Year: 2009

Here’s a bus shelter whose ad might make people night want to use the bench:

Click the photo to see it at full size.

(In case you were wondering, 68 kilograms is about 150 pounds.)

This article originally appeared in the Coffee and Code blog.

We’re Not Slackers, We’re Coffee Achievers

In response to John Bristowe’s announcement of the first Calgary Coffee and Code, we got this comment from a reader named Cameron:

How do all of you people have the day off. 9am to 4pm on a weekday? Gen-Y is in full effect.

Gen Y? Technically, we’re Gen Xers, since we were both born between 1960 and  1980. If I’m not mistaken, John is a “Nintendo Wave” Xer, since he was born in the 70s and I’m an “Atari Wave” Xer, having been born in 1967.

In response to Cameron’s comment, I couldn’t resist doctoring a graphic from the website for the animated series Slacker Cats:

(Come to think of, they sort of look like us. The hair colour’s the same.)

But seriously: John and I (as well as a number of other people in Microsoft Canada’s Developer & Platform Evangelism team) are officially classified by Microsoft as mobile workers. All the computers assigned to us are laptops, our internet and mobile phones are subsidized and our workplaces are wherever we happen to be working at the time: our home offices, Microsoft or on the road. It’s not for everyone, but if you have the discipline to handle the freedom, it can be a pretty nice way to work.

Coffee and Code was created to make us more accessible and give Microsoft a more human “face” by taking advantage of our flexible working arrangements. By working out of places like cafes, we’re making it quite easy for you to find us and join us in a conversation about whatever interests you, whether it’s Microsoft tools and technologies, the state of the industry or any other topic. It also makes for the perfect setting for us to help build local tech communities by gathering developers, IT pros, architects and other techies together. And finally, we’re patronizing “third place” businesses – those essential social places that are neither home nor the office – that are vital to the general community.

If a Coffee and Code attracts a large enough crowd, I find that I don’t get much programming, writing or administrative work done. That’s okay, because I’m getting another kind of work done: talking with local software developers, answering their questions, making note of their needs and suggestions and exchanging ideas. In short, I’m making connections with them, and that’s a major pillar of the Developer Evangelist position. If I’m not doing that, I’m not doing my job.

Where We’ll Be

If you’re in Calgary, you’ll want to head to Kawa Espresso Bar, where John Bristowe will be hosting the event from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.. You’ll find more details about his Coffee and Code event in this entry.

If you’re in Toronto, your Coffee and Code event will be hosted by Yours Truly at the spacious upstairs “Red Velvet Lounge” of the Starbucks at Yonge and Davisville from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.. You’ll find more details about it in this entry.

Since both events overlap perfectly, both locations are wifi equipped and both John and I have laptops with integrated cameras, I’m going to try videoconferencing with him, making this another Coffee and Code first. If you’re in eithe rof our neighbourhoods, please drop by!

Next to Motivational Wolf, Tony Robbins is a lightweight!

Click the image to see it at full size.

These have been floating about the next for the past couple of days and I thought I’d share them here. First is Schultz City, which gives Peanuts the Frank Miller treatment. Click the comic to see it at full size:

And here’s Presidential Trouble, which answers the question “What if The Watchmen" did a Hostess Fruit Pies ad?” The answer: nothing very pretty. Click the comic to see it at full size:

Michael Steele – he’s the de jure Chairman of the Republican National Committee; Rush Limbaugh is the de facto one – has a challenging mission: to restore America’s Republican Party to power. His plan is to make it cool, or in his own words, use “off the hook” PR and by applying the party’s principles “to urban-suburban hip-hop settings”.

GQ recently interviewed him, and when the topic of conversation turned to music, he competently dropped some old-school rap and hip-hop names in that “I’m still cool! I keep up with the times!” way that some parents do:

Who do you listen to?
I actually listen to a cross section, because I like to hear what the medium is saying, what the voice is.

But do you have a favorite?
P. Diddy I enjoy quite a bit.

Do you want to rethink that?
[laughs] I guess I’m sorta old-school that way. Remember, I came of age with the DJ and all this other stuff, so I’m also loving Grandmaster Flash, and that’s not hip-hop, but… Um, you know, I like Chuck D. And I always thought Snoop Dogg was–he just reminded me of the fellas back home. So I’ve always thoroughly enjoyed him.

Strangely enough, it’s when he starts talking about Frank Sinatra and company that he fumbles. You have to keep in mind that being a fan of Sinatra is a Republican cliche so well known that it was featured in The Preppy Handbook and Family Ties’ Young Republican character, Alex P. Keaton, was written as a Sinatra fan:

Who else?
I like Sinatra. I like old-school. You know, Bing Crosby, Sinatra, Dean Martin. Love Dean Martin. He was one of these guys who just didn’t give an F. He just didn’t. Life was a party, and you either want to party or you don’t. But yeah, I like those. I’m a big Pack Rat. I love the Pack Rats from the 1950s–Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., Frank Sinatra, those guys.

You mean the Rat Pack.
The Rat Pack, yeah.

Dude. Even the most casual Sinatra listeners (such as Yours Truly) know that.

For someone claiming to be a follower of classic rock music, an equivalent mistake would be to refer to The Beatles as “The Four Fabs” or Mick and Keith as “The Glamour Twins”.

This was summed up best by Talking Points Memo’s Eric Kleefeld, who made the following observation:

So Steele doesn’t just sound like a middle-aged man trying to talk to his kids and failing to sound cool. He’s also trying to talk to his parents and failing to sound cool.

Apparently Tokyo wants to raise its international profile, which seems pretty odd. I think that if you asked people what the best-known cities in the world are, Tokyo would easily land in the top ten. That’s the kaizen ethic for you.

In addition to their work ethic, the Japanese have some other qualities of note, including a fondness for all things cutesy and a commensurate ability to give that cutesiness a slightly creepy twist. This Reuters report says that they’ve got ambassadors for these qualities now:

In a bid to raise its international profile, Tokyo has appointed three young women as cultural envoys because they represent Japan’s long-running craze for all things cute.

Inspired by the characters in Japan’s distinctive "anime" animated films and "manga" cartoon books, one of the new ambassadors dresses as a schoolgirl, another as a Victorian doll in voluminous frilly skirts.

On first glance, it looks like just another tourism board promotion effort. The Reuters article suggests that these “ambassadorships” are part of a larger strategy:

Faced with the prospect of being overtaken in both economic and military might by giant neighbour China, Japan has been making concerted efforts to boost its "soft power", a strategy that analysts see as important.

"You get people to love your culture and use that as a way of gaining power around the world," said Phil Deans, professor of international relations at Temple University’s Tokyo campus.

"America has a lot of soft power, because people like American culture."

So it would seem that one of the strategy’s core assumptions is that the tastemakers and other holders of the levers of power in culture are also the vaguely creepy shut-in type who almost never say the word “legal” without preceding it with the word “barely”.

I wonder if Tokyo is considering ambassadors of subway groping and “upskirt” photos.