Even Tycho at Penny Arcade is mentioning it – despite the Canadian dollar being (just barely) worth more than the American, we're still getting gouged with our consumer purchases.

Yep, you read that right. Sputnik Day. It was fifty years ago this day that the Soviets launched the Sputnik I satellite, bringing the start of the Space Age. So if you go out for a drink tonight, raise a shot of vodka to the comrades whose ingenuity eventually resulted in many of our modern conveniences!

Friend, fellow game developer, and TIGC chair Julian Spillane has launched his new dev blog, Stack Overflow! It's very new, but I'm sure that Julian will get some great wisdom streaming through there in no time. When he's not blogging or working on TIGC, he's very busy developing games with his company, Frozen North Productions. Check him out!

Despite all the other things I'm currently working on, I've signed up for this year's NaNoWriMo. So through the month of November, I have to write about 1800 words per day, every day, and at the end have a novel ready for editing. I don't know why I do this, other than perhaps some twisted, masochistic desire. Well, as long as I don't write the next Eye of Argon, I guess it's good...

Michael Geist reports that a Canadian DMCA might be on its way. Under the watchful eye of the American ambassador, the Conservative government's plan for this session of Parliament was revealed, including that they are to "improve the protection of cultural and intellectual property rights in Canada, including copyright reform."

This is a bit old in the telling, but my Competent Communicator award from Toastmasters came in the mail yesterday, along with two Advanced Communication manuals. I completed my ten speeches at the end of September, but getting my award application in was somewhat delayed, leading to the reception of the award and manuals being about a month later. (On the other hand, two weeks is the shortest time I've seen Toastmasters International ship something this big!)