Google maps rant

While preparing for my European trip, I was using Google maps a lot. Naturally, I wanted to save the maps I created, to return to them later. And that’s where my problems started.

Now don’t get me wrong. I love Google suite of tools. They are extremely useful, usable and intuitive. I would not be able to function without Google calendar (and I totally love its easy integration with event organizing tools like Eventbrite). My business e-mail runs on Gmail. My business website is on Blogspot platform. I use Google analytics. And I am not paying a cent for all that. (I would have a hard time if Google suddenly decided to charge for all these things, I would have to pay through the nose. Just don’t tell Google, it may give them ideas.)

However, I was extremely disappointed with Google maps. They are as counter-intuitive as it gets. I was completely frustrated.

Intuitively, you expect the following sequence of operations:
1. You open a document.
2. You edit it.
3. You save it.
4. You can repeat pp. 2 and 3 as required.

Now, with Google maps it just does not work.

NSERC/Canada Council for the Arts New Media Initiative

The NSERC/Canada Council for the Arts (Canada Council) New Media Initiative is intended to promote collaboration between scientists and/or engineers and artists, thereby combining creativity with the development and application of new technologies and knowledge.

Scientists, engineers and artists are creating novel and mutually beneficial ways of thinking and working collaboratively across their disciplines, making innovative contributions to science, the arts and industry.

New Media Initiative projects are assessed by peers with expertise in the arts and sciences and/or engineering. NSERC will fund the scientific and engineering research component of the project and The Canada Council for the Arts will fund the artistic component of the project according to the guidelines of the above-mentioned programs.

Projects involving independent new media art creation and related science and engineering research are eligible for support. The NSERC component of the project must be scientifically sound and promise to generate new knowledge or a new technology, or to apply existing knowledge/technology in an innovative manner. The following are not eligible for support under the New Media Initiative:

• projects that support work created for the cultural industries of commercial new media, radio or television broadcasting;
• projects whose purpose is to record or document existing artworks or use existing technology in routine applications;
• projects that focus on the routine application of existing technology or that provide professional or consulting services; and
• proposals that are principally associated with the acquisition and maintenance of scientific equipment.

Application Procedures, Review Procedures and Selection Criteria

The application deadline for the New Media Initiative is April 15.

Detailed information can be obtained at:

• NSERC/Canada Council for the Arts New Media Initiative – Guide for Applicants

Some functionality Amazon is missing

Just something that occurred to me recently while I was looking for this book to buy it online. (I needed it for my translation work on “The Children’s Book” that is full of references to British mythology; the book was recommended by ASB herself.) I found the book at amazon.com for $70, and decided I cannot afford it. Then I entered it into my wishlist but that did not help a lot. Finally a good and kind soul checked amazon.co.uk for me and, hoorray, there it was, for $20, including shipping.

This simple story made me believe there are two important pieces of functionality that Amazon is missing.

1. There should be an option for the people to contribute small amounts towards somebody’s wishlist. Right now, if I am not mistaken, if I want to buy someone a gift from their wishlist I can only splurge for the entire book, which can be tricky if the book in question is expensive. It is much easier for 5-10 people to contribute smaller amounts. This would be especially convenient for groups of friends, relatives etc. who want to give an expensive item (think rare editions, anniversary gifts etc.)

2. There should be an option for searching “other Amazons” if the book is not at amazon.com. Right now you have to do it manually: go to amazon.ca, amazon.co.uk and so on which is a) non-intuitive and b) tedious. It would never occur to me to look at amazon.co.uk if it were not for that friend’s kindness.

City of Toronto Small Business Arts Forum 2010

Small Business Arts Forum 2010
March 22, 2010
8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m.
North York Civic Centre
5100 Yonge St.
Council Chamber, Members Lounge
www.enterprisetoronto.com

Established entrepreneurs and business owners in the arts, as well as artists exploring entrepreneurship and business opportunities are invited to attend the third annual Small Business Arts Forum, hosted by Enterprise Toronto.

PowerPoint Karaoke at the Drake

Power Point Karaoke (shouldn’t this be called Keynote Karaoke. For shame!) at the Drake

from Toronto Events Calendar by TOevents

The Night of February 05

A health & wellness event for everyone.

Part of Social Media Week.

To close out Social Media Week Toronto, we are going to be hosting a rocking session of PowerPoint Karaoke. The rules of Powerpoint Karaoke are simple. A set of presenters and local social media luminaries will be asked to play the role of an earnest expert speaker on topics such as ‘How to succeed at social media without really trying‘, or ‘What to do when someone on the internet is wrong‘, or ‘My sensational life as a japanese tentacle porn star‘ etc.* Each presenter will be given exactly 5 minutes to present and a set of slides they have never seen before. Each presentation deck will be stuffed with facinating imagery, emphatic infographics and genuine business-speak bullet points drawn from real powerpoint decks we’ve found on the internet. Naturaly, in the hands of a less-skilled presenter, some of this totally random content might seem somewhat ‘tangential’ to the topic at hand. But as you will see, these challenges will be no problem to our powerpoint rockstars.

At the end of the evening the audience or jury will be asked to vote for the winning presentations based on humour, style points, or general awesomeness.

Register here: Power Point Karaoke at the Drake

Follow the discussion on Twitter: #PPTKTO

What do you think of diversity?

This post started as my comment to Greg Wilson’s post. Greg posted a link to O’Reilly’s call for diversity. I think that the very concept of increasing diversity artificially is flawed. Here’s the comment I made in Greg’s blog:

Greg, as a woman who’s been in IT for about 20 years I must say that the “improving diversity” thing looks like BS to me and insults the very people whom it is supposed to help. Please correct me if I am wrong.

Here’s my train of reasoning. Either someone deserves to be a speaker at a conference (by the pure merit of their research and speaking skills), or they don’t. If they do, then invite them because they are worth it, not because they are minorities. On the other hand, if they don’t deserve it but still get invited, this implies the poor things can’t do better anyway, so let’s condescend to them.

Moreover, if e.g. a woman got to be a speaker, there will always be suspicion that she got in by being a minority and not because of her actual achievements. All in all, it seems to me that this policy does more harm than good.

Personally I’d rather have a honest and truthful judgment than condescending attitude. It was not condescending and sweet meaningless compliments that helped me or any of these women to get where we are today. As Lois M. Bujold puts it very aptly in one of her books,”…if you desire a man to tell you comfortable lies about your prowess, and so fetter any hope of true excellence, I’m sure you may find one anywhere. Not all prisons are made of iron bars. Some are made of feather beds. Royesse.“

Crappy policy of LinkedIn

Today I wanted to invite someone to contact on LinkedIn and got the requirement to enter their e-mail address, followed by this warning:

“Your account has been restricted because a significant number of LinkedIn users whom you have invited to your network have indicated that they don’t know you. Use of LinkedIn is subject to the terms of our User Agreement, which you have violated. An example of the violation includes breach of Section 11, LinkedIn User DOs & DON’Ts.”

It says further that I can remove this restriction by acknowledging the policy, but if they “find me in violation” again, they may suspend my account altogether. I counted the “Don’t know” responses to my invitations and found there are exactly 10 of them. What the hell? I have had a LinkedIn account for, probably, 5 years or more, and I have over 500 contacts. In all these years, during my interactions with all these numbers of people just 10 of them said they did not know me. I would say I am a paragon of prudency and trustworthiness.

By the way, it is not true that these people did not know me: I always use only the business cards people give me (their own business cards, that is), and only after talking to them at a conference or something like that. In all these cases where the people said they did not know me, what they really meant was that they did not know me well enough and preferred not to connect. LinkedIn, however, does not distinguish between this case and the case when a complete stranger approaches you after telling LinkedIn he’s your friend. As God is my witness, I receive a lot of this crap, especially from recruiters, and this definitely must be stopped. I understand the need for such policy and I am all for it. But there is an obvious difference between approaching a complete stranger under false pretenses and trying to connect to someone you met at a conference and exchanged business cards with.

Also, I entered those e-mails when I sent out the invitations (since I had the business cards), so I don’t really see how the requirement to enter emails would prevent me from sending those invitations in the first place. Therefore, the policy is not only insulting but useless.

And the moral of that is… LinkedIn’s usability, that was always great, started, sadly, to leave much to be desired. I am not going to “remove the restriction” because the way they phrase it, it is an insulting lie. Agreeing to what they say basically equals admitting that I was trying to deceive people to get in contact with them, and agreeing to LinkedIn removing my account altogether on the slightest pretext. For example, if somebody else says “don’t know her” instead of “don’t know her well enough” (and the latter option just is not there when you accept or reject an invitation).

My list of literary translations as of today

English->Russian

Daily worries

Just got news from British Centre for Literary Translation that they are not going to sponsor my trip to Netherlands because I live in Canada and not Russia, even though I work on the Russian translation of the book. (It does not seem fair, as Canada is much farther and my travel expenses will be even higher than if I traveled from Russia, but that’s international bureaucracy for you. My publisher certainly will not sponsor my trip, and the money I get for the entire book translation are hardly going to cover the cost of the trip.) Now I’ll write to Canadian Council of the Arts and the Ontario one too. I’ll get to Leiden anyway, it’s just that it would be nice for a change to get someone sponsor the process of global cultural exchange.

Congratulations to the lucky winner

The contest is now closed. AAAAAnd the winner is… @jkundan!!!! He gets a free #HOHOTO ticket. Congratulations @jkundan!

That’s all folks, see you at #HOHOTO today!