today about Boingo Wireless, which Glenn Fleishman calls, “Public Space Wi-Fi’s Transforming Event”. Hmmmm.
Fifteen years
ago next week, in September, 1986, I started my university career at McGill University. That was when I first moved to the city I’ve made my home, and became, eventually, one of the most important turning points in my life. Coincidentally, next week I return to McGill, this time to teach a class in the graduate certificate program in e-commerce. I’m teaching one section of the Internet Design and Analysis course (with Ed Bilodeau, who founded the initial version of the course). That means two things: first, it’s kind of cool to be associating myself with McGill in a formal manner again, and second, I’ve been incredibly busy preparing, and falling slightly behind schedule… so this space may be a little sparse in the next while.
I had a rare
opportunity to see Ron Sexsmith last night at the Cabaret, a nice cozy room just down the street from me. It was great to see him live – I missed what has become a legendary show he played about 4 yrs ago at a now-defunct space called Isart. He seemed a little hemmed in by his band – his solo songs were better, and although the band was OK, they seemed to put a box around him a bit more than I would have liked. Probably just a lack of familiarity – the guitar and bass were pretty new. Incidentally, the bassist (Maury LeFoy) used to play in my friend Ian’s band, Starling.
In case it’s not obvious, I (and many others) consider Ron Sexsmith to be among the very best songwriters and performers of the past several years. You could say he’s like the demon spawn of Brian Wilson, Tom Waits (who he covered last night) and Neil Young (maybe), but that wouldn’t be quite right. I can leave his first CD (or his third, for that matter) in my car for weeks and listen to it over and over – it’s never boring. Just in case it wasn’t clear.
New weblogger
Don Melanson pointed me towards Feed’s latest special issue: Video Games 2001, with good articles by Steadman, Hall, Johnson, and more. Carl‘s up to his usual high standard: “But a 3-D shooter mapped into 2-D space also means an end to the paranoia — it’s no longer about what lurks around the next corner or who’s fixin’ to gib you from behind. The game isn’t necessarily easier, but — for me at least — it’s more like playing a game. If 2-D is less visceral, well, I eat enough Xanax as it is.”
All of Feed’s
Who’s Better Results are kept in an archive page. The best? The P-Funk Mothership beat out the Mir space station 54%-46%.
