venturebeat

My podcast daily digest is becoming a bit overwhelming and back episodes are stacking up, even though I usually leave it playing pretty much non-stop. One more exquisitely engrossing series from National Public Radio that I’m making time for lately, however, is called “How I Built This” hosted by Guy Roz of the TED Radio Hour, which profiles entrepreneurs, influencers and so-called disrupters of industry and their products.
These biographies have all been pretty interesting and really striking insofar as they hinge at one point or throughout on the chance and the unlikely break—and there’s really something in being able to recognise it when the opportunities do come. I episode that seemed particularly resonate and positive was on the media property VICE that began when the Fates consigned a recovering addict named Suroosh Alvi with no journalistic experience to run an underground zine in Montréal. The multi-billion dollar publishing empire grew out a weekly cobbled together by Alvi and contacts he’d met on the way to breaking his destructive habits called the Montréal Voice got its first big moment of exposure when Alvi claimed facetiously that their paper had to drop the “o” from its name due to a dispute with the Village Voice—which was totally fabricated. Without venturing into the realm of fake news, perhaps I should plead that PfRC is being taken to court by Tom Servo for infringement of intellectual property. Explore more stories behind the founders of today’s biggest start-ups and up-starts at the link up top.

above the line

While so far the idea of abating the creeping and insidious traps that come with low income and institutionalised poverty with a universal basic income have failed in the Netherlands and Switzerland, Ontario is ready to embark upon this experiment in the coming year.

A former provincial senator will spearhead a pilot project that will eventual replace some of the entrapment of welfare programmes that can sometimes prove demeaning and arguably counter-productive with a $1320 monthly income. What do you think?  The new programme will have a lot of unanswered questions (and the effects of social nudges) vested in it and trials will certainly be under due scrutiny, but Canada really deserves applause for trying to redress financial and time (having the luxury to pursue higher education rather than entering the workforce straightaway or having to tend after a sick loved one or young child alone and having to choose between a career and care) poverty and social disparity.

deepest, darkest

We here at PfRC have been previously acquainted with fantastic pigment library of Harvard and its collection which conserves the intersection of chemistry and art, curating the most curious of artisanal hues with often the strangest compositions from deadly toxins to cattle fed on a specific diet.
And naturally, we were pleased to learn it had of late acquired a specimen of Vantablack. This substance, Vertically Aligned Nano Tube Arrays, absorbs nearly one hundred percent of visible light—less than a tenth of a percent away from absorbing all the incident light compared to conventional black’s mere ninety-seven percent, making it as dark as empty space and contours appear flat to the eye. As it’s not a very easy medium to work with and grants are limited, Vantablack hasn’t yet been used on many artists’ palette and its chief application has been in the aerospace and defence industry. Thanks to its inclusion, however, at least its formula will be part of the spectrum.

tchin tchin!

UNESCO is adding the beers of Belgium to its representative list of intangible cultural heritage of humanity, this rich tradition matriculating with Uzbek humour, the pottery of Portugal and falconry in the UK and joins the ranks of champagne and an array of French wine and the cuisine of Mexico. How nice that we can raise a glass to this deserved accolade, though absolute purists may not exactly appreciate that this currant beer is the only one we have on hand.