The LilyPad Arduino is “a set of sewable electronic components that let you build your own soft, interactive fashion.” Among the various (very) helpful introductions and tutorials for the device is a very simple introduction to the C programming language. It’s the least intimidating introduction to programming I’ve ever read.

The Backyardigans, it says here, were supposed to play today in Charlottetown. Except that they’ve been stuck on the MV Caribou ferry from Newfoundland since Tuesday at Noon. The Cape Breton Post interviewed Backyardigans technical director Jackie Easton by mobile phone:

It’s been fine. It’s more the aggravation of being stuck out in the ocean. We’ve had all the comforts of home, we just couldn’t go anywhere.

For any parent familiar with the Backyardigans and their annoying yet addictive theme song, the notion of being trapped at sea with them is, well, very very frightening. I wonder if, in addition, they are trapped in costume.

Meanwhile the children are sad and Guardian readers are flaming each other about whether this is Breaking News or not.

Now that the CBC has broadened the accessibility of its archival material I couldn’t resist the opportunity to try my amateur hand at making a mashup. So I present The Spirit of the People Themselves (Angus MacLean Remix). Source material:

• Music is Djiz Funky Instrumental from funkyremixes.com (NonCommercial Sampling Plus license)
• The Million-Acre Farm, CBC News, April 24, 1978 (educational, non-commercial use)
• Stunning upheaval: Alex Campbell’s victory, CBC News, July 12, 1966 (educational, non-commercial use)

Prepared with the greatest of respect and all due reverence. I’m not a journeyman mashup artist by any stretch, so please consider this a tentative toe in the water, or a proof-of-concept, not a polished effort.

The CBC Archives website relaunched this week. What was once a treasure trove is now a cavalcade of earthly delights. Including Charlottetown considers cameras to curb late-night rowdies from 1994. The video of late-nite Charlottetown in the piece make it look like New York City.

You’ll also find Life in the ferry slow-lane from 1968 and The Million-Acre Farm from 1978.

I’m not sure whether this is new or not, but the television clips, or at least the ones I’ve seen, appear to be WMV files that can be downloaded, saved, and then mashed up in Quicktime (which they would appear to allow).

Dear Globe and Mail,

I have been a happy subscriber to your Saturday edition for many months now. I enjoy having the Globe on my doorstep every Saturday morning when I wake up (even if I don’t find the time to read it until Sunday!).

So last week when you left a “as a special offer to you, a Saturday-only subscriber, we’re going to give you a daily subscription for the next six weeks,” I really looked forward to it. It’s a good marketing effort: I’m already primed, and if you expose me to the daily wonders of the paper, there’s a good chance that I’ll upgrade my subscription.

Except that since you made this offer two weeks ago, I’ve only actually received the Monday to Friday edition of the paper twice — in other words, you’ve been batting about 25%.

Needless to say, your marketing effort has backfired, and I am now less prone than ever to upgrading my subscription: why would I want to if I’m only going to receive the paper one day in four?

Sincerely,
Peter

Until yesterday, I didn’t know that Sana‘a’ was the capital of Yemen. Truth be told, I didn’t actually know where Yemen was (it’s next to Saudi Arabia, across the Red Sea from Eritrea). But I’ve been reading a lot about Sana‘a’ this week, and while I’ve been intrigued with tales of fresh mango juice, I’ve been most interested in the punctuation issues involved. The name of the capital of Yemen, in Arabic, looks like this:

There are many approaches to the Romanization of Arabic.

Looking at each of the letters in the Arabic word using the BATR Character Mappings, for example, you get (from right to left): SnEaa.

The name of the capital ends up in English in a variety of ways; I prefer Sana‘a’ simply for its typographic symmetry.

I can’t imagine that running the downtown Charlottetown grocery store is easy: you’re fighting the uptown chains on one hand, and a bifurcated demographic on the other. While it may be possible to service downtown residents of all income levels and culinary inclinations, I can guarantee you that things like this are a way to immediately lose the “baguette and pesto” crowd:

I’m starting to get reports of a new email being sent out to former customers of ISN about their @isn.net email:

You recently received communication from EastLink regarding changes to your ISN email address, and/or sub domain address.

Based on customer feedback, we now realize that the notice period was not well considered and we have extended the transition period for email conversion untilDecember 31st, 2008. We trust this will allow for sufficient time to update your contact lists and advise business customers, family and friends of this change.

There are many benefits to changing to the EastLink domain as the EastLink email platform provides a back-up platform and offers a more robust spam and virus filter service.

Although we are maintaining the ISN email domains until December, you can set-up your new EastLink email at anytime and send and receive emails from both your ISN and EastLink address.

We apologize for any inconvenience we have caused and please know we value your business.

Kudos to Eastlink for listening to their new customers. This is a good sign. If you’ve got an @isn.net address, I recommend that, even if you switch it over to an @eastlink.ca address, you still get your own domain for your email and forward it to your new Eastlink address. That way when Eastlink gets purchased by Comcast (or whoever), you won’t have to go through this all again.

I had breakfast with an undisclosed list of people on Sunday morning, and we spent a lot of time talking about privacy and related issues. Today I came across a quote in a New Yorker piece that summarizes privacy nicely:

This is a privacy issue and goes to the heart of us not wanting you to know.

You really have to read the whole essay, by Ian Frazier, to get the honest experience.