Looking back/Looking forward

Posted on January 1, 2009
Filed Under Random Thoughts, Site Updates | Leave a Comment

Looking Back

Last year, in the scheme of thing, was pretty damn awesome. It started off ridiculously busy, as us Pencilneckers worked furiously to launch MyPypeline.com, a fitness-focussed Social network, that took nearly 8 months from conception to launch. It was a tough slog, and contributed directly to the complete lack of posts on this site for the first quarter of the year, but I’m well-pleased with the results - my team and I wrote some kick-ass code behind the curtains there to have it all running.

In April, Liam and I took a trip to England, and got to see my Grandmother, Mum, my brother Stuart and even my Aunt & Uncles - a rare treat for me, and hopefully a good trip for Liam too - I’m sure he won’t remember too much of the trip, although it was clear that he really loves his uncle Stuart - he took to him right away! Coming back from England, Liam then started at his new daycare - at Langara College, which has lead to such rapid development that we can barely keep up.

The summer was swallowed up by a combination of my foray into politics - I ran for a nomination for Vision Vancouver’s Park Board slate - I failed, but learned so much, met some amazing people along the way. In ways I never really expected going in, this exercise was transformational for me, and will continue to affect how I lead my life going forward. Not one to slack off, Leah and I also bought a house this summer, which, while an incredibly scary proposition, particularly given what happened to the economy a couple of months later, has been fantastic - we all love our house out here in South Van.

My friends Brahm and Laura also got married this summer, and I can’t say just how happy I am for them both!

It’s been a quiet fall around here, mostly due to a crushingly large amount of work (and the elections!), but Leah did finish her last-but-one year of school and went to Vegas with some friends to party after school, while Liam and I hung out here.

Looking Forward

I’m not really one for making resolutions, but there are a few things I’m pretty stoked about this coming year.

I’ve joined the board of ThinkCity, the same group with which I helped organize the DreamVancouver conference back in 2007. I’m going to be focussing on neighborhoods - how and what that will entail, I’m not entirely sure, but my interest lies in devolving some civic decision making to neighborhood groups, and so I’ll be exploring that, along with how schools, community centres, neighborhood houses, residents’ associations & business improvement associations can all play a role and come together in letting communities have more say in what happens to them. I’ll probably use this site as a place to think out loud on this topic, so please feel free to let me know of people & groups doing interesting things in this arena, and I’d love to sit down with them and learn & exchange ideas.
Leah’s going to graduate in 2009! December 2009 will mark the end of Leah’s time as a nursing student, and I am so excited & proud for her to finish!
I’ve made a goal that I want to run this year’s Sun Run, and I’ve set myself a time goal of 50 minutes. That means some serious training between now and then, so that should probably lead to all sorts of good things that comes with being fit.
Learning with Liam. Liam will be four this year, and is really becoming an awesome little boy. I can’t tell you how excited I am that he’s getting old enough to skate, go for a (short) hike, ride a bike, go skiing & snowboarding, play video games with me, start reading stories to me (rather than just listen to me read them to him), discover nature, and anything else that we can figure out to do together.
Get my weekends back! Since Leah started nursing school 3 years ago, I’ve been working Sunday-Thursday, so that I spend a day with Liam at home. But that meant that we only got one day in common as a family, which inevitably meant that we spent all day running errands, rather than truly getting to get out and do fun things. I’m really hopeful that two family days a week will mean that even if one day is errand-filled, the other can be used to hiking, biking, watching football, reading, seeing movies and whatever else strikes us. Family time FTW!
Posting more. I’ve made a goal of posting at least once a week on here. Back a few years ago, I used to write here more regularly, and I really enjoyed it. So while I don’t think I’ll manage hundreds of posts, I think a modest goal of 52 posts this year is doable, and will hopefully re-ignite the creative fires in all sorts of areas.

My Top 10 Albums of the Year, 2008

Posted on December 15, 2008
Filed Under Events & Culture, Music | 1 Comment

I missed out on doing this last year - I don’t recall why, but I’m sure I had a good reason. Or not. Nevertheless, it didn’t happen, and much to my surprise, people complained. So it’s back this year. If you’d like to see my previous “best of” lists, you can find them here: 2006, 2005 & 2004.

This year was a pretty good year for music that I like - a good mixture of rock, pop and techno all came out this year. I also moved, and now have more time to listen to music on my commute, so I’ve been very appreciative of it. So, without further ado, here’s my best albums of the year, in alphabetical (by artist) order:

	Beck - Modern Guilt I think that this is the album that “The Information” was trying to be - introspective and serious - meditations on loss and death. With Danger Mouse producing, Beck’s tendancy to play with historical genres never overwhelms the songs themselves. An exquisite disc that rewards a close listen in headphones - both for Beck’s signature imagery as well as the music itself. Buy it from Insound
	The Bug - London Zoo Welcome to dubstep, everyone! A potentially crass cashing-in on the rise in popularity of a sound he helped create, Kevin Martin ends up delivering one of the most polished techno albums in years. While clearly aimed at radio, what with clearly defined 5-minute tracks, it’s a pounding disc that I can’t get enough of. Like much of the music I liked this year, it’s simultaneously a subtle disc, with new layers of sound revealing themselves only with a careful listening. That being said, I defy you to listen to this and NOT want to dance. Buy it from Insound
	Clark - Turning Dragon Techno of a completely different variety infuses Clark’s ‘Turning Dragon’, possibly some of the most complex techno I’ve heard since Plastikman way back when. Agressively dirty in sound, there’s still seemingly endless strands of loops, clicks, whirrs, bleeps and the like fading in and out of this disc. Played loud on crappy speakers this hearkens back to 90’s industrial (that’s a good thing), but use good headphones/sound system and you’ll be rewarded not only with crunchy techno, but also wasps of much more ephemeral sounds as well, creating a fascinating, but also somewhat unsettling soundscape. Buy it from Insound
	Fleet Foxes - Fleet Foxes Sweet, nearly choral folk unlike anything else I’ve heard lately, this album, for all its quiet wonderment, exploded into the scene this year. Of all my picks, I suspect that this will a)show up on the most other top 10 lists and b)be the most divisive. I’ll warn you now - if you loathe CSNY or the Beach Boys, you’ll not like Fleet Foxes. That being said, they seem to sum up where a lot of more richly layered folk sounds of late (including the psych-folk types like Devendra Banhart) have been aiming for. Exquisite harmonies and rich, traditional arrangements make this album unmissable. Buy it from Insound
	Lindstrøm - Where you Go I Go Too This album claims the prize for “most unexpected” this year. I was expecting a mellow, ambient album, and instead, while still in the realm of ambient, it’s got a foot firmly in the world of disco. And somehow, it works. This has quickly become a favourite of mine for when working late - it blends into the background when I need to concentrate, but when I focus on it too, there’s enough going on to reward the ears. Buy it from Insound
	Santogold - Santogold Apparently, Santogold comes from A&R, has written tracks for Ashlee Simpson, but Diplo is listed as a producer. Those seeminly irreconcilable worlds come together to great effect on her debut, which is something like a journey through the past - sampling a little bit of new wave, global hip-hop, dance pop and more. Through it all, Santogold holds it together with her voice and excellent songwriting. She reminds me somewhat of “Mutations”-era Beck - playing with different genres to find a wholly new one all her own. Buy it from Insound
	TV on the Radio - Sounds of Science I’m not sure I can say anything effusive about this album that hasn’t been said by critics before, but let me just say this: this is a nearly perfect indie-rock album - it’s optimistic, forward-looking, musically dense, lyrically obtuse, both catchy and somehow austere at the same time. This album might like the Pet Shop Boy’s “Very” - so good tht TV on the Radio should never make another album, as it will likely pale in comparison. Buy it from Insound
	Vampire Weekend - Vampire Weekend This album came out early in the year and is already suffering some backlash, but I unabashedly love this album: it’s catchy, you can sing along to it, it has a new(/old) sound and is nerdy - the album contains one of my all-time favourite lines “Who gives a fuck about an oxford comma?”. This album was on repeat more than any other this year in my playlist, and despite hearing it everywhere, I still haven’t tired of it, which bodes well for its future. Buy it from Insound
	Chad VanGaalen - Soft Airplane CVG reminds me of Neil Young in all the good ways - fragile, plaintive, delicate and dark, yet somehow never depressing, but rather, uplifting. He’s also a master instrumentalist and crafts some of the more elegant soundscapes you’ll likely ever hear, mixing in seemingly a million different instruments, off-beat percussion, and then, just when you think it might overwhelm the song, he pulls it all back until you’re left with just him and his guitar. Buy it from Insound
	Walkmen - You & Me The Walkmen are a band that have slowly, but surely, grown on me - I wasn’t a huge fan when I first heard them, but I’ve liked them more and more with each listen and each album. You & Me was no different. My first reaction was “Meh” - it felt a little like they were channeling The National - and I still think they are to some degree - for a band that was known for devolving (in the best sense) into noise rock on a regular basis, this is an incredibly tight, controlled album. The exquisite production on this album still makes me believe that this songs will travel well, and simply opens up new doors for the Walkmen live - keep it soft and controlled or let loose as they’re known for - this collection certainly supports both directions. Buy it from Insound

That’s it for this year! Let me know what albums you think I’ve missed in the comments.

Vancouver Civic Election Polling Station Lookup

Posted on November 11, 2008
Filed Under Politics, Web Development | 1 Comment

I don’t know if you’ve seen the City of Vancouver’s Polling Station Lookup Tool. It’s really, really terrible. And I figured that I could do something better. So I tooled around with the Google Maps API, drew up the regions, entered the polling stations into a DB, spent a couple hours coding and hey presto! I present to you: My Maps-based Polling station lookup tool!

Because I drew the voting division boundaries myself in Google maps, there’s a peculiar bug (It stems from the algorithm I use to determine whether a co-ordinate is within a particular polygon), which is if your address is right on the boundary line between two divisions, it is possible that the tool will push you into the wrong division. I suspect most of this stems from the lack of precision in the geocoding of the address lookup vs the precision of the boundaries - the divisions have a couple extra decimal points of precision, so the “dot” that is your address is pretty big on the map.

So, for 98% or so of all users, this will be accurate, but I do warn you - there’s the odd chance that this will return you the wrong polling station. If you think you might be on a boundary, I did include the map of the voting divisions, where you can view the divisions as I drew them on the map - and you can see that it’s not perfect….
I’d been wanting to do something with the Google Maps API for a while - this was a good project to wet my feet with, as I’ve got some upcoming work that will use this sort of stuff more more extensively. As a side note, while I prefer the Yahoo maps API (I tried out both), the actual maps in Google Maps are so much more pleasant that I ended up using Google Maps.

so again, here’s the link to my Polling Station Lookup Tool

The Think City/Dream Vancouver debate

Posted on October 29, 2008
Filed Under Politics | 1 Comment

Last night, I attended the Think City / Dream Vancouver city councillors debate at the Alice McKay room in Library Square (Full disclosure: I am a Dream Vancouver volunteer, and asked a pre-scripted question at last night’s debate. I was also an unsuccessful Vision Vancouver Park Board nominee).

The debate was, to me, surprisingly well attended - probably near 200 people, and a fantastic mixture of youth and …umm… older adults were present. The debate was moderated by Kera McArthur (of Dream Vancouver) and Charlie Smith (of the Georgia Straight). The participating candidates were Ellen Woodsworth of COPE, Michael Gellar of the NPA and Geoff Meggs of Vision Vancouver). The questions were divided into 3 sections: housing, civic engagement and transportation.

The housing section produced by far the most energetic debate between the 3, as there are some clear differences, mostly in approach as opposed to goals, between the 3 parties. Of note: The NPA (or at least Michael Gellar, as he seemed to contradict the NPA party line numerous times throughout the night, and indeed, took the time to distance himself from the current NPA to what he was calling the new NPA) oppose building shelter beds as, if I understood correctly, actually not being helpful in the long run. Vision supports building emergency shelter beds as a short term solution, but maybe not in Storyeum. COPE likewise wants to build emergency shelter beds, and wants to see if Little Mountain can be used while its waiting for redevelopment.

When it came to civic engagement, they all more or less agreed: there needs to be a change in how accessible councillors are and how the consultation process is handled. They all did not want an arm’s-length office of consultation, as it would add a layer between the public and council. I personally feel that they were missing the point of what this office’s role would be, but it seems there will not be one. The debate aboute finance and electoral reform was more interesting: COPE supports a wards system. Vision wants to investigate, and strike a comittee, but not until the next election, and if I recall correctly, the NPA are also willing to investigate, but note that reform has already been defeated in a referendum. All three spoke well of the Berger report, but were essentially non-committal.

Transportation was the least interesting, although notable in that Michael Gellar seems quite removed from the stated platform of the NPA on the issue of the Burrard Bridge. COPE & Vision oppose Gateway, NPA supports it. All support improved cycling infrastructure, and pilots on physically seperating cyclists and motor vehicles. Vision would support a rental-based city-wide bicycle program, COPE would like a free one.

Overall, here’s my feeling on how the individual councillors did:

Ellen Woodsworth seemed somewhat out of her league here. She was hesitant, and to be honest, seemed a little pie-in-the-sky to my tastes. However, she earns major brownie points (and probably my vote) for clearly and explicitly placing gender issues as a part of every single discussion, and it seems clear to me that she would be an eloquent champion for womens’ issues in council.
Michael Gellar is highly entertaining, and would be a good, hard-working councillor I believe. However, he comes across as a pompous, privileged white male who has no idea that he is indeed, that. His casual references to travel locals, meetings with various other players all reinforced this. He also took an inexcusable, unecessary dig at Vancouver’s city workers, which, were there any justice, would cost him any chance at being elected, despite his attempts to later back-pedal. I do believe, in his defence, that it sounded much worse than he meant given his expression just after speaking (he immediately blushed, looked down and was still - the only time of the night he was not highly animated).
Geoff Meggs is a policy wonk. He knows his stuff, he’s cautious about speaking to things he’s unsure of. He toes the Vision party line very well. I believe he’s passionate about what he believes in. That being said, he is a very dry speaker, and doesn’t communicate his excitement very well. He also, and this is the most important, I believe, clearly has a lot of experience in how the city works, how to interact with the media, and community consultation. He would make a highly effective, if possibly somewhat hidden-behind-the-scenes city councillor.

I’m hopeful that Think City will post either an audio or video of the debate up online sometime soon, so that you may all see it. As a last note, I think that the councillors are probably far more important to the running of the city than the mayor, given that, in reality, the mayor is just one more vote on council - so be sure to read up on the council candidates, and if you can, attend other debates featuring them.

Thinking about DRM & the subscription pricing model

Posted on October 20, 2008
Filed Under Movies and TV, Random Thoughts | Leave a Comment

It seems clear to me that companies, Apple (with Apple TV) and Microsoft (with the XBox) in particular, are pushing to eliminate the need for physical media to watch movies. It does, in many ways, seem inevitable - bandwidth is cheap, storage space is cheap and discs are prone to scratching, etc.

I’m not particularly offended by DRM for this purpose. I loathe DRM on anything I own. It’s my feeling that I’ve bought it, I should be able to make 2 million copies, remix it, re-edit it, transcode it to whatever formats I feel. But the rental system it makes sense. Currently, I can rent a movie, keep it as long as I like, watch it as many times as I like, then return it. And for that privilege, along with those restrictions, I expect to pay much less for a rental than I do to own it. I’m a Zip member, and my current subscription settings allows me to rent an unlimited number of movies, but only 3 at a time. For this I pay $25/month. And it works out well. Most months, I receive 7-8 movies, or +/- $3/movie. However some months I only get 1 or 2, so it costs me more. The point is thought, is that I don’t have to think about the cost of a particular movie. I’m far more willing to give any movie a chance when I’m not paying specifically for that rental. I’ve watched (and enjoyed) many movies that I would never have gambled on had I needed to pay for it individually.

And this is the problem with both the current Apple TV and XBox offerings (beyond in the embarrassingly small collections when compared to Zip or Netflix) - I have to evaluate the individual item for cost. The same holds true for iTunes - tellingly, I have an eMusic account, for the simple reason that the cost is aggregated out and so I can take risks on individual tracks, sometimes even entire albums, because I don’t have to judge, in advance, if that particular track is worth $0.99. It’s purely a psychological difference, but regretting 1/40th of my $12 monthly is, for me, much better than regretting a single dollar spent (of course, the fact that each track at eMusic in reality about $0.30 helps too).

So what does this all boil down to? for media, and rentals in particular, a subscription model works well - certainly NetFlix has proven this. Beyond that, the DRM system needs to be more flexible to support this idea - set it up so that it knows in aggregate how many movies I am currently renting. Allow me to watch each of them as many times as I like, for as long as I like - or at least for a month or so before automatically ‘returning them’. Restrict me only by how many I can be renting at a given time, but don’t make pay per transaction. I’m not convinced that current DRM models, which are tied to the individual media, really supports this. What I’m suggesting is that DRM models be tied to the individual consumer, rather than the media, to allow greater flexibility in pricing and consumption models. We know enough about online identities at this point (viz - the standard ‘5 devices/1 account’ models of DRM’d media stores) to be able to accomplish this. My gut tells me until control over consumption is handed back to the consumer, we won’t see mainstream acceptance of current digital delivery initiatives on a massive scale.

The Results are in…

Posted on September 22, 2008
Filed Under Politics | Leave a Comment

… and I lost. Really, really, really lost. I came in last place in the voting.

However, I was so thrilled by the whole experience, I can say with some certainty that I’ll do this again in three years. And hopefully then, I’ll know a little more from this time, I’ll be a little more organized, and the results will be significantly better.

My many thanks to everyone who supported me, to everyone who voted for me, and for everyone’s encouragement during this.

I’m not entirely sure what’ll happen to this blog in the short term - I’ll probably revert to my tannock.net domain as primary, and will redesign. But I suspect that local politics will remain a more common presence in the posts here.

Cheers!

Vote Today!

Posted on September 20, 2008
Filed Under Politics | 2 Comments

Today is the Vision Vancouver nomination meeting! Please come out and nominate me for Park Board!

Location: Charles Tupper School - 419 E. 24th Ave (map).
Time: 10am - 7pm

Afterparty: Science World, 7pm-midnight.

My Slate

Posted on September 17, 2008
Filed Under Politics | Leave a Comment

This is one of the most difficult posts I’ve had to write, as it’s the time where I choose some friends over others in whom I’ll support, and whom I’m asking my friends and supporters to support as well. For those not selected - with a field this talented, it was inevitable some very talented people will be left off - if you’re curious as to why I chose someone else over you, please just email or call me, and I’m happy to talk you through my decision making process. Nominate these people on September 20th at Charles Tupper School.

City Council (8 Candidates)

George Chow - has done an excellent job these past years, I look forward to seeing what he can do with a majority.
Heather Deal - another incumbent who deserves re-election, she, to me, has been the most effective councilor for Vision these past three years.
David Eby - His passion and articulateness in dealing with serious issues have won him my support.
Heather Harrison - she was oh-so-close last time, and has real credibility on sustainability initiatives.
Raymond Louie - He was my choice for mayoral candidate, and I think he’ll be an excellent councillor still.
Kerry Jang - an academic with expertise and care in dealing with community mental health issues; I feel he and David Eby together round an excellent slate to help deal with the homeless and mental health crisis in vancouver
Andrea Reimer - An environmentalist with ridiculous amounts of energy and solid credibility.
Tim Stevenson - I love his slightly ‘rogue’ persona, not to mention the incredible service he’s done over the past years as a councillor.

Park Board (4 Candidates)

Constance Barnes - I believe that she can speak both to family & arts issues on the parks board. She also has more energy than virtually anyone I know.
Sarah Blyth - a passionate advocate for youth and ‘alternative’ sports, she’s shown a clear ability to generate consensus and win people over to her point of view.
James Gill - I don’t believe there’s another candidate at any level who knows more about the process and arcana of the park board.
Steven Tannock - Who else did you expect? Nominate me to restore trust to the Park Board and to bring the communication & consultation process into the 21st century.

School Board (4 Candidates)

Patti Bacchus - A long time advocate for children with disabilities, she’ll bring passion and a deep understanding of the VSB from her time on the other side of the fence
Mike Lombardi - with amazing experience and a genuine likability, his experience and skills will be critical in consensus building
Helesia Luke - an author, and more of a policy-wonk than the others, she likewise has long experience on PACs and child-support activism.
Stepan Vdovine - Previously a Board member in Maple Ridge, Stepan is young, and his youthful energy and committment is required and should be encouraged. Despite his youth, his previous Board-member experience will be critical to help the others navigate the VSB,

The Boss

Posted on September 17, 2008
Filed Under Music | Leave a Comment

Last night at GM Place, one of my life’s dreams actually came true: I saw Bruce Springsteen & the E Street band play live. It may not be the most aspiring of dreams, but it was one of mine, as I’ve been a huge fan, much to the scorn of many friends, ever since I was a little kid listening to my brother’s copy of Born in the USA on the record player at home [note: It may actually have been my folks, or my sister's, but Stuart does seem the most likely owner of that album].

I had planned to twitter the set list as the show went on, but, 3 songs in, I was so engrossed in the stellar performance I simply forgot. It was pure, basic rock’n'roll at it’s finest. The man (and his band) may nearing 60 years old, but he plays with such, such wild abandon and such intensity that he comes across as fierce as I’ve ever seen. His voice is a little hoarser, and loud notes are shouted rather than sung, but it really doesn’t matter when he’s yelling “Baby we were born to run”.

The E-Street band are so tight it’s scary. The only act I’ve seen that is comparable is Crazy Horse, Neil Young’s sometime-backing band. It’s an apt comparison, I think, given that their stage acts are very similar, despite the very different temperaments of Neil Young and Bruce Springsteen.

The show was your standard late-career-rocker mix of new album material (not a bad choice, as Magic is fantastic) and older fan favourites, with a pair of obscure tracks to please the fanatics (he dug up an outtake from Born in the USA for one track, at the request of someone he ran into the previous night who’d been following the tour around).

Rock’n'roll bliss!

My Closing Remarks

Posted on September 14, 2008
Filed Under Politics | Leave a Comment

I somehow completely neglected to include my closing remarks from last Thursday’s Park Board All-Candidates Meeting. Without further ado, here they are:

I’d like to share with you a vision of the future, that with your help, we can achieve.

In my vision, every Community Centre runs a community garden or two, where they teach their neighbours how to grow food in their own yards. Much of this food is given to the foodbank. People sell their own produce through a community-run grower’s co-operative to supermarkets and restaurants throughout the city, sharing proceeds with the board and neighbours alike.

Children attend daycare that is the envy of the country, run in partnership with the School Board and our local colleges and universities. Older kids can learn to skate & ride in Park-Board-run skate & bike parks. Our senior citizens sit and read books with entranced children, in a veritable babel of languages, keeping our cultural diversity strong while integrating our elders firmly into the community.

Every community centre has a space where local artists can display and perform their work. Local musicians play all-ages-shows to raise money for the community centres & parks where they practiced long hours learning their instruments.

Let’s make our parks and community centres not just facilities, but the heart and soul of our communities.

On September 20th, nominate Steven Tannock.

Thank you.

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