Category: Uncategorized

Paul Kedrosky calls it catnip for bloggers. Introducing egoSurf.

My current standings:

• google.com: 8386
• yahoo.com: 7987
• msn.com: 4354
• del.icio.us: 0
• technorati.com: 7806

Fun stuff.

Rick Mercer has put together a rather humourous fantasy cabinet for the Conservative Party:

I have it on very good authority however that Stephen Harper is spending a lot of time playing the game these days. Word is the back room on the Harper bus resembles the woodshed from A Beautiful Mind; the walls are littered with the names of potential conservative cabinet ministers. Luckily my secret mole in the Tory Campaign (Tom Flannagan) has been taking photos of the notes with his hand held palm device and forwarding me the information on a daily basis. This is what the Tory Cabinet looks like so far.

Out of curiosity, I took the autism spectrum quotient test that Steve Pavlina mentioned in today’s post. The result of the test is a score that indicates your level of autism:

• 0-10: low
• 11-22: average (most women score about 15, and most men score around 17)
• 22-31: above average
• 32-50: very high (most people with Asperger Syndrome or high functioning autism score about 35
• 50: maximum

I managed to score a 29, just three points away from the ‘very high’ category. Now I’ve always known that I’m an introvert, but that result came as a bit of a shock.

I guess I’d better find a Toastmasters’ club. And fast.

CBC News:

Anyone who buys illegal drugs is contributing to the gun violence that is plaguing Toronto, the city’s police chief says.

Later in the story, police chief Bill Blair is quoted as saying,

“I think everybody who uses illegal drugs and gives money into these things bears some responsibility for the violence that’s taking place.”

I guess it’s safer for him to blame drug users than to blame the politicians who have created the black market with their outright ban on drugs.

The story goes on to say

As a result, Blair says part the police strategy to curb gun violence will be measures to cut off the demand for illegal drugs.

Cut off demand? Good luck with that.

The leaders of the major political parties in Canada are having a televised debate tonight.

Dave Pollard gives us some food for thought by arguing that a vote for the Conservatives is a vote for disintegration of Canada:

So why am I talking about the breakup of the country? When Mulroney was Conservative leader, his Québec wing was substantially separatist. Separatists saw the Conservatives as their allies. Western alienation is not all that different from Québec nationalism, except that until Harper came along it was less virulent. Now, 14 years after they last governed, the Conservatives and the Bloq separatists are again poised to take power. As I mentioned, the Bloq is strongly left-of-centre, while the Harper Conservatives are strongly right-of-centre. The only thing they have in common is the same desire to shift power from the federal government to the regional (provincial) governments that Mulroney tried to impose on Canadians with the Charlottetown Accord. The only difference is that this time there will be no referendum — the Conservatives and Bloq will try to use their 44% ‘majority’ to do the only thing they can agree on, the very thing that Pierre Trudeau warned against: weaken the federal government to the point of gradual disintegration, leading to the eventual, substantive breakup of the country. Once federal powers have been given away to the provinces they can never be taken back.

Gary Will confirms the rumour. Google acquired Reqwireless:

It’s true … Google is in Waterloo. It acquired Waterloo’s Reqwireless last summer. Confirmation was made today by Google following months of speculation — both about Google coming to Waterloo and about who acquired Reqwireless.

I’d like to thank all of the bloggers that have enriched my life over the past year with the only gift that has any value on the web: a link. You are all doing wonderful work that I appreciate deeply. Thank you all.

Bloggers

blowing balloons, How to Save the World, larry borsato, Mandy’s Minutes, michael’s blog, Mike And Julie Willikes, Philip Greenspun Weblog, Rondam Ramblings, Armed and Dangerous, Crossroads Dispatches, pc4media, Thoughtless

Blogging

Blog Tips at ProBlogger, The Intuitive Life Business Blog, Search Engine Guide Blog, Blogger Buzz, Freshblog, The Jason Calacanis Weblog, JenSense – Making Sense of Contextual Advertising, Naked Conversations

Business

bBlog: The sales, marketing and business weblog | XPLANE, David V. Lorenzo – The Power of Perception, Be Excellentâ„¢, BusinessPundit, Cardboard Spaceship, Career Intensity Blog – David V. Lorenzo, NextBillion.net – Development Through Enterprise – Eradicating P, Presentation Zen

Design

Alertbox: Jakob Nielsen’s Column on Web Usability, Creating Passionate Users, jnd.org

Eclipse

Eclipse News, Planet Eclipse

Getting Organized

43 Folders, To-Done

Humour

CBC Television – Rick Mercer Report, The Dilbert Blog, Rick Mercer’s Blog, Strange New Products

Law

Michael Geist Law RSS Feed, Online Rights Canada, Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic (CIPPIC)

Life

37days, Steve Pavlina’s Personal Development Blog, lifehack.org

Marketing

gapingvoid, Johnnie Moore’s Weblog, Marketing Begins At Home, Micro Persuasion, Seth’s Blog, Buzzoodle Buzz Marketing, Duct Tape Marketing, WOMMA’s Word of Mouth vs. Advertising

Music

createdigitalmusic.com

News

CBC | Canadian News, CBC | Top Stories News, CBC | Toronto News, CBC | World News, The Record Blogs, TI Semiconductor Press Releases

Programming

Don Box’s Spoutlet, Joel on Software, Lambda the Ultimate – Programming Languages Weblog, Planet Lisp, sicpexercises at Yahoo! Groups, Updates from code.google.com, 3pBlog – Mickaël Rémond – Performance, Process, Parallelism .., Larry Osterman’s WebLog, The Old New Thing, Particletree RSS Digest, Planet Erlang, Randy Holloway Unfiltered 2.0, Scripting News, Sutter’s (Online) Mill, Xooglers

Science

New Scientist – Latest Headlines, Cognitive Daily

Social Networking

Never Eat Alone Blog

Startup

About Entrepreneurs, Business Opportunities Weblog, David V. Lorenzo | SoHoSavvy.com, Don Dodge on The Next Big Thing, The Entrepreneurial Mind, Gary Will, Greg Yardley’s Internet Blog, Home Office Voice – Home Business on the Web, microISV, Way to Grow, a crash course in entrepreneurship, alarm:clock, BarryBlog, BizzBangBuzz – technology & startup blog from strategic business, Bootstrappers’ Blog!, Business Model Design Blog, Comments for Ashish Kulkarni’s Journal, Entreprenerd, Escape Velocity, eVenturing Entrepreneurs’ Viewpoint, Hitchhiker’s Guide to 650, Innovation to Products to Ventures, Kauffman eVenturing, Kauffman eVenturing Highlights, Lifestylepreneur — the art of self-employment, Noam Wasserman’s “Founder Frustrations” blog, Paul Dix Explains Nothing, Relax, Everything Is Deeply Intertwingled, Sacred Cow Dung, Simplicity, Small Biz Advisor – News and Views, Small Business Cookbook, Small Business Trends, Solo Tees Blog, Springwise. The global new business ideas newsletter. Issue 26, , The Startup Biz, Startup Blog, StartupJournal.com, StartupNation blogs, Story of a startup: bootstrapping, business, productivity, WebKEW, WorkHappy.net: killer resources for entrepreneurs

Startup: Entrepreneurs

The Entreprexplorer’s Journal, Eric.Weblog(), Fractals of Change, Hot Points, The Lazy Way to Success, Signal vs. Noise, Allthatscool.com, Asterisk, College-Startup, Entrepreneur’s Journey by Yaro Starak, Ian Landsman’s Weblog, OnlyOnce, Paul Allen Blog, Stake Ventures, UrbanDirtbag

Startup: VCs

A VC, Feld Thoughts, Genuine VC, Now What?, Paul Graham: Unofficial RSS Feed, Paul Kedrosky’s Infectious Greed, The Post Money Value, Bnoopy, EarlyStageVC, Joi Ito’s Web, Texas Venture Capital Web 2.0 Blog, Union Square Ventures

Technology

Ars Technica, Cool Tools, Jon’s Radio, MAKE: Blog, TechCrunch, timbl’s blog, INSPIONS, Om Malik on Broadband, Scobleizer – Microsoft Geek Blogger

Tools & Services

HaloScan, Feedster, Google Blog Search, IceRocket Blog Search, Technorati Search, XHTML Validation, XHTML Validator to RSS, FeedBurner, Blogger, WordPress, del.icio.us

Waterloo

del.icio.us/tag/waterloo, Student Life Centre, University of Waterloo News Releases

Wonderful

Boing Boing, jwz

Technorati links new years thanks
del.icio.us links new years thanks

Rumours that Google will open an office in Waterloo have been circulating since Google seed investor David Cheriton donated $25 million to the UW School of Computer Science. The rumours have now been further fueled by a job posting for a Mobile Wireless Application Developer based in Waterloo.

Tip of the hat to Gary Will.

Technorati google waterloo rumour rumor
del.icio.us google waterloo rumour rumor

I’ve been sitting on this one for a while, but figured better late than never…

After reporting several safety and environmental problems, and subsequently becoming the target of a lawsuit, Louisette Lanteigne has withdrawn her allegations against Activa Holdings. Her website now reads:

During the period of April 2005 to October 2005, I broadcasted numeriuos statements alleging environmental and labour law infringements by Activa Holdings Inc. on a website I established. since broadcasting those statements, I have since learned that Activa is not responsible for any of the fuel spills or labour law infringements depicted or reported on my website. Activa has not been charged with any environmental or labour law infringements. I apologize unreservedly to Activa Holding Inc. for these broadcasts. I am pleased to make this clairification and apology and regret any inconvience and embarassment which may have been caused to Activa Holdings Inc.

Yours Sincerely, Louisette Lanteigne

Tip of the hat to Michael Heimstra.

Technorati louisette lanteigne activa lawsuit environment
del.icio.us louisette lanteigne activa lawsuit environment

Charles Petzold asks the question:

Visual Studio can be one of the programmer’s best friends, but over the years it has become increasingly pushy, domineering, and suffering from unsettling control issues. Should we just surrender to Visual Studio’s insistence on writing our code for us? Or is Visual Studio sapping our programming intelligence rather than augmenting it? This talk dissects the code generated by Visual Studio; analyzes the appalling programming practices it perpetuates; rhapsodizes about the joys, frustrations, and satisfactions of unassisted coding; and speculates about the radical changes that Avalon will bring.

I don’t do very much programming in Visual Studio, anymore. Eclipse sees to that. Nonetheless, Charles’s offers some interesting warnings against tools that try to do too much.