SovietCanuckistan

I acquired Eloquence a little while ago but have been so busy I only got around to seriously fiddling with it a couple of days ago. I fired it up in Ableton, created another MIDI track and plopped Massive into it, and then was immediately stumped on how to get them hooked up. It's quite possible, just very subtle. This post is for others googling around looking for a straight-forward explanation.

I can't help but equate the dichotomy of Big Biz Liberals vs. Big Union NDP pinkos as a kind of gang turf warfare. You know, like Biggy vs. Tupac or something.

Here's a fact about BC, or any other Province in Canada: massive amounts of Gov't revenue goes to pay unionized Gov't employees. This means you have one of two scenarios when a Public Employees Union goes to negotiate a contract:

I'm a musician, and I say that because I have been a musician longer than I have been anything else, and I think on balance I've spent more time learning to play instruments, playing and creating music than I have any other single thing. Web programming is starting to edge up there, and I don't spend as much time on music anymore. I view this as a problem I need to solve, not a predictable trend in life patterns after 30, thanks! =)

I just got a message on Facebook from Ray Lam, the NDP candidate for Gregor's old seat in vancouver-Fairview. Ray seems like a nice guy, but my political views don't mesh well with the BC NDP party particularly well. I wrote this reply to him, and have decided to publish this as an open letter to any NDP candidate:

Hi Ray,

My priorities are electoral reform, and I strongly support a Ward system in Vancouver as well as the BC STV proposal. Do you?

Maciej Cegłowski ( the erudite writer / painter / web hacker behind my favorite blog ever, 'idle words' ) made this cute site called 'The Wrong Tomorrow' where he posts predictions by pundits and tracks when, er, if they are wrong:

http://wrongtomorrow.com/

Should be fun to track as time goes on; I note with some glee that Scoble is the first failure. Mind you, Scoble was hardle making predictions about economic recovery, was he?

About 23 years ago, in 1986, I feel in love with two series of comics that came through comic shops in Vancouver. Although I was living in Prince George at the time, I was able to get ahold of all 4 issues of Frank Miller's 'The Dark Knight Returns' and all 12 issues of Alan Moore and Dave Gibbon's 'The Watchmen'.

So I have chips missing from the edge near the mouse pad, and as I have AppleCare coverage I can get this fixed for free. I took it into Mac Station and they said the following:

• they need my macBook to order the part, because
• they need to order the part from Apple

I recently ran across some nice data on how BC voting form the last election would look like with the new riding boundaries that will be used in this year's election. If you munge the data a bit ( with a few lines of Python included in the attached zip file ) you get some interesting conclusions IMO about the effect of vote splitting on who gets to form the government in BC:

On Friday morning I was most of the way down the block walking to the bus stop when I slipped on a patch of what looked like wet concrete and fell. Amongst other things, my right leg went out at an awkward angle and I felt my knee joint pop out oh-so-briefly and then back in again. Oh, the PAIN; I almost passed out from it. The lucky thing was I was not that far from home, so I got back up, called Sandie, and tried to figure out if I could walk.

That's what the last couple of weeks in Canadian Politics has been for me. Basically, every single person involved did quite likely the *wrong* thing:

A couple of months ago, I wrote that I expected 'effectively no movement' in the election results, and ( depressingly ) it looks like I was right. Harper is still PM, sure, but without a majority, and in particular without convincing more even 40% of Canadians to vote for him. A few more interesting bullet points I've gleaned so far:

My favoritist audio software company in the world is Audio Damage, and in just two more days they're releasing Rough Rider, a free compressor plugin that I KNOW will be cool and occupying many computing cycles on my computers. I love these guys so much, I own almost everything they've ever done. =)

A couple of years ago ( during the last BC Election ) a majority of voters ( but not quite enough ) voted in favor of an electoral reform package called STV or Single Transferal Vote. STV came close enough to being voted in that we're going to get another crack at it next year n the 2009 Provincial election. STV seems like a somewhat complicated proposal at first read, but I am convinced that it is a much better system than the 'first past the post' system we have now.

This fall Vancouverites will vote in a federal election and then a civic election, all the while watching nervously as the hurricane-force spin of the American Presidential election comes to a close. These three different polls are all very different in terms of size and issues and length ( the Canadian Federal vote being by far the shortest ) but also the style in which the contestants have been able to conduct their campaigns.

Today the Vision, COPE and Green municipal parties announced an agreement on co-operating with nomination votes:

"(VANCOUVER) The COPE and Vision executives are announcing a tentative agreement for cooperation for the 2008 election. Both organizations feel that the agreement is an important step to create the kind of campaign that can return progressive government to city hall." ( www.francesbula.com )