I’m sure this isn’t the first time I’ve mentioned how the state and its agencies are getting so bold with our basic, fundamental freedoms that to compare them to East Germany’s post-World-War-2 Stasi is in no way an exaggeration.

A constant, around-the-clock surveillance on all citizens, guilty or innocent, is taking place – that much is now well and publicly established fact. Granted, we don’t have the secret police disappearing people off the streets just yet, but both Harper (Bill S-7) and Obama (NDAA) have made sure that that kind of thing will be all nice and legal when they decide to roll it out. Or they just passed these laws for shits and giggles, maybe? Oh, I know, it’s just for the bad guys, right?

Thankfully, there’s a growing backlash in the United States:

And we’re seeing some fightback from the CCLA on the topic too. But government is just one tiny step away from business, and the same scummy lack of morals and ethics pervades both houses of rot and greed.

Just recently, Bell announced it would be sharing your data with third-parties to bring better-tailored advertising to your mobile phone. According to a contract which would otherwise be viewed as being produced in bad faith (but, you know, big money), Bell reserves the right to do whatever they want, whenever they want, as do most banks and other big business we are forced to deal with at a cost and by law — unless I haven’t heard and the Canadian government is using its own solely legal tender (cash) again?

Oh sure, you can opt-out of the ads, but only whenever they feel like getting to it. Oh, and they’re still gonna track you and share the data with whomever they please — just to be clear.

Rogers recently did something similar, albeit in an opt-in fashion. Funny thing is, if Rogers is the good guy, it really makes you wonder what kind of shit is going on behind the scenes at Bell. As you may recall, Rogers spent months fighting tooth and nail against having to tell the truth in their ads because they claimed it infringed on their freedom of speech.

Simultaneously, our governments are pulling the rugs out from under their citizens by clamping down on unbiased scientific information in exchange for government propaganda, which is almost 100% pro-business and pro-big-money, and increasingly just simply telling their subjects that they’re not entitled to any information or say on things like massive, global, secretive agreements and deals like CETA, which will directly affect most of them negatively for a very long time — importing dirt-cheap European labour while Canadians remain unemployed, higher drug costs (government “subsidies” come out of Canadians’ pockets as taxes, don’t forget), and I’m sure a few other surprises and gotchas too — not like anyone’s allowed to actually see the damned things. But we might get cheaper eau du toilette though!

Even the people who Harper claims that the fast-tracked CETA is supposed to help aren’t happy with it. Ain’t the first time he’s pulled this stunt either. But what does King Harper care?

He’s become so accustomed to getting his way that as he was busy throwing his appointed minions under the bus, he and his helper monkeys became enraged when most news stations refused to air his recent caucus speech because he demanded that only cameras be let in — NO ONE MAY ASK QUESTIONS!

But our benevolent government is throwing us lowly serfs one little bone among all this, they’re going to allow us  to look over results of drug safety analyses of Health Canada. Yeah! Now we’re allowed to see the information produced with the money that is seized from us in order to determine if something might kill us or not. Aren’t we lucky?! Of course, the previous reasoning was that they would be giving away business secrets with this information, which obviously trumps God himself.

Is it just me or is this shit starting to get real old?

An excerpt from a recent Cracked magazine:

Robbie talking to Norm Kelly during this year’s TIFF:

Robbie answering questions directly and honestly:

A clip that never gets old:

Honest signage:

On oldie-but-a-goodie:

An uncanny likeness:

…and another portrayal by artist Mike Geiger:

Finally, just so it’s not all the disturbingly laughable Rob Ford, a random street altercation on Spadina:

Speaking to reporters at a gas station around the corner from his house today, a visibly shaken Rob Ford addressed the news that his occasional driver / bodyguard / advisor / confidant / BFF  Allesandro Lisi has been arrested by the Toronto Police on drug trafficking charges.

In the unusual scrum, Ford fought back tears and repeatedly choked on words as he implored on the police chief to release Lisi.

“He’s a friend, he’s a good guy … he’s straight and narrow, never once seen the guy drink, never seen him once do drugs. I just want him back. I just want my little buddy back. He’s not a bad guy! He’s just … too fragile for jail. Please, Chief Blair, just let him go. Please let him go.”

You can tell that this post isn’t entirely accurate because I suggested that Rob Ford had an emotion other than anger directed at his usual target – the damned media. C’mon.

You may have heard the term “paywall” — it’s when a web site limits the amount of content that you can see unless you sign up with them for a fee. This typically happens after you’ve viewed a predetermined number of articles, and that number is reset on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis (depending on their setup).

All of Toronto’s major daily newspapers have put up paywalls, including the Toronto Star, Toronto Sun, Globe and Mail, and National Post.

And they’re all just awful.

Much hooplah was made about a developer that bypassed the New York Times paywall a couple of years ago, yet little (if anything), has changed since. David Hayes, the developer who cracked the NYT paywall, claims it took him a lunch hour to write the bookmarklet that bypasses the newspaper’s paywall.

A couple of days ago when Sarah was hitting the Star’s paywall I decided to take a quick look at what would be involved in getting around it. Twenty minuted later I had bypassed the paywalls of all of the above papers, including the New York Times (before I’d read anything on the topic, I should add). It took another 30 minutes to produce a small, generic site script that makes the dewalling process just a little easier and faster.

I’m not blowing my own horn here. I’m no super genius and this “hack” could be accomplished by anyone with rudimentary web development experience. In fact, both Hayes’ code and my own are almost unnecessary; with a few extra steps, you can bypass these paywalls with no extra software or crazy hacking skills. Chances are good that you already know how to do it.

I can see some extra benefit to a utility that would assist in automatically navigating the paywall beyond the first article — so that you could click on the web page links instead of having to load article by article — but this was more of a proof-of-concept thing, and the proven concept is that paywalls are unfortunately simple to defeat.

I’m not currently posting my dewalling code publicly. However, I will detail why this problem exists, and what the papers can do to fix it (if you’re from any of the aforementioned newspapers, feel free to give me a shout).

So Why Are Developers So Dumb?

I don’t think they are :) And to be honest, I totally get why things were done this way.

When a typical web browser grabs the web page you request, it sends out some limited information for the listening web server on the other end. This includes listing the browser’s capabilities (what kinds of content it can handle), specifying what it’s looking for (usually the URL of the web page), and cookies.

The receiving web server has that, plus an IP address, to identify an individual reader over the internet.

The IP isn’t unique to you, it’s unique to your internet connection which may be shared by many devices (like the the internet box thing, a.k.a. residential router, in your home). Browser capabilities can’t be assumed to be unique, again, because of that shared internet connection thing. And cookies can be cleared with the click of a button.

Given these limitations, how are web developers supposed to identify unique readers while ensuring that other legitimate readers can still access the site?

Better to err on the side of caution and just use cookies, sometimes along with IP, rather than accidentally block readers. Paywalls are necessarily leaky.

So What Should They Do?

This is a tough one.

It’s tough because it puts the limitations of technology up against corporate culture and profits.

What this does is really call up the need for reflection on how the papers profit from their content, and to me it’s an all-or-nothing proposition.

One option is for the papers go all-in and make certain articles, sections, features, etc. fully pay-only. That means having to log in to access them, otherwise it’s an excerpt, or some sort of teaser, to the general hoi poloi.

Another, more Zuckerbergian option is to offer access in exchange for personal information. I’m not necessarily averse to this, but it also requires a content lock-down of some sort.

The current paywall solution is somewhere just above both of these, being easily circumventable but still acting as a deterrent to the average web user.

I would gravitate towards the nothing end of the scale with a nag solution where on every X views of an article, the non-subscribed reader receives a temporary pop-over message suggesting that they subscribe. IP address on the server could be used to determine how often to do this — it seems unlikely that shared connections would all be connecting to the same content source, and even so, all it would produce is a nagging reminder that people really do like the content. It’d be sort of like a local rating system with an option to subscribe.

Beyond that, there could be a mild nag every time, for non-subscribed users. This starts to get close to being just plain old fashioned inline advertising, which would be the next solution before nothing at all (full, free access to everything).

Of course, since the papers have full control over their sites, there’s theoretically no limit on how inline advertising could be accomplished. There’s the always classy Toronto Sun wall-to-wall background…

…but if that’s not the newspaper’s style, I’m sure there are other and more elegant approaches.

Ultimately, the decision is whether or not to lock away content. Logins are reliable, which is why they’re so popular. Identifying users without them is inherently unreliable. Either content can be locked away completely, or it should be assumed to be open to everyone. The seemingly in-between paywall solution is actually in the second family by reasons which I’ve explained earlier.

Astute web developers will point out that other mechanisms are available to bypass some of these limitations: Flash shared objects, or persistent browser databases. While these are a step beyond simple cookies, both are easily deleted as part of most modern browers’ cache management. In other words, they’re not much better than anything mentioned so far.

Browsers impose these limits to provide a level of privacy protection, and without requiring readers to manually enter additional information like a username and password, it’s tough if not impossible to pinpoint an individual human being. Without this exactness, any paywall or content blocking system is bound to be flimsy. The solution, at least at the present time, won’t involve technology; it’ll require high-level decisions about what will be locked away from the general public and what won’t.

Okay, so it’s not exactly a concrete plan of action or anything, but finally it’s looking like Metrolinx is investigating a downtown relief line for the Yonge subway. I say finally because the subject of at least one downtown relief line has been floating about for some time (and certainly far longer than any TCL post would indicate).

The problem is a two-fold, compound one at the present time:

1. This seems to be a far second consideration for almost everyone with a say in the transit debate, from Metrolinx to Karen Stintz. Most of the focus is on building new lines to the suburbs and this is just the beginning of starting to think about the topic.
2. The downtown lines are already pretty crowded as it is. Take any downtown train, streetcar, or bus — especially when the weather’s a bit iffy — and you’ll get the idea.

So while there are big efforts underway to get more people onto the downtown lines, there’s almost no effort to expand the already crowded system — certainly not from the Ford administration.  If something doesn’t change, and soon, the disaster will be one of Fordian proportions.

You may have noticed some out-of-place advertising on TCL. Not sure exactly when this popped up, but they were clever enough to hide it from me so that I couldn’t see it.

Sadly for them, I analyze stuff like this for breakfast.

Here’s the pictorial:

Never mind.

By the way, Softonic or whoever did this on your behalf, smart thinking trying to hide your link in TCL’s dynamic site code. However, it is now gone.

I visited London a little while ago. That London. I only got to be a tourist for about four hours at the end of the local work day (and I had to skip the pub!) Here’s what I saw, including the occasional double image or ghostly figure:

Sweets and Tea at Harrods

Harrods Egyptian Room

Harrods Seafood Lounge

Somerset House after dark

Memorial Gates at Green Park

Battersea Power Station on the Thames

Legally required London photo booth shot

Near Trafalgar Square somewhere

Piccadilly Circus. Note the lack of clowns, elephants, tent, etc.

Along Piccadilly

Still along Piccadilly

The Red Lion at Derby Gate. Beer!

A Drury Lane pub. More beer!

A bit o’ the old symbolism near the Eye

The Eye and a mysterious London moon. West from Waterloo Bridge.

The mysterious London financial district. East from Waterloo Bridge.

How many of us grew up on The Kids in the Hall? How many of us have wished for a fish dinner with Paul Bellini, the mysterious and ephemeral fifth Kid, at a convenient airport hotel?

Well, believe it or not, Bellini hosts a more-or-less regular show over at the Flying Beaver Pubaret which is, mind-blowingly, cover-free! Yeah, you can actually just waltz in off of Parliament Street (near Carlton), order a beverage, and rub naked or clothed elbows (your choice) with the one and only Paul Bellini.

The Flying Beaver is a delightfully intimate venue with room for maybe 80 to 100 people if everyone stood shoulder to shoulder, and has not ceased to amaze me with some of the personalities it has managed to attract. I’m sure owners Maggie and Heather‘s seemingly endless connections to Canadian comedy, the best form of comedy, help a lot.

What I’m trying to get at is, basically, that The Flying Beaver is an incredible Toronto-gem-hosting Toronto gem that has thus far managed to stay brow-furrowingly audience free. Even during its bigger shows, Sarah and I have never had a problem getting a table. To me, this must be simply because most of Toronto has not yet been made aware of the wonders of the Flying Beaver, meaning you still have an opportunity to experience it, and its incredible personalities, very much in the flesh.

I get the feeling that even the Toronto Sun kinda gets that the latest vote on transit funding isn’t exactly the shining moment that Ford is making it out to be.

Rather than celebrate Ford’s victory, the Sun took the opportunity to attack Karen Stintz, claiming that Ontario Transportation Minister Glen Murray called her a “roadblock” in the process of getting shit done. She says that it won’t be possible to move forward on any less than $1.8 billion, Murray says $1.4 billion is all that’s coming.

This comes after Ford revived the whole subways debate on a wing and a prayer with none of the funding “guarantees” he’s so fond of. It’s critical to note the $8.2 billion in transit funding under the Transit City project that Ford summarily, and probably illegally, dismissed as his very first act of destruction at City Hall (but only after voting in favour of it first, of course).

If Stintz is a “roadblock” simply for saying that the city will need more funding, what does that make Rob Ford?

Not that it’ll matter much in the long run, because the results of the various votes on the issue leave even more room for the whole thing to fail. Essentially, Council voted to keep any new taxes out of the equation; even Ford’s latest in a series of attempts at raising taxes was rebuffed. They also voted to make the whole thing hang on the $1.8 billion number that Stintz put forward (I guess that makes them all, including the Fords, “roadblocks”).

So those goals are a bit lofty for starters. But then Council voted on having a funding commitment by September 30th, so far with no business case or any real proposals beyond this (which I tiefed from the National Post):

As you can see, the proposed subway has less than half the stops of the LRT plan with a not-so-small distance between stops on the underground route which would be subject to the same problems that the system has thus far experienced and will continue to be a victim to.

It’s not realistic to believe that the sections of the city where subways will be built won’t be shut down for safety reasons, so in terms of inconvenience, they wouldn’t be any better for pedestrians or commuters. And that will be the situation for about 5 years with the LRT, compared to an optimistic 10 years for subways.

Once built, the LRT will be within walking distance of roughly twice as many people as the nearest subway stop. Yes, there are some perks, such as a larger overall passenger capacity of the subway over light rail, but that won’t become an issue for some time; both systems are expected to be running, at peak times, half to less-than-half empty by 2031.

So no, subways are not the best option given what we know (and have known for some time).

Not that it really matters —  neither the LRT or subways may ever see the light of day. There was, at one time, a viable and ready-to-go plan called Transit City, but before anyone had a chance to stick a shovel in the ground, Rob Ford summarily cancelled it and started in on this insane death spiral that the TTC is now in.

The numbers aren’t adding up, the only plan thus far has consisted of publicly blubbering rhetoric about partnerships, and now we have these extra conditions that imperil even the tenuous and ephemeral concept of subways. And all this just for Scarborough … no discussions about upgrading or maintaining the rest of the system which by 2031, is believed will require passengers to fight to the death for a seat on severely overcrowded and, thanks to Ford, extra pricey trains.