Lawbot is going to Brussels (without me)

The good folks at Constant are at it again. The Verbindingen/Jonctions 12 festival is coming up, with the theme "By data we mean." Among all the activities slated to take place, there's also going to be a fine array of artwork on display. Our favourite robot sleuth, Lawbot along with Copycat and the leader of The Cabal are going to be in attendance in their fine, digital, text based form. If you're in Brussels between November 21 and 29, be sure to check out what Constant is offering up.

Happy Shoe Year

I've come up with a workable resolution this year: I'm going to try to incorporate this cartoon version of my own shoe into as much of my work as possible. Keep your eyes open for it as I post new illustrations and sundry other things.

A Manifesto Stub

Everyone needs access to information, not just those of us with good vision, full mobility, high level language skills and shiny new computers.

Correlation is not causality in Doctor Who

A thought for anyone who enjoys Doctor Who and false logic:

The mother of every companion in new season Doctor Who thinks that the presence of the Doctor means trouble. They believe that the Doctor brings trouble with him. In fact, as the audience and companions know, the Doctor constantly saves others from the trouble that is already planned. While trouble and the Doctor are positively correlated, the concerned mothers are wrong in believing that there is causality.

On Agency

Agency is a double edged sword: I have the power to decide for myself. The only catch is that I have to decide for myself.

This is how we blog.

Having recently read an article about creativity (which is here, and thank you, Jasper, for pointing it out), I've realized that I'm losing a lot of ideas simply by not getting them down when I think of them. It happened to me again, just this morning, when I thought of something interesting but was busy writing something else. And now I've lost it. I can't for the life of me remember what it was I thought up. As a result, I've decided to attempt to blog every single damn idea I come up with from now on. "That's crazy talk!" you may say. And that's true. It is crazy talk. But I intend to try anyway. So, starting now, more posts, often shorter posts, less curation, more randomness. Oh yes.

Super heroes must be exhausted

Having just lived the equivalent of two lives for the last month and a half, I'm left with one burning question: How do super heroes do it? It's hard enough trying to live two normal lives (for example: a full time job and another business on the side), how can anyone possibly be expected to live one normal life and one crime fighting super life?

Other people might argue the plausibility of different elements of super hero stories. Let me be the one to find it implausible that super heroes don't routinely fall over from exhaustion.

Some grown ups dream about credit cards

When I was younger than I am now, ten years ago, for example, when I was half the age I am now, I had more dreams. Everything in my life was going to be a big deal. I anticipated huge accomplishment, but I never seemed dissatisfied with what I had. I would invent perfectly spherical flying cars with nubbly little wings sticking out the sides and jets powering the whole works. Aerodynamics be damned, I thought that a spherical air car would be the most profoundly cool thing ever. I was an inventor and a fashion designer in my own mind. I discovered that Barbie dolls were insanely difficult to tailor for. I dreamed up a load of things that would hit the market years later. I was irate, just a few weeks ago when I saw a vending machine in a rest stop washroom selling toothbrushes with built in reservoirs for toothpaste. I've been told that when I was little, I'd speak French in my sleep. I barely even speak it awake anymore. My nightmares used to transport me to other dimensions, filled with human eating aliens. I'd save the world of a night. Now, even my good dreams involve things like credit cards and modems. In short, I'm worried that I've lost something. I've lost my capacity to have very big dreams. I've learned to be a little too realistic. I've lost my magical, optimistic dream world and replaced it with a life overly constrained by reality.

Two reasons why I want to join the EU

From time to time, I wish Canada could defect from North America and become a member of the European Union. There are two reasons for this. Number one is that I'd like to get out of NAFTA. Number two is that I'd like to be able to participate in Eurovision voting. Yes, that's right: Eurovision and NAFTA in the same post.

Dwayne is an adjective

I've added a new word to the ginger to English dictionary. The word is "Dwayne." It is, as the title of this post suggests, an adjective. It is an adjective that describes the offshoots of a peculiarly Canadian state of being. To be dwayne, something must possess the characteristics of an nth generation, folksy, down home Canadiana. Getting iced coffee at Tim Horton's instead of a snooty coffee shop is dwayne. To be dwayne is to be friendly, a little old fashioned, and hoserish. It really is a fantastic word. It can be applied to so many things. My deepest apologies to all of the people named Dwayne in the world.

Future Atlantis

I was thinking the other week about hydroelectric projects. Specifically, I was thinking about the towns that get flooded in the creation of new dam projects. Think: towns evacuated and flooded, buried under new lakes as if they never existed. These towns are the future Atlantises.

Late night grocery stores

There's a late night grocery store on my way home. I hardly ever use it, but I appreciate that it exists. In that sense, for me at least, it's similar to a falafel restaurant. Tonight, however, I got the chance to use it. Wandering home from a late movie, I got a jones for orange juice. But where can I possibly get orange juice at one o'clock in the morning? Quite simply, I can get the orange juice about one block away from home, on my path from movie to bed.

Most of the time, the late night grocery store is a service I don't feel the need to use. Even though I seldom use it, it's something I like to have around, just in case I find myself needing it.

Evolution and personal grooming

Every time you leave the house without removing stray eyebrow hairs, you admit that you are descended from apes.

Bowls and forks

All I want in life right now are a bowl and fork that are meant to be together. I enjoy eating out of bowls, but it drives me crazy to not be able to move a fork properly around the edges of a bowl. If someone would make a fork that had the same contour on the side as the bowl it was meant to fit into, my life would be complete.

Airport gum

Finally getting around to transcribing everything I wrote last time I flew. I find that I get a lot of thinking done on planes. It's a nice bit of escape from my normal routine.

What I'm wondering right now is whether or not convenience stores at airports sell more gum than normal convenience stores do. It seems logical that people would exit from planes, ears unpopped, and seek out gum. But do they actually? I could just be making silly assumptions.

At least two people

I was looking at a piece of design the other day that I just didn't get. It was a handbag with a graphic on it. It didn't speak to me. However, looking at that bag, something occurred to me: in order for a design to appear in the wild (that is to say, on a bus, in a food court, on a coffee table, whatever, as long as someone has bought it), at least two people need to understand it and believe that it is a good idea. The designer needs to think that it might be a good idea, that someone else might want it. Someone else (a consumer, for example) needs to agree with the designer and buy that design. I know that most of the time, far more than two people will believe that the idea has potential. I like this, though, as a rule. For a design to appear in the wild, at least two people need to understand and like it.

Absentee parents in picture books

In discussing the classic picture book Are You My Mother? today, an important question was raised. Namely: Why is the bird not concerned about who his father is? The baby bird moves heaven and earth to find his mother, but is completely unconcerned by the absence of his father. Could this book be an early example of positive depictions of single parenting? Is the bird unconcerned because he sees his father solely as an earner and would rather seek nurturing from his mother? Who, the bird should be asking, brought in the worms while mother was warming the eggs? Constantly, the little bird asks, "Are you my mother?" Why does a book written long before the mainstreaming of single parenthood present a baby bird with no father in sight, and no concern for his absence?

NOTE: Don't take the above seriously. If it were meant to be serious, there would be footnotes.

Fraction People

I'm wondering if this is a uniquely North American thing: we seem to define ourselves as fractions. I can say that I'm one eight Swedish or five sevenths Irish or whatever. Most people I know do it. If you ask, they'll be able to give you their fractions. North America seems like a perfect place to be fractional. We're a land of colonists. No one is one hundred percent anything. What I'm wondering, then, is if anyone else does that, or whether it's just us.

Instead of shooting shotguns at cans...

Here's a new idea for a fun passtime: Throw romance novels at Barbie dolls. It's like bowling or those carnival games with the water guns, only way more fun. Seriously, you can get a good throw with romance novels. I've tried it. They have a nice heft, but they aren't sturdy enough to actually damage things. And it's amazing catharsis.

Snow Weariness

I just started noticing today that loads of folks in the mainstream media are talking about something called Snow Rage. Clever name, right? Quebec has the distinction of being the centre of the universe for snow rage at the moment. That makes sense. I feel like we've had a major storm every week or so for the last several months and there are some really spectacular piles of snow kicking around. The high profile story is about the guy in Quebec City who menaced a snow removal worker with a shotgun. It hasn't gotten to that point in my part of the world yet. Most of the time, it comes down to coming in out of the cold, grumping and brrr-ing and then remarking that at least the skiing conditions will be good. I have yet to see the rage. It's really more a sense of weariness and resignation. So, I propose that, instead of calling it snow rage, we should be calling it snow weariness. That is, until the cross-country skiers take up arms.

Capitalism for butterflies as retail concept

Give me a year, I'm going to do this: Capitalism for Butterflies could be made into a workable retail concept. Take a store, give it a consistent, overarching name, and then change what it does, how it looks, how the branding works every once in a while (when boredom strikes, when the inventory runs out). It would become a destination just because it would completely lack consistency. Look at the original Capitalism for Butterflies post to get a better idea of the model.

Good is defined by bad

So often, in real life and in all our media, you hear that no one feels like they're in a real romantic relationship until they've had a fight with their partner. It's not real until a hole has been poked in the good by the bad. Reality seems to necessitate negativity.

Not book reports, website reports

In grade school, I had to write book reports. They usually talked about the plot, the characters, and other basic things. Because it was grade school, I didn't go into much detail. I didn't analyse much or explore deeper issues of imagery and what lies beneath the basic plot. I was writing a reading response today, but it was a little different from the usual. Instead of an article, I was meant to be responding to some websites. As I wrote, it started looking suspiciously like one of those book reports from grade school. So, I'm wondering if, in the future, children in grade school will write website reports. They could discuss what the website is meant to do, the basic layout and structure, what kind of interaction it allows (if any), that kind of thing. Here's to a new artform, then. Or, if not an artform, a new kind of busywork for teachers to assign to small children. At least it promotes media literacy.

The whiteboard is a metaphor

I think that I may be too exacting for my own good. Even so, I feel that it is necessary to mention that the "whiteboard" tag on this very blog is not entirely literal. It is in fact partially metaphorical. Things that are tagged with the word "whiteboard" may never have actually made it to my whiteboard-o'-clever-ideas. They may come straight from my sketchbook, or a scrap of paper, or some such thing. But they are things that belong on the whiteboard. That's why they get the tag.