Scenes from a Weekend

Why Google’s Verification is a Privacy Fail

Google’s Gmail launched a few years ago, to quite a bit of fanfare. At the time it was definitely the best webmail client out there, though I think that playing field has levelled quite a bit. I’ve got a few Gmail addresses, though none of them are used in any meaningful way anymore. I prefer to keep my email private, and those little contextual ads that pop up started to creep me out, especially when they were combined with Google’s tracking of web activities.

This morning I was going to create a new email address with Google when I was surprised to see, for the first time, a verification box that asked for my phone number:
Given the flack that Google’s taken over privacy violations, it’s interesting that they’re asking for this. The system “verifies” users by asking you to enter an phone number to receive either a voice call or a text message.

This may seem harmless at first glance, but the ramifications are huge and far reaching. This is particularly true given that Google doesn’t make any written commitment that this phone number isn’t being stored permanently (not that I’d believe them if they said they weren’t anyway.) That’s privacy violation number one: it’s highly likely that your phone number is store on a server in the United States if you’re signing up on Google today, even if you live in a country that would prohibit storing that information locally.

Most people have limited numbers of phone numbers—two or three at most. By asking for this information, Google effectively creates a situation where anybody with multiple email addresses can no longer keep them discrete. There are perfectly legitimate reasons to have multiple email addresses—for business purposes, for intimate communication with close friends, for humourous purposes—but the new verification process means that Google has a database which can potentially connect all of these identities together. That’s privacy violation number two.

These two combine into a potentially troubling scenario.

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Wilco! (and Jay Farrar!)

I swear this isn’t a Wilco blog. Really. Since nobody’s going to believe me anyway, why don’t we just move along…

Wilco are coming to Vancouver on February 5th of next year at the Orpheum. I’m not fond of assigned seating venues, and I’ve never seen Wilco indoors so I was a bit worried that I’d wind up with some crappy ticket off in a corner. The band started their pre-sale today, and I somehow—miraculously—managed to grab a pair of third row seats just ten off centre. I don’t know what I did to deserve this, but I’m just going to embrace it.

Next week on Thursday night Jay Farrar is playing the Wild Buffalo in Bellingham and I’m going to head down for it. I love the Buffalo—it’s a beautiful, scenic venue—and I’ve never seen Jay, so I’m looking forward to this one. I definitely fall on the Wilco side of the Uncle Tupelo split, but at least two of the three Son Volt albums Jay’s released have been outstanding, not too mention his One Fast Move or I’m Gone which had a place on my favourite albums list for quite a while.

So, it seems like the perfect time for Jeff Tweedy telling an awkward story about bumping into Jay on the beach in Mexico, long after their acrimonious but unresolved split. Alternatively, the little moment below which is the only time I have ever watched George Strobolopolous I swear!

Jenn Grant: Eye of the Tiger

Not, you know, that I want Sylvester Stallone to make another Rocky movie but if he does, maybe he’s got a theme song here?

I Think That Ghosts Like the Cooler Weather

It’s October, and that always means a melancholy time of year for me. A shift in the soundtrack of life happens as days get shorter, temperatures drop and we spend more time indoors. The music I listen to gets quieter, more contemplative and more inward looking.

Fall is a time for new beginnings for some: kids go back to school and in a lot of houses it’s more like the start of a new year that the actual start of a New Year. New routines get sorted out after the lazy days of summer, and schedules adjust.

For me fall starts at the end of August, when the calendar turns on another arbitrarily selected anniversary in my life. This year I turned 40, which is a fact of some significance to some people. Though I shrugged it off as it happened (amidst a week of vacation with friends, family and more live music than is probably healthy for most people) it’s a fact of significance to me too: the last ten years, in particular, haven’t always been easy or kind but this list year…this last year…this has been the happiest year I can remember. Things are just perfect right now. It was a good time to turn 40.

That vacation included a very short stop in Trenton, Ontario. We were there less ten minutes, but I stopped to visit my grandfather’s grave for only the third time in the 21 years he’s been gone. It’s not the frequency of the visits that counts, but the sentiment right? Maybe.

My grandfather died in the fall. He died late in the night one September 19th a long time ago. It was five days shy of his 74th birthday. It’s one of the reasons fall is always a sad time for me: I remember that day like it was yesterday. I remember the song that was playing in the store when I bought his birthday card; I remember the birthday card; I remember getting the call when I was at work. September’s never a happy time for me. I remember too much.

Today is the birthday of two dear friends: one lives in Ontario and is now married with three kids. No matter how hard I try to focus on the happiness in her life, I can’t help but remember the other. Richard Charteris died a few years ago. He was 49. He’d have been 57 today. Richard was one of my closest friends when I knew him in Toronto. In a moment of serendipity his youngest daughter found me a while ago through a photo I’d taken and got in touch. Knowing that his kids are doing well was nice: they lost their father so young, and so unexpectedly. October’s not a very happy time for me. I remember Richard every year.

Richard and I were close but not alone. We were a rogues gallery when partnered with Al. Al was the oldest of us, but probably had the most energy. That guy could spend a whole day whipping out a brilliant marketing plan, head to the bar for a post work beer, sing a full set of rocking blues with a nine piece backing band and then wake up and do it all again the next day. One day, when I’m 65, I’d like to be half as cool as Al.

He still has more hair on his head than I do too, so there’s that too.

A few days ago—just a few days before this anniversary of Richard’s death—Al sent a mass email out. He’s been diagnosed with what he’s describing as an “aggressive case of prostate cancer.” It was late at night when I got the email. I was shocked: I was also glad he’d told me. He didn’t have too.

I haven’t seen Al in over ten years. It was before I moved to Vancouver. I lived in Charlottetown for a while and he was in Halifax, but we never quite got together. Worse, he was in Whistler at the end of August and bad timing meant we missed each other when I left for Toronto. We overlapped in Toronto on only one day but I had dinner plans with the oldest of old friends and couldn’t see him. It’s been ten years, but I’m going to have to get to Toronto to see the old guy sometime soon. It will happen.

This stuff all happens in the fall, and it sort of sucks. I’m always happy to have it over with, even though in Vancouver it inevitably leads to the grey skies and rain of November. At least my friends aren’t disappearing. This too, shall pass.

It’s time to cue the music now, and it always starts with Hawksley Workman at this time of year. At least the music’s always good.

I think that ghosts like
The cooler weather
When leaves turn colour
They get together
And walk along ways
These old back roads
— Autumn’s Here, Hawksley Workman

Frank Turner at the Biltmore Cabaret

English singer-songwriter-punk-folk-rocker Frank Turner stopped by Vancouver’s legendary Biltmore Cabaret a couple of days ago. It was a Monday night. Vancouver, on a Monday night, is not a place to ply a show: people stay home, they cocoon, they don’t leave the house.

But not this time.
The show sold out about a month before the date. I’d never heard of Frank—a friend (with much better taste in music than mine) urged me to go—and it may be the smartest thing I’ve done this year.

Frank is a live performer like nobody I’ve seen in quite a while. The Biltmore is often filled with crowds of adoring aloof hipsters listening to roots tinged Americana style rock and roll (and yes, I’m more or less one of them.) Every once in a while someone manages to engage that crowd in a short sing along and possibly some witty banter, but for the most part the crowds are pretty…sedate.

Not Frank. Frank did that for almost two full hours. Hands were in the air, songs were sung along too, requests were played and a mini mosh pit formed near the front of the stage.

Sometime through the night I described it as being like seeing Bruce Springsteen before he was The Boss or Bono before he became, you know, Bono. Imagine that with 450 people instead of tens of thousands, and you’ve got an idea of what it was like. I think he’d have kept playing all night if he could have.

Good times indeed. Frank ended his set hanging from the stage singing a killer rendition of Queen’s Somebody to Love. It was a bit of a counterpoint to his own Eulogy, sung earlier in the evening:

Not everyone grows up to be an astronaut
Not everyone was born to be a king
Not everyone can be Freddie Mercury

and a brilliant way to end a night when a whole bunch of people in Vancouver clearly found exactly what they were looking for.

More photos after the break, or on Flickr.

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Wilco: Tiny Desk Concert

NPR’s Tiny Desk Concerts are a treasure and one of the best podcasts online. The gentlemen from Wilco stopped by recently to play a tiny show, and it’s well worth watching. Make sure to check out those tiny drums.

Allen Toussaint & Mavis Staples at the Chan Centre

You know those times you go to a show and you’re not sure who the opening act is? Last night was one of those nights for me.

The opening act for last night’s Mavis Staples show at the Chan Centre was Allen Toussaint and just because I hadn’t heard of him doesn’t mean I didn’t know his work. The prolific composer organized the horns for The Band’s Last Waltz and has worked with just about everybody. An engaging, friendly and upbeat performer Toussaint played a brilliant set of slightly more than an hour.

Mavis Staples took the stage later in the night, after a short intermission. Her joy at being in Vancouver was infectious, and the third song of her set was The Band’s The Weight, a number the Staples Singers sang at that long ago and deservedly legendary Last Waltz. I just about died.

Dan Mangan: Robots (live at CBC)

Robots is not, in my opinion, the strongest song from Mangan’s Nice, Nice, Very Nice honour would go to Fair Verona in the quirky world of my musical taste—but it’s most definitely the most crowd pleasing. Dan played the song in LA at a Canadian Blast Grammy show once and tweeted afterwards that he’d seen Emmylou Harris singing along to the chorus. She’d have to be heartless not too.

Pumpkinfest: West Vancouver

Apparently Pumpkinfest is quite the annual tradition over here in West Vancouver. Who knew? I’m coming up on the first anniversary of living here so I missed this last year.

A Tablet Keyboard for the Blind

Genius.

Steve Jobs: 1955 - 2011

Fifty-six. So young, but yesterday Steve Jobs passed away. At the end of August a few friends and I figured things were pretty dire but I didn’t expect this so soon.

As then, the Internet has been abuzz. I was pedaling across the Lions Gate Bridge when the news broke, and by the time I got home my twitter feed was overwhelmed with the news. I actually walked in to a radio that was on, and it took me about three minutes of listening to Stephen Quinn ‘s interview to figure out what had happened. It was shocking.

So much has been said and will be said over the next few days about this. I ‘m not sure I have much personally to add, so I’ll leave it up to the Onion, who totally nailed the headline on what could have been an awkward moment. I’ve often said I couldn’t imagine Silicon Valley without Steve: now I don’t have too.

Google Interface Design

I’ve written before about the fact that what some people see as Google’s interface design minimalism is I see as poor design but it struck me again today when I was in Google+.

Google+ itself has a very nicely designed Circles interface which was designed by Andy Hertzfeld, a member of the original Macintosh team and one of the finest interface designers in the industry. Andy’s General Magic tablets were ahead of their time, and it’s taken decades to catch up.

There are two main when you post to Google+. The first lets you choose the audience for your post (basically letting you choose which circles or members who will see it.) The second actually publishes your post. These two buttons directly adjacent vertically in the interface: there’s almost no space between them..

The buttons are also both the same colour.
The end result is two buttons that are visually indistinct and so close together that muscle memory alone doesn’t guarantee a correct click.

I’m not sure if someone intended to do this, or if it was just an oversight. it could have happened with two separate teams working in tandem, I suppose. Either way, it seems obvious that different colours should have been used here. I’m surprised it hasn’t been fixed yet.

It’s Civic Election Time: This is Your Candidate

It’s civic election time in Vancouver, a crazy event that happens once every three years. The last three elections have each seen a new Mayor (Campbell, Sullivan and Robertson) with substantial changes at council at the same time.

Perhaps it’s no surprise then that the NPA sees this as an open shot. I’m not so sure: I think Gregor Robertson’s Vision Vancouver team’s popularity is pretty solid, though I do tend to interact with a group whose politics skew in that direction so I’m not sure it’s a fair measure.

More significantly, I think Suzanne Anton’s certifiably crazy. She always rode the NPA coattails onto Council until the last election, when she was the only one who made it (go figure.) She’s sort of a mayoralty candidate by default and not a very good one. I don’t think she has any coattails.

I know of the folks on “her team” as these things tend to be called. Some of them ran in 2002 when I was heavily involved. Dave Pasin? That guy’s not the sharpest pencil in any box you’re going to find. You don’t want him on Park Board, trust me.

George Affleck on the other hand is a very bright guy. A bit self absorbed to be sure, but a bright guy no doubt. The thing is, I sort of expect a level of maturity a little higher than this—sent just after the release of the report on the Stanley Cup Riots—from a candidate for city council:

But there you have it: it’s off to the races, and if that’s the level discourse you’re looking for from council well…I for one expect more from candidates than jokes about a series of riots which have, frankly, damaged this cities reputation much more than some would like to admit.

I live in West Vancouver now, so the politics of Vancouver are over a bridge from me. My interest is a bit more abstract—I still work in the city—but I’m still hoping to see a rational, sensible council elected. It’s good for the region. In the end, I’m expecting Gregor Robertson back as Mayor but I’d be willing to be that the NPA slips two or three more people onto council. Only time will tell.

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