This Space Intentionally Left Blank: October 2006 Archives

6 Brumaire CCXV (October 27, 2006)

Minor Peronsal Update the Second

Just heard back from a software development job in Fredericton: I am to expect an offer of employment to show up no later than Monday morning for a position commencing Wednesday morning.

It's only a 6-month contract to start with, but I've been told there's a good chance of a permanent position before the contract has expired. The pay's also a bit less than the job offer I turned down in Edmonton, but won't require me to spend an arm and a leg on rent.

Posted by g026r at 15:07 | 0 comments

22 Vendémiaire CCXV (October 13, 2006)

If It's Too Loud…

There are a few constants in Fredericton: summer is too hot and muggy, winter is too cold and windy, it's impossible to get a seat at a pub on Wednesday nights, and the Brunswickan always sucks.

The Brunswickan, for my few readers unfamiliar with it, is the UNB student newspaper. It bills itself as "Canada's oldest student publication", and can be counted on to provide a cheap (read: free) source of packing material but little else of actual worth.

So why pick it up if it's so crap? Well, it became habit during undergrad to grab a copy and read it while you waited for the prof to show up. It's a habit that's continued on since then, as the Bruns can be found everywhere in downtown Fredericton: pubs, corner stores, the local second-hand bookstore, &c..

Now, it may be crap, but there was always an expectation of a certain standard of quality to the crap. On the other hand, a new column has shown up this year called "Grinds My Gears". For the most part, an ignorable rant about whatever is bothering the column's author. (Last week's, for example, was about people who use the words sketchy to refer to someone of a shady or not altogether trustworthy disposition and random to refer to something done without any seeming purpose or reason.) Really, the type of thing you'd expect to find on blogs (this one occasionally included).

This week's, however, is worth mentioning because I started laughing the moment I read it. You can read it too, as I've scanned a copy of it.

While we'll ignore the amusement factor of someone bringing up Led Zeppelin as the bastion of originality in songwriting (Howlin' Wolf, Sonny Boy Williamson, Muddy Waters, and Willie Dixon, among others, would probably like to have a word with you), and move on to the real reason I'm posting this: I'm taking a straw poll. Should I write in an email to the Bruns with text to the effect of "Congratulations are due to Courteney Courier with regards to her latest column, as she's successfully become her parents."?

Yes or no. Yes voters are free to provide alternate wordings.

On a somewhat related note: her complaint about all (popular) music being recycled versions of previous works reminds somewhat me of the origins of the name of the band Pop Will Eat Itself.

Posted by g026r at 13:00 | 1 comment | Most recent by Eddie

16 Vendémiaire CCXV (October 7, 2006)

Science Fiction Double Feature

Believe it or not, this entry was actually stared months ago. (Notice the entry number up at the top? Yeah, I've just royally screwed up the entry numbering.) I'd received a book from Dave a while back, and after having finally read it I felt like posting something about my love/hate relationship with science/speculative fiction. Unfortunately, that entry got very off-track and unwieldy (as this one is likely threatening to do), and I never finished it.

The other day, on the urging of Becca, I read Cory Doctorow's Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town. So, what you get from this entry instead is my review/opinion of it. I've tried to keep it as spoiler-free as possible (although I will refer to things mentioned on the back cover or the first few chapters), but you have been warned.

Continue reading Science Fiction Double Feature

So, first things first: I'm not a huge Doctorow fan. Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom drove me nuts for a number of reasons, the two largest ones being that a) I felt the story seemed subservient to the social ideas he was basing it around, and b) the constant repetition of certain words (I believe "Bitchun" was the main culprit) made me want to scream.

That said, I was more than pleasantly surprised by Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town, which shows a definite improvement over Down and Out. The story is really quite good, and for the most part takes precedence over the social/technological ideas. (Though not always; there's a sub-plot involving free-wireless for a large section of Toronto that occasionally gets bogged down with tedious explanations of Doctorow's beliefs on communication, copyright, and telecommunications. And before I get accused of the fallacy of claiming a character's opinion as the author's: I read Boing Boing, I already knew what Doctorow's opinions on these things were before I picked up the book.)

On the other hand, there are a few things that bothered me. First off was what I saw as constant name-dropping. Items used or consumed by the characters tened to be described with the brand-name or place of origin. While that's fine for something like Birkenstocks, where the name has almost become like Kleenex or Band-Aid — a description of a type of item, not necessarily the specific brand — at other times it just became jarring and off-putting. No one eats a slice of pizza or drinks a beer. Instead, they eat "slices of pizza from Pizzabilities" and drink "a glass of Upper Canada Lager" — things that mean nothing to the average reader, and (in my opinion) is like when you suddenly notice obvious product placement in a movie or television show, in that it distracts from the main action.

The second complaint is the occasional rant. While I've read enough Boing Boing to know that Doctorow can't go more than a short period of time without ranting about something, and he was at least thoughtful enough to have most of the rants come from an appropriate character (an aging punk/anarchist dumpster-diver), there were other times where you came across a rant and then stopped and went "Wait, what did this have to do with the story?".

Case in point: the main character, Alan, meets one of his neighbours and talks to her about her job at a video store. She mentions that the database contains all the rental information, and the main character goes off on a page-long rant about privacy. So, what does this have to do with the story? Not a damn thing. No plot relevance, either past or future, is related to this rant. It's just Doctorow ranting on companies that store more information about you than they need.

So, in summary: ignoring the constant brandname-dropping, the social rants, and the technological explanations of how wireless networks work (which could have probably been shortened a bit), the book is good — quite good, in fact. The story's engaging and interesting, although I felt a bit let down by the end. (Not as much as a by Neal Stephenson book, but that's another rant.)

As a final note, I suppose I should be thankful for small things: he (miraculously) only uses the word "mash-up" once in the entire book.

Posted by g026r at 15:29 | 2 comments | Most recent by g026r

12 Vendémiaire CCXV (October 3, 2006)

Minor Peronsal Update

I just officially turned down a job in Alberta, as I didn't feel it was what I was looking for. Here's hoping that I did the right thing.

Posted by g026r at 14:59 | 0 comments

In Which We Discuss eBay(™, &c.)

Despite being momentarily short-of-cash, I still check eBay from time to time. Not so much to buy anything, but just out of force of habit and curiosity. Logging in earlier today, I noticed a general announcement down at the bottom of the My eBay page that's been a long time coming: "Restricted Use of Private Feedback".

Basically, for those who were unaware, eBay's much vaunted feedback mechanism had an option where you could prevent people from seeing the comments left for you. You still could see what the overall feedback score was, but only by clicking to view the user's profile; otherwise it just showed a score of "private" on any auctions they were participating in (as bidder or seller). The change referenced above is that sellers will no longer be able to have private feedback.

Of course, removing the private feedback option is just good publicity and really doesn't do much. After all, a seller with a feedback rating of private was essentially a giant red "don't buy from this guy" flag. But eBay has to do something, since there are always complaints that their feedback isn't representative (and it isn't, but that's another entry) or as much of the protection against fraud that they like to claim.

However, this is too little, too late. Rather then making feedback private, I'm of the opinion that you'll see more new seller accounts selling stuff. Maybe not many, as I don't know how many sellers with private feedback there are, but some. Of course, the question then becomes: who's going to buy from somebody with 0 feedback? Well, to be honest, it's very easy to gain feedback. Although eBay has explicitly prohibited what they term feedback solicitation^* for some time, there are still always ways. Give me a new eBay account and $1 US, and I guarantee that I could get you 100 feedback within 24 hours.

They didn't always explicitly forbid it. There was a time that a search for "positive feedback" would bring up pages of auctions whose only goods for barter was the feedback to be left once upon completion.

Posted by g026r at 00:40 | 0 comments