OK Go is a band with a great history of quirky and entertaining videos (at least if you're me). Their popularity as a band has been catapulted by the viral success of their videos and their record company is now trying to more tightly control the message. The result could be more press and more interest because of the conflict, more videos watched, more songs,albums and ads sold (since you can be sure ad sales are part of the music company reality when so much is available online. It could also be a negative in all or some of these areas. In any case, I thought I'd do exactly what the record music company doesn't want me to do and embed the video on my little blog.

OK Go - This Too Shall Pass from OK Go on Vimeo.

Other videos and further on the conflict can be found here.

Visual Art, Music and Parkour

I found this video on http://good.is, a site that I just learned about today. Plenty of good stuff there, by the looks of it. I really have been letting this blog rot of late. I'd apologize, but at this point, I don't think there's anyone to read the apology. Microblogging via twitter and facebook has seemed to supplant my rants. Maybe that'll change.

parkour motion reel from saggyarmpit on Vimeo.

Privacy in an online world

So much of our lives are online (whether by intent or not). For those of us active with social networks, that likelihood increases ten-fold. Well, like a good little social-network user, I just took a look through the proposed new facebook privacy policy and besides using the information there to help me lock-down my content being shared within Facebook and the applications that use the platform (think Scrabulous {now Lexulous}, Mafia Wars, and all manner of others) I also came across a means to (hopefully) opt-out of "behavioural" advertising from a number of advertisers including google, yahoo and microsoft. Just a note, the tool seems imperfect, but it will likely work better for you if you read this help page first.

Will it make a difference? Hard to say. Will I feel better for actively trying to control what of my information is shared with the world? Definitely.

Oh, and if you're not already a conspiracy theory seeing google as the next "Big Brother", check out Google's latest "Lab" ("opt-in"able beta test) tool: Social Search. Creeped out yet? Check out this perspective. What about now?

Viral before the internetz

An interesting article on social networking and the transmission of information without the use of phones, the internet or even major newspapers within the context of the fall of communism in Europe 20 years ago.

The key:

"A network of human relationships that conveyed information informally on a regular basis, and a population who were highly focused on only a few channels of information, both official and clandestine."

Have we lost or gained since that time? I think a reasonable argument could be made for both.

The World, she is a changin'

No, this is not a treatise on the lamentable way that we treat the planet (though there will be more on that later, I'm sure).

Instead, this "media counter" identifies the breadth of technological activities that are going on merely in the time that you watch it count. Considering that most who bother to read this blog have been around long enough to remember a time without a consumer-accessible internet and without portable phones, let-alone mobile phones, how things have advanced, and continue to do so right before your eyes, is pretty remarkable.

Augmented Reality

This term is likely to become much more common in the near future. A topic of discussion this weekend and the subject of this article, augmented reality represents the additions that today's mobile technology can make to our experience of the real world.

One thing that's not mentioned in the article is the risk for a Big Brother-style (a la 1984, not a la current reality tv) misuse of the information that is created and made available when everyone carries a phone, or similar item, that can track exactly where the holder is. Instead, it appears that the greatest risk to the user is that our knowledge of "facts" will decrease as our need to know the information drops. I'm not sure that I agree with that. Of course you don't need to get an iPhone and load all the new augmented reality apps to risk that becoming a reality. The future is here today with the government's requirement for improved 911 service for mobile users. By early next year, you will be able to be tracked-down to at least a 300m radius by emergency services providers. :)

Saturday

Yesterday seemed remarkably out of place. I find that interesting since I hadn't felt like we were deep into autumn or that it had been unseasonably cool or rainy. It's just that yesterday seemed so particularly warm and sunny that I couldn't help but feel blessed. My apologies to those who didn't have the same weather-luck but I was very happy to take advantage of the weather with some quality outside time. It felt like a better choice than driving to Toronto in hopes that the weather would be good for Nuit Blanche. In the end, I think the weather was good for Nuit Blanche but I would've been too tired to enjoy it anyway. I guess I'll need to stick to enjoying other people's pictures and stories.

"it's a lunatic ninja coming through the window"

Can you imagine this happening in Kanata?

What kind of a system have we created? An economy that relies on continued growth. Where steady-state is underperforming and where saving money can be a problem.

Sometimes reality is more interesting than fiction: "Porn Industry Seeks Federal Bailout"

Happy start to 2009!

As years end and other begins there is much looking back and fore at what has come and what may yet come to be.

One chance to not only look back, but also to learn is BBC's 100 things we didn't know last year.

Perhaps a momentary hiatus from Canadian political intrigue is in order. I bet you never thought someone would mention the phrase "Canadian political intrigue" and mean it. In any case, this video made me smile. I had heard about Matt and even seen some of his dancing in the past. Still, it made me happy and maybe it'll work for you (even if you doubt that Stephen Harper will learn how to play well with others, despite what's gone on over the past couple of weeks).

You can find out more about Matt at: http://www.wherethehellismatt.com/

While it's not a sign of my worldly nature, I've come across two things on other people's blogs and I want to share them with you. The first, a site dedicated to strategic voting in the upcoming Canadian election to ensure that the environment is protected. Vote for Environment is asking you to do just that. In ridings that polls consider to be close races, they advise voters not to split their vote between the Liberals, NDP and Greens but rather to rally behind a single candidate. I see nothing that describes a specific party affiliation, rather they just want to see the environment protected and don't see the Conservative party doing it. Funnily enough, neither do I. My riding seems likely to remain Liberal, both from my experience and according to their site. What about yours?

The second ill-gotten link is a Youtube video from Canada's own Feist. This time she's adapted her song 1,2,3,4 for the Sesame Street crowd. Cute!

Blogging about blogs

I listened to some commentary this evening about how many political candidates have had to withdraw from the race (Canada will be holding a Federal Election on October 14) due to their blogs. More specifically their perspectives, posted for the world to see and saved in perpetuity thanks to the endless servers of google and their caching of webpages.

My mind moved immediately to my own (imaginary) political future and what my opponents would latch onto to bring me down. Any of you who have been reading my blog as regularly as I have posted may have your own ideas. Me, I honestly don't have a specific instance that comes to mind. I haven't railed against too much or made rash statements that I'm no longer willing to support. I wonder if the disgraced political candidates feel the same way. Maybe that speaks to the strength of their convictions or to their inability to understand that not everyone shares their views. Maybe it speaks to the harsh light that shines when the nation's media focuses on any one thing or maybe they deserved it because their views were not palatable to a large percentage of the voting public.

As for me, it'll probably be "No Pants Day" that brings me down.

Kerr

Maybe I should live in New Zealand. It turns out I might be in pretty good company. I know New Zealand is great and running off and doing something new is certainly appealing, but this is actually more about a name. I was reading about a World Names Profiler this morning and thought I'd pop in my surname and see what it had to say. Well, it turns out that my surname comes up more than a 1000 times for every million people in NZ. That's more than any other country (if Scotland is considered part of Great Britain). Scotland itself has the largest concentrations of Kerrs, according to their research, which comes as no surprise considering the heritage of the name. But if Scotland isn't my speed, numerous regions of NZ follow closely, with Australia not far behind. No wonder I felt so comfortable when I visited those parts of the world.

Interestingly, Antrim in Northern Ireland is the city with the largest concentration, followed by some Scottish cities and then Bartlesville, Oklahoma of all places. Maybe a road trip is in order.

And it keeps getting weirder...

Turns out the woman who loves boogers so much has quite the history.

Pet cloning service bears five baby Boogers

(Im)Maturity wins the day! I couldn't help but post a link to an article with that kind of by-line.

Etiquette lessons from an up-and-comer

It is one week to the beginning of the 2008 Summer Olympics in beautiful (and somewhat less polluted) Beijing. The auspicious 08/08/08 will arrive and with it, many thousands of people for China's "coming-out party". Without digging deeply into my conflicted thoughts and feelings about China's selection as the host country I would like to highlight an article I just read. It references the efforts of the government to change the populace in very direct ways. I find it culturally very interesting as many of the concerns never seemed to be considered a problem before. More than teaching etiquette, they seem to be promoting (largely) western ideals. Who wins? Who loses? I wonder.

Hi, my name is Justin.

You may remember me from such blog posts as "No Pants Day - Not just for men anymore" and "Your mother is a snowblower".  I'm just stopping by to wish you a happy "Happiest Day of the Year".

Hopefully, I'll be back soon.  Who knows, maybe we can celebrate this happy day together.  Just not now.