Newest Industry

It’s the places that you go when you’re a child that stay with you for your whole life.

My grandparents lived their entire lives in the Crowsnest Pass. This narrow, sometimes forgotten section of the Rockies emptied itself of its coal to feed the engines of Canada and the world for more than a hundred years.

My grandfathers, and my great-grandfathers, all gave their lives to the dirty work of ripping this black gold from the bowels of the earth. Their bodies showed the scars of a life lived in darkness, straining to pull themselves through another day.

When it got to much, they drank. They fought. They dreamed. Some escaped, some took their own lives, many just survived.

The Alberta side of the Pass — no one who has spent any time in the area ever uses “Crowsnest Pass” — is slowly dying. The generation who mined underground is dying away. The next generation, and the one after them, has taken to tearing the tops off mountains in BC.

Or they just left, like my parents did. They empty carcasses of a life abandoned for economics are still there.

I was back there this summer for the first time since 1999. It has come a long way, but their is an aura, a feeling that the end is near. All the money from Calgary can’t save them. The old, independent life, the hardened bitterness, the brutal economics of coal that bred a people that accepted all into the brotherhood of the black gold, is gone.

There was a bluff outside the Pass community of Coleman, full of what the locals called “black diamonds”. I’m not sure if it was jet (made from extra compression on some of the coal deposits), or obsidian (from the volcanic activity that dominated the area in previous epochs). Sometimes, if the light was right, you could see the light reflecting off the pieces showing through the bluff.

Then, about 15 years ago, in order to straighten the highway and let more huge trailer trucks roar through Coleman on their way to the rest of the world, the bluff was blown away.

Sometimes, in the rush of time, the memories in our blood get blown away, each individual event glistening in the sun one last time, before being scooped up and swept away.

In Victoria, BC, double-decker buses have been used as tourist icons of a faux-english heritage for many years.

Here is what happens when these wonderful old beasts outlive their usefulness.

They deserve a better fate than this.

I have recently discovered the amazing beauty of HDR (High Dynamic Range) images. The amazing vibrancy of the colours seems to fire of the neurons deep in my brain.

And tonight, I found a photographer who is experimenting with HDR pictures of Victoria, BC [here]. The places I know, exploding my crazy mind, reminding me of the vivid way I see the world.

Check it out. See Victoria the way my mind sees it.

Technorati Tags: HDR, Victoria+BC, Victoria, High+Dynamic+Range

Every day, the Digg search measurement times explode.

Maybe they need to look at that code again…

Technorati Tags: Digg, Digg.com, GrabPERF, Web+performance

You may have noticed some subtle changes in the GrabPERF interface over the last few days. I have been tweaking the layout, of only beause I have a weird screen size (1280X800) and some of the text was falling off the bottom of the short screen.

One part of the update you may miss if you aren’t looking is in the top right-hand corner: I have changed the copyright statement to reflect the new owners of GrabPERF

In April 2006, Dave Sifry and the team at Technorati, who have been hosting the service and supplying the hardware since November 2005, bought the service.

I want to thank Dave and his team for putting up with me (I can be a real pain in the ass, especially from 3,500 miles away) and supporting GrabPERF in such a positive way.

Technorati Tags: GrabPERF, Technorati

MacYawn

Now, shut up and go back to the interesting stuff.

Thank you.

I have been very quiet lately, simply because I haven’t had much to say.

As well, I have been in the middle of a post-holiday depression. I love bipolar.

Tags: depression, bipolar

Everyone should have a personal logo.

Here’s mine.

Technorati Tags: personal, logo, personal+logo

I have been watching Sketches of Frank Gehry in a piecemeal fashion over the last two weeks (kids, in-laws, Christmas, etc.). Despite what you think of Gehry or his buildings, you have to admire the process that a true architect goes through to create a new building idea.

As Bob Geldof says in the film, quoting Auberon Waugh: “If you ever meet an architect at a party, you should punch him in the face”.

I work in a building that sucks. As Kathy Sierra states: “I want a space that matches my enthusiasm”. This space drains me. And when I look around me, I have no hope for any of the other buildings out here in suburban hell.

How can an architect reach the point where generic is good enough? Where looking the same is the best that can be done?