Angels Twenty, a new MP3 weblog. Take a look around, make yourself at home.

This unnerves me a little bit. I’m surprised I had to read a Reuters report to find out about this—I didn’t catch mention of this in the Toronto dailies, although I didn’t look very hard. On the other hand, dogs just gained several hundred brownie points in the ongoing cats vs. dogs battle.
As Rick Mercer said during CBC’s coverage of the national election tonight, a coalition government will be compelling for the same reason a rhinocerous is—because I’ve never seen one before. Every party, including the Green party, has reason to be happy with the result; every party also has reason for disappointment. The Liberals lose their majority but retain their hold on power better than most expected; the Conservatives regain their power base in Ontario but lost a chunk of the popular vote they used to have as two parties. While the fight continues in some ridings, it’s fair to say the NDP has made giant strides towards legitimacy, and will likely play kingmaker; even so, Ontario support perhaps wasn’t as high as expected. And the Bloc is back to the numbers they had under Lucien Bouchard’s reign, but their mandate of Quebec sovereignty is less stable, and with the success of the NDP, it’s unlikely the Liberals will attempt to broker a deal with them. Finally, the Greens managed to garner 4.2 per cent of the national vote, but their hopes of winning a seat or two did not translate into material gains.The interesting question, then, is what will be accomplished by the next federal government? Certainly the Liberals—and by association the NDP—will be watched very closely. Toronto mayor David Miller commented numerous times during his stint on CityTV’s election panel that the new government will have to pay attention to cities now; in reality, many demands will be made on the Liberal government, and all will be important lest they lose their fragile hold on power. Polling aside, the likely story in the end is that undecided voters didn’t want to try out a Conservative government just yet. If the Liberals and the NDP fail this time around, there certainly won’t be a next time—a future I don’t really have the heart to contemplate just now.Jack Layton won Toronto-Danforth; York Region remained largely Liberal; British Columbia has shifted further to the left. On both the grand scale and the local picture (at least where I’m concerned), things could hardly have gone better.Also, does anyone know where I can find a national map of all the ridings? I’d like to try my hand at an infogram.Update: The incredible shrinking NDP have, over the course of the last couple of hours, lost a number of close races. As a result, with only 19 seats, the NDP cannot hand the Liberals a majority government alone; theoretically the coalition would stand deadlocked against the combined might of the Conservatives and the Bloc, should they ever happen to agree on something. I’m hoping for a reversal of fortune in the inevitable recounts, but it appears the NDP’s fortunes are not quite as good as I’d hoped. And in this case, what’s bad for the NDP is arguably bad for the nation—already there are whispers of another federal election within the year.As the BQ and the NDP agree on a number of issues, hopefully some sort of compromise can be reached in that area. I’m still afraid that given half a chance, large swaths of the population will shift right. Plus, who really wants to go through another election so soon?

The recent release of Firefox 0.9 has caused a bit of a stir, thanks to the skin change that many think is a stylistic regression from the previous theme. See the visual change for yourself. Some people think the Luna-XP conversion of Pinstripe is poorly done; others just wish Pinstripe would return to OS X Firefox because the new Winstripe looks too much like Windows. There’s no real consensus, except to say that the theme certainly looks half-baked; there’s just the question of whether the Mozilla group should give it time to evolve (as it’s been labeled a 0.1 release, and nowhere close to finished) or if it should be canned immediately to facilitate a return to the previous default skins.I personally think Winstripe suffers a little from open-source-itis: the tendency to give the user interface short shrift. Thankfully, here this applies more to visual appeal more than “where the hell is the Any key?” usability issues, but it still seems to me like Winstripe got a little bit of the ugly stick. So, like a good open-source samaritan, I’m making my own.It’s not done yet, as this is my first foray into skinning any Mozilla component. It’s essentially a rat’s nest of code and images, and there are few resources available to themers, especially in the realm of what can you smack a graphic on, and how do you get to it? Eventually, though, it’ll get done. It’s already to the point where I can use it as my main theme without cringing too much at the parts I haven’t touched yet (the menus are still Windows-native, for example).It’s been fun, though—for this latest project I’ve had to pick up the basics of Illustrator to make all the buttons and such, which will only help in the future. Plus I’ve refined my Photoshop kung-fu; the last time I tried to skin something (an Aquaized Winamp 2.x) I learned about the magic of layer styles, and since then I’ve found tons of places to use them. Hopefully this will be the start of a long, fruitful journey with Illustrator as well.

The latest missive in the Toronto transportation debate comes courtesy of the CAA. The Mobility Express is a CAA proposal targeting traffic congestion in the GTA. Some of the highlights include an offshore extension to the Gardiners Expressway past Scarborough, a new commuter expressway to more directly connect Scarborough and eastern York Region to the downtown core, and other road upgrades to expressways and extensions of current highways. In terms of public transit, the CAA has also recommended that the Queen subway be resurrected, as well as the planned extension of the Sheppard line to Scarborough Town Centre. Other extensions of commuter rail and subway lines are also suggested, including a Bloor-Danforth extension into Missisauga that the CAA has marked a top priority.If you’re looking for a bit of debate, the Toronto Star has unwittingly provided both sides of the issue in its pages; an editorial suggests that the CAA needs to concentrate on more realistic solutions, including greater emphasis on public transit, while a columnist in the Wheels section thinks it’s about time.The aforementioned editorial states that only one page of the 11-page report discusses transit improvements. To be fair, there are only two pages that explicitly discuss refinements to the city’s asphalt network. Nevertheless, the editorial does point out an imbalance that many—including Mayor David Miller—have picked up on. The bias against public transit is obvious in the first few pages of the report, where the CAA outlines the need for such improvements.The CAA details the many additions to the public transit network and juxtaposes them with the cancellation or reduction of several highway projects. It argues that transit has been a failure at keeping pace with the increase in traffic over the last three decades, and there’s also the implication that the focus on transit has hurt the road network. Former Toronto roads and traffic commissioner Sam Cass, in a lead-off editorial, wrote of Toronto’s transit-centric transportation plans that “never before has so much been spent by so many to benefit so few.” Perhaps we shouldn’t expect any less from a lobby group essentially made up of car drivers.But are they right? Regardless of their position on public transit, is it still necessary to re-evaluate the road network and make changes? As much as I don’t like the focus on roads as the savior of all that is good, the report makes a number of solid points, especially in a section outlining the myths used to oppose highway projects and the like. For example, the CAA argues that urban sprawl requires expressways, as opposed to expressways triggering urban sprawl. The key here is that expressways are not catalysts of a problem, but rather symptoms of one (although it’s debatable whether the CAA, or many of the people it represents, would consider urban sprawl a problem). And it does seem true that higher density development requires an improvement of existing transportation networks, both transit and road.But even then, the CAA takes a car-centric approach in outlining and debunking myths. For example, one myth the CAA presents is, “Higher density development will encourage public transit use.” Oddly enough, the CAA agrees with the statement, but does add the caveat that roads are equally important. But the phrasing suggests that high-density development and transit use don’t go hand in hand. Also, when the report debunks the myth of expressways causing urban sprawl, it doesn’t go any further than simply stating that it’s the other way around. Assume that a) people don’t like expressways, and b) urban sprawl require expressways to function. What solutions, then, does the CAA offer for reducing urban sprawl? The issue isn’t even touched.In a sense, the CAA’s proposal is pragmatic in nature, even as it suggests lavish projects like huge expressway bridges over Lake Ontario. It essentially takes the GTA as it currently exists and asks, what can we do to improve the transportation network, assuming that nothing else changes? Hence the proliferation of highways—the city will simply shut down otherwise. But does that mean this is the right solution? The report gets one other thing right: most of the traffic congestion in the GTA is a direct result of the 905/416 divide, where people live in the 905 suburbs and work in the 416 core.Despite the best efforts of municipalities like York Region and Vaughan, public transit has made comparitvely little impact versus the downtown core and surrounding area. Much of this has to do with the physical makeup of the suburbs, an area almost designed to mitigate the best efforts of public transit and pedestrians: long blocks, winding residential streets and cul-de-sacs, low-density developments, many multi-lane avenues and highways that impede pedestrian use. To combat this problem, do we simply build more roadways? Or is the answer perhaps closer to that of a proposal tabled a year or two ago, recommending that residential and commercial densities along major roads like Eglinton and Sheppard be increased to combat urban sprawl and increase the effectiveness of transit along those roads?One of the main reasons public transit fails in low-density areas is the demand for it is so spread out; servicing everyone who wants to take the bus to work would require such a high number of bus routes that it would cost a great deal of money and time to put them all into place, assuming people didn’t mind take the scenic route through a bunch of subdivisions before getting to a subway station. Thus everyone drives cars, causing our current situation. It’s safe to say that we’d have different congestion problems if the 905 area were developed in a similar fashion to the downtown core, and perhaps they’d be easier to solve. But this is not a reality, and unless we strive for it, it likely never will be.The point of bringing up the possibility of high-density development in York Region, however, is to suggest that while expressways are an obvious solution, perhaps the real answer lies elsewhere. There are many questions that still don’t have clear answers. For example, to the Wheels columnist who drives in from Milton every day on the Gardiners Expressway: why aren’t you taking the GO Train instead? There’s a station in Milton. Is it because the schedule is bad? Is it because the station itself is inaccessible? Is it simply because you can’t be bothered with the hassle of taking a train and prefer to drive instead? And if so, considering your obvious distress at being held up in traffic, why is the alternative so odious? These are just some of the questions we’ll all have to figure out before we can say definitively that highways are the only solution, despite all their problems.Problems? What problems? We’ll have to get to that some other day, but to put it simply, we’ll take the example of the San Francisco Embarcadero Freeway, mentioned in the CAA report. Freeways are as good as solid barriers in a city.

And now, summer.You may remember the Prodigy from such songs as “Baby’s Got A Temper” (if you’re being spiteful), “Firestarter” and “Lost In Out Of Space” (if you’re feeling generous). Liam Howlett has since all but disowned “Temper,” handing it over to Keith Flint for his own side project. All the tracks written to that point for the new album were scrapped, and the band started from scratch. The result? “Girls,” a fuzzed-out stormer of a track you’ll latch onto quick. Perfect for soothing the post-!!! blues—this easily tops the wankfest that is “Hello? Is This Thing On?” every day of the week and twice on Saturday night.And again showing that despite the crap weather, the Brits still know what summer is all about, Ash guitarist Charlotte Hatherley has put out the first single to her upcoming solo album via her website. Upon first listen, you’re liable to think that the loopy keyboards, the hyperactive verses and the odd choice of melodies would kill this track dead; in lesser hands everything would come apart at the seams. Instead, Hatherley’s put together a pop song that does what every pop song should: drill so deep into your head that you’ll hum it all day without even noticing.

Ever since the bold new world of consumer plastics came into being around the 1950s, people have been finding ways to make stupid-looking shit by bolting pieces of it together in unwieldy and horribly gaudy configurations. Since there’s no tiresome carving or metalworking involved, plastics have made it that much easier for industrial designers to forget one cardinal rule of good product design: keep it simple, stupid. All you have to do is remind yourself of the street racer phenomenon if you ever forget. Or take a look at your shaving razor. Don’t tell me those grooves make the shaving go faster. Any consumer product can apparently be made better by adding all sorts of vents, grooves, spoilers and ridges.No one ever said computer cases ever had to look staid; that was a market decision made long ago. But now that gamers have become one of the leading consumers of PC goodness, case manufacturers have adapted to meet the needs of a new demographic. They’ve done so in an entirely predictable fashion: by adding stupid-looking plastic shit to the front. Tom’s Hardware said the NZXT Guardian “is definitely for the under 30 crowd;” try the under-10 crowd. If you buy that monstrosity, you’re an idiot. There are surprisingly few computer cases these days that fit my particular needs: won’t cut my hands off with sharp metal edges, allows decent airflow, and doesn’t look like a Transformers reject. The ones that do are, predictably, amazingly expensive.Come to think of it, so are the Transformers rejects, leading me to ask, who the hell is giving the idiots who buy these things money? And why aren’t they giving it to me instead?

This is fun. But wait—my results?Jack Layton, Leader of the New Democratic Party of Canada (score = 100)
Gilles Duceppe, Leader of the Bloc Quebecois (score = 93)
Paul Martin, Leader of Liberal Party of Canada, Prime Minister of Canada (score = 73)
Stephen Harper, Leader of the Conservative Party of Canada (score = 7)I’d initially misread the seperatists question as a case of “Do you oppose the government working with seperatists or former seperatists?” I don’t agree with Quebec sovereignty, but it doesn’t mean I wouldn’t work with advocates of such. Turns out the question is actually asking if you’d support a coalition government with seperatists or former seperatists. Oh. Good thing I figured that out, because otherwise:Gilles Duceppe, Leader of the Bloc Quebecois (score = 100)
Jack Layton, Leader of the New Democratic Party of Canada (score = 93)
Paul Martin, Leader of Liberal Party of Canada, Prime Minister of Canada (score = 80)
Stephen Harper, Leader of the Conservative Party of Canada (score = 7)So, in summary: Vive la Quebec libre!

Things I learned about my computer case today, thanks to a new power supply and video card:

1. Not only does it have barely enough space to fit my new supply (after bashing it a few times in the right places, strike one), but the shelf upon which it sits partially blocks the supply’s bottom intake fan (strike two).
2. The CPU runs 10 degrees celsius hotter with the case panels on (despite the presence of three fans; maybe I need to wrap up some cables and such, but otherwise, strike three).

Also, power supplies are hella expensive and I may need to buy a new case to make sure my house doesn’t burn down in the future. Stupid technology.
Quickly: Serenity, the upcoming Firefly movie, has started principal photography, and has a tentative release date: April 22, 2005.

A miniseries that is still as important and relevant today as it was when originally aired on the BBC in 1979, James Burke’s Connections has been done a disservice by American networks as of late; once a staple of TLC and the Discovery Channel, both have stopped airing the series in recent years, meaning the only way to watch the series was to finagle yourself a copy of the DVD set released in 2001. Because it’s ostensibly for educational use, you’ll pay through the nose for it. (On the other hand, you’ll have license to screen the DVDs for a public audience, something you aren’t technically allowed to do with most DVD releases.)This year, however, marks the 25th anniversary of the series’ first airing. The Discovery Channel just re-aired the entire series about a week ago in the U.S.; if you missed it, then wait for December. Burke has put together a new one-off special, Re:Connections, to commemorate the event and give us his take on how technology and society has changed since his last examination of how hopelessly out of touch most of us are with the infrastructure that runs our modern world. It airs on PBS near the end of the year; I wouldn’t be surprised if they also re-air the original series.I couldn’t wait; I grabbed the entire series via Bittorrent over the course of this past month (my excuse being that I live in Canada, or otherwise I would already own the DVDs). Unlike most things from my childhood, Connections is still largely spot-on, as I remembered it. The middle eight episodes, with their twisting and winding tales of how developments and events trigger other advances in history, are as delightful and intriguing as ever. The bookend episodes to the series, if anything, have only become more chilling with time, as I’ve come to more fully understand the implications.”Yesterday, Tomorrow And You,” the final episode of the series, doesn’t attempt to trace the tale of a technology as the previous episodes do. Instead it’s a look at how the rate of change in our world has accelerated to a point where barely anyone understands the bulk of how the world works before it changes again, and what options society has to cope, lest we be subject to the possibility of catastrophic failure. The whole series is definitely worth watching; “Yesterday, Tomorrow And You” is the perfect endnote to the historical lesson, and if you see only one episode, that’s the one.A 1998 interview with Burke. Since Connections he’s done The Day The Universe Changed, another miniseries focusing more on the development of scientific knowledge; two follow-ups to Connections during the 90s; a number of books in the same “historical detective story” vein as Connections, including the latest, Twin Tracks.