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A few weeks back, I was invited to be a critical friend on a futures project by Paul Graham Raven & Keri Facer. The artefact in the centre, the central vehicle to invite people into this world, was a newspaper. Newspapers are, of course, a brilliant container for giving people just enough context of a complex other world. They are (still) a familiar form of media for people who understand …

Trump’s win is a return to the default state of centralised, hierarchical societies – like ours. That’s the problem. By George Monbiot, published in the Guardian 7th November 2024 We were losing slowly. Now we are losing quickly. Democracy, accountability, human rights, social justice – all were rolling backwards as money swarmed our politics. Above all, our life-support systems – the Earth’s atmosphere, oceans, ecosystems, ice and snow – have …

Brum Rush PANDEMONIUM, if press reports can be believed, broke out in the family room at the 1990 Great British Beer Festival. A rabbit leapt from a magician's hat; 20 children, plus organiser Pat Waters, went in increasingly hot pursuit around the family room. It was “one very lively bunny,” Pat later told reporters, no doubt with a rueful shake of the head.

University of Toronto philosopher Gwen Bradford discusses Haus der Kunst, a Nazi era building commission-turned-modern art museum. Continue reading → The post Gwen Bradford on Haus der Kunst appeared first on Aesthetics for Birds.

Most ontology developers know they’re supposed to write competency questions, be it manually, with the CLaRO tool [KeetEtAl19] or assisted by a language model [AlharbiEtAl24, AntiaKeet23, RebboudEtAl24]. Few enjoy the manual authoring task. Moreover: what is a good competency question (CQ) and what not, and why? Are all CQs alike? Is it only those information-seeking questions we ask before developing an ontology or also during the modelling and testing phases? …

Christmas bells are ringing in 2024 with the publication of Jeffrey Paul Thompson’s Miracle on 34th Street: The Making of a Christmas Classic. One of many beloved holiday films stemming from Hollywood’s Golden Age, Miracle on 34th Street (1947) is examined in-depth by former Twentieth Century Fox archivist Thompson. The story of Miracle on 34th Street has been adapted into a book, three television films, several radio dramas and stage …

After reading the news, and having a good cry, I thought about how Internet friends can be some of the best friends ever.

The Old Royal Naval College dominates the riverfront at Greenwich. Designed by Sir Christopher Wren, the complex was originally a Royal Navy hospital, but from 1873 to 1998 was home to the Royal Navy’s officer training school. The college seen from across the river in Island Gardens, on the Isle of Dogs. The Upper Hall in the college’s Painted Hall, which depicts the then-new Hanoverian dynasty. George I is in …

In which I find myself with a couple of hours to spare in the Herts town of Bishop's Stortford, late on an Autumnal Saturday afternoon.I figured that should be ample time to get around the 2025 Beer Guide entries.Going against convention, my first pub picture is of somewhere that I didn't actually set foot in.But just look at the Nags Head...a stunning art deco design to match Nottingham's finest...As visually …

I have a talk coming up with the Sohemian Society on Thursday December 5, where I will be in conversation with writer and musician Max Décharné about Denmark Street: London’s Street Of Sound. The event will be held upstairs at the Wheatsheaf pub on Rathbone Place in Fitzrovia – tickets can be purchased here. The Sohemian Society was founded in 2003 to celebrate Soho Bohemia and is organised by the …

On weekday mornings, early enough that the sun is still creeping up past the horizon, we bundle up in our jackets, grab the backpack, and walk to the bus stop. The bus stop is a six minute walk from the house, down the hill at the end of our street; with a four-year-old, those six minutes often stretch to ten. If we play “the paint is lava,” carefully jumping over …

Good leaders are students of human behaviour and psychology. In this short video, I share the insight on how our cognitive processing works and how learning this can help us become Mindful leaders. One of the most important aspect of leadership is our ability to choose how we respond to any given situation. Understanding how our cognition functions and where exactly in the process of cognition can we exercise choice …

Spent a few days over in Lithuania at the end of October, visiting our lad in Vilnius. The city is spilt by two rivers, the Vilnia and the much larger Neris, which are home to a wide variety of fish species, including salmon, trout, grayling, asp and nase, so couldn't help peering over the many bridges on our various walks. Only a short distance out of the city the surrounding …

Whelp. Tuesday did not at all go how I had hoped. A friend of mine lives next to a high school history teacher who posted the text below on one of the big social media sites yesterday. I found it helpful. This one is hard if you wanted Harris to win. Because Trump won fair and square. The Republicans will control the Senate, and most likely the House as well. …