When I first started working at the Weyburn Review, the data for billing and payroll were recorded on punch cards that were sent to Regina for processing. Twenty years later, and IBM is touting the 21st century equivalent of a punch card: a mechanical chip that stores data in the form of nanoscale holes in …
Phil Currie changing jobs
Renowned paleontologist Philip Currie is leaving the Royal Tyrrell Museum to become the first full-time dinosaur professor at the University of Alberta. I’ve had the pleasure of having a backstage tour at the Royal Tyrrell museum led by Phil Currie a couple of times in conjunction with ConVersion, Calgary’s annual science fiction convention. He’s a …
Ammunition for parents
I know, I’m old, and even when I was young, I wasn’t cool, but I’ve never understood lip-piercing, nose-piercing, tongue-piercing, other-bodily-part-piercing–even ear-piercing is suspect, as far as I’m concerned. Why would you want to do that to yourself? Now comes a scientific reason to object, should my daughter one day (God forbid) seek to pierce …
Man bites dog, cat shoots owner
As the famous quote has it, when a dog bites a man, that’s not news. When a man bites a dog, that’s news. No doubt when a cat bites a man, that’s not news, either–but when a cat shoots its owner–well, that is undoubtedly news. The weapon in question was a 9mm handgun, and the …

