When trying to solve the problem of the lack of affordable housing, the thinkers and planners and innovators and design enthusiasts come up with some pretty creative ideas. Like the IKEA House, for example, or the notion of shipping container architecture. A group of Toronto activists are proposing a "use it or lose it" bylaw "that would see vacant and underutilized buildings and spaces expropriated by the City and redeveloped as badly needed affordable... [continue]

October 16 is the day that the Walt Disney Company was founded (1923), the day that Trudeau invoked the War Measures Act in response to the October Crisis terrorist kidnapping (1970), and the day that President Bush signed into law the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution (2002). It is also, though you may not know it, World Food Day, as deemed by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United... [continue]

The Scarborough Arts Council and The Centre for Creative Communications at Centennial College are doing something neat—they're recording podcasts about technology in front of a live studio audience. The lecture series being recorded is called OPEN SPACE, and the upcoming two-part event, entitled The Future is Now, features two smart and interesting people talking about digital culture, technology and society, and the effects of combing these things. On October 16 (that's tomorrow!) from noon until... [continue]

The Monkey's Paw, Torontoist's favourite place to purchase odd out-of-print books and small creatures encased in resin, is hosting a contest: the Monkey's Paw Detournement Tournament. Inspired by the 1950s French artistic practice of detournement ("the re-use of pre-existing cultural elements in a new ensemble"), the challenge is to combine the words of titles in The Monkey's Paw catalogue (you can spend as long as you like in the Dundas Street store with your head... [continue]

Hey kids! Do you like to share files? Do you believe in the public domain? Do you think that mashups and Photoshop contests and having Torontoist publish your Flickr photos are an important or worthwhile part of our media-immersed culture? Would you like to talk about these sorts of things with interesting people while drinking beer and/or eating nachos? If you answered "yes" to that last question, you may be interested in the upcoming... [continue]

This is an image of a Buddha Machine. If you have one, you ought to bring it to Ambient Ping's Zen Garden Party tomorrow afternoon in the south-western greenhouse at the Allan Gardens Conservatory to "help create a moving sound-in-space experience." If you don't have one, it's alright—they're optional and you're still welcome to come and enjoy the experience. If you would like one, they can be obtained at Soundscapes. This is all happening on... [continue]

What do you get when you cross a bunch of experimental music fans with people who tinker with circuits and software and synthesizers? If it's not I/O Media Collective you may want to keep it away from small children and animals who can perceive high-frequency sounds. Curious? Said Media Collective will be holding the next in their series of improv events, a VJ'd, circuit bent, dance, and audio improv experience, this Friday, March 23 at... [continue]

It's likely that Google knows a fair bit about you. After all, they know where you live and where you want to go, help you find what you're searching for, read your email and your IMs, know what's on your calendar, moderate your discussion groups, and even scan your essays and spreadsheets. Most of the time, this seems totally normal, but once in a while we ought to ask questions about what this all... [continue]

This Torontoist loves seeing this building every time she rides her bike down Huron street. It must be the best place to live in the city, after all, it's the epitome of apartment! If you, or anyone you know, lives here, or if you're a babysitter or painter or window washer and you've ever had occasion to go inside one of the units, could you let us know if it lives up to its... [continue]

Tomorrow night, treat your ears to an evening of Toronto's finest experimental musicians. The launch party for MusicWorks's spring 2007 issue will be held at the Gladstone Hotel Artbar, Sunday March 11th, at 8 p.m. The event will include performances from Rick Sacks, Anne Bourne, and Rob Clutton, and members of Autorickshaw. Cover is pay-what-you-can, $10 with a magazine, or $25 with a subscription. Even if you don't make it to the party, you may... [continue]

... [continue]

As we've recently established, there are often frustrating barriers to buying the right (read local/ethical/sustainable) foodstuffs. One alternative to buying food, however, is to grow it yourself! Tomorrow, the Toronto Community Garden Network is putting on a Community Garden Knowledge Swap, so if you have been curious about how to subvert the dominant capitalist food-production system, or if you just want to share tips with other gardeners, this is your chance! The details: Saturday February... [continue]

Cory Doctorow, editor of BoingBoing, author of many books (including Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom and Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town), and former Torontonian, will be in his hometown and our fair city on Thursday February First, promoting his new collection of short stories Overclocked: Stories of the Future Present. The event will be at 7pm at Bakka Books (697 Queen Street West), the world’s oldest science fiction bookstore. Cory started... [continue]

Though it's the middle of winter to us, February 3rd happens to be Tu B'shvat, the Jewish New Year for the Trees. In elementary school, this meant bringing home a scrawny little seedling and having a child in Israel plant a tree for you--now that we're a little more grown up, the holiday can be a time to think of our relationship to nature and celebrate a Jewish holiday that doesn't have to do with... [continue]

1. It's an event being put on by Wireless Toronto. 2. It's free and there will be snacks. 3. Smart people will be talking about Commnunity Wifi (what Wireless Toronto does) and Municipal Wifi (like the Toronto Hydro OneZone network). 4. There will be a DJ. 5. It's at 7pm on Tuesday, at Lot 16 (1136 Queen St West). 6. The Wifi Backpack will be there, so if you want a demonstration of how... [continue]

Calling any and all artists, illustrators, and part-time doodlers! Your help is requested to aid in Toronto artist Margaret Flood's latest project: the Shapetionary. What is the Shapetionary? Its a visual index of objects. It started from looking at the dictionary and wondering why some words are illustrated and others aren’t, then thinking it would be interesting to illustrate the whole dictionary, or all the object nouns...then organize them by shape. So I extracted... [continue]

When I was living in Vancouver, I had a roommate purchase a few strange canned beverages at the T&T supermarket on the edge of Chinatown. He put them in all the housemates' Christmas stockings; someone got some wax gourd juice, I got a can of milky coffee with jelly which tasted like cold airplane coffee, but with little bits of unflavoured Jell-O floating in it. It was so disgusting that the only appropriate thing to... [continue]

On Tuesday, Wireless Toronto (everybody's favourite community wireless group) held its very first Hacknight. In this new year, Wireless Toronto will be doing more than just setting up free wifi in public places; they're starting a series of group tech-project hacknight get-togethers. Beer, wires, routers, cordless drills...you get the idea. Tuesday was the first part of a grander project to build a wifi backpack: "We’re building a wifi backpack, which we’ve affectionately called the WiFi... [continue]

Visiting someone's home for the first time usually (for me) involves looking at their shelves and trying to gauge what kind of person the really are by their books. Not to say that this is the best way to gain insight (I mean, most of my books are in storage, so don't judge me by what's in my library!), but Robin Pacific will be painting her "Shelf Portrait" (her pun, not mine) by giving... [continue]

Legible London is an exhibit on now at the New London Architecture centre. Apparently, people take the subway for very short distances over there because the city can be near impossible to navigate: many people use the Tube map to navigate above ground, and the street signs are a confusing mishmash of different fonts and styles, and sometimes contradictory information (see photo, more examples here). So, Torontonians, we ask of you: should we substitute... [continue]