History

From the “I thought I’d heard it all” file

April 22, 2017 by Michael Boyle

Rex Murphy’s passionate appeal for Canada to honour Réné Levesque.

Watch:

New new thing…

February 25, 2010 by Michael Boyle

In the span of a couple of tweets and not more than 3 hours, Sylvain and CFD went from conception to birth of Pssstopedia, a wiki devoted to archiving and memorializing the history of Internet culture in Quebec. I’ve already contributed!

Looking back at Wired 1.1

February 13, 2008 by Michael Boyle

In his blog Fimoculous, Rex Sorgatz takes a look back at Wired 1.1, which came out 15 years ago this month.

I caught up with Wired at # 1.2, the Crypto Rebels issue, which I bought at a newsstand on Rideau Street in Ottawa. I was already familiar with both Mondo 2000 and the original bOING bOING zine, but that’s not to say that seeing the same kind of material in a clearly more mainstream magazine wasn’t pretty cool.

I wouldn’t say that Wired changed my life – as far back as 1.2 people who were involved in the culture Wired covered were (often rightly) critical of the magazine. But within a year I was in the world that Wired was all about – I had moved to Montreal and was working at CTHEORY, immersed in some of the earliest online publishing and (elsewhere) web community activity.

It’s kind of hard to believe it has been 15 years.

A moment of silence (2007)

December 6, 2007 by Michael Boyle

Today is the anniversary of the Montreal Massacre, the deliberate killing of fourteen women at the École Polytechnique. So, at some point during the day, please take a moment and think about those victims and all victims of violence against women. This day has also become the National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence against Women.

Almost 20 years hence, the events of 1989 seem at once remote and vivid. I remember almost every detail of the hours after I heard about the massacre – what I was doing, where I was, what was going on in my life, etc. At the same time, I spent the morning very close to the site of the events (I was at HEC) and it was if nothing had happened, nothing special was being remembered today. I guess that’s how the passage of time works: but as I have said before, for a certain generation of Montrealers, today is etched in our memories forever.

Blast from the past:

March 23, 2006 by Michael Boyle

Blast from the past:

Back in the day, one of the earliest assessments of weblogs’ popularity was available through the Beebo Metalog. A couple of days ago, Michael Stillman (the guy behind Beebo) reposted a slice of that from September 2000: Beebo! Metalog and Metalog Ratings. This site, which did exist back then, wasn’t on the list of the top 50 sites, but it was among the pool of sites that made up the rankings. Then, as now, mikel.org kept quite a low profile.