About five months ago, I called on fans of the Northern Exposure TV series to sign a petition for the release of the complete series on DVD. Since then, over 1000 people have signed on. People did more than just sign their names. Many have enthusiastically shared what it was they loved about the show.

The petition seems to have peaked in September (with links from some fine NX sites). I’m sure people would keep signing up, but I think we have enough to make a point (as small a point as it may be). The chart below illustrates the number of signatures per day over the course of the petition (see full-size version).

The petition is now closed. If you didn’t get a chance to sign up, or if you did and want to do more, there is another NX DVD petition to which you can add your name. I’ll be sending the petition to the appropriate parties (if I can find out who that would be) and I will post any pertinent responses.

To all who linked to and signed the petition, thank you. To those other readers who couldn’t care less about Northern Exposure, thanks for bearing with us (and occasionally deriding us); this should be the last you hear of it for a while.

This coming Halloween will be my first living in a trick-or-treat accessible building. I’m new in the neighbourhood and I want to impress the local kids (do kids still get impressed these days?).

When I was growing up, there was a house in our neighbourhood that gave out cans of pop and full-size chocolate bars. At the time I thought they must have been eccentric millionaires to display such reckless generosity. I would like children to think that I am a reckless and eccentric millionaire.

As a former Adbusters subscriber, I’m always wary of the commercialization of holidays. I’m not going to go into a rant about the “true meaning of Halloween” (though I can imagine such a rant being quite entertaining). Trick-or-treating is a cool idea. I love that I live in a part of the world where it is considered safe enough to send children door-to-door asking for candy from strangers. I want to do my part.

The trouble I’m having is that I don’t really want to encourage the nutritionally and environmentally unhealthy practice of gorging on individually packaged sugar products. At the same time, I don’t want to be a huge party pooper (perhaps I’m too late for that). I don’t want to be the hippie looser that gives kids apples and granola. Any ideas?

I would appreciate constructive suggestions on what I should give out to kids on Halloween? Unhelpful but amusing suggestions will also be entertained. Keep in mind:

• I’m quite busy and lazy (these are not mutually exclusive conditions).
• I only have 4 days.

Friends and family should consider this a warning: you’re all getting songs and hugs for Christmas.

After an interesting four months, I’m going to close off the Northern Exposure DVD petition at 1000 signatures. This should only take another day or two – so sign up now. After I close the petition, I’ll post an overview of what happened and what will become of it.

Mammoth consulting firm KPMG has changed their name to BearingPoint. They are trying to dodge the accounting scandal stigma by separating their consulting from their auditing components.

Enjoy a few highlights from a corporate video on the re-branding:

“We make things happen. We don’t bring problems, we bring results.”
“We integrate and collaborate.”
“We deliver on our promises with an attitude of ‘whatever it takes’.”
“We have a presence – an intensity.”
“We know how to think on our feet and we know how to make it happen – now.”
“We don’t walk – we run.”

You just can’t make stuff like that up (well, eNormicom can).

This is obviously reminiscent of Andersen Consulting’s name change to Accenture (“Innovation Delivered”). Apparently Andersen was forced to change their name due to a court ruling. They too have embarrassing corporate videos on their site highlighting their “Brandstorming Initiative” (again, you just can’t make this stuff up).

Maybe Acts of Volition should rebrand and reposition our stragetic role the blogspace. Any ideas? Let’s brandstorm!

Search Google for “MSSQL” and it will ask you:

“Did you mean: MYSQL“

See a screenshot.

About two years ago, I wrote about how Wired Magazine was so heavy with advertising. I thought I would update the stats and compare the November 2000 issue with the current, October 2002 issue.

The more interesting result of the comparison is not the ratio of ads to editorial content (which changed only slightly in favour of editorial in the 2002 issue), but rather the total number of pages. The October 2002 issue is less than half the size of the November 2000 issue.

At the time I thought I was making some clever observation about the commercial nature of the publication. However, while revisiting the stats, it occurred to me that the ratio of advertising to editorial content doesn’t really have any bearing on the quality of the content. You could have 20 pages of great editorial content bundled in with 500 pages of ads, and it would make the editorial content any less valuable (would it?).