Luke Walker.org

Night one of roflcon (hashtags) down, 2 days to go! Last night, Kate, Diana and I went to the Laughing Squid pre-drink-a-thon, where we had a chance to interview ROFLcon’s creator, Tim (video coming soon to a blog near you.) Today, we’re going to hear from David Weinberger, and learn about how you can actually make money being internet famous (and no I’m not talking about South Park’s theoretical dollars… though many of the same people will be here!). I’ll also be helping Kate out with a few interviews for her freelancing gig. Woot!

Check it out! Kate is like… FAMOUS. Sort of. We’re both going to ROFLcon, and Kate is blogging it for CBC’s Spark! Amazing! Check out that blog over the weekend for updates. I’ll be her faithful ‘crew’ all weekend. W00t!

Now back to work…

Here they are. They’re a bit weak/bit of a copout, because they’re all things I need to work on (and one random new idea) (links to 43things):

1. Bring my own lunch at least 3 days a week
2. Grow vegetables in my backyard
3. Buy organic food when the option exists and make a concert effort to find the option
4. Use my own reusable bags when shopping

Too much work to add these to TIG now, so I’ll work on it later. Maybe. I really like 43 things/43 places.

Happy Earth Day, everyone!

A (good?) question from the Toronto Star: Is Earth Day still relevant?

Don’t look to the media for an answer. I did a quick scan of Canada’s major newspapers (the online front pages), English and French, and all I found was the Star article above (questioning Earth Day Canada’s corporate sponsorship) and this cute human interest piece in La Presse (following a 9 year old who launched a “véritable petite révoltuion écologique dans son école primaire”). Both stories were buried beneath news of record gas prices, dropping interest rates, and Habs fans rioting. A Google News search wasn’t much more positive than my initial survey. But doesn’t it seem to be the case that more of us are more interested in the fate of the planet than ever?

You wouldn’t know it, if you only follow mainstream media. If you do care, and you live in Ontario, make an Earth Day Resolution (like the kind that you make for the new year, but focus on the planet and not your waistline. Or both. But definitely the planet.) and mail it in to info at ocic dot on dot ca, and check out the Ontario Council for International Cooperation’s news page to see what others are pledging. And if you don’t live in Ontario, or you do but you just want to spread your pledge a bit, check out 43things or TakingITGlobal’s Commit tool or fbook app (if you find bugs in either of the TIG tools, email broken at takingitglobal dot org).

Oh, and check out this video. It’s not strictly about earth day, but it’s cute:

That link from Alec Couros’ excellent blog. Oh, and… Vote green next time you get a chance.

While Laura is busy posting ‘serious’ things she found in the Globe & Mail (about what’s going on in Zimbabwe), I’d like to report some actually really SERIOUS stuff, namely:

Rickrolling is dead. That’s right. Stop it. Right now… Don’t even bother. It’s over. It’s been covered by the Globe & Mail. And while I take offense to the thought that “by all appearances half the participants [of the parts of the internet where these memes evolve] are livestock”, I do find it interesting when things like LOLcats, Leeroy Jenkins and Rickrolling get coverage in a big way.

I mean, I love all this stuff. Kate and I are going to a conference next weekend that exists solely to celebrate memes. But I feel like I can still talk to, oh, a good 90% of my friends about LOLcats and just get funny looks, or even better, looks of disgust. So when they get coverage outside of Spark and a few other nerdy places, it feels like… someone is blowing something fairly niche WAY out of proportion.

Oh well. All in good fun. And, watch this video. It’s not a rickroll… that came earlier (did you find it?). It’s my current favourite youtube fad.