Stupid YouTube blocked the audio on this stupid video because I used a stupid Oasis song as the backing track.
So there was a bit of a delay (which you might not even notice since I'm backdating this post to May 19 when the video was supposed to go up, dagnabit!) so I could get this uploaded to a different service, Vimeo, which I now *highly* recommend for not being copyright jerk-holes!
Oh, and happy third birthday to the sPace-man!
Happy Third Birthday! from Jason Hammond on Vimeo.
This is my favourite song from my favourite 8-track in my parent's collection when I was growing up. (Ah, K-Tel, is there anything you couldn't do?)
Your regularly scheduled Music Monday post will return at a later date.
But having attended the NDP Leader's Gala tonight (great event – kudos to all the organizers!), I've got politics on the brain so I thought I'd post this video of Jaime Garcia being introduced in the Legislature by MLA Sandra Morin (I guess you could consider that little “this channel is off air” motif at the start of the clip as your music for the week? 
)
For good or for bad, if modern politics is about a candidate's story or their “narrative” (see: Obama, Barack for the ultimate example), this video does a good job of showing that Jaime has a very compelling story himself, having come to Canada at age 11, his family having fled their home country after his father was persecuted and left as a paraplegic for standing up for people's rights. The idea that within a generation, this young man could become an elected member of our government is a powerful idea. That's not all Jaime brings to the table of course – I've touched on the various reasons I'm supporting him elsewhere – but that's part of it.
Watch for yourself…
[Oh, and Regina Coronation Park candidate, Tory McGregor posted a correction to the Facebook comparison I did of the various candidates. I've updated the list with his correction as well as current numbers for all the candidates – including a newly joined one, Roger Bucsis – and apologize to Tory for the oversight.]
Each year at the start of the NHL playoffs, I usually do my predictions for the first round. (I miss the old playoff system when you could see the entire playoff brackets all the way through instead of the new system where seeding can impact who plays who each round.)
So yeah, even knowing the winners, I'm going to try not to be biased here and put who I wanted to win (as always, I choose who I *want* to win, not who I think will win which is another thing that makes my predictions somewhat unique!)
Washington vs. Montreal (Montreal)
Pittsburgh vs. Ottawa (Pittsburgh)
Buffalo vs. Boston (Boston)
Philadelphia vs. New Jersey (Philly)
San Jose vs. Colorado (San Jose)
Phoenix vs. Detroit (Detroit)
Vancouver vs. Los Angeles (Vancouver)
Chicago vs. Nashville (Chicago)
What's that? 50%. Which I think is about how I usually score. Oh well. Go Montreal – although no Canadian team has won since 1993, it's pretty cool that in the last six years, Calgary, Edmonton and Ottawa have all made it to the Finals. If Montreal does, that's even more cool that Vancouver and Toronto would be the only Canadian teams who haven't! 
And if there's a Canadian team that has to win it, I'd prefer it to be one with a stylized “C” on their jersey – Montreal, if not Calgary.
This is a pretty informative beer label…
The device in the video below was mentioned in “This Book Is Overdue: How Librarians and Cybrarians Can Save Us All!“, a book that was on my “To Read” list but which I bumped up after reading Biblioblond's review where she mentioned that a couple of our mutual friends got a shout-out in the book. Very cool!
[Edit: A sample of the growing Facebook backlash from across the web.]
I recently wrote about the backlash against Facebook for the increased loosening of their privacy controls. Between that, their arbitrary movement of your profile information to suit their needs, security holes in their chat and Instant Personalization program and the increased whispers about the ethics of Facebook's founder, the site is facing perhaps the biggest backlash in its short history. (It's pretty rich irony that a site that defines social networking could suffer at the hands of its own users talking about it on blogs, Twitter feeds and on the Facebook site itself!)
The best summary I've seen so far of why this loosening of Facebook privacy standards should be of concern to people is an infographic called “The Evolution of Facebook on Privacy” (probably better titled “The Devolution of Privacy on Facebook”) which I found on Reddit. The Electronic Frontier Foundation has a text-based timeline of this same information.
As scary as this increased openness is (to try it, log-out of Facebook then, before logging back in, try searching for yourself or going to the domain you probably registered for yourself – www.facebook.com/headtale in my case – to get a sense of what anyone surfing the web can see about you now.)
But just as IBM was supplanted by Microsoft who were, in turn, supplanted by Google who are now threatened by Facebook's attempts to become the dominant technology company in the world, there is always the promise of something coming along to replace the current leader – or at least provide an alternative.
In this case, it might be an an open-source, decentralized social network called Diaspora.
The New York Times profiles the Diaspora idea and Wired has an article titled “Facebook Has Gone Rouge – It's Time for An Open Source Alternative” (but with an unfortunately placed Facebook “Like” button at the bottom of the article – which is it, Wired??? 
)
What this all means remains to be seen but with even high-level
politicians beginning to pay attention to Facebook's activities, there's a definite sense that this is something big.
It could lead to a big backlash and a mass migration to a new service (anybody use MySpace anymore? Friendster? Did anybody ever use Classmates.com?) Or it could be status quo as the majority of Facebook's 500 million members – the non-techy moms and grandpas stay there, happily playing Farmville and not realising the possible implications of Facebook's increasing commodification of their information (and I write that, not truly understanding the implications myself!)
But I think I will go scrub my profile a bit. I'll apparently still get targeted ads based on the info I provided in the past – even after deleting it. But it will hopefully send a small message.
I hope no one thinks they've stumbled upon NDP Watch with this post but I have to admit that I had to do a double (actually triple) take when I received the latest e-newsletter from the provincial NDP with the headline, “Leader's Gala, a snub to working people, and more policy videos.”
For a moment, I actually thought someone must've hacked the NDP's e-mail servers because I read the headline as “Leader's Gala – a snub to working people”.
I know that wasn't the intention but I still appreciate the unintended irony. The Leader's Gala *is* a $50 a plate fundraising event and so it probably is true that it's far beyond the reach of most working people.
I'm sure events like this are probably important to any political party, right, left or center, for reaching a certain segment of society while helping to fill party coffers. But I like the recent post at Louis Riel Trail where he commends the latest Ryan Meili money bomb as a better way to fundraise in general as you can earn similar amounts by getting smaller donations from a lot more people. The bonus of a successful money bomb is that you actively engage a lot more people as well.
LRT's post talks of the Sask Party's $300/plate dinners but if we're being completely honest, a lot of his arguments would apply to the NDP's own fundraising dinner. And this unfortunate juxtaposition only reinforces that impression.
(I mean this post as no slight on whoever compiles the newsletter. I'm reminded of an Alberta publisher I used to work with who posted their “Typo of the Week” on their office door. Or to put it another way, “shit happens”. And if I had better reading comprehension, I wouldn't even be doing this post! )
Joke or art or both? (I'm in the “bit
of both” category myself.)
With helpful introductory and closing commentary, it's definitely worth watching the whole thing though I guarantee you'll feel an incredible urge to clear your throat watching this!
