With the collapse of the economy and subsequent reboot of people’s expectations away from fiscal overindulgence and (possibly) towards what really matters, some people are radically downscaling and moving into much smaller homes. As someone who’s gone from a two level suburban house in Edmonton through various moves, finally co-habitating in a 675 sq ft condo in downtown Vancouver, I have to agree with every point raised in the article. Things can get a little cramped, but that’s got more to do with us being messy than with any fault in the apartment itself.
In what has to be the most overwhelming of all weeks for Doctor Who in all recorded history, the RFS crew slogged mightily through tales of Comic Con, rumours confirmed, others dashed, and in the midst of our recording the release of a new trailer for “The Waters of Mars.” And that was BEFORE we got around commentating on “Planet of the Dead”, making this if not the longest Radio Free Skaro ever than certainly the densest, and not just because of PotD’s plodding, pedestrian poltroonery.
America’s finest nerds recently went to Iraq courtesy of the State Department to see what, if anything could be done to push Iraq from a failed state to something a little closer to a startup culture. Results were mixed. People in Iraq have been oppressed for 60-odd years, have no real tradition of free enterprise, and at any rate have just been through hell, so enthusiasm for open-source and blogging in unsurprisingly tempered. But in a bid for what wonks apparently call “21st century statecraft,” Silicon Valley is doing its best to lend a helping hand.
An exciting landmark in RFS history, as the Three Who Rule celebrate their Sasquatchicentennial, otherwise known as the 150th episode of their half-crazed (yet still consistently jaunty) blatherings. And what better way to mark the occassion than “The Parting of the Ways,” Eccleston’s final episode as the good Doctor and one of the many highlights of the 2005 return of the series. News, digressions and a visit from one of the Internet’s most pervasive memes round out this most 150-th of episodes.
I’ve been digging around Current.com, partly to see if there’s any way I can make a buck or two for Freyburg Media, and partly because there’s some really good content on the site. Here’s a story about how Argentines have coped with their recession (something we’ll have to start doing soon)…
and here’s another report from Angola about China’s rising influence in the region.
Stewart Brand made a name for himself with the Whole Earth Catalog and the “back to the land” movement (though always with the caveat of networked communication and other high-tech innovation), but he’s now changed his opinions, and says that cities actually help the environment by reducing population (less kids born in cities than in the countryside) and letting subsistence-framed land go back to its natural state.
In a stunning, nay flabbergasting turn of events, the Torchwood: Children of Earth miniseries turned out to be not only a fantastic five days of entertainment but possibly one of the best things on television thus far this year. A special 4 person quorum of the RFS council was called to deal with this turn of events, with special Torchwood representative Katrina joining the fun. But that’s not all! The Three Who Rule Plus One also threw in a “Bad Wolf” commentary…but of course such good fortune meant the beast Cracklor also paid a visit. Still, an epic-length RFS for an epic entry in the Doctor Who canon.