Category Archives: Blogosphere

| Blogosphere, My articles

Never trust a student politician

I’m afraid you’ll have to take my word for the fact that I have two more articles in the paper today, as neither is online (If you have the newsprint version, they’re on Page B2).

The first is a Justify Your Existence piece on Concordia Student Union president-elect Angelica Novoa, who has been under attack by her political opponents for being incompetent. Anyone want to take a wager on which side of this political magnet will be outraged with it first?

The other is the third in my series on Quebec bloggers-turned-authors: Mère Indigne, who unfortunately put her blog on hiatus mere days after I interviewed her. On the plus side, this means starting next week I can go back to featuring English blogs, some of which have been in my bank ready-to-write for four months now.

I should be ok for the next few weeks, but if anyone has suggestions for interesting local blogs that are updated regularly, let me know.

| Blogosphere

André the not-so-giant

Hey, did ya hear? André Boisclair quit today. I won’t bore you by talking about the cliché-ridden farewell speech, or analyze what this means for the PQ, but point to some interesting commentary online. Some say he was arrogant. Some say he was very very arrogant to the point of being cartoonishly evil (and therefore a gift to Anglophonia).

Some say it was his soft stance on separation that made the PQ hard-liners abandon him for the ADQ. One suggests that the PQ needs to disband, and a tougher, fresher independence-centred party needs to be formed that’s sole purpose is separation. A Parti de Libération du Québec, if you will (though its three-letter abbreviation would be unfortunately confusing).

The Antagoniste asks a good question: How is a party who can’t decide on its own leader supposed to properly negotiate independence?

And then there’s Paul Wells, who had the most poignant reaction and analysis of this turn of events.

Let us laugh…

UPDATE: It wasn’t because he was gay, says Montreal gays who are about the last people who are qualified to say so. After all, he didn’t lose votes on St. Catherine Street, he lost them in the Laurentians and the Beauce and in Saint-Louis-du-Ha! Ha!

Actually, not Saint-Louis-du-Ha! Ha! That’s in Kamouraska-Temiswhatever, and it’s still Liberal, but you get my point.

| Blogosphere, Humour, Technology

What about 33 73 3B 26…?

I’ve been following the 09 F9 thing (or as Wikipedia calls it, the “AACS encryption key controversy“) for a while now, but haven’t seen much local commentary about it (other than people posting the illegal number to their blogs).

But Galacticast, the Montreal-based sci-fi parody show, put together a brilliant parody of LOST incorporating the number. It’s worth taking a look. (They’re also shilling for charity, so check that out too.)

My take? Well, it’s not like we haven’t seen this before. It’s almost like that whole DeCSS thing. No, wait, it’s exactly like the DeCSS thing. So we’ll probably see a similar end result. The keys have already been changed, and new movies won’t be decodable with this number, so damage will be minimal. Besides, simply knowing the number won’t help the layman copy his HD-DVD and distribute it online.

But the damage to DRM’s reputation is clear, and irreversible.

| Blogosphere, Business, My articles, Technology

Bark bark. Bark bark bark. Growl.

In today’s paper comes the second in my three-part blogger-author series, about Lucie le chien (which is on hiatus in blog form) and its author Sophie Bienvenu (whose personal blog is still running).

Meanwhile, please don’t blame me for this laudatory piece about Geek Squad. I know all about Geek Squad’s many many many many many (alleged) problems, including this piece I read last night.

| Blogosphere, Media

Best of the Free Content

There’s a pattern emerging in the news media nowadays where “journalists” desperate for content and having no original ideas of their own look to blogs and summarize their content.

And then there’s those who simply copy entire blog posts verbatim, and assume that since they’re attributing the content they can do so freely. It’s like if I copied an entire book on my website, but since I credited the author it’s not copyright infringement.

Mama Fagstein (hi mom!) was the first to notice the Toronto Sun “quoting” me in its Best of the Blogs last week. Normally I’m all about being recognized in traditional media, but this one irks me for a few reasons:

  • They got the address of the blog wrong. Since they found the post enough to copy it in its entirety, you’d think they got that part right at least.
  • Nobody contacted me about it. I’m not saying you need permission to point to a blog post, but sending me an email would have gotten my last name, which they apparently couldn’t find with all their journalistic skills.
  • The story doesn’t have a byline. So I have no one to complain to.
  • They got my position wrong. I suppose I can forgive them for thinking “flicking brilliant” was praising the Liberal campaign. But nowhere do I say I “stand by” the campaign. The point of the post was to criticize the NDP criticism.
  • The one sentence of original content got two things wrong.

Not that I’m complaining or anything.

Here’s a bit of irony for you: An example of how to do things right comes from the blog of Toronto Sun employees, who put up a blog post mentioning my post about the Sun’s national editorial policy. You’ll notice they link directly to the post and quote only a paragraph or so of it. And they also keep it well-formatted.

| Blogosphere, Public transit

Prochaine station … oh who cares?

With the Laval metro stations up and running, some young angryphones are griping about the lack of metro service in the West Island. Having spent 20 years of my life in Pierrefonds, and five of those regularly commuting downtown, I sympathize.

But there’s a good reason why the metro won’t be extended West from where it is now:Metro extension

That’s 10 km of mostly wasted tunnel travelling under uninhabited areas including the Taschereau rail yards, two highways, the Lachine industrial park and an airport runway.

At a cost of $150,000,000 per kilometre, the price of this extension to the airport terminal would cost about $1.5 billion.

Okay, you say, that’s big, but we can afford it, right?

Well, do you have $6,000 to spare? That’s how much each West Islander would have to pay the government to make this a reality.

Consider some alternatives, if you will, for that $1.5 billion:

  • Add 100 buses to the STM’s network for shuttle service to downtown points from various locations (Dorval, Fairview, Roxboro), and keep them running seven days a week for 40 years.
  • Create a high-speed rail link to Dorval airport and increase commuter train service on the Dorion-Rigaud line.
  • Multiply existing commuter train service 100-fold for 100 years.

My solution to this problem? Unsurprisingly, it involves increased commuter train and bus service to the West Island.

The 211 bus running along Lakeshore is insanely popular among southern West Islanders, because it’s a 7-day regular service bus that’s an express shuttle downtown. On the northern West Island, which is much worse served (except for commuter trains to Roxboro), the 470 Express Pierrefonds provides shuttle service from Fairview to Côte-Vertu, but only during rush-hour. Having an all-day shuttle from Fairview to the metro would save commuters as much as 20 minutes per trip.

I’m sure you can think of other express shuttle services that would serve the West Island well. And all of them put together would cost much less than extending metro service here.

UPDATE: More metro dreaming in this post, with maps.

| Blogosphere

The Zeke saga continues

Apparently it wasn’t so much of a happy ending for Zeke’s Gallery’s blog and the gallery owner with the big ego and lawyer friend. After apparently being reassured that a simple pronoun confusion was at fault for a misunderstanding, it turns out he wasn’t satisfied.

Now other blogs are taking notice and calling on the world to blog about how this guy sucks and bloggers are under attack from evil lawyers.

The lesson in all this is that in the eyes of the law, blogs are no different from major newspapers. Both are responsible for their words and subject to libel law. Of course, the main reason bloggers don’t tend to get sued as much (besides the relative lack of readership) is that they don’t have very deep pockets. I learned that as editor of The Link.

The flip side is that for these small bloggers, it’s cheaper to give in to demands than hire a lawyer to fight even the most frivolous charges.

It’s not so much a blogging issue. It’s a problem with the justice system.