoors and you are out;

But how contentedly I view
Any room containing you.

In fact I care not where you be,
Just as long as it’s with me.

In all your absences I glimpse
Fire and flood and trolls and imps.

Is your train a minute slothful?
I goad the stationmaster wrothful.

When with friends to bridge you drive
I never know if you’re alive,

And when you linger late in shops
I long to telephone the cops.

Yet how worth the waiting for,
To see you coming through the door.

Somehow, I can be complacent
Never but with you adjacent.

Near and far, near and far,
I am happy where you are;

Likewise I have never larnt
How to be it where you aren’t.

Then grudge me not my fond endeavor,
To hold you in my sight forever;

Let none, not even you, disparage
Such a valid reason for a marriage.

Categories
Accordion, Instrument of the Gods It Happened to Me

Hello from Connecticut!

Preconceived Notions

Cover of “The Official Preppy Handbook”

Even though I’ve been to a good number of U.S. states, especially those on the east coast, this is the first time I’ve ever set foot in Connecticut. I have some preconceived notions about this place, culled largely from three sources:

  1. Friends from Connecticut, all of whom went to prep schools and good universities

  2. Episodes of Gilmore Girls (the Ginger Ninja watches them religiously and has most of the DVDs)

  3. A staple of 80’s teenage reading: Lisa Birnbach’s The Official Preppy Handbook.

The Official Preppy Handbook

The Official Preppy Handbook is sort of like the old campy Batman TV series — how you looked at it depended on how old you were:

  • At a certain age, people interpreted it as a “how-to” guide. For a while, my sister and her friends and classmates at Havergal College did just this, treating it as an instruction manual.

  • Once a little bit older, they then dismiss the book as junk.

  • Finally, they appreciate the book for what it is: a tongue-in-cheek “it’s funny because it’s mostly true” self-deprecating lampoon of the life of people who wore uniforms in high school, took tennis lessons and had alligators on a fair number of their clothes (I’m guilty of all three).

I should go see if the ol’ Preppy Handbook is still kickin’ around Mom’s place.

What am I Doing Here?

I’m here as a guest, groomsman and accordion player at the wedding of my brother-in-law Andy Ramoniac and his fiancee Sue. I get to do double accordion duty at this wedding, joining Andy’s balalaika group to do some Russian and Jewish tunes as well as his Ramones tribute band, The Ramoniacs. It’s going to be a party, and rest assured I’ll post pictures.

Categories
Uncategorized

Tucows Introduces Premium Domains

[This was cross-posted to Global Nerdy.]

Man flashing a dog in the woods.

Full Discloure Time: Before I begin, let me make it very clear: I work for Tucows. I hold the position of Technical Evangelist, and my job is to extol the virtues of Tucows’ services to technical audiences as well as curious laypeople.

The Domain Name Aftermarket

There used to be a time when a domain could fall under one of two categories:

  • It was available, which meant that you could buy it
  • It was taken, which meant that it was in use

That’s changed. These days, “taken” doesn’t mean necessarily mean that you can’t acquire it. Many taken domain names live in domain name portfolios, which are pools of domain names that have been purchased for later resale. The set of all such portfolios out there is collectively referred to as the domain name aftermarket.

Venn diagram showing the domain name aftermarket as a subset of domains that are taken.
Image from the Tucows Premium Domains Screencast. Click to watch the screencast.

Oftentimes, the “unavailable” domain name that you want is actually for sale, but most domain name vendors don’t make that clear — they simply say that the domain name is taken. Even if you’re aware of the aftermarket, you have to search several portfolios to see if the domain name that you want is there.

Tucows’ Premium Domain Names service makes life easier for customers of Tucows’ domain name partners. We connect our partners with a number of domain name portfolios so that they can offer their customers domain names from a number of portfolios, opening a universe of names that they otherwise wouldn’t know were for sale. Best of all, purchasing one of these premium domain names hides the complexities of transferring the domain name — the transfer takes less than 60 seconds, and to the customer, it’s as quick as buying an available domain name!

domain-name-aftermarket-2.jpg
Image from the Tucows Premium Domains Screencast. Click to watch the screencast.

Want to find out more? Let me point to you a couple of places with the details:

  • There’s an entertaining screencast with me chatting with Tucows Domain product manager Adam Eisner about Tucows Premium Domains.
  • I’ve written version 2.0 of The Duke of URL, a cute little demo app that shows the Tucows API’s features for checking domain name availability, finding premium domain names and making domain name suggestions.
  • Tucows also has an information page on its Premium Domains.