Wired magazine asks if what we’re seeing in Sochi is a manifestation of some of the tropes of current dystopian literature like “Hunger Games”, the “Divergent” trilogy, etc. – a gleaming, authoritarian rule masquerading as a utopia but with a barely hidden sub-class, propaganda, televised spectacle, corruption, rigged competitions, doublespeak, etc. It’s an interesting idea […]
About once a week I work a 10-6 shift instead of a more typical 9-5 one. With one staff member on holidays and one having called in sick, today happened to be particularly busy day starting as soon as I arrived, an hour later than usual. So I thought I’d do a list of a […]
On top of the recent news that by being excellent stewards of their country’s oil wealth, each Norway citizen was now a “millionaire”* (as opposed to some oil-rich jurisdictions that weren’t quite so successful in this regard), comes this story about the National Library of Norway finding a way to make copyrighted works available to […]
I got Chris Hadfield’s “An Astronaut’s Guide to Life on Earth” as a Christmas gift and just finished it. That inspired me to revisit some of the videos he made on the International Space Station. How cool is this one? (And am I the only one who wonders how they ensure the little bubbles of […]
I suspect Tim Minchin will be making up the content of all my Music Monday posts for Atheist Advent! 😉 “The Good Book” – Tim Minchin
So this is an interesting one… Pace’s Grade One class has started a daily reading log where they’re assigned some easy readers. They have to record the titles of the books as they read them. In addition to the assigned reading, they can also record any other books (or chapters of books) they read or […]
I meant to post this list of the 50 Scariest Books yesterday on Halloween but ended up putting a cute picture of the kids instead. So maybe, as punishment, I’ll post a list of the 100 Scariest Books of All-Time instead? 😉
Had to go to Saskatoon today for a board meeting for one of the organizations I’m involved with. I arrived in Toon Town early so took a quick tour around, not having been there since March. (Big advantage – no massive hangover today like the last time I was in Saskatoon!) 😉 I took my usual […]
This week is Banned Books Week in the US (as opposed to last week of February in Canada for some reason.) Oh well – I’ll happily celebrate any week that celebrates banned books and pass along great articles profiling authors who’ve been banned. In 2008, when Phillip Pullman learned his novel, The Golden Compass, […]
