1. Status Lifestyles
2. Transparency Tyranny
3. Web n+1
4. Trysumers
5. The Global Brain

For a translation of what they mean, check out Trendwatching’s  article here.

…including a sky-diving through-line.

Congrats to ropeadope for going 100% digital. Via Wired News

Ropeadope, a seven-year-strong record label that has released albums from DJ Logic, the Dirty Dozen Brass Band, Medeski, Martin, & Wood, King Britt, Jazzanova, the Skerik’s Syncopated Taint Septet (my guess is that their sound is “neither here nor there”), and more, has announced that it is going 100% pure digital. Every release will be available on ropeadope.com in the MP3 format, as well as the major online music retailers.

Five things you didn’t know about me:

1. I have a fear of enclosed places. Mostly it’s tight constricted places, like the crawl space under my house. This just started about 10 years ago. I make up for it by enjoying things like jumping out of airplanes or riding a snowboard. I know it’s been done, but one day I’d like to jump out of an airplane on a snowboard.
2. At one time I was the personal manager for a recording artist. I ended up paying for things like his over-due rent and flights to industry events. I made no money at all. We once did a cross-Canada tour where the band started out as a Jazz Trio and ended up as a Country Duo. My job was to keep the bar managers from firing the band, mostly because that would mean having to pay for drinks. Thankfully his career fizzled and he ended up playing guitar with a pretend version of a famous Canadian Rock Band from the 60’s and 70’s.
3. Instead of a 20 year long career at CBC I was only supposed to work there for a few months in the summer while I waited to start Law School at the University of Manitoba. I opted to stay at work and gave my law school seat to one of the dozens of people on the waiting list. My friend Andre got me the job at CBC; despite 10 years of working in private radio no-one else at CBC thought I had the right skills to make it.
4. I have a thing for red heads. This is due to my very first love, Bev Roy. She was my girlfriend at Lt. Col. Barker VC Junior High School (I kid you not) and taught me how to really kiss. Bev, along with her long and curly red hair, dumped me for my very best friend. It happened 35 years ago, so I’ve forgiven then both. Well, her anyway. EB, to whom I’ve been married for almost 17 years, is a red head. When I first met her and her long and curly red hair, it was love at first sight, though it took my five years to get her to marry me.
5. I’ve almost drowned 3 different times. Once in the Straight of Georgia when I was in my 20’s. I was saved by the crew of a yacht I had fallen from. (oops). Once in a private pool in Peoria Illinois when I was 7, during a posh party my parent were attending. A large African-American man reached down and pulled me, spluttering, out of the water. And once when I was 3 in Northern Manitoba when I fell into a spring-water flooded rock-pit. I was pulled out by three Husky dogs who grabbed me by my snowsuit and dragged me to safety.

I’m tagging Monique on this one.

oops, too late.

There is an insane amount of fresh snow on Cypress today.  We went up this morning and once you get past the almost white-out conditions, there is powder for days. 

EB and the boys hit the snow-tubing zone while I did some riding.  I really need a big Pow Stick (hint hint) if this keeps up.  It’s so crazy fun it’s hard to describe, and of course I left my camera at home.   Take my word for it. 

Drive carefully if you’re going up. They’re doing a great job on the roads but it is snowing heavily and it’s really hard to see.

Paris Hilton. I never thought I’d type that name here, but I’m always intrigued by what works in the mainstream media.

Sydney Australia media outlets are going nuts over P Hilton. She’s there on a PR junket to promote a beer. Blondes and Beers obviously works just fine down under. via the Sydney Morning Herald…

Estimates put the figure…paid Ms Hilton at $US350,000 ($440,000). But once the cost of putting on the various events, flights, accommodation, security and her entourage is factored in it is likely to be in the region of $1 million…

The media index manager at Media Monitors, Patrick Baume, said the Hilton circus was a media success. “She was basically a visual story,” he said. The story managed 163 press articles, 302 mentions on radio and featured in 2337 TV items, bringing the total cumulative TV audience to 16 million.

So what does this tell us about mainstream media ?

Why you might want to take your cat shopping…

SYDNEY (Reuters) – An Australian bank has apologised for issuing a credit card to a cat after its owner decided to test the bank’s identity security system.
The Bank of Queensland issued a credit card to Messiah the cat when his owner Katherine Campbell applied for a secondary card on her account under its name.

Meanwhile, just send the dog up the street for a little hit… ?

ARMINGTON, Conn. – A Burlington woman has been charged with trying to get painkillers from a drug store by using her dog’s name. She faces more than two dozen charges related to her alleged repeated attempts to fraudulently obtain painkillers at a Farmington pharmacy under her dog’s name.

And finally, starting at $130 US at the Sarasota Ritz-Carlton, a dog massage…

For another $220, the Ritz throws in gourmet dog biscuits, an in-room pet massage, a choice of nail buffing or nail polish, a souvenir photo, a brisk walk over Sarasota’s scenic Ringling Bridge and a gourmet meal of organic stew and designer water served on a silver tray.

Americans spend about $38.4 billion on their pets annually, according to the American Pet Products Manufacturer’s Association. Spending on pets increased an average of $2.3 billion a year since the association started tracking numbers in 1997.

From the Edge, 160 optimistic thoughts for 007.

While conventional wisdom tells us that things are bad and getting worse, scientists and the science-minded among us see good news in the coming years. That’s the bottom line of an outburst of high-powered optimism gathered from the world-class scientists and thinkers who frequent the pages of Edge, in an ongoing conversation among third culture thinkers (i.e., those scientists and other thinkers in the empirical world who, through their work and expository writing, are taking the place of the traditional intellectual in rendering visible the deeper meanings of our lives, redefining who and what we are.)

Ever since we developed the first music sharing sites at CBC six years ago, I’ve been intrigued by how the role of ‘host’ or ‘presenter’ or ‘publisher’ will change over the next decade.

As more tools allow more people to share their muse on an equal footing, the route to fame if not fortune is also bound to change. Its also great to see an established name get in on the act to facilitate, not control, that experience.

That’s what the Saatchi Gallery is doing with their new student art site STUART.

via Technewsworld

Since Stuart (shorthand for ‘student art’) went online last month, some 1,300 students have created Web pages there. No one vets the quality or style of the art. With dealers and collectors scouring student shows for undiscovered talent and students hunting for dealers to represent them, Stuart has tapped a vein that can’t stop gushing.

I ride a 2005 era Nitro Darkhouse board that I bought at SecondWave, but I love my Burton boots and bindings. For my foot shape, the Burton boots fit just right and I’ve never had such a comfortable ride. I’m using Freeride bindings this year and I like them a lot – though Matthew’s been bugging me to try his Flows.

In any case, if you’re a a Burton board fan you might want to check out these nifty new Flash drives. Not sure if you can get them in Canada yet, but I’m sure they’ll show up soon.

Burton SnowDrive USB memory:

ACP-EP Memory has teamed up with the best snowboard companies in the industry to create the first and only authentic USB Flash Drive Snow boards. We’ve combined this innovative design with the graphics from actual Burton Snow boards like their legendary versatile Custom Model and the most technologically refined, all-terrain Vapor Model.

Drives up to 2 gig.

Music industry softens on podcasts via Ars Technica.

Sony BMG has decided to dip its toes into the world of podcasted music with its recent agreement with marketing agency Rock River Communications Inc., making it the first (and only, for the time being) major music label in the US to license music for podcasting.

Now be good.

Work-Life balance has come up a lot  the last while. Apparently, it’s also the #1 New Year resolution for 2007.

Excerpt from the Reuters story:

Striking a better balance between work and play, taking more exercise and avoiding disastrous relationships top resolution lists around the world this New Year.

Global research group ACNielsen surveyed consumers in 46 countries and found from the United States to Vietnam that more than half of those interviewed wanted work to play a lesser role in their lives in 2007

To:
Evan Hansen
Editor in Chief
Wired Magazine
CondeNet, Inc

Re:  Horse Vs. Cart

Sir,

I recently subscribed to Wired.  I’ve yet to receive a copy of the magazine.  This didn’t surprise me much and I wasn’t particularly concerned about it.

However, I recently received an invitation from you to EXTEND my subscription for another year, presumably because I’m so happy with the magazine. 

Hmmmm.  Shouldn’t you get an actual copy of the magazine to me FIRST, then see if I’d like to extend.

As it stands, I’m, um, er, let’s say, I’m reticent to take you up on your offer.

Sincerely,

Robert Ouimet
Wired-less in Vancouver BC Canada

My grandfather used to use something similar to this when he was working in the shop on the farm. Not as fancy mind you. From Grand Illusions

In the Medieval period, artists and scribes often used a metal stylus in order to draw on a specially prepared paper surface. Generally known as Metalpoint, or Silverpoint when the stylus was made of silver, artists such as Leonardo da Vinci, Dürer and Rembrandt all used this technique. www.silverpointweb.com gives a lot of information about how it works.

The pens we sell are a modern version (and do not use silver). The solid metal ‘nib’ consists of a metal alloy, that leaves a mark on most types of paper. If you use the sort of paper typically used in printers and photocopiers, the pen leaves a mark that looks as if it was made by a pencil. However the line will not smudge, and cannot be rubbed out.

Just the kind of thing I’d love to have handy in my Tom Bihn bag, but darn, I didn’t ask for one for Christmas. I think this would make a lovely New Year present though 🙂

And sometimes love hurts.

Matthew and Garnet needed iTunes 7 for their new video iPods – we were running v. 6 on their kitchen computer.

Repeated attempts to get version 7 from Apple failed, we couldn’t get a connection off apple.com. Apparently we were not alone. via ABC news

Frazzled users began posting urgent help messages Monday and Tuesday on Apple’s technical forum for iTunes, complaining they were either not allowed into the store or were told the system couldn’t process their request to download songs and videos.

We kept trying and by late afternoon on Christmas day the boys were happily loading songs from their library onto their new 80 gig vidpods.

The morning was really quiet on Cypress, nothing like last year’s crowds.

Matthew and I found lots of untouched powder off Cat Track, while Garnet worked on his turns.

There’s green and then there’s green. via The Washington Post

In separate challenges this month from the far corners of the United States, environmental groups in Washington state and in Maine are accusing Weyerhaeuser Co. and Plum Creek Timber Co. of using the forest industry’s green-labeling program as a cover while they log in ways that harm endangered spotted owls in Washington and violate forestry laws in Maine.

Meanwhile, car rental agencies in the US at least are making some moves towards greening up their fleets. via US News and World Report:

One of the oldest and largest green car rental companies is EV Rental Cars. Its fleet includes 425 electric, natural gas and hybrid electric cars at eight airport locations: Las Vegas; Los Angeles; Oakland, California; Orange County, California; Phoenix; San Diego; San Francisco and San Jose, California. The company plans to expand its fleet to 1,000 vehicles by the end of 2006.

We rent fairly often, and I’d certainly pick a hybrid if it was an option. One of my local car rental agencies has a couple of Smart cars available, but at a premium price that doesn’t really correlate to either the cost of the car or space is provides.

Back in September of 2005 I wrote about Project Opus.

David Gratton from Project Opus writes:

Hey gang,

Sorry for the mass e-mail, but one of the most influential web service commentators – mashable.com – has nominated Project Opus as the top Social Network: Music Site for 2006.

Whoo Hoo!

Please visit:
http://mashable.com/2006/12/22/music-social-networks/

We would appreciate if you would vote for us in the comments.

Everyone at Project Opus is feeling pretty chuffed about the nod. 
Thanks for the help and support!

Happy Holidays!
David Gratton

Congrats to David and his team – help them out by visiting the mashable link and talking them up.

Naturally – wiikitty.com