Although most of the bleary-eyed humans that gather at the dog-park in the early morning perceive only a maelstrom of fur running to-and-fro, a blur of legs and tails that stops now and again for the occasional crotch-sniff, shit, and a usually frustrated attempt at sexual intercourse, on some mornings the curious occurs almost unnoticed [...]

I’ve been frustrated by food writing for quite some time. In a single sentence, my frustration is that food writers don’t write in such a way that helps their readers to learn. The internet has been a huge asset to food lovers everywhere and it has continued the trend, started by media outlets such as [...]

Where he would die was a life-long obsession for Arthur Sand. He was at this point, half-way through that length of time that he knew, or at least had once read in an orphaned copy of the Economist at the airport in Atlanta, was typical for a Caucasian male in a developed country. He kept [...]

“Can I stay?” He leaned against the jam of the door. Tweed against timber. Behind him darkness. Despite all my thoughts, now was the moment of choosing. My heart was beating loudly in my chest. I looked back at the room, the artifacts of my domesticity. In that second, somebody else in me said yes. [...]

On one side of the room, there are those who want to project to others that they know a thing or two about food. They gesticulate passionately, because it makes them look Italian and therefore more authentic. For these people, a familiarity with the intricacies of this vintage and that, or that culinary term and [...]

At the beginning of this year I decided to consciously try and move beyond what I diagnosed as “binary thinking.” Since then, the importance of such a transition has only become more apparent. This resolution is not, as some may be forgiven for perceiving, some self-aggrandizing intellectual conceit. It was necessitated by a realization that [...]

Alexander Lutchek refused to be wet. This resolution passed through his mind as he stood outside the “Hot Yoga” studio on Connecticut Avenue in Washington DC. To those passing by, including the local artist, Thomas Brown (who would later that evening paint the most famous work of his life, Connecticut Clown), Lutchek presented a most [...]

I had lunch today at the Taj Mahal restaurant on Connecticut Avenue in Washington DC. I love the Taj, even though it is not the best Indian restaurant in the city. Far from it in fact. My gratitude to the incredibly polite waitstaff chastens my descriptions. It may be sufficient, and sufficiently cryptic to say [...]

At the outset, it is worth mentioning that as I watched President Obama’s speech on Afghanistan tonight I realized that the luxury of not being governed by an idiot has yet to wear off. Obviously, the entire Iraq War has been a complete distraction from the efficient prosecution of the war in Afghanistan. On somewhat [...]

Some photographs from my trip this Fall to Five Islands, a fishing village on the island of Georgetown, along the Maine coast. I was drawn there by repeated reports of a bumper crop of lobsters this year and a consequent drop in prices to verily proletarian depths. Eager to reap the whirlwind and enjoy buttery [...]

My grandfather was a farmer, by which I mean he was endowed with all the wisdom and knowledge that one can only absorb through a childhood and several decades spent in dialogue with nature in all her many forms. I used to spend my summers on his farm. He would greet me at the start [...]

This morning I read a report of the BMW Design Talk at Concorso d`Eleganza, an annual vintage car-show in Italy. Set in the context of the current deep global recession, the participants talked about a redefinition of the concept of luxury and luxury goods. Photographer Thomas Demand described his view that luxury must now be [...]

My relationship to “animated story-telling” can be divided into two distinct periods, one separated from the other by about 20 years. The first spanned my childhood from about the age of 6 to 14 years and focused on what are generally known as “comics.” The second period was much less intense and came to the [...]

The progressive view today is that America needs to invest in its infrastructure in order to dig its way out of the hole in which it has placed itself. And when we think of infrastructure we thing of bridges, roads and broadband – physical things, divided into the shovel-ready and those that at some point [...]

When I realize something, I often look back and see a path connecting things I previously knew so that my realization becomes at once revelatory and obvious. Several neurons in my brain rush to meet each other and then slow as they approach, realize that they have been neighbors all this time and then conclude [...]

For now, it is not important why I am in a wooden crate in a warehouse on the outskirts of Toronto. And you should not let your curiosity fool you into thinking that the series of events that led me to being in this situation is anything other than banal and commonplace. Some of your [...]

Here is the first of six YouTube videos that relay a beautiful documentary by the Japanese broadcasting service (NHK) that recently aired on the BBC. Narrated by the great David Attenborough it looks at a particular landscape that the Japanese call “satoyama” (‘where the mountains give way to plains’). It is a gorgeous study of [...]

[vimeo http://vimeo.com/2272285 w=720&h=540] When I was a young boy, my Uncle gave me his stamp collection as a gift.  He had spent much of his childhood in Africa and the album was full of stamps from exotic places and many more were over a hundred years old.  Sometimes I would open the collection and run [...]

Here is the first weekly presidential address of Barack Obama. In this broadcast he describes the recovery plan in greater detail. You can see the text of this address on this page and you can stay up to date on the latest news from the White House by checking the new White House blog. For [...]

Yesterday, the United States Majority Leader Harry Reid introduced the top 10 bills of the new session of Congress. Among them is the bill below, the Cleaner, Greener and Smarter Act of 2009. The purpose of the bill is to improve the economy and the security of the United States by reducing the dependence of [...]

Here is a very interesting (and an uber-geeky) article from the Wall Street Journal that profiles New York graphic designer, Nicholas Felton’s obsession with tracking his daily activities and producing annual reports that afford some interesting insights into how he actually lives his life.  Click here to read the article at WSJ.

Below is the 1630 sermon by John Winthrop, locus within American culture, of the influential concept of the “city on the hill” (a perfected society).  I don’t subscribe to any of the religious invocations, and I am uncomfortable with the notion that any single immigrant’s story should speak for the rest of us that came [...]

Something big is now gone. Each second feels amazingly new. I think. Is it just a matter of time before the Narrative returns? Where are we all going to go? What is this town? Former train-passengers now mill around the entrance to the station, neither leaving nor arriving. I smell coffee and wonder why the [...]

For the last nine months I have not written an extended blog entry. Instead, I have posted shorter entries in what I call my “microblog.” In fact, things have gone even further so that now, my Twitters, Flickr postings and Lastfm annotations are automatically gathered into an even shorter form of micro-blogging known as a [...]

This video contains the conclusion of David Attenborough’s exploration of life on our planet in his ground-breaking documentary The Living Planet. In this short clip, David, (in my opinion one of the great human beings alive today), describes the three fundamental pillars of a plan developed by environmental scientists to preserve our planet. This plan [...]

This is a multi-part BBC documentary examining the Singularity. The Singularity is a point in time, predicted by Ray Kurzweil to occur in 2029, when the processing power of computers will surpass that of human beings. In his book, The Singularity is Near, Kurzweil argues that this point is inevitable because while human processing power [...]

The final preparations are complete and everything is packed and ready to go. An army marches on its stomach and so I’ve planned for some sustenance in the event of being unable to get away from the polls. The champagne should tell you that I am, cautiously, optimistic. L’audace!

One of the many reasons why I am so excited about this election is because it is astonishing evidence of the impact of technology on the political process. Technology is of course agnostic and depends on humans for its moral value. In this election we have seen the Obama campaign use technology to devastating effect [...]

This is where I will be spending election day tomorrow, Precinct 414 just southwest of Richmond, Virginia. I am going, with others, to ensure that the election process is run fairly and to help anyone who has questions or needs help to vote. The polls open at 6 am and close at 7pm and we [...]

In Tuscany about now, maybe a little earlier, the farmers cut away the old dead wood from the olive trees. The perfumed smoke rises up from the valleys into the cold air. Through it you can make out a distant cathedral, or a train station built by fascists. It seems jarring to smell destruction in [...]

This morning a user on YouTube left a comment on my profile at that site. The comment was short and said something close to ‘like terrorists everywhere, anybody but John McCain.” I don’t have the comment because I deleted it. Later I watched a speech by Robert Kennedy and reflecting upon it and speeches by [...]

All things are defined by their opposite. Without night there is no day. The extreme of anything leads to its antithesis. Thus, in determining how one should live one’s life, without balance, to pursue one direction without restraint is to end up in completely the wrong place. With sufficient degree, one’s destination couldn’t be further [...]

With our presidential election just a number of days away, I found it interesting to revisit the themes that Jared Diamond explores in his book Collapse. In this video lecture, Jared summarizes his thesis. In doing so he relates the astonishment of his UCLA students when faced with examples of societies that cause their own [...]

“The Washington Post reports at an “ear-splitting rally in the Richmond coliseum and a late-afternoon speech at a chilly park in Leesburg, Obama promised to deliver the Commonwealth in the Democratic column,’ saying at one point, ‘I feel like we’ve got a righteous wind at our backs.’ USA Today adds that in Leesburg, in a [...]

According to current Maryland Police Superintendent, Terrence B. Sheridan (who has invited the suspects to view their files before they are deleted) the surveilance campaign targeted opponents of the death penalty and the Iraq war. The surveillance took place over 14 months in 2005 and 2006, under the administration of former governor Robert L. Ehrlich [...]

I am writing this quick note to let people know what its like to volunteer for the Obama campaign in Washington DC based on my experience today. Two key takeaways: (1) there is no minimum time commitment, you can do 5 minutes, 25 minutes, an hour, 5 hours, etc., (2) there is a 60 second [...]

Here are my notes from this Charlie Rose interview with Warren Buffett on the subject of the current financial crisis. Financial Crisis is an economic Pearl Harbor and people are right to be worried Bailout is essential – we need to get it done now Paulson is the best man for the job. Time is [...]

One of the reasons that I am so excited about innovations in the mobile space is clearly illustrated by this video describing a new application for the Apple iPhone.  It is a relatively simple application that measures your heart beat based on the sound of your beating pulse picked up by the microphone.  The excitement [...]

For some reason I woke up this morning with a question on my mind; why have I become such an environmentalist in the last few years?  I have always leaned that way but of late I have graduated from thinking it desirable to feeling that protecting the environment and securing alternative energy is vital, necessary, [...]

Here is a transcript of a “This American Life” radio program examining the origins and progress of the current global credit crisis.  It examines the invention of the financial instrument that started the whole ball rolling and its subsequent unravelling.  To listen to the report click here.  For context, here is an excerpt from a [...]

Here is a video of a speech given by Clay Shirky, author of the book Here Comes Everybody, at this year’s Web 2.0 Conference in San Francisco.  Shirky elaborates the idea that our society has enjoyed a bounty of leisure since the Second World War but that it has not known what to do with [...]

A recent report by the Washington Post identified 30 questionable deaths out of a total of 83 detainee deaths in Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency custody between March 2003 (when the agency was created) and March 2008. In response to this report and the recent death of Mr. Hiu Lui Ng, covered by the New [...]

This is an overview of the United States immigration process put together by the self-described libertarian magazine reason.com.  It efficiently describes the legal immigration options available to the millions of immigrants that seek to come to the United States.  As you can see, the legal options have several problems and so it would seem worthwhile [...]

Here is a petition for a writ of habeas corpus filed in the federal district court in Rhode Island on behalf of Mr. Hiu Lui Ng.  The petition, which asks the court to review the legality of Mr. Ng’s detention by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, was filed on July 29, 2008.  According to this [...]

It appears to me that there are two ways in which the brain can learn; a structured way and an unstructured way. Structured learning occurs as follows: 1. Each act of learning begins with learning a basic building-block. This ability must become fluent before the next block is added, otherwise the structure will become weak. [...]

At the end of the sixteenth century the Sultan of Turkey corresponded with Queen Elizabeth I of England. England had little interest in seeing the expansion of either Austrian or Russian interests at the expense of the Ottoman Empire and sought to further its own commercial interests by remaining in communication with the Sultan. In [...]

1422, June 5th, Verona. A single bead of perspiration slowly creeped down the nose of Paolo Bianco, a cartographer from Luca, as he drew dragons across vast undiscovered lands. Science had yet to discover that Matilda, his caged pet canary was the descendant of those prehistoric monsters. Paolo’s canary hated the name Matilda.

Discovered a very interesting and timely photo essay entitled, Chinese Wild West, a collaboration between photographer Paolo Woods and journalist Serge Michel. The project documents China’s industrial activity in Africa. The photograph above was taken on a building site at the Imboulou dam, Republic of the Congo, 200km north of the capital Brazzaville. In the [...]

This video was taken by a Chinese student in Chengdu, capital of Sichuan province, China, during the 7.8 Mw earthquake on May 12, 2008. This video was taken at 14:29pm. The epicenter was at 31.084°N, 103.267°E, in Wenchuan County, Ngawa Prefecture, 90 km northwest of Chengdu, Sichuan, China, with its main tremor so far occurring [...]

In my opinion access to health care is a human right. In implementing a health care system, other than the one that would naturally occur in the absence of government regulation, I think the challenging goal is to (1) design the system in such a way so as to prevent waste and ensure that the [...]

Late at night my mind becomes a lawless region for vagrant ideas that slope beneath fading streetlamps of consciousness. One such thought this night, while reflecting on why anyone would leave a virtual world of their own creation, is the funny notion that we are all the avatars of a divine entity in a virtual [...]

Here is a very interesting presentation by Nobel Prize winning economist Professor Joseph Stiglitz in which he defends the thesis of his book, “Making Globalization Work.” Stiglitz presents some enlightening statistics on the conclusion that, contrary to what one would expect as a result of increased free trade, the gap between rich and poor, both [...]

In this presentation Stanford Law Professor Lawrence Lessig outlines his thesis with respect to copyright in the age of the internet. Lessig argues that there is difference between the way the law enforces copyright in the non-digital or pre-digital world and the way the law enforces copyright in the digital world. In the non-digital world [...]

In the last few days my interest has been captured by the world of life-streaming. After a few days of nosing around in various online sources I have discovered that we seem to be in the middle of a whirlwind of activity in this area, so it seems like an opportune time to look at [...]

Basically, maglev (magnetic levitation) trains work by switching the magnet in front of a train to one that attracts the train seconds before it reaches that point in the track. As soon as the train reaches that magnet, the next magnet is set to attract the train and the first magnet is set to repel [...]

What I liked about this film Perfume, first and foremost is that it has a good and gripping story. The best example of this is the opening few minutes when the story reaches out and grips you by the throat. I also liked the way it made me think more about the often under-appreciated but [...]

One of my top ten films of all time, In The Mood For Love is a sensual work directed by Hong Kong film director Wong-Kar-wai, captures and distills the languid quality of elegant beauty. This quality is found throughout the film but two scenes that capture it well are when Maggie Cheung’s character goes to [...]

My biggest indulgence is my computer, and sushi, and foreign travel and . . . eh . . . let me start again. I love my computer. In fact it has become such a part of the way I live that I almost never turn it off. It is one of four – a family [...]

Don’t think that I don’t know. Know how you look at me with your withering eyes. I see you, cynical and old. You sit smug and cold in your own conclusions – that things have always been the same – that we can never change. But I say to you that we have already changed [...]

Here is an idea that I think would be very cool. But first let me start with some background. There is a lot talk right now about crowd-sourcing – but what is it? I think it can be best explained by a real world example taken from the first chapter of an excellent book on [...]

Diego tried not to look at himself in the mirror as he vigorously shook the can of shaving foam. There wasn’t much left but he was determined to make it last until he and Maria could head to Costco next weekend for their Christmas shopping. Was it F. Scott Fitzgerald who wrote that an artist [...]

I woke this morning with yesterday’s toothache still painfully nudging me to do something. Still blinded by the morning light I reached for my cellphone and called the oral surgeon my dentist recommended several weeks ago. His secretary offered an appointment for Thursday evening. I don’t know why I didn’t tell her that an earlier [...]

One of the first things I did upon my arrival in the United States some nine years ago was to try an American hot dog. The scene is recreated now in my memory as it never existed in reality. I know that it was the end of summer and the streets and skyscrapers of Manhattan [...]

The best Peking Duck in Peking (or is it now Beijing Duck in Beijing?) is supposedly found at Liqun’s Roast Duck Restaurant on Beixiangfeng Zhengyi Road in the Qianmen district. Walking around with an address written in English in China is like walking around with a sieve to collect rainwater, so I stopped at the [...]

You know how it goes when people write about elephants. Something like – I looked into the eyes of this majestic animal and I sensed an old wisdom and a deep strength. Well I didn’t. I couldn’t make eye contact with them – the closest I came was when they looked intently at the banana [...]

Today was one of those days you feel your mind wrapping with a special piece of memory and labeling it, “to be opened when I am old.” I arrived last night in Chiang Rai under the cover of darkness and left early this morning. I headed north across the Mae Kok river and into the [...]

As I looked out across the city of Bangkok this morning I marveled at how its many millions of inhabitants go about their daily business in a peaceful way. Of course one could say that about many cities, but it seems more pronounced in Bangkok because life is not easy for many people here and [...]

Thailand is the only Southeast Asian country never to have been colonized by a European power. There has also been no period of self-induced national amnesia, no cultural revolution, no sweeping away of yesterday for the sake of tomorrow. Instead, Thai culture, imbued with Buddhist tolerance, has evolved in layers, each one an incremental negotiation [...]

I enjoy the guilty pleasure of a late breakfast. I defend myself by citing to the old refrain of Noel Coward that “only mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun.” You can then well imagine my surprise this morning in finding none other than an Englishman seated in the breakfast room. “King [...]

It is the end of the rainy season and in the evenings there is usually a downpour for an hour or two. So I sauntered around the theatre district, keeping a vigilant eye open for a restaurant or café where I could hang out while the rains passed. I stopped at a place called Three [...]

I am generally in favor of political correctness. It has helped to create a new code of manners and etiquette that at the very least points the way to a more inclusive and respectful society for all. But it has also had a prophylactic effect, preventing an acknowledgment and discussion of the differences between social [...]

If you lean forward at Singapore’s Changi airport and close your eyes, you will eventually end up in your hotel room. The airport is efficiently designed so as to take you through the four steps that everybody arriving at an airport anywhere in the world must complete; go through immigration, collect your bags, go through [...]

Perhaps travel, like life, is a unique journey towards a banal conclusion. From the airport in Rio de Janiero our taxi drove us to the hotel. For a short period of time we whizzed along a highway that ran parallel to a black polluted canal that was lined by precariously constructed homes. Three-hundred pound black [...]

We arrived in Ouro Preto, Brazil, yesterday at about 3pm. We flew into Belo Horizonte from Rio and then took the BR040 south from Belo Horizonte to Ouro Preto. The journey was a winding trek through steep but verdant mountains. The sides of the roads and the bordering vegetation were both dusted with the indigenous [...]

With the morning comes illumination. Yesterday, Ouro Preto seemed like a sleepy little town in the tropics and although it is still picturesque after today’s explorations, I have discovered that its history reveals a very different past. This town produced 80% of all the gold produced in the world between 1700 and 1820. In 1750 [...]

Once upon a time in a land far away I was born the eldest son to the eldest son. My position at the start of the next generation afforded me periodic access to the intimate interactions of the previous. At a young age I was already aware of the existence of an exclusive community between [...]

Last night I watched an inspiring documentary by British historian Michael Wood entitled, “In Search of Shakespeare.” With his characteristic passion and enthusiasm, Wood transports the viewer to Shakespeare’s world – that of a young man navigating an unlikely destiny through the treacherous waters of Elizabethan England. How delicate fate seems when viewed in episodes. [...]

If you like what you do for a living then you should be worried, that is unless you are a pervert. Let me explain. Wired Magazine recently published an article about “crowd-sourcing”. In it a professional photographer described how competition in his business had become overwhelming, given the proliferation of high quality photographs on online [...]

I remember seeing a television science reporter, many years ago, describing the Japanese gadget freaks (now known as gadget otaku) that hung around Shibuya Crossing in Tokyo. With the same hushed tones used by David Attenborough when approaching a herd of water-buffalo, the reporter described a unique urban sub-culture characterized by an intense pre-occupation with [...]

It’s that time of year when small-talk is taxed with the topic of New Year’s resolutions. During this season, relative strangers feel free to ask whether you have resolved to leave the toilet seat down or to refrain from your pre-occupation with death by asphyxiation. I object to questions about New Year’s resolutions from people [...]

Merely a century ago it was considered unnecessary for surgeons to wash their hands before performing surgery because the link between germs and infection was unknown. Today, researchers at numerous research institutions such as Princeton and the California Institute of Technology have already succeeded in programming living cells to act as computers. Given the rapidly [...]

Although the ability of an affected wine connoisseur to detect that a wine was made from grapes picked by a one-legged man on a Thursday is a stock cliché, the extensive efforts that wineries, such as the Robert Mondavi Winery in Napa Valley, undertake to produce great wine supports the notion that such subtleties do [...]

Its 8 am and Washington D.C. is an hour behind us as we race the dawn across the United States to California. During breakfast the sun pulls ahead and by the time we are over Colorado, a vast range of red mountains is already stretching in the warm morning light. The red peaks below have [...]

Getting to sleep is sometimes like a negotiation, like a car you really want to buy but can’t afford. So you haggle, take out the stereo, a lighter engine will do, and then, before you know it, you are hurtling along the highway in a car that is so bareboned and dangerous you don’t want [...]

The winner of the Colin Powell Hardy Herb 2005 Championship is French Tarragon (Artemesia drancunculis). Thyme Golden Yellow (Thymus x citriodorus ‘Aureus’) finished a distant second. The championship is an annual competition between various herbs located in my herb garden. To claim victory the contestant herbs must survive the winter and summer unassisted. The champion [...]