On the occasion of the first “Ada Lovelace Day”, which aims to highlight remarkable women in technology as potential role models for present and future generations of women, I started looking for the epitome of the “Renaissance Woman”. The “Renaissance Man” is an archetype personified by the likes of Leonardo Da Vinci: artists, craftsmen, engineers; [...]
I like the people working at my usual supermarkets. Nice, friendly, helpful people. I have a special fondness for the people, often kids, working on packing the customers’ purchases into bags. That’s a fairly dull job, quite likely awfully paid, and yet they do the job, and they do it well. My only problem is [...]
Before the 20th century, travel was slow: months on a boat or on roads. Travel was the hardships of migration for most, formative fun for the well off, and adventure for novel heroes. Then came a century of wars and population displacement. But between those wars, a few strange things happened. The 1930s saw the [...]
Bus stops are far more interesting and useful places to have art than in museums. Banksy – Banging Your Head Against a Brick Wall I would love to side with Banksy here. He has a point: art at a bus stop has a mathematically greater chance of touching more people than would a museum (minus [...]
For the past few years, I have been extremely lucky to work on some really wonderful projects, with millions of customers, a healthy user community, and a very good karma for the service they provide to the world. I’ve been paid to spend up to half of my time working on those projects. And yet, [...]