Category: Everything Else

I was lucky enough to get to talk to the delightful Chris Hastings about his webcomic The Adventures of Dr. Mcninja.

An actual panel from the Adventures of Dr. Mcninja issue #11 titled “Punch Dracula.” Art by Chris Hastings.

Dr. McNinja is one of my favourite webcomic addictions reads (thanks, Catherine!). In this podcast, writer and artist Chris Hastings tells us about the good doctor’s origins, offers a peek into the creative process… and, helpfully for our ongoing inquiry into how cartoonists go pro, informs us that most of his revenue comes not from ads (although they’re doing pretty well at the moment) but from Dr. McNinja merchandise.

Alexandra Samuel has chalked up some impressive firsts.

With her husband Rob Cottingham she launched Vancouver’s first social media firm back when Twitter was something birds did, not humans.

More recently, she and Cottingham astounded traditional knowledge-based businesses by giving away the keys to the shop — open sourcing all their trade secrets and lucrative and long-built consulting tools.

And this week Samuel announced she is taking up a post as director of the new Centre for Moving Interaction at Emily Carr University of the Emily Carr University of Art+Design.

I couldn’t be more excited about Alex’s new position (you can read about how excited she is here!) – and not just because it gives me an excuse to stroll around Emily Carr’s fascinating campus more often. This brings together so many strands in Alex’s astonishingly varied skein of skills, knowledge and talents that I can’t wait to see how it unfolds.

since 1999, PM and Brown & Williamson have both worked to disseminate Life Skills Training programs into schools across the country. Why? As part of their effort, the two companies hired a public relations firm to evaluate the program. The evaluation showed that LST was not effective at reducing smoking, after either the first or second year of implementing the program. Despite this, the tobacco companies have continued to eagerly award grants to implement the program.

And it doesn’t hurt, the article adds, that “LST” eschews any criticism of the tobacco industry, unlike most medically-based school health programs.

Every time I’m tempted to think the tobacco industry has thrown in the towel, maybe even decided to turn the page on its sordid and horrific history of fraud and deceit, they pull something like this.

By the way, this comes from a peer-reviewed study by UC San Francisco’s Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education.

MPs from all parties professed to support the idea, including then transport minister Lawrence Cannon.
But behind the scenes, his office was pleading with the airlines to launch a lobby campaign to defeat the motion, according to documents obtained by Canwest News Service.
While Cannon was promising to bring in a travellers’ bill of rights, a key political staffer in his office was telling the airlines the Conservatives really wanted it killed.
Lobby the Liberals and the Bloc Québécois, Paul Fitzgerald e-mailed the airlines. “I don’t want us to be forced into regulating passenger protection issues.”

A jaw-dropper from Paul Willcocks. You could be forgiven for seeing this as the Conservative Party (and their Republican mentors) in microcosm: flannel shirts in public, pinstripes once the cameras turn away.

For the good of cartooning, we’ll take even small victories. And by small, we mean a mere 7 picas wide.

The Washington Post recently shrank Doonesbury to 34 picas wide. (To put that in perspective, that’s just under six inches. Or just over 14 centimetres.)

Now, shrinkage is already a pretty major annoyance in the comic world. But when you’re dealing with a comic as text-intensive as Doonesbury, that can mean outright illegibility.

With the Post, though, something interesting happened. If I’m reading this right, the newspapers comics blogger, Michael Cavna, went to bat for Doonesbury… and lo and behold, the paper restored it to its previous 41-pica width.

I’m used to seeing in-house newspaper bloggers acting in a variety of roles. But this is the first time I’ve seen one act so successfully as a reader advocate within the paper. It’s kind of cool. (Has anyone out there seen other examples?)

Now if we could just get them to shrink a few strips down to zero picas (yes, you, Blondie), we might really be getting somewhere.

Commercial Drive’s Little Nest offers incredible food in a casual setting, catering to families, people watchers and foodies alike

I now have another reason to frequent Vancouver’s Commercial Drive: Little Nest, a neighbourhood restaurant and café serving gourmet food in a casual, family-friendly environment.

Walk into Little Nest and you’ll find families eating together, kids running around, and friends chatting. With its casual retro decor of old wooden tables, chairs scattered about, and wide array of toys and stacks of magazines, it’s not fancy, but it’s comfortable.

And what you’ll find in this casual restaurant is incredible food. Little Nest’s menu is written on two floor-to-ceiling chalkboards and changes regularly based on what’s in season. The restaurant strives to use as many fresh, organic and local ingredients as possible, and quality is king (meaning no frozen or pre-packaged crap).

Fresh from Granville Online’s blog, there’s a rave review about one of our favourite restaurants: Little Nest, just off Commercial Drive. It takes family-friendly to a level that will spoil you for other restaurants, without skimping on a sumptuous brunch menu that never gets old.

A year or two ago, I was there with Alex and the kids, and happened to shoot a few photos of their incredible muffins. At the time, I was pretty happy with the shots – and so, apparently, were the nice folks at Granville, as they asked permission to use one.

Here’s the original of those chocolate-banana-hazelnut muffins (and you can find the others here). If that doesn’t make your mouth water, then friend, you have no taste buds.

As Rupert Murdoch talks about how he wants to cut off Google, while claiming that aggregator sites are “parasites” and “stealing” from him — and that fair use would likely be barred by the courts, it seemed like a good time to examine at least some of the sites that are owned by Rupert Murdoch that appear to aggregate content from other sites and which rely on the very same fair use argument. […]

Well, let’s start with the flagship Wall Street Journal itself. …[O]n the WSJ’s tech news page if you scroll down, you’ll find a bunch of headlines and links to other sources — without permission:

Oops. Looks like the WSJ is “parasiting” and “stealing” according to Murdoch. Perhaps he should cut them of too.

Techdirt does the online world a service by applying Rupert Murdoch’s standards to his own media empire – and the results are pretty damn funny.

The fact that Murdoch’s media outlets employ fair use shouldn’t be a surprise. Even traditional reporters do it pretty much every day – for instance, quoting someone’s speech or something they’ve written. And with hyperlinks and aggregation, the sheer utility becomes overwhelming: “here’s the excerpt I’m quoting, and here’s the original so you can find out more (or make sure I’m not taking it out of context).”

And for anyone who thinks questions of utility shouldn’t enter into the conversation around intellectual property – that this is all about fundamental issues of natural justice – the history of IP law says differently. (Have a look at Lawrence Lessig’s fascinating Free Culture for more on this.)