Category Archives: On the Net

| In the news, Opinion, TV, Video

Hurricanes suck

I admit, I get a perverse pleasure out of people who are the creators of their own misfortune. Tragedies in the classical sense. Not necessarily causing death, but at least causing inconvenience. Hurricane Gustav created two examples of this, and the victims are our favourite punching bags: politicians and the media.

The first comes out of the video above. A few weeks ago, Stuart Shepard of Focus on the Family posted a video online in which he half-jokingly suggests that Christian Conservatives pray for rain during Barack Obama’s acceptance speech at an open-air stadium. They say they never meant for it to be taken seriously, but it was, and the video was pulled (the one above is a copy).

Of course, there was no rain the night of Obama’s acceptance speech, and the Democratic convention went off without a hitch. But the day after, as John McCain was announcing his vice-presidential pick, we start hearing about this hurricane headed for the Gulf Coast. Toward New Orleans. Three years almost to the day that Katrina struck.

Oh the irony. It almost makes me believe in a god, as it did Michael Moore.

The second example comes from our good friends at CNN. When Barack Obama announced his VP pick, CNN filled the airwaves with news and analysis. Responding to a viewer comment via Facebook (oh how the media has changed, folks), anchor Rick Sanchez says this on air:

By the way, I have to share this with you. It is from Sam. He says, Rick — this is on Facebook — I’m counting on you to do the same kind of coverage when McCain announces his vice president as you’re doing tonight when Barack Obama has announced his vice president. Sam, we’ve already made that decision. I can guarantee you we will.

No caveats, no ifs or buts, just a bold guarantee. Of course, neither CNN nor the other news networks are coming close to meeting that guarantee for the convention. Half the news about Sarah Palin was surrounded (literally) by hurricane updates, and the convention coverage is being threatened by it. Even the convention itself is changing plans at the last minute to deal with people (like President George W. Bush, Vice-President Dick Cheney and Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal) who can’t speak.

I actually feel a bit bad for the Republicans. It’s not their fault this hurricane hit with such horrible timing, nor is it their fault that Bristol Palin got pregnant. If they lose in November, it should be because of the issues, not because the campaign was derailed by … well, acts of God.

| On the Net, Opinion, Web design

Crocs needs copy editors

As a copy editor and therefore grammar nut, I’m especially attuned to errors of grammar, spelling and punctuation. But I realize not everyone can be as prefect as me when it comes to proofreadign, so I’m willing to cut them some slack.

Crocs.ca, for example, the website of those awful-looking plastic shoes that everyone seems to love. I can forgive their awkwardly-phrased taglines like “men: that’s all you need!” or “lifestyle: every day with style” or “work: even at work!”

I can forgive their aversion to the use of capital letters, their tenuous grasp on the rules of proper hyphenation and their missing commas.

I can forgive small mistakes like neglecting to superscript the “TM” that comes after their trademark.

I might even, on a good day, forgive an accidental misspelling of one’s own trademark.

But when your business is creating “comfortable” shoes and you misspell “comfort” multiple times in prominent places right next to the correct spelling, that’s just unforgiveable.

I don’t know what world these people live in, but translation isn’t something companies should hire amateurs to do.

UPDATE: I just checked the website’s terms of use, which apparently doesn’t allow me to link to it:

you may not create links from other websites to this website, except if expressly permitted by the site owner. (to obtain permission, contact our website administrator at support@crocs.ca.)

Just for kicks, I’ve gone ahead and asked permission. I’ll let you know what their response is. The email was rejected by the server because support@crocs.ca doesn’t exist.

| Sports, Video

This is what I love about the Olympics

Yesterday, in the pole vault, Yelena Isinbayeva of Russia, the undisputed world champion and world-record holder (having beaten her own record numerous times) has eliminated her opponents, including a show-boating American who thought she would kick Russian ass.

Despite already securing the gold medal, she manages to inject some drama into her final vault by attempting a new world record: 5.05 metres, more than 16 1/2 feet. Her first two attempts fail as she brings the bar down with her.

The video above is her third attempt, taken from Russian television (until YouTube is forced to take it down because of the evil Olympic empire). The Gazette’s Dave Stubbs summarizes what happened.

Unlike Michael Phelps, Isinbayeva doesn’t hide her emotions. And it’s so much fun to watch that.

As a bonus: An Adidas “Impossible is Nothing” commercial featuring Isinbayeva.

| Humour, On the Net, Opinion

Têtes à claques en anglais

The Quebec-based online video sensation Têtes à claques has soft-launched a new website and and anglo version with passable anglo accents.

The videos are the same as the franco versions, but they seem to lose some of the humour in translation. I’m not quite sure what it is, exactly. Maybe I’m just more easily amused by francophone humour. Maybe the québécois accent does something to make stuff sound more funny.

(via Domster, among others)

Meanwhile, Le Devoir today has a letter about francophone singers releasing anglo albums. Of course, it’s filled with the usual anti-English xenophobia you’d expect out of Le Devoir, but the gist of the letter is that artists shouldn’t be selling themselves short recording in another language just for the money, even if the English market is insanely lucrative:

La chanson est un art qui mérite le respect.

The writer is talking about Garou and Gregory Charles.

Yeah.

| On the Net, Opinion, Technology

By-election politicians on Facebook

As a follow-up to my overview of the candidates in the Sept. 8 by-election in Westmount Ville-Marie, here’s a quick rundown of the campaigns’ Facebook strategies (sorted by number of supporters):

(UPDATE Aug. 19: Mr. Larivée has joined the club, so I’ve updated the list as of today)

Anne Lagacé-Dowson (NDP)

  • Fan page: YES
  • Supporters: 511
  • Personal page: NO

Marc Garneau (Liberal)

  • Fan page: YES
  • Supporters: 370
  • Personal page: YES
  • Embarrassing personal information on personal page: NO

Claude William Genest (Green)

  • Fan page: YES
  • Supporters: 178
  • Personal page: YES (Though his profile pic is of a chimp hugging a bird)
  • Embarrassing personal information on personal page: Open wall, “flirt” box on his profile page, and photos of him dressed as a pimp. Does that count?

Charles Larivée (Bloc Québécois)

  • Fan page: YES (though it’s actually a group, not a fan page)
  • Supporters: 120
  • Personal page: YES
  • Embarrassing personal information on personal page: Nope, it’s wiped clean

Judith Vienneau (Rhino)

  • Fan page: YES (but no photo)
  • Supporters: 8 (ouch)
  • Personal page: YES
  • Embarrassing personal information on personal page: Plenty of TMI boxes on the profile page. Also, apparently wanted to be leader of the Libertarian Party. Maybe Rhino was her second choice?

Guy Dufort (Conservative)

  • Fan page: NO
  • Personal page: YES (private)

Many politicians have fake “personal” profiles setup, which I think is largely irrelevant since Facebook invented the fan page. So I won’t take any marks away from Lagacé Dowson for that. But Dufort and Larivée not having any Facebook exposure at all? That’s just not right.

| Humour, On the Net, Opinion, TV

CBC’s awful hockey theme contest

40 years ago, when composer Dolores Claman was given the task of coming up with a theme to a hockey broadcast, she envisioned the music you’d associate with Roman gladiators wearing skates (assuming you could imagine such a thing in the first place). The theme she came up with became synonymous with CBC’s Hockey Night in Canada for 40 years, and has become this country’s unofficial second national anthem.

Then, in June, all that changed when CTV announced it had acquired the rights to the theme from its original composer, who was still involved in contractual disputes with CBC over the terms of its license.

The CBC, left with its pants around its ankles, dusted off Plan B: Run a contest to find its replacement.

A contest to replace the most epic song in Canadian history. No problem.

The CBC’s Anthem Challenge, which has been promoted endlessly in order to drive up interest, has been surprisingly successful at doing so. Thousands of submissions each take a legitimate shot at being the theme’s successor, mostly by trying to copy it with slightly different notes.

Some come close to what you’d expect the winner to sound like, but are still missing that punch that truly gets you ready for a hockey game. They might sound more appropriate for a Megaman level than a hockey show.

Others miss the beat entirely, spanning the range of genres from cheesy ’80s sitcom themes, elevator music, electronic music, pop songs, even cheesier pop songs with lame lyrics, Randy Bachman, and other types of music entirely inappropriate for a hockey show theme.

Some include annoying personal introductions, others repeat the same chords over and over, or include sounds of people cheering.

Considering all these people got paid exactly $0 for the submissions, they’re not bad.

But these were the most popular ones. Imagine the ones that sucked.

The big question I have here is: Is this the kind of thing that should be trusted to Joe Schmo next door? Claman was a professional, not some person they picked off the street. Why should we think that amateurs would do a better job this time, clinging to the faint hope that maybe they might be the one lucky one out of thousands to win the $100,000 grand prize and get all the fame and glory that comes from not having the right to play your own song because you’ve signed away the copyright?

It’s perhaps partly to prove this point that a member of Something Awful posted “Hockey Scores,” a collection of random annoying sounds designed to sound as bad as possible, and encouraged others to vote for it. Because Something Awful is so powerful, the song rocketed to the top, where it sits as the most popular, most viewed and most commented entry.

That has garnered the attention of mainstream media, its blogs and even the CBC itself, which points out that the number of votes is not the only factor it must use according to the rules in determining the semifinalists that will be presented to the nation in October (though it will likely be the determining factor in choosing finalists from those semifinalists, and then the winner from the finalists).

But little of that coverage is mentioning the larger issue: When rich media organizations “crowdsource”  something that’s going to make them a lot of money, expecting people to work for free, they’re just begging to get a bunch of crap.

Something Awful just helped the process along a bit.

The contest continues to accept entries until Aug. 31. Semifinalists will be aired and voted on by the public in the beginning of October.

UPDATE (Aug. 9): The Globe has a piece on the contest, which of course includes not a single link to all the entries it talks about, nor the contest itself.

| Opinion, Slow News Day, TV, Video

Flying babies are awesome

Patrick Lagacé points to this report about a kid in Georgia who bounced a baby across a room by jumping on an inflatable pillow. He’s now facing charges for child cruelty.

Of course, because there’s video of the incident, TV news was all over this story. Sure, the video is disturbing, but people will watch it. So they play it over and over. That’s an average of one baby launch every 7.5 seconds.

Did they think we’d forget after the first 15 times what it looked like?

| Montreal, On the Net, Public transit, Technology

More mobile options for bus times

STM Mobile screenshot

STM Mobile screenshot

via Patrick, a new iPhone application has been launched called STM mobile that scrapes the STM website for bus arrival times and keeps track of favourite stops for easy access. It costs $0.99 through the Apple AppStore.

For those without an OMGcool iPhone, there’s the free busmob.com service, which does the same but through a light-weight website instead of an application.

Or you could just call AUTOBUS from your phone, or check the posted schedule, but that won’t make you cool.

UPDATE (July 31): Pierre-Nick has a review that’s mostly positive, but points out that it doesn’t use geolocation to find the closest stop.

UPDATE (Aug. 2): CFD has an interview with the program’s creator.

UPDATE (Aug. 7): The Gazette’s Roberto Rocha has an article about STM Mobile and busmob.com and how the STM is planning its own mobile schedule service for the fall.

UPDATE (Oct. 24): There’s also this very basic service which does pretty much the same as busmob.

| In the news, Montreal, On the Net

The by-election campaign has begun

From Shatnerian

From Shatnerian

Prime Minister Stephen Harper made it official Friday, announcing that three federal by-elections would be held on Sept. 8 in Westmount-Ville-Marie, St. Lambert and Guelph, Ontario.

Westmount-Ville-Marie features the big race for us Montrealers, as the Liberals and NDP both have star candidates. Perhaps coincidentally, they are the only ones with campaign posters or websites as of this writing.

The candidates are (essentially in order of the likelihood of them getting the seat):

  • LIB: Marc Garneau, former astronaut, who failed in a bid for the Vaudreuil riding in the last election. His biggest advantage here is not so much his star quality, but the fact that Westmount used to be a Liberal stronghold.
  • NDP: Anne Lagacé Dowson, CBC radio host. I’m not sure if Jack Layton has a CBC Radio fetish he wants to play out or something, as two of the NDP’s three candidates come from the Mother Corp. (Tom King in Guelph is the other). She has some name recognition, but those who recognize her are people who listen religiously to the CBC and are likely to vote NDP anyway. And a lot of people who do listen to her don’t seem to like her. She has a way of presenting herself that makes her seem a tad pretentious and patronizing. Her political credentials are also pretty weak. (Full disclosure: I worked with Anne for about two weeks at CBC Radio – not long enough to develop an opinion, but long enough for her to have paid me off, theoretically)
  • CON: Guy Dufort, a lawyer with Heenan Blaikie specializing in labour law. No website. Website still hasn’t been indexed by Google, so a search for “Guy Dufort” won’t get you information about the candidate.
  • BQ: Charles Larivée, a former (current?) president of the McGill Political Science Students Association. No website, and no hope. (Top Google hit for the name is my previous post about this race)
  • GRN: Claude Genest, deputy Green Party leader and former cast member on TV’s Sirens.
| In the news, Video

Gimli Glider, 25 years ago

Air Canada plane takes off after repairs (still from CBC TV report)

Air Canada plane takes off after repairs from Gimli, Manitoba (from CBC TV report)

It was 25 years ago this week that Air Canada Flight 143, en route from Montreal to Edmonton (via Ottawa), ran out of fuel above western Ontario and had to make an emergency no-engine landing on what used to be a runway at a small airport in Gimli, Manitoba.

The Winnipeg Free Press has a story about the captain of that flight, Bob Pearson, meeting the two boys he almost ran down with his barely-controllable airplane on July 23, 1983. The boys were part of a family day outing at an old runway that had been converted into a racetrack. Unfortunately, the captain and his copilot didn’t know that and were shocked to find people gathered on their emergency landing strip. With no engines and no room to change course, they had no choice but to land anyway. The kids, being kids, panicked and pedalled as fast as they could on their bikes away from the plane, not rationally concluding that there’s no way a bicycle is going to outrun a landing 767. As luck would have it, the plane’s nose gear collapsed (without power it hadn’t been lowered properly and wasn’t locked in place), slowing it down and keeping it from running anyone over.

Bikes try to outrun a landing 767

Two kids try to outrun a landing plane on their bikes (dramatization image from Mayday)

The CBC also mentions a mural that honours the flight being unveiled.

There really isn’t a way to overstate how awesome this story is. This writeup last year at Damn Interesting gives it a shot, though:

After repeated unsuccessful attempts to restart the stalled engines, Pearson and Quintal once again consulted the 767 emergency manual, this time for advice on an unpowered landing. Much to their dismay, no such section existed, presumably because a simultaneous engine failure had been too ridiculous for Boeing engineers to contemplate.

Basically, the story was that the plane’s fuel gauges were non-functional prior to takeoff (apparently a common occurrence at the time which should have been sufficient to ground the plane until it was fixed), and the ground crew measured the fuel load manually (in Montreal and again in Ottawa), figuring that would be enough. Unfortunately, they made an error in the conversion process (the brand new 767 was an all-metric aircraft in an era when people were still using pounds) and ended up thinking they had twice as much fuel as they did.

By the time the crew realized they had insufficient fuel, it was too late and the engines quickly starved to death. This required some quick thinking from the crew, who hadn’t been trained on gliding a jumbo jet without engines because nobody had ever thought it necessary to train pilots how to do so. One never-before-contemplated-much-less-even-tried maneuvre from the captain, a forward slip (where the ailerons were turned in one direction and the rudder in the other, causing the plane to fly sideways and at a nearly 90-degree angle to the ground to lose altitude quickly) is enough to turn one’s stomach.

Gimli Glider sideslips, flying sideways to lose altitude (re-enactment from Mayday)

Still, despite having no fuel (and limited control), despite the lack of an air traffic control tower at Gimli, despite the runway that wasn’t a runway, despite the pants-soiling forward-slip maneuvre a hundred feet above the ground, and despite the collapsed nose gear, the plane landed safely with no major injuries to anyone on the plane or on the ground.

Perhaps most shockingly, the plane was repaired on site and then flown back for further maintenance, and continued in service for Air Canada for another 25 years. It retired this January, just six months before the 25th anniversary of its historic flight.

For those of you who prefer your stories in dramatic re-enactment form, though, my favouritest TV show ever finally got around to profiling the flight this season (the two stills above are from this episode). You can watch Mayday: Gimli Glider on Discovery’s website for free.

UPDATE (July 28): Discovery is replaying its Gimli Glider Mayday episode Wednesday at 10pm (repeats Thursday at 2am and 3pm)