I never knew

Sentiers No.10

Stack monopoly, adversarial objects, giant boring machines, gutter biomes, and an epistemic crisis

by Patrick on November 5, 2017

Issue ten already, and just in time for the 📱 X! So far I’m having fun writing this, although still struggling a bit with finding the time. ✕ Overflow Things that were much praised elsewhere but are by now getting a bit oldish. Since I haven’t gotten to them yet, might as well include this week: Who […]

Sentiers No.9

O’Reilly, Bell, Autonomy, D&D, Cities, China and misc churnings

by Patrick on October 29, 2017

It’s starting to feel like some recurring categories and groupings are settling down while keeping things flexible with numerous one offs. OH this week: “I’m in my filter bubble and I’m enjoying it.” ✕ Why is anyone listening to Tim O’Reilly? It wasn’t as thorough an evisceration as many tweets led me to believe but still, […]

Sentiers No.8

Intelligence Reconsidered, go, utopias, Twitter, UBI

by Patrick on October 22, 2017

This week is the longest Sentiers so far, although still at a manageable length I think. I got some great feedback this week from readers randomly bumped into in town but do hit reply and tell me what you like, what’s less likeable or annoying and what you think of the format. ✕ Intelligence Reconsidered Fascinating […]

Sentiers No.7

Costa Rica, Books, Zuck, Work & a Festering Pustule

by Patrick on October 15, 2017

Writing this up in a cafe on a Sunday morning but I’ll have to finish a bit later on since there’s a piano here with a guy playing classical music loudly and beautifully, and it’s hard to concentrate. Nice problem to have, I know. Unintended consequence; the time I spend on writing this newsletter is […]

Sentiers No.6

Commons, AI, China, Netflix and Megastuff

by Patrick on October 9, 2017

Welcome to all the new subscribers sent this way by the brilliant Warren Ellis, I hope you enjoy what you find and I’m looking forward to your feedback. Probably a bit of a ‘duh!’ comment but as I’m writing this, ignoring Holywood pervs, dotards, and “gun printing” bores, I’m coming to realize a newsletter is as […]

Sentiers No.5

Virtual assistants, Gibson, the two-tier economy, sustainability and colonialism

by Patrick on October 1, 2017

This week feels mildly Berlinish thanks to Sight & Sound, an event held in Montréal’s Eastern Bloc and Never Apart venues. It feels like this because, as I said on Twitter, the lineup is exactly what I see in Europe, always wondering and bemoaning why we don’t have this kind of program here. Well, we do this week. Be sure to […]

Sentiers No.4

Unaccountability, access, drones, suburbs and octopuses

by Patrick on September 24, 2017

Issue 4 already, almost a month gone by. Thanks for joining and for the good comments. There are no real analytics on this platform so I don’t know what you click, hit reply for feedback but also for what’s especially interesting or useless. Do forward to friends when you enjoy the newsletter. If you are […]

Les ponts

by Patrick on September 17, 2017

Deux ans (!!) plus tard, je relance l’idée d’organiser des petites rencontres informelles pour discuter de sujets divers. On en avait fait 2-3 et, après une pause estivale, je n’ai jamais reparti la machine. La dernière fois j’avais appelé ça les Cafés socio-tech pour discuter du point d’intersection entre la société et la technologie. Cette […]

Sentiers No.3

Cassini, a magazine, lots of tech, the future of cars and loads of plastic

by Patrick on September 17, 2017

Completely unrelated slice of life: back in 2009 when we spent a few months in Berlin, I was impressed and jealous about how many people were flying in and out of the city, “I’m off to Portugal for five days,” “we’re going to London for the weekend,” “I’m in town for a conference.” etc. etc. […]

Sentiers No.2

Algorithms, hauntings, autonomous cars and shinrin-yoku

by Patrick on September 10, 2017

In the first issue I mentioned the following ones would likely be shorter… and it’s not. So far this actually feels like a good length to cover the highlights of what I’ve read over the week and link to a couple of older things for context. Read to the end, I close with a walk […]

Sentiers No.1

AI, climate change, solarpunk, a Babylonian tablet

by Patrick on September 3, 2017

Here we go, finally joining the internet of newsletters. Better very late than never I guess. Although, technically, I’ve been writing the We Seek newsletter for two years, does that count? In case you don’t speak/read French: sentiers means paths. I like the idea of finding paths amidst everything that surrounds us, figuring stuff out. It’s also a slight nostalgic nod […]

Singular vs Plural

by Patrick on August 16, 2017

I had a great chat yesterday with Ian Sanders. We’ve been tweeting and sharing some of the same ideas and realizing some common interests so it was time for a “live” discussion. One of the things that came out of it was an insight on something that has been bugging me for a few years […]

Writing Is The Most Scalable Professional Networking Activity

by Patrick on August 1, 2017

I found this thread by Andrew Chen super interesting so I thought I’d use it as a test for Darius Kazemi’s little tool, spooler. Works great! (Not sure why some tweets were regrouped in one paragraph and others not though…) I simply pasted from spooler to here and made some small tweaks. — After 10+ […]

Hospice

by Patrick on May 6, 2017

hospice \ɔs.pis\ masculin En tant que nom commun, c’est l’ancien nom d’hôpitaux, d’hôtels, de monastères, de maisons de retraite ou encore de gîtes pour pèlerins ou randonneurs. (Header image: Hospice du Grand-Saint-Bernard.) — After three issues, we are putting our crazy project of The Alpine Review on (deep) hiatus. As I said on Twitter, it’s been a […]

Taillefer.coop

by Patrick on March 24, 2017

Commençons doucement avec deux avertissements; premièrement, je n’ai jamais rencontré Alexandre Taillefer mais je l’aime beaucoup. Pour ses projets, son implication, ses valeurs, ses interventions, etc. Même après la mort de son fils, il attache sa tuque et essaie de faire sortir du bien de sa douleur. J’ai hâte qu’il se lance en politique. Secondo; […]