The Trouble with Normal...

On the road again....

2009-03-02T16:08:00.003-05:00

With some regret, I'm changing blog sites. Again.I'm moving this blog to Wordpress. Sorry about that - and I say it sincerely as I have quite a soft spot for Blogger - but there's enough wrong (from my point of view) with Blogger that I just think it'd be better to move.I've moved all my old posts over, so everything is now at http://filsalustri.wordpress.com.

A Canadian design strategy? Not anytime soon.

2009-02-25T13:50:00.001-05:00

Recent talk of developing a Canadian "design strategy" won't happen till we decide what we mean by design.I noticed a couple of recent articles that seem to focus on developing a Canadian design strategy - whatever that is. A strategy is a long-term plan of action to achieve a goal. So what's the goal? How does design help us achieve the goal? What special place, if any, must design occupy

How NOT to design a washroom

2009-02-04T11:51:00.004-05:00

Here's an example of really bad design of a washroom at Ryerson University.It's a well-known chestnut that we learn from our mistakes. What's surprising is that we're so slow at learning the simple things. Case in point: the recently constructed men's washroom on the 3rd floor of Eric Palin Hall at Ryerson University.Unfortunately, blogger does a relatively crappy job of allowing one to

Blue Budget Blues

2009-02-01T08:00:00.000-05:00

Stephen Harper's contempt for Canada shines through in the 2009 Federal Conservative Budget.At the end of 2008, there was a huge brouhaha when Stephen Harper's cronies presented a gut-wrenchingly useless fiscal update. The opposition parties formed a coalition designed to bring Harper's government down - which is a perfectly legal manoeuvre. Harper then did what any spoiled child does when the

Best jobs survey is flawed

2009-01-07T20:28:00.003-05:00

Careercast.com's latest survey says mathematicians have the best jobs. Too bad the survey is poorly designed.A recent survey by Careercost.com compared 200 jobs according to 5 vital criteria: Stress, Work Environment, Physical Demands, Income and Outlook. And the Number One job - the best of the lot - is Mathematician. (Which is itself a joke considering the rampant innumeracy in the USA.)The

Aphoristic aphasia

2009-01-06T17:23:00.005-05:00

Here's a reason why sports figures should not be quoted, ever. Except for Yogi Berra, of course.I came across the following quote, attributed to John Wooden, a former basketball coach at UCLA."My father used to tell me: never try to be better than someone else, but never cease trying to be the best you can be."This is a nice sentiment, and a worthwhile idea, rendered horribly.Granted, this

The long flight

2008-12-25T07:55:00.001-05:00

In the Christmas tradition of recounting air travel horror stories, here's my offering.Every year I read and hear horror stories involving people's attempts to travel by air for Christmas vacation. 10 hours in a plane, on a tarmac, surrounded by screaming children. Coming to within miles of one's destination then having the plane "re-routed" hundreds of miles away. Missing luggage; stolen

Ecofont swings - and misses

2008-12-17T12:07:00.005-05:00

Ecofont is a font that uses 20% less ink; but there are other ways....I've recently seen several postings about Ecofont, a new font that allegedly uses up to 20% less ink. The trick is that an Ecofont character is filled with small, ink-free circles. If the point size is big, then the holes are visible and - well, weird. But if the point size small (like the font your seeing now), then the

My web presence, III: a first attempt

2008-12-02T20:30:00.001-05:00

The road to bad software is paved with good intentions.In "what's my problem," I described why I wanted a web presence. Now it's time to explain my first attempt, why it failed, and why it still remains my ideal.I was always interested in using computers to keep information organized. Back before the Web, I played with lisp code for Emacs, creating little hypercard-like modules that would let

Smart planet = Screwed planet

2008-11-29T08:29:00.007-05:00

IBM's "Smart Planet" concept is a study in arrogance. Or maybe it's the birth of the real Skynet.Sam Palmisano, CEO of IBM, has recently been pushing a "new" concept called "Smart Planet." The sound bite that goes with the concept is, according to IBM's web site, is"The planet will be intrumented, interconnected, intelligent. People want it. We can do it."Irving Wladawsky-Berger explains the

Matter is just empty space

2008-11-22T17:59:00.005-05:00

New findings tell us we're all just fluctuating vacuums. This changes the notion of calling someone an airhead.On 20 November, 2008, New Scientist reported on work being done with a new approach to modelling quantum effects called Lattice Quantum Chromodynamics (or just Lattice QCD). As a result, they've been able to more accurately model some of the observed properties of elementary particles,

The salary pyramid

2008-11-22T10:55:00.023-05:00

Here's a new* way to visualize some characteristics of corporations.One of the big, current news items is the notion of bailing out the Big 3 North American automakers. But there are certain characteristics of the Big 3 that make me wonder whether we're doing more harm than good by just giving them money. I'd accumulated some data about the relative performance of the Big 3 versus other popular

Ontario's proposed (and flawed) cell phone law

2008-11-02T20:02:00.013-05:00

Banning hand-held phones while driving is a lemon of an idea.The Ontario Liberal government has introduced new legislation to ban the use of hand-held devices to talk, e-mail or send text messages while driving. Hands-free devices are not covered by the proposed legislation. Ontario wouldn't be the first jurisdiction to try this kind of thing; indeed, the idea is, generally, quite

ISPs bickering like schoolyard pre-teens

2008-11-02T09:49:00.003-05:00

Cogent & Sprint ought to be sent to their rooms without dinner for their puerile behaviour.Ars Technica reported a "disagreement" between Cogent Communications and Sprint. Cogent is a relatively large American wholesale Internet Service Provider that services business, government agencies, and universities. Sprint is the well-known network that services individuals and small groups.Spend a few

Design and the 2008 US Election

2008-10-29T11:14:00.004-04:00

Could bad ballot design screw up the election of the next US President?Humantific recently posted a short article about the ballots being used in New York State for the upcoming US General Election. In the article, the folks at Humantific take the ballot designers to task for having created a "sensemaking nightmare." Unfortunately, I couldn't find an image of the ballot, so all I have to go on

The world wants Obama

2008-10-27T12:51:00.006-04:00

Too bad Americans are so insular because it seems the global jury is in on the U.S. Presidential Election.If the World Could Vote is a fascinating website. It summarizes in a very nice visualization the results of a large number of international Gallup polls designed to indicate a global preference for either Barack Obama or John McCain as the next American President. For countries in which

Canada's non-election results

2008-10-20T21:30:00.003-04:00

The only thing for certain after the October 14th Federal Election, is that the Canadian electoral system is a pile of junk.On October 14th, 2008, Canada had a federal election. Considering how long it lasted and how much money it cost, the results are pretty much insignificant.The Conservatives led by the pathetic Stephen Harper won another minority, just like the last parliament. After $300

My web presence II: what's my problem?

2008-10-15T16:40:00.000-04:00

I realized my web presence was all wrong. This was the first step: recognizing imbalance.I've already explained what I mean by web presence.One day, I realized that my web presence was slowing me down. And then I thought I must be an idiot for not having noticed before, because I also realized that my general frustration with syncing my web presence with my self had been going on for some

Yahoo! programmers might really be yahoos

2008-10-13T18:55:00.004-04:00

Canadian is a "foreign language" for Yahoo! programmers.I read about the new Yahoo! calendar, and figured I'd give it a test drive. So I used Google to find http://switch.calendar.yahoo.com and logged in to try it out.Though I logged in successfully, all I got was the content at the URL http://switch.calendar.yahoo.com/m/unsp_intl.php?intl=ca. You can visit it yourself, but I'll spare you the

My web presence, I: What's a web presence?

2008-10-13T09:15:00.000-04:00

As promised in a previous post, here's the beginning of the explanation of how I am designing my web presence.Web presence is the term I use to describe the abstraction that is the sum total of everything I put on the web. My web presence not me, like some avatar or simulation of me. It's what I leave behind; it's the things I build and give some purposeful shape to on the web, the things that

Notes on the (non)debate

2008-10-03T09:17:00.005-04:00

The English-language debate by the Federal Party leaders was interesting in some ways, and deadly-boring in others.Okay; I admit it. I watched the October 2nd debate between the Fab Five of Canadian politics. It was a lot like watching an accident. An intellectual train wreck.There's a great photo of the party leaders on the Globe & Mail's website. (I can embed it here because it's illegal,

Harper lashes out at academics

2008-09-28T11:57:00.014-04:00

Stephen Harper's distrust of intellectuals may be the undoing of the country.As part of his effort to get re-elected Prime Minister, Stephen Harper has proposed amendments to the Criminal Code so that serious crimes are not eligible for conditional house arrest sentences.The media (e.g. 1) tell us that criminologists are largely convinced that harsher sentences do not deter crime. This seems to

Harper goes low-brow on Canadian arts

2008-09-26T20:29:00.024-04:00

Harper lit a match under Canadian arts, and then the media turned it into a firestorm.Consider this quote by Prime Minister Stephen Harper:"I think when ordinary working people come home, turn on the TV and see a gala of a bunch of people at, you know, a rich gala all subsidized by taxpayers claiming their subsidies aren't high enough, when they know those subsidies have actually gone up – I'm

I will now predict the future!

2008-09-21T23:50:00.007-04:00

A heads-up on forthcoming entries.Looks like I've decided to stick with Blogger. It seems both functionally & aesthetically sufficient to me. The details of this decision will appear in a future entry too, because these were design decisions. Indeed, the point of my first few entries will revolve around why and how I came to need a blog.I've been worried that my web presence has gotten too

Welcome!

2008-09-21T14:57:00.000-04:00

Hi there. I'm investigating whether blogger will be sufficient for my purposes. So this may just be a very short trial. Please stay tuned for more soon.