Bill Andersen having fun

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By freely irreverent, I mean that this very funny performance is offered with no copyright restrictions at all, under a Creative Commons licence. More »« Less

Thanks to a Happy Holidays promotional freebie, I am back at Lynda.com for a month of lessons. What to learn? Good question! There are hundreds of courses and probably thousands of lessons on how to use every kind of popular software imaginable.

The first lessons are offered as free samples. If you’d like to try them, click on the graphic above. (My thank-you plug to Lynda for the freebie)

I think I’ll start with Blender, the free, open-source 3D program.It looks amazing… and daunting.

The second thank-you goes to the Hickeys, for a second month of Lynda.com. It was a birthday present that I can use after my current month runs out. Perfect!

The Paradox of Choice
Author: Barry Schwartz

Good things about this book:

You’ll find it here now, if you’d like to help me test. I am especially interested to hear from Windows PC users with IE browsers. More »« Less

Wow. I started this blog back in 2004, 700 posts ago, when I wasn’t even 60 yet. Now I’m about to become an official senior citizen, complete with a cheque from the government just for breathing. reduced fares on streetcars and other perks, too.

In some ways, I’ve been an old fart since I was a teenager, so this feels pretty natural. I’m catching up with myself.

Demographers call the coming bulge in the seniors population “a pig in a python”. Charming picture, eh? I am at the front end of that bulge… have been all my life, of course. Whatever I’m doing, thousands of other boomers will soon be doing, too. It’s going to get crowded on the north side of 65.

At the moment, (and that’s where I like to spend most of my time) things are pretty good and I’m enjoying them. Hope this lasts for a good long time before I’m python poop.

Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions
Author: Dan Ariely

This book belongs to that genre of products designed to get on best seller lists… and it did, for many weeks. Do the rational thing and take it out of the public library.

It is an entertaining look at the behaviour of test subjects in controlled decision-making situations. The subjects are often university students; convenient, because the author is an academic working in the area of behavioural economics. The “hidden forces” in the title is a little corny, but it seems to have spurred sales. More »« Less

This guess at the look of Apple’s rumoured “tablet” has been around for a long time. Tomorrow we’ll find out how close the illustrator came, but don’t those headphone wires look very 20th century?

Now that iMacs come with wireless mice and wireless keyboards, I find it hard to believe that the iPad[?] will come with tangly, dangly strings attached.

Loose Lips Department

Did McGraw-Hill CEO Terry McGraw release secret information about the Apple Tablet because:
A) Steve Jobs asked him forget about the Non-Disclosure Agreement and make a planned, strategic leak?
B) he is a blockhead with a big mouth?

I don’t know, but just going by his picture…

Showing above is a floor to ceiling video installation by Swiss artist Pipilotti Rist, “Ever is all over” (1997). I walked right into a black-painted wall, dropping my glasses onto the floor of the dimly lit hallway leading toward the exhibit room. Luckily, while I patted around on the floor searching, Donna found them before I stepped on them.
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That went well, I think. Chants against the shutdown of Parliament rang out loudly at Dundas Square today. The huge crowd grew so large that police had to close Yonge Street to traffic. Marchers called for politicians to Get Back to Work and for defeat of Harper’s government. More »« Less

What to do while Harper and his merry band are off “recalibrating”? How about a little street theatre? On Saturday, rallies are planned from coast to coast. Toronto’s is downtown, at 1:00 p.m., across the street from the Eaton Centre.