People in the city of Manchester are taking the streets back in a project called Mapchester. They're going to use GPS tools to map out the entire town, and store that data in the OpenStreetMap database, so it can be used by anyone. Open Source maps generated from the data will be used in the Futuresonic festival guide.
I've been following the Open Street Map project for a while, and I have to say that I think it's fantastic. This Garnix program looks pretty cool... it might be worth getting one of those GPS systems for myself.
Wiki vs. blog
Ross Mayfield pointed out the cool chart for wiki vs. blog on Google Trends. My guess is that those places where "wiki" beats "blog" has less to do with the have a local name for the word "blog" but not one for "wiki". A blog has so many off-line equivalents (diary, journal, logbook, daybook...), which could be used for their online counterpart, whereas wiki is a term that's very specific for online collaboration.
Upgrade nervousness
I upgraded Wikitravel to Mediawiki version 1.6.5 today. I think it's going to be a trivial upgrade, but I always worry that some horrible data-destroying bug will result. Keeps me on my toes, I guess.
John
Our good friend John Usher is going to be leaving Montreal. Bummer! He didn't get his post-doctoral grant at McGill's music department. Why do all the people we like have to leave?
Oracle Night
Finished it last night. It was OK, but I preferred the Music of Chance and Leviathan. I think the beating scene was too much for me, too. So I'm having sympathetic dislike of the book. Or something.