Watering can
I've created my share of digital images.
This blog hosts 337 images so far (and yeah, most are just lame efforts at photoshopping.) I've uploaded 1,122 photos to my Flickr account (and yeah, most are just snaps of my wee ones, restricted to friends and family.) Then there's the miscellaneous ones done during 10 years of working for new media (and yeah, they've all wisely been deleted.) It's a lot of pixels.
And now, I'm delighted to announce, one of my creations has finally garnered the worldwide praise I so richly think I deserve.
Yes, folks, somebody wants one of my public Flickr images for a group! And not just any group... it's sought after by devotees of... watering cans!
Yes, the above picture - wedged between 2,00 family snaps taken at Franklin's Garden on Toronto Island, after the CBC picnic - is now a part of the group "Gießkannen - watering cans" on Flickr. Description:
Diese Gruppe ist für Gießkannen.
This group is about watering cans and watering pots.
Of course all the discussion so far is in German, but I like to think of "watering pots" as a language we all speak.
There truly is a Flickr group for everything, no? And now that I've found my niche, I sort of want to become an expert. In my mind, I'm already composing shots of that rusty can in our front garden, the little plastic "smiling flower" cans my girls use when they are "helping", the overpriced silver thing I bought my wife one Mother's Day. And that's without even leaving the house!
I may need to buy a new camera...
The black box
I work for the CBC Digital Archives website (I think it's OK to say that, right?)
Anyhow, we process a boatload of audio and video. English and French combined, there are more than 12,000 clips online already, with at least 400 more hours in the works in English alone. And since we're redesigning the site to accomodate bigger, better quality video, we thought we'd better upgrade our storage capacity.
The solution, for the moment, is a black box like the one shown here. To be precise, it's a LaCie 2.5 terabyte Biggest S2S RAID storage tower. To be impresice, it's an external hard drive about the size of a shoe box. It weighs a ton, and holds an inconceivable amount of data.
A terabyte is 1,000 gigabytes. So this shoe box holds 2,500 gigs - 10 times the amount of data my reasonably new home computer can store. We figure that'll hold all the high-res videos we are encoding this year.
Which made me wonder how much consumer-level media a drive like this could handle.
So I saved a typical, decent quality YouTube file - in this case, Johnny Cash's Hurt video (and yeah, I had a little cry first.) It runs about four minutes, and takes up a little over nine megabytes.
Math time:
- 4 minutes = 9 MB
- 1 hour = 135 MB
- 1 day = 3,240 MB (3.24 GB)
- 1 year = 1,183 GB
So... if I were to film myself 24 hours a day in YouTube quality Flash video, I could store a two full years of my life - every second of it - on this one drive.
(I'd upload it, but it'd take you two full years to watch... you might want to fast forward to the good bits. Heck, I'd like to too.)
Yes, I'm playing fast and loose with numbers here - significant rounding of digits, and the drive can't hold the full 2.5 TB, and Flash video sucks, but you get the point.
Now, how much audio would it hold?
Well, my 15 GB iPod is less than half full (5.6 GB) with 1,567 songs. According to iTunes, that's enough music to play for 4.2 days without repeating.
If I were to somehow hook up the black box to my iPod, I could hold 446 times as many songs - almost 700,000 songs, enough to last 1,873 days. That's five straight years of 24/7 music without hearing the same song twice.
Might want to bring the charger, though. Can I borrow some CDs?
One final thought:
Five years ago, the biggest available hard drive for a typical PC was 120 GB, and cost $750. (Our laCie costs around twice that, which would have got you 240 GB in 2002.) Today, that money gets you 10 times as much storage. So it's reasonable to assume that five years from now, the same drive will hold more than 25 TB.
Meaning that for a couple of grand, you could record every second of your life - from birth to death - on video, and store it in one small black box.
You are being watched
A couple of years ago, I prepared a topic for the CBC Digital Archives website about video surveillance. From photo radar to COPS to September 11, police and government agencies have been using video cameras to catch bad guys. Every now and then Canadians complain about privacy issues, and are usually told that if they aren't doing anything wrong, they have nothing to worry about.
As it turns out, it's the private sector they should be worried about.
A week ago, a CBC-TV newsroom colleague pulled me aside to show me something absolutely amazing: Google Maps is adding a "Street View" feature that gives you a pedestrian's-eye-view of an entire city from street level. Check out this view of Howard Street in San Francisco to see it in action.
In essence, Google sends a van with roof-mounted cameras to snap a 360-degree view of all major streets, then stiches them together in a seamless addition to their already powerful Google Maps system. Once you plunk your virtual self on a street corner, you can pan around in a circle, "drive" forward or backward using navigation arrows, or zoom in close enough to see what brand of sneakers people are wearing.
It's a breathtaking piece of technology, and I can see plenty of uses - in addition to giving directions to your next party, you can show people what the house looks like; real estate agents can virtually show not just a property but a whole neighbourhood. Tourist bureaus will have a field day with it.
Now, Google has only done select locations, and only the major streets - and they've only snapped each view once. But I think it's only a matter of time before the street views are captured more often (imagine Google teaming up with Canada Post, or something) or they are captured 24/7 with video camera installations. Live web cams are nothing new, and the Ministry of Transportation already does this for traffic. Why not Google, in high res?
There are many parts of the world where video surveillance is a given. London has around half a million cameras, recording people up to 300 times a day; according to Wikipedia, the U.K. has 4 million closed-circuit cameras - one for every 14 people.
So, be prepared. You can probably start assuming that if you are out in public, you are on camera, and being broadcast around the world. Pick your nose accordingly.
Of course, it's more than nose picking that people might be concerned about. I spent an hour "driving" around San Francisco, and captured these vacation snaps:
Assume people can read your license plates, and know where you are parked:
Assume they are watching your kids:
Assume they know if you are attending Big Gay Movie Night:
Assume they know where your money is being delivered, and by whom:
:
And assume they know if you are considering taking the plunge:
This is all a little alarmist, of course - mostly what I saw was people going about their everyday lives, and a lovely city that I'd like to spend more time in. People are already assembling their favourite "finds" from these images, including the Top 15 Google Street View sightings - they've found girls sunbathing, men visiting strip clubs, and a homeless man who was later killed defending his dog Boo Boo.
The geeks in the crowd (raises hand) are a little obsessed with finding out what sort of vehicles Google is using. Everyone assumes it's a van, and Boing Boing posted an image of a vehicle with four Nikon DSLRs mounted on the roof. (Sounds plausible; earlier I wrote about Nikons being used for a very similar project.)
But I don't think this is the right vehicle. San Francisco is a sunny, hilly place, and in many street view images I notice the vehicle's shadow cast on the road ahead:
Looks like a van, all right, but the cameras obviously have some sort of enclosure. So I then cruised the maps, looking for a reflection of the van. Since you can pan around the full 360 degrees, surely you should be able to spot it reflected in something.
And eventually I found it. Here's a shiny Mercedes dealership on Bryant St.:
And when you zoom in on the roof, you see the camera housing, just like in the shadow:
This seems to bear out another van spotting posted on Streetviewr.com, a site dedicated to interesting sightings from these maps.
Perhaps I should have pointed out earlier that there are several other street view sites in development. Windows Live Street View has an interesting "cockpit" approach, putting you behind the wheel of a car to "Walk, Drive, or Race" through the streets using your keyboard.
Historically, maps give you a perspective of geographical information about a place. In Windows Live™ Local, powered by Virtual Earth™, you’ve seen road, aerial, and hybrid maps. Then, we introduced bird's eye views to give you a perspective from above. Now, we want you to be there, right in front of the pizza shop you are searching for, in the street-side views offered by Windows Live Local. Even though you haven’t left the comfort of your computer chair, you’ll feel like you’re actually there.
Their sample map is in Seattle (San Fran also available), and - no surprise - it seems to work properly only in Internet Explorer.
Less sexy, but closer to home is Virtual City, which has mapped out street level images of Toronto using high-def video cameras and a GPS device. It doesn't stitch the images together in 3D, but it does have stills of both sides of all the main streets (click on the highlight feature to see if your street has been done). Here's the Wellington Street entrance to the CBC building:
My sister was more than a little creeped out to find photos of the entrance to her house online here.
Finally, I wanted to mention another imaging site that isn't strictly about street views, but all views.
Photosynth, another Microsoft product, "takes a large collection of photos of a place or an object, analyzes them for similarities, and displays them in a reconstructed three-dimensional space."
In the sample demonstration, it uses publicly-available Flickr images of Venice's Piazza San Marco and analyses them for shapes and perspectives. It then lets you navigate a 3D reconstruction of the location to see each picture, from the spot and angle it was taken.
Unlike the street view features, Photosynth is pretty heavy on the tech specs. It requires the installation of a browser ActiveX control, which takes a couple of minutes, and it doesn't work on all graphics cards (including that of my reasonably new home computer, grrr.) If you can't view it, at least check out the video of how it was made.
So, you can now visit CBC Toronto, stroll the streets of San Francisco or chase pigeons in St. Mark's Square from the comfort of your office chair. But if you plan to do any of these things in person, look over your shoulder. Someone may be watching you from their office chair.
The importance of copyediting
CNN may claim to be "The Most Trusted Name In News", but they aren't above the occasional slip up, such as publishing their editing notes, or "borrowing" rather heavily from their competitors... or both.
Check out paragraph #8 in this story from today's World Business section of CNN.com:
An editor's note has been inserted in the text, and published in the story: "Well, at least she's giving credit where credit is due... but she's sourced the FT three times in this story... I think we need to remove one or two of them just to make it look like we didn't just rewrite their article."
Yikes.
My boss showed me this error an hour ago, and as of this writing it's still online. (UPDATE: The offending graf was removed by 4 p.m. the next day - online for about 24 hours.)
News on the web may be fast paced, but it doesn't have to be hasty. About a year and a half ago, CBC.ca introduced something we had wanted for years: a universal copy desk to check and edit stories before they are published online.
Getting funding for this was harder than you'd think. For the corporation's first 60 years, we simply weren't a print operation. With the exception of the odd TV caption or graphic, spelling didn't count for much on TV, and it meant even less on radio - phonetics were more important than accuracy.
Then we started a website, and tried porting radio scripts directly to the web. Ugh. Never mind the uppercase typing, the bizarre punctuation, the spelled-out acronyms and phonetic last names... the grammar and spelling were atrocious. For more on these growing pains, see the excellent CBC.ca 10th anniversary item "CBC Learns to Spell" by Blair Shewchuk.
I was around for a few momentous typos and spellos (a term my friend uses for words that are misspelled not by accident, but because you really didn't know the right spelling and didn't check.) I got to witness e-mail pouring in about the giant 1997 CBC.ca headline "Death of Diana, Princess of Whales". And I was able to save our Archives site from a reference to "no holes barred wrestling" (ouch.) But I've probably perpetrated a few doozies myself.
At least, I would have, if not for having a diligent editor and proofreader.
Most CBC news, arts and sports stories are now filed to a copy desk that is staffed (almost) around the clock. This team of editors is wonderful - they have to know their Gretzkys from their Gzowskis, and turn stories around in no time flat. (We don't use them for the Archives site, but we have a freelance copyeditor who is diligent beyond reproach.) To keep up with breaking news, hot stories are sometimes published directly and edited on the fly, but for the most part a second set of eyeballs sees things before the public does. When we slip up, there's a link on each news story for users to Report a Typo.
You might think that means we've finally got things figured out, but amazingly, copyediting is a hot topic once again. As CBC prepares to roll out the "myCBC" project in Vancouver, we're faced with new (to CBC) concepts like citizen input, user-generated content and TV and radio reporters filing directly to the web. I certainly hope that all these things go through an editor, but it's by no means certain.
Perhaps I'll print out that CNN page and post it on a few strategic walls....
Paul likes to…
I posted this on my Facebook account a while back, but since I don't have time for much blogging of late, I'm "repurposing" it here to amuse the few stragglers not already on FB. It's a ridiculous time-waster, but amusing nonetheless:
Go to Google and type your name followed by the words "likes to". Make sure you put the whole thing in quotes.
(Note: this isn't some magic Google trick - you just look at the results that come up, and copy/paste the relevant text.)
Here's my top 10:
1. Paul likes to chug.
2. Paul likes to listen to Jimmy Buffet while he looks up sports news.
3. Paul likes to be well-informed on world events - he subscribes to three newspapers.
4. Paul likes to be recognized for his efforts and prefers a leading role.
5. Paul likes to keep Katie guessing, Katie likes to keep Paul on his toes.
6. Paul likes to hooked cos he's prey to the female, calls a girl "babycakes".
7. When in Jakarta, the capital, Paul likes to stay at the Menara Peninsula Hotel.
8. In his free time, Paul likes to give attention to his family and enjoys travelling.
9. When not doing pastoral duties, Paul likes to spend time with his family and, like Martin Luther, enjoy some home brew.
10. Paul likes to say that he was “in the right place at the right time†when he was given the opportunity to acquire 42 venture capital and leveraged buyout fund positions.
Plus a few bonus:
As a songwriter, Paul likes to paint pictures with his words.
Paul likes to play fetch...with a beer bottle cap.
"Paul likes to test himself," she says. "That's what makes Paul run."
When not studying the lower eukaryotes, Paul likes to run with the Genesee Valley Harriers.
Paul likes to entertain and requests two banqueting tables in every place he stops.
Paul likes to sing just about anything - low notes, medium notes, and high notes - he has a four octave range!
Paul likes to be in control. Tight control. It's why he is prone to what he calls "tensions".
Paul likes to play basketball, but he's really bad at it.
That last one is especially true. The most interesting results come from people with names frequently given to pets or children.
Here's what my pal Tessa got:
Tessa likes to nip you in the butt, … And, when in close proximity Tessa likes to butt her head against yours.
Very loving, Tessa likes to cuddle and doesnt mind being held down for a short amount of time…
Or Fergus:
Fergus likes to play with a little yellow ball filled with catnip.
Fergus likes to eat flies.
Fergus likes to sleep in a tight little ball most nights.
Fixing the ‘Internet Elbow’
(Or, "Why are there holes in the left elbows of my shirts, and how can I stop wearing them out?")
The crazy thing about blogging is that once in a while, you write about something petty and obscure, and end up becoming the worldwide expert on the subject.
I guess it makes sense. Though I often fail miserably, I do try to write about things that haven't already been discussed to death. Which means that whatever I write, however weak, fills a void of some sort. It attracts traffic and comments, further boosting its profile. That's why I've somehow become the #1 internet resources for raccoon-proofing your green bin, or finding out if the word "chairman" is sexist, or if it's OK for able-bodied people to use the disabled washrooms. (Go ahead, search Google for those things - I'll be right at the top.)
I'm also, apparently, the go-to guy for a wardrobe malfunction I'm calling "Internet Elbow."
Last November, I posted a short item called More worn-out-elbows, where I described an inexplicably phenomenon: slowly but surely, the left elbows of all my shirts are developing small holes.
I figured I was just a freak (still possible.) But then a dozen people from around the world commented or e-mailed me, saying they too have the same problem.
Most worked on computers all day long, and sat at an L-shaped or bean-shaped desk. Some blamed their chairs. Some blamed their dry cleaners. All were baffled.
In an effort to solve my problem, along with some other miscellaneous aches and pains, I put in a call to the official CBC ergonomist. Though he hadn't encountered my specific elbow-hole issue before, he had some pretty good guesses. And last week, he dropped by and conducted a proper analysis of my workstation.
After a good deal of measuring, observing and interrogating, he had some sage advice. I'm posting what he told me here in case it helps someone, somewhere. My introduction notwithstanding, the following is by no means expert advice and is no substitute for getting info from someone who knows what the hell they are talking about. Come to think of it, that goes for blogs, and the internet, and life in general.
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In the opinion of the ergonomist, my elbow situation is very likely related to the way I sit and use the computer.
In his experience, most problems arise with people who are either shorter or taller than average. I'm 6'2", which is around the height where typical workstation configurations don't quite cut it. And my computer is set up in the corner of an L-shaped desk, which is sometimes problematic.
Here's a photo of the configuration. The numbered areas, and how they relate to ergonomics, are explained below.
1. Good old fashioned CRT monitor. It's too big to comfortably place anywhere but the corner (as I and almost all of my colleagues do.) Nesting it in the corner is an efficient use of space, but leads to leaning forward and resting elbows on the desk instead of the chair.
Since these monitors aren't height-adjustable, you can see that my monitor is elevated by a phone book - and the ergonomist says this is actually pretty good. You want to have your eyes even with the top edge of the monitor, and if it's not exactly right, a slightly lower elevation (like mine) isn't bad.
2. My keyboard and mouse are way too far back in the corner, resulting in my elbows leaning on the hard desk, not the cushioned armrests of the chair. Ideally, you want to have the keyboard at the edge of your desk, or on a keyboard tray. The trays aren't that popular around my workplace - they are harder to install in a corner, are often wobbly, and the older ones don't have a place for a mouse.
I could pull the keyboard forward to the edge, but then I'd be far from the monitor. If all my cables were longer, I suppose I could pull the whole rig out to the corner, leaving a big space behind it. But it doesn't really fix the problem, which is...
3. Corner configurations just aren't ideal. You end up reaching forward for the keyboard/mouse, which not only creates posture problems, but causes you to put more weight on your elbows. In my case, the left elbow is on the desk while the right is usually elevated for mousing. The configuration means you can't help but rest some of your wrist or arm on the desk, because it juts out at an angle.
The armrests of your chair should be at about desk level, but this means you can't tuck them underneath the desk. In a corner configuration, that means you might not be able to slide in close enough to comfortably reach the keyboard. Again, that results in leaning forward and propping yourself up.
4. My desk chair was state of the art in 1997, and I've been guarding it fiercely since then. But it may be time to put it out to pasture. The main issue is the arm rests, which are not adjustable. You want them even with the desktop. While it's typical for the elbow to rest on the armrest, you want the forearm horizontal. Mine angles upward slightly, the elbow is bent - the pressure is all on one point, not spread across a flat arm.
A new chair would also offer increased lumbar support and a seat that can be positioned forward or backward. Both would facilitate better posture and less leaning.
5. The wings of this L-shaped desk are barely wide enough to accomodate a CRT monitor anywhere but the corner. They'd be fine for a flat panel monitor, which the ergonomist recommends. The height of these desk sections is apparently adjustable, though I've never seen them set at anything but the standard height, which is geared toward a person of average stature.
6. I'm pretty sure this has nothing to do with holes in my elbows, but that's a Vince Carter bobblehead and a Sir John A. Macdonald action figure. Oh, and there's a Ring Wraith working on a foam computer on top of my monitor. Under the cowl: the decapitatated head of Homer Simpson.
So, what's the upshot? Well, according to the written report, it's nothing that a new desk, monitor and chair wouldn't fix....
Actually, it isn't that bad. Altering the desktop height is free, and I may be moving to a new area in the fall, where new workstations may be configurable to match the employee. My chair and monitor are at the end of their shelf life anyhow.
Of course, it'd be cheaper to just buy me a few new shirts, or force me to wear a hockey elbow pad or something. But to their credit, the CBC seems to take this sort of thing seriously. Having me comfortably chained to my desk for the next three decades is probably worth a few hundred bucks up front.
I hope this case study is of some little help to other people suffering from "internet elbow". The recommended changes don't guarantee hole-free shirts - unless the work changes, you'll still be leaning on one elbow for 8 hours a day. But at least you'll be doing it properly!
Bonus feature: Check out my workstation picture on my Flickr site, to see if you can spot hidden objects including two more action figures, two souvenir mugs, candy and tobacco products, and more!
UPDATE: My workstation has been changed to address most of these issues - check it out here.
Kyotoshopped
You may have heard about this little tempest that busted our collective teapot last week. CBC.ca used a photo of smoggy Toronto to run alongside a story about the Kyoto Protocol. An iffy selection, but then the image was put through a "warming filter" in Photoshop, giving it a "smoggier" look.
Avast! That's a no-no. Readers of the Small Dead Animals blog, which uncovered the altered image, took this as proof positive that everything CBC has reported on since 1936 is a fabrication, that global warming is a communist plot, and that al-Qaeda is being directed by the ghost of Barbara Frum.
CBC.ca has its own policy about when images can and can't be altered, and conceded a mistake had been made. I, however, have my own image policy for this blog: EVERYTHING MUST BE PHOTOSHOPPED. I have some photoshopping experience, and I think CBC.ca could take a lesson from my more liberal policy.
GRAPHICS ARE EASY
For instance, CBC claims that carbon dioxide and greenhouse gasses are difficult to photograph. Bah. I used to have CO2 for my BB gun - what's wrong with that?
Don't like it? Well, how about an "artist's impression" of a CO2 molecule:
OK, so it looks a little cheery, not at all like the impending doom of our planet. But that's fixable, if you have a more liberal photo policy like I do.
What about greenhouse gas? Well, I could have whipped this one up for them in a heartbeat:
But Paul, you say, isn't such flawless digital manipulation too difficult for harried newshounds? Not at all. Allow me a creative demonstration.
A greenhouse:
Put 'em together, and you get...
Greenhouse Gass! That took all of two minutes. We should never have to look at a generic image of a former smokestack, or the environment minister of the minute, ever again.
Need an image for Kyoto? What's wrong with the city itself?
Now, I don't know what a "protocol" is, but how about a picture of Procol Harum?
Child's play. In fact, it's like those Rebus puzzles children enjoy so much. How's this for a fun, brain-developing news graphic?
Get it? Carb On Di Oxhide. Carbon Dioxide! Utter genius. And it beats the hell out of another John Baird headshot. What wouldn't?
DISCLAIMERS ARE EASY TOO
Of course, it has been suggested that manipulated images should have some sort of label or icon to inform the gullible. That was also suggested to me (see my response) and it's one of the reasons I started tagging my photo manipulations with my trademark (but not trademarked) [g] icon.
Good idea. So good, in fact, that I've already prepared a handful of useful icons that CBC.ca can use to indicate when images have been manipulated. Here's a sampling:
Image Has Been Cropped
Correct usage:
File Photo
Correct usage:
Warming Filter Applied
Correct usage:
A Bit of a Stretch
Correct usage:
Now, I'm not suggesting that CBC.ca is alone in its need for a more clear approach to identifying news graphics. Not at all!
Here are some graphics that may be of help to CBC's competitors:
Image contains cute animal to attract viewers
Image contains boobs to attract viewers
Image or story has been shovelled onto site from third-party supplier
Photo or story contains obvious bias
Photo or story contains unobvious bias
If successful, I can imagine rolling out these helpful pictograms to my blog as well. Stories and images for my posts might be branded like this:
Anecdote About My Kids
Another Story About Toilets
My Wife Would Not Approve
For God's Sake, Gorbould, Nobody Cares
MySpace: Now theoritically more Canadian!
You may recall my recent screed about how crappy MySpace is, particularly if you are Canadian.
I set up a MySpace account a while back, as an exercise in soul-flagellation, but I have to confess I don't check it much. But the other day, I got an e-mail alert saying that I'd received a MySpace message from my new "friend", "Marlene". So I logged in to check it out.
And thank goodness I did! "Marlene" said she was surfing around, was interested in my profile and wants to get to know me better! Which is great, because according to her picture, Marlene is a really attractive blonde!
Best of all, Marlene said likes the way I look. Which is funny, because this is my avatar:
There was some sort of promise that we could get to know each other better if I visited her website in Russia. But before I could get to know her better, they made Marlene disappear:
I guess she really was from Russia after all.
Anyhow, I did find something interesting when I was logging in. Before I could access my page, I was presented with this announcement/message/disclaimer from MySpace:
If that's too hard to read, or if you can't move your eyes past the blonde (which is NOT my long lost Marlene*) here's what it says:
Hey folks
Welcome to the beta version of MySpace Canada. We're featuring more Canadian music and some of the features should work better with local postal codes, etc.
Now that MySpace is beginning to look more Canadian, my lawyers told ME what I have to tell YOU: we are still running our site from the US, all your data still resides in the US, and that MySpace's data management practices are still governed by US laws.
- Thx, Tom
Note: MySpace Canada is available in French and in English. However, MySpace remains a worldwide community. Your choice will not prevent you from making friends and viewing content from users in other countries or using another language.
Anyhow, I believe I can translate Tom's disclaimer into Canajan:
Even though you claim in your profile to be from Bouvet Island, we aren't stupid. We can read your I.P. address and know that you are Canadian. This means we think you are stupid, and if we feed you some automated ads and a clip of the Tea Party, you'll believe MySpace is Canadian too. But it isn't. So don't try to access our corporate health plan, or send PayPal payments to Osama bin Laden through our site. Rupert Murdoch will personally kick your hockey-loving ass. Also, we now know how to use Babelfish. Zoot alors!
Still, I appreciate the effort. They've even got a new domain:
Actually, that's a subdomain. Those are free. They still haven't forked over the cash to buy out the schmuck that is using www.myspace.ca as his own blog. Actually, any self-respecting media agency would have just unleashed the legal hounds and just tried to extort any domain they wanted to own.
And MySpace Canada has a new logo, too:
Of course, this looks more like a logo for CanadaBETAmyspace... mmm, perhaps I'll go register that domain myself. I'd appreciate a nasty lawyer letter, or a bucket full of money too! (I wonder what Joe Clark would say about that logo.)
They've certain made some improvements to the registration process, such as recognizing that Canada has "provinces" instead of "prefectures." When you do register, they hit you again with the disclaimer: "...you consent to the transfer of your personal data to the U.S. , where your personal data will be subject to U.S. law and where the level of data protection is different compared to your country." Which makes me really curious to know what particular data the Americans are so antsy about.
Anyhow... I was excited to check out this "more Canadian" content - fingers crossed for a video of Jason Priestley and Bonhomme getting married in the cockpit of the Avro Arrow!
Well, today's "more Canadian" content includes:
-four videos (made by people in New York, Florida, Missouri and Mississippi)
-a band from Brooklyn
-an American ad
-and a Robbie Williams video (it's the Brits who are obsessed with him. All others say "huh?")
However, there are three Canadians in the "Cool New People" area. (That name always makes me laugh. New people? Like, infants? And how would you grade their "coolness"?):
Randall <3 (less than three? Certainly numerically confused: "Male, 21 years old"; "I'm a 17 year old senior." Not senior citizen, presumably.)
Shortround (a Manitoba woman who chases ghosts)
Lady T aka Tamika ("Rootical Afrikan-Jamaican Womban")
Well, colour me proud, with an extra "ou".
And a Toronto charity, Skate4Cancer, apparently won some MySpace award, which may or may not be a coincidence. (This charity is insane: the dude skateboards across the continent whilst hopped up on painkillers and sleeping in ditches - but their website is absolutely stunning.)
Not a bad start, CanadaBETAmyspace. (If my name were Amy, I know what URL I'd register...) But now my colleagues are coercing me to join the dreaded Facebook (I see that Facebook.ca is already squatted. That sounded rude, didn't it?)
I'm sure I'll be squatting all over Facebook in a future post. Say, maybe that's where Marlene went...
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* I do appreciate the offer to "Find girls in Toronto" (not women, but girls!) Fortunately, I have two already, ages 3 and 5. But I'll check this site if they are ever lost, and I need to find them. However, I'm betting the mostly-nekkid model probably resides in the US and is governed by US laws too. Pity.
How to download YouTube clips
Ever wonder if there was an easy way to save videos you find on YouTube or Google Video, so that you'll have them in case they are later removed? There is (of course there is - that's why it's so easy for people to repost clips that have been removed. It's like chopping off a hydra head.)
There's a quick online guide here.
But below you'll find all you need:
First, just bookmark the following links (don't click on them here, just get them into your browser's bookmarks):
The next time you are watching a video on Google Video or Youtube, you can click the appropriate bookmark and a window will pop up that will begin downloading the FLV (Flash video) file (you may need to rename the file, and give it a .flv extension.)
There's another shockingly simple website called KeepVid that saves files for you.
Just paste in the URL of the YouTube (or other) video in the box, and hit download. It creates a "download link" which you can right-click on to save the file to your computer (you might have to rename it first.)
Alternately, there's a very nice Firefox plug-in that does this for you, and more:
Ook? Video Ook! - Firefox add-on
Another good Firefox extension: VideoDownloader
Or you can use a neat little Greasemonkey script for Firefox (requires Greasemonkey.)
*** Update! My sister discovered another site that lets you simply type the word “kiss†in front of the “youtube†in the url of any YouTube clip and it’ll let you save the file:
e.g. http://www.kissyoutube.com/whateveryourvideoscalled
Just remember to rename the extension to .flv ***
Once you've saved the file, you'll need a media player that can handle FLV files. Here's a great one - it plays just about all media files that exist (if you want it to):
If you want to convert the .flv files to something more useful, like .avi or .mpg, use the free Riva FLV Encoder.
More on the subject can be found here and here.
Apple users can download an nifty program called, cutely, Tubesock, which both rips the files and converts them.
No breakin' any copyright, now, y'hear?
I hear dead people
Something I've been working on for a long time now has finally come to fruition: The CBC Archives Podcast!
It's called Rewind, and each week we'll offer up one of the very best clips from the enormous CBC archives. You can find it on the CBC Podcasting page (#16 under News & Current Affairs.)
You can subscribe to it in iTunes too - just open iTunes, then click here. Or just download the first episode in MP3. The first episode is a wild and acrimonious interview between CBC host Barbara Frum and utterly insane Charles Manson follower Sandra Good. I've installed a new audio player plugin for this blog, so you can also listen to the file directly:
[audio:http://podcast.cbc.ca/mp3/rewind_20070323_1903.mp3]
I've been working on the CBC Digital Archives site for five years now, and listening to podcasts for almost as long. Marrying the two is something I've been keen on for ages.
For starters, it's the first archival podcast I've ever heard. And it's the first time the Archives site has been able to offer up something for download. When I pitched the idea a couple of years ago, there was lack of interest from CBC.ca (why waste bandwidth on this?) and fear from CBC Archives (which makes millions selling its clips - the idea of giving away the best stuff for free was a bit alarming.) Since then, both sides have recognized podcasts as a great way to reach a new audience, and it's full steam ahead.
CBC now has almost 40 podcasts, including CBC Radio: Rewind. (My favourite name suggestions were Selective Memories, Archival Revival [amen!] and I Hear Dead People.)
The podcast is being read by CBC's Radio icon Michael Enright, which is very cool. Well, only sort of cool - I voiced the pilot myself, and had a secret and silly desire to keep doing it. Still, no shame in being shunned for the premier radio announcer in the nation. He's still reading my words. You can hear my version here.
[audio:http://www.gorbould.com/audio/archives_podcast_pilot_PG.mp3]
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