False PositivesET has been busy again. (Me? I was just trying to get more frosting on the cookies then myself - and was not completely successfully. )
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We also had Carrot Cup Cakes
and Sugar Cookies
and Gingerbread Tree’s
and Gingerbread folk
If you see one “hockey-kids-xmas-comedy-drama about a queer couple who gain custody of an 11 year old boy” this is the movie!! (imdb listing)
You may have already heard about it, based on the book of the same title, from the Toronto International Film Festival or the coverage it has received for having the support of the NHL and Toronto Maple Leaf’s. ( see also this from the New York Times)
It stars (Ottawa, Canada born) Tom Cavanaugh ( best know from the show “Ed”), Ben Shenkman (Cavanaugh’s co-star on the show Love Monkey) and Noah Bernett, Jeananne Goossen (Falcon Beach), Graham Greene (numerous) and Sheila McCarthy (numerous).
Mongrel Media has a trailer up on YouTube, and here are the reviews (from the Film Fest) from Xtra (who also has a YouTube video from TIFF with interviews), Tribute. I’ll add more when the msm newspapers publish reviews.
Update: The Globe and Mail has Stick-handling a touchy subject, and it’s review is Movie scores with goalies and glitter (3 out of 4 stars) ; Toronto Star: ‘Breakfast With Scot’: Playing for the other team;
Update : Randy McDonald links in from his wide ranging and well named blog : A Bit More Detail.
Just got back from a 4 day in San Fran. I haven’t been there for a while and only on business with next to no time for tourism. This trip was pure pleasure.
Short story : a great city, friendly people, we had great weather and did a LOT of walking. (a few photos are on Flickr)
We stayed in the Mission District (it’s good to have family and friends in foreign cities!), and could have spent all our time in this area alone, particularly Valencia and Guerrero Streets (between 22th and 18th): Coffee shops (like Ritual); Hip retail shops (Borderland Books ScFi, Fantasy and Horror; Paxton Gates; Little Otsu); Pastry Shops (Tartine’s Bakery on Guerrero and 18th is not to be believed -lineups out the door during the weekday mid morning- and for good reason !); and restaurants both fancy (Farina on 18th was our Fav) and humble.
San Fran’s BART and Muni streetcar’s made travelling around easy; much appreciated when it was time to return. And I love the BART link to the SF airport.
The best fun in the Union Square area, with it’s high end name retailers, was seeing 2 groups of halloween party goers : a the gaggle of cross dressing beauty queens; and many young asian cosplay girls (high heels and short shirts) off to a different party- okay there were guys there but apart for one “Kakashi Hatake” I wan’t paying much attention.
And Yes, I saw the Apple store, just as they getting ready for Leopard launch (and already a line up), as well as playing with both the iPhone and iTouch pod devices (however I did make my saving roll against bright and shinny, barely).
The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) delighted and challenged us (the very purpose of Modern Art?) with it’s exhibitions on Olafur Eliasson, Jeff Wall; and Joseph Cornell.
We walked up Buena Vista park (foggy, so no view that day but gorgeous), and down into Haight Ashbury neighborhood, which included a visit to Giant Robot, before going onto the Golden Gate Park , it’s Tea Garden and in the Botanical Garden being swarmed by very aggressive grey squirrels (cute when it’s a chipmunk, but 6+ squirrels? not so much).
We also did a day trip up to Sonoma wine country (an hour north of the GG bridge) and were able to visit a couple of wineries, including the Gundlach-Bundschu Winery with its picnic tables. They were very generous with the tastings (it may have had something to do with 4 lovely ladies I was traveling with) and I greatly enjoyed the weather, food, wine and company.
We are looking forward to returning to San Fran as soon as we can.
On Wednesday (Oct 10th, 2007) will have a Ontario Provincial Election, and a Ontario electoral reform referendum. The referendum would bring about a mixed member proportional representation system in regards to elections to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario.
MMP (mixed member proportional) is a modest reform that will bring representative democracy in Ontario into the 19 20 21 century and end first-past-the-post 4 year dictatorships by pseudo majorities. ( 40% of the vote, 60% of the seats, 100% of the power).
For a very good summary of what MMP means and doesn’t mean, and answers most objections and misunderstandings about the proposed MMP reform see the Tor Met Blog post MMP Criticized.
Updated:The turn out was only 50% (the smallest since the 1920’s);
The Liberal’s won big (70 seats) with 42 % of the popular vote.
The greens will 8% got no seats, up from 3% in 2003.
Sadly only 36.7% voted in Favour of MMP far sort of the 60 % needed. And I heard that the voter turnout for the referendum (the first in 80 years) was 54%, which is higher than the actual vote turn out. (WTF!!) Of course the Liberal government failed to fund a proper campaign to inform voters and the official education effort from Elections Ontario was so anemic as to be all but useless.
But, It’s not over yet! We need to keep MMP alive. In New Zealand, it took two referendums to adopt a similar system in 1993. Unless you like un-representative democracy? “40% of the vote, 60% of the seats, 100% of the power” for another 4 years.
from the CBC Ontario 2007 Election site
| Party | Total | Vote Share |
|---|---|---|
| LIB | 71 | 42.19% |
| PC | 26 | 31.67% |
| NDP | 10 | 16.79% |
| GRN | 0 | 8.01% |
| OTH | 0 | 1.34% |
The title of the Information Week column by Alexander Wolfe is both provocative and misleading. Microsoft has patented (U.S. Patent 7,266,697) “Stealthy audio watermarking”, which Mr Wolfe suggests could lead to “Uncrackable DRM“.
However even reading the patent’s abstract (”The watermark identifies the content producer, providing a signature that is embedded in the audio signal and cannot be removed. The watermark is designed to survive all typical kinds of processing and malicious attacks.”) that it would able that it might be, a best, difficult to remove the watermark. And it is significant that watermark survives audio re-recording (i.e. the analog hole). But that’s a far cry from “Uncrackable Watermarking”.
Mr Wolfe assumes a DRM (Digital rights management) system where the “playback system (i.e., the MP3 player or online music store) requires the presence of the watermark before it’ll let you listen to your file”. He seems to be thinking less of Watermarking than of Steganography.
(Leaving aside the questions why I would buy such a system, what happens to all the music I legally bought which is not watermarked, and not playable on such as system, and if he believes that the watermarks are irremovable why not allow the system to play files without any watermarks?)
That suggests that even if you cannot remove the watermark, you could still defeat the DRM by apply a applying a valid watermark to the file I was trying to get it to play, or getting the DRM system to accept a fake watermark signature as valid.
And that reduces, at best, to an issue of keys that need to be unencrypted before being used.
So it now looks a lot less theoretically uncrackable in the case of perfect implementation, let alone what might happen in the real world. Mr Wolfe recently admitted (Aug 1st 2007) that “When you look at the technology, there’s no getting around the fact that DRM is an abject failure“. He would like to suggest that you can now give Microsoft a “win” on this one. He might want to wait till the 16 year olds give it a crack.
That’s not to say the irremovable watermarking might not have real value, say in inserting each copy with the purchaser’s information. If the purchaser makes illegitimate copies, these will contain his name. Having my name, credit card number, email, telephone, and address will make me less likely to share my purchases (but what if someone stole my credit card and used it to by the latest Britney Spears single? The Horror, The shame!) That approach would only require a on line music store (iTunes?) to personally watermark the files when I buy them. That may not yet be practical, but is much more practical then anything else I’ve heard suggested. (patent pending).
“Ask not what your fortune cookie can do for you but what do can do for your fortune cookie.”
This is what is Weird and Wonderful on the Web through September 4th:
- SciFi Science education literature
- physics
I’ve gone and collected another set of Japan links once again, cause its the future, or at least one piece of it….
Via TokyoMango : Takeshi Kitano ( sometimes credited as ‘Beat’ Takeshi and best known in the West 1995 for his role is the 1996 “Johnny Mnemonic” film adapted from the William Gibson short of the same name), actor/director/TV show host, writes children’s book! His new collection of short stories ‘Boy
NeoMarxisme is a Blog with lots of interesting jpop gossip. Marxy is a writer and musician living in Tokyo, Japan.
from Boing Boing very strange “butt biting bug” video
StartDrawing.org a portal for Asia’s artists and drawings. This site was started with the aim of showcasing and sharing drawings from talented artists in Asia, and in the process, promote the joys of drawing.
X-SEED 4000: A Proposed Arcology in Tokyo is 3,123 feet tall with a 6 square- kilometre footprint, and could accommodate five hundred thousand to one million inhabitants.
Lisa Katayama of Tokyomango: is Geeky Girl We Love.
Ghost Hound. To Quote Jean Snow “Why are you going to want to keep an eye out for the upcoming anime series Ghost Hound? It’s from Production I.G and Masamune Shirow (Ghost in the Shell), and to be directed by Ryutaro Nakamura (Serial Experiments Lain).” Out October 18 2007.
List of English words of Japanese origin. You may already be speaking Japanese (badly). (I know I am. In addition to my awful Cantonese, and borderline English. Gibberish is my mother tongue, with apologies to my Mother.)
Trends in Japan for all your trends in Japan, because it’s the future, or at least one piece of it.
Via Greg “Beatiful Code” Wilson :
The Friends of the Merril are having a Flea Market on Saturday September 8th, from 10-4, at the Toronto Reference Library (just north of Bloor on Yonge). Second-hand, collectible, or one-of-a-kind: all sorts of SF and Anime merchandise will be available.
The Friends of the Merril Flea Market is going to be in the Beeton Auditorium at the Toronto Reference Library, 789 Yonge St. Toronto. That’s 2 blocks north of Yonge. (Gmap link)
The Merril Collection of Science Fiction, Speculation and Fantasy is a Huge collection of over 63,000 items(!!!) started when pioneering science fiction author/editor/goddess Judith Merril donated her personal collection to the Toronto Public Library.
Note: the collection is housed on College Street near Spadina; not near Yonge and Bloor, and the flea market is not at the collection.
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