Artificial Intelligence

Random neural firings, yet somehow still contrived

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Location: Canada

The Beaver Examiner is guided strongly by the belief that you should be strongly guided by our beliefs. Our mission is to A) be proudly independent from the facts, B) provide short stories for short attention spans, and C)keep fake news real.

Wednesday, May 31, 2006

A few Internet discoveries . . .

First of all, there is new Tragically Hip music to be heard, which is exciting news for me, if no one else. You'll be shocked to know that the new song is about hockey ("The Lonely End of the Rink").

It can be found at msn.com, if you go to music and look around the Sasquatch festival. It's also worth watching the Day 2 highlights so you can see the Neko Case set get hailed out, with people running for cover and protecting themselves under their flags.

Second, I am in love with pandora.com. You type in a song or a band that you like (it works better with bands, I find), and it makes a radio station that plays music with similar qualities. For instance, if I type in Sarah Harmer, it will create a station based on "country influences, bluegrass influences, a subtle use of vocal harmony, acoustic sonority, and major key tonality." If you don't like the song, you can skip it (up to 10 skips an hour). And if you hate a song it picks, like when it picked Nickelback as similar to the Tragically Hip, you can click "don't play this song!" and that station will never play that song again. If you really like a song, you tell Pandora and it will pick more songs with the same musical characteristics. It's a lot of fun to hear two artists you'd never connected in your mind before back to back - like They Might be Giants and The Grateful Dead - and say, "Hey, I can imagine them playing some of the same songs." You can make up to 100 stations, so it doesn't take long to find a song you want to hear. It's even better than Sirius, I think.

Third, today's headline in The Onion is the funniest fake news I've seen in a while, and between surfing to the Rick Mercer Report, 22 Minutes, Colbert, Daily Show, The Onion, and The Borowitz Report, plus writing it myself, it's pretty much all I do these days: "Israeli Prime Minister: 'One more suicide bombing and we'll give them whatever they want.'"

Cheers,
John

Wednesday, May 24, 2006

Sabine and Anthony: The untold story





Thursday, May 18, 2006

Start spreading the fake news . . .

The proud history of The Beaver Examiner begins today (though the three people who still read 'here' may catch a few repeats).

Check out new posts from Monday to Friday. You'd also be doing me a big favour if you set up a Beaver Examiner link on your blog (separate from any "John M" link, which should continue to send surfers to Artificial Intelligence). I trust a lot of people couldn't help but click on a link that said The Beaver Examiner.

Hopefully, this will get some good buzz going. And when Anthony sets this up as a true website (subtle cough), I can also place some of my old columns in a separate archive.

Cheers,
John

Wednesday, May 17, 2006

Ich bin wieder zurück

So, my four-week sojourn to Canadian soil is over, and now I'm nestled back into Vienna's 19th district. I came back for enough time to perform (sloppily) for Improv Corp.; do my taxes (about $2000 owing, normal for me); go to the Atlantic Journalism Awards (those things are rigged); and watch Lisa and Anthony shrink before my eyes.

Now I have four-and-a-half months to finish the first draft of my book, write a newsroom-based play that's gestating in the dark, damp corners of my brain, get into marathon-running shape, get some of my German back, set up a fake Canadian news website (coming soon to blogger for now), and find a job in the Atlantic provinces for when I return.

It's a good life if you don't weaken.

Cheers,
John