(In The Happiest Geek on Earth):

O’Reilly Emerging Technology Conference report number 1.

Read it here.

A couple of bits of interesting news, if you live in Accordion City…

Canada is experiencing the biggest surge in employment in the past five years. Both The Globe and Mail and the Toronto Star have articles on it.

The city of Toronto is planning for growth, what with 1 million more people expected to move in and the city being second only to Los Angeles in terms of growth. The city is planning for it, and it looks — from this article anyway — that they might be on the right track:

Can the drab, car-dependent, strip-mall neighbourhoods along Kingston Rd. become pedestrian-friendly promenades like Bloor West Village and the Beach, lined with restaurants and flower shops?

The people planning the future of Toronto think so, and they believe they’ve come up with a way to do it.

Here’s a preview of their plan, which will be unveiled in two weeks.

It calls for stacked townhouses and low-rise apartments along commercial strips, and high-rise towers along subway routes. Public transit would be expanded until it becomes a viable option for people in every corner of the city.

The rest of the article is here.

Flight plan

Sunday, May 11

• Continental flight 1994, Toronto to Newark (depart 2:10 p.m., arrive 3:45 p.m.)
• Continental flight 464, Newark to San Jose (depart 5:10 p.m., arrive 8:35 p.m.)

(Yes, I know it’s Mother’s Day. I’m having breakfast with her before the flight. Since my sister’s a mom now, I also got her a present.)

Friday, May 17

• Continental flight 279, San Jose to Houston George Bush (depart 6:30 a.m. — ack, arrive 12:28 p.m.)
• Continental flight 472, Houston to Toronto (depart 3:50 p.m., arrive 8:03 p.m.)

For those of you who want to reach me, I’m staying at the same hotel as the conference, the Westin Santa Clara. I’ve have my cell phone with me, and I expect to be able to be easily reachable by e-mail. I’ll have my laptop and wireless card; it’s always a good bet that an event where Cory Doctorow is one of the organizers will have wireless Internet access.

It’s also a good bet that an event that I am attending will have an accordion involved.

(In The Happiest Geek on Earth):

Damn, it feels good to be a geeksta. Visual Studio Magazine’s latest salary survey.

Read it here.

Is there one that makes you taste like chicken?

Sweet Release is a new product that…oh, you’re not going to believe me. See for yourself.

(In The Happiest Geek on Earth):

End-of-week grab bag. Little bits of news about programming, what I’m up to programming-wise, and the O’Reilly Emerging Technologies conference.

Read it here.

Oy! / Aiyahh! New mags to read!

Jews and Asians have some similarities:

• We were the kids cleaning up in math and science class
• We have a strong showing in the computer world
• Strong family ties
• Our mothers tend to be overbearing
• Some tendencies towrds clannishness
• Strong pressure from the parentals to get a university degree
• Thick black hair requiring the strongest gel
• Cosmetic surgery (Jews: nose jobs, Asians: eye jobs)
• A love of Chinese food
• Hiring Filipino domestic help
• Run-ins with the original Axis of evil (Jews: Hitler, Asians: Hirohito, who got off too easy)
• Signature cars (Jews: VW rabbit/Jeep YJ, Asians: Honda CR-V, Honda Civic)
• And dammit, we own New York, baby!

But there are two glaring differences: We Asians eat pork, and we’ve got a too-cool-for-school don’t-you-wish-you-were-us magazine: Giant Robot.

My pal Cory Doctorow compensates by eating pork (and in the most incorrect way possible — he orders his veggie burgers with bacon and cheese) and reading Giant Robot.

He — like anyone, Asian or not — is still welcome to read Giant Robot, but now there’s Heeb, the urban Jewish hipster mag. I’ve seen it on the shelves in Toronto, but can’t remember where. Congratulations to all my Jewish hipster homies on getting some reading material. Cory, when are you gonna start submitting stuff to them?

As for Canadian Asians, there’s also something new on the magazine racks for us — Banana. In the interest of fairness, I’ll post some cheesecake from the magazine’s site:

To my Jewish homies, I propose a cultural exchange. I’ll trade you guys Mu Shu Pork for Nigella Lawson. Sound fair?

Special shout out to my Hebrew homeboy Cory D. for pointing out Heeb.