Category Archives: News

Disruptive Tech Watch: Blockbuster delisted from NYSE

By Catherine Winters | Published: July 2, 2010
With a share price below $1 and market capitalization bellow $75 million, video rental giant Blockbuster has been in trouble for some time now. The New York Stock Exchange is about to formally delist the company’s stock from their exchange, after the company’s last-ditch efforts to remain listed were deemed not to have met the [...]
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Boobquake: in which Catherine gets annoyed at the press

By Catherine Winters | Published: April 26, 2010
“So! Boobs, huh?” That’s right, boobs. Or what-have-you. “I don’t get it.” Well, the other day, Tehran’s acting Friday prayer leader Hojatoleslam Kazem Sedighi–yes, he’s not even an Ayatollah. I know, right?–went and said some crazy shit about boobs and how they cause earthquakes. Or more specifically, no, he didn’t really. As PBS explains: While delivering [...]
Also posted in Blogosphere, Canada, Gender, History, LGBT, Memes, Politics, Pop Culture, Vancouver | Comments closed

On Haiti and Sarcasm

By Catherine Winters | Published: January 16, 2010
Dear CBC Commenter: I understand that “some of [your] best friends are Haitian” and that you’re only talking about the “bad ones” when you say “Canada will be overrun by gangs and HIV” if we fast-track the immigration process for Haitian refugees. I get that you’re not really a racist, I do. In fact, I totally [...]
Also posted in Canada, Suggestion Box | Comments closed

Sure, we can put a man on the moon, but we can’t put–oh, right.

By Catherine Winters | Published: December 14, 2009
I’m skeptical of the usefulness of manned spaceflight, even as I believe in its long-term necessity. (Besides, should it be necessary for humans to leave Earth, we could get that going on fairly short order. The technology’s straightforward, even if we don’t have interplanetary ships today.) I was born almost a decade after the last time [...]
Also posted in History, Politics | Comments closed

Catherine’s Vancouver is growing

By Catherine Winters | Published: August 5, 2009
While hanging out at a Main Street coffee shop this afternoon, I overheard a conversation between a mom and her four-year-old. “We can go out to the airport,” the mom said as they were leaving. “Oh, that’s a long drive!” Yes. Yes it is. With the opening of the Canada Line now moved up to August [...]
Also posted in Canada, Catherine, Cycling, Drupal, Events, Suggestion Box, Vancouver | Comments closed

Blogathon 2009: “Legally, we have to refer to you as Catherine December.”

By Catherine Winters | Published: July 25, 2009
After hearing Dave Olsen talk a bit about the restrictions being applied — in particular, to the “pedestrian corridors” being established here in Vancouver during the Olympics, I’m concerned about the implications for free speech, as well as the potential for these laws to endure after the Olympics have ended. I’ve been convinced for a long [...]
Also posted in Blogathon 2009, Blogosphere, Brands, Canada, Law, Media, Politics, Privacy, Vancouver, Web 2.0 | Comments closed

Blogathon 2009: Dave Olsen & the True North Media House

By Catherine Winters | Published: July 25, 2009
Dave Olsen stopped by Workspace this evening to cheer some of us on and tell us a bit about the social/indie/citizen media project he’s working on for the 2010 Olympics this year, the True North Media House. From the TNMH website: We intend to create a space in downtown Vancouver to serve as a media [...]
Also posted in Blogathon 2009, Blogosphere, Canada, Media, Vancouver, Web 2.0 | Comments closed

Blogathon 2009: Infographics, Part 1: Why the CBC sucks

By Catherine Winters | Published: July 25, 2009
Okay, this is something that has bugged me for a while. People who say “interactive” when they mean “hard to use” and “Flash scrollbars”. While otherwise a competent, irritatingly underfunded news organization, the CBC sucks at infographics. Most of their “interactive features” are just text that requires a lot of clicking and scrolling to read. [...]
Also posted in Blogathon 2009, Canada, Complaint Department, Infographics, Usability, Vancouver | Tagged , | Comments closed

Catherine Winters in… The Case of Too Many Catherine Winters!

By Catherine Winters | Published: April 20, 2009
Recently, there’s been a lot of media interest in a woman named Melissa Huckaby — though not that Melissa Huckaby — and what it’s meant for her to be confused with an accused murderer and sexual predator: media attention, vandalism, death threats, etc, etc. Scary stuff. I, on the other hand, share my name with a [...]
Also posted in Brands, Catherine, LGBT, Privacy | Comments closed

Trackballs: A part of our heritage

By Catherine Winters | Published: April 12, 2009
In the summer of 2007, I learned I had a bit of an RSI problem when a can of Coke I was holding suddenly slipped from my grasp and plummeted to the ground. I couldn’t apply enough pressure with my thumb and fingers to hold it in my hand. One short diagnosis of tennis and golfer’s [...]
Also posted in Apple, Canada, Catherine, Gadgets, Usability | Comments closed