My colleague and I gave our final presentation about Fudan University and the China exchange at noon today. I’ve never been sad after a presentation. Usually I’m ecstatic. In some ways, this presentation could represent the end of my China adventures…and I’m quite sad about that. Standing up in front of the dozen or so […]
I had a great opportunity to hear Brigadier-General Jonathan Vance speak yesterday via the School of Policy Studies (the folks who inhabit the bottom four floors of Robert Sutherland). Given the nature of campus activism among under-graduates and media flamers in regards to the often touchy topic of Afghanistan and Canada, the talk was advertised […]
Map and raster geek alert. The Province of BC has posted a bunch of their geo data online @ http://geobc.bc.ca Distributed in kind of a webGIS format, the webpage presently incorporates parcel data, forest covers, health services into Microsoft Bing Maps. Fairly basic data set at the moment, but it wouldn’t surprise me if it […]
Wandering around the downtown yesterday landed myself inside a rather busy Indigo bookstore. Whenever I’m in an Indigo/Chapters I have a routine route I take. I’ll wander the new releases (trade/paper/hard), move through the ‘theme’ tables, then meander upstairs the the ultra ‘no-one-would-pay-normal-price’ discounted publications. This is followed by a stop at the travel section. […]
Sherlock Holmes has some great cg visuals of the late-nineteenth century city. I’ve always been interested in that particular historical time period probably because the heavy mechanical stylization of the period includes the product and tech ancestors of much of the items that surround us today. Filthy? Unsanitary? Absolutely. Would I want to live that […]
CBC radio has been covering the Haitian earthquake disaster around the clock. For the past two or three days, one of the most discussed talking-head topics was the seemingly slow response by the international community in physically importing aid into the country. Aside from the tiny airport and minimal port facilities, one commentator mentioned that […]
Ant tribes in the Chinese suburbs They are like ants: clever, weak and living in groups A new term (for me, at least) describing a sub-cohort of China’s massive migrant worker population. From my understanding of the article, name is applied to the 22-29 year old, largely rural floating population in China’s major cities. Rather […]
Nice to see hear of folks who still carry compasses around with them when they travel. Moscow Times: Far East border guards have detained a Chinese man who said he was traveling to New York from China by foot, RIA-Novosti reported Thursday. The traveler, a young man who was not identified, was expensively dressed and […]
Like I’ve mentioned before, I believe the censorship and human rights dimensions of Google’s pull-out argument is largely smoke-screen done in an effort to make-up with Western audiences in regards to their controversial 2006 decision to base their servers on the Mainland. What I don’t think is being discussed enough in media is the simple […]
I can’t get enough. I’ve only been watching China for about 7 years (not too long) but I’ve never come across a shaking story like this. Google is annoyed…pissed is probably an more appropriate description. Some of my thoughts. While their human rights dimension is probably smoke-screen whipped up for Western fans, Google is making […]
The uber-urban citizens of Copenhagen ride like crazy during the winter. Canadians…who like to pride themselves on their rustic hardiness and terrified of winter and snow. I’ve the one or two public meetings I’ve attended regarding transportation (one was in terms of transit, the other, cycling) tortured cries of “what about the snow?” in an […]
Seven years of website fun! I suppose I could have waited until a 10 year operational anniversary, but…I needed a good topic for the first post of the year. Connected with descendents of my Great Uncle’s Typhoon squadron Was provided information regarding a memorial cairn created for my Great-Uncle in France. Acquired a long-term internet […]