Brandon DonnellyCanada must become a global superpower
The silver lining to the US starting a trade war with Canada and regularly threatening annexation is that it has forced this country out of complacency. Indeed, I'm hard pressed to remember a time, at least in my lifetime, when patriotism and nationalism has united so much of Canada. According to a recent survey by Angus Reid, the percentage of Canadians expressing a "deep emotional attachment" to the country jumped from 49% in December 2024 to 59% in February 2025. And as further evidence of...
Brandon DonnellyThe bank robbery capital of the world
Between 1985 and 1995, Los Angeles' retail bank branches were robbed some 17,106 times. In 1992, which was the the city's worst year for robberies, the number was 2,641. This roughly translated into about one bank robbery every 45 minutes of each banking day. All of this, according to this CrimeReads piece by Peter Houlahan, gave Los Angeles the dubious title of "The Bank Robbery Capital of the World" during this time period. So what caused this? Well according to Peter it was facil...
Brandon DonnellyThe story behind those pixelated video game mosaics in Paris
If you've ever been to Paris, you've probably noticed the small pixelated art pieces that are scattered all around the city on buildings and various other hard surfaces. Or maybe you haven't seen or noticed them in Paris, but you've seen similarly pixelated mosaics in one of the other 79 cities around the world where they can be found. Or maybe you have no idea what I'm talking about right now. Huh? Here's an example from Bolivia (click here if you can't see...
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Brandon DonnellyCanada must become a global superpower
The silver lining to the US starting a trade war with Canada and regularly threatening annexation is that it has forced this country out of complacency. Indeed, I'm hard pressed to remember a time, at least in my lifetime, when patriotism and nationalism has united so much of Canada. According to a recent survey by Angus Reid, the percentage of Canadians expressing a "deep emotional attachment" to the country jumped from 49% in December 2024 to 59% in February 2025. And as further evidence of...
Brandon DonnellyThe bank robbery capital of the world
Between 1985 and 1995, Los Angeles' retail bank branches were robbed some 17,106 times. In 1992, which was the the city's worst year for robberies, the number was 2,641. This roughly translated into about one bank robbery every 45 minutes of each banking day. All of this, according to this CrimeReads piece by Peter Houlahan, gave Los Angeles the dubious title of "The Bank Robbery Capital of the World" during this time period. So what caused this? Well according to Peter it was facil...
Brandon DonnellyThe story behind those pixelated video game mosaics in Paris
If you've ever been to Paris, you've probably noticed the small pixelated art pieces that are scattered all around the city on buildings and various other hard surfaces. Or maybe you haven't seen or noticed them in Paris, but you've seen similarly pixelated mosaics in one of the other 79 cities around the world where they can be found. Or maybe you have no idea what I'm talking about right now. Huh? Here's an example from Bolivia (click here if you can't see...
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Brandon DonnellyCar or smartphone?
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Share Dialog
I was browsing my Tumblr feed this morning and I found a link to an interview with Marc Andreessen posted by Fred Wilson.
I liked Marc’s response to a question relating to people’s love of cars and so I decided to post it to Facebook. I then received an email notification from Fred Wilson’s AVC blog titled “The New Freedom." Turns out that he liked the quote as well. With so much love for this quote, I figured it was worth reposting here.
The interviewer started a question to Marc with, “But people love their cars.” This is his response:
"Ask a kid. Take teenagers 20 years ago and ask them would they rather have a car or a computer? And the answer would have been 100% of the time they’d rather have a car, because a car represents freedom, right?
Today, ask kids if they’d rather have a smartphone or a car if they had to pick and 100% would say smartphones. Because smartphones represent freedom. There’s a huge social behavior reorientation that’s already happening. And you can see it through that. And I’m not saying nobody can own cars. If people want to own cars, they can own cars. But there is a new generation coming where freedom is defined by “I can do anything I want, whenever I want. If I want a ride, I get a ride, but I don’t have to worry. I don’t have to make car payments. I don’t have to worry about insurance. I have complete flexibility.” That is freedom too.”
This ties in well with the return to city centers and downtowns. When people live in walkable neighbourhoods, cars can be more of a liability (car payments, insurance, parking, and so on). In fact, I think of them as a liability all around. Banks think of them as an asset, but I like my assets to increase in value.
The other interesting point that Marc makes about cars is that supply and demand are not very well matched using the current model. If you only use your car to drive to and from work, it sits idle 90% of the time. This is where the sharing economy comes into play: How can people better optimize that 90%?
My smartphone certainly doesn’t sit idle 90% of the time.
I was browsing my Tumblr feed this morning and I found a link to an interview with Marc Andreessen posted by Fred Wilson.
I liked Marc’s response to a question relating to people’s love of cars and so I decided to post it to Facebook. I then received an email notification from Fred Wilson’s AVC blog titled “The New Freedom." Turns out that he liked the quote as well. With so much love for this quote, I figured it was worth reposting here.
The interviewer started a question to Marc with, “But people love their cars.” This is his response:
"Ask a kid. Take teenagers 20 years ago and ask them would they rather have a car or a computer? And the answer would have been 100% of the time they’d rather have a car, because a car represents freedom, right?
Today, ask kids if they’d rather have a smartphone or a car if they had to pick and 100% would say smartphones. Because smartphones represent freedom. There’s a huge social behavior reorientation that’s already happening. And you can see it through that. And I’m not saying nobody can own cars. If people want to own cars, they can own cars. But there is a new generation coming where freedom is defined by “I can do anything I want, whenever I want. If I want a ride, I get a ride, but I don’t have to worry. I don’t have to make car payments. I don’t have to worry about insurance. I have complete flexibility.” That is freedom too.”
This ties in well with the return to city centers and downtowns. When people live in walkable neighbourhoods, cars can be more of a liability (car payments, insurance, parking, and so on). In fact, I think of them as a liability all around. Banks think of them as an asset, but I like my assets to increase in value.
The other interesting point that Marc makes about cars is that supply and demand are not very well matched using the current model. If you only use your car to drive to and from work, it sits idle 90% of the time. This is where the sharing economy comes into play: How can people better optimize that 90%?
My smartphone certainly doesn’t sit idle 90% of the time.
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