Trying to form a new habit – typing up what I read “as I go”. And connected to that, giving an account of what I read while on the stepper for 90ish minutes a day (mostly). The habit is not “fully bedded in” as a habit yet, but I refuse to use that as an... Continue Reading →
Let’s airbrush the black people out of the narrative, eh?
It’s easy to spot when the “right” is distorting the past for the purpose of shaping the present and future. It’s easy to denounce their focus on kings and queens and Great Men, and the technologies of innovation that create a “whiggish” narrative of white power (in every sense). It’s easy to get outraged by... Continue Reading →
Writing goals Week 1, 2015 (Jan 5th to Jan 11th)
Directly relevant to PhD 2500 words on “capsule biographies” of lobby groups“proxies” in the (Australian) coal wars - BCA, MCA, ACA (defunct), IPA, CIS, Lavoisier, Galileo etc ACF, TWS, Green Party, Greenpeace, Australia Institute, Climate Institute etc Indirectly relevant to PhD 2500 words on “the Road to Toronto” - state, corporate and public responses to/awareness... Continue Reading →
The Joy of … Big Numbers; the Simpsons, Hype Cycles and George Monbiot
Here's 3 quotations about energy provision. They're from 1973, 2001 and 2010. Skim, don't ponder. I've put the relevant bits in bold. The tl;dr is that politicians like Big Numbers (duh). “Project Independence was an initiative announced by U.S. President Richard Nixon on November 7, 1973, in reaction to the OPEC oil embargo and the... Continue Reading →
Boundary Objects and good advice.
You know the old joke - "I'm a sex object. I ask for sex, and people object"? No, well, now you do... Boundary objects are, according to wikipedia - "In sociology, a boundary object is information, such as specimens, field notes, and maps, used in different ways by different communities. Boundary object are plastic, interpreted... Continue Reading →
Planes, Claims and Automobiles – #masculinity, #cars and #advertising
Two adverts have been on the idiot's lantern at the gym (I am one of those tremendous bores who doesn't have a television and lets you know at every opportunity) Briefly, the plots; In one, a generically handsome (quietly athletic, mid-30s, stubbly; basically the male equivalent of the beige cheeky-boney woman you see in the... Continue Reading →
Book Review: “Innovation For A Low Carbon Economy”
Foxon, T, Kohler, J. and Oughton, C. (2008) Innovation For A Low Carbon Economy Economic, Institutional and Management Approaches Cheltenham: Edward Elgar This one is a corker, if you like that sort of thing. There are nine chapters, including the introduction, and every single one of them is worth some or a LOT of attention. ... Continue Reading →
Social Media Advice for Conferences
A while back I went to a "how to 'do' social media for (academic conferences). Typed up stuff and... left it on my desktop... Good advice includes; start early have a separate email address (also makes it easier to get a twitter account) don't overcommit to stuff (if you're not populating a blog/updating a twitter... Continue Reading →
Happy Days are here again (aka “don’t kick the Beckett)
I'm the “Potsie.” And I've got to figure out a way for happy days.... Potsie was the dweeb. Nice, but dim. And in the May 15, 1979 episode of Happy Days, he is about to flunk out of college, because he just can't get things right. He can't remember his anatomy. But his friends (including... Continue Reading →
Book Review: The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg
Duhigg , C. (2012) The Power of Habit: Why we do what we do in life and businessNew York: Random House This is one of those books by a middle-class middle-aged American where (Gladwell, Gawande, Hertsgaard etc etc). They interview lots of people, they read lots of academic literature, they write very well (with knowingess... Continue Reading →
