Random but funny (if you’re a geek): The Lonely Mathematician.
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The National Gallery is “hanging 44 full-size recreations on walls ranging from Hamleys toy shop (a Seurat) to a sex shop in Soho (a Caravaggio) to give Londoners a taste of what it offers.” (more)
Wired: Suddenly, the Paranoids Don’t Seem So Paranoid Anymore
Have you noticed? We’ve become a people that no longer respects, or apparently desires, privacy. Our own or anybody else’s.
That’s a remarkable thing, when you stop to think about it. We Americans, historically, have fiercely guarded our personal privacy. It’s one of our defining characteristics. Others, who live in societies where personal privacy isn’t so easily taken for granted, have looked on with a mixture of admiration and bemusement. “Mind your own business” is a singularly American expression.
I’m not sure about the last statement, but generally, I’m glad to see this article. I’m not sure how or when the onus switched from the need to show why a loss of privacy was necessary to the need to show why privacy is important and necessary, but it annoys me.
When did privacy go from being a right to just barely being a privilege we’re allowed?
James told me about More Words, which is mostly for word games but also has nice random words on the bottom of the page.
A really interesting blog about Edinburgh’s dark side across the centuries.
More free language downloads
More on free language resources on the moneysavingexpert site:
There’s a great US website called Open Culture which lists mostly free language courses that are available as podcasts (in other words digital files you can download onto an MP3 player to listen to).
If only there was a site where I could download some free time to listen to these free lessons!
You can make your own luck
From the BBC: guide to getting lucky:
Lucky people are more relaxed and open, and therefore see what is there rather than just what they are looking for.
My research eventually revealed that lucky people generate good fortune via four principles.
They are skilled at creating and noticing chance opportunities, make lucky decisions by listening to their intuition, create self-fulfilling prophesies via positive expectations, and adopt a resilient attitude that transforms bad luck into good.
…
Here are Professor Wiseman’s four top tips for becoming lucky:
- Listen to your gut instincts – they are normally right
- Be open to new experiences and breaking your normal routine
- Spend a few moments each day remembering things that went well
- Visualise yourself being lucky before an important meeting or telephone call. Luck is very often a self-fulfilling prophecy
Rough Guide have updated their phrasebooks, and now they’ve each got a free audio download so you can practise with words and phrases recorded by native speakers. Hooray!
The audio files work best when you’ve got a phrasebook in front of you, so Rough Guide probably aren’t losing much business by giving away the audio files.
If I was still flying short-haul, I would have liked to have gone to Latvia to support their Pride march: Latvia: Celebrating rights — fighting prejudice.