February 28, 2013 opinion science Being impolite is good science I have the habit, whenever I review a scientific paper or attend a scientific talk, of trying to find a hole in the case being made. Are the...
February 27, 2013 personal Urinal cakes I was thinking about urinal cakes today, mostly because I've noticed that they seem to have all but disappeared. Instead, urinals seem ...
February 23, 2013 The politics of traffic offences My usual disclaimer: nothing about what I write below should suggest that I trivialise driving under the influence or that I think it should...
February 22, 2013 society How on Earth are Harley Davidsons legal? Most developed countries have fairly strict legislation around noise pollution from motor vehicles. For the most part it works pretty well, ...
February 20, 2013 meta personal Things I like about blogging So I haven't been in this blogging game for very long, but I'm already discovering a few things that I like about it: It's self-...
February 13, 2013 introspection laziness personal On being lazy I've done the Myers-Briggs personality type test a couple of times now (I'm an INTJ, FWIW). While I found much of it less than usef...
February 11, 2013 presentation work How to give a good presentation (This is a lightly-reworked version of a posting I originally made on my internal blog at IBM) The art of giving presentations is a difficul...
February 06, 2013 economics politics How should countries react to a recession? I seem to be getting into the habit of putting disclaimers at the top of my posts: for the purposes of this discussion, I'm going to ass...
February 04, 2013 personal Melbourne: one year on I read once that there is a Native American tribe who believe that when you travel, your soul follows you at walking pace. This imagery has ...
February 02, 2013 politics I don't get the whole Julian Assange thing I'm not going to write about whether the Wikileaks thing was right or not... that just seems like too much of a can of worms and I have ...
January 30, 2013 economics Cellar Door and Farm Gate Pricing Once upon a time, winemakers and farmers used to sell their goods at discounted prices at the place of production. This made good sense; by ...
January 23, 2013 meta What's with the blog title? I could just Google it for you , but in case you were wondering I'll make it easy. Gell-Mann Amnesia is the name given by Michael Cric...
January 22, 2013 Hawk-Eye I was at the Australian Open tennis last night (quarter final between Djokovic and Berdych, not a bad match) and found myself wondering abou...
November 13, 2011 Insurance The Structure of an Insurance Policy--How to Read It (Part 8 of 8) PART 8—HOW TO READ THE POLICY Assuming you’ve read Parts 1–7 and are still interested in reading your policy, this post is, in my opinion (a...