The best thing about writing by fans is that it really matters to them: nobody wants to read a measured assessment of life on the road with the Rolling Stones. Fans must be capable of hating people who don't agree with them – they have to have the mentality of a teenager, in other words, as well as the acquisitive beakiness of the train-spotter. But despite occasional enjoyment of one another's company, fans never really get on, and that's because it's in the fan's essential make-up to imagine that they are The Only One.
– “Cartwheels over Broken Glass”, Reviews of two books on Morrissey, London Review of Books, March 3, 2004
Month: March 2004
The True North, Strong and Funny
Comscore/Media Metrix is reporting today that Canadian Web surfers hang out more often at humour Web sites than Americans do. No idea why that would be but Comscore, which tracks online audiences in roughly the same that Nielsen's tracks TV viewers, says that one in three Canadian Web surfers visited a humour site in January while just one in five American Web surfers went to the Web for a laugh.
The kind of sites surfers in both countries preferred to hang out at was also different. Here's the top 3 for Canada:
And here's the top 3 for American surfers:
CTV cameraman makes headlines in Delaware!
CTV cameraman Lucien Millette accompanied me to Wilmington, Delaware last week to cover the Conrad Black trial. Turns out Lucien made almost as much news as I did for his run-in with some excitable security guards at the hotel that Black was staying at. There's a full report on Lucien's adventures in Wilmington here.
What's not very funny is how anyone with an ounce of authority in the U.S. — from customs officers to bouncers at nightclubs — is using the War on Terror (TM) as an excuse for arbitrary and silly invasions of privacy.
Canadian wireless network service providers announced roaming agreement
A conference is underway in Toronto this week called Wi-Fi Power Lots of companies in the Wi-Fi ecosystem, for lack of a better term, are participating in the event and many issued some announcements today about new services, partnerships and so on.
What follows below, though, is the release that caught my eye today — it's about a
national roaming agreement standard — and I'm curious to know if similar agreements have been reached in the U.S., Asia, or Europe.
From the press release:
——————————-
Canadian Wireless Industry Announces Wi-Fi(R) Roaming Agreement
Inter-carrier agreement creates common brand and allows for roaming between
Wi-Fi hotspots in CanadaOTTAWA, March 1 /CNW/ – Canada's national wireless carriers today announced they have signed an inter-carrier agreement that establishes common standards for roaming and interoperability of the public Wi-Fi(R) hotspots they operate. In addition, the carriers have joined together to create a common brand identifier for Wi-Fi hotspots in Canada. Today's announcement
by Bell Mobility, Microcell Solutions (Fido(R)), Rogers AT&T Wireless and TELUS Mobility serves as confirmation of the carriers' commitment to develop Wi-Fi in Canada.
Under the terms of the agreement, all public commercial hotspots operated by the carriers, and any other Canadian operator or hotspot owner who meets the minimum requirements and chooses to join the roaming alliance, will be
branded consistently with the common hotspot identifier location with the hotspot identifier, they can expect to be presented with an identical, browser-based login area, ensuring a simple, consistent and secure experience in all locations .. .
[Full press release]
Western Standard signs up Mark Steyn
[The following is pretty much lifted from a press Press release but I've marked it up with some links.]
Canada's favourite columnist joins new Western-based magazine
CALGARY, March 1 /CNW/ – Mark Steyn, the popular columnist who was a reader favourite at the National Post and ranks as one of the most in-demand writers in the world, will be writing for Canadians once again, in the page
of the Western Standard magazine which rolls off the presses on March 12th.
Canadians who have come to love Steyn, who writes regularly for such
publications as the New York Sun, the Daily Telegraph of London, the
Jerusalem Post and National Review, know that his columns alone are worth
the price of a subscription, notes Ezra Levant, the Western Standard's
publisher.
“Mark Steyn's writing is admired around the world, but now he is coming
back to his native land,” says Levant. “The Western Standard is a Canadian
publication that is a good fit with his unique perspective on Canada and the
world.”
Steyn will be joining a team of pundits that consist of Canada's most
exciting columnists, including Ted Byfield, David Warren, Michael Coren,
Karen Selick and David Frum . . .
[Read the full release]
Study: Spam is made in America
Most of the world's spam comes the U.S., ZDNet UK reports.
The U.S. is number one with nearly 57 per cent of all spam originating
there, says Sophos, a U.K. anti-virus company. Canada is number two, though,
when it comes to spam country of origin. Mind you, Canada has long way to go
before it is as notorious as the U.S. for spam. The report says Canadian
spammers account for less than 7 per cent of the world's unwanted
unsolicited mail.