Computers located on the network controlled by pharma giant Abbott Laboratories have made over 1,000 edits to Wikipedia entries about the company and its products—according to WikiScanner, a tool created by 24-year-old scientist Virgil Griffith that analyzes public data about access to the online free-content encyclopedia. Based on the data provided by the software tool, […] More »
Walkmans, CD players and iPods are all pretty great inventions, how else are we going to kill an hour each day on the subway? But wait, isn’t it all a little much? This article thinks that all these iPods, mp3 blogs and downloading has meant the death of silence and maybe even music itself. When […] More »
Dom and Shayna have reached Quebec as part of their summer-long road trip to explore the meaning of community in Canada, and this dispatch is part of their latest post on the Alternate Routes blog: At Maison Emmanuel, people with disabilities are encouraged to focus on their abilities by working in a variety of areas: […] More »
According to The Southern African (a Toronto-based diasporic news source), aviation workers in Botswana are in an uproar about new regulations requiring regular screening for HIV—and the potential for dismissal of people who test positive. The director of the nation’s civil aviation authority, Olefile Moakofi, claimed “there are certain medical conditions that if people are […] More »
Some of you might have heard that yesterday in Montebello, the president of the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union helped diffuse a situation where a rock-throwing protester attempted to breech the “green zone,” by pushing through a line of riot cops. Dave Coles from CEP did in fact break-up a potential incident, but we’re pretty […] More »
We start this week’s links with a cheesy Leann Rimes reference. We’re sorry but we couldn’t resist. But we hope you read on about the Civic Twilight Design Collective’s idea for streetlights that sync up with the phases of the moon. The award-winning idea cuts down on light pollution and power use and just looks […] More »
Karl Rove’s work is done, apparently. The Economist has a thoughtful/ detailed blurb about Rove’s resignation here. It cites Rove’s ability to get Bush re-elected in 2004 as his biggest triumph, which, you have to admit, was quite the feat. Rove knows his market: the American people, unfortunately, wanted the big, dumb approachable “guy next […] More »
An article in the current issue of Mother Jones magazine, a stalwart of independent media in the United States, has created something of a stir in a rural part of Nova Scotia. The story is a Canadian military doctor’s diary of one month at Kandahar Airfield in Afghanistan, and in it is a detailed and […] More »
This Magazine’s August Film Club Newsletter is now up here. Highlights include a special Toronto run of Run Robot Run!, a new comedy set in the future about an office drone who declares war on a handsome robot that stole his job, and the theatrical release of A Stone’s Throw, a drama set in Nova […] More »