Global Nerdy

Bill C-30 is a pending Canadian bill that gives police and other appointed special investigators to get information from “internet companies” (the bill’s a bit vague on the definition) to give them information about you – name, IP address and other identifying information – without a warrant. On its own, its terms don’t give “The Man” free access to who you are and what you do online, but the resulting law will require Canadian ISPs to build in facilities to allow for “eavesdropping” that’s not unlike what they do in China. Once that capability is built in, the genie will be out of the bottle; or more accurately, the governmental genie will be in all our bottles. As Ivor Tossell puts it in the Globe and Mail, “You can’t bring oil barrels full of honey to the forest and then act surprised when bears show up.”

The video above is from the Canadian television show Rick Mercer Report. One of the regular features of the show is “Rick’s Rant”, in which he does a short polemic on something topical as he walks through Toronto’s “Graffiti Alley” just off Queen Street West. This one does a great job of explaining why Canada’s Public Safety Minister Vic Toews, who introduced the bill, is wrong when he said that critics of the bill could “either stand with us or with the child pornographers” (which will someday be used as a classic example of that old high school debating trick, association fallacy).

This article also appears in The Adventures of Accordion Guy in the 21st Century.

Photo courtesy of Elijah Manor.

Considerably less true for Internet Explorer 9 (a.k.a. “IE who-gives-a-crap”), but the damage has been done, especially if W3Counter’s browser usage trend stats are accurate:

Click to see at full size.

That’s why I wrote way back when I worked there: “Any fool can evangelize Apple or Google. It takes a rock star, ninja and Jedi master all rolled into one to be an evangelist for Microsoft.”

Click the picture to see it at full size.

Funny because it’s true.

This article also appears in the Shopify Technology Blog.

In the latest essay on his Posterous, I Have a Bad Feeling About This, Reg “raganwald” Braithwaite, posts his contribution to Uncensored: A Charitable Project to Support the Open Internet. In it, he writes:

My perspective is a little like that of C3PO in Star Wars, a minor character throwing his hands up in dismay at calamity and providing others with an interesting viewpoint on the great events of the last forty years.

Like any space opera, the story of information technology is a very simple one. It is played out in a myriad of different ways by a revolving cast of characters, but it always has its loveable heroes, its predictably nefarious villains, innocent civilians to be saved, and bumbling bureaucrats that aren’t inherently evil, but begin every story aiding the forces of darkness out of a misplaced belief they are preserving law and order in their corner of the galaxy.

In it, he encourages us – the rebels – to resist the collective empire of the MPAA, RIAA, Intellectual Ventures and those who would impose things like SOPA and PIPA and stifle technological progress in the name of preserving outdated business models. It’s a good read – go there now!

This article also appears in the Shopify Technology Blog.

Shopify’s going to SxSWi – the South by Southwest Interactive Conference in Austin, Texas! It runs from Friday, March 9th through Tuesday, March 13th and if you’re going to be there, we’d like to catch up with you! Among the Shopifolks who’ll be there will be:

• CEO and co-founder Tobias Lütke
• CPO (Chief Platform Officer) Harley Finkelstein
• Developer Advocate Edward Ocampo-Gooding
• Yours Truly, Platform Evangelist Joey deVilla

I’ll be speaking on the panel at the session titled 5 Brands Travel the US Inspiring Entrepreneurship. It’s a talk about the what, how and why behind the BarCamp Tour and the companies who were behind it (Batchbook, Grasshopper, Mailchimp, Shopify and Wufoo). Here’s the abstract for this talk:

Grasshopper, Mailchimp, Wufoo, Shopify, and Batchbook all joined forces in 2011 to create and execute the Barcamp Tour. We journeyed across the country together to work with 10 different entrepreneurial cities and help them put on a barcamp that would inspire / energize their communities. We shared our passions, listened to other peoples, and took in the unique character of each city we visited. Boy did we learn a lot. We would love to share those observations & experiences with you in hopes that you might take that passion back to your own community. We also wanted to explain why our 5 brands so strongly believe in free beer and hugs versus banner ads and trade shows. These word of mouth branding tactics have been a major part of all 5 of our company’s growth, and we are ready to share our secrets!

The session takes place on Sunday, March 11th. Usually, the Sunday slot is the kiss of death, but our talk takes place in the hangover-friendly timeslot: 3:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m.. We’ll be presenting at the Omni Downtown Hotel (700 San Jacinto, at 8th Street) in the Lone Star room.

This article also appears in the Shopify Technology Blog.