It’s no secret that Canada’s mailboxes are disappearing. You often have to walk a mile or more for one of these ‘old skool’ objects. What you may not know, though, is that our scarce mailboxes are disappearing behind a kind of camouflage. Canada Post is going with a teflon sheet coating for the boxes that sports a crazy pattern of our postal codes, hoping to clad all of them by the end of the year, according to a story in the Toronto Star.

The point of this covering is not to make the boxes disappear from view, as would . . . [more]

The Canadian Privacy Commissioner posted a link to a short test to see how you fare in minimizing the risk of ID theft that is on a website managed by the Australian Privacy Commissioner.

This was created for Privacy Awareness Week, which is an annual promotion by the Asia Pacific Privacy Authorities (APPA) forum which includes the Privacy Commissioners of British Columbia and Canada.

It looks at things such as what’s in your wallet, online shopping, and credit/debit card use.

It’s worth spending the couple of minutes it takes to complete. My challenge to you is to act on at . . . [more]

In the Globe on April 28 there was an entertaining profile of Peter Milliken, Speaker of the House by Michael Valpy that covered some of his family background, university experience and his part on the Bill C-399 of 1996. Unfortunately, the Bill is not available from the Parliament website, but there is a version of it here. Further links here, and much more on Milliken here. . . . [more]

You would think that after a week spent wielding words I would have had enough of those pesky signifiers. Oddly, though, I feel the urge to write about them in this week’s fillip. The “odd,” I think, is what I’m attracted to.

Here’s the setup.

The English language is a very loose bag containing something like three-quarters of a million words, though the very idea of counting words is nonsensical. It’s no wonder, then, that many — most? — in this hoard are strange to me. I mean, who apart from a chemist is likely to be familiar with osotriazoles . . . [more]

As the globe shrinks (the name for a new soap opera?), we’re challenged more and more to speak in unfamiliar tongues. And the problem becomes getting that chunky or deceptive bit of foreign prose out of our mouths with something less than extreme prejudice. How do you say Löwenbräu, risotto, Lech Wałęsa, Eyjafjallajökull, or even Советских, come to that? Heck, most of us can’t even say Moscow properly in English.

You might be adept at decoding IPA, the international phonetic alphabet — and there’s a good argument we all should be — in which case you can learn fairly . . . [more]

Two BC organizations working to improve access to justice have merged operations. As of April 1st, the Western Canada Society to Access Justice and Pro Bono Law of British Columbia have merged, and will now be known as the Access Pro Bono Law Society of British Columbia – or simply ‘Access Pro Bono‘.

The two organizations have a long history of helping those with limited means in British Columbia. Access Justice was formed in 1990, and Pro Bono Law in 2002. A new website for Access Pro Bono is currently under construction, but should exist soon at www.accessprobono.ca . . . [more]

I interrupt regularly scheduled programming to wander us a little off course. I’ve come across a collection of three dozen stunning photographs of what I’m now referring to as the volcano in Iceland. These are amazing shots of not just the smoke and fire but also Icelanders and farms in the vicinity of the eruption. The work of Belgian photographer Olivier Vandeginste, these are well worth a five minute break for viewing. With apologies to M. Vanderginste, I offer you a small portion of one of these beauties below, just to tempt you to the originals.

UPDATE: It’s been pointed . . . [more]

There is a lawsuit and a criminal investigation underway resulting from a school outside of Philadelphia that secretly took pictures of students with webcams on laptops supplied by the school.

The idea was to use the webcams only in cases where a laptop was reported stolen. It is alleged however that school officials turned on the webcams simply to spy on the students for their own curiosity.

More details and commentary can be found on Techdirt, Boing Boing, and this AP story.

It’s hard to sort out reality from posturing, but it doesn’t look good for the . . . [more]

Far be it from me to give fashion advice, but I was feeling in the mood for something light this week and am well-qualified to speak on matters related to “emergency business attire.” So here is my best reflection on how to deal with a scenario all of us who wear french cuffs have faced – how to achieve reasonable presentation in a cufflink emergency.

Le Clip

If you’ve worn french cuffs for longer than a year and travel for legal work, you’ve likely tried “Le Clip.” This is because a binder clip is the most accessible piece of hardware . . . [more]

The first paragraph of some spam that appeared again in my spam folder – I expect some of you have received variations of it – reproduced exactly:

FORGIVE MY INDIGNATION IF THIS MESSAGE COMES TO YOU AS A SURPRISE AND MAY OFFEND YOUR PERSONALITY FOR CONTACTING YOU WITHOUT YOUR PRIOR CONSENT AND WRITING THROUGH THIS CHANNEL.I GOT YOUR CONTACT FROM A PROFESSIONAL DATABASE FOUND ON THE INTERNET WHILE SEARCHING FOR A RELIABLE AND HONEST PERSON THAT WILL ASSIST ME TO SAFE GUARDAO UND INTO AN ACCOUNT OVERSEA. I WAS DIVINE LYINSPIRED TO PICK YOUR NAME AMONG ALL OTHER NAMES FOUND

♬ ‘Cause I’ve been searching, oh yeah, searching,
My goodness, searching every which a-way. Yeah. Yeah.
But I’m like the Northwest Mounties,
You know I’ll bring her in some day. ♪♪
[The Coasters, Searchin’ by Jerry Lieber & Mike Stoller]

A blog post this morning about a new feature on Google got me thinking about spelling and searching. Google’s Suggest will now offer searchers different suggestions depending upon their locations within the U.S. Thus, to use their example, someone in San Francisco who searches for “bart” will be taken to be searching for the Bay Area Rapid Transit rather than . . . [more]

The news today tells of hundreds — nay, thousands — of flight cancellations because of the volcanic ash still spreading through the atmosphere from Iceland’s Eyjafjallajökull. Just in case you’re numbered among the disappointed vacationers, or if you’re disappointed because you didn’t even have a vacation planned that could be cancelled, this fillip’s for you. Thanks to the wonders of the internet and the (still wonderful) older miracle of photography, you can do an armchair tour of all sorts of places well under the level at which the ash is spreading.

The particular vehicle I recommend today is 360Cities.net, . . . [more]