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The art or science of sewing stripes onto a hakama
As I have recently gained 3rd Dan in the art of Aikido, I have the traditional task of sewing the three stripes that indicate my rank onto the tabs of my hakama.
Three neatly-sewn, straight, and evenly-spaced stripes ( Read more... ) -
10% of our undergraduates believe...
Following on from a conversation in the Pembury Tavern*, I note that it is the start of the academic year: some of you are helping the new intake of undergraduates with inductions and orientation; some of you will be teaching them; and a few of you will actually be among them ( Read more... ) -
Posting for Posterity's Posterior
While I collate the results from my previous post, about housing, here's a more frivolous question...
Far below my lofty office in a skyscraper, the new CrossRail station for Canary Wharf is being constructed in the pumped-out basin of West India North Dock. The shell of it is largely complete, and soon they will be pumping back the water in a ( ( Read more... ) -
The future's arriving in the wrong New Order...
If you don't mind my asking, How much of your income goes on your accommodation?Answers will be screened, unless you ask me to unscreen them ( Read more... ) -
The Dollar Llama
Would you believe that someone's found a way of monetising the End of the World?
Enterprising Atheists are taking money from Christian Fundamentalists,offering a pet care service for the animals left behind when their owners ascend to Heaven in The Rapture ( Read more... ) -
Eastercon 2011: a taste of the present
Eastercon: a magnificent feast of geekery, and I find myself trundling back to London in the Pendolino, contented and replete ( Read more... ) -
Franklin: a word for a free man
"The first truth is that the liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is fascism - ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power ( Read more... ) -
The Minster Mash
Ewt & I are spending a not-the-weekend break in York, enjoying the fine hostelries and visitor attractions of the city ( Read more... ) -
Inland Revenants: The 'Zombie' Department of the State
Here's an interesting quote:
I thought Osborne reached new lows last week.
This week he ’s going out of his way to support
the criminal classes - albeit those, no doubt, drawn from amongst his friends.
It's from Richard Murphy's tax blog. Yes, I know: taxation isn't bedtime reading, unless you suffer from insomnia ( Read more... ) -
(Untitled)
I've read recent blogs and socially-minded op-ed pieces about equality, fairness, income gaps and they seem to be voicing an increasingly-popular criticism of our economic system: winner takes all.
This has been known to economists for a quarter of a century, as Tournament Theory. I would urge you all to read the second reference on that ( Read more... )