Category: Toronto (a.k.a. Accordion City)

(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.

And finally, the last of my notes from the January 11th all-candidates meeting for the Parkdale-High Park riding, complete with closing statements. If you’d like to see my other notes, follow the links below:

• All-Candidates Meeting: Opening Statements
• All-Candidates Meeting: First Two Questions
• More Questions from the All-Candidates Meeting
• Even More Questions from the All-Candidates Meeting

For all these notes, I’m wearing my “citizen journalist” hat. That means

that I have attempted, to the best of my ability, to provide an honest

account of what I saw and heard at the meeting. Any of my personal asides will appear in red italics.

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Question 10: What are Your Energy Policies?

Peggy Nash, New Democratic Party  

• Stop subsidizing oil and gas — more investing in solar and wind energy

  

• Currently, we’re making substantial investments in non-renewable resources

  

• Would advocate a slow phase-out from non-renewable energy — remember, many people make their livelihood off them

  

• Look at alternative energy sources: wind, sun, ethanol

  

• Alternative energy is a key part of the NDP plan

Rob Rischinsky, Green Party

• End subsidies to all wasteful industry

   

• Solving the energy problem also requires looking at the demand side of the equation

   

• We feel that nuclear energy is a bad option — that’s what differentiates us from the NDP

   

• Alternative energy sources can provide us with 10,000 Megawatts of power

Sam Bulte, Liberal Party   

• In our 2005 budget, we invested in co-generation, wind and biodiesel

   

• Our energy efficiency and retrofit programs

Lorne Gershuny, Marxist-Leninist Party

• Stop subsidizing oil

   

• Invest in wind power instead

Jurij Klufas, Conservative Party

• The Conservatives will establish a national standard where all fuel is at least 5% ethanol by 2010

   

• That would cut greenhouse emissions by 4 million tons [or is it tonnes?] per year

   

• Biodiesel is also another solution

Terry Parker, Marijuana Party   

• [incoherent mumbling]

Closing Statements

Terry Parker, Marijuana Party

• Prohibition kills

   

• We call for legalization

   

• Legal marijuana will generate lots of tax revenues

Rob Rischinsky, Green Party   

• We advocate a new style of thinking

   

• The “left/right” distinction in politics is from the past

   

• Our system was created in the 19th century, run by 20th century parties trying to solve 21st-century problems

   

• We run campaigns based on hope; we believe hope trumps fear

   

• We are diverse people, moving into a post-national era

   

• The Globe and Mail said that we were the party making positive statements

Lorne Gershuny, Marxist-Leninist Party

• In this meeting, there were no questions about the international situation

   

• We would form an anti-war government

   

• We are opposed to wars of aggression on sovereign states by the U.S.

   

• We condemn the complicity of the Canadian government

   

• Our reputation as peacekeepers is undeserved

   

• Wars fought for “humanitarian interests” are a fraud

   

• We are “junior partners” in the U.S. plan

   

• Wars are fought for business

   

• We would uphold the U.N. charter of non-interference

Peggy Nash, New Democratic Party   

• In the last election, I finished a close second

   

• This means that people want changes

   

• The NDP will invest in:       
             
  • Seniors

             

  • Education

             

  • Public health care — and stop its privatization

             

  • Environment

         

• We will give you a clean government

   

• I’ll consult with the riding regularly — “You won’t only see me at election time”
• [Enthusiastic response from crowd]

Sam Bulte, Liberal Party

• On January 24th, either Paul Martin or Stephen Harper will be prime minister

   

• You can either have a fend-for-yourself system run by a man whom the lauded as “Pro-American”

   

• Or we can strive together for a common goal

   

• Canada is doing well: we don’t borrow, we are active in world social programs and we are a society where newcomers are welcome

   

• What change do you want — a backwards fight where we rehash old debates, or moving forward and building

   

• We are the party of “medicare to multiculturalism”

   

• We are the party of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms

Jurij Klufas   

• Do you want more of the same, or do you want real change?

   

• The Liberals brought you the sponsorship scandal

   

• They have an entitlement mentality

   

• We would bring in a Federal Accountability Act

   

• We would cut the GST from 7% to 6%, and then to 5%

   

• The Liberals believe that parents can’t be trusted on how best to spend money on their children — they say you’ll spend it on beer and popcorn

   

• We would make sure the immigration policy was fair

   

• The Liberals say they are the unity party but have no credibility in Quebec

   

• Mention of their man in Quebec, Jean Charest

   

• On guns:       
         
  • We will crack down on illegal guns

         

  • We support mandatory sentences for serious gun crimes

Regular readers of this blog will know that last night, a fundraiser for the MP in my riding, Sam Bulte, was held at the Drake Hotel, a boutique hotel that’s become one of the city’s more popular after-work and weekend hangouts. The fundraiser, billed as a celebration of artists and creators in honour of a friend to the creative community, was in fact more of a political strokefest between the Canadian Recording Industry Association and a politician who supported a bill that was very restrictive of user’s rights.

Ren Bucholz of the Electronic Frontier Foundation called together a counter-gathering at the same hotel, where those who opposed Big Content’s vision and Sam Bulte’s pandering could meet, get to know each other and talk. No recitations of manifestoes, no angry scribblings of blog entries or letters to the editors, but just folks with a common interest meeting over food and drink in one of my favourite cafes in town.

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I had to get a photo of the sign in the lobby. It’s pretty poor (I didn’t want to call attention to myself while doing it), but as you can see, the event is a fundraiser, contrary to Ms. Bulte’s vehement denials:

A good number of people arrived early and the cafe was filled to capacity soon thereafter. We each took turns introducing ourselves and found that we were all sorts of different people, from techies like myself, Ian Goldberg and Kat Hanna (whom you may remember from their adventures with Dell Computer and click-wrap licencing), to musicians such as Neil Leyton and Mike Farrell of The Pariahs (a guy who predates me at Crazy Go Nuts University), photographers, writers, students and people who just classified themselves as “ordinary citizens”.

I have to commend The Drake for letting us gather there. Ren had communicated with them in advance to book some space in the Corner Cafe, and they could’ve easily said “no” for fear of offending the fundraiser folks, who’d be a far greater source of revenue than we. I also have to commend the Corner Cafe for making their own marshmallows for their hot chocolate — I’m going to be a return customer on that touch alone.

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I got a chance to talk with Ren for a little bit, and he told me about the EFF’s presence in Canada. He’s the only EFF guy in this country, having started at the position about nine months ago. We talked about all sorts of things, from the blog-powered hubbub over Bulte to Copynight, a gathering that takes place on the fourth Tuesday of every month where people talk about restoring balance to copyright law. Ian and Kat also mentioned this and informed me that the next local gathering takes place next Tuesday night at 7 at The Madison, a place that I normally associate with drunken college reunions and think of as a safe training ground for bar pick-ups for people freshly out of school. It’s nice to see “The Maddy” broadening its client base!

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It was also good to see Neil Leyton, whom I hadn’t had a chance to

catch up with since 2002, when he and I were musicians in Lindi’s live

band, with him on guitar and backup vocals and me on you-know-what.

Neil told me about how he used to stick a line on the copyright notices

for his albums where it would say something like “Hey, if you listened

to this album from start to finish non-stop with no bathroom breaks,

you are are entitled to copy and distribute it freely!” He then

discovered Creative Commons and found that their licenses said roughly

the same thing in a more official way, and now his record label, Fading

Ways Music, is a big user and supporter of Creative Commons licenses.

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A funny note — the Drake had a contingent of security guards, sharply dressed in black suits with black turtlenecks, communicating with each other on walkie-talkie cellphones. One of them glared at me when I took the photo of the sign announcing the location of the fundraiser, but a hotel staffer who knew me told him “Oh, don’t worry, that’s the Accordion Guy. He’s cool.”

Later, as I left the cafe to use the bathroom, two of them blocked the door that led to the hallway leading to the fundraiser room.

“You using the bathroom?” one of them asked.

“Yup,” I replied.

“One from the cafe to use the bathroom,” said the other one into his walkie-talkie as I opened the bathroom door, shaking my head and smiling in amused disbelief.