Students have been striking in Montreal for 11 weeks because their tuition might go up. All while, apparently, there’s no capital gains tax in Quebec. Gas the protesters so rich people can save taxes when selling their vacation homes!

Shameful. I hope Charest gets turfed over this, and I _like_ him. This is a potential national disaster: if the Liberals lose Quebec then who’s left? The Parti? The untested soft-nationalists in CAQ?

Hopefully it doesn’t get that far, but it’s really just a matter of time for Charest I think. He seems to have jumped the political shark, finally. But then I know nothing of French politics. We shall see.

We’re working on a port of a Japanese game. Here’s a comment the original team wrote in the late 80s/early 90s:

// hahaha!

I… I think they’re trolling us from 20 years ago? “Good luck debugging this!”

I have been building interfaces with new technologies recently — touch screens too — and I find the lack of haptics distressing. It looks like the new brass at RIM has picked up on that — I saw an ad last night to the effect:

I write about 1,000 emails a day. Try writing 1,000 emails on a touchscreen.

First let me introduce a caveat: it’s possible that this is just oldsterism — pure ludditery — and no one gives a shit about haptics anymore.

However, in the studio we’ve been discussing a weird trend: the Kinect in an AMAZING platform — pure techno magick from aliens inside a flying white pyramid orbiting Saturn — but gamers themselves HATE it. Maybe it’s the alienating effect of resistance-less physical actions?

Time for work — more later maybe.

Via Briceratops:

Via, here’s a video on the social good (or not) of everyone being outted by the death of privacy. It’s an interesting meditation on capitalism and exploitation and how maybe the future is a reflection of the past instead of a repudiation of it:

This is being juxtaposed by my new media job, where I got a blast from someone who is in PR for the city asking for industry stories to highlight in an upcoming mass media drop. I need access to PR people, so I followed her back. Recall that this is all in a business context — here’s the death of privacy in action, her last couple of messages:

Here’s a pic of me and X looking pretty at the porn awards!

I don’t know how it happened but I’ve become someone that porn stars recognize and give hugs to. How the hell?

Now if I could only add James Deen to the list I’d be a happy gal.

Just to be clear: I ain’t hatin’. But it’s *possible* that another business contact, or someone at the mayor’s office, for example, might.

I actually think being totally real on social media is awesome (and the irony of blogging that anonymously isn’t lost on me — more later on that). This is just evidence of collapsing public/private life boundaries.

Maybe the new norm is: if you look at someone’s profile it’s your own fault.

The last bank I have any interest in is ING Direct. On Monday night they hosted a games industry event at their bricks-and-mortar location in Downtown TO. That was cool. Today I was part of an email blast about their new push (I’m a longtime customer — 10 years, maybe?):

I want email money transfers, the ability to use the debit system, and the ability to use debit online. Let’s hope all those nice sloplosions signify that.

Of all celebs, 50 Cent uses social media most effectively. I try to learn from him, which is one reason I follow him. But at the end of the day he’s provocative and entertaining.

Here’s Kidd Kidd’s new stuff, which 50 is using as a promo. It’s embeddable…

… And just when it gets boring it turns into a call for violence to avenge Treyvon Martin.

Here’s a Skrillex + Damian Marley joint (via Billium):

My own theory is severe retardation… of the brain.

via

The former U.S. district attorney who prosecuted B.C. marijuana activist Marc Emery in a cross-border sting is calling for the legalization and taxation of pot in Canada and the U.S.

via