Category Archives: Internet

R.I.P. Peter Scott

When I try to quickly define my blog for people (at least as it currently exists), I often say it’s about libraries, technology and politics (along with cute pictures of my kids of course.) That’s why the passing of longtime University of Saskatchewan librarian, Peter Scott, is so sad.  He was at the intersection of […]

1 in 5 Canadians Have Not Used the Internet In the Past Year: Exploring Our Digital Divide

Canada has a digital divide, a demographic that isn’t fully connected to the online world. In the past year, 20 per cent of Canadians haven’t used the internet once, from any location. And that number doesn’t include other kinds of disconnection, like those who don’t own a computer or cell phone, or who can’t use them effectively. […]

Neil Gaiman’s Love Letter to Libraries

The Guardian recently published an edited version of Neil Gaiman‘s lecture for the Reading Agency.  The Reading Agency’s annual lecture series was initiated in 2012 as a platform for leading writers and thinkers to share original, challenging ideas about reading and libraries. The lecture is amazingly good. On the purposes of reading (and specifically reading fiction)… Fiction […]

7 Ways To Be Insufferable on Facebook

I’m not too interested in policing how people use Facebook – I have my share of Facebook friends who vaguebook, overshare, “envy post” and so on and either enjoy or ignore their posts as required. Plus I probably do these things myself too on occasion but at the same time, when I post a cute […]

The Evolution of Reddit

A graphical representation of different phases of Reddit’s evolution over time.  I joined in January 2007 (and probably was a lurker for a bit of time before that) so that’s a few years before Reddit exploded around 2010, roughly around the time that Digg, which I was never a big fan of, went into freefall. […]

Music Monday – “9 was minding his business/Talking to 10 about Gordie Howe’s clothes/Why 7 ate 9 nobody knows”

Pace’s grade one class has access to a site called IXL.ca.  This site has a series of modules on various aspects of math that kids can work through to learn concepts including counting, addition, shapes and so on. There are dozens of modules under various headings, each with escalating levels of difficulty – for example, under […]

Friday Fun Link – “Terms and Conditions May Apply” Documentary

Shea and I are watching a great documentary as I type this – you should too!  (Er, it’s on NetFlix and they’ll track that you watched it of course.)

“The Spot Where You’re Sitting Is Now Its Own Internet Kingdom”

Wired magazine tells the story of a British entrepreneur who has designed a system that can designate every three metre space on earth using a three word code. What3Words.com is a system that’s much more accurate and memorable than current GPS, postal codes, street addresses and other similar techniques to designate addresses.   For example, […]

Alan W. Pollack’s “Notes On” Beatles Series

Way back in the early days of my use of the Internet (around 1996-97), I spent *a lot* of time on Usenet (basically, a precursor of today’s message boards and forums.) I regularly visited a few newsgroups including rec.music.beatles which is where I first came across Alan W. Pollack’s “Notes On” series where he’d do an […]

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