flickering pictures

The BBC explores the origin and history of the peace sign on the symbol’s 50th birthday. From the article: It had its first public outing 50 years ago on a chilly Good Friday as thousands of British anti-nuclear campaigners set off from London’s Trafalgar Square on a 50-mile march to the weapons factory at Aldermaston. [...]

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UPDATE: NPR says this speech has supplanted the usual drunken cats and Star Wars fanvids as Youtube’s most viewed video today. As a Canadian, I really don’t have a vested interest in how the U.S. election turns out — at least, not any more than the other six billion or so people whose lives are [...]

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Some of these Lego stop-motion videos are a little cheesy, but some are absolutely fantastic. At the top of the list is a Lego re-enactment of Eddie Izzard’s excellent Darth Vader cafeteria skit. So funny I almost peed myself. Others include Lego versions of the music videos for Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” and the White Stripes’ [...]

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This is hilarious if you know and love Montreal and/or can understand the lyrics. Though I live here, I’m admittedly not cool enough to know if this is the latest dance craze, but I gotta say I’m leaning towards no. Also, I think my leg would get really tired, really fast. The Urban Dictionary features [...]

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Saddened by both rioting Tibetans and the resulting Chinese crackdown, the Dalai Lama has threatened to “resign” as Tibet’s political leader if his followers don’t abandon violence as an avenue of protest. From the BBC: “If they choose violence as the means to achieve their political ends then the Dalai Lama cannot lead that movement,” [...]

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Given that this site was inspired in part by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry‘s life and passion for exploration, it seems fitting to link to a Globe and Mail article that may solve the mystery of his disappearance nearly 70 years ago. Now, in the winter of his life, an elderly German war veteran has stepped forward [...]

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Before and during World War II, governments on both sides used propaganda cartoons to stir up support for their war efforts. Boingboing features the one above today — a Japanese cartoon featuring an evil Mickey Mouse attacking a happy Japanese island — but there were actually lots and lots of them. Here‘s one with Bugs [...]

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Thanks for putting up with two days of slow posting — we got back to town yesterday after two glorious days and nights of fine dining and rural relaxation, and I’m still so full of good food that I can hardly move, let alone write. If you’re not far from southern Quebec and are looking [...]

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New pages for site news, technical support and suggested posts have just been posted. The permalinks are in the left sidebar, along with the photography and dispatches from India pages. Please use the tech support page to report any problems you encounter on the site — anything from 404 errors to slow page loads to [...]

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I’ve been posting my notes from India, scribbled and scrawled all around the country last summer, while I get things up and running around here. Now that things are humming nicely, I’m spending less time fixing things, leaving me more time to post tasty content. But although I’m not quite so desperate for filler anymore, [...]

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