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I have relied on blogs for a lot of my regular consumption of news and information for a while how. Especially political news. I am always finding new blogs and wanted to share a few of my new favs. And now as a regular twitterer I have an entirely new vehicle to feed my news and information addiction.
Interesting bloggers I read regularly:
Eaves.ca- My friend Dave writes a widely read blog about all things ‘open’, especially open government. His posts are always thoughtful and well-written. If you are interested in government 2.0 check it out.
Dailygumboot.ca - A blog I have recently started to read. It is an eclectic collection of posts about everything from North Korea to the recipe for an Akon concert.
Samara- A wonderful new organization concerned with public service and public leadership. Alison Loat is the Executive Director and she writes a great blog that highlights new and innovative public policy initiatives across Canada.
Public Eye Online- A blog dedicated to news about the BC Government. It is a tremendous resource for my job because it helps me keep tabs on key people and “insider” news.
Frances Bula- An excellent blog about urban issues, particularly the City of Vancouver. Frances Bula used to be the urban affairs columnits for the Vancouver Sun and is one of the few bloggers who focuses on Vancouver.
Twitterers I would recommend you follow:
@MarkKnoller- Tweets about happenings at the White House with the occasional photo taken from his iPhone (like the Obama’s boarding Marine 1). I particularly like that he expresses a complete thought using the 140 characters and doesn’t just write the first part of …. followed by a link.
@NBA/@si_golf - Both provide regular updates and links to the latest stories about their sports. @si_golf is great at providing updates about what is happening during a major tournament. Like last weekend’s PGA Championship. And @NBA retweets a lot of NBA stars which I always enjoy.
Government 2.0 crew – I am interested in how social media tools such as Twitter, social networking and wikis can be used in government. There is a group of people exploring that topic and doing some interesting things from inside the federal public service and the BC government. Follow @nickcharney, @TariqAlexander, @dbast, @dbhume to keep up with what’s going on.
@CanPlaceNames – Our friend Melissa Edwards does the maps found on the last page of each issue of Geist Magazine. She tweets about interesting places in Canada and the stories behind their names.
LIFE Magazine, Google and the Obama campaign have done a great service to anyone interested in killing time surfing the Internet.
Earlier this week LIFE and Google team up to host photos from the magazine from the past 160 years. It is an incredible collection.
If that isn’t enough, the Obama campaign loaded more than 50,000 photos from the campaign on to Flickr. You can see them all at http://www.flickr.com/photos/barackobamadotcom/.
Happy viewing.
Dave over at eaves.ca pointed me in the direction of a great new blog. Well, great if you are interested in public policy. It seems that Google has been running a public policy blog since April. It certainly has a Google bent to it, like this post, but I found at least something interesting in every post I read. It is definitely worth checking out.
CBC is running another excellent contest/series about Canada. Seven Wonders doesn’t have the fanfare of the Greatest Canadian but it has still managed to generate a fair bit of interest across the country. According to tonight’s National broadcast, more than 20,000 suggestions were sent in. That list has been narrowed down to the top 52 and so far, more than 200,000 votes have been cast.
I submitted my picks tonight and decided that Canada’s Seven Wonders are:
- The Trans Canada
- The Rockies
- Pier 21
- The Northern Lights
- Niagara Falls
- The Cabot Trail
- The Manitoba Legislative Building
I had a difficult time deciding on my seventh pick. It was between the Manitoba Legislature, the Bay of Fundy and the Library of Parliament. I once heard a fascinating story about the Masonic symbols found throughout the Manitoba Legislature and the numerous strange coincidences in the architecture. That put it over the top for me.
Right now, the top vote getters are the Bay of Fundy, Niagara Fall, Sleeping Giant and the Northern Lights.
If you disagree, submit your votes at www.cbc.ca/sevenwonders.
Bill Buchanan, according to Brainfall.com.
You are Bill Buchanan. You are a law abiding citizen and in your world, rules are the driving force behind anything and everything. Your leadership charisma is something talked about by others, and instead of doing things differently you do different things. You have an uncanny knack of staying calm in tense situations and your tone is testimony to that. Keep the cool attitude and you will surely overcome the most perilous situations.
According to MyHeritage.com, a gathering of Andrew Medd look-a-likes would include the founder of Scientology, an NHL superstar, an Oscar winner and Mr. Axl Rose.
So I’m watching a rerun of the Colbert Report tonight and there is a segment about a new drink about to go on sale in Japan called Bilk. Bilk is a combination of beer and milk, hence the clever name. After searching the web for a few minutes I uncovered some additional information about this strange beverage.
From Diet Blog:
“Since milk has a low boiling point, the brewery took care to control the temperature during the boiling process so the milk wouldn’t boil over. After they put beer yeast and hops into the drink and began the fermentation process, the beverage looked and smelled like tea with milk. However, when fermentation was complete and the drink cooled down, it had the same color as beer.”
Apparently “the milk beer was created after concerns over all the wasted surplus milk.”
No need to try and insert a witty comment about Bilk. I think the story sells itself.
I hear about Web 2.0 and the social web all the time but I’ve never understood exactly what it meant. One of my colleagues gave a very simple explanation the other day that resonated with me: web 1.0 was about publishing and web 2.0 is about participating. There is still a lot of murkiness but I feel like I’m starting to get it and, even more amazingly, I’m pretty jazzed about it.
Ann Arbour District Library is doing some really amazing things with their website to engage users. My favourite is the card catalogue image that lets you jot down comments about a book on a card for all to see. How cool is this?
You can also write reviews and add tags to items. The website generates list of top searches and tags, provides cover images and even suggests what titles you may like based on other patrons’ borrowing records. Remind you of anything? Libraries are taking cues from online bookstores and it’s even better to experiment with when you aren’t worried about someone trying to sell you something. The library also has a fabulous selection of blogs on audio, books, video, services, media mentions and others. Love it.
This morning, I was directed to this after reading Andrew Potter’s blog. Someone who runs a blog called Ironic Sans has taken a picture of every ad in Times Square. I’ve been to Times Square a few times and seen all the ads. It’s a pretty incredible sight, but all the ads seem to blur together in a sea of neon. Seeing them all on a single page shows you just how many images you’re seeing each time you walk through Times Square.
If you’re looking for BC-based Year in Review that’s a bit more substantial than ours check out The Tyee.
