Rodney Buike took this photo of me on Tuesday evening. I look as if I should be backing up Tom Waits or playing in a cojunto band:
Month: November 2009
If you’re a techie in Montreal, you want to attend Career Demo Camp on Wednesday, December 2nd at 6:30 p.m. in the Mont-Royal Centre! It’s part tech career guidance conference, part DemoCamp-style event, and an opportunity for developers and start-ups to get together and learn about the job market, see projects that Montreal-area techies are working on and get to know and network with your local nerds. It’s presented by the Confoo conference (taking place in March 2010) and PHUG and will be hosted by Yours Truly and Jean-Luc SansCartier.
Here’s the schedule:
- 6:30 p.m.: Intro to Career Demo Camp
- 7:00 p.m.: Alex Kovalenko – IT Headhunting and Recruiting
- 7:30 p.m.: Joey deVilla; Better Living Through Blogging
- 8:00 p.m.: DemoCamp Introduction
- 8:15 p.m.: DemoCamp Presentations
- 10:00 p.m.: Networking Session
The event is free of charge! All you have to do to attend is sign up at Career Demo Camp’s Registration page.
Microsoft Canada’s providing the space – we booked the Mont-Royal Centre for TechDays Montreal for two days (December 2nd and 3rd) and we weren’t doing anything with the space on the evening of Day 1. We decided to offer the space for some kind of community event, and Confoo and PHUG put together Career Demo Camp. I love doing developer community events and was only too happy to co-host.
The DemoCamp portion of the evening needs people to do DemoCamp-style demos: 5 minutes of “Show and Tell” where you show your software, web application or project in action. It’s the only thing you’re allowed to show on the big screen — no slides allowed! The idea is for you to show off your technology in action and inspire us, not to do a sales pitch. Think you’ve got a demo in you? Contact Jean-Luc Sans Cartier or Yann Larrivee and let them know you want to demo at Career Demo Camp!
This article also appears in Canadian Developer Connection and Global Nerdy.
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Scenes from TechDays Calgary
I – along with a good chunk of Microsoft Canada’s Developer and Platform Evangelism team – am in Calgary for the fourth leg of the TechDays Canada seven-city tour. TechDays Calgary is taking place in the BMO Centre on the Calgary Stampede grounds. Wanting to be a good guest, I decided to observe a local custom:
I haven’t worn my flaming cowboy hat in ages!
As far as I can tell, I’m the only attendee who brought a cowboy hat. The only other similarly-haberdashed people on the premises are the Calgary Stampede staff and the washroom signs:
There are a number of Christmas-related events taking place at the BMO Centre before and after TechDays, so the place is all decked out for Christmas:
The isn’t a Santa Claus on site, but we do have IT Pro Evangelist Rick Claus delivering goodies:
…and Rick’s session has drawn quite a crowd:
Another well-attended session was Introducing ASP.NET MVC, which was delivered by Tom Opgenorth:
Here’s the ASP.NET MVC room, already filling up a full 15 minutes before the start of the day:
Tom ended up speaking to a room packed to maximum capacity:
The people who couldn’t fit into the ASP.NET MVC sessions were still able to catch the proceedings on a monitor outside the room:
Meanwhile, next door, Developer Evangelist John Bristowe delivered the Practical Web Testing presentation:
And one door over, Adam “Adam Bomb” Carter (the first guy to suggest to me that I get a job at Microsoft) spoke at the Inside the Application Compatibility Toolkit 5.5 session:
Here’s a scene from the speaker prep room that reminded me of the Sesame Street song One of These Things is Not Like the Other:
“Look! I’m at a conference, watching the proceedings of another conference!”
And just outside the speaker prep room, Rob Burke and D’Arcy Lussier chat:
Things seem to be going well, if IT Pro Evangelist and TechDays man-in-charge Damir Bersinic’s thumbs-up is any indication:
And down the hall, the Ford Flex featuring Microsoft’ Ford Sync technology awaits some passengers:
Someday, arranging for conference wireless will not be an arduous, expensive affair, but in the meantime, we set up these hard-wired internet access stations. Note the anti-bacterial lotion beside the laptop – a sign of these H1N1 times. If I’d had any foresight, I’d have bought a lot of Purell stock:
This article also appears in Canadian Developer Connection and Global Nerdy.
The Bloor Cinema, located in the student-bohemian neighbourhood of Accordion City known as The Annex, has been a city institution since the turn of the previous century. It started out as a vaudeville theatre, became a cinema, then an “adult film” venue, and now it’s a repertory theatre and home to second-run films, Rocky Horror nights, independent cinema, art films, foreign films, film festivals and special projects like the The Pee-Wee Herman Picture Show. I’ve had many nice dates there (contrary to legend, I do have dates that do not end in police action or crisis counselling), the most recent of which were with The Missus.
Local blog BlogTO posted an article today pointing to the documentary film titled The Bloor, which chronicles the life of this Toronto cultural landmark. It’s been posted to YouTube in two parts, which I’ve posted below. It’s good lunchtime viewing.
My friend (and former officemate!) Cory Doctorow is launching his latest novel, Makers, tonight at the Toronto Public Library at 239 College Street (east of Spadina). The fun happens in the Merrill Collection room, located on the third floor at 7 p.m. tonight. Cory will be doing a reading, taking questions and signing books. There will be books for sale at the event courtesy of our local science fiction and fantasy bookstore, Bakka Phoenix.
Here’s the publisher’s blurb about the book:
From the New York Times bestselling author of Little Brother, a major novel of the booms, busts, and further booms in store for America
Perry and Lester invent things—seashell robots that make toast, Boogie Woogie Elmo dolls that drive cars. They also invent entirely new economic systems, like the “New Work,” a New Deal for the technological era. Barefoot bankers cross the nation, microinvesting in high-tech communal mini-startups like Perry and Lester’s. Together, they transform the country, and Andrea Fleeks, a journo-turned-blogger, is there to document it.
Then it slides into collapse. The New Work bust puts the dot.combomb to shame. Perry and Lester build a network of interactive rides in abandoned Wal-Marts across the land. As their rides, which commemorate the New Work’s glory days, gain in popularity, a rogue Disney executive grows jealous, and convinces the police that Perry and Lester’s 3D printers are being used to run off AK-47s.
Hordes of goths descend on the shantytown built by the New Workers, joining the cult. Lawsuits multiply as venture capitalists take on a new investment strategy: backing litigation against companies like Disney. Lester and Perry’s friendship falls to pieces when Lester gets the ‘fatkins’ treatment, turning him into a sybaritic gigolo.
Then things get really interesting.
It should be noted that while 3-D printers of the sort in Cory’s novel are still the stuff of science fiction, simpler versions exist today. In fact, at the Hacklab, where I spend many a working day, we’ve got a MakerBot Industries “Cupcake” 3-D printer that can “print” plastic objects.
Here’s what the Cupcake looks like:
A computer connected to the Cupcake controls it. The big loop of plastic to the upper left of the machine is the material from which objects are printed. Here’s a closer look at its internals:
We have a small gallery of objects that were created using the Cupcake:
If you’d like one of your own, the fine folks at Makerbot Industries would be more than happy to sell you a kit.
Categories
Kraft Dinner’s Horrific New Flavours
Here in Canada, “Kraft Dinner” is the brand under which Kraft Macaroni and Cheese is sold. Macaroni and cheese is one of those tastes of childhood, and being cheap and easy to prepare, “KD” is a staple of university student life. Back in university, a number of us enhanced the dish by adding all sorts of things: ketchup, mustard, hot dog slices, tuna and so on. I liked putting a couple of strips of bacon on mine, because there’s little that bacon can’t enhance.
The people at Kraft must have noticed these enhancements since they’ve release a series of microwaveable Kraft Dinner meals with different flavours such as Alfredo, “Extreme Pizza” and SPicy Szechuan. Being the kinesthetic sort when it comes to food, the Ginger Ninja and I decided to buy a couple of flavours and give them a taste.
The verdict: avoid at all costs. These Kraft Dinner variants aren’t junky-good in the way that original Kraft Dinner is. They just taste awful and have looks that match. Here’s what “Extreme Pizza” looks like:
“Extreme Pizza” is a very bad blend of that Velveeta-esque Kraft Dinner cheese with a low-grade tomato sauce reminiscent of the gunk they put on Chuck E. Cheese pizzas (I know that taste; I have young nephews).
Spicy Szechuan is even worse:
It tastes like an attempt to blend Kraft Dinner cheese with the flavours of soy sauce, Chinese five-spice and peppers. If the Long March had a taste, it would be this.
Note that they use different noodles for different flavours; it’s the one bit of culinary artistry that went into them. Different sauces call for different noodles – for example, you don’t serve capellini with a thick meat sauce – and each noodle in this series of Kraft Dinners seems chosen to convey the culinary horror perfectly.
If you must eat these, I would suggest Listerine as a pairing: Listerine Original for the Extreme Pizza, and Listerine Mint for the Spicy Szechuan.
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Remembrance Day
November 11th is Remembrance Day in Canada, the day we commemorate the sacrifices made by our armed forces during war.
In the days leading up to and including Remembrance Day (the official period starts on the last Friday of October), you may see people wearing poppy pins like the ones pictured above on their left lapels. Poppies became associated with the war dead during the time of Napoleon when it was noted that they bloomed in fields where battles had taken place. This association was cemented when Canadian soldier and doctor John McCrae wrote the poem In Flanders Fields:
Here’s the text of In Flanders Fields:
In Flanders Fields the poppies blow,
Between the crosses row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
