I’m sure it happens in other cities/states around the world as well, I just never had the chance to witness it. Every year, from the end of November ’til end of December, ORN (Operation Nez Rouge in french) recruit volunteers who will be designated driver on call. Which mean you can drink all you want for your Christmas party and still come back with your car. Free of charge (though a tip is always highly appreciated). In Quebec province (where the initiative started, in 1984) there is already 5000 people who call ORN. (In Quebec, all year-round, we have “Tolerance Zero” which is based on the same system (but it’s not free ;P)).

McKinsey just released a study which concludes that “the U.S. can cut its greenhouse emissions in half from projected levels in 2030 at minimal cost. None of the steps would cost more than $50 per ton of carbon dioxide emissions avoided. Plus, 40% of the reductions would actually save money. That puts the overall cost at just a few dollars per ton of carbon dioxide—or in the tens of billions of dollars overall.” (instead of something like 20 trillions).

This article talks about how Richard Branson is on his private beach with his collegues while “the City agonised over his bid for Northern Rock” and goes latter on explaining Virgin company structure (which is quite interesting) You gotta love how Sir Branson approach his businesses. I read his book “Screw it, let’s do it”, nothing really out of the ordinary there but it really shows how he decided to lead his life. Just saw The Kingdom (which I didn’t really like, the ending fucked it all) and I remember the FBI director saying that, when you enter the FBI, they make you pass some sort of test and that after it, it doesn’t really matter if you die or not, and that he took this lesson to his job and he would take his decisions for the best, knowing that, someday, his job was going to end. No fear of tomorrow. I think that’s what characterize Branson.

Banksy returns to Bethlehem. I think Banksy is a great artist. Each of his piece are witty and politically charged. Plus he does take advantage of the setting…

Artist of the day: ATC

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In Japan, half of the top selling books are written on mobile phones. Wow. WRITTEN.

“”I typed it all on my mobile phone,” Rin explains matter-of-factly over the same device. […] Remarkably, half of Japan’s top-10 selling works of fiction in the first six months of the year were composed the same way - on the tiny handset of a mobile phone. They sold an average of 400,000 copies.”

From the article, the trend is not new in Japan since “Maho no i-rando (Magic Island), a site that has free tools to help readers create their own mobile phone novels, has accumulated nearly 1 million works since it was set up seven years ago”
via TechCrunch

Here are the mascots for the Vancouver’s 2010 Olympics. Numerous Facebook groups have appear, either for or against them. So far, the groups to boycott/change them are winning (1500 members for a boycott and 500 for a change. You also have a 1000 members group “Vancouver mascots are a joke). Personnaly, I think they’re great if you’re under 10. I hope it was intended.

Facebook is going down. IT IS GOING DOW BABY. Or so think this blog. (I agree, it might be a deceiptive title..)

I’m canadian and, even though I’m sometimes angry or sad of being one, most of the time, I’m quite proud of it. And it seems that I’m not the only one to like Canada!

In other news, Vivendi and Activision merged creating a 19B$ video games company.

Artist of the day: RJD2

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If you never heard about TED Talks/Ideas worth spreading/, you have some watching to do! Great talks by speakers like Larry Lessig, Hans Rosling, Richard Dawkins, Seth Godin, Al Gore, Malcolm Gladwell, and a lot more..

Poll finds more Americans believe in the devil than in Darwin’s theory. Damn, I’m glad I’m not the only one! More seriously, I mean, I don’t know who they surveyed (i.e. where in the U.S…), but this is scary… 82% believed in God (that’s ok), 79% in miracles (according to what defines a miracle, it’s a bit strange…), 75% in heaven (…), 42% believed in Darwin’s theory of natural selection. C’MON! I got nothing against religion, except when it makes you blind. Oh yeah, and almost as many people believed in Darwin’s theory as they believed in UFOs and ghosts.

Some great work of packaging here. I love Coolhunter posts.

If I had to go back to school, I would seriously think about going to MIT Comparative Media Studies program. Students and graduates of their program have quite a lot to say about, well, everything ….

Artists for the weekend:
The Books
Funky DL

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