Monthly Archives: November 2016

Cultural Inertia: the QWERTY Keyboard and the Standard Railway Gauge

Two human traits stifle technological innovation. One of them is our innate suspicion of change, and we can see how that would have worked to our advantage historically, and the other is the slightly more complicated cultural and by times … Continue reading

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Keller and Rosa Parks: Case Studies in Historical Oversight

The story of both Parks and Helen Keller have been so heavily overwritten by the public imagination that they are almost invisible in a narrative ostensibly about them. This line drawing of their lives looms much larger than the more … Continue reading

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Hostile Architecture 2

I have commented before on hostile architecture in Winnipeg, but now that I have collected a few more examples, I thought I would share what we walk by every day and ignore. Perhaps our own privilege blinds us. For if … Continue reading

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Becoming a Non-Vegetarian

A friend I’ve known for a number of years has recently decided to foreswear their vegetarianism, which I would have thought was rather deep-seated, and begin eating animals again. This is common enough that it is not really worthy of … Continue reading

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