Author: Alan

Biometric Day

Yesterday was very biometric:

  • The date for my seminar with the Surveillance Project at Queens was reset for later this month. I am going to talk about my thesis on the constitutionality of automated biometric surveillance and the recent cases on the liberty right in section 7 of The Charter of Rights and Freedoms;
  • The US confirmed that we need to get the new biometric passorts before October. I, too have no problem with this as it is not my country.
  • On West Wing the nutty DARPA (not ARPA) character in the Hawaiian shirt admitted to spokesperson lady that they were doing biometric studies within government on the biometrics of citizens. [It was very well described in the script.]   And she was shocked at the imposition on the US Bill of Rights.

Neato. Gaff and gaaf. Spelling has yet to settle on that one.

I am Robot and Proud

A few weeks ago, I bought a CD by I am Robot and Proud (aka Shaw-Han Liem of Toronto) called “You Make Me this Happy” from Electron, discussed here, run by helpful Keith. I appears I am Robot and Proud has other newish CDs out called The Catch and Grace Days. I just listened to “Saturday Afternoon Plans” [recordco mp3 link here] from The Catch and I liked it very much. All good to listen to with Oswald.

Oswald

Children’s TV is a wasteland. Smarmy Barney is banned from our house. Caillou is nothing but an example of the whinging bad child. Clifford is a big red moralizing freak surrounded by little pink moralizing freaks banished to the Island of the impossible economy. Hidden within the chaff is a gem – Oswald the Octopus. A happy surrealist’s dream, it is a bright cartoon about symbolistic New Yorkers. Henry the Penguin who is nervous about doing anything much. Weiner who is, in fact, a hot dog. Best of all, like Messrs Rogers and Dress-Up, is the music. Light hopeful themes in the style of a sloppy burlesque orchestra. Be glad. There is a CD. Don’t trust me – read this review. Tony Orlando singing the Sammy Starfish tune in the style of Tony Bennett with a nod to Tom Waits is a treat. Put it in random rotation on the CD player with Brian Eno ambient music.

Let’s Call It…

cool

When I was submerged about a month ago I heard the guitar from Martha and the Muffins “Swimming”. We have a pool in this place no one uses but us. With goggles, it’s all flailing kiddie ankles up there, me holding at the bottom thinking of out by the church at North River where you could dive down to loll about with trout or the double falls at Greenwood if you knew the half-mile path through the spruce to find it. My man in Portland has taught me to body surf at 59 F in the real sea where nothing stands between you and the Azores, your arse facing at Maine. [I also learned being called a big fat sissy apparently works with me as an educational strategy.]

The CD Then Again – A Retrospective arrived in the mail today, 16.98 CND all in direct fromMartha and the Muffins / M+M headquarters. I also got the M+M “The World Is A Ball” tour badge 1986, tin pin type. Like the Spoons and Doug and the Slugs, these were songs between the Duran Duran at Cabbagetown, the basement dance bar on Spring Garden at South Park in the brief time of my life when wearing what looked like fishing tackle from your ears was OK, when people dressed like characters in Lexx. Did Martha write my address on the envelope?

ISSNs and Personal Websites

I had an interesting set of exchanges today on the topic of the ISSN. I noted a few days ago that Steve’s site had an ISSN or international standard serial number – scroll down lower left to see it. Wanting all that Steve has, I applied for my own. This morning I received a nice email which stated:

Thank you for your application. At the moment, we are no longer assigning ISSN to weblogs, but the situation is under review. The question of whether weblogs will be able to be assigned ISSN is under discussion in the international ISSN Network. The question hinges on the scope of the ISSN but also on the very real consideration of the limited staff resources of ISSN centres worldwide.

In further emailing I learned that the global ISSN system is run out of Paris; that last October they put the halt on listing new personal web pages, web logs or blogs under ISSN; that the ISBN system relating to books does not apply; and that there are global meetings in Paris from time to time on the ISSN system. Very neato.

The person with whom I was having this conversation then went to the effort of called me at work after tracking me to my house. Apparently there are only two staff at the National Library of Canada who administer the ISSN system in the country and they have been overwhelmed by requests for blog registrations particularly – but apparently inadvertantly – after this posting by a Joe Clark who Steve (of the now coveted ISSN) knows as an web accessability writer.  I suggested that I might help the National Library of Canada and its application crunch by way of a post to this old ‘osphere.

There is an answer, however, to the nerd who want another registration number in their life. While my helpful friend in the National Library of Canada ISSN office, who will go unnamed (even though there is a 50% chance of you guessing which one it was) indicated that ISSNs for web blogs get you little but are a real headache, the good folk at CIPO will take 50 bucks on line for a one-time registration of Canadian personal web sites under the Copyright Act. While copyright is inherent in that it arises with the act of writing, registration provides proof of the fact of your writing as of the time registered. This still allows you to grant Creative Commons licenses at all that as they are licenses granted under copyright interest to your own works.   Plus you are paying so can expect you are providing for the resources you are using. 

Consider the lot of the poor ISSN registration worker. The ISSN has now registered over 755,000 serial titles worldwide and grows at an annual rate of about 50,000 new listings.  As a reult,  even though the Guardian recently pointed out that of the 4 million things called blogs, only 50,000 are updated daily, the scale of blogs to periodic serials is clearly daunting and, for two librarians kind enought to pick up the phone, overwhelming.    Let them be, oh bloggers, let them be!    Then lobby Paul Martin for more funding for the National Library.