Category: It Happened to Me

Blogstravaganza in full swing! From left to right: Andrew Coyne, John Bowman, Yours Truly. Photo from A North American Patriot.

Let me begin with a shout-out to all the attendees of last Friday’s Blogstravaganza…

• Greg “Sinister Thoughts” Bester
• John Bowman
• Damian “Babbling Brooks” Brooks
• Jason “Cherniak on Politics” Cherniak
• Andrew Coyne
• Maria “Naked Knitgirl” Davo
• The Flea, author of Ghost of a Flea
• Huge Seagull
  
• Jason “V for Victory” Hickman
• Jeff from A BCer in Toronto
  
• John the Mad
  
• Warren Kinsella (scroll down to the bottomost January 30th entry)
• Wendy Koslow, editor-in-chief of Top 10 Sources
• The Last Amazon
• Loyalist from Dissonance and Disrespect
• Mark from Section 15
• Rick McGinnis
  
• The Meatriarch, author of The Meatriarchy
• Brian “Free Advice” Mertens
• Michael from Canadian Headhunter
• Tim “Orange Juice” Munro
  
• Nicholas from Quotulatiousness
• RightGirl from Girl on the Right
  
• Kathy “Relapsed Catholic” Shaidle
  
• Greg “Political Staples” Staples
• Steve “Nice Comfy Fur” Stinson
• Bob “Let it Bleed” Tarantino
• Paul “Sobering Thoughts” Tuns
• Wonder Woman from A North American Patriot
  
• Antonia Zerbisias
  
• Zorpheous, author of The Wingnuterer

(If I missed you, let me know!)

My thanks to Bob Tarantino and Jason Cherniak for putting the whole thing together. It was good to catch up with old friends from previous gatherings and meet some new ones as well. The success of this event shows that the blogosphere is alive and well here in Accordion City.

It’s also compartmentalized.

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Echo Chambers

If you’re a regular reader of this blog or a regular attendee of the GTABloggers gatherings, there’s a strong possibility that many of the blogs listed above will be unfamiliar to you. Likewise, this blog was unfamiliar to the bloggers whom I hadn’t met at previous gatherings of the local Vast Right Wing Conspiracy bloggers, despite recent links from a number of Technorati Top 100 sites and recent mentions in The Globe and Mail, Toronto Star and Macleans. One attendee didn’t know who Andrew Coyne was, despite the fact that he’s one of Canada’s highest-profile newspaper writers, while another lamented that Toronto seemed to have more right-wing bloggers than left-wing ones, even though attending a GTABlogger party might make you think the opposite was true.

This sort of thing is to be expected. After all, the term “community” has the same root as the word “common”, as in “sharing some trait or quality”. There’s a natural tendency towards gravitating towards those who share your interests, and in these politically-charged times, towards those who share your politics. There are some advantages to this, not the least of which is that a community can often do what an individual cannot.

This also has its downsides. Consider the “echo chamber” effect, in which the voices of a community serve to amplify voices from within the community and diminish outside voices, forming a self-reinforcing “feedback loop”. This can lead to all sorts of problems, from a “tunnel visioned” mindset to a lack of new ideas within the community to the demonization of other communities based on stereotypes and prejudices.

I think that Bob and Jason did a very good job at attempting to reach Toronto bloggers of all political persuasions. Perhaps it’ll take a few more of these gatherings to bring out more local bloggers whose politics are “centre” and “left”.

Your opinions, please…

In response to the Monkey Knife Fight graphic that I posted along with my original announcement about Blogstravaganza (it’s the one pictured above), Damian”Babbling Brooks” Brooks wrote in the comments to Bob “Let it Bleed” Tarantino’s blog:

OK, the monkeys going all Jets-and-Sharks doesn’t bug me. Batman

standing over the little guy like that is a bit off-putting. But the

Wonder Twins swapping spit in the back? Ewwwww.

I pointed him to this Penny Arcade comic (click to see it at full size):

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All this reminds me of a story which in turn reminds me of another story.

About a month or so back, I was in a conversation with a group of programmers when one posed a hypothetical business model question that started with “Is it evil if…”

Reg, one of the programmers and an all-round astute guy, jumped in before the guy asking the question could finish: “You know, if you have to ask, it probably is.”

What I decided not to bring up at that point is that I remembered once, back at Crazy Go Nuts University when someone asked me “Hey, Joey, is it, uh, incest if…if I…”

“You know, even though you haven’t finished,” I replied, “I’m gonna go with ‘yes’.”

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I’m full of stories. Wanna hear some? Come to Blogstravaganza tonight!

(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.

(Here’s

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:

• Radiant Core

  Foundation: A very user-friendly web content

  management 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.

• 2ndSite Online Invoicing: Another

  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.

• Kweschun: Chris Nolan’s social

  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.

• WaveDNA: The only desktop

  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.

• Favorville: Another social software

  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.

• Canada’s SR&ED

  tax rebate program was explained by Wayne

  Bradley 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!

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More DemoCamp Reading

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.

Here’s

Foo Camp — short for Friends Of O’Reilly Camp — which led

to the creation of

BarCamp.