Time, Space and Google, Searcher magazine, May 2010

My first post-retirement article for Searcher: The Magazine for Database Professionals was published on May 1, 2010. It's titled "Time, Space and Google: Toward a Real-Time, Synchronous, Personalized, Collaborative Web." I survey many aspects of Google's service offerings that to me signal Google is beginning to own the Web insofar as it's attempting to define your experience of Web time and space through its services. The article is not online for free but will be available through ProQuest and other full-text commercial databases licensed by Information Today.

Lost repeats itself, see the beach where it was filmed

I'll bet some of you are as annoyed as I am that the Lost episode airing tonight, April 27, 2010, is a repeat. Hey, weren't we promised all new episodes until the two-part series finale? I want my money back.

Just to get you in the mood for next week's hopefully new episode, here's a photo I took on the Mokueia beach looking towards Kaena Point. This is one of the Oahu North Shore beaches where Lost was filmed.



And this is the end of the public road at Kaena Point as seen through Google Maps Street View. This is from a parking lot looking towards the start of the northeastern foothills of the Waianae Range that separates central Oahu from the Wainae coast.

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A weekend on the Lower Mainland

I recently spent a weekend on the Lower Mainland. I was most impressed with the new Canada Line portion of Metro Vancouver's light-rail transit system called SkyTrain. The Canada Line runs between Richmond and the Vancouver Waterfront station with a spur line to the Vancouver International Airport. The Canada Line was busy so it is evidently a hit with commuters. The only dissatisfaction I had with it is that the ticket system only allows you 1.5 hours to reach the last leg of your destination. I was traveling from Richmond to North Vancouver and back again and it took one hour in the morning just to get from Richmond to the Waterfront Station. Then I caught the SeaBus passenger-only ferry that runs from there to Lonsdale Quay in North Vancouver and from there a bus to my final destination. I think I ultimately had about 15 minutes to spare by the time I reached the North Vancouver bus. I was lucky because there was a SeaBus already docked and almost ready to load when I arrived in the morning. The return trip in the afternoon was a little less stressful except that it was standing room only in the Canada Line car because it was the start of rush hour for commuters.

I wandered around Steveston a couple of times, a popular destination with local families and visitors from elsewhere in the Lower Mainland and beyond, and took some photos, a few of which I've posted on Flickr.

Here's one of them of a concrete and steel fishboat sculpture near the start of a waterfront walkway that leads to the Britannia Shipyard. The original is color but I enhanced it to look like black and white infrared film.

Flaying the Freedom of Information sinners

On April 10, 2010 Stephen Hume published in the Vancouver Sun a powerful and provocative denunciation of the British Columbia governments' evisceration of the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (FOIPPA) that was introduced in 1992 as the new law governing information dissemination and personal protection privacy. Among his targets were my former employer the Royal British Columbia Museum and the division I worked for at the time, the BC Archives. The BC government in its wisdom placed the Archives under the Museum, which itself was turned into a Crown corporation through a new Museum Act on April 1, 2003. One of the facts Hume got wrong in his story, which was easy enough to check, was the number of hours the BC Archives reference room is fully staffed. He stated it was four hours Monday to Friday when in fact it is currently six hours (10 am to 4 pm). Hume draws this chilling analogy between the current state of the FOIPPA administration and the BC Archives:

The emaciated travesty that the archive has become under successive governments might be said to symbolize what has been going on for decades with freedom of information legislation.

What a wonderful universe view from the Hubble

Went to see the Hubble IMAX film and was pleasantly surprised to hear the late Israel (Iz') Kamakawiwo'ole's signature song "Somewhere Over the Rainbow / What a Wonderful World." Though not a Hawaiian language song, it expresses the love and optimism one feels at being alive in a universe of endless possibilities. The song appears on his first solo CD from 1993, Facing Future.

The Bigger Picture, Visual Archives and the Smithsonian blog

Thanks to Peter Kurilecz on the Yahoo! PhotoHistory group, here's the Smithsonian's photography and artwork blog, The Bigger Picture, Visual Archives and the Smithsonian.

TimeTravelBC.com, it is all about heritage

The Heritage Tourism Alliance of BC, "a collaboration of some of British Columbia’s key heritage and tourism stakeholders, who work together to promote and celebrate the very best of BC’s heritage sites and experiences," have an interesting Web site called TimeTravelBC.com that makes it easy to find heritage travel experiences.

Yes, TV news anchor Tony Parsons shops like a man for his own groceries

While out grocery shopping today I ran into Tony Parsons (Wikipedia entry), former Globa lBC TV Newshour anchor who retired from there and now lives in Victoria and performs the 10 pm news for CHEK TV. Said hello and asked how he was enjoying life on the Island. He said it was great, but groused about the weather which he hoped would perk up soon. Couldn't agree more. He is much shorter in person than he appears on TV, but I think he knows that. I've also run into Global BC Legislative reporter Keith Baldrey at the same location.

Happy 124th anniversary City of Vancouver, BC, Canada

Today is the 124th anniversary of the incorporation by provincial legislation of the City of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Chuck Davis' The History of Metropolitan Vancouver is a great place to discover more about the history of this amazing place.

Official word, and the new BC Archival Network Service Coordinator is ... me

The Archives Association of British Columbia bid farewell on its ARCHIVES-BC mailing to the current BC Archival Network Service Coordinator, Janet McMaster, and then welcomed the new Coordinator ... me. I am eagerly looking forward to doing the best that I can for the AABC members who are part of MemoryBC: the BC Archival Information Network.

You can contact me at aabc.bcans@gmail.com about your MemoryBC needs.

Worldwide disappearance of pixels, global emergency declared

The worldwide disappearance of pixels from computer screens everywhere, that is, on a global scale, has led to the implementation of worldwide emergency measures. If you are able to read this, then your pixels are all right for the time being. If you are unable to read this, then it's time to clean your computer monitor, because today is April 1 and it's time for a bit of spring cleaning before your pixels really do disappear.