Opinion

07/07/07 was a cute date to pick to release a list of the “New 7 Wonders”, to update the list from the wonders of the Ancient (Greecian) World, as voted by an internet poll (can you say “donkey vote”?). The List is: Great Wall of China Taj Mahal The ruins of Petra in Jordan The Colosseum in Rome The statue of Christ overlooking Rio de Janeiro The Incan ruins of Machu Picchu in Peru The ancient Mayan city of Chichen Itza in Mexico Point the first: The “ancient” Mayan city? Should that not disqualify it immediately?! ...

Pearls before Breakfast, the article I was talking about yesterday, got me thinking about the why and how. I’m convinced it’s bad experimental design (let alone any considerations about the playing style), and to have taken the single instance (a.k.a. “stunt”) as the representative result is a clear example of confirmation bias: they went in with a hypothesis, and in single stroke of brilliance, proved it! (asking the symphony orchestra director was merely a play to setting up the fall, I say - the article starts cynical and stays that way). ...

Name a topic and I’ll write 500 words of my opinion on it. On the value of the fiction novel and what it indicates about humankind. Storytelling was once a great oral tradition, the most widely used method of passing on culture, religion, tradition and knowledge. Paper and writing systems have been around since ancient times as well, but the oral tradition of storytelling remained dominant until the industrial age and the spread of the printing press. However, while this declined, the modern, written storytelling came into being, in the form of the novel, such as those written by one of the most famous names in the business, Charles Dickens. ...

I got me a MacBook. At dead on $2000, it’s the most expensive single purchase I’ve done yet. It’s the second most valuable thing I own. I cherish this baby. I’ve “donated” my desktop to the family, removing the need for the ye olde Pentium III that was their computing universe for the last seven years. Yes yes but how does it feel? At 13 inches diagonally, the widescreen is about the size of an A4 notebook, and clocks in at just over 2 kg, making it easily luggable. The glossy whiteness of it has been spoilt a little over the last fortnight by various fingers, but the look is slicker than an oily racetrack. This thing grabs attention when it’s opened - the whiteness marks it out as different to the batillion of corporate-clone silver and black Windows laptops out there. The cleverly glowing Apple logo helps for sure. ...

We had a “grads” Christmas party last week, and we’d invited along the summer interns mostly to make up the numbers. As soon as we settled in to start the night, a group pulled out cigarettes. And they kept going through the night. Now, I’d seen it often enough in Europe, and given the reputation of the continent, I could accept it. But my impression of Australia, and Australian ‘youth’, was that smoking was on the way out, a rarity at best. ...