(cross posted at www.atlargemedia.com)

Vancouver’s own blogging conference Northern Voice takes place next month.

There’s a lot to like about this conference aside from the moose logo. Like the price.

40 Canadian dollars for one day, or $60 for both. It’ll cost you almost that much to take a cab from downtown to confernce site on the UBC campus.

I’ll be kicking around so come up and say hi.

If you work in an office with a staff lunchroom, you really need to read “Time for a Staffroom Makeover” by Capers Whole Foods nutritionist Victoria Pawlowski.

The foods and beverages stuffed in the refrigerator and falling off side counters often aren’t really foods – they are collections of ingredients with lots of additives, trans fats, simple carbs and sweeteners. They are processed, refined foods loaded with anti-nutrients – chemicals that actually make it harder for your body to absorb nutrient and cause cellular inflammation which is linked to premature aging and disease.

She’s got a lot of good tips on how you can improve things for yourself, and your coworkers.

Meanwhile, the KitKat France has produced an awesome animation about getting the ultimate break from office melt-downs.

It’s a great form of advertising – the animation is high quality and funny. I particularly like the guy who flips pencils between his fingers – I’m pretty sure I worked with him in Calgary.

Maybe he was just having a bad day, but former Vancouver technology sector business guy, Will Pate, is tearing a strip off the Canadian technology sector in his first article for Startup North…

When you meet technology people from Canada, we’re not in a race. We’re watching the race from the sideline. We act like technology entrepreneurship is closer to farming than shark hunting, as if risky business isn’t necessary to make the next Google or Microsoft. We putter around as if slow and steady actually wins races to innovate and grow technology businesses.

Ouch. Last I checked, Will was still working…in the technology sector in Canada.

If you’re a problem solver (say, working in the technology sector in Canada) or an innovative thinker of any sort, have you ever wondered what’s really going on in your brain when you’re, say, problem solving?

Scientific American has a story on research underway that may that shed some light on what’s going on when…the light goes on.

If there’s excessive attention, it somehow creates mental fixation….Your brain is not in a receptive condition….Researchers found that subjects who were aware that they had found a new way to tackle the problem (and so, had consciously restructured their thinking) were less likely to feel as if they’d had eureka moment compared to more clueless candidates.

And to that, I say AHA.

Fin for now.

Yesterday I had a bit of a rant about the City of North Vancouver’s shortsighted move to remove the heritage designation from a number of shipyard building near Lonsdale Quay.

Now that I’ve slept on it, I’m even more pissed.

In fact, here’s another compelling argument for hanging on to the last our of shipbuilding history:

The Burrard Shipyard site which anchors the Waterfront has already been recognized at the local and national level as a heritage landmark. With the restoration of the Burrard Dry Dock Pier and St. Roch Dock, the City’s Waterfront is being rediscovered by residents and attracts both local and international visitors.

The Waterfront Project aims to connect the local community by creating a sense of place and pride that also celebrates the City’s past, present and future. One consideration for the area includes a Historic Centre, which may become a National Maritime Museum that chronicles the history of North Vancouver and pays tribute to the West Coast’s maritime origins….

The City is committed to preserving and revitalizing its waterfront heritage and rich maritime history.

Who said that ?

The City of North Vancouver on their web site and in numerous other publications.

I’d encourage you to let the City of North Vancouver know how you feel.

You can reach them at Tel: 604-985-7761 Fax: 604-985-9417 Email: info@cnv.org

People who visit us from other countries eventually make two observations:

“Everything here is so new” they say.

Then they say, “What happened to your old buildings?”

The truth of it is, we tear them down.

We obliterate them, and in the process erase forever important historical references.

Generally the key motivation is money. Perhaps occasionally ignorance. But primarily money. Ok, maybe it’s ignorance and money. Two fairly powerful and destructive motivators.

The latest shameful example is the council for the City of North Vancouver.

Years ago the council designating the last remaining shipyard buildings on the North Shore as historical sites so a small piece of our ship building history would be preserved.

This week, council undesignating them as historical sites and in so doing, sealed their fate.

Demolition.

Why?

Money. They want federal money for a Maritime Centre and their budget came up short when it included preserving these marvelous icons of our ship building past.

Everyone wants the Maritime money from the feds, so what to do?

Oh, here’s an idea. Over budget? Ok, just tear down the stuff that’s in the way. That way you don’t have to pay to preserve them.

Our kids and their kids will shake their heads in disbelief 40 years from now.

Unfortunately, I live in the district of North Vancouver so I can’t even do my bit to vote these folks out of office.

All I can do is say Shame On You.

I took the photos in this article a few years ago

There are more including some newer ones in this set at Flickr.

also: See this story at Now Public

The boys and I attended a book signing organized by Kids Books last night in Vancouver. Writer Anthony Horowitz was there to talk to a packed school auditorium.

Ostensibly the occasion was the release of the latest in the Alex Rider series, Snakehead. But this guy’s is brilliant. Instead of a boring presentation and reading, he told the crowd a bit about himself, and then took questions from the crowd for the next 40 minutes.

Anthony talks very fast, and he is very funny. His humour is often self-deprecating, but he clearly loves his job writing and he clearly loves kids.

Here’s what we learned, in no particular order:

• He had a horrible time in school, an English boy’s only boarding school.
• The school headmaster had 3 canes in his office for beating kids.
• The headmaster’s furniture was also made out of cane, so in the event he couldn’t get to his 3 canes he could beat you with a chair.
• Anthony not only hated school, did terribly at school. He says he was always ranked last in his class, even managing to come in 25th in a class of 24.
• The only place he felt at home in school was in the library.
• He become a ‘after lights out’ story teller in his dorm room – telling joke and elaborate stories.
• He’s a prolific writer for TV shows in Britain; his wife produces one of the shows he writes on.
• He thinks household objects are far more frightening than anything invented in horror novels; Anthony finds bath tubs to be very very scary.
• He created Alex Rider after watching James Bond films and seeing a 58-year-old Sean Connery portray 007 and thinking that there should be a young super spy.
• Anthony remembers vividly Ursula Andress wearing a white bikini and coming out of the water in that James Bond movie. Alex Rider’s last name is derived from Ursula’s character name in the movie, Honey Ryder.
• Not to dwell too much on Ursula Andress, but Anthony says if Alex had a mother she would be Ursula Andress. Anthony is a bit obsessed with her.
• Anthony knew from the age of 8 that we wanted to be a writer.  He says it’s a good thing that worked out because he’s not good at anything else.
• Claims to have a secret door to his home office where he does his writing.
• The only person allowed in his writing room is his dog Unlucky. The dog’s name was originally Lucky until Anthony accidentally backed over him in with the car and almost killed him.
• Doesn’t think there will be another Alex Rider movie since the last one got no support from the North American distributor. He’s name a character in one of his books after the distributor in question – he suffers an untimely death by fire.
• Believes that kids can make a better movie in their head reading a book than any movie made for any amount of money.
• Thinks kids would do a much better job running the world than adults.
• A lot of his characters are based on people’s he’s met in real life.
• Has been to all the locations he’s used in his books with 2 exceptions: outer space and Air Force One, though he did talk to someone at the White House who refused his request to get aboard the plane.
• Is going skiing in Whistler next month.

It was a great time – thanks to the Kids Books folks for doing it.

Anthony’s web site
Penguin Books web site for Anthony Horowitz (a bit out of date)
The Alex Rider web site

Wow, my pals over at Tom Bihn bags just below the border from us are on the case big time (sorry, pun).

Simply put, Tom Bihn makes the best bags in the world. If you’ve never seen one or had one, you’re missing out on one of life’s major pleasures.

Today, via email, the Bihn gang let us Bihnees know that he’s already set for Steve Job’s new laptop line:

Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock or are otherwise pleasantly disconnected from the mass-media, you’ve probably heard about the new Apple laptop, the MacBook Air. Macaholics as we are here at TOM BIHN, we’ve already introduced a new size of our Brain Cell laptop case designed specifically for the MacBook Air.

So all you MacAirHeads – go get ’em. You won’t be sorry.

Tell him Bigsnit sent you. It won’t get you a discount or anything, but it’ll make Tom laugh. A few more details:

The TOM BIHN Brain Cell laptop case has gained a reputation for offering some of the best protection anyone can get for their laptop. Now the Brain Cell is available in a size specifically designed to carry the MacBook Air: Size 6X.

The Brain Cell is designed to clip securely inside a wide variety of TOM BIHN messenger bags, briefcases, and backpacks — bags including the Empire Builder, Super Ego, ID, Ego, and Zephyr.

A full list of the TOM BIHN bags that will accept the Size 6X Brain Cell and thus the MacBook Air can be found here: www.tombihn.com/page/001/CTGY/MACBOOKAIR