To assist the police in their ongoing search, Emily Carr MAA students Vanessa + Kristina have assembled a detailed and undoubtedly true-to-life reconstruction of Chad & Larry’s subterranean hideaway, accurate to the smallest detail. The opening reception is this Wednesday, January 26th. I, for one, will definitely be attending–and I urge concerned members of the public to attend as well.

From the event description:

Chad & Larry is an exhibit of new work from the collaborative duo of MAA students Vanessa + Kristina (Vanessa Arnold and Kristina Fiedrich).

At the core of the exhibition is a published work: an open edition book. The narrative deals with issues of identity, community, safety, ownership and media coercion. The books, supported by interactive portraiture and an immersive environment, contain detailed anthropological aspects of these two characters, and allow for multiple entry points into the dialogue. This narrative is loosely based on recent events at the Granville Island campus of Emily Carr.

As a humorous personalization, the artists have created fictional, detailed, and considered identities for suspected thieves featured on posters around Emily Carr. Rather than making light of recent thefts and the serious allegation thereof, this collaborative duo has created a humanized, fictional portrait of the lives of two men, Chad & Larry, known around campus only in surveillance photo form.

Please join us on January 26th, at 6pm for the opening of this exciting new exhibition by an up-and-coming collaborative duo!

January 26 –- February 6, 2011
Opening Reception | Wednesday, January 26, 6pm
Emily Carr University | Concourse Gallery

I hope to see you there!

Having tried it on-and-off for much of my career, I’ve concluded that it’s extremely difficult for me to work from home, and that coffee shops are even more difficult to work in simply because their furniture tends to be too small for me.

Consequently, I’m looking to either sign up with a coworking space or to share an office in downtown Vancouver. A space located in Gastown, Yaletown, the Downtown Eastside, or the regions between would be great.

The now-defunct Workspace would’ve been ideal: a naturally-lit, open-plan coworking space with other people around, and a coffee bar? Nice. Sadly, they’ve shuttered their doors and their successors, while numerous, don’t quite meet my requirements regarding lighting.

Simply put, I can’t work under fluorescent lights, not even high-frequency “natural” fluorescent lights, nor compact fluorescents. Even in an office with natural or incandescent lighting supplemented by fluorescent bulbs, I suffer migraines, nausea, and–I’m told–absence seizures.

I can work under halogen or incandescent bulbs–though I realize the impending ban on incandescent bulbs may make finding this dream office ever more difficult.

Second to lighting, an issue of physical scale: I’m quite tall and have a tendency to develop back and knee problems when wedging my outsize frame into smaller furniture.

This isn’t a huge problem, as most desks’ heights tend to be well within my margin of error, and most office chairs can be extended high enough that my knees don’t develop any problems. Seat depth and lumbar height are frequently inadequate, however.

Furniture aside, my torso height means that I do still need an external monitor that can be extended high enough to work comfortably for more than an hour or so. As such, I’d need a space where I could securely leave a monitor and keyboard, and, in the event that the office’s available chairs were insufficient, bring in one of my own.

To sum up, my must-haves:

1. Close to downtown Vancouver.
2. No fluorescent lights.
3. Secure enough that I could leave a few hundred dollars’ worth of equipment stashed somewhere–or more ideally, on my desk itself.

Nice-to-haves include:

1. Other freelancers and independent workers in the same space. It’d be handy to have someone with whom to have a ‘water-cooler’ conversation.
2. An open-plan layout rather than a private office.
3. Close proximity to coffee.

I don’t need a meeting room, space for my employees, foosball table, gym, land line, or fax machine, though these would certainly not dissuade me from renting. Maybe the foosball table, were it next to my desk.

Ideas? Contact me.

Update: Mission Accomplished! Thanks to everyone who offered suggestions!

As promised, Tris Hussey and I presented “WordPress 3.0 & Parent-Child Themes”

Being a generally nice sort of person, I let Tris cover the whole, “check it, I’m dragging categories and posts and things into a menu” bit–definitely a crowd-pleaser, that.

As I mentioned on Twitter, I’m hoping to post a quick FAQ up tomorrow answering the four or five main questions I’ve been asked after our presentation. (Ooh, magazine themes! Picking good parent themes! Multisite! Etc!)

For our slides, please consult Tris’ SlideShare account, or move your eyes slightly downward to the embedded SlideShare widget immediately following this sentence.

Also, be sure to check out Tris’ thoughts at his blog!

Update: For those who have asked, yes, it does appear that WordCamp was filmed, and on what appeared to be a Canon XL H1, so with any luck, we can all look forward to checking out my pores.

I’m pleased to confirm that, yes, I will be at WordCamp Vancouver 2010 on June 12. I’ll be speaking with Tris Hussey about the upcoming (Possibly just-released by then!) WordPress 3.0 and child themes. For more information about child themes, check out Tris’ blog.

Personally, I’m excited about the new content types and menu features available in WP 3.0 and I’m looking forward to seeing what people do with them. Remember, WordPress isn’t just for blogs!

As a longtime Drupal developer, I’m particularly impressed to realize that all but three sites I’ve ever worked on could be implemented in WordPress 3.0 as or more easily than the Drupal, ExpressionEngine, or Plone backends they were built with. As such, I’ll be paying close attention to the “WordPress as a CMS” panel discussion with Christine Rondeau, Cam Cavers, and Dave Zille.

I’ll also be volunteering at the WP Genius Bar, where I’ll be free to answer any questions you might have or help fix any problems you might be having with your blog. I’m particularly happy to offer advice on WP 3.0 or child themes, topics I enjoy doing more than just give talks about.

If you don’t already have tickets to WordCamp Vancouver, I’m afraid they’ve sold out, so tough beans. However, as the WordCamp Vancouver site notes:

Tickets are currently sold out, but we’re hoping to release a few more before the event, so hang tight!

Fingers crossed!

I hope to see you there–and if you have any questions about child themes, leave a comment on this post! I’d love to hear about what people are interested in.

See? Photographic evidence:

Catherine Winters, typing on her iPhone. Photo by Jeremy Lim.

“Hey,” you might exclaim, upon seeing the above photo, your voice pitching with excitement in having caught me with my iPhone out. “Catherine’s not paying attention to the speaker at all! Look at her tweeting away!”

Pernicious lies! Zoom in, and you’ll find that’s not this “Twitter” thing all the kids have been talking about at all! No, in fact, I’m using the excellent cloud-based note-taking app Simplenote to take meticulously detailed, hierarchically-indented notes! Ha!

In fact, I took a great deal of notes on my iPhone that day, as FreelanceCamp Vancouver turned out to be extremely useful. I was particularly interested by the session I was at when Jeremy Lim snapped the above picture, Contracts for People Who Hate Contracts. Led by Martin Ertl, cofounder of Vancouver open-source contracts startup LexPublica, it covered a number of contingencies and best practices surrounding the most inconvenient of all business practices: agreeing on things for money.

Martin clarified a few issues for me, including, when I, as a designer, ought to write a single project-spanning contract as opposed to a preliminary contract to determine project scope and one to cover the actual work as outlined in the resulting scope document. Which is as important as it sounds. I’ve used one of LexPublica’s contracts before, and I plan to continue to do so in future. One point he did emphasize: the most important part of such an agreement is a good explanation of the actual work to be undertaken. It turns out that, “I’ll have one website, please” can mean somewhat different things to different people. Who knew?

Other highlights included Kemp Edmonds’ talk on how to ask Kemp Edmonds to not call you a plagiarist when you plagiarize his presentations, and one particularly interesting discussion on “solopreneurs”. Google indicates this is indeed a word, and it seems like everyone is using it to mean roughly the same thing. (“It’s not quite a freelancer, not quite an entrepreneur, but OH MAN–”)

The big distinction between a freelancer and a solopreneur seems to be that the solopreneur has somewhat more infrastructure–they’re able to go after larger projects because they can outsource, team up with, or subcontract to other freelancers and solopreneurs, dividing up labour, while still not having all the overhead of an actual company with employees.

Which sounds appealing. After all, companies are expensive, right?

In any event, whether it ends up being a direction I choose to go in or merely interesting food for thought in a changing economy, the solopreneurs session was fascinating, and you should’ve been there. So there.

If you weren’t able to make it, I strongly recommend any future FreelanceCamps Vancouver¹ and I wholeheartedly endorse it as one of the most informative — and demographically representative – –Camp-suffixed events I’ve ever attended in Vancouver.

1. That’s the correct plural, right?

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 his weekly address, Hojatoleslam Kazem Sedighi, Tehran’s hardline Friday prayer leader — the man who replaced Ayatollah Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani in the role — revealed what had caused the strange prognostications. “Adultery causes earthquake,” explained Sadeghi. “The incidence of sin has proliferated. Sins — such as the laxities of some women or the way some young people harass and ogle on street corners or some families don’t observe religious values and practices while they are traveling — have mushroomed,” he told millions of television viewers on April 16. “These allurements that some women and some girls apply to themselves outside their homes, the young people who are tempted and turn to promiscuity and commit sin — all this increases adultery. According to our sacred transmitted texts, this is one reason for the incidence of natural calamities. When sin proliferates, earthquakes become common.“

So of course, this was picked up by the international press. They love this stuff. The greatest focus, of course, was the sentence about “some women” and their “laxities”: namely, the “allurements” they “apply to themselves outside their homes”.¹

This isn’t about boobs. It’s a nod of support, under the guise of religion–and frankly, I’m not even sure if Sedighi means it as some kind of badly-translated “we will bury you”-esque metaphor–for Ahmadinejad’s odious, dissent-quelling plan to depopulate Tehran.

“Depopulate Tehran? I hadn’t heard anything about this!”

You don’t say.

As you will no doubt recall, former Friday prayer leader Rafsanjani is currently Chairman of the Assembly of Experts. He’s also a former President of Iran and political opponent of current President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. During the 2009 Iranian election crisis, Rafsanjani’s July 17th sermon (ostensibly) called for an end of censorship of the press condemned the state-sanctioned violence against protestors.²

Consequently, he is no longer Friday prayer leader.

Flash forward eight months, and Ahmadinejad is throwing out crazy ideas like maybe moving five million people away from Tehran:

The issue of moving people and organizations from Tehran has received much publicity since the President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s recent call on Tehranis to pull up stakes and move to other cities.

Last week Ahmadinejad called on Tehranis to move to other cities because Tehran is earthquake-prone and if a massive quake hits this overpopulated mega city, the ensuing crisis will be unmanageable.

“Thanks to people’s prayers, Tehran’s fault lines are not active now,” but the occurrence of a massive earthquake in Tehran is certain, so at least five million should leave Tehran to make the crisis more manageable, Ahmadinejad said last week.

“Wait, wait, wait. Speaking as a hypothetical pro-Ahmadinejad Iranian-Analogue-to-the-Daily-Mail-reading Tehrani, I have to say that this proposal exists solely to save us from earthquakes.”

No. No it does not:

During the post-election events Tehran was the heart of the protests. Initiating rallies in huge numbers and acting as a model for other big and small cities of Iran with a concentration of most of the top universities and political, civil, cultural and economic organizations and a great magnet for young people coming to Tehran to either work or study.

So, good luck with that, Iran. Sorry about the press focusing on the boob thing.

…which brings us to last Monday, when Jen McCreight, Outgoing President of the Society of Non-Theists at Purdue University, threw up a quick blog post proposing an experiment to show Sedighi what’s what:

Time for a Boobquake.

On Monday, April 26th, I will wear the most cleavage-showing shirt I own. Yes, the one usually reserved for a night on the town. I encourage other female skeptics to join me and embrace the supposed supernatural power of their breasts. Or short shorts, if that’s your preferred form of immodesty. With the power of our scandalous bodies combined, we should surely produce an earthquake. If not, I’m sure Sedighi can come up with a rational explanation for why the ground didn’t rumble.

As of this moment, the Facebook group for “Boobquake” boasts 60,000 members, and Google News is reporting over 430 separate news articles around the world. Countless blog posts have leveled criticism against McCreight, accusing her of…well, pretty much every nasty thing. I particularly enjoyed the concern over what would happen if there actually was an earthquake today. Cheeky know-it-all-ism–meet–Islamophobia, awesome.

“Say, this raises a good point! What do you have to say about this Boobquake stuff, Catherine?”

I’m glad you asked that question! It’s silly and irreverent and I’m going.

“Wait, you’re going!? But! But!”

Hush.

The most obvious criticism leveled against Boobquake is that it promotes the objectification of women.³ And honestly, it’s easy to see why. Vancouver’s print media have not exactly paid much attention to anything beyond ZOMG BOOBS:

News1130 is on the street, finding full support for the shaker. “God has given me eyes to appreciate beauties,” says Vikram. He may see some beauties!

He asks what’s wrong with seeing the human body. “I’ll be the happiest man in the world if a woman comes in front of me and asks, ‘Can I buy a soda?’ And why not? I’ll open it for you… I’ll open the soda for you!”

Is that a euphemism?

The Boobquake will be shaking from 4:00pm-8:00pm at the VAG.

That’s some classy stuff, News1130.⁴

However, I really want to emphasize that while this story promotes the objectification of women, it is possible to write one that keeps it to a minimum about the same topic.

Even still, that Vancouver Province article annoys me for a variety of reasons.

First, what the heck do those women from Mission in the photo have to do with the rest of the article? There’s no explanation given as to who they are or why they were interviewed. They do have a very nice photo though–ohhhhhh. Good one, The Province.

Angela Squires will be monitoring seismic activity Monday from Vancouver as she and other women take up the busty bid to prove the cleric wrong in a show of solidarity at the Vancouver Art Gallery.

Right on, Angela. Of course, Metro Vancouver (yes, yes) does note:

“I thought, ‘how ridiculous,’” said Squires, who will be showing off her legs instead of her cleavage because she’s had a double mastectomy.

Yes, that’s some super fact-checking, The Province.

Metro Vancouver further quotes Squires as saying:

“People — especially (those) who have a perceived authority — are coming out with ridiculous statements that are not necessarily questioned. And it’s important for all of us to question what comes at us.”

Honestly, Metro Vancouver wins this one,⁵ though the Province does at least mention the word “skeptic”–though not any of background of there being a broader skeptics and humanists movement.

“But aren’t you afraid that if you show up wearing a low-cut top, guys will stare at your chest?”

First of all, my chest is at eye level for most dudes. It happens. Second, no. I’m not going to let concern over what guys may or may not do impact how I dress. That absolutely stinks of victim-blaming and I find it despicable.

Straight Dudes, I really hate to be blunt here, but I don’t notice you as sexual humans. At most, you are rivals–and let’s face it, even that’s a stretch. I don’t care whether you find me attractive, and I’m not going to use that as a consideration in how I dress. However, I am going to allow whether or not other lesbians find me attractive to influence how I dress. Sure, there may be overlap, but that’s one venn diagram I really don’t care about.

I want to be very clear on this: I do what I do for me, not for anyone else, and I do so because I have the freedom to choose.

1. “Outside their homes” is a great qualifier. Why, he’s practically Pierre Trudeau.
2. On the other hand, he’s wanted in Argentina on terrorism and murder charges. So really, this is a case where I can–at most–support his Selma-killing policies.
3. As we know, women’s bodies should be hidden away beneath a chador at all times. Y’know, so they’ll be respected.
4. Also, you can’t spell.
5. I know. I’m scared too.

October, 2000
I come out to a few select friends and family. My parents immediately fight over which one of them is most accepting of it. It later turns out the answer is “neither”.

September 11, 2001
The American Century comes to a close. The subsequent decade sees Western civilization dig its heels in, ineptly seeking security and short-term gains at all costs. I watch CNN for 6 months straight.

October 23, 2001
Apple releases the iPod. I fail to see what the big deal is. Investors disagree significantly on this point.

December 20, 2002
“Second Life? What’s that?” I ask as I click the link. “What a stupid name!”

February 1, 2003
I move to Vancouver on an ill-advised whim. The next three years are…interesting. To this day, I still wake up thinking cockroaches are eating dead skin off my face.

January 14, 2006
Some dude cuts most of my face off and totally goes to town on my skull with power tools. Fortunately, he was a doctor. I can breathe through my nose now.

August, 2006
As a part-time contract LSL developer, I am paid in US dollars. Currency fluctuations force me to give up LSL development in favour of working a minimum wage retail job. I like it a lot better.

November 18, 2006
I manage to get published for the first time. It is not exactly my finest work.

December 20, 2006
I’ve just been told about this new CMS that’s supposed to be pretty good. “Drupal? More like Poo–pal!” I exclaim to a circle of blank, embarrassed faces. Nice.

April 21, 2007
A lab test indicates I may have cancer. Subsequent tests indicate I have stress. I consider remedying both by having alcoholism.

July 22, 2008
My Palm Treo dies. I buy an iPhone. Unfortunately, everyone I know can be divided into two camps: People who already have iPhones and people who don’t care that I am now the coolest person ever.

August 15, 2008
I learn my knee pain is likely to be the result of osteoarthritis. At such an early age, the implication is that I will not be able to walk in 10 years.

September 1, 2008
I am told I do not have osteoarthritis after all. As such, I am likely to continue walking for some time. “Your knees look great,” the doctor says, peering at the x-ray. “Say, how much exercise do you get?”

January 1-Dec 31, 2009
I endure a great deal of bullshit. My friends are kept appraised of the situation–to their dismay.

And that’s what I did during the aughts. How about you?

For now, I’ve uploaded a Flickr set–tags to follow shortly.

With typical Vancouver cynicism, consensus among most of the bystanders (also, news media, city workers, firefighters, etc.) seemed to be that the soon-to-be-constructed condo towers at Kingsway and Broadway and Main and Broadway would be very nice and profitable indeed.

Update: The Vancouver Sun has also posted an extensive gallery of pre-dawn photos.

Update #1: I made a Google Map illustrating what might be in store for Main Street when developers get some of this land rezoned.

“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 17th, less than two weeks away, it will actually be quite a bit faster–for me, at least. The closest station is a 2km walk, bus, or bike ride away, but I expect door-to-door travel time to be much, much shorter than calling a cab.

It remains to be seen how well the existing bus service will integrate with the new stations, and if more frequent east-west buses will be needed to funnel Vancouver residents into the Cambie Street corridor. In any event, by opening early, Translink and InTransit BC will hopefully have some extra time to work out many of the bugs before the old bus routes out of Richmond get discontinued.

I probably won’t use the Canada Line much myself, still being closer to the Main Street bus myself. Since I tend not to go to Richmond or Oakridge Centre much, I don’t see a lot of opportunity to use it, but it would definitely make getting to Yaletown or Davie Street from my neighbourhood much more convenient.

Plus, as has been pointed out to me by friends and drinking buddies alike, now that I’ll be attending Langara College, the 49th Avenue station makes it extremely convenient to blast down to Gastown for a drink immediately after class. (Guys, you get that school isn’t 9–5, right?)

Still, this really does hammer home the point that for a pedestrian and transit user, the shape of our city really is defined by which buses go where. (Hint: they go downtown.) Personally, when I’m a passenger in a friend’s car, I never think about taking 12th Avenue to cut across town because there aren’t buses that go there.

These fascinating travel-time maps of Great Britain effectively illustrate what even a densely-populated country like the United Kingdom must contend with when moving people and goods around.

Also interesting is the implication of what “central” means to different people. This week, there’s been some discussion over at the Vancouver League of Drupalers, of having some coworking meetups to chat about Drupal projects we’ve been working on, get some coding down, and so forth. But where to actually meet? The Grind at Main and King Edward? Sweet, I’m there. Waves in New West? Yeah, not as convenient. However, if I lived right beside any Expo Line SkyTrain station in Vancouver proper save for Stadium or Main Street, it would be faster to go all the way out to New Westminster, hands down.

Fortunately, having my spiffy new bike has opened up a lot of options too, particularly with the ability to switch to transit when I need it, now that all the buses have bike racks.

So far today, I’ve ridden just under 8 kilometres to three out of four scheduled errands. The last one will double that. I’ll spend most of it on the cross-town 10th Avenue bike route. In the end, I will have spent about the same amount of time on the road as I would have, had I driven, if you factor in parking. It’s pretty liberating, I have to say.

But hey, even if it isn’t something that’s totally useful for me, a link to Richmond and the airport was necessary. I wish different choices had been made in construction and planning, but it’s definitely something we’ll be getting some use out of as a city. Plus, hey, Vancouver’s the first Canadian city with a subway link to the airport. Go us.