Bad Show Good Music

I love the soundtrack to *shudder* the Vampire Diaries.

The show is just below watching paint dry on my list of things to do with about an hour of free time, but while she who must be obeyed has control over the TV I've heard Neko Case, The Stars, MGMT, and Peaches.

It's ridiculous.

Why juxtapose ($10 dollar word alert) quality music against drivel-drama?

I'm tempted to actually watch an episode just to see if I catch a Destroyer track or maybe some They Shoot Horses Don't They in the background whilst some broody dark twenty something dude chats up some random tart.

Good on whatever must-be-a-Canadian producer is slipping solid gold into a smeg production.

Canadian Privacy Laws & Online Networking

A report form the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada has found that facebook breaches Canadian privacy law. The report responds to 24 complaints, and while most were unfounded or resolved there are four cases that are of concern.

Here's a bit from the executive summary (bolding by me):

On the remaining subjects of third-party applications, account deactivation and deletion, accounts of deceased users, and non-users’ personal information, the Assistant Commissioner likewise found Facebook to be in contravention of the Act and concluded that the allegations were well-founded. In these four cases, there remain unresolved issues where Facebook has not yet agreed to adopt her recommendations. Most notably, regarding third-party applications, the Assistant Commissioner determined that Facebook did not have adequate safeguards in place to prevent unauthorized access by application developers to users’ personal information, and furthermore was not doing enough to ensure that meaningful consent was obtained from individuals for the disclosure of their personal information to application developers.

Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada

It's something I rarely think about as I generally avoid apps, but it makes me wonder how many third-party applications are created just to harvest users' information.

CBC has a good quote from Jordan Plener, the UOttawa student who filed the complaint on behalf of the Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic.

"For a hangman application, for example, there is no use for the developer to know where the person lives or have their personal email address."

cbc.ca

That sounds on the money to me - but really, should we have any expectation of privacy at all on facebook? Our Minister Van Loan doesn't think so.

What do you think? Is it time we give up on protecting our personal information online?

The Burrard Bridge and Cringeworthy Comments

Disclaimer: This isn't about the issue. It's an issue the issue raises that has to do with discussion, communication, and community.

The Burrard bridge bicycle lane trial has begun.

I'm not from Vancouver, I don't bike across the bridge, and I'm not really entitled to much of an opinion as I haven't examined the plans, read the council minutes, or really paid much attention at all - until today.

You see, every local-news outlet has a story on the bike-lane'd bridge. And in today's everybody-has-a-voice web2.0 social media mad world, that means every story has a comment thread a mile long.

In theory, enabling comments and discussion fosters debate and communication.

In practice, comment-sections quickly degenerate into useless strings of spin and vitriol only occasionally related to the originating article.

Insults are flung with wild abandon, key-messages drown out discussion, and somehow (I really don't understand it yet) the least intelligent among us manage to find their way onto the internet and whip out angry diatribes that only occasionally make sense.

It's depressing to think that those posting are actually the listening/watching/reading public. So, rather than be depressed I imagine this:

Massive banks of computers in a smoke-filled room, cigarette buts dangling from ashtrays on the corners of redbull-strewn desks. Each computer is staffed by a moron with a script, shit-posting to beat hell, while a balding man with dark circles under his eyes paces circles in front of a giant set of monitors looking for news to hijack.

It's like a telethon to save PBS, but instead of red-dwarf reruns we get the daily news. And instead of saving PBS the point is this is an intricate plot to degrade public dialogue to the point where it doesn't make sense to have a public dialogue at all.

I like to think this intricate plan is funded by the military-industrial-complex (do we even call it that now that it's really the everything-complex?) to weaken the public's role in any sort of policy development or implementation.

I then like to use that vision to get really pissed off, curse the lack of public spaces where debate and discussion occur in Canada, and then I do my best to either:

A. Write a coherent post engaging with the few people actually participating in some sort of discussion, then vote-up our posts with a host of fake accounts.

B. Respond to comments in earnest, with sourced arguments, but in the wrong comment thread.

Option B is way more fun, but usually just gets ignored.

The moral of the story is this, "The internet is too easy."

Or it isn't.

New Video from Shad

Even if hiphop isn't your thing, Shad's flow is so good and he's got this down to earth vibe that's refreshing.

Search Engine with Minister Peter Van Loan

This is one of those extremely important things you should hear.

Minister Peter Van Loan telling us we have no reason to expect any online privacy.

mp3

Canada Day Week!

Looks like it'll be a good one!

Confusing Citizenship Changes

Proposed federal regulations unveiled in mid-December seek to prevent children born to or adopted by Canadians outside the country from passing citizenship on to their children if they are also born abroad.

Citizenship changes could create 'inferior' citizens-via thevancouversun

Ok, but isn't this is the same government that has allowed children adopted/born abroad to automatically become citizens? It's just weird, I didn't know we were so freaked out about citizens of convenience that we would allow a sort of tier system. Shouldn't we be a bit more concerned with creating a class of stateless people than with the potential that some might not have the strongest loyalty to our flag and queen PM?

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Prorogate This

So our government failed to overthrow itself. At least we got a new word to throw about.

A prorogation is the period between two sessions of a legislative body. When a legislature or parliament is prorogued, it is still constituted (that is, all members remain as members and a general election is not necessary), but all orders of the body (bills, motions, etc.) are expunged. (In the British parliament, this has now changed somewhat in that Public Bills can be carried over from one session to another.)

Parliamentary session - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

To me it seems like we've got two groups looking to look good in front of the Canadian people by campaigning on each others shortcomings while already elected. That shit sucks during election time, but it's out of hand when it happens after an election and BEFORE a throne speech.

Bah.

One would think that with a minority government ALL parties ought to work to form a coalition. I suppose that's what governing with the consent is all about but that's just not happening. What's happening is a farce.

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What's the Best Thing to do With $490 Billion

The Conservative government has quietly released the details of its extensive plan to beef up the military, including spending $490 billion over the next 20 years

Federal government quietly releases $490B military plan

This.
Totally, this.

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Oh Tories, You so Crazy!

Elections Canada alleges the Conservative party violated federal election law by funnelling money in and out of local candidates' campaigns so the national party could spend $1.1 million above its legal limit on media advertising in the last election.

TheStar.com | Canada | Angry Tories unveil raid documents

Also:

Saying they wanted to avoid a "media circus," three party officials also took the unusual step of briefing a "limited number" of invited reporters. But the attempt to frame the party message went awry when other journalists learned of the briefing. To avoid uninvited journalists, the Conservative officials switched hotels, cancelled a briefing, and left via a fire stairwell to avoid pursuit by television cameras.

TheStar.com | Canada | Angry Tories unveil raid documents

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