In 10 days my town starts a trial that converts part of the Burrard Bridge into dedicated bike lanes. Of course the merchants nearby are whining…still. They need to get over it.

But this is the real solution: go Gregor!

When he was elected, I said I wanted to see a commitment for this. He’s suggesting a referendum which is, frankly, a cop out. Council needs to have the strength and commitment to see this through, regardless of the cost. It’s part of building the Vancouver of the future.

It seems like the City of Vancouver might finally get curbside composting. It’s about time, really. Toronto’s had this for about three years, and it’s a huge step in reducing garbage in landfills. I compost already, but too many people don’t…even when it’s easy.

One potential problem is the number of condominiums in Vancouver, and the private pickup requirements. By some estimates more than half of Vancouver residents live in condos, and these condos have private pickup. The end result may be a curbside composting that serves only homeowners, most of whom should be composting in their backyards already.

It’s better than nothing though.

3:47 seconds in, and history is made.

Human stories like this are a reminder of the endless creativity of human beings, and why the New York Times is the world’s best local paper. You can be guaranteed that if someone tried this in Vancouver, they’d be shut down and probably arrested on the second night.

‘West Side Story’ Amid the Laundry
By PENELOPE GREEN for The New York Times, Published: June 24, 2009

JUST after 9 p.m. on June 17, the third installment of the High Line Park Renegade Cabaret was held on Patty Heffley’s fourth-floor fire escape. There were colored lanterns, and a festive array of undergarments hung from the railings.

Ms. Heffley, 55, a former punk rock photographer, had staged a laundry “installation,” as she put it, to bolster the live performance she was hosting. Elizabeth Soychak, a jazz singer and professional organizer who gives her age as “permanently 39,” wore a 1950s moss green chiffon dress and waited while Ms. Heffley, in black, introduced her.

“This is in response to 31 years of obscurity,” Ms. Heffley announced from the fire escape. “Now, every day there are thousands of people looking in my window. We’re not here to celebrate, we’re here to exploit. Welcome to the Renegade Cabaret.” Then Ms. Soychak launched into an a cappella rendition of Johnny Mercer’s “Early Autumn.”

Early attempts at colour photography, preserved by Kodak as part of the George Eastman Collection. On the day of Kodachrome’s demise, it’s important to remember that technology makes it much easier to share these with the world.

While I love Wimbledon’s traditionalism, the sport of Tennis does need to grow up a bit.

New Wimbledon roof sparks worries about loud grunts
Kathryn Blaze Carlson, National Post, Monday, June 22, 2009

A new retractable roof over Wimbledon’s Centre Court may stave off rain delays, but some fear it will wreak havoc of another sort: the amplification of tennis grunts which, even without the help of an echo-inducing medium, sound like epic battle cries.

Grunting, long a part of an otherwise prim and proper tournament, has only become controversial as of late, with 16-year-old Michelle Larcher de Brito facing accusations that her gutteral cries might actually be a strategic way of distracting her opponent.

Grunting isn’t a new controversy at all in tennis. It’s typically an involuntary reaction to athletic exertion, and the rules that discourage women from grunting while saying nothing about men are nothing less then sexist. Women’s professional tennis has been getting increasingly athletic over the years, and treating it any differently than the men’s game shows a lack of respect.

It’s finally happened. Last year it was speculation but Kodachrome is now going out of production.

It was always weird film, wonderful and fine grained but it required a dedicated processing lab, not the “standard” E-6 slide processing that was much more readily available. Kodak is still making slide film, as is Fuji…but the loss of Kodachrome is a blow to those of us who still like film nonetheless.

I bought film today: 10 more rolls to last a while longer. It may be the last batch, but I’m not sure. Although my cost has gone up quite a bit, it’s still cheaper than a Canon 5D.

Expect to hear a lot of Paul Simon lyrics quoted.

If you took all the girls I knew
When I was single
And brought them all together for one night
I know theyd never match
My sweet imagination
And everything looks worse in black and white

Kodachrome
They give us those nice bright colors
They give us the greens of summers
Makes you think all the worlds a sunny day, oh yeah
I got a nikon camera
I love to take a photograph
So mama dont take my kodachrome away

Frankly, if Ferrari and McLaren stick to their guns on this they will win. That’s where the dedicated fan base is.

Formula One in Turmoil as 8 Teams Break Away
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS, Published: June 19, 2009

SILVERSTONE, England (AP) — Ferrari, McLaren and six other teams have announced plans for a rival series to Formula One in 2010 after the collapse of heated negotiations with F1 organizers over a budget cap for next season.

Ferrari, which has participated since the inaugural championship in 1950, and current championship leader Brawn GP were among the members of the Formula One Teams Association which announced the split Friday, ahead of Sunday’s British Grand Prix.

Sent by a friend, who was hiking on Half Dome at the time.

Yosemite hiker dies in fall from Half Dome
Jaxon Van Derbeken, Chronicle Staff Writer, Sunday, June 14, 2009

As many as 30 horrified onlookers saw a male hiker plunge hundreds of feet to his death Saturday as he was climbing Yosemite’s world-famous Half Dome, park rangers said.

The man, who was not identified pending notification of relatives, fell at 3:40 p.m. as he climbed the granite edifice in the midst of a hail storm. The hiker fell to a shoulder of the dome about 1,800 feet from the top.

It’s called being a person not a politician, and the Democrats probably just got two votes for life.

I can’t help but think that Stephen Harper’s response to the father’s comment in that video would have been to criticize him for not having his daughter in school.

Even the National Post thinks the Conservatives are dead.

Healthcare is always the top polling issue in elections. Well, it’s always one of the top three. Healthcare and the Economy (otherwise known as jobs usually flip the top two positions.) This will kill the already dead Harper government at the next election.

Canada was relatively self sufficient, and a significant player in the world market for medical isotopes. The Harper government has just killed it, and abandoned our health care security in the process (not too mention increased costs over the long term, in all likelihood.)

Canada to get out of isotopes game: Harper
David Akin, Canwest News Service, Published: Wednesday, June 10, 2009

OTTAWA — Prime Minister Stephen Harper says Canada plans to leave the production of medical isotopes to other countries — despite the fact that for a time last year, this country was producing nearly all such isotopes in the world.

The emphasis below is mine:

Bachelorette’s influence felt across Vancouver after episode filmed here
BY JEFF LEE, VANCOUVER SUNJUNE 9, 2009

VANCOUVER - Less than 24 hours after the latest episode aired involving Vancouver’s Bachelorette Jillian Harris, the city no longer seems the same.

Really?

Yesterday’s article on the topic was good too, stating that:

Filmed in April, the weather looked a tad grim when Jillian hit the water with Kiptyn for a hot “Vancouver-style” date of kayaking from False Creek to Granville Island.

Of course Granville Island is on False Creek but I guess I can’t expect every Vancouver Sun journalist to know that.

Shell has settled a lawsuit in the death of Ken Saro-Wiwa, issuing the standard claim that the settlement is not an admission of guilt and claiming that it had no role in Saro-Wiwa’s death.

Nonsense. Just nonsense.

Shell to Pay $15.5 Million to Settle Nigerian Case
By JAD MOUAWAD, Published: June 8, 2009

The announcement caps a protracted legal battle that began shortly after the death of the Nigerian activist Ken Saro-Wiwa in 1995. Mr. Saro-Wiwa, Shell’s most prominent critic at the time in Nigeria, was hanged by that country’s military regime after protesting the company’s environmental practices in the oil-rich delta, especially in his native Ogoni region.

Shell continued Monday to deny any role in the death. It called the settlement a “humanitarian gesture” meant to compensate the plaintiffs, including Mr. Saro-Wiwa’s family, for their loss and to cover a portion of their legal fees and costs. Some of the money will go into an educational and social trust fund intended to benefit the Ogoni people.

His jaw’s been broken
His bandage is wrapped too tight
His fangs have been pulled
And I really want to see you tonight

Jay Bennett was famously ejected from Wilco shortly after the completion of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. The events of that recording were filmed in I Am Trying to Break Your Heart, which remains one of the finest musical documentaries ever filmed.

Jay was also an immensely talented musician. His last solo album was called whatever happened i apologize was released on Rock Proper as a free download. It was deeply personal, and quite wonderful to listen too. I was hoping for a solo tour.

It seems that won’t happen. Jay passed away in his sleep on the weekend. Aquarium Drunkard a post on the subject, and has offered up the Yankee Hotel Foxtrot demos again.

Apple shipped a single button mouse for years. I loved that mouse, and it’s replacement with the so called Mighty Mouse has been hard for me.

There’s a simple reason one button mice are nice: they force interaction designers to truly think about menu structures. Microsoft’s original two button mouse has blossomed into a mouse of many buttons, but a minimum of three. The right mouse button is, in the world of Windows, is responsible for contextual menus. The idea is sound: right click on an item and get a list of options specific to that item. The reality is different. Not only do a surprising number of people not understand the difference between Click and Right Click, contextual menus have also made interface designers lazy, with functionality being shoved into invisble menus.

I thought Microsoft’s own Office Suite was amongst the worst offenders…until I had to use a Blackberry Enterprise Server.

The Blackberry server administers all of your Blackberry users. The screen shot below shows the list of users, and in it I’ve right clicked on a user, and was presented with the, frankly, shocking list of options seen below that.

By my count there are 35 different options on that menu, not all of which are even clearly linked to a single user. With no hierarchy (aside from the occasional line break) and nothing to guide the eye, the menu is virtually useless. The use of technical terms in the menu (good examples include Peer-to-Peer Key and Configuration Check Status) makes it hoplessly confusing if you’re not intimately familiar with the functions. Items aren’t seemingly grouped by function, with Statistics Exporting sharing space with Purge Pending Data Packets.

As an example of how not to design a menu, you couldn’t dream of a better one. As an example of why hiding things behind a Right Click is a bad idea, I’ve never seen better either.

I hate my right mouse button, but I seem to be stuck with it…for now.

Dollhouse has been renewed, which is good news but it doesn’t make up for the cancellation of Firefly..

According to the Guardian, Serenity, Firefly’s theatrical offspring, might even be better than Star Wars.

bq, Firefly won almost as many awards as it had episodes aired, sold DVDs by the shipload and ended up on the big screen in the form of 2005’s possibly-better-than-Star-Wars Serenity.

I’m not going to disagree with that statement…with the possible exception of Boba Fett.

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