It really pisses me off. In many ways I favour the Conservatives’ apparent pragmatism and restraint, but all of their statements have a peculiar, pungent aroma that I can’t quite identify, that makes me distrustful. The other parties are no better; in some ways they’re worse. Paul Wells expressed all this again yesterday in his characteristic way: The immediate post-election period is [...]
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I love this. My experience as someone who loves science inasmuch as it’s a process of genuine learning and discovery (rather than merely a day job, or a competition), who never really loved school but spent a few years living in the library, post graduation, working on independent research, I can hardly express how encouraging it is to read [...]
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I know it’s kind of ridiculous to suggest Kanye West is underrated – considering all the coverage he gets (and he certainly doesn’t underrate himself). But maybe because of all that coverage I’ve been backing off, assuming he must be overrated. I’ve been mulling these thoughts as I listen to this song over and over. I gotta admit [...]
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Being home sick today I’ve had all kinds of time to post but my mild fever and interrupted breathing got in the way of the writing process. I’ve done a lot of reading today on the Citigroup bailout (pretty much all of it is here now, via Mark Thoma); I wanted to comment on it [...]
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I flipped to the American Music Awards a few times last night. Things in the music industry are even worse than I thought — I mean, good (I suppose) for mainstream FM radio programming but bad for people like me who like to be at least a little bit surprised and challenged. Seems like everybody’s getting too [...]
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I can’t be the only person seriously doubting that this flagrant show of prosperity is sustainable: I have this gut feeling that the completion of the Burj Dubai skyscraper (amazing pictures here) will mark a moment of incredible economic collapse, and it will stand for decades as a 707 metre monument to boom psychology run ridiculously amok. Just speculating… I wish Dubai nothing but the [...]
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According to Typealyzer my blog’s personality is INTP: The logical and analytical type. They are especialy [sic] attuned to difficult creative and intellectual challenges and always look for something more complex to dig into. They are great at finding subtle connections between things and imagine far-reaching implications. Not a very surprising result. I do these tests every [...]
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There’s a good review in the New Yorker about “the rise of overparenting” (via aldaily), by Joan Acocella: This used to be known as “spoiling.” Now it is called “overparenting”—or “helicopter parenting” or “hothouse parenting” or “death-grip parenting.” The term has changed because the pattern has changed. It still includes spoiling—no rules, many toys—but two other, [...]
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Via Fader, … And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead are back with a new EP, Festival Thyme. The song “Bells of Creation” is available as a free download for a few days here. The folks at The Fader note that Trail of Dead have been ”responsible for many, many drunken air drum sessions.” [...]
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