Don’t call me Eskimo

A friend saw this clip referenced on a CBC program last night and told me to check it out.

I feel like watching these kids make an honest rap video about their lives has taught me more about Nunavut than any visit to a cultural centre. I’m inspired to take a trip up there next summer. I’m fascinated.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tS8RZcKQwBA]

Breaking news: Totally redesigned NationalPost.com launches today

Friends of mine have been working on relaunching NationalPost.com for months and today we get our first look at the new site.

Feature are still being rolled out as I type but I’m certainly encouraged by what I’ve seen so far. The site has completely removed the pay wall and we now have access to all of their content without registration. They have also moved to a new, wider format used by newspaper sites like the New York Times.

I’m looking forward to having a good look around over the next week but so far I’m impressed, and very proud of all of my friends at the Post.

Doug Kelly, the editor-in-chief, introduces the new site here.

Prime time snuff

How does everyone feel about (what amounts to) a snuff film from Vancouver airport being the most watched clip on YouTube this morning? 250,000 views and counting.

Does the nature of a video like this change when it hits the front page of YouTube? A few days ago it was just evidence in a police inquiry.

UPDATE: Mathew Ingram posted about citizen journalism and this video yesterday. Close to a hundred people left comments and almost all were appalled at how police dealt with the situation – doing little to calm Robert Dziekanski before tasering him, twice.

This outrage is exactly how I felt after watching the clip. No clip on YouTube would mean no public reaction and therefore likely no public pressure for the police to be held accountable. There is no question that having this video in the public domain is a good thing.

The point I’m making above is that it is a snuff film. Robert Dziekanski dies on camera at the end of the clip and 250,000 of us watched it. That gives me a very funny feeling.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHKk5qQRzL4]

Another Rogers photo: iPhone in Canada on January 18th

Another photo of some Rogers point-of-sale material for the iPhone hit the internet today. This time the launch date in Canada is January 18th. I’m still not convinced this is the real deal, but I’m getting closer. At least this time the Rogers logo looks like it is in the right place ;).

Fingers crossed everyone.

Lorem ipsum… blog title goes here

I’ve still got a heck of a lot to learn about developing websites. Sometimes I learn by doing and sometimes I learn by watching the successes and mistakes of others. Here is a mistake I spotted today that cracked me up…

When designers are mocking up pages they sometimes use lorem ipsum text to show what the page will eventually look like. Lots of clever people warn against this because you never really get a feel for the page.

The other problem with lorem ipsum is that sometimes you forget to take it out of the code. Oops…