February 22, 2010
Postcard from London: tech geeks are hacking African development
Participants in London's Africa Gathering event. Photo courtesy TMS Ruge (TMSruge.com) The Hub King’s Cross café in London is buzzing today with a new breed of tech geek: consumed not by robots or video games, but African development. This group, about 100-strong, are meeting at the tri-annual Africa Gathering event. And together, through what they call Information and Communication Technologies... [More >>]
February 17, 2010
Interview: sealskin clothing designer and lawyer Aaju Peter
Europe’s sealskin ban threatens her runway-ready apparel—and maybe the entire Inuit way of life Aaju Peter. Illustration by David Donald. A majority of the 27 member states of the European Union voted to ban the trade of seal product imports such as pelts, oil, and meat last July. The ban comes into effect in August 2010. Although the EU did allow a partial exemption for Inuit populations,... [More >>]
January 14, 2010
Olympic Countdown: 5 facts about the Vancouver 2010 medals
There’s more to these shiny trophies than meets the eye 1. The 2010 Games boast “the greenest medals yet,” the papers clamored following their October unveiling. That’s technically true, since the medals include recycled metal reclaimed from electronic waste. But out of 2,855 kilograms of metal used to manufacture this year’s medals, recycled content is just 12.41 kg, or 0.43 percent... [More >>]
January 13, 2010
Olympic Countdown: Your at-a-glance guide to Vancouver 2010’s sponsors
Want to be the official chewing gum of Vancouver 2010? At the Olympics, there’s nothing money can’t buy Our guide to some of the sponsors who want their name associated with the biggest, sportiest, Spandex-iest show on earth. Click to enlarge! Official sponsors of Vancouver 2010 [More >>]
October 8, 2009
Cape Breton conservationists at odds with wind power plan
Wind turbines generating power at a 400 MW wind farm in Colorado. Conservationists are concerned about the impact of such developments on fragile ecosystems. Photo by UPI/Gary C. Caskey Nuclear power has always been controversial, but even green power sources like wind and hydro meet resistance from locals. When Nova Scotia entrepreneur Luciano Lisi unveiled a plan to blow 250 megawatts of wind-power... [More >>]
September 23, 2009
Canadian independent video-game designers score big internationally
Gameplay in Critter Crunch for the Playstation 3. Image courtesy Capybara Games. On May 5, 2006, 35 Toronto area video-game developers converged in one spot with a particular goal in mind: to create an entire game, start to finish, in just three days. It was a daunting task, but in the end 10 completed games were assembled, while seven others came just short of the deadline. The Toronto Game Jam—or... [More >>]
September 8, 2009
5 better ways to recycle your old computer
There are better ways than the scrap heap to deal with an old computer. Creative Commons photo by Flickr user ÇP. You know it’s wrong to toss your e-waste in the trash but you also know that too often e-waste ends up in a country like India or China, where labourers are exposed to toxic fumes and cancer-causing dioxins as they strip down old electronics, and discarded heavy metals end up contaminating... [More >>]
September 4, 2009
High and low culture collide in a glorious mess on Tumblr.com
Tumblr reflects contemporary pop culture: not so much like blogging, more like collage. Illustration by Dave Donald. [Editor's note: If you're curious, This Magazine has its own Tumblr blog. Visit quote.this.org] I have never left a cinema with as big a grin on my face as when I watched the spectacularly awful Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. Every complaint I had heard was spot-on—that the acting... [More >>]
August 27, 2009
“Conceptual comedy” duo turn jokes into art as “Life of a Craphead”
"Sitting Bed" (2006) by Life of a Craphead. Photo courtesy the artists. Amy Lam, left, and Jon McCurley, the "conceptual comedy" duo known as Life of a Craphead. For Toronto’s “Making Room” art show in 2006, Amy Lam and Jon McCurley—the duo who call themselves Life of a Craphead— erected a bed sitting on a couch. The couch was large and blue and the bed sat as a human... [More >>]
August 10, 2009
Is a 60-storey skyscraper the farm of the future?
How to get local produce in the city? Look up. Illustration by Peter Mitchell. Canadian architecture student Gordon Graff attracted worldwide interest when he designed SkyFarm, a 59-storey farm for downtown Toronto. What inspired you to design a vertical farm? Sometime in 2006, when I was first working on my masters at the University of Waterloo, I knew I wanted to focus on how to turn a city like... [More >>]
