Just wrapped up some great books worth reading. Culture and Leisure by W.H. Auden My friend Matt Finn recommended this short essay on the meaning of work, play and labour and why we consume so darn much material goods. Getting to Yes by Fischer, Ury and Patton A classic how-to book on negotiation, should be [...]
I like the philosopher Slavok Zizek more and more. His regular Al Jazeera English interviews are always rather entertaining and over the top, but in this Charlie Rose segment he manages to stay quite resonable (by Zizek standards). I should probably read some of his books now. His point that we need to seriously re-evaluate [...]
On this Christmas break I thought it made sense to discuss the most essential part of Jesus’s teachings – non-violence. As outlined in his sermon on the mount and by his actions towards the Roman occupation, non-violence is perhaps the bravest and most powerful form of combatting injustice. Non-violence is the active attack of injustice [...]
I recently had the chance to meet Francois Legault, founder of the Coalition pour l’Avenir du Québec – a new provincial political party. The party is positioning itself as a centre-right option to the Liberals and Parti Québecois. Most notably, he proposes to put aside sovereignty – for now. So far, they have proposed some [...]
I have no experience in the movie industry, have never made a movie, and probably couldn’t make one either. But, I recently had an interesting email exchange with the creators of the documentary Buck. I contacted them to outline my frustration at trying to watch the movie in Canada. The movie had been on the [...]
In 2003 my friend Louis introduced me to Apple, it’s been a one way trip. It’s sometimes hard to explain to people what makes Apple’s products different; how do you explain the nuance of serif and sans-serif font, the click of a keyboard or the lightness of a Macbook Air. Of course, it’s not one [...]
TED talks are always good, sometimes they’re great. The talk below by doctor Abraham Verghese outlines the importance of the human relationship in medicine. In many fields, we are increasingly relying on analytics, statistics, reports and metrics – but we forget that behind the numbers lie people, patients, customers, clients, friends. Take 20 minutes to [...]
I have not had much time to update the blog lately. In the past month, I have travelled a lot. A trip to Washington D.C. for a wedding, which was visited by non other than hurricane Irene. The hurricane stranded us on an island with no power for 24 hours, but good times were had [...]
Chocolate is a delicious, delicious treat; however, it is far too often tainted with the sweat of child slaves. While slavery in the chocolate industry remains a small portion of the global slave population (~27 million people enslaved today), it is something that can easily be fixed. Today, the cacao industry employees somewhere between 15 [...]
Longevity is what I seek. Today, the majority of our social and economic system prizes instant gratification, quick money and the shortest path to completion. This is not a rant against our system or people’s material priorities, rather I hope to discuss the lack of long term vision amongst many of our brighter minds. You [...]