Lots of comments on the CBC blog about CBC radio’s upcoming changes.

Here’s one that’s succinct and to the point. If you don’t get the references, no worries, the pull quote is priceless:

Eric S. Smith Says:
January 18th, 2007 at 5:03 pm

So they’re ditching Brave New Waves, Global Village, and even Radio 3, but keeping “Go!”, which, I’m sorry, is the Fozzie Bear of radio shows, *and* giving us a Jian Ghomeshi OD?

Thanks for nothing.

If you follow the thread back what you won’t see is any kind of historical perspective on all of this. Basically, these changes complete a desire to purge CBC of programming and ideas that got a small toe hold in the late 70’s when pop music infiltrated the hallowed halls of CBC radio. Programs like 90 Minutes with a Bullet and The Great Canadian Goldrush originated from someplace other than Toronto (Winnipeg and Vancouver respectively) and put CBC on the map with a whole generation, despite the fact they weren’t on the air very long.

Brave New Waves came a bit later, but is the last remnant of that era. CBC Radio 3 is a virtual Johnny-Come-Lately having shown up in 2000, but had huge impact because of its forward thinking approach to the web and plugging into content creators directly.

Of course, none of these things should be on the publicly funded airwaves – far better to push them off to extremely limited penetration pay-services like Sirius and provide a sop to the rest of the audience by giving them an hour of podcasts every week. Meanwhile, a perfectly good FM network that stretches from sea to sea continues to serve a very select and particular audience.

Welcome back to the 60’s era public broadcasting in Canada.

It’s the best quote I’ve seen in days…via the International Herald Trubune

After spending millions of dollars over the past decade fighting the free exchange of their products over the Internet, some media companies are now yielding. The best way to get something in return, they are deciding, may be to accept that consumers want to play but few seem to want to pay. If enough of them join the game, there can still be a payback — either from consumers themselves or, increasingly, from advertisers.

“Free is the new paid,” said Kenneth Parks, chief operating officer of Brilliant Technologies, a company based in New York and Melbourne that is developing a service called Qtrax, which will provide free music — legally — to Internet users.

via LivingWithAnActor.com

Just Curious is a web site where you can ask a question and see who answers.

Here’s one about Actors…

Accountability takes on many forms. From The New York Times, a story about bloggers making an impact with San Francisco media heavies…

via The New York Times

A San Francisco talk radio station pre-empted three hours of programming on Friday in response to a campaign by bloggers who have recorded extreme comments by several hosts and passed on digital copies to advertisers.

The lead blogger, who uses the name Spocko, said that he and other bloggers had contacted more than 30 advertisers on KSFO-AM to inform them of comments made on the air and to ask them to pull their ads.

Matthew and I had a great time chasing each other down Horizon this morning.

A good view of the runs on Black Mountain, at Cypress Mountain in West Vancouver, while riding the Sunrise Quad up Mount Strachan first thing in the morning.

The straight run at the far left, middle of the frame, is the new section that will be the moguls and aerials venue at the 2010 Olympics.  I’ve put a  larger photo showing more of the aerials and moguls section at Flickr.

CBC’s internal blog marks milestones in the company’s history. 

This weekend Tod Maffin posted regarding the program RealTime and its early entry into streaming audio on the internet.  Tod asked if I could paint the picture of what that was like.  The full post at InsideTheCBC.com

Our entire connection to the internet was a 14.4 phone modem in our offices on C-floor. CBC had no corporate internet connection then. We’d encode the files, then Loc would run out of the control room during the news and start a command line FTP program to send the files to Seattle, where Progressive Networks would mount them and serve them…

Our boss in Vancouver, the late Susan Englebert, was brilliant in letting us squirrel away in the bowels of the CBC building and running interference when someone tried to shut down the work we were doing. Audio streaming at CBC would never have happened if Susan Englebert hadn’t made it possible, simple as that.

Conditions were great this morning, though it’s icey once you poke through the soft stuff. There was a massive fog bank floating around near the bottom of Cypress bowl, and occasionally working its way part way up. 

When In Vancouver…

Wax up the board, head north, and don’t stop until you’re knee deep in snow.

I know white pointers means something different in Australia, I just think it works for our local mountains, so I’ve adopted it. No Worries, right ?

@ Denman and Haro

1. In high school, our biology teacher Mr. Wally took us for a field trip to a floating bog in Riding Mountain National Park. Two major events happened during this outing.  One of our class members fell through through the delicate bog surface and almost disappeared into 5 metres of bog water. The other thing that happened was Mr. Wally’s moose-call. We all thought it was hilarious, until a mom moose actually showed up with calf, scaring the living crap out of all of us – Mr. Wally included.  Moose have this in common with side-view mirrors;  things are much larger than they appear. 
2. Moose have bad eyesight. Really bad eyesight. They rely on smell to figure out if you’re a relatively innocuous backwoodsman or a scared sh*tless teenage biology student.
3. In the summer, moose eat leaves, twigs, shrubs and water plants in great quantity. A large moose will eat 25 to 30 kilograms of stuff a day. They will also dive up to 5 metres to feed on lilies or any wayward high school biology students who may be found nearby.
4. Baby moose look pretty wonky on their pegs, and are helpless for the first few days after birth. However, they quickly find their legs, and within a couple of days they can outrun an adult human. The only thing faster than a baby moose is a frightened teenage biology student.
5. Northern Voice is an awesome conference in Vancouver that has a Moose for logo.  The mere logo itself instills fear in every one of Mr. Wally’s class of ’74 grade XII biology students. After years of therapy, many of us have learned to face the fear and Embrace the Moose!

Moose facts courtesy Hinterland’s Who’s Who (hum the theme, I know you want to).  No actual high school students were harmed during the field trip, but everything else is true.  Mr. Wally is a real person, and was the best high school biology teacher I ever had.  He was also the only high school biology teacher I ever had.  This post was inspired by kk’s reminder to sign up for Northern Voice.  I did, you should too.  

ya, but shouldn’t these guys get an automatic pass grade for CompSci 300 ? Via NewsDay and The Register.

Two New Jersey teens have been accused by police of illegally tapping in to a school computer to change grades. Jonathan To, 18, and another teen who wasn’t identified because he’s a juvenile, were charged with computer theft after a routine audit discovered a discrepancy between grade reports and school transcripts, according to officials

The massive Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas is always a hype-fest for cool new gear. This year, there were 140,000 delegates there (yes, 140K) so the blogosphere is overflowing with foaming-at-the-mouth-gear-heads raving about the latest piece of kit (I’m just jealous because I wasn’t there this year).
One refreshing exception from all the hyperbole is Katie Fehrenbacher’s Top 5 Trends at CES article in GigaOm.

Meanwhile, up in San Francisco, Steve Jobs unveiled the iPhone at MacWorld. This can’t even be considered a trade show, it’s a cult-gathering-PR-fest for all things Apple.

Since the world-changing iPhone won’t be available for six months in the US (and who knows how long, if ever, and how much, in Canada) Apple fans are satisfying their lust for the latest shiney-and-easy-to-scratch, non-replaceable-battery device from Apple, by making cardboard mockups of the thing. I’m thinking that for the price of an Exacto knife and some glossy paper, I could be toting my own iPhone any day now. Make your own with a this PDF from the iPhone countdown site.

By far my favourite MacWorld piece is from Violet Blue and her article – How To Seduce a Mac Geek. She’s got follow-ups on her blog Tiny Nibbles.

I smell irony…

All day yesterday and today, media outlets in Vancouver were helping the Parks Board get its message out about the danger of falling trees in our world-famous Stanley Park. The parks board web site makes the situation pretty clear:

Stanley Park Remains Closed Today. Public Advised to Stay Out of the Park

January 10, 2007 (No. 2) – The Park Board is reporting that, in the interest of public safety, Stanley Park will remain closed today following an assessment of hazardous trees along roadways. The park was closed yesterday after being hit by gale-force winds late in the afternoon. Further remedial work is required to make the roads in the park safe for travel. There is still concern that snags, leaning trees and large branches that are hung up in the treetops may come down.

So, Canada’s Public Broadcaster, the CBC, sends in a satellite truck to do a TV piece from the park. According to the CBC blog, the truck managed to gather some primary sources it wasn’t counting on. It was nailed by a huge falling tree, trashing the satellite uplink and microwave. The truck may well be a write off.

I guess that means…no pictures at 11.

Here’s a really important point about building community. 

C o m m u n i c a t e .

JPG Magazine is a prime example of how to do things right. 

The magazine takes photo submissions based on themes. Readers of the online version, along with JPG judges, rank the submissions.  If yours is selected, it is included in a hard-copy version of the magazine, and they pay $100.00 USD.   Sweet, ’cause it’s about the fame, not the fortune…

Today, I got my rejection letter from JPG Magazine, and I couldn’t be happier. 

I would have preferred to be selected, but the fact that they sent me a note, explained how popular the submission for this edition were, and how I shouldn’t be discouraged, totally makes my day.

It’s at the heart of what interaction is supposed to be; a series of events that cascade into a relationship.   I’m not pissed that they didn’t pick my photo, not because they’re so darned nice about it, but because they have taken the time to communicate with me, give me context, and invite me to keep at it. 

Simple relationship building.  Think about how you or your company interacts with every person who starts on that series of events that could turn into a cascade and build into a relationship. 

If over 4-thousand people entered your contest (or photo upload or whatever) would you communicate one-on-one with them ?  If you don’t, you’re missing a vital piece of the community/releationship puzzle.

Oh, and by the way, my loser photos are here:

“Vancouver Public Library” (Tourist theme) http://jpgmag.com/photos/14059
“How I Learned To Drive” (Intimate theme) http://jpgmag.com/photos/14091

There’s a great article on Nina G. Jablonski in the International Herald Tribune. She’s written a book called Skin: A Natural History…

But when you really start thinking about it, it’s a factory that produces vitamin D, sweat, hormones, oils, wax, pigments — substances we need. Skin is a raincoat in that it protects us from water, bugs and noxious chemicals. It’s also a billboard which we adorn with powder, tattoos, piercing and scars to give off instant messages about our history, health, values and availability for mating.

We Canadians aren’t known for our extravagant behaviour. Even when we’re loaded with money, we still party like it’s 1954.

Somehow it’s endearing, isn’t it ?

Take for example David Cheriton who became a billionaire after investing in Google. via Canadian Business online…

..his lifestyle hasn’t changed much. He’s lived in the same house since 1981 and he owns two modest vehicles — a 1986 Volkswagen van and a 1993 Honda Accord. Campus parking for the frugal billionaire remains a problem, though: “I still don’t have a permit.”

Despite resisting the temptation to spring for the $75.00 a month parking pass, he recently gave the University of Waterloo a donation of 25-million dollars in Google stock after realizing that “it wasn’t something that was going to land me in the poor house”.

Dave, you’re making us all proud up here, eh.

There’s a lot to be said for e-mail updates, but I’m not sure this is something I’d be signing up for.

Besides increasing my stress level, I figure it gives would-be terrorists an instant feedback loop. I can imagine them competing to see which cell can generate more e-mail alerts…

Via InfoWorld …

The U.K. Security Service, responsible for the country’s counterterrorism efforts, plans to send out e-mail alerts to citizens warning them of changes to the “national threat level,” a measure of the risk of terrorist attacks. It will announce the start date and details of the sign-up process soon, it said Tuesday.

The U.K. government already publishes its assessment of the current terrorist threat level online, rating it as one of five levels: low (an attack is unlikely), moderate, substantial, severe (an attack is highly likely) or critical (an attack is expected imminently).