There's now a public preview of my new Aspire "life-goals and long term planning" software for Mac OS X Leopard available at unifiq.com.
And as always, right on time (i.e. almost exactly two months after the original guess for when the 1.0 would ship). :-)
Via Small Business Labs, a summary of a survey of Cleveland area home based businesses.
Interesting Macleans article entitled Living on less. It talks about the current economic meltdown bringing on a (forced) change to many peoples' over-reaching and excessive lifestyles. Which for some people and their expectations, I can definitely see being a very good thing.
Adam Radwanski had a good article in today's Globe and Mail about the extreme partisanship that we've so nicely adopted in Canadian politics in recent years. Even had a scan of the comments and they weren't so bad for a change.
This past election was a disappointment on so many levels, though the results were pretty much as I'd expected, so no great shock. I think that's all I'll have to say on this for a while...
And let's hear it for the internet which continues to pit Canadian against Canadian from coast to coast. Yes, it's sure helped keep those lines of "communication" open.
I had a chance to read William Marsden's Stupid to the Last Drop (subtitle "How Alberta is Bringing Environmental Armageddon to Canada (and Doesn't Seem to Care)"). As you'd imagine from the title, it's a polemic directed at the oil industry and particularly the "support" it receives from the Alberta government.
The general message is not new or shocking (well, except to the people who've been trained to react to any possible criticism of the oil industry with "damn you Eastern bastards, it's our oil and you can't tell us what to do! We remember the NEP!"). The less known details of particular policies or events though can be truly horrifying, and bundling them together just magnifies that.
Of course, it's not like we're short of other examples of governments acting on behalf of industry groups instead of the people it's supposed to represent. And the people cheering that the government is doing a fantastic job. Will omit practically obligatory reference to current federal election campaign.
I'm starting to seed a beta of the 'goals' application - which has been named Aspire - to a few people. If you'd like to help out, please see this beta information page.
When I see articles like this, I really have to shake my head and remember what year it is. Sheesh.
My morning entertainment came from Merlin Mann, who runs the high temple of productivity porn, providing a reality check to many of his readers who thought that focusing exclusively on productivity is what will make them truly productive. Of course, pick any topic and you'll find some group of pathological fetishists who will pursue it to extremes. But seriously, kudos to Merlin, and thanks to jcw for the pointer.
Might not be such a bad idea given this.
(Excuse the diversion into Canadian politics...)
So first the conservative govenment who called four by-elections (including here in Guelph) cancels them the day before by calling a general election... I'm sure not at all because the polls showed they were going to lose all of them. Oh yeah, and after making a big deal out of passing a law to prevent the prime minister from being able to call early elections.
Then, the broadcast consortium that hosts the debates (main public event of the campaign) decides to exclude Elizabeth May of the Green Party, a party that gets a modest but significant portion of the vote, and run candidates in most every riding in the country. Why? They asked the other parties if they'd want her in, and they said they wouldn't show up if she was in. Well, Harper and Layton for sure said that.
The Greens take voters from all the different parties, so big fucking surprise the other parties don't want them in. So that is a sensible basis for a decision to exclude her? Yikes.
What I really want to see is the media and everyone else crucify those parties that prevented a legitimate opponent (that most citizens wanted to see there) from participating in a debate. They should be embarrassed by that.
There's nobody out there that has really done the job of holding Harper to anything his government has done (accountability? transparency?) so I don't see that starting now.
And the broadcast consortium should get their ass kicked too... though by making clear their reasons in their press release, they may well have done this as a deliberate attack on the existing parties. Still, not impressed.
But realistically, the choices of main leaders offered to the electorate are so mind-numbingly weak and uninspired, it's hard to fault public apathy and the resulting low interest and voter turnout.
You can't help but think of the too-many-eyed fish found downstream from the nuclear plant on the Simpsons when you see a story like this. The oilsands carry with them a huge cost that right now isn't being paid, but that people are becoming increasingly aware of. Sorry Alberta, but things like that and the dying birds from a few months back aren't about to be erased by a government-run PR campaign.
That widespread stigma about mental illness continues to exist is not exactly news. Still, some of the stats from this CMA survey are a fair bit on the surprising side.
Despite the scarcity of posts here, I've still actually been working lately, albeit with the usual distractions (mostly positive) that come with summer. CourseForum and ProjectForum development has been slow; mostly tackling some longstanding and annoying bugs, and also doing some painful infrastructure changes in terms of the WYSIWYG editor. But I've continued to enjoy working with existing and new customers alike.
The 'goals' application is progressing well on a number of fronts... behind my earlier imagined schedule mind you. There's a few more things I want to get in place and then put it through a private beta release process. While I don't think this is something that will change the world, I'm hoping that by taking things in a somewhat different (but complementary) direction it will at least generate some good interest.
A good reminder over on Small Business Labs that business growth is a consciously foreign concept to most people running small businesses.
With the long-expected federal by-election in Guelph (and two Quebec ridings) finally being called, the election signs are already sprouting up. This should be an entertaining few weeks as the various national party leaders and other party 'celebrities' make stops here. It'll be nice to know how much they care about our local issues... I'm sure if it were a general election and not a by-election we'd see them all out here in equal force. Ok, no cynicism here.
Matthew Hayday over at the U of G has pretty much sketched out the current landscape. Vote splitting on the left here is going to be very significant, no doubt about it, with strong candidates all around, and Guelph being one of the top ridings nationally for the Greens.
Okay, I don't really consider the Greens to be left or right, but aside from perhaps stealing the more small business oriented conservative votes, they'll steal more from the Liberals and NDP. The Green party just doesn't resonate as well with all the suburbanites in the rat race that the conservatives love to target. Well, unless the kids of those voters are as good at nagging their parents about politics as they are about buying them the latest toy, gadget or clothes. No matter how much I'd love to see the first Green parliamentarian in Canada elected in Guelph, I wouldn't be placing any bets there.
The issue of Conservative HQ yanking Brent Barr for Gloria Kovach (who besides her role as city councillor also works as a nurse manager at Homewood in Pauline's division, so I'll be nice) will probably remain the main bit of controversy, especially if the closely guarded details surrounding that 'event' ever do get out.
Of course, with a good portion of Guelph more sensibly occupying themselves with Hillside, hopefully the full court press politics won't start for another couple of days.
