Fleeting moment at sunset

 

Sunset from Bowen Island

 

 

Canada’s West Coast Marine Ecosystem

PNCIMA

PNCIMA

or Pacific North Coast Integrated Management Area is Canada’s West Coast Marine Ecosystem.

Follow this link: PNCIMA

to see a Google Earth tour of PNCIMA narrated by David Suzuki.

You should be using a modern web browser, and you may need to acquire a plugin for it. You will not need the Google Earth application.

Starting to Use Twitter

Think of the whole Twitterverse as a huge party.
6 million people are at this party.
But they are all silent and invisible
until you make the effort to make
some of them appear for you.

It is becoming a common question, “I looked at Twitter, and I didn’t see much. What do you do with it?” Are you are considering reasons for using Twitter, and a method to become involved? This is only one person’s perspective. I see that there are many other ways people use Twitter. Some other users might have different recommendations. I am not a prolific twitterer. What this means is that I donʼt provide much value to the world of Twitter, but I receive a lot of value. This is not about how to manage a Twitter account, only how to be effective as you start to twitter.

First, why do I use Twitter?

• It keeps me current with some of the people on Bowen Island
• It keeps me current with some of the social media people in Vancouver (and I am exploring their and my use of Twitter and blogs)
• It has made me some friends and contacts in the Internet-technical-social media community in Vancouver and elsewhere (this has helped to solve problems for me)
• I read up-to-the-minute news published by a number of experts that I follow — on several occasions Iʼve asked them to respond to a question or comment (they usually do)
• A combination of Twitter + my RSS aggregator provides me with almost my entire news gathering system. My household receives a newspaper, but the news is always out of date (for me) irrelevant and usually slanted or packaged by useless journalists. We donʼt have a cable and Iʼve not watched broadcast news for over a decade.

If you look at the design of http://twitter.com/ and its subdomain, http://search.twitter.com/ there isn’t much to see. So, whatʼs going on here? It is actually a very simple social media tool. Until you decide to use that tool, like a hammer in a toolbox, when you look at it nothing is happening. The simple answer is that if you want to understand it, you have to actively participate. While saying that may be true, it isnʼt helpful, so let me try to suggest how it might work for you.

Since it is a tool, to be useful to you, you will have to learn to wield it with some skill. Since it is a device for social media, it is a tool that requires that you use it to interact with other people. In that regard, it is a little bit like a telephone.

Sticks – a Halloween story

STICKS by Karl Edward Wagner

This is not the Salish Sea. This is about upstate New York.

And it is about entertainment, imagination, and Halloween. I love audio adventures (did you listen to my Frog Chorus? No? Okay, maybe later.)

This is something you should do alone. You will need headphones. The good ones, not those things you stole from Air Canada. And a quiet, dark, evening at home. Did I mention, alone?

On the technical side, this audio drama was recorded using the amazing Kunstkopf binaural microphone. Binaural sound requires headphones, not stereo speakers. When you are ready, go here for a high quality audio show. This is a free Halloween gift from the ZBS Foundation. So, it may not be available in the future. Enjoy it now. Yes, the music is composed by Tim Clark who taught me how to make this pizza.

Will Bowen Island own water taxis?

The water taxi between Granville Island and Bowen Island will soon cease operations. For islanders who’ve come to depend on this speedy and environmentally preferable commute, this news is disappointing. Not surprisingly, the passengers have complained to the drivers — who love boats and have spent hours exploring what is possible. What if islanders bought (or leased) the boats and contracted an operating company to run them? Tonight, pilots Simon and Scott held an informal meeting in The Snug to explore the possibility with interested islanders. The small restaurant was packed.

Water Taxi Business Plan

Standing Room only in The Snug

A working group has been formed and Matthew Redekopp has agreed to post all of the relevant material, plus possibly a discussion forum, on the web. There is some urgency about this issue so watch for developments.

New Communications Cone for Mt. Gardner

It was sometimes noisy at the top of Mt. Gardner on Bowen Island today. The sub-peak has become a forest of communications towers. One of the oldest gadgets up there is a communications cone. These fibre glass rocket cones are on about 300 mountain tops around British Columbia. They are meant to withstand fierce weather and have batteries to keep them operating for many days when the solar cells or the power lines fail. We watched a helicopter  install a new one.

The boss arrives by helicopter to inspect the base
for the new communications cone.
Note that the old cone is leaning like the Tower of Pisa.

The helicopter left to pick up the cone at Porteau Cove, and returned about half an hour later with the cone on the end of a long line.

The line was then used to begin to remove the construction equipment.

The work was performed by Motionrig Systems Ltd, led by Don Johnson.

Our culture, our relationship to the land

I wrote this comment in the forum at bowegover.ning.com. I felt that this view should appear here, on my blog, as well. Be sure to visit that site to see what others around here are saying about Bowen Island in the Salish Sea.

For centuries Canada has been dominated by the ambitions of people who came here for all the free natural resources: the free animals (pelts), free fish, free trees, free lands, free minerals, and free fossil fuels.

Now, to maintain our biodiversity, some of us are working to preserve endangered species, the fish stocks are largely depleted, there are no free lands, and hardly even any tall grass prairie, those who mine want the last of the riches in the ground that belong to our grandchildren (and in return pay us with a few years of jobs, some taxes and fees, and an eternity of pollution), and just tour the Province in Google Earth to see the devastation to our forests.

Like it or not, this practice of allowing the exploiters to take all they can is our history and the existing culture. Our ‘economy’ (whatever that means) has grown to depend on it. The owners of these resources (we, the people) live largely in urban areas, and most of our children are growing up not knowing what they own. And you cannot blame governments for letting the companies have these resources because some temporary funds will flow into the treasury, a few people are employed for a while, and the urban crowd who don’t see the consequences won’t have to pay for some of the government’s services with higher taxes.

Don’t miss ‘Noises Off’ now showing at Tir na nOg

Last night my family attended the Premier of Noises Off, the great farce of a farce by Michael Frayn, at the Bowen Island Tir na nOg Theatre on Cates Hill, Bowen Island. I posted a review on the forum at Bowen Island Ourselves. This is excellent entertainment, and an event you will not want to miss.

Bowen OCP Process to reach out to community

Much of the work of the Official Community Plan (OCP) Steering Committee at last night’s meeting was to make sure that the members of the committee would be listening to as many  Bowen Island groups as possible.

A new initiative of the process will be to use the social media site, http://bowegover.ning.com/, called Bowen Island Ourselves, to interact directly online with members of the community.

Sue Ellen Fast, left, and John Dumbrille, right, at OCP Steering Committee

One of the founders of Bowen Island Ourselves, John Dumbrille, made a presentation about the operation and philosophy of the site to the Steering Committee. Following that, the committee decided to participate. Committee member, Sue Ellen Fast, will join the site as an administrator.

Going with the (Internet) flow

Do you think you’d like to wade into the bitstream, and even become part of the flow? Here is the story of one who does, the onfovore, Stowe Boyd: http://www.stoweboyd.com/message/2009/08/i-am-an-onfovore.html

For those of us who wade only in the shallows, it is interesting to read about someone who is unafraid to go in over his head.