Ian King blows Telus’s port-blocking racket wide open in the Feb. 24th Terminal City:

To protect themselves from attacks, high-speed users often put their machines behind a firewall that only allows certain types of Internet traffic through to their computer, blocking the rest. If they want to allow certain connections, they open the ports to incoming connection.

But Telus took that choice out of residential users‚Äô hands… Read more...

I… this is so unexpected. I’m just… I’m overwhelmed.

First, let me say to the other nominees, each of you deserved this award more than I did. It’s mine now, and you’ll never get to touch it, but for what it’s worth, it should have been yours.

To the academy, thank you, thank you, thank you for not nominating me in one of those loser categories where we… Read more...

Okay. So, today’s lesson is, don’t wait until the day before your domain expires before trying to renew it.

In theory, that shouldn’t be a problem. The process is completely automated; you just log on at any time of the day or night, feed your credit card to your registrar and your record is updated with a shiny new expiry date.

But there’s many a slip twixt cup… Read more...

You know the future? The one where anyone with an idea would be able to publish it online without any intermediaries — no publishers, no editors, no bookstores?

Apparently we’re here. Please disembark in an orderly manner. (And feel free to tip your guide. Ahem.)

From Lawrence Lessig, quoting a friend on Harvard’s faculty:

i take a car service to the airport this morning. driver is… Read more...

There’s a special sadness to news of the Pope’s illness — that after such a remarkable life, his last significant communication to the world may well be something as ungenerous of spirit as his condemnation of same-sex marriage as “part of a new ideology of evil”:

“If same-sex marriage qualifies as part of ‘a new ideology of evil,’ then the world is in far better shape than… Read more...

I just found out that Moderne Burger has closed following a fire.

“Good” doesn’t begin to describe the hamburgers at Moderne Burger. Or the fries. Or the shakes. Or the cherry cola. Or the astonishing, painstakingly-selected vintage fixtures — I hope they survived the blaze.

If you haven’t been, well, you’ve missed something. Roland Tanglao’s review will have to tide you over until Peter reopens… Read more...

The big issue right now in U.S. federal politics is the future of social security. (Everything you want to know about how this is shaking down is covered diligently at Talking Points Memo.)

The Republican mantra as they plan to privatize large swaths of the program has been that it’s the only way to save Social Security.

So listen to the chant by Young Republicans serenading… Read more...

So with the fallout from Frank McKenna’s off-script adlibbing still settling over Ottawa like radioactive snow, it looks like the PM is about to bail on missile defence.

From an intellectual defensibility standpoint, this represents a real improvement for the PMO. Previously, their position had been a) that it was irresponsible, insane and reprehensible to suggest Canada shouldn’t participate in the scheme, but b) that despite (a), they… Read more...