Considering a Mac Pro
I'm earning a little bit of money at the moment, and I've convinced myself that it's time to buy my first ever desktop. Largely due to storage but also ergonomics and stability. I've used a MacBook or...
View ArticlePhD rationale
The best explanation behind the appeal of a PhD, to me, is expressed in a comment on an Ars Technica story:Someone - an eccentric billionaire, say - contacts you and offers you three or four years on a...
View ArticleQuick numbers on renewables & nuclear
I'm in favour of Ben Heard's plan to start phasing out the smaller and dirtier power plants in SA with nuclear options while simultaneously building up our renewable energy infrastructure.I can't...
View ArticleEight months of Shadow Yoga
This is a long rambling story about me and yoga. Primarily written so I can reflect back on it when I'm older, I suppose. Feel free to pass it by if you tire of people with blogs egotistically writing...
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Adobe Reader in 2011
I know it's cruel to mock, but: Is there much worse of an error than flat-out refusing to save a document that has changes you'd like to keep?
View ArticleA weekend of Nrtta Sadhana
Last weekend I spent three mornings at an introductory workshop for Nrtta Sadhana with Emma Balnaves. Nrtta (pronounced sort of like nritta) Sadhana, developed and taught by Zhander Remete and Emma, is...
View ArticleThoughts on “The monk and the philosopher”
“The monk and the philosopher” (1998) is a unique book. It contains a number of presumably-edited ‘dialogues’ between father and son Jean-François Revel and Matthieu Ricard, the former a French...
View ArticleAcademic dress
The Thesis Whisperer has a series of articles (well, two at time of writing) on what to wear as an academic. It reminded me that I wanted to mention an experiment I'm currently conducting, the outcomes...
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Adobe keming
From the company that brought you InDesign, arguably the world's best software for typography:‘Play er’ is clearly the highlight.
View ArticleAn open letter to The New Yorker's international gift subscription complaints...
Hi, Couple problems. I tried to gift my brother a New Yorker subscription just now: https://subscribe.newyorker.com/subscribe/newyorker/71807 Because I live in Australia, I click the appropriate link...
View ArticleLife is pain
I'm somewhat of a stranger to hardship. A few years ago, I was rather affected by the suicide of David Foster Wallace. His writing has touched deep inside me as I suspect it has of many others, and...
View ArticleSleepiness predicted by lack of sleep
In what I hesitate to describe as a surprising outcome, a recent paper in Sleep Research says:It was concluded that the main determinants of daytime sleepiness in a real-life day-to-day context were...
View ArticleProblem with technology
Thomas Bangalter of Daft Punk:The problem with music and technology right now is that there’s this utopian idea that technology is going to assist you in freeing your brain to reach higher goals. But...
View ArticleMark Pilgrim's ‘The pursuit of happiness’
Mark Pilgrim had a blog (among many other things) which no longer exists. Because it's of particular interest to me, I'd like to quote just one of his entries because it's something I've come back to...
View ArticleThree years of shadow yoga
Earlier this year I had the opportunity to attend two back-to-back yoga workshops by Emma Balnaves and Shandor Remete. I started writing up my thoughts from the two workshops at the time and (as is...
View Article‘Sleep problems: predictor or outcome of media use among emerging adults at...
An interesting article just published in the Journal of Sleep Research tracked around 1000 university students for three years to establish the relationship between sleep problems and ‘media’ use...
View ArticleOpen Finder window from Terminal directory; a better way
In Mac OS X's Terminal app, it's quite common (for me at least) to be working away in a directory and want to then view that folder in the Finder; whether to browse around or attach a file or what...
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Word still a pain in the ass
I'm going to ignore the stupidity of telling me the name of the file and then saying the problem might (but only might) be related to the name of the file. I know I'm biased with all the time I've...
View ArticleIllumination
‘I’m trying to find these rare moments where you feel completely illuminated. Facts never illuminate you. The phone directory of Manhattan doesn’t illuminate you, although it has factually correct...
View ArticleIcy water
‘I also find that somehow, the way I'm built, the hardest part of my job is simply to shift from one task to the next. The new task is like icy water you have to dive into. The old task is a warm bath....
View ArticleThe moon was the minute hand, the seasons the hour hand
‘Solitude did increase my perception. But here's the tricky thing—when I applied my increased perception to myself, I lost my identity. With no audience, no one to perform for, I was just there. There...
View Article‘The sleep loss epidemic: hunting ninjas in the dark’
Entertaining editorial in the Journal of Sleep Research by Nathaniel S. Marshall: There is a pervasive feeling in our scientific community and widely reported in the media that humans get less sleep...
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Movies on Netflix Australia
I recently signed up for Netflix Australia. It's great for watching recent US TV shows, especially Netflix-produced ones such as Daredevil. Netflix Australia, however, has a terrible range of movies....
View Article2015 ends. Time to breathe.
This year moved too quickly to keep track of things as we went. Let's see; all in the middle of the busiest year as a lecturer I've had yet, this happened:Drove to Perth and back Christmas...
View ArticleSweet setup (2016 edition)
No photo, because I can't be bothered tidying my desk. I've finally completed my piecemeal upgrade of my work iMac (late 2013 model), and it makes me rather happy. So, here're details. You're probably...
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