NY Times columnist Nick Kristof wants to take you to Africa. No this won’t be some cushy first-class vacation. Kristof wants to show you, first-hand, the devastation that international ignorance, war, disease and famine has wracked on parts of Sub-Saharan Africa. This is apparently the second time in a row that he’s done this. This […] More »

image courtesy Environment Canada Last week on his Maclean’s Blog, Potter Gold, Andrew Potter linked to a Slate article debunking wind chill as a reliable measurement of anything. Now, winter makes everyone grumpy. Clearly, the Slate editor hating on wind chill hasn’t booked his Dominican vacation yet. This particular winter in my city has been […] More »

I’ve often wondered what impact digital communication will have on our record of history, and apparently I’m not the only one. In the December issue of Popular Mechanics, Brad Reagan looks at the problems faced by archivists — particularly in government — who have to preserve electronic data for generations to come: One irony of […] More »

I’m a little late getting to this, but a BBC blog called Magazine Monitor released a fascinating list at the end of last year: 100 things we didn’t know last year. Among my favourite tidbits, all of which are certainly worthy of their own entry: 3. Urban birds have developed a short, fast “rap style” […] More »