While I've been using Twitter for some time now, I keep switching up how I use the service, and I still feel I'm not at the desired configuration.

Initially I used it like anyone else, following people I found interesting, as well as anyone who decided to follow me. For the first few weeks this was fine, although I was only following a handful of people, who themselves were only tweeting occasionally.

Problems arose as I followed more people and the volume of tweets started getting higher and higher. Not only could I not keep up with it all, but it seemed that every time I logged in to check what was going on the chatter all seemed like blather and banality.

At my peak I was following and being followed by several hundred people and while I knew there were gems out there, for the most part it all seemed like nonsense to me. While I can be verbose in person, I usually don't have a lot to say online, and so my tweets are rather infrequent.

I realized what I was looking for was a means of reconfiguring my twitter use and constantly tweaking how I interact with the twittersphere.

I cover a lot of subjects on my weekly CBC Radio column, and I'm always fascinated by which ones garner the greatest listener response. Something that is particularly interesting to me, and apparently a lot of listeners, is the upcoming explosion of wireless devices making use of the spectrum called White Space.

For those who missed it, or want to hear it again, you can download my CBC Radio Toronto appearance on Metro Morning with Andy Barrie.

And these are some of the articles that came out around the time of the announcement.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/11/05/fcc_approves_white_spaces/
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7709775.stm
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/11/06/BUDO13VRLV.D...
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/05/technology/internet/05spectrum.html
http://www.efluxmedia.com/news_Google_Prepares_Its_Strategy_For_Attackin...

If you're a friend of mine on Facebook I have a video on my profile from Newsworld that was recorded in the spring on the same subject.

I've always enjoyed comparative analysis. Constantly juxtaposing and contrasting things, using similes and metaphors by any means necessary. My ongoing free association always involves bringing two things together, no matter how obscure.

Lately I've been rather obsessed with motorcycles, explicitly my own, and for the last six weeks this has been my primary point of reference. I also enjoy (though am far from obsessed with) video games, and I've recently completed playing one of the latest Star Wars games called The Force Unleashed.

For the last six weeks I've been making an effort to go riding almost every day. In early September I got my first motorcycle, a 1999 BMW F650 a/k/a Funduro. David and I both took the Humber College motorcycle course, and he also bought a BMW motorcycle, a 1983 R65.

The primary purpose of my daily riding has been to learn and improve my skills while being exposed to real traffic situations. I live in downtown Toronto, so no matter where I go I'm encountering unexpected events and drivers who don't deserve to be on the road. Some days my rides are relatively brief, say down to the CBC Broadcast Centre, and other days I have the time to ride outside of the city and into the country and broader bio-region.

The secondary purpose of my rides therefore has been to explore my region and see more of my city. When I first got my driver's license only 3 years ago, I started taking drives to the suburbs to see parts of the city I had never visited due to growing up downtown. Now that I have a bike I'm inclined to go even further, and my trips have taken me from the urban environment, to the suburbs, on to exurbs, and finally into farm land.

What has surprised me most is just how far you have to go to get out of the city. I used to joke that Peterborough was a suburb of Toronto, and while that is not exactly true, Toronto sure stretches far and wide.

Purists of course try to argue that Toronto ends at Steeles, or even older city borders such as North York, or cultural borders like Bloor, College, and even Queen. What you realize of course as you travel further and further away is that it's all Toronto, a seemingly endless sprawl of city.

Well that was a complete waste of time. Another Canadian Election has come and gone and I'm not sure I can tell the difference. With historically low voter turnout we're returning to another minority government where the Tories have the most seats in parliament, and the NDP and Liberal party combined do not have enough to stop them. So once again expect dysfunction as the Bloc hold the balance of power.

Was anything at all accomplished by that election? I suppose on the one hand it might mean we won't have another for a little while. Otherwise I think the main loser will be the environment, since the spin will be that the Liberal Green Shift didn't fly so therefore Canadians don't care if their planet goes to shit. This is of course not the case, but expect some spin to go this way.

I think the reality is that everyone lost this election. Harper failed to get his majority, Dion failed to make any gains, Layton failed at his new and more aggressive election strategy, and May failed to get a seat, although I doubt that was ever her intention. I myself also failed in my meager attempt to make two predictions, both of which were wrong. Perhaps only Duceppe won as he had the lowest performance expectations going in.

Last time I saw Peggy Nash I told her to kick ass, and with enthusiasm and wit she kicked her boot high in the air, demonstrating her strength and grace.

In Parkdale - High Park, I predict NDP candidate Peggy Nash will be victorious. It will be a tight race against her Liberal opponent, Gerrard Kennedy, but as the incumbent she has an advantage, and friends of mine still in the riding say that as a local representative she has done a great job.

So the Canadian election is coming to a close and I've been having a lot of conversations with friends and colleagues analyzing what has transpired and how social media has played a role.

We've all been witness to the Obama campaign and their innovative use of social media and the internet. Explicitly what was different about their internet campaign was the way they asked people to give more than money or support but their labour. This labour might be getting them to come into to campaign offices, but it was more likely to solicit their help in doing work online. Whether that be raising funds or reaching out to friends in key swing states.

All the Canadian political parties are using social media platforms like Facebook, and YouTube, and similarly all political parties have elements of social media on their own site. However without exception, their use is primitive, and generally of a symbolic nature, rather than an explicit social nature.

The 7th Annual Seneca Free Software and Open Source Symposium is coming up, and it is a great event worth checking out if you want to learn more about what really drives the Internet. Unfortunately I won't be attending this year, however I have given presentations in past years, including this improvised rant from last year:

I use a lot of Google's services, in part cause they tend to work really well, but also to try them out and share my thoughts with friends and colleagues. About a month ago Google announced their Chrome browser, which nicely coincided with my purchase of a new windoze desktop computer. So instead of installing any additional software on it, I just started using Chrome.

A month later I'm still using Chrome, but it is far from perfect. YouTube doesn't always work with it, and Google Docs is kind of buggy. The irony of course is that these are both Google owned applications, so they're supposed to work seamlessly with Chrome, and yet they don't. With that said, Gmail is super fast, and I tend to browse the web with dozens of open tabs at a time. In this regard Chrome is great.

However I have had to install Firefox to load certain pages and do certain things on the web due to Chrome's overall flakiness. I'm going to continue using Chrome, and hopefully it will evolve and improve like all Google products.

I do of course have to mention the whole controversy with Google's user agreement, although it too seems to be evolving, yet personally I'm a little acclimatized to less personal privacy and tend to engage the surveillance society in strategic and chosen situations.

Nobody likes to make predictions, as they inevitably risk the possibility of being wrong, however I'm going to stick my neck out and report on some first hand on the ground knowledge I've picked up. I think Olivia Chow, the NDP incumbent, is going to lose on October 14th to Liberal candidate Christine Innes in Trinity Spadina in downtown Toronto.

I've spent more time living in Trinity Spadina than any other riding, and I have many friends and family who still live and vote there. In fact Emily still wishes we lived in the riding so she could vote for Olivia Chow.

Whenever there's an election on you can guarantee I'm going to be active. When I was younger I would volunteer all of my free time for some party or candidate that I wanted to get closer to. This election I'm mostly doing non-partisan stuff, and talking to people informally and in social situations.

What I'm hearing in Trinity Spadina is that traditional NDP voters are switching to either Liberal or Green. One person I spoke with today who voted for Innes in an advance poll this weekend had voted NDP almost her entire life.