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Cory Doctorow at 7:41 am • 
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Now that Toronto's scumbag mayor Rob Ford is out on his ass, the city is celebrating. Here's a countdown calculator that tells you how many more seconds the deplorable oaf has in office before he's banished to the scrapheap of history.
Ford Countdown - Mayor Rob Ford Countdown Clock (Thanks, Dan!)
Cory Doctorow at 8:17 am • •
Toronto mayor Rob Ford is a dick. He rips out bike lanes. Violates municipal conflict of interest rules by participating in votes to censure him for unethical fundraising. Closed a library and threatened others Skips council meetings to coach high school football (to which he diverts city resources), then hijacks a city bus to drive his team around. Calls the cops in a panic when journalists come to his house to ask him questions, and boycotts the most-read paper in the country because of their investigative reporting on him, and freaks out they sent out a reporter to check on reports that he was thinking of annexing some public land near his home.
He's ill-spoken, absurd, and hateful. In short, he is a laughable bumblefuck.
For evidence, I present to you this animated GIF of Mayor Laughable Bumblefuck demonstrating his governance style to the world.
(Thanks to Dave Nickle for fact-checking my ass!)
Cory Doctorow at 9:45 am • •
Craig sez, "The Biblio-Mat is a random book dispenser built by Craig Small for The Monkey's Paw, an idiosyncratic antiquarian bookshop in Toronto. Biblio-Mat books, which vary widely in size and subject matter, cost two dollars. The machine was conceived as an artful alternative to the ubiquitous and often ignored discount sidewalk bin. When a customer puts coins into it, the Biblio-Mat dramatically whirrs and vibrates as the machine is set in motion. The ring of an old telephone bell enhances the thrill when the customer's mystery book is delivered with a satisfying clunk into the receptacle below."
The BIBLIO-MAT (Thanks, Craig!)
Cory Doctorow at 9:09 pm • •
Spotted today at a Toronto restaurant: a great, pro-literacy set of knuckle-tatts.
READ MORE knuckles, Fresh, Crawford Street, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Cory Doctorow at 10:00 am • •
Robin Gross from IP Justice sez, "Public interest groups involved in ICANN will gather for the event, 'ICANN & Internet Governance: Security & Freedom in a Connected World' on Friday 12 October at the Fairmont Royal York Hotel in Toronto, Canada. Sponsored by the Noncommercial Users Constituency (NCUC), the voice of civil society in ICANN, the policy conference will focus on key ICANN policy issues like the need to promote both cyber-security and human rights in the development of global Internet policies. The event kicks-off with a morning address from cyber-security expert Ron Deibert, Director of the Canada Centre for Global Security Studies and The Citizen Lab, an inter-disciplinary research and development hothouse at the University of Toronto. Deibert will address the need to establish a cyber-security strategy for global civil society."
NCUC's policy conference will discuss the promotion of cyber-security and human rights on the Internet, multi-stakeholderism and the role of governments, and key policy issues surrounding new top-level domains such as freedom of expression and intellectual property rights. The conference subtitle "Security & Freedom in a Connected World" recognizes society's shared twin goals of security and freedom, and questions to what extent must society sacrifice one for the other.
Cyber-security expert Ron Deibert from The Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto will address the conference in the morning and ICANN's new CEO Fadi Chehade will deliver welcoming remarks to the group right after lunch. Other confirmed speakers include governmental representatives, members of ICANN's board of directors and senior staff, civil society and Internet business leaders.
NCUC Policy Conference: ICANN & Internet Governance: Security & Freedom in a Connected World
Cory Doctorow at 1:00 pm • •
Earlier this week, I wrote about a custom textbook for a course in art history from prehistory to 1800 that had been assigned to students at the Ontario College of Art and Design at a price of $180, which was to be delivered without any artwork in it, thanks to a dispute over copyright clearances.
After an uproar from students and parents, the school met with students and is revisiting its decision to publish and require this book. Sarah Mulholland from OCAD writes that "Dean Shailer has sent an update letter to students this morning with some very good news as a result of her meeting with the publisher yesterday afternoon, which followed the student forum discussion."
The dean's letter is on the school's website (PDF). Here's an excerpt:
I met later in the afternoon with reps from Pearson – including the President of the Higher Education Division of Pearson Canada, Steve O’Hearn – and from the U of T/OCADU Bookstore, as well as a number of other OCAD U faculty and staff. We laid out the concerns and asked for solutions. Pearson was highly responsive and proposed offering:
• Guaranteed end-of-term buy-back of the custom text (dollar amount to be announced next week); they want to take it out of circulation.
• Provision (free) of print copies of the Stokstad text (which contains the vast majority of missing images) to all students who have purchased the reader, to use as a print-based cross-reference; these would be the relevant volumes of the portable version of Stokstad (much easier to carry) – details on how this will roll out next week.
For next semester (LBST 1B05), we will have two possible scenarios that we’d like to poll students on. In any case there will be NO EMPTY BLOCKS OF WHITE SPACE. And for future offerings (next year and beyond): we will wait until March and further feedback from all of you before making any decisions. We’d like to present all this to interested students as soon as possible and are scheduling a second meeting for next Tuesday afternoon. If you cannot attend, please get in touch and let me know your thoughts.
Here's the notice of the followup meeting.
(Thanks, Sarah!)
Cory Doctorow at 2:56 pm • •
The Martin Howard Typewriter Collection has a new treasure to show off: a Munson typewriter, with horizontal rods that control a hammer that strikes the page from behind:
Munson 1 (Thanks Martin!)The Munson typewriter is a remarkable piece of engineering, with a complex and original mechanical design packed into a small frame. Its inner workings are largely exposed, so the machine comes to life with moving rods and levers when being used.
The Munson does not have type-bars but uses a horizontal type-cylinder (about the size of ones finger) that slides from side-to-side and rotates to have the correct character move into place. Then a hammer strikes the paper from behind, pushing the paper against the ribbon and type-cylinder. Type-cylinders with different fonts were available.
With two shift keys, uppercase and figures, only three rows of keys are required.
The Munson was introduced in 1890 and did quite well on the market; however, today it is hard to find. The Munson became the Chicago in 1898 when the enterprise was bought and the typewriters were manufactured by The Chicago Writing Machine Co.
Cory Doctorow at 3:20 pm • •
The Glenn Gould Variations is a new conference/event in Toronto mounted by the Glenn Gould Foundation Glenn Gould Estate, dedicated to the kind of odd, creative, quirky and thoughtful ideas that Gould was known for. The inaugural event, called "DREAMERS RENEGADES VISIONARIES," will be held in Toronto on Sept 22/23 at the University of Toronto's Convocation Hall. There are over 50 presenters, performers and speakers (including me!), and it promises to be quite an event.
Update: Ron Davis from the Foundation sez, "Dreamers, Renegades, Visionaries: The Glenn Gould Variations is presented by U of T in association with the Glenn Gould Estate. The Foundation is one of several supporters of our event. But the Foundation is independent of it."
Filmmakers, dancers, choreographers, voices, music makers, DJs, visual artists and music producers, mix it up with philosophers, futurists, journalists, media mavens, historians, and provocateurs who defy description!
The "immersive experience" of DREAMERS RENEGADES VISIONARIES: The Glenn Gould Variations is accessible and affordable (a first for Toronto!) for everybody, inspiring and provoking creativity in thought, word and deed with no boundaries…just like Gould himself.
This provocative mix of performance and talk is inspired by Canadian icon and multi-media innovator Glenn Gould, and part of the celebrations marking the 80th year of Gould's birth.
DREAMERS RENEGADES VISIONARIES - The Glenn Gould Variations
(Disclosure: I am a volunteer member of the Glenn Gould Foundation's advisory board)
Cory Doctorow at 12:14 pm • •
Yesterday, I reviewed the new David Byrne book, How Music Works and mentioned that I'd be interviewing Byrne about it live on stage in Toronto on Sept 19, as part of the Harbourfront International Festival of Authors.
The IFA folks have made a pair of tickets for the event available to Boing Boing readers. To win, answer the following question:
What is David Byrne's favourite mode of transportation?
And send us your answer by midnight eastern on September 16 to authorsmedia@harbourfrontcentre.com with the subject line "BYRNE TIX." One winner will be notified September 17.
The event is called "David Byrne and Cory Doctorow: Wassup Internet?!—Music in the Digital Landscape," and it'll be held at 7:30pm on Sept 19 at the Fleck Dance Theatre, 207 Queens Quay West.
Cory Doctorow at 9:00 am • •
Joey sez, "Super Street Fire is a creation of a group at Toronto's Site3 coLaboratory hackerspace that lets two people fight 'Street Fighter II' style, with real punches and real fire. Players stand in a special ring with computer-controlled flamethrowers that simulate thrown fireballs; their punches are detected with motion-sensing gloves. They're going to Burning Man at the end of the month, and they're demonstrating their rig in Toronto this Saturday."
The flame effect heads are propane-fed devices that emit a column of fire, or fireball, high into the air. They also dynamically change the colour of the flame so it’s obvious who dealt the blow and who stood there and took it. Flame effects are expressed as two rails, each comprised of eight computer controlled flame effect heads—one rail for the right hand gestures and one for the left. As well as the two rails between the players, there is an outer ring of sixteen flame effects that are triggered by special player move combinations and also controlled by the Master of Games for crowd engagement. The game system is computer hardware and software with an Arduino microcontroller that interfaces with the flame effect head solenoids to regulate both the intensity and duration of the flame.
Site3 is one of Toronto's more amazing hackspaces, quite an achievement in a city that's blessed with an abundance of such facilities.
Super Street Fire: This Saturday in Toronto! (Thanks, Joey!)
Cory Doctorow at 3:59 pm • •
Dave created a quite fab Super Mario 3-style map for the Toronto subway system. Delighted with the popular interest in the design, he's offered it for sale as a poster.
Toronto TTC Subway/RT Map – Super Mario 3 Style (Thanks, Fipi Lele!)
