Travis Smith: my resume, bio and photos back to the main blog page

Supernatural Collective Nouns: host of angels, tournament of predators, drove of elves

Superb list, and so appropriate for tonight!

posted at 6:10 pm
on Oct. 31, 2009

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Vaccines don’t just save you from dying: Brent Simmons’ recalls his chicken pox

And, he lives the results of it every day.

posted at 5:47 pm
on Oct. 31, 2009

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New city liquor bylaw may limit sale of expensive wines in Vancouver restaurants

Unintended consequences of lame liquor laws.

posted at 5:52 pm
on Oct. 29, 2009

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Storm Brewing in Vancouver

Good beer. Good name.

posted at 5:50 pm
on Oct. 29, 2009

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Review: World’s Largest Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups (Candy Blog)

Remember, it's not the size of the cup.

posted at 4:59 pm
on Oct. 29, 2009

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Epidemic of Fear: How Panicked Parents Skipping Vaccination Shots Endangers Us All

Wired's take on the flu shot "controversy". Money quote: "I used to say that the tide would turn when children started to die. Well, children have started to die."

posted at 3:01 pm
on Oct. 29, 2009

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The French are the most productive people, but work 300 hours less / year than Canadians

They work 1600 hours per year and have 28 days vacation. We work 1900 hours and have 15 days off. Booooo.

posted at 11:27 pm
on Oct. 28, 2009

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Happiness Hat: It Pokes Your Head with a Spike If You’re Not Smiling

Frankly, I think this is a fabulous idea, and I know the first person I'd make wear it. And the second.

posted at 3:28 pm
on Oct. 28, 2009

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Daring U.S. Chamber of Commerce hoax exposes limits of instant journalism

Prankster pulls a coup.

posted at 5:20 pm
on Oct. 27, 2009

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In Bella Coola Valley, “problem bears’ are killed twice as often as hunted bears

In other words, people who kill a bear that's "threatening them" is the leading source of bear deaths.

posted at 12:22 pm
on Oct. 27, 2009

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Can you bring an electric razor on a plane?

Yes. But hilarious answers abound like: "Why do you hate freedom?"

posted at 11:50 pm
on Oct. 25, 2009

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Should petition signers names be kept secret? Anti-gay rights movement says yes

And the U.S. Supreme Court has agreed with them initially -- but I think that's because if they permitted it initially, there wouldn't be any secret left to protect while the court battles were going on.

posted at 10:57 pm
on Oct. 25, 2009

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Surreal music video of Japanese people running at a camera in slow motion

It's so graceful and awful all at once. Watch it, and if you get bored, you MUST watch the 3:50 mark.

posted at 10:33 pm
on Oct. 25, 2009

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VanTrash, a great Web tool for reminders about Trash Day in Vancouver

It uses Open Data in a really cool way. But it needs one thing: a way to get it to show up on your Google calendar. I couldn't figure out how.

posted at 6:13 pm
on Oct. 25, 2009

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A blog about Macintosh specs and transgender transformation

Interspersed posts, about one woman's social and physical process of going from man to woman, plus her full-on Mac geek talk about the newest iMac specs. This is why I love blogs.

posted at 12:17 pm
on Oct. 25, 2009

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Awesome. LIke a hot dog? Like 100 billion hot dogs. (video clip)

Eddie Izzard jokes about the original meaning of awesome.

posted at 11:58 am
on Oct. 25, 2009

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LEGO recreation of Buddhist temple in Kyoto

It unfolds. Pop-up Lego. Really, really neat.

posted at 2:05 pm
on Oct. 22, 2009

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When Parents Are Too Toxic to Tolerate, Sometimes It’s Best to Forgo a Relationship with Them

Sad. Also interesting in the article: "...prolonged stress can kill cells in the hippocampus, a brain area critical for memory. The good news is that adults are able to grow new neurons in this area in the course of normal development."

posted at 10:03 am
on Oct. 20, 2009

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Macintosh indie publication TidBITS reaches issue 1,000

I subscribed to issue #304 in 1994.

posted at 8:39 pm
on Oct. 19, 2009

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MolsonCoors just bought Granville Island Brewing (via @luckyfish)

Andrew Peller (a wine company in Ontario) had purchased Cascadia Brands, which owned GIB, in 2005.

posted at 5:51 pm
on Oct. 19, 2009

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Current price for a 1 bdr condo in downtown Vancouver during the Olympics: $500/night

According to the Vancouver Sun. How much would our place be worth? Worth going on a trip? Maybe.

posted at 12:56 pm
on Oct. 19, 2009

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The Hierarchy Of Digital Distractions

Twitter is highly represented. 😊

posted at 11:44 am
on Oct. 19, 2009

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The Most Useless iPhone App Ever: Knock on Wood

It does beat carrying a piece of wood around with you, though.

posted at 7:04 pm
on Oct. 18, 2009

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Trying to put video on the Web? Here’s how the HTML5 video tag works

In excruciating, but very well-written, detail.

posted at 1:14 pm
on Oct. 16, 2009

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A list of blogs that became books—what’s the earliest?

This page has better info than the page it links to.

posted at 10:01 am
on Oct. 16, 2009

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The Onion makes fun of GOP.com crashing (an ExpressionEngine site)

I wonder what sort of traffic it was getting, and who built it...

posted at 6:31 pm
on Oct. 15, 2009

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BC Budget Visualizations: See how poorly Arts & Culture is being treated

These are some pretty revealing graphs.

posted at 4:55 pm
on Oct. 15, 2009

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Cool example of the all-one-document Web site design method

Raw Canvas is an art space / cafe in Yale Town

posted at 3:23 pm
on Oct. 14, 2009

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Hendrick Kueck interviewed by CBC about iPhone apps

Neat.

posted at 1:31 am
on Oct. 14, 2009

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Burgerville has the Best Fast Food Receipt ever—I love this chain!

Sadly, the nearest one is about 4.5 hours drive away.

posted at 9:16 am
on Oct. 13, 2009

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Obama wins Nobel Peace Prize

It's hard to read this as anything more than a big F-U to President Bush.

posted at 10:48 am
on Oct. 9, 2009

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WSJ excoriates Cash for Clunkers: ‘Fails to Help Economy and Environment’

At the time, I thought this was an extremely efficient, clever and well-managed U.S. Gov't program, and that made me very suspicious of it. Looks like I was right. :")

posted at 4:44 pm
on Oct. 8, 2009

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Is this the tallest dog in the world?

Who cares? (with picture)

posted at 10:10 am
on Oct. 8, 2009

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6 Insane Discoveries That Science Can’t Explain (yes, from Cracked)

The Bloop is #1. Awesome.

posted at 12:59 pm
on Oct. 7, 2009

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7 Secrets Only Two Living People Know (Coke, KFC and Sea Monkeys)

Cracked is like, well, crack, when it comes to getting links from me.

posted at 12:49 pm
on Oct. 7, 2009

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Turn first letter upper case off in text input fields in safari on the iphone

I spent 40 minutes looking for this: It's autocapitalize="off" (and autocorrect="off") when you want to lowercase the first letter of a form field. I hope this saves someone else 40 minutes.

posted at 11:56 am
on Oct. 7, 2009

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See the front door of Hop Studios on Google Street Map Vancouver

Luckily I'm not passed out on the (front) lawn.

posted at 9:13 am
on Oct. 7, 2009

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F.T.C. to Rule Bloggers Must Disclose any Gifts or Pay-for Reviews

I did not get paid to post this. Or the last item. Or the next one.

posted at 3:59 pm
on Oct. 6, 2009

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Regretsy - Making fun of bad Etsy crafts

There's a whole category of Michael Jackson stuff, and another of vaginas.

posted at 10:32 pm
on Oct. 5, 2009

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Bell, Telus may launch iPhone in Canada in November (Globe and Mail)

"Neither Bell nor Telus would confirm that they would add the iPhone to their lineups. Apple also declined to comment. But people familiar with the matter said the two carriers would announce a working partnership with Apple as early as Tuesday or Wednesday and begin selling the device in time for the launch of their new network."

posted at 6:13 pm
on Oct. 5, 2009

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Brightkite (location sharing service) is rolling out big new changes today

And so is down. sigh.

posted at 5:09 pm
on Oct. 5, 2009

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2000 people walked Invisible Dogs in New York this weekend

This stunt went far better than the "Invisible Tiger" debacle of 2007.

posted at 11:29 am
on Oct. 5, 2009

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Please, help me win movie tickets with Muhammad Ali in person, just by commenting on this photo

Just tell me if you like the photo. 😊

posted at 1:30 am
on Oct. 1, 2009

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Overheard

“The sad truth is that most evil is done by people who never make up their minds to be good or evil.”

...who said it?

“Almost every American I know does trade large portions of his life for entertainment, hour by weeknight hour, binge by Saturday binge, Facebook check by Facebook check. I’m one of them. In the course of writing this I’ve watched all 13 episodes of House of Cards and who knows how many more West Wing episodes, and I’ve spent any number of blurred hours falling down internet rabbit holes. All instead of reading, or writing, or working, or spending real time with people I love.”

...who said it?

“Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones.”

...who said it?

“I play with variables constantly.”

...who said it?

“Only the person who has learned Continual Love coming from a heart of Gratitude/Worship can effectively deal with the problem of loneliness.”

...who said it?

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