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Kelly Robinson: “Ancestor of Today” 26 Aug 2013 | 04:24 am
Most of the Northwest Coast art in my townhouse is in the formline style favored by the Northern First Nations in British Columbia. However, I am always willing to learn more about other coastal tradi...
Goblin market / Farmers’ market 25 Aug 2013 | 05:34 am
The idea of the goblin market haunts me. Whether in the form of Christina Rossetti’s poem or the faery market in Neil Gaiman’s Sandman, it seems to me a place where anything can be found among its mot...
Rights vs. Utilitarianism 19 Aug 2013 | 07:48 am
I consider myself pro-feminist. I was one of the first professional journalists to talk about sexism in free software, and I make a point of mentioning newsworthy women whenever possible. However, my ...
Blind assessment 14 Aug 2013 | 06:41 am
When I was a teaching assistant and sessional instructor, I spent a lot of time worrying about fairness in my marking. I didn’t have much problem at the start of a semester, because I hadn’t put names...
“You’ve just proved advertising works” 5 Aug 2013 | 02:58 am
Whenever business is slow, the local businesses who rent out benches post ads that read something like, “You’ve just proved advertising works,” with their contact information below. The ads never fail...
Review: Salmon’n'Bannock restaurant 29 Jul 2013 | 11:16 pm
Last week at the Vancouver Folk Festival, my dinner was pulled bison on bannock from Salmon’n'Bannock catering. The meal was so far above what I expected that yesterday, when my editor flew into town,...
Postured outrage 20 Jul 2013 | 12:45 am
Early this week, developer Sarah Sharp complained about lack of politeness on the Linux kernel mailing list, singling out Linus Torvalds as a prime example of rudeness. Having not persuaded many peopl...
Hearing poetry 15 Jul 2013 | 04:14 am
My late friend Paul Edwin Zimmer used to insist that poetry was supposed to be heard. He proved it many times, booming out his verse at bardic circles around the Bay Area and science fiction conventio...
Slashdotted, again 11 Jul 2013 | 08:26 am
This morning, I booted my computer to learn than an article of mine had reached Slashdot. It wasn’t the first time, nor even twentieth. All the same, the news made me feel that the engines of the worl...
The promise of Pong 2 Jul 2013 | 08:40 am
The first time I saw Pong, I knew that massive change was coming – and that I would spend my life against the background of that change. I was a high school junior at the time. I was in Yakima, Washi...
