Author Archive

Have feeds made the social web too meta?

Meta-social aggregators like friendfeed and facebook are turning the web into a mobius strip with a snake in it that’s eating it’s tail. Wondering what would happen if I fed my twitter to my, friendfeed, to my facebook status and back to twitter again. But I don’t dare, I’m sure I would crash the internet.
Go […]

Toronto DemoCamp keeps on ticking: number 18

Toronto’s venerable Democamp event kept on ticking last night at the “supermarket” in Toronto (after too long a break since February). Wonderful crowd out last night. But with the long hiatus the it seems the demand for camps is exceeding supply. The event was long sold out and so packed some might have called it […]

This is an electric fish

Electric fish is pretty awesome. This is an electric fish I met yesterday at the zoo. But I don’t know his name. Electric fish “see” by pulsing an electric current through the water and then somehow watching and parsing the variations in the electric field as it’s reflected back at them. Sharks too, and other […]

I just donated to SaveOurNet.ca and you should too

More information about SaveOurInternet and net neutrality can be found here. This is the donation link. Your donation will help the saveournet coalition get on it’s feet, gain matching funds from public and private sources and advocate for an open internet that benefits all Canadians. Thanks to Mark and SaveOurNet.ca for putting on a good […]

(Formerly) Canada’s ATI makes a huge comeback in the graphics business

The graphics company once know as ATI has launched something of a coup this week with two new products the Radeon 4850 and 4870. NVDIA has been dominating the desktop 3D graphics market for a while now but it looks it’s now ATI’s turn to leapfrog. Now it’s just too bad they got themselves bought […]

On the success of London’s electronic transit card

The benefits of the programme are multiple in terms of streamlining travel, reducing queues, minimising cash handling, reducing the possibility of fraud by customers and cash theft by staff, and generally improving the customer experience. Having said that, the biggest benefit is the £60 million reduction in annual operating costs for TfL of the ticketing […]

Greg Gillis’ Girl Talk kicks music in the ass

At the $5-or-more level, buyers can choose to download the album in [DRM-free] MP3 or FLAC format, the latter being exact copies of the original source files without compression. Also included is a single MP3 file featuring the music without track breaks. Link Moar
M:
mp3 or flac?
T:
flac is for wankers
M:
…
T:
Audio compression algorithms work […]

Reminder: DemoCamp18 on the way. July 15th Toronto

DemoCamp Details:

When: Tuesday, July 15th, 2008 from 17:30 to 21:00
Where: Supermarket, 268 Augusta Avenue, Toronto
Registration can be done here

Sponsor tickets and the first tranche of free tickets are sold out but there are still plenty of cheap supporter and community allstar tickets remaining (you know what to do). Get a ticket while you can, it’s […]

How to support real (music) artists with or without “strong” copyright reform

Don’t buy DRM infected media. This includes CDs, DVDs, protected iTunes files, Microsoft Plays for sure (which by the way, usually doesn’t). DRM is a pain in the ass, you don’t need it and if Canada’s new legislation passes unamended, by accepting DRM you effectively void any privileges of how, when and where you might […]

How the new Canadian Copyright bill fails Canadians

As reported everywhere, Canada’s industry minister introduced a new copyright bill yesterday. And it’s no good. However, assuming we need “reform” at all, there are simple changes that could go a long way to fixing it.
The most important of these would be a qualifier on “anti-circumvention”. In the current bill, any circumvention is automatically an […]

Enterprise 2.0, two years in

About 2 years ago I started to think and work on an idea called Enterprise2.0. It felt to me at the time that changes that were just beginning to change the consumer internet at the time were really only the cusp of something bigger. That the more human, coperative and cloud based tools of “social” […]

Spring 2008 Indie Music Podcast

It’s been far too long since I last uploaded a new music podcast but here at last is my long-awaited spring 08 catch-up mix. If you are new here though, you should know that a quarterly music dump of indie and discovered music is an old tradition on thomaspurves.com
Now, of these tracks, many probably […]

Microsoft, failing to own the main internet, may try to buy a new one

From Scoble today: Why Microsoft will buy Facebook and keep it closed

That Microsoft will buy Yahoo’s search and then buy Facebook for $15 to $20 billion. Add that to all the news that Microsoft is buying Yahoo’s search and that gets very interesting…
[Facebook] can’t be seen if you don’t have a Facebook account. It’s NOT […]

Foush Reports on CaseCamp7

Rahaf Foush has a new video blog series called the Foush Reports in which her first report she covers CaseCamp7. Or rather the CaseCamp7 afterparty. Watch for my sound bite on the camp phenomenon about half way through. The CaseCamp7 afterparty was so much fun it made my nipples glow. (not pictured here) Stay tuned […]

Back in town, almost recombobulated

Sorry for the lack of posts and general lack of comments around here, I was in a better place. Just now getting caught up on emails, posts, ideas and a lot of work to catch up on. If I haven’t responded to you, I should by the end of the day.
As a side note, it […]

Trouble at the Video Store Part 2

My last post [Trouble at the video store] seemed to have caused a bit of an “OMG I Know” stir in the comments.
Here is the other shoe.
Clearly the video rental model, like that of the CD store is well known, even by it’s owners, as obsolesced industry coasting through it’s sunset years. Despite […]

Trouble at the video store

I don’t think Michele will be taking me to the video store again. Just too much trouble. All stemming from incident a few weeks back. I hadn’t been to one in years, but an evening of unlikely desperation found us at the local blockbuster-esque corner video store. What surreal and bewildering experience. I recommend not […]

Open Everything Conference is Open

Mark Surman is proposing a very open series of discussions and events, so open that it’s etirely about the idea of openness itself. Very cool. Registration and propositions are now open. Are you for it or against it? How-to’s and success stories of “open” strategies in the fields of business/enterprise, tech, policy, education, health, […]

 

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