Acts of Volition

In addition to being an internet baron, I am also a brilliant inventor. I have deemed two of my recent inventions worthy of sharing with you, humble reader.  •  Invention the First  •  Low-fat toothpaste. The first reaction I usually get, after the brilliance of the idea washes over my confidant …

The media is a buzz today with the news of the killing of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in Iraq. I have no doubt that he was a bad dude. However, it’s worth taking a look at how this is being presented and covered.  •  See this screenshot of the CNN.com US home page. Note that they went to the trouble of …

I’ve got what is clearly a brilliant idea.  •  A sit-com/drama (a dramady?) about a doctor who, when push comes to shove, is the decider. It’s ER meets Scrubs meets The West Wing meets Commander in Chief meets Grays Anatomy meets Scarborough Country.  •  I call it, George “W”, M.D.  •  I wonder if …

Having voted earlier this evening for the Green Party in the Canadian federal election, I left the poling station with a strange sensation.  •  Given all the talk (some of it my own voice) of how little a vote counts, and how ineffectual a partisan political system can be, it is easy to be cynical …

Stuart Brand’s peculiar Long Now Foundation has been hosting a series of seminars on long term thinking in the San Francisco area over the last couple of years. The list of speakers is impressive and most of the talks are available for download in Ogg Vorbis or MP3 format.  •  Particularly good …

As I announced here just under a year ago, I’m engaged to be married this coming Friday (July 22nd). In the months leading up to the proposal, I did a lot of thinking about what it means to be married. In the last year, my fiance and I have also spoken about the meaning of our upcoming commitment …

This afternoon Peter Rukavina, Dan James, and I recorded a new session of Live at the Formosa, live at the, uh, Formosa.  •  Live at the Formosa is an occasional radio show (I’m still ashamed of the word “podcast”, but I’ll get over it) we record at the Formosa Tea House, a regular lunch haunt of …

Just as I was feeling good about humanity, I visit the CBC Streaming Audio page only to see this message:  •  “  •  Due to rights issues around the Live 8 concert, CBC.ca will stop streaming all CBC Radio One signals at 1 p.m. ET on Saturday, July 2. The streaming will resume sometime after 4 a.m …

Every once and a while I get an insight into just how extraordinary much of the technology we take for granted actually is.  •  This Saturday morning in my living room in a small city in the northeastern tip of North America, I was walking around with my little laptop. The speakers on the laptop …