https://goo.gl/maps/T1U2V4ev3Fv

http://www.pridetoronto.com/

It’s not nearly as thorough as I’d wanted but I did manage to slap that open source license on all of the files and cut out a bunch of extraneous stuff in uploading SocialCastr (the personal broadcasting studio software). You can find the source code here: https://github.com/Patrick-Bay/SocialCastr

This is certainly not for the novice, at least not at this time. There’s some advanced code in there and you need to know your way around Adobe Flash to actually compile it. I’ll be going into much greater detail on the project page but, basically, you’ll need to create (or import), a custom application certificate to sign your code, update the SwagCloud class with your own server address (and optional developer key), and work around any minor issues like missing fonts in the IDE (included).

Eventually there will be very clear details that can be followed verbatim (even by the novice), and by that point I hope to have the project ported over to FlashDevelop (the open source version of Adobe Flash), but until then I’m simply going to include these caveats.

However, if you really don’t care to get your hands dirty and just want to start broadcasting, visit http://www.socialcastr.com/ to download the finished product.

A couple of years ago I began work on a project named SocialCastr. In a nutshell, it’s a piece of software that enables you to broadcast (video/audio) to an unlimited audience over the internet from your computer or device. This differs from something like YouTube or LiveStream in that you don’t need such services to achieve this. There aren’t many services or software titles out there that do this, mostly because it’s kinda complicated, but also presumably because it’s hard to monetize something that is entirely in the users’ control.

Obviously, some people are fine with using third-party services to store and distribute their content. I often use them so I get it. However, as people are increasingly finding, censorship, the silencing of dissent and competition, and a lack of freedom are alive and well on all the major platforms out there. If you believe in individual freedoms, you’re unlikely to find them in the ranks of the media hosting mega-corps.

It’s probable that your cute cat videos, inane content, or asinine replies will be safe — it’s the really important stuff like speaking out against government abuse that might disappear in a digital puff smoke.

With SocialCastr I wanted to side-step some of these issues directly and it was clear to me that the best way to do so was to remove the third-party part of the equation. Luckily, my programming language of choice (ActionScript) has a robust networking system that allowed me to do exactly this.

Unlike something like YouTube where you upload (or stream) your video to them and they take care of distributing it to your audience, SocialCastr broadcasts directly to the audience. In other words, you are communicating directly with peers (audience), no YouTube or LiveStream to potentially block or censor you.

This approach was unthinkable just a few years ago; most computers, even with fast connections, could send video/audio streams to a few people at most. It’s not unlike uploading videos to YouTube — once you’re uploading two or three videos (or any data, really) at the same time, your internet connection is essentially “busy”. Sending video directly to two or three individuals over the internet would similarly clog your connection. YouTube has what in programming parlance is referred to as “fat pipes”, fast and powerful internet connections that can support millions of viewers simultaneously, something that is simply out of the reach of the vast majority of us.

SocialCastr does things differently.

When you broadcast, you only actually send your video/audio stream to two or three people at most. They in turn take care of re-distributing the stream to others using peer-to-peer networking. Your audience quite literally share the burden of re-distributing the content to other peers. Practically this means that you are able to broadcast to a potentially unlimited number of people with a pretty basic computer and equally basic internet connection.

Despite the fact that I have an ongoing wish-list of additional features, SocialCastr is complete so there’s a lot that can be done with the underlying technology along similar lines as above.

For example, distributing files  á la BitTorrent is something I’ve (successfully) tested, and I’m not the only person to do so. Similarly, two-way peer-to-peer chat, including video and audio, are laughably easy to set up within SocialCastr.

Perhaps more interesting than this would be to use SocialCastr to anonymize web browsing much like Tor does — when you want to view a web page, a request goes out to all connected peers who make the request on your behalf. Just as with Tor, it’s the peers that actually get the data for you (encrypted, of course), and return it to you. Spreading a web page load over many peers, a request which typically requires tens or sometimes hundreds of requests to fully complete (i.e. all the images, ads, etc.), could potentially speed up retrieval of the web page in addition to helping you to stay anonymous.

I’ve even opined that it should be fairly straightforward to build a distributed computing platform of some sort. US Berkeley does exactly this when searching the heavens for signs of extra-terrestrial life this with their SETI@Home project, and many Bitcoin miners now work in similar cooperative groups to feed the cryptocurrency with its raw Bitcoin rainbow tables.

And did I mention that because it’s Adobe Flash / AIR, it’ll run on most computers, devices, and browsers currently in existence? PC, Mac, iOS, Android, Internet Explorer, Chrome, Firefox, Safari … the same code runs everywhere.

This is all very realistic and mostly tested, so it’s far from being merely speculative. Unfortunately, I just don’t have the time to make these ideas a full reality so I’ve decided that I’ll be open-sourcing SocialCastr very shortly (just as soon as I’ve cleaned up and commented the source code a bit, you know the drill).

So if you want to download the SocialCastr source code and compile it yourself (detailed instructions to be included), you don’t have to trust me or anyone else to produce the end software. You can fiddle with the code directly and change it in small or large ways in order to learn, or produce something unique, or whatever. If all you want to do is to slap your own logo on there and release (including sell) the software, be my guest!

RoFoDoFo Show ("The City") on Newstalk1010:

Gone too early on November 8, 2013

RoFoDoFo Show ("Ford Nation") on Sun News Network:

Taken after just one tragic episode on November 19, 2013

After everything that happened this week, I’m sure that Newstalk 1010 would’ve had some kick-ass ratings with this Sunday’s “The City”, a.k.a. the RoFoDoFo radio show.

Alas, it seems that is not to be — the Ford brothers have decided to pull the plug, which probably came as unhappy news to Newstalk who were still expecting the show to go ahead as planned. I was certainly looking forward to it, if only to hurl insults at the radio.

The station pointed out that the Ford brothers are still very welcome “as guests”, which suggested that something final was involved behind the scenes. In other words, it’s not looking like the RoFoDoFo Show will be back any time soon :(

Many people are suggesting that Fordo’s apology on this past weekend’s RoFoDoFo Show installment didn’t go far enough. I agree, but I’m not so amorphous about it.

Sarah and I tuned in yesterday afternoon and we were surprised to hear what sounded like real remorse in Rob’s voice. If he was faking it, he did a great job. And I accept it — as far as it went — because Robbie was very specific about what he was apologizing for: being plastered at Taste of Danforth this year, and being even more off-the-hook at an earlier St. Patrick’s Day celebration.

More than once, Rob re-iterated that this is specifically what he was apologizing for — make no mistake.

So first off, thank you, Mayor Ford, for what I perceived as genuine contrition and a recognition that being publicly intoxicated is unseemly. Your Freudian but refreshingly honest slip that this “hopefully” won’t happen again was good to hear.  And you know what? Although I don’t recall going to the extent that you did, I admit to having some crazy fun party nights myself so I’m not going to be a dick and hold you to to what your brother calls “lily-white holier-than-thou” standards. It’s true, very few of us are innocent on that end.

I hope that a search through TCL’s archives will reveal that your partying or drug use were never really the issue, though you have to admit that some drugs really do affect the mind more than others, and as someone charged with the health and welfare of millions, I don’t think it’s unrealistic that such things should be considered while holding the office of Mayor.

The real issue  is that you have been and continue to tip-toe around your truthlessness.

Remember the last time people asked you about your drug use back when you were running for mayor?

[Ford] adamantly denied having been charged when first approached by the Sun.

“No to answer your question,” Ford said.

“I’m dead serious. When I say no, I mean never. No question. Now I’m getting offended. No means no.”

But after Ford was provided with details from a Florida state criminal history record obtained by the Sun, he admitted the incident.

“I completely forgot about it until you mentioned it right now,” he said.

I mean, that’s it in a nutshell. Someone challenges you with something, and your first response is to attack them. I’m sure it’d be physical if only it was legal. Often you resort to insults that both you and your brother hurl in equal measure. It’s not inaccurate to say that denial, anger, deflection, and many things un-mayorly — and moreover uncivil — are the product of your natural demeanour.

It isn’t until confronted with irrefutable proof that you finally admit to not being “perfect” and claim to show some contrition which ends up being false.

So in the end, you’re not sorry at all, your apology is a lie, and your original statement is a lie. Liar McLiarPants.

And don’t try to blame the drugs — they might make you feel invincible, carefree, etc., but there are no substances that I’m aware of that make you an incessant liar.

If you recognized these things, the voice acting you do on the air would be genuinely convincing — sounding like you’re sorry, and saying things that indicate the same would really be something.

Actually saying something would also be helpful, because currently you’ve got your brother on LeDrew’s program filling your void and suggesting that you were probably just taking an innocent hour-long stroll from your place to the infamous crack video location and just happened to be accosted by some friendly fellows with whom you posed for one of the “tens of thousands” of photos that you pose for every year.

Or, maybe the other explanation that Councillor Ford is putting forth is that you just happened to be driving in that neighbourhood (or were being driven), and simply popped out for an impromptu, sweatshirted photo op with a bunch of strangers, all of which incidentally happened in front of a famous crack house.

All of the substantiated evidence points to something more and something very obvious, yet here you are still not being terribly forthright. You won’t address anything until, once again, the evidence is too obvious and stark. And then you’ll probably chalk it up to yet another misunderstanding.

Only thing is, we’d all have to be awfully dumb to keep misunderstanding what you’re really doing, Mayor Ford.

As Rob and Doug Ford took to the airwaves to promote their continuing assholery in picking on exclusively one councillor for his vote (19 other councillors voted the same way as Ainslie — obviously they’re not singling him out!), in Rob’s most recent pet project (subways for Scarborough), the compounded stream of pure lies and disrespect for both voters (a.k.a. taxpayers), and just plain common sense hit new heights.

In fact, it can now be accurately, and without exaggeration, be stated that most of what comes out of Rob and Doug Ford’s mouths are complete and utter lies. And when, on the rare occasion that they manage to say something even remotely truthful and accurate, they still manage to fill their claims with all sorts of bullshit, derision, and spiteful hypocrisy. What the Fords say and what they do are more often than not exact opposites; just browse a bit through this blog — the number of examples is staggering.

Here’s just a smattering from the radio show:

Caller Paul from Scarborough challenged the Fords’ claims that the Scarborough LRT, the above-ground alternative to the subway, will lead to “ripping up roads” and all of the other deceitful fear mongering that the two Fords have been menacing Torontonians with. He accurately called them “liars”, and provided a variety of facts to back this claim. Turns out the environmental assesments have all been paid for and done, and most of the LRT route would cover the existing Scarborough Rapid Transit tracks (i.e. no ripping up of roads, etc.) The Ford “plan” scraps all of those years of effort and costs a whack of money (based on previous EA costs, $1 million seems like a conservative number), in favour of back-of-the-napkin calculations, seemingly done by a 3-year-old (though apparently no one’s seen it so that’s really just a best guess).

Doug’s dismissive response was to entirely ignore all of these facts and instead respond with the usual Fordian drivel, “Do you believe in a two-tier transit system?”. No facts, no reports (even skewed ones!) to his singular claim — nope, Doug just called Paul a “liar” and then proceeded to heap lie upon deception upon insult.

Doug also included Josh Matlow in his dis session, most likely because Matlow is one of those disgusting downtown “elites” who know how to count and read; according to the Fords, all Toronto newspapers and magazines are tools of the wasteful “elite” now that they’re questioning the brothers, so start burning your books, Ford Nation!

Ensuring that his brother wasn’t the only one publicly spreading incorrect / incomplete information, Rob added that the average household will pay $10 a year extra as part of a property tax increase (yet another topic demonstrating the Fords’ double-crosses). The numbers are actually closer to $38 per year for the next 30 years, and that doesn’t cover the cost of running the new line. I wouldn’t call this last part a lie — it’s entirely possible that this is simply just another example of Ford’s willful, bull-headed ignorance.

Continuing the radio program, Robbie went on to express his outrage at the expenses of Pan Am Games officials, which almost threatened to shine a ray of honesty onto the Ford administration until I recalled how completely unconcerned he was (and continues to be), when Pan Am organizers met with him and basically refused to discuss the costs of finding a mascot for the event. This would look pretty bad in and of itself, but it takes on Fordian proportions when you consider that Rob’s former hand-picked Chief of Staff Amir Remtulla has been Pan Am’s vice president for well over a year, and the guy in Amir’s position prior to that was none other than Nick Kouvalis, Rob’s previous Chief of Staff and the man generally credited with getting Ford the mayoralty. And this outrage-in-absentia isn’t uncommon for Fordo.

So in case you missed that, Rob Ford not only knowingly allowed secret Pan Am spending to occur on his watch without lifting a finger (this doesn’t even include the number of times that the Games were before Council as votes, reports, etc.), but he personally appointed the people who he now feigns outrage at. Not that there’s any insinuations of impropriety, mind you — unlike Ford, all of the Pan Am executives’ bonuses were above board. And while I agree that the bonuses are quite exorbitant, it doesn’t address the fact that Rob and his brother knew about them for years and did absolutely nothing about them. Actually, that’s not 100% correct — Ford is directly responsible for ensuring that some of those people received the exorbitant bonuses.

The bullshit didn’t stop there.

Rob continued by telling guest sports commentator Mike Toth about the lessons he learned from coaching football — the importance of being on time — a wonderful example to teach newcomers to Canada what the word “hipocrisy” means. If that example doesn’t quite hit home, there’s always the follow-up statement that Robbie made on the radio show by repeating his claim that City Hall has a spending problem, not a revenue problem, and he calls bullshit on higher taxes and other revenue “tools”. What he actually meant is that he thinks you’re so fucking stupid that you won’t remember that he voted to increase property taxes by 1.6% all while simultaneously decrying any tax hikes, and at the same time hiking trasit fare and reducing services, championing massive police budget increases, cutting Councillor pay, wasting hundreds of thousands in unjustified firings, and millions in ass-backwards (some believe illegal) decisions … hell, I could go on for hours, but you get the picture.

It’s gotten to the point where that old joke has taken on a sad new gravity:

You know when the Fords are lying when they open their mouths.

On Newstalk 1010’s RoDoFo (Rob/Doug/Ford), radio show on Sunday afternoon, Rob said he’d like to see more women in politics, and if any of yous dames out there are interested, to call him at home or meet him over coffee and he’ll tell you all about how City Hall works.

Yes, the man who repeatedly admitted he doesn’t know how to do his job is going to tell you all about how to do his job.

Don’t worry, those allegations of him beating his wife a few years back were never proven, I’m pretty sure he’s over grabbing women’s asses by now, and the fact that women are leaving his own hand-picked executive committee left right and centre shouldn’t be read into too deeply.

Just imagine the kind of intellectual treasure trove you’ll be able to tap into!

Ah, Agar … what a boob.

Yes, that’s Newstalk 1010’s Jerry Agar who recently made a video pushing his brilliant idea to solve Toronto’s commuting problems: telecommuting.

In his video, Jerry tries to make out like he’s the one that came up with the genius concept, or at least was one of its prime champions (which, as a formerly avid Agar listener, I can unequivocally say is a complete lie), and isn’t it amazing how people are finally catching onto it? And he uses a Star article to “prove” his point, no less!

See for yourself:

What I find fascinating is watching Agar weasel between the tight squeezes of his (surprisingly) logical position in support of telecommuting, his even more blusterous support of “free market” and “business knows best”, and then on to, “yeah, but big business like Yahoo don’t want people telecommuting.”

I don’t call people “mentally ill” lightly nor pejoratively (unlike Ford and his neo-Con buddies, I actually believe it exists), but people like Agar exemplify why I’m so quick to jump to the term when talking about their “logic”. I mean, if someone randomly said to you (in the same breath no less), “I love big business! Big business sucks!” , would you not be tempted to say that something is genuinely wrong with their minds?

Sorry, Jerry, just calls ’em like I sees ’em, and you are one messed up individual. Please get help.

Yesterday afternoon Rob Ford called in to Newstalk 1010’s  Closing Arguments show to once again put his ignorance on display for the world at large.

The topic of discussion was Richard Kachkar, the guy who ran over a cop in a snowplow and is now pleading insanity. Ford called in and boldly stated that lawyers shouldn’t be defending Kachkar. At least that’s what I was able to get from a Newstalk blog post that’s since been yanked.

Looks like Newstalk is in the process of covering up Rob’s words (the story yankage, all other shows except this one episode being available, etc.), so I’m not sure we’ll ever have a reliable transcript, but one of the show’s guests, defence lawyer Leora Shemesh, summed up Ford’s comments:

“I just think that it’s perplexing to have the mayor of the city calling in about this issue, particularly because it’s in front of a jury and he knew that, but more so because he seemed to be uneducated about not criminally responsible and what that means.”

Additionally, Toronto lawyer Sean Robichaud weighed in:

“It is truly astonishing that the Mayor of Toronto espouses such a gross misunderstanding of the law and mental illness. There is also something unsettling and disrespectful to the justice system when a politician of his position provides his opinion on a verdict that he seems to know little about, the night before the jury is set to deliberate.”

Is it really astonishing to discover such qualities about Rob Ford at this point? Only if you’ve been living under a rock.

And is it really surprising to hear neo-Cons spouting off such unhelpful, angry, and ultimately harmful ignorance? Ditto on this one.