Lovely post by Liz Danzico about giving compliments: But for every time you suggest an improvement — to a restaurant, to a product company, to a friend — say something unconstructively good. Say something that won’t change a single course of action. Say it in a quick email to someone you don’t know. Make a [...]
I’m disappointed with Mathew Ingram. I respect his opinion and his blog has become a regular visit in my evening browsing. I’m disappointed because Ingram has added his voice to the chorus of global digerati agog at a piece in the Atlantic suggesting the Internet might not be awesome. The piece is written by Nick [...]
I care about the environment. I use electricity like it’s going out of fashion. I’m concerned about the plight of the poor. I give nothing to charity. I think trade unions are important. I didn’t join one. I believe it’s difficult to morally justify the slaughter of animals for food when alternatives are available. I [...]
On the heels of Mitt Romney’s ridiculous speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference I thought it’d be interesting, and a throwback to that first year philosophy class I took, to offer a proof for why non-liberal societies must be oppressive. There are a couple of philosophical terms here and I’ve tried to link to [...]
One of the most disappointing things in watching the Australian federal election campaign (and indeed the past two Australian federal elections) has been the almost complete disappearance of altruism from the platform of either party. Everything seems to be phrased in terms of what the individual can expect to get out of it. There’s little [...]
I know I promised a review of Dogs and Demons but I think that’ll take a little longer to put together so instead I’ll focus on another book I finished recently, Amin Maalouf’s In the Name of Identity. This is the first book I’ve read by Maalouf, better known in the English-speaking world as a [...]
One of the things that’s great about the book club is that it’s encouraging me to read more. I’ve finished the next book for the club, Bill Bryson’s Notes from a Big Country, and have almost finished a second, Alex Kerr’s Dogs and Demons. Kerr’s book is really incredible. I’m thinking of writing a fuller [...]
One of the books that had the most impact on me when I was younger was Sophie’s World by Jostein Gaarder. One scene in particular has always stuck with me. There’s a point in the story where two characters are talking about the way the typical person gets used to existence and stops questioning the [...]
Today on the way to work I saw a girl with her headphones on, messaging away on a mobile phone. This in itself is not unusual. Indeed, the sight is pretty common in most urban areas anywhere in the world. But what struck me while I was watching her was what this signified. Or at [...]