m on August 25th, 2010

This might get a bit weepy or whiny in places, but I promise there’s a bigger point to it. I’m writing this post from Café de Paris, which is more or less exactly what it sounds like, except that it’s in Vilnius. I’ve spent a lot of time here over the two months I’ve been [...]

Continue reading about Celui dans lequel Paris me manque

Using a bicycle in Paris, even for tourists, is more or less a must. The Parisian government will even reimburse you part of the cost of an electric bicycle in their attempt to green up the streets (as well as reduce congestion).1 The city is great for walking, and I’ve certainly worn out shoes in [...]

Continue reading about Vélib’ and generally using a bicycle in Paris

Tonight the polls closed on the first round of the sexennial elections for the 22 regional councils in France.1 In comparison to the US, the regional councils are sort of like state governments, and their primary dossiers involve education, transportation, and land use. Rue89 has conveniently put together a “Regional Elections for Dummies” page, but, [...]

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m on January 10th, 2010

It’s New Year’s resolution time. Last year’s resolution, to get hooked on coffee, was a runaway success to the degree that I’ve quit coffee for a week to see if I’ll sleep better (early reports: yes). The first helper in the process was the Bodum travel French press I bought from Amazon for like $12. [...]

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m on November 25th, 2009

About a year ago, I stumbled upon Merlin Mann’s procrastination hack, the (10+2)*5. Simply put, it posits that one should focus strenuously on tasks for ten minutes, then take a two minute breather, and then return to the tasks. The few times I’ve consciously used it, it’s been rather useful, making the day go by [...]

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m on October 27th, 2009

It is hard for a way of life whose priorities are secular, rationalist, materialist and utilitarian to produce a culture adequate to these values. For are not these values inherently anti-cultural? This, to be sure, was always a headache for industrial capitalism, which was never really able to spin a persuasive cultural ideology out of [...]

Continue reading about Kraftwerk powers the European Union