Up in Ontario

How big is Google in our culture?

A list of observances on Google revealing to me its influece over how we seek and connect with information, across generations.

1. "They call me Jimmy Google. I'm googling things all the time," said my dad, not at all a tech geek. My brother then showed him how to use Google Maps to see the satellite images of the landscape where we hunt. Over the phone they talked about the bend in the creek where they saw a big buck, the old farmhouse they use as a marker, just as they saw those images.
2. My grandparents stayed with us last spring for a few days. In the morning I turned on the computer and did some work. My grandfather watched me. A one-bedroom apartment is not so big when your grandparents are visiting. He saw me open a browser window a few times. Each time the window came up with Google, the homepage. He remarked, "So you're a Google man, are you?"
3. The Onion has written Google Launches 'The Google' For Older Adults, and it's pitch perfect.

Thief stole from Workspace; left photo behind

My friend Bill runs Workspace, a really cool shared space / co-working environment here in Vancouver's Gastown. On Friday night Workspace celebrated their first anniversary with a great party that I dropped in on.

Unfortunately, thieves broke into Workspace just prior to the anniversary. The thieves stole laptops and computers and were caught on tape. And then they were caught using one of the computers.

The photo below is from the computer Workspace had at their front desk. After it was stolen.

The iMac had the application Photobooth running from its internal camera. In a few steps anyone could take an image of themselves sitting in front of the computer, name it and upload it to the Workspace Flickr account. The thief, after stealing the computer, did just that. He even named the photo "me."

So this is the thief:

Does he look familiar to you? How about his tattoos? If so, please contact the Vancouver police.

Canada and the Rugby World Cup

Did you know the rugby world cup is happening right now in France? From the amount of coverage I've seen, you'd be hard pressed to find any news.

And that's a huge shame. A whole group of men in Canada — all the players on the team, the coaches, trainers, etc. and the thousand-fold more who have tried to make the team and play in leagues across the country — play rugby with passion in Canada. They love the game. They train year-round for its pounding. They gather on Saturdays and perform the strange rituals of their game. And no one really takes notice.

Because we're amateurs in every sense of the word at the game. If this were ice hockey, we'd be Germany. Not a top-flight team. Not Russia or Sweden. But a game team, ready to upset a contender, defensive-minded and tough, unskilled, on the outside looking in. In short, very hard to play against but very beatable.

The Canadians have played two games in the world cup thus far and have two losses, to Wales and to Fiji. Their remaining games are against Japan, a minnow like Canada, and Australia, one of the top teams in the world. My brother has been in France for the past 2 weeks watching the games and will be at the Canada-Japan game. Cheer hard!

Now go and watch this ad called Of This Earth for Adidas in New Zealand and you will understand a little more about what rugby means to those 3 million people, just as hockey lives in myth to Canada's 30 million people.

Stephen Osborne presents a workshop on sentences

Received in my inbox yesterday, an announcement from the good folks at Geist magazine that Osborne, my mentor from days of yore, was queued up to wrangle a workshop on sentences.

For those of you writerly types out there, Osborne gives good sentence and good workshop. Opening your writing to him will exert a profound effect on your sentences. I recommend it as medicine a little like Buckleys — it tastes awful and it works.

Good writing begins with good sentences and Stephen Osborne knows how to write the best sentences around.

Learn about good verbs and bad verbs, and even those pesky adverbs. Bring along a sharp pencil and you'll leave with some great sentences in your pocket.

Stephen Osborne is editor-in-chief of Geist magazine.

The Art of the Sentence Workshop

Saturday September 22, 2007

2:00 to 4:30 pm

Listel Hotel

1300 Robson Street, Vancouver

Price: $30, includes a subscription (for you or for a friend)

To register: call 604-681-9161

or go to the Geist website.

Comments from previous attendees:

"The combination of lecture and workshop, along with great examples and anecdotes, was intensely thought-provoking."

"I am a writing instructor at Vancouver Film School and I immediately began using techniques I learned in the workshop for my own classes."

"The price of the workshop was a steal."

Register early, this is a popular workshop!

How to kill junk mail

The other day I ran into our postie putting the mail into the mailboxes in our apartment building. The encounter reminded me that I want to write a post about How to Kill Junk Mail. But I never got around to it.

So instead, I've created a video.

Here's a link to the video too: How to Kill Junk Mail.

In Genesis, what did God do?

Here's a cool way to find out. Go to IBM's Many Eyes project and load in the data set for Genesis. Search 'God.' Change the right drop down to Frequency Order. Now you see an ordered list of what God did.

And that shows that God said, a lot. The characters of Genesis also talked about God, a lot. God made, not so much. Not until the 8th most frequent occurance of God did any making get done.

In visualization, Genesis is basically a lot of introduction, not a lot of plot. Sure, tons happens. But it all happens without the characters doing it, even God.

Abraham's most popular verb is said. Adam had. Eve only gets 2 references: "...and she became pregnant and gave birth to cain." and "...because she was the mother of all the living." Noah? He gets a comma and was. He also did all that and entered the ark, which gets him a leg up. Isaac was and said. Jacob said and replied. Joseph said and was.

Gender? 621 instances of he, 141 of she; 548 instances of his, 0 of hers.

Of course, these words come from humans, in translation.

This has been my Lazarus post. Things will now resume to an erratic pace.