Niccolo Machiavelli and Michel de Montaigne never met, nor could they have — Machiavelli died six years before Montaigne was born, and they lived about 1,200 km (800 miles) apart — but imagine the conversations they could have had if they had lived at the same time and close enough
Continue readingTag: ideas
Dead Wild Roses: Urban Problems – Being Lonely Together
I think it is uncontroversial to say that we are hardwired to be social animals. Yet, why do we design our cities and spaces to make interaction and social contact less affable and easy to access? “Urban loneliness is a virtual pandemic. Even though there have never been
Continue readingThings Are Good: Let’s Admit Intellectual Property is Nonsense
Depending on your worldview Intellectual Property (IP) is either necessary or holds us back in terms of cultural (and economic ) development. IP applies to more than what you may think, it covers cartoons to medicine. What’s more, international trade has meant that the American approach to IP is spreading.
Continue readingThe Political Road Map: Wriber: Canadian Intellectual Advancement
While Stephen Harper has done his fair share to direct our economy into the ground, he failed in all of his attempts from keeping Canadians from doing what they do best, which is making new things that benefit everyone as a whole! Introducing Wriber… https://www.wriber.com/ Improve your writing and idea
Continue readingThings Are Good: A Video Designed to Spread
This video has been making the online rounds for the last couple of weeks and I figured I’d post it here. The video looks at why some ideas spread faster and further than others. It’s a neat take on memes (The Richard Dawkins kind).
Continue readingcentre of the universe: Storytelling Month – Grandmothers
To celebrate Storytelling Month, I’m going to tell you at least one story per week in February. These are all true stories. Every day at noon, the bells in the fire hall in Climax (the town in southeastern Saskatchewan that was home to my mum, and to me every summer, Christmas,
Continue readingBlevkog: Stretched Thin, Part 1
As some of you may be aware, during my more prolific days on the ‘Kog, I decried the decline in the quality of journalism, a trend which I directly attributed to the establishment of the 24-hour cable news stations. The need to fill airtime has superseded the need to inform,
Continue readingcartoon life: The Swerve
2500 years ago Lucretius gave us the modern world. We ignored him. Listen to The Swerve In 1417, a Renaissance scribe and book hunter discovered an ancient manuscript in a monastery. That book was the Roman poet Lucretius’ On the Nature of Things. Renowned scholar Stephen Greenblatt tells us how that discovery
Continue readingPostArctica: Duane Michals
“Who gives a fuck about what he had for breakfast? These are stylistic ticks. The digital has changed the paradigms of photography. I had an opening in Boston and this woman had a little camera with her and kept exclaiming, ‘Everything is a photograph!’ That’s the problem. The bar has
Continue readingWalking Turcot Yards: Stars
See that picture up top? That’s our waterfront, at least after they mandated the boat clubs to get rid of their shacks and put up those little lockers. It used to be quite the place down there. We’d get totally drunk and stoned just a little ways past the old
Continue readingWalking Turcot Yards: Only art can save us now
The world needs creative interpretations of global issues, not better descriptions of things people are accustomed to. by Santiago Zabala Perhaps rather than God, as Martin Heidegger once said, it is art that can save us. After all, artistic creations have always had political, religious and social meanings that
Continue reading264MHz: Religion tells us about the nature of man, not the nature of the universe
Religion claims to tell us about how the universe works, but most religious belief comes from a time of superstition, ignorance and fear we can only catch a glimpse of when we read stories about fundamentalist cults in undeveloped countries like Nigeria. People believe religion because that is what they
Continue readingmark a rayner | scribblings, squibs & sundry monkey joys: How to be a Visionary
At least as far as this mash-up world goes, anyway. (In which running someone else’s cartoon counts as content.) Alltop is a vision of humor. How to be a Visonary, a photo by lunchbreath on Flickr.
Continue readingA Different Point of View....: Unless people take action, Harper’s scheme will mean ‘Goin’ Down the Road’ for Maritimers
By dramatically changing the health care funding formula, is Prime Minister Stephen Harper showing little concern for the future of the Maritime provinces? The Health Accord “deal” that Harper practically threw in the face of the provinces and territories this week, not only cuts health funding for all the provinces
Continue reading264MHz: Why Should owners control companies?
It is a question that is never asked in society. In fact it is hard to even ask because the simple answer is that owners have power over the company because that is the definition of “owner”. If we where talking about a chair, it is perfectly reasonable to say the owner should have power […]
Continue reading264MHz: Socialist Party of Ontario resolution: Internet Democracy
This is a resolution for the proposed Socialist Party of Ontario. It is based on one I submitted to the federal NDP in 2003. Whereas the Internet allows a much greater degree of participatory democracy then was possible before, because everyone can equally and easily contribute to the debate and it makes the logistics of […]
Continue reading264MHz: Does having two incomes make people worse off?
The economic effect of two income vs. single income households is something I’ve been thinking about and I’ve come to believe that two income households has caused more harm then good and should be discouraged. Some problems caused by having a large majority of household with two incomes include: Lower wages because of higher labour […]
Continue reading264MHz: The Legitimate Range of Epistemology
This is a reply to a post by kirbycairo which is a reply to my post which explains where all this came from. I agree that there are two justifications for rejecting a prescription. One is based on the science and the other is based on the ethics. Like I said in my first comment […]
Continue readingPop The Stack: Google WaveBots – Enough Smiley Bots Already, Can We Have Something Useful?
Join the Conversation about this post on google wave or buzz. I’m a programmer and a certified tech geek, so of course I’m playing with Google Wave. I say playing, because there isn’t much you can do at this point on wave except play. This is partly because there aren’t enough people with access to wave yet that communication […]