Colin Ellard

We greet the news of June’s uptick in new housing starts in the US like thirsty desert wanderers seeing the first shimmer of water on the horizon.  Could this be the long-awaited turning point in a year’s worth of economic bad news?  Have we finally found a midsummer’s moment of relief after t...

I really liked this story of the Swedish couple who typed "Carpi" into their GPS when they meant to type "Capri".  Thanks to all those who tipped me off right away -- it's nice to have friends who know what you like....

I'm staring into the abyss of Google maps tonight trying to plan carefully for a complicated multi-leg car journey I'm going to have to take tomorrow.  I'm zooming in and out of the map, trying to imagine how some of the different critical choices I will need to make will look from the ground....

My last few interviews have taken a very interesting turn in that I've had some chances to take discussion beyond the (admittedly quite fascinating) discussion of sense of direction...

Cities are colliding with such potent forces for change that the future of our urban landscape has never been harder to predict...

I've noticed that there have been some commentaries (and I've received a few emails recently) connected with some of my statements about gender differences in spatial navigation...

I know I haven't posted here for a while now but I have to tell you the pace has been hectic over these past few days...

I really enjoyed my stint on CBC's Ontario Today yesterday...

In many ways, the city of Cork seems not dramatically different to the city of Kitchener-Waterloo.  It's a bit more lightly populated and it happens to have a giant deep-water harbour, second only to Sydney Harbour in Australia....

Rumours of my early demise were exaggerated.  I've just returned from a visit to Ireland -- mostly vacation but with some working threads as well....

This really interesting article suggests that forest chimpanzees are capable of prodigious feats of spatial memory in which they remember the exact locations of thousands of trees, and factor into their searches for them how their fruit abundance varies from month to month...

In an epic bout of WILFING brought on by an excessive early morning round of woofing that roused me from bed at an uncivil Sunday morning hour, I've landed here, thinking about Brian Eno...

I spent some time in Waterloo's new public square yesterday...

Just a quick and dirty grab from Google Earth showing the public space in Bonn where I enjoyed my beer...