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Tag: personal

  • Zoo York AM Getting Paid 2009 – Semi-Finals and Finals

    [vimeo http://www.vimeo.com/5813517 w=600&h=345]

    Zoo York AM Getting Paid 2009 – Sunday from Stephane Daury, for Thrasher Magazine.

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  • Zoo York AM Getting Paid 2009 – Saturday

    [vimeo http://vimeo.com/5812019 w=600&h=345]

    Zoo York AM Getting Paid 2009 – Saturday from Stephane Daury, for Thrasher Magazine.

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  • Zoo York AM Getting Paid 2009 – Photo Gallery

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  • On Twitter Follow Fridays and Why I Rarely Participate

    I’ve been feeling more than a bit guilty about very rarely returning the favor for people who include me in their Twitter “Follow Fridays“, so I felt a short explanation was in order. Please do keep in mind that there are the exceptions that do break the rule and do not fall under the following umbrella, but:

    1. I find this practice loses most of its impact as posters try to cram as many users in 140 characters as possible, therefore not explaining why you should or might want to follow the people they list. This ultimately shifts the effort to whoever decides to go investigate the suggested users on their own, which in and of itself rather defeats the purpose of human-powered suggestions at its base.
    2. Compound the latter with the fact that people do not want to offend anyone and end up posting (or reposting) dozens of them throughout the day, and the value of such a practice is now quasi-entirely diluted, often annoying even.
    3. An increasing number of people (aka: spammers) really use the #followfriday (or #ff) tag to ultimately bring their own follower count up or similarly, to increase the follower count of users that are in fact directly tied to themselves (pseudonyms, their clients, etc) and for their own benefit.

    In the end, you pretty much end up with two types of new followers through the above patterns:

    1. people who will not take the time to find out why they should follow you and will just follow anyone in a sheep-like fashion (meh, rarely valuable from a conversational perspective)
    2. or people who once again will simply add you in hope that you will automatically follow back and possibly bring their own follower count by one more person.

    All this said, I do truly relate to the concept of recommending people as subjects of interest to your friends and I in fact do follow a few very good individuals discovered through the Follow Friday meme. This is in part why you will find me reposting (retweeting, redenting, etc) other people’s posts maybe more than others do (or would want), which I think gives a much clearer indication of why following (or sometimes avoiding) a person could be valuable to you.

    So there you have it. Since I’m not against the concept, just its increasingly usual application, I’ll try to add my own twist to it all instead, aiming to retain its intended spirit while making it as valuable for you, the subject(s) and myself as possible. The other perspective here is that I’d also very much like to do the same for services other than Twitter, such as Identica, Vimeo, Flickr, etc.

    So in the end, I have decided to start proceeding with something that I somewhat did in my post on WordCamp Montreal 2009: I’ll use my blog to not only tell you why you might want to follow the people I’ll showcase, but also why you maybe should follow them on some services rather than others (EG: someone might post incredible photos on Flickr, yet be a total waste of your time on Twitter).

    For this week, you can refer to the post on WordCamp Montreal that I’ve mentioned above, the subject being rather self-explanatory, and I’ll start the series next week.

  • WordCamp Montreal 2009 High and Complete Lack of Lows

    WordCamp Montreal 2009 PosterAs Arach said it best, even a day later:

    Seems to me like most participants of #wcmtl are still on some sort of high. Meeting smart and nice people is better than drugs.

    It was indeed too much geeky goodness crammed into one weekend for most attendees, just as much as for yours truly, to wean ourselves off all of it by Monday. 🙂

    I’ll have to admit right away that I missed most of the actual sessions, because I kept “being volunteered” for such duties as WordPress Gangsta doorman and sit-down-next-to-me-during-my-talk-in-case-I-have-a-panic-attack’aid (true, ALL of it was fun). But from what I read, people seem to have enjoyed what they’ve seen and to have gotten answers to the questions they might have had.

    On the other hand, being so heavily invested in WordPress through Praized Media and other projects/contributions/pipe-dreams, learning wasn’t what I was expecting for myself at the event, but mostly to get to “tribe up” with other people as passionate about the platform as I have now been for years. And, boy, was my wish ever granted!

    Apologizing profusely for not being able to list everyone I’ve had the pleasure to meet, I truly had wonderful talks and/or plain old fun with the following people. Most of which is leading to enough ideas to keep us all busy until WordCamp Montreal 2010 (which I hereby predict will be twice as big and happen during the Jazz Fest again. Somehow… 😉

    Here we go, in alphabetical order, by Twitter username, no bias:

    • @alexaclark – Alexa Clarck, with whom I had as much fun talking about her Cheap Eats Toronto and Cheap Eats Ottawa books/blogs/venture as I did talking about and enjoying Montreal’s food and restaurants.
    • @amoyal – Arié Moyal, who if nothing else (and there IS more) has lit the way to me desperately wanting to watch the Hebrew Hammer.
    • @arach – Arach Tchoupani, a skilled Python charmer with whom I had a great time talking about World politics, and thanks to (or because of) whom I was delivered the best pickup line by a woman in a bar in my entire life. A bit late for that girly-girl, married and 3 kids: can’t touch this! (♫ ta tadada tada tada ♫)
    • @digibomb – Brendan Sera-Shriar, who beta launched FlashPress, and with whom, I was apparently (and rightly so) “separated at birth and reunited at #wcmtl“. I’d say we clicked on so many levels, along with Pier-Luc and Arié, it’s actually kinda scary. 😉
    • @erinblaskie – Erin Blaskie, who despite being a fiery ball of lifestream smarts and energy, slept through her 12PM checkout on day 2. ☚ Ha ha! That’s what Montreal will do to ya. 😉
    • @evablue – Eva Blue, indie photographer extraordinaire, with whom I had a few extra-hilarious moments and who in my humble opinion, took most of the coolest shots of the weekend.
    • @photomatt – Matt Mullenweg, with whom I had a fun and casual chat ranging from high availability/fault tolerant database architectures, as well as the OpenMicroblogging specification and how it could pertain to our favorite codebase(s). I do have to call him on being a BIG TEASE though, because he left me with a maybe-not-so-utopic-web seeekreeet cliff hanger at the after-party Saturday night from which I still haven’t recouped from. Shame on you Matt. J’accuse!
    • @pluc – Pier-Luc Petitclerc, with whom I had a blast, pure and simple! Nothing new there, really. Business as usual.

    All in all, I do not think that Sylvain Carle (@afrongnthevalley [en], @sylvaincarle [fr]) and Jeremy Clarke (@jeremyclarke) could have done a better job of organizing this first WordCamp Montreal. I mean, 160+ attendees/speakers from 2 countries for a quasi-free ($30, including free food/drinks) and theoretically local/regional-by-nature tech event spells success to me. Mega-props to these two for making this event happen, and to all of the speakers and attendees for making it the success it has been.

    And then of course, there were the Brooklyn Sailors moments. Coz that’s how we roll [out kickass Open Source software]! 🙂

    wordcamp gangstas 3

    Brendan (left) and I (right) being our usual silly selves. Photo by Eva Blue.

  • Spots Spots Spots! Or How I See my Daily Bike Commute.

    Well, I enjoyed posting Montreal BMX/skate spots pictures the other day, so here’s a fresh batch. These are some if the most obvious “drive-by” spots right on the path of my daily bike commute to/from work. 🙂

  • Montreal's Newest Skatepark: Le Taz – Panoramic Views

    Here are some quick and dirty panoramic views (QTVR + frames) of the Taz, Montreal’s newest skatepark. Embed VR scenes from the pictures can be found below the gallery.

    Construction happened during the Winter, so the even larger outdoors park (94,000 sq/ft) is not built yet. With 83,000 sq/ft indoors, I think we can wait another couple of month. 😉

    Sorry for the abysmal quality, but I had more important things on the mind: riding, riding aaaaand, riding! 🙂 Don’t worry, tons of pictures will surface online this week for sure.

    Feel free to download the movie files if you want full screen.

    Download source

    Download source

  • J. Grant Brittain Limited Edition Pro Board #17 of 99

    When I told my wife that I bought my first ever collectible last week, she started having cold sweats, thinking I had just grabbed a chunk of the family savings for a way-too-early mid-life crisis. Needless to say, she was relieved when she found out that the object of my desire was just a $75 skateboard.

    But what a board! And especially dear to me is what it represents, since the fact that I am fanatic about extreme sports, and have been since I was a child, is far from a state secret.

    In 2009, Mumble will be presenting three people who have had an outstanding influence on the skateboarding industry over the last decades with pro skateboarder diplomas and honorary pro model decks.

    The first person to be induced in this hall of fame of sort, in association with Powell Peralta and The Skateboard Mag, is none other than legendary photographer J. Grant Brittain, the founding photo editor of The Skateboard Mag.

    And today, I received my own copy of this limited edition deck, number 17 of the 99 that have been produced. And to top it all off, I also got myself a classic Ripper shirt to go with it. Can you feel the joy? It’s positively palpable, isn’t it? 🙂

    Now, I can’t wait to see who the next two legends will be. I’ll definitely try to get these boards too, as well as a[nother] personal treat: a re-issue of Steve Caballero‘s original Cab Street, my first real skateboard, in Martinique back in the 80s.

    Hey, it could be worse, I could have been tempted by one of the Rip the Ripper tribute art pieces! Not that I’m not, but there’s no way I can afford one of those… :p

    Update 1: I so feel like mounting trucks and era-specific wheels on this bad boy and ride the […] out of it! But I’ll be strong…

    Update 2: I forgot to mention that the proceeds of the sale of these limited edition boards will be going to the Grind for Life foundation, helping people with cancer.

  • The Fifteen Minutes Snowskate

    I got really inspired to try something out yesterday, after discovering Snowsk8r, Pedal BMX‘s sister site: I wanted to rig myself up something in the general spirit of a snowskate from miscellaneous recycled parts.

    If you are not familiar with snowskating, just check out the following embedded video to get the gist of things.

    [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=npJjZzMwJCI]

    YouTube – Chairlift Skeptics… A Snowskate Flick

    An appropriate short description would likely be: the newest surefire way to injure yourself while laughing your head off. :p

    Looking at the various kinds of snowskates out there, there seems to be three general types:

    • simple boards with an oversized tail and nose, referred to as single deck
    • what looks like a standard skateboard made out of marine plywood, with a mini snowboard underneath, aka bideck
    • and the same, but with multiple mini-skis (2 to 4), with or without suspension

    The easy way out for me would have of course been to just grab an old skateboard and gone for it as is, but my kids and I have done that many times in the past and although it’s fun, there is just not enough kick to it. What became obvious was that the elevation from the ground that trucks and wheels provide was what I was looking for in the rig.

    After finding a photo of the now out-of-production Danny Kass Snowskate model, it became apparent that simply joining 2 old skateboards might just do the trick nicely, at least to mess around with and see if there’s any sense in spending more time or money on getting setup.

    So that’s what I just did. You can see the basic steps I took by browsing to the photo set of the build process I uploaded on Flickr, or you can use the following embedded slideshow (full screen mode will let you see the attached instructions).

    Voilà! Nothing too fancy, but it promises to be a blast to at least try out. 🙂

    The kids and I will go do just that shortly.

    Updated 2009-01-18: I’ve added some picts of our test run to the slideshow. Fun stuff! As expected, it works best with heavily packed snow. Not a problem in Montreal. 😉

  • Seven Things

    Well, it had to happen sometime. Eli White (@EliW) was kind enough [aka: I’ll get ya back! ;)] to tag me in his own version of the Seven Things meme going ’round these days.

    Meh, why not? So, I now have to detail seven things about me – some random, some weird – then find seven soul to harass with my new found mischievous streak.

    Here we go:

    1. First thing first, I’m the proud dad of three beautiful boys between the ages of almost-3 to 9-and-a-half.
    2. I didn’t actually write my first PHP app. I wrote a script to convert it from Perl to PHP for me, around 1998-99.
    3. My favourite place to be is on a half pipe, with my son(s) and bmx/skateboard/snowboard, no matter the location.
    4. Although I live in Montreal, Canada, I’ll never EVER get used to its weather, yet still like it here.
    5. I dug part of our previously 4-feet-high clay basement by hand so I could have a wood workshop in our downtown duplex.
    6. I spent my childhood in France (0-12), teenage in Martinique (12-17) and adulthood in Canada (17-…).
    7. And finally, I hate how English spellcheckers highlight properly spelled words, such as favour, colour, and behaviour. :p

    Now, for my preys, aiming for fresh ones:

    1. Pierre-Hugues Pellerin (@pierhugues), who will probably mention Ruby, despite his initials.
    2. François Lafortune (@quickredfox), who could write and illustrate a comic book published only in pure Javascript.
    3. Xopher Murtagh, who can play the trombone and probably find a way to get GNU/Linux running on it, somehow.
    4. Janina Szkut (@nanananini), who could probably mention something about knitting and PAX in the same sentence.
    5. Konstantin Ryabitsev (@mricon), who is probably already teaching four or five languages to his newborn son, who’ll probably read them fluently by age three.
    6. Sylvain Carle (@afrognthevalley), Praized Media‘s CTO extraordinaire.
    7. Evan Prodromou (@evan), who will (and should!) probably mention Laconica.

    And to conclude, the complete rules:

    • Link your original tagger(s), and list these rules on your blog.
    • Share seven facts about yourself in the post – some random, some weird.
    • Tag seven people at the end of your post by leaving their names and the links to their blogs.
    • Let them know they’ve been tagged by leaving a comment on their blogs and/or Twitter.