From the category archives:

General

Ice cream road trip

August 11, 2010

A man needs a purpose to get the most out of life. My purpose last Saturday was to sample ice creams. Not any old ice creams, but those recommended by Elizabeth Minchilli a couple of months ago. My original plan was to visit all the establishments she mentioned and compare my impressions with hers. When [...]

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Rewarded

August 7, 2010

Been waiting, each morning and each evening, for these.

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Who ya gonna sue? Mon-san-to!

August 6, 2010
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Hold the front page! Genetically modified canola (rapeseed to less sensitive souls) has been “found growing in North Dakota”. According to Nature not one but two types — one from Monsanto and one from Bayer — were found “at large distances from areas of agricultural production”. Better yet, researchers discovered some plants that carried both [...]

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When someone gets it, they get it

August 2, 2010

[T]o put it in one bleak sentence, no medium has ever survived the indifference of 25-year-olds. That’s Clay Shirky, explaining to Decca Aikenhead in The Guardian why the print edition of The Guardian (and presumably just about everything else) will be as anachronistic as a telegram in 15 years and gone for good in 50. [...]

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When Ted talks have sex

July 26, 2010

Odd things sometimes happen when the train is a little late and you get to hear two Ted talks back to back, in the order you downloaded them. You get to see Carl Safina identifying the real reasons for “accidental” oil spills: corporations that have bought government out from under us. And you get to [...]

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Annnnnnnnnnnnd … we’re back

July 24, 2010
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Actually been back a little while, frantically catching up and trying to cope with too much heat, too much humidity and not enough (or any) escape. Apart from work, where the a/c is about the best that can be said for the experience. So, as the previous post was all about the magic frangipani’s near-death [...]

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Desperate measures … succeed?

June 16, 2010

Almost a month after I decapitated the magic frangipani, signs of life. Four or five of the axillary buds have swelled and given forth tiny little leaves. Is there enough time left for it to build up its reserves for another hard winter?

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I jumped and paid the price

June 15, 2010

iBank it is. After giving Moneydance and iBank another few goes around, I was eventually persuaded by iBank to part with my money. I was impressed by its slickness, especially at reconciling statements and getting information seamlessly from teh interwebs. Reconciling is an absolute doddle, as it allows you to just drag and drop from [...]

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Branding gone awry

May 30, 2010

Colleen spotted this great flickr set of new logos for BP. Personally, I think the company will bounce back. After it all, it was only BP’s calamity that brought the Exxon Valdez back into the news, and all of us who swore we’d never buy Esso again slowly forgot our pledges. Kinda stupid putting all [...]

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Trams that pass in the morning

May 26, 2010

I simply couldn’t resist this juxtaposition, and was able to get my camera out and fired up in time. But am I being overly cynical? Do campaigns like this make any difference? Poverty, after all, is not yet history.

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Desperate measures

May 16, 2010

Long-time readers will doubtless be wondering what has become of my beloved magic frangipani. The news, alas, is not good. I noticed some time ago that it wasn’t flourishing. Some kind of soft rot seemed to be attacking the smaller shoots. I cut off the worst bits, and hoped that the rest would now sprout. [...]

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Lazarus

May 15, 2010

Today’s Lazarus (The only such award I have ever bestowed) goes to Antipixel, an image blog that I’ve been following for about 5 years, and that hasn’t posted since 3 September 2006. And now it’s back. Welcome.

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Carrots enhance the appeal of broccoli

May 6, 2010

Thanks to my friend Jacob, who, with a throwaway “No mention of Disney stickers“, pointed me to a press release about a fascinating study. Barbara J. Rolls and her graduate student Maureen Spill watched preschoolers at a daycare centre having lunch. On three days there was a first course of carrots; 30 grams, 60 grams [...]

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How nice to find oneself in agreement with Tom the Machine

May 2, 2010

There is a fundamental rule I follow: more complex the concept, the simpler the graphics; conversely, the simpler the concept, the more fun you can have with the graphics. There really isn’t a lot more to say; nevertheless, I suggest you go and read how Thomas P.M. Barnett would have approached this thing, which you [...]

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Resurrect pelf, I say

May 1, 2010

Unable to decide, this fine Mayday morning, I give you both. However, let this not be a mere indulgence. Let it be an opportunity for self-improvement. Note, for example, that the pelf on which the weak and base fix their minds is “money or wealth, esp. when regarded with contempt or acquired by reprehensible means”. [...]

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What price cartoon celebrity endorsement?

April 22, 2010

A commenter over at the other place responded to yesterday’s rant about Elmo broccoli as follows: I’ve read some snobby bloggers who sneer at things like Disney labeled apples, but if it helps kids eat something good for them, who cares? Sure, it would be better if they just ate it without the ad, but [...]

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Broccoli with sesame

April 21, 2010

Annals of Important Research: An Economist blog post alerts me to a study that has apparently roiled the blogosphere, and that I slept through. Elmo can make broccoli attractive to children. Bottom line: [I]n the control group (no characters on either food) 78 percent of children participating in the study chose a chocolate bar over [...]

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Of hard water and kidney stones

April 18, 2010

A neighbour is coming towards me, labouring to carry 18 kg of bottled water (plus the weight of the bottles). He seems glad to stop, put the water down, pet the dog. I comment that he has enough water for a month. No, till this evening, he jokes. I tell him I’m very happy with [...]

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A manifesto for change

April 13, 2010

I would vote for a baboon if it showed any sign of taking “the environment” in general and farming in particular seriously. But no baboons are standing, and I can’t recall any of the party leaders mentioning either “the environment” or agriculture in the build-up to the forthcoming election. Colin Tudge throws away his vote. [...]

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Getting to simple

April 12, 2010

Alan Siegel swam into my consciousness with a Tedtalk on simplicity. I was intrigued enough to seek out his company blog, one of the least corporate blogs I’ve ever seen, which makes sense. There, today, I read a great post about unpacking text to get rid of complexity. Here’s the sequence: “We bring innovative ideas [...]

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Kerfuffle is right: Nestlé, Greenpeace and cacao

March 24, 2010

I loathe that lazy journalistic trope of using a dictionary definition — either real or, in the very worst cases , made-up — to set the tone for a story. So I’m going to embrace my loathing and argue that the Nestle kerfuffle, as documented so very brilliantly at Prezi, represents no more than “a [...]

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Minor, minor clutter breakthrough

March 21, 2010

Or perhaps it wasn’t. But it feels as if it could have been. After a surgical strike on IKEA early this morning I assembled my Besta as best as I could. (Oh God, the wit of it.) And then — here’s the breakthrough — I ditched all the bits and pieces I didn’t need for [...]

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Switching financial software

March 10, 2010

Having decided seriously to jump the Quicken ship, I downloaded trial versions of four of my five original contenders (cutting out Money because it didn’t obviously do anything about split transactions, which are a must). First impressions: iBank is slick, possibly too slick for its own good. Even though it is more expensive than the [...]

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“Singular they”: God said it, I believe it, that settles it

March 8, 2010

A commenter wrote: I’m interested in your choice of pronoun in the following: “Each website author or publisher has to find their own solution,” I prefer to bounce between “his” and “her,” but am always interested in hearing writers’ rationale for their choice. By the way, I see “their” more and more often in the [...]

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