Walking is man’s own, unique in the animal kingdom. Michel Serres, the charming thinker, rambles on in a gorgeous short podcast episode (in French) about how the walking pace, like the rhythm of the beating heart, is one of the most effective stimulants for thought. This reminded me of my recent reading of Beyond Culture [...]
A meeting yesterday saw me really excited at the prospect of learning new tricks from someone who has been perfecting his craft for more than twenty years. Everyone has many daily encounters with people who have dedicated their life to their work or art, but this one made me pause and think. The past months [...]
As a quick followup to my previous entry on The Myth of Travel, a quote from John Ruskin which I picked from the last chapter of Alain de Botton’s excellent The Art of Travel: No changing of place at a hundred miles an hour will make us one whit stronger, happier, or wiser. There was [...]
(… and ipod touch, and blackberry…) Bixi is the new community bike service here in Montreal. Lots of brewhaha around launchtime, but to me, the really annoying shortcoming of the system so far was not being able to check the status of stations on the go. According to a message I read on the facebook [...]
One of my favorite recent pastimes has been the listening of TED talks. I can’t express how much I admire this conference, the themes it tackles, the great speakers it secures, and the smart, smart move of making all the talks available for free on the web, booming its exposure to the world and making [...]