tranquileyeThe blog of John Harris Stevenson, researcher, tech strategist, and community broadcaster.At Christmas, all roads lead home- December 25, 2006 At Christmas, all roads lead home, but there is always more than one road to take. This year, in green and grey Truro, I can hear my mother still snoring through the floorboards. The day waits chilly and pregnant, and when I can smell the coffee, I'll know to come out. Then we'll drop this Christmas into the silent past, its many imperfections forgotten, and make a perfect new year. I remember that there is no ideal Christmas, only the one Christmas you decide to make yourself.http://www.tranquileye.com/blog/2006/12/christmas_2006.html Not the radio we want, but the radio we have- December 21, 2006 The CRTC released its new Commercial Radio Policy on Friday. I wanted to wait awhile before commenting on it, since my main focus for the past few days has been on the policy's specific impact on community radio. My initial impression -- that it's mostly a do-nothing policy -- remains, but I think I have a better idea of why that is, and what it means. Some of my colleagues are a bit surprised by how little this new policy does. They, like me, see commercial radio as a failing medium. In...http://www.tranquileye.com/blog/2006/12/crtc_radio_policy_2006.html A redhead in love with the ice- December 19, 2006 I was talking to my son Josh on Saturday about how I discovered this or that band, and I told him that the person who had introduced me to much of the music I love, when we were both at CKDU-FM Halifax in the 1980s, is now a taxi driver in Antarctica. He must think I'm lying half the time with my stories, and it's true that the ice vehicles Genevieve Ellison drives aren't really taxis, but more like shuttles, something that we don't have in Ottawa. I've been reading Genevieve's blog on and off..http://www.tranquileye.com/blog/2006/12/genevieve_blog.html Weekend DIY Gizmo Project: USB Portable Apps- December 18, 2006 Weekend DIY Gizmo Project: Unsuccessfully try to install applications on your new U3 Smart drive, happily find that PortableApps.com has released a suite of great portable open source tools with most of U3's functionality, and then create a "DemocraKey" for anonymous surfing thanks to TrueCrypt and Torpark.http://www.tranquileye.com/blog/2006/12/weekend_diy_giz.html Conan O'Brien and the manatee- December 14, 2006 In the midst of holiday parties and by-law writing, a nice piece from the Mathew Ingram at the Globe and Mail on Conan O'Brien's horny manatee and viral marketing.http://www.tranquileye.com/blog/2006/12/conan_obrien_an.html Livestock's Long Shadow- December 13, 2006 My good friend Greg Searle doesn't post that often to his blog, electricfrog (named after his radioactively green hybrid car). But when he does, it tends to be interesting, including last year's posts about his travels through India and the Himalayan foothills. Yesterday Greg posted for the first time in a year on a new report from the UN Food and Agriculture Organization on the negative environmental impact of cattle farming on the environment. It's worth a look.http://www.tranquileye.com/blog/2006/12/livestocks_long.html Economics and Social Justice- December 13, 2006 I've been quite interested in economic policy lately and was happy to come across a CBC podcast from their Best of Ideas series about Economics and Social Justice (transcript). Avi Lewis' polemic here is passionate and entertaining, though I would have liked to hear more about new economic mechanisms for eliminating poverty in the global South, rather than the usual Keynes-Friedman dichotomy. I found Pier Luigi Sacco's talk less conventional but more interesting. Sacco argues that traditional...http://www.tranquileye.com/blog/2006/12/economics_and_s.html Speeding up deregulation- December 11, 2006 The Conservative Minister of Industry Maxime Bernier has just announced the government will be "speeding up" deregulation of the local telephone market. Given the players, I have trouble believing this will improve service or pricing for anyone.http://www.tranquileye.com/blog/2006/12/speeding_up_der.html Iraq's Missing Billions- December 11, 2006 Caught the middle of a good documentary on Link TV about war profiteering and incompetence in the administration of aid to Iraq. You can see all of Iraq's Missing Billions on Google Video.http://www.tranquileye.com/blog/2006/12/iraqs_missing_b.html The Local Trap- December 9, 2006 Take note of a column in today's Globe and Mail by Doug Saunders (subscription required) about what Mark Purcell, an urban design and planning professor at the University of Washington, calls the local trap. Writes Purcell, "The local trap equates the local with 'the good'... It is founded on the assumption that devolution of authority will produce greater democracy. It is assumed that the more localized governing institutions are, the more democratic they will be." I think Saunders hasn't...http://www.tranquileye.com/blog/2006/12/the_local_trap.html |