Technology

Things to do in Chernobyl when you’re alive

Given the current global lockdown scenario, I thought it was high time I posted some photographs from my (pre-Covid) visit to Chernobyl and the now deserted nearby city of Pripyat. Perhaps such places present a lesson. We get to see what society looks like when humanity itself is no longer […]

I guess some core competencies are just more core than others

From the letters page of The Economist: A bridge too far Bartleby has an unerring ability to detect the nonsense emanating from HR (July 13th). At my job operating a drawbridge I am expected to set performance goals relating to “core competencies.” These include building relationships, oriented outcomes, creativity and innovation. Curiously, […]

If this is what the collapse of centrism looks like, then PLEASE give me more centrism

All the “worst people in Ireland” are running for election at the same time. We’re talking your racists, we’re talking your sexists, we’re talking your anti-vaxxers, your anti-fluoriders, your anti-Semites. The anti-5G brigade are in there. The anti-feminists too. And the anti-LGBT folks. Not all of them are so negative. […]

I want to propose a new “Moral Panic Disorder” diagnosis to deal with all this hysteria about gaming and screen time

It is really getting pretty out of hand. Epidemic proportions, I’d say. Pete Etchells sets out the debate on so-called “Gaming disorder” in this thread on Twitter. It’s well worth reading in full and in detail: Right. I was hoping to write something for the blog this week about the […]

Begging-the-question, conjecture, anecdote, false equivalence, and a non sequitur: those five reasons for raising the Digital Age of Consent

Cormac Ryan has been tweeting about the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland and their letter to the government on the Digital Age of Consent. Its worrying that a group of medical professionals, charged with the care of children, would publicly state that they base their position on conjecture, supposition, […]