A Dutch design firm has released a new computer font, Ecofont, that they say uses less ink, and can therefore reduce the e-waste that results from depleted toner cartridges. It’s a regular-looking font except that it’s riddled with holes, and the firm, Spranq, claims this reduces toner use by up to 20 per cent. Their […] More »

Pope Benedict made some waves last month with his Christmas address for saying, amongst other things, that homosexuality and transsexuality were liable to cause the “self-destruction” of the human race. It hasn’t so far, but perhaps he means sometime in the future we’ll reach a sort of trans critical mass and one Friday night at […] More »

If you’re one of the millions of Canadians striving to lower your eco footprint, travel just got easier. Yesterday, Continental Airlines successfully completed their first flight using fuel derived from algae. That’s right, now you can jet-set around the world on little more than the energy of an autotrophic organism! The aviation industry, bemoaned for […] More »

Looking for an adventurous and educational holiday to beat the winter blues? Why not tour the chaos and misery of the mess Texaco Oil left behind in the Amazon Basin. For the last fifteen years Chevron Corp, which acquired Texaco Oil in 2001, has been in a deadlock legal battle with the citizens of Lago […] More »

A reflective morning trip to work through uncannily warm sunlight for a would-be bleak January day was followed by the happy realization that one of my favourite journals, the Journal of Aesthetics and Protest, out of Los Angelas CA (which was out of commission for so long that I nearly lost hope and gave up […] More »

A new ad campaign launched on British public transit systems today promoting atheism. The campaign was spearheaded by readers of England’s Guardian newspaper website Comment Is Free, who together raised more than £135,000 ($230,000 CAD) to pay for the campaign (they say their initial goal was £5,500 and 30 buses, a deliberately modest goal that […] More »

Lately, it seems everyone is talking about slumdog millionaire. I haven’t seen it, but I’ve been assured it is the thing to do. Having recently returned from a little overseas adventure of my own, I’ve been thinking a lot about slums. What does it mean to live in a slum? Or a compound, a favela, […] More »

As 2009 begins, I enter the new year brimming with optimism, especially when it comes to the essential goodness of my fellow man. This is because just yesterday (as we still battle the snow, and an apathetic city, here in Vancouver)my friend Kent and I were refused pick up by a local cab, only to […] More »

From the engine room the steel frame of our ship looks like Jell-O: the Razor-sharp ice chunks, called ‘growlers,’ hammer at the metal ship as we try to pave a path of escape, and they make the ship flex from the outside in. Fears of a breach creep in: we tell nervous jokes about the […] More »

Whew. What a year it’s been. The U.S. made history, Canada almost did and gas prices dropped to their lowest since I got my driver’s license. Toronto finished off 2008 with three bank robberies and began 2009 with three new babies and the GTA’s first homicide, which, tragically, pales in comparison to the bloodbath that […] More »

It’s five days until Christmas for environmental activists in the Antarctic Oceans. Most of them have sacrificed annual quality time with their families in their warm, safe homes this year. Instead, they’ve opted to sail around the southern oceans in wet, stormy, and extremely cold conditions in the hopes of tracking and stopping illegal whaling. […] More »