This song and video are 8,000 homohms. “Save your anesthetic for the boy next door,” is one of the best lines I’ve heard in a while. The only bad thing about this song is that at some points there’s this synth or something that makes me think my phone is vibrating.
My grandmother turns one hundred years old today. Every time I visit her I ask her about what it was like to grow up on the frontier in Saskatchewan in the first half of the twentieth century. That was a long time ago. My favourite story, one I’ll never forget and one I think of [...]
The Atlantic had an article a couple years ago asking “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” Did I read it? Nope. Because it smelled like an idea concocted more to raise people’s eyebrows than to raise their intelligence. Is that a good reason to not have read it? Nope. Did the article actually contain something interesting? [...]
Having now been immersed in two different scientific fields (ecology and epidemiology), I find it a little ridiculous when people try and characterize who a scientist is and what as scientist does. The scientists I’ve worked with in both ecology and epidemiology are so different–mostly because they have different priorities and different sets of problems–that [...]
It’s Friday. It’s hot. Hopefully everyone is at the pool like I’ve been the last three days. In case you’re actually at your computer, I’ve got three things: Dan Ariely, behaviour economist at Duke, wants you to participate in his new study. Though he describes it as “fun”, it’s more weird than anything else but [...]
Sometimes I wish this country was run more like a tree planting camp: with people who work hard for themselves, helped others out when they need it and party until you’re drinking offsale in top of a boxcar in the train yard in The Pas, Manitoba once a week. That’s why I may vote NDP [...]
Fresh off not making the Polaris Prize shortlist, I’ve just discovered Bahamas. But being on the Polaris long list was enough to turn some heads, including mine. Bluesy, soft–music to eat your breakfast too. Here’s Bahamas playing “What’s Worse” live at The Mod Club in Toronto last year. Also check out his song Hockey Teeth [...]
I found this video over at Brain Pickings which is always a great repository of creative ideas. By minute two of this graffiti-animated abstract recapitulation of evolution I was already exhausted by the work and thought that was put into it by its creator (or in this case, maybe Creator) Blu–and then it went on [...]
I wanted Ghana to win both because it would help me in my pool and I wanted to see an African team make it as far as possible on their home continent. Although I slept through most of the second half and most of overtime, I woke up for the most exciting–and controversial–part. As the [...]
I feel like I’ve been hammering away at the depressing and intense posts. Considering it’s a holiday weekend, I decided to go back and find more lighthearted things that I’ve put aside including a sweet talk from Douglas Adams. Ancient Whale + Killer Shark = Hypercarnivorous Whale (Wired: Science)–If that headline doesn’t catch your eye, [...]
