iMP Magazine on Y2K
"What does the problem and our fascination with [it] tell us about our dependence on complex technological systems? What have we learned that may help us understand and manage these systems? And what have we learned about ourselves?" via
librarian.net.
I had no idea that Montreal's Olympic Stadium
<a href = "http://www.stemnet.nf.ca/~yliu/work/fengshui.html">got The Good Feng Shui Seal of Approval</a>. The Big O cost $1 billion, remains unfinished and the ocassional 50-ton concrete panel has been known to fall off the side of the building. About the only good reason I can think of for it being built at all is that <a href = "http://www.grimskunk.com">Grim Skunk</a> got to do a New Year's Eve show in the bar at the top of the <a href = "http://www.rio.gouv.qc.ca/images/imgall/pict1big.gif">tower</a> a few years ago.
Utne Reader : Y2K Citizen's Action Guide
Available in hard-copy and pdf versions.
Wired : Big Blue Reinvents Internships
"If the most popular kids at summer camp are those who can do the fanciest dives into the lake, at Extreme Blue the attendees who garner the most respect are those who work the longest hours." I saw a similar attitude in the hardcore scene. The focus was drugs but the goal was still to be "hardcore-er than thou." The idea was to get as *fucked* up as possible, and I often saw people I knew on acid and mescaline at the same time, sometimes with a liberal dose of cocaine thrown in for kicks. That didn't include the obligatory quarter-ounze of pot, and a couple of 24's. Most of those people are junkies now, which led another friend to muse that they are just hanging on (doing smack) until the first first person OD's. That way, they can quit and say they were more hardcore than heroin.
Darren Hick : Xerox Generation
"Why is it that so many people have taken their access to Kinko's and Xerox technology as a licence to produce 'art'?"
Kenneth Steele : The Mystery of the Mozart Effect
Debunking the myth. See also :
As It Happens interview with Dr. Steele. real audio (starts 12:02)