randomosity

Sleep Hints

Last week I pointed readers to the excellent article by Dustin Wax comparing note-taking methodologies and weighing the pros and cons of a couple techniques. I was not personally aware of the Cornell method. I am however a big fan of Microsoft OneNote for organization not just of notes, but of research materials of all kinds. I use blogs, wikis and OneNote together to manage my data and happened upon a Cornell template for One Note users this morning.
Read the complete article… »

Invasion of the US

Perfect Steaks

The 2007-2008 Wilson series of lectures in Canadian History kicked off at McMaster University today. John Weaver, the acting Wilson Chair in Canadian History, has attracted an exciting list of speakers for the coming year. Lou Pauly spoke on ’Globalization, Political Authority and the Prevention of Systemic Financial Crises.’ He followed Angela Graham who, less than 24 hours prior to her doctoral defense, provided an engaging look at Canadian Foreign Policy towards the People’s Republic China between the Second World War and recognition in 1970.

Read the complete article… »

I attended a lively and effervescent talk by Marianne P. Fedunkiw at the History of health and Medicine Unit. Dr. Fedunkiw presented her work with the diary/scrapbook of Dr. Dorothea Maude, a rather atypical English medical doctor during the early twentieth century. Dr. Maude was active in the Balkan Wars of 1912-14 and then during the First World War in this same area. The talk today was on the topic of the challenges that arise from using diaries as a historical source.

Read the complete article… »

How Do You Read? or!

It’s always amusing and often telling to compare where we are now to where we thought we’d be. Whether through sci-fi novels, advertisements for the house of the future, or in this case prints from an exhibition at the Bibliothèque nationale de France (bnf), facets of the futurethink can provide a particularly prismatic view of past preoccupations. Paleo-Future Blog has a nice collection of images of life in the year 2000 from the BnF. Natalie has weighed in on how prescient these illustrations actually are.
One thing that springs to my attention is the sense that the future was going to free us from contact with the ground. Flight seems to make so much more possible.
Read the complete article… »

Lisa Refund