“Bitch, where’s my traffic report?”McDonald’s wants to penetrate your consciousness some more… this time by making obnoxious product placements in major American news markets.For one thing, this may mean you aren’t very likely to see this story about…
Continue readingThus Prate the Pundit » Social Critique: What Would Happen if You De-occupy the Cognitive Surplus?
The “West” is known for its consumers. Much of the rest of the world is trying its best to head in that direction too. Reading Clay Shirky’s recent blog post, Gin, Television, and Social Surplus, got me thinking about the stance of the passive consumer. I’m wondering if the new
Continue readingAkaash Maharaj - Practical Idealism: Akaash Maharaj – Advisory: UNICEF Team Canada and the Campaign Against Childhood HIV-AIDS
No one is more astonished by the results of the International Tent Pegging Championships than we are. My hope for the Championships had been to represent Canada with honour, and to serve the cause of the world’s most vulnerable children. Having snatche…
Continue readingThus Prate the Pundit » Social Critique: Some Notes on the Canadian Digital Information Strategy Draft
I’ve been reading the draft consultation version of the Canadian Digital Information Strategy. The strategy proposes strengthening content, ensuring its preservation, and maximizing its access and use. These are important for many reasons the report addresses regarding culture; the report also has some anchors in industry, stating that “nations that
Continue readingThus Prate the Pundit » Social Critique: Copyright Reform and the StatsCan Report
Michael Geist posted about the politics in the debate on copyright reform. The point stems from dissonance between the recent Statistics Canada report and a reform-oriented bill expected to introduce more restrictive copyright policy. The report showed some nice Canadian recording industry profits where similar industries in other parts of
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