Time Immortal

Here’s another panoramic, with a bit of a twist this time; the real panoramic view of the city is the slightly distorted, slightly warped reverse-angle visible in the windows; the actual city of Edmonton appears properly only on the far right, and then only just.

Basically, I’m trying to contrive situations which cause Autopano to choke. As yet, I haven’t managed to do this.

This HDR shot of Edmonton is almost the same as the one from yesterday, but was shot at a wider angle (24 mm instead of 50 mm) so as to get some of the blue of the sky in the actual shot, as well as to give a more zoomed-out view of the towers to the west of the building I was in.

Here’s a shot of Edmonton — well, a part of it’s downtown core, at any rate — from about 17 floors up, looking west and a bit south toward the sunset. This is an HDR image, or at least was put together in Photomatix, although the dynamic range is not staggeringly wide.

I’ve been looking through the archives to see if I can find some older photos that would do for the creation of polar coordinate pictures (photos like these). This one, a panoramic of Edmonton’s river valley from earlier this year, almost fits the bill, and renders reasonably well.

It’s all over but leadership race(s).

The final total gave the Conservative Party of Canada a tough-nut-to-crack minority with 143 seats, nearly double what the Liberal Party of Canada managed to win (only a mere 77 seats). Not quite the result my wife and I were hoping for, but not bad either. If nothing else, it would seem to be a vote of confidence on the part of the Canadian people — confidence in the Conservative Party’s plan for the country, in the direction they’ve led it in, and in the man at the helm. That’s the lowest level of popular support that the Liberals have had since…uhm…the formation of Canada, actually. That’s not something that Stephane Dion can survive, I would suspect…although it would seem that Dion expects to stay on as party leader.

I have to admit: I’m kind of hoping that Dion stays on in the role, or at least attempts to. Such a move would fracture the Liberals, probably irreparably. But I really can’t see him surviving long in the post: his party just lost 26 seats, mostly to Jack Layton’s NDP, and I’m pretty sure that the knives are being sharpened. There will be a leadership race soon enough, and the Liberals will put someone more…well…competent at the helm. I hate to frame it in such terms, but there it is: Stephane Dion was not an effective leader for his party, and it has cost them dearly. It could well be time for Michael Ignatieff to finally take over the party leadership. Then again, Justin Trudeau just got himself elected, and I could see Pierre’s boy throwing his name in the hat in a leadership race. Jay Currie has his money on Bob Rae.

Please to cringe now, good Reader.

Of course, the Liberal coffers are basically empty at the moment. This puts a very interesting spin on things, both in terms of the future prospects of the party itself, and on the tone that the Harper minority will set when Parliament resumes. It was the case, with this last election, that the Liberals weren’t well-equipped financially to fight an election. They’re in an even worse position now, and so will have to think very carefully about undertaking any voting effort which would see the Conservative government defeated on a confidence motion. The last thing they can afford is another election, no matter how badly they might want another shot at power.

I very much doubt they even have the money to hold a leadership race at present. That presents its own problems, given that Dion simply cannot stay on as leader if the party is to survive and recover. So what to do? We saw the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada die a couple of elections ago — could we be seeing the end of the Liberals as well?

That’s certainly one possibility — one hope, I might even say. As far as this election goes, the bleak future of the Liberals is one of the more interesting outcomes. As Jay Currie notes, they’ve basically been reduced to being the Toronto Party — that’s never a good sign.

There were a few notable upsets, too. Local to Edmonton, Rahim Jaffer lost the Strathcona riding to NDP candidate Linda Duncan, which came as something of a surprise (both CTV and the CBC had called that riding in Jaffer’s favour as of the time I went to bed). The big surprise for me was Garth Turner losing his seat — that was unexpected, but nice to see all the same. Karma’s a bitch.

(More than a few people were happy about Garth’s defeat. I also note that others observed, as I did, that the Elections Canada website went down — hard — yesterday evening.)

I’m not at all impressed with the fact that the NDP made some gains, although I suppose it was inevitable that it would happen. As Grace remarked to me last night, progressive Liberal voters wanting to flee from Green Shift and Dion were a shoe-in for the Dippers. That such people don’t have the best interests of Canada at heart is a side discussion. Still, it’s consoling to remember that Jack Layton’s people are still the fourth-place party in Canada; the Bloc Quebecois picked up more seats than them. I doubt that there will be a leadership race in the NDP as a result of this election…but one can always hope, can’t one?

Now, I mentioned that the stronger Conservative majority was a vote of confidence in the Conservative Party’s leadership and performance thus far, and I definitely stand by that opinion. At the same time, though, it should be noted that it was also a vote in favour of the status quo. It’s not likely that anything will change in the wake of the latest Harper victory, at least not in terms of shoring up the strength of the human right to freedom of expression. Section 13 of the CHRA will likely remain “on the books,” although there is some hope that the Young Offenders Act will be made more harsh.

Now, the only question that remains is how long this latest government will stand. A year? Two years? Longer? It would be strange to think that any minority government would survive the full legal duration of a term in office, but I suppose it’s possible. With the Liberals all but crippled — financially and at a leadership level — the Conservatives will have what amounts to an effective majority, though not an actual numeric one. That’s a condition that is not likely to clear in any expedient manner, either. I’m thinking it’ll be at least 30 months until the next election, if not 36.

Update: Welcome, Steynians!

One good thing about Edmonton Transit Service: the number 17 bus. The bullet to downtown.

Do Edmonton drivers have any ability to avoid getting into accidents?

Full and fair disclosure: I’m still angry at Harper and the Conservatives for cutting the Telefilm new media fund. As a part-time gamer, part-time game historian, part-time game-maker, and technical officer for the Edmonton Game Convention, the loss of the Telefilm fund is, for me, something that stings…especially since we had hoped to draw funding for the Convention, in part, from Telefilm (who were really enthusiastic at the idea of a gamer-centric gaming convention).

Be that as it may, however, I do agree with Stephen Harper when he notes that much of the whining and pleas for money from the arts community in Canada simply do not resonate with Canadians. Much of the content that the arts community in Canada produces is, simply put, not worth the money spent on it. It’s just not that good.

That’s not to say it’s all crap, of course…but one notes that the best things coming out of e.g. Vancouver these days are not wholly Canadian shows. Things like Battlestar Galactica — an excellent series — make heavy use of Canadian talent and Canadian locations, because it’s the only way that a show with such consistently high-quality visual effects can possibly stay within its overall budget. And that Canadian talent is put to good use; many of the actors on that show are excellent or better. Likewise, the Canadian landscape has proven itself versatile and adaptable to the needs of a show that has involved a few instances of planet-hopping.

But in the end, BSG is still essentially an American show. Most of its funding flows from the Sci-Fi Channel, and its principal audience is State-side. The same can be said of shows like Stargate Atlantis — produced here, but mostly funded from abroad. Few wholly Canadian shows rise to match the quality of e.g. BSG, and fewer still enjoy any kind of comparable audience and popularity.

And in many cases, there’s a good reason for that. Even a cursory glance at the slate of programs that the CBC is running this season makes one scratch one’s head — the shows just aren’t that good. Hockey Night in Canada is still about the best thing the CBC has going for it, because it’s about the only show in Mothercorp’s lineup that doesn’t betray a leftward political slant (although, to his credit, Rick Mercer has come down on the right side of the freedom of speech/HRC debate).

And of course, this is just television we’re talking about. The arts community in Canada produces quite a lot of other stuff besides niche television shows…much of it of even lower quality, and lesser appeal, than Canadian television. There’s not a stage play that has been produced in Canada in…a long time…that I’d care to go and see, and even most Canadian “artists” (by which I mean painters, sculptors, and the like) produce material that simply does not resonate with me (and, I suspect, with many other Canadians as well). Some of it is disgusting, some of it is mediocre, and some of it is just damned odd…and the amount of crap sadly outweighs, and overshadows, what genuinely good stuff exists.

And we, the Canadian taxpayers, shouldn’t have to fork over dollars in support of things which we’ll never go and see, nor ever acknowledge as being something of substance and quality. Yeah, I’ll gladly pay to support Hockey Night, even if I don’t watch much hockey…but I’m not particularly inclined to support Little Mosque On The Prairie. I’d be okay with sending a few of my tax dollars to the producers of Corner Gas, but I’d rather not line the pockets of the people who work on This Hour Has 22 Minutes.

Canadian artists rallied to denounce the Harper government for its stance. Gordon Pinsent even stood up and said that Canadian artists “should be the landlords of [their] own industry, not the tenants.”

I actually agree. I think Canadian artists shouldn’t be government tenants, dependent on federal handouts. I think the art that Canadians produce should be able to stand up on its own merits, and generate revenue that doesn’t emerge primarily from federal coffers. I have no problem with the idea that the government might lend assistance to commercially viable artistic ventures…but in the end, I don’t think the government’s contribution should be the majority share of any particular art project’s funding.

Let’s come back to the Telefilm fund and computer games for a minute. If there is one thing that Canadian artists — new media artists, mind — do very well, it is computer games. Canadians make excellent games. And I’m not just talking about EA Sports out in Vancouver, which was for years the only decent EA studio. I’m talking about the various smaller developers who have produced a consistent string of excellent titles over the last few years. Relic (Vancouver) gave us Homeworld and its sequel. Ironclad Games (Burnaby) gave us Sins Of A Solar Empire, which I am told is just an astounding title. Edmonton’s own BioWare has produced a steady stream of hits, including Baldur’s Gate, Neverwinter Nights, Knights Of The Old Republic, and Mass Effect. And Ubisoft Canada (Montreal) gave us Assassin’s Creed, another critically acclaimed game.

Government funding went into some of these titles, but the government didn’t provide the lion’s share of the development money in any particular case. And it isn’t government money that let the games themselves turn a profit; all of these titles have been commercially successful, because they’re damn good. Because they were developed with the end user in mind, and offered something that gamers the world over were willing to actually pay money for.

It’s that last point that’s important: people wanted to support these games financially, by buying them. As Kateland at TLA notes