Says a lot about drinks and cultural identity.
Late August Quickies
Got many things to blog about. Been keeping some links in my “toBlog” folders. Without going all David Allen on this, it might be a good idea for me to put them out there, even if it means coming back to them.
- From the Science Talk podcast:
- Polemic: five proposals for a medical school admission policy — Cowley 32 (8): 491 — Journal of Medical Ethics
- What is, in fact, a good doctor? Someone who can treat you or someone who can treat and understand human beings? IMVHO, some medical students and even some doctors are just too arrogant to really help people.
- From the Anthropik podcast:
- Yu Koyo Peya
- Some interesting ideas: thinking outside of the limits of “civilization.”
- Needs discussion (imprecise notion of “tribe,” romanticization of foragers, Deep Forest’s reappropriation, moralistic and manichean perspective, U.S. orientation, Jared Diamond…).
- From Roderic Knight through the SEM-L mailing-list:
- Mande Music and Dance DVD Consumer Version – LYRDV-2001
- Mande Music and Dance DVD With Public Performance Rights – LYRDV-2001P
- Valuable recordings, interesting distribution method.
- From Anthony McCann through the SEM-L mailing-list:
- Wired News: Music Makes Your Brain Happy
- McGill professor Daniel Levitin.
- NPR interview.
- Music cognition in Montreal, cognition and culture, cultural awareness, music “universals,” memory…
- From the CEFES podcast at Université de Montréal:
- Marie-Françoise Legendre et l’approche par compétences
- Parler beaucoup, dire peu.
- Alexander McCall Smith‘s von Igelfeld would be proud.
Got other things from earlier this month. Thought about this format of some entries on the nightingaleshiraz blog.
"You Should Expand Your Reading Base"
Open Source » Blog Archive » Chomsky: My Dinner with Hassan
Thank you, Thomas Ricks!
Actually, his attitude through most of that conversation is quite refreshing. Humble yet assertive, honest yet tactful, insightful yet unafraid of obvious facts. Just shows that there’s life outside the New York Times groupthink, even within the United States media-obsessed world…
They Want It All
YouTube wants to get all the music videos ever made. Should be fun to watch.
Blogging Tools Redux
Was just looking for another blogging tool to help me blog from my XP machine (as opposed to my former iBook). Yes, again. Turns out Microsoft just started a beta test for their own blog client, “Windows Live Writer”
Writer Zone: Introducing Windows Live Writer
(It was listed on WordPress.org along other blogging tools.)
That tool is really meant for non-coders. Most, if not all, blog editors are meant to be somewhat WYSIWYG. Microsoft’s WLW follows that principle quite directly and emphasizes ease of editing, not advanced features. As such, it’s somewhat similar to Apple’s iWeb but, as CNET writers and readers keep pointing out, with a wider range of publishing options.
Of course, there’s a range of blogging tools out there. Several of them are free or quite inexpensive. Most of them do support several APIs. In fact, WordPress is supported by a good proportion of blogging tools. Didn’t realize it until today but the open-source LiveJournal editor Semagic does support WordPress if you change server settings (doh!). Other standalone blog editors (free of charge) like Qumana, JBlogEditor, Blog Writer, and Post2Blog Express all seem rather decent. Browser-based solutions like Flock and Performancing work for some people but kind of defeat the purpose of a blogging. And Mozilla-based browsers don’t support “spell as you type” underlining, unlike Safari.
So far, ecto has been my favourite. It’s inexpensive, cross-platform, seems stable, easy to use. As a blog client, ecto not only lets you publish new blog posts but really helps maintaining multiple blogs. Fortunately, ecto does have multilingual “spell as you type” underlining. The main thing missing for me is on-the-fly WordPress categories. It seems that WordPress.com’s web-based editor is the only tool which allows for such a feature. But ecto is scriptable and accepts Technorati tags (which WordPress.com’s categories doubles). A del.icio.us-like tagging function would work well too. Another feature it could have is an integration with your browsers’ histories so you can easily enter links instead of copy/pasting them. Maybe in ecto 3!
Almost 10k
Started this WordPress.com blog on January 9, 2006 and will likely get to 10,000 views withing a few hours. Been getting anything from 60 to 130 views everyday day, for an average of maybe 80 views per day. The most popular entries seem to be:
Probably because of the way they’re referenced elsewhere.
None of this is really important, as my purpose is not to get as many eyeballs as possible. In terms of experimenting with blogs, it’s just interesting to see what’s happening here. Not that it’s representative.
If only more people could comment! 😉
Beer Comments by a Wine Expert: Redux
CBC’s Home Run did the second part of their “crash course” on beer, with their “wine expert.” For some obscure reason, they used a wit and a lambic as the main examples for ales. Comments made during the show had more to do with personal experiences of enjoying non-wine alcohol and getting drunk than with actual qualities of fermented beverages made with grain. We have a long way to go.
See my previous blog post (on the first part of that show’s “crash course,” talking about lagers). Here are my comments about this weeks discussion of ales:
This installment of Bélanger’s beer “crash course” is somewhat more appropriate than the previous one (although, lambics are usually not considered ales as S. cerevisiae isn’t necessarily the main fermentation agent). You might still consider getting help from one of several beer writers in Montreal. Some of them write in the local beer publications mentioned in my previous message, which has been reproduced here.
Not to be flip but, in Quebec, asking a wine expert to talk about beers is like asking a rugby expert to explain hockey. In Quebec, beer is more than a simple summer beverage and the craft beer industry across the globe is taking an interest in beer people in Quebec. It would make sense to dedicate a short segment of your show to quality beers in Quebec, especially if you get one of the numerous beer writers in Montreal.
RIAA: Still Clueless
Speaking of clues, Edgar Bronfman and his ilk still ain’t got none.
LimeWire in court: one thing leads to another
Nice Ars Technica intro:
Observe the indigenous RIAA in its native environment. Fresh off a kill, its thoughts to turn immediately to its next meal… thus the woolly tusked RIAA embodies the cycle of life.
Is There Such a Thing as Online Privacy?
AOL apologizes for release of user search data | CNET News.com
They could get consent from users before handing out the information to third parties.
And academics are the ones who need to go through difficult procedures to record data willingly given by actual conscious human beings?
Still, this one should become the standard apology for most mess-ups:
This was a screw-up, and we’re angry and upset about it. It was an innocent enough attempt to reach out to the academic community with new research tools, but it was obviously not appropriately vetted, and if it had been, it would have been stopped in an instant […] Although there was no personally identifiable data linked to these accounts, we’re absolutely not defending this. It was a mistake, and we apologize. We’ve launched an internal investigation into what happened, and we are taking steps to ensure that this type of thing never happens again.
Nice! Some people have read the Cluetrain Manifesto!
SpectacleFest 2008
I pledge 20 million US$, a lifetime of gratefulness, or 8$ (CAD) to SpectacleFest 2008, whichever comes first, as they say.
(This is all a shameless attempt at getting a free Buzz Out Loud t-shirt. Buzz on, M, T, and V!)