BY: JESSICA BURDE The minute you read the word “dominatrix” you imagine skintight leather, fishnet stockings, a horsewhip and a ruthless attitude. Words like “worm” spill out of her mouth and she sur…
The death of the server, the rise of the e-table
By: KATY WILLIS Introducing the e-Table – a touch screen table that negates the need for servers waiting to take your food and drink orders. Customers no longer have to hurry their choice of appetizer…
I am the Trivago Guy (and so are you)
BY: LUC RINALDI Earlier this month, I was at my parents’ place watching TV when the Trivago ad came on. The spokesperson started doing his thing—talking about hotels, dodging onscreen text, and intera…
Why travelling turns you into a decent human being; the benefits of travel
BY: LAURA ROJAS I remember looking up into the Amazonian night – lungs filled with pure air, feet digging into cold earth, seeing the hazy violet dust of the Milky Way. I remember meeting people…
Your laptop could be killing you: Electromagnetic poisoning in the digital age
By: KATY WILLIS In the Digital Age, electromagnetic radiation is everywhere. Even though you can’t see it or “feel” it, electromagnetic radiation is found in natural phenomena such a…
This 18-year-old hopped trains for 5 years and caught it all on camera (Photos)
BY: ROB HOFFMAN In 2003, Mike Brodie, aged 18, left home to hop freight trains across the USA. Freight train hopping – a form of travel that is equal parts illegal and romantic – is though…
The Toronto condo boom that killed community
by RYAN BOLTON I was in a CBC documentary about condos last fall. A film crew followed my lady and me around asking questions about condo life for some eight hours. They filmed us in our local dog par…
Uniformity is not our friend: The Centre for Social Innovation
BY: ATLAS The chairs in the basement lounge of the Centre for Social Innovation’s Annex location don’t match. Not a single couch in the rustic, exposed-brick space looks like its neighbour, nor do any…
The performers of Dundas Square: The life of a contact-juggler
BY: JACKIE HONG PHOTOS BY: LISA MACINTOSH Jordan Kells performs in Dundas Square most days during the summer, but his act is quicker to drop jaws than, say, Toronto Batman or Spiderman. The 24-year-…
A day in the life of a gay Toronto street kid
BY: GARY SEWARD It’s a humid summer night and the street is littered with the day’s newspapers, Starbucks cups, trash and all things discarded. The gleams from the streetlight strike the damp concrete…
An open letter to introverts and extroverts: Can you be both?
BY: KESTREL French writer Jean-Paul Sartre once wrote “Hell is other people”, and he was fucking right. The truth is that human beings can be awful to one another. There are prisons where people have …
Teams tow hospital beds to win Golden Bedpan in the Danforth Dash Bed Race
By JACKIE HONG Twenty teams are gathered behind the starting line. The rules are simple: there are ten squads; there are two teams per squad. At the sound of the horn, they’re going to make a 2…
These dangerous playgrounds turn kids into fearless adventure seekers (Video)
BY: LUC RINALDI At the end of your street, imagine there’s an old, vacant lot, wrapped by a rickety wooden fence. A pile of tires sits on the shore of the murky stream that cuts through the space, lit…
How to Hitchhike: 10 must know tricks for hitchhiking across the Country
By: TED BARNABY Hitchhiking is a great way to travel cheap. It’s also a one-way street to unforeseen and unabridged adventure. Sometimes half the fun is figuring things out as you go along, but there …
My first time at a sex club and I brought my girlfriend
The Victorian mansion towered above us as nervousness bubbled and churned within my stomach. The sounds of schoolgirls’ giggles and splashing water filtered over a tall wooden fence and I began…
The ultimate defense against date rape fits inside your pocket
BY: VANESSA NIGRO One of my earliest memories is of my cautious mother warning me of what perils may ensue if I kept refusing to wear my helmet when riding my bike. A few years later I was warned of t…
You might lose your creative job to a robot sooner than you think
Drawing upon the warnings of past industrial alarmists like Karl Marx or Ned Ludd, CGP Grey warns of the imposing threat of technology. History has shown us that technology often does not embrace the …
Arkells’ High Noon gets me just as hot as classic photos of Grace Kelly
“High Noon” is a moment of decision defining a situation’s outcome. Serving as the midday meeting time for epic showdowns in Western films of generations past, High Noon is also the title of a …
These 4 offices will make you want to go to work
BY: ATLAS We’ve all heard about the Google offices. Slides in splashes of primary colours weave their way through the building, mini-golf courses wait on every mezzanine, and there’s a pinball machine…
16-year-old inventor proves banana peels could be the future of plastic
BY: LAURA ROJAS So it turns out a girl named Elif Bilgin, a 16-year-old junior at Koç High School in Istanbul, Turkey, submitted a project to the 2013 Google Science Fair that won her the “Science in …