2025 Toronto

The view from Canoe, book and cocktail to hand

In Canoe, on the 54th floor of the Toronto-Dominion Bank tower (a Ludwig Mies van der Rohe project, apparently).  Stunning views south – to the small landing strip on the nearby island, and west.  Air wonderfully clear today.  Earlier, lunch in St Lawrence Market.  Not quite as I remember it, but a good atmosphere, spoilt somewhat by the live lobsters in tanks, waiting to be killed, probably slowly and horribly…  Then to here, for the view, not the booze and expensive foods in this upmarket business lunch/dinner spot.  Small prop planes landing every few minutes at the airport.  Not many A380s so far, alas…

Returning to Toronto, 35 years later.  Some things the same, some different.  The good news: the Art Gallery of Ontario has many more paintings by the Group of Seven.  Wonderful stuff.

Enclosing the Language Commons

One of the many arguments against patenting software is that it's as stupid as copyrighting language: if you did that, nobody could talk without getting sued. Similarly, thanks to the essential nature of software algorithms, nobody can program without infringing on something.

It seems that we may need to revise that example of ridiculousness:

Last year, in an attempt to wrestle a few pennies of the GST from the tight-fisted grip of the federal government, the City of Toronto launched a snazzy public relations campaign under the banner “one cent now.”

Unfortunately, before they could enjoy the fruits of their labour, they were slapped with a cease-and-desist order by the Royal Canadian Mint.

The dispute was over the phrase “one cent.” It turns out it is not in the public domain. For the privilege of using it, the City of Toronto needed to pay the mint more than $47,000 in licensing fees, something it neglected to do.

It was an honest oversight. After all, who would have thought a corporation, private or public, could own a phrase so common to everyday language?

Open Cities Toronto 2007

Open Cities Toronto 2007 is a weekend-long web of conversation and celebration that asks: how do we collaboratively add more open to the urban landscape we share? What happens when people working on open source, public space, open content, mash up art, and open business work together? How do we make Toronto a magnet for people playing with the open meme?

Sounds my sort of place. (Via Boing Boing.)