I know it’s sign of heresy to not want to ban smoking for health reasons, however the facts are that you do give up an atmosphere of a smoky cafe, where fractal patterns of smoke in the air can trigger our basic meta programming.

Who wins this one? I say keep certain cafe smoke free and others not. That gives everyone a win for their side.

Smoking Ban Hits French Cafe Culture: Financial News - Yahoo! Finance

PARIS (AP) — From next week, one of France’s most iconic institutions — the smoky cafe — will be but a hazy memory.

The extension of France’s smoking ban to bars, discotheques, restaurants, hotels, casinos and cafes on Jan. 1 marks a momentous cultural shift in a country where thinkers like Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir once held court while clutching cigarettes in Left Bank cafes.

eats & drinks

I checked these guys out a long time ago, dropped it, but I’m back. I think they reached a critical mass now and have enough to go around. I start out with a Krishna Das query, and let it roll from there.

Last.fm – The Social Music Revolution

sounds

Pretty interesting stuff to go with your morning brew.

A Question of Blame When Societies Fall - New York Times
For an hour I had listened as he, or rather his narrator, described how the inhabitants of Easter Island had precipitated their own demise by cutting down all the palm trees — for, among other purposes, transporting those giant statues — and how the Anasazi of Chaco Canyon and the Maya might have committed similar “ecocide.”

By the time I approached the turnoff for Amerind’s boulder-strewn campus, Dr. Diamond had moved on to the Vikings’ fate. But for the moment my mind was in the grip of “The Thing.”

science

Both of these have great messages and almost 3 generations apart.

And Dr. Pinker provides a bit of a pick-me-up. I’m a big fan of these TED Conferences. If enough people get absorbed into TED, I’m sure the world will be a much better place. Start exploring.

video

kinda of uplifitng ted lecture …. may have sent to u
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/189 [http://www.ted.com/index.php/talk …

general

interesting:
About 60 science caf?s have cropped up across the United States.
http://tinyurl.com/359vbz [http://tinyurl.com/359vbz] (The …

general

http://tinyurl.com/2hpk6f [http://tinyurl.com/2hpk6f]now it’s super models + Macs yipes!

general