Grievance and possibility
We might be settling scores or we might be opening doors. It’s up to us. Grievance and possibility have confusing roots. Grievance isn’t about grieving. In fact, it’s the opposite. Grievance is the na
Fitts's law - Wikipedia
Predictive model of human movement Fitts's law: draft of target size W and distance to target D Fitts's law (often cited as Fitt's law ) is a predictive model of human movement primarily used in human
Stay Out of the Wind and Away From the Back
Bariani Road Race, March 2010. I'm circled in yellow, rubber side up. I was in the wrong position and had the cracked sternum to prove it. Many of you might remember that I used to race road bikes com
The British establishment is the world’s most open—for a price
Feb 13th 2021 S OMETIMES FICTIONAL characters are so vivid that they cannot be confined to the page. Augustus Melmotte began life as a villain in Anthony Trollope’s 1875 masterpiece “The Way We Live N
Running with my dog
We have three dogs in the house. One LOVES to run and runs with me. One loves to run but can only go for short bursts, and one is for a recovery super slow stroll (The OG Roy the Bulldog ) . Manny the
The last thing and the first thing
The new ritual, even more than checking the windows and doors before bed, is to check the incoming. Doom scroll a bit, check Slack and email and make sure there are no loose ends. And then the ritual
Daughters provoke parental strife
Feb 6th 2021 D AUGHTERS HAVE long been linked with divorce. Several studies conducted in America since the 1980s provide strong evidence that a couple’s first-born being a girl increases the likelihoo
Get your work recognized: write a brag document
There’s this idea that, if you do great work at your job, people will (or should!) automaticallyrecognize that work and reward you for it with promotions / increased pay. In practice, it’s oftenmore c
As birth rates fall, animals prowl in our abandoned 'ghost villages'
F or many years it seemed that overpopulation was the looming crisis of our age. Back in 1968, the Stanford biologists Paul and Anne Ehrlich infamously predicted that millions would soon starve to dea
Big O Notation - explained as easily as possible
Featured on Hashnode Subscribe to my newsletter and never miss my upcoming articles If you want to learn the math involved with the Big O, read Analysing Algorithms: Worst Case Running Time . Data Str
The mass radicalisation that India does not acknowledge
It is now clear that if you are Muslim in Narendra Modi’s new India you can be arrested for selling shoes, taking part in a protest, talking to or walking with a Hindu girl, driving a cattle truck, cr
Cold as ice? How to stay warm without whacking up the heating
W ith many of us working from home, shielding or just following the requirement to stay in our houses, it’s going to be an expensive winter if we have the heating running all day. Last week, the write
Katharine Whitehorn and Mahinder Watsa died on January 8th and December 28th
Jan 23rd 2021 W HEN, AS A young woman looking for solid work, Katharine Whitehorn was moving round from one grungy digs to another, she realised that the cookery books of the time were no use. To begi
Documentaries - Gotham Gal
I have been on a documentary roll. I have also been on a film roll. Documentaries examine facts—information for your brain. Movies tell creative stories. I watched a few films this past weekend showin
Arguments and outcomes
The purpose of marketing is to cause change. If we’re trying to build a movement, raise money for a non-profit, sell a product, change lifestyles, build community–these are all marketing activities th
Itvan Kebadian’s art of protest
Jan 23rd 2021 W HEN ITVAN KEBADIAN spray-painted the words “abolissons la police” above a mural in Paris last year, he was thinking of George Floyd, an African-American whose death under the knee of a
How We Made a Design System for NYT Cooking on Android
In a perfect product development scenario, a designer could sketch some boxes on a napkin and hand it to an engineer who would know exactly what to build. The boxes would correspond to elements in an
Born to run (things)
The first half of Bruce Springsteen’s autobiography makes some things abundantly clear: He had no natural ability to play the guitar. In fact, after his first lessons, he quit, unable to play a note.
The Work-Life Balance Revolution - AVC
Yesterday, I had a gap in the middle of the day. So the Gotham Gal and I took an hour-long walk with our dog Ollie. It cleared my head and when I got back to work, I was full of energy and clarity. I’
Agitu Gudeta was killed on December 29th
Jan 7th 2021 I N ALL THE world there was nothing as beautiful as a goat. As she sat among them on the steep wooded slopes of the Valle di Felice, watching them tussle and shimmy in the tall weeds, Agi
Give a Dalit man a pair of scissors, and he’ll show you what freedom is
This essay was first published on Huff Post India (30 Oct 2020). Temporarily posting it here until it finds a new home. When we first moved to Basavanagudi in Bangalore, a relative told Appa he should
What a Jain merchant’s rare and candid autobiography tells us about life in the Mughal era
Imagine a historian centuries far into the future looking back at our present times. If they can access the digital detritus of our limitless traces of social media, the one thing they will have no de
The balls of the century, No. 4: Shane Warne to Andrew Strauss
Hamish Blair / © Getty Images England v Australia, Edgbaston, 2005 I n early May 2005, 12 months on from a debut so excellent it prompted England's captain Nasser Hussain to retire and make way, at th
They don’t make television opening sequences like they used to
Apr 9th 2020 THE OPENING sequences of television shows do several jobs at once. They must pay tribute to the stars and set the tone for the episode to follow. Above all, they must entice the viewer to
The mysterious poets of the London Underground drop their masks
Dec 19th 2020 All on the Board. Yellow Kite; 288 pages; £14.99 I T WAS MARCH 2017 and fans were streaming out of a concert by Craig David at the O2 Arena in London and into North Greenwich Tube statio
A different urgency
For many people, work consists of a series of urgencies. Set them up and knock them down. Empty the in-box, answer the boss, make the deadline. Over the next few weeks, there may be fewer urgencies th
Why everyone loves to blame France
Jan 2nd 2021 T HE FRENCH , wrote George Canning, a British statesman, to a ministerial colleague in 1825, “have but two rules of action: to thwart us whenever they know our object; and when they know
General Robert Maris Wilson - AVC
My dad, General Robert Maris Wilson, or Bob as most people called him, passed away on Monday at the age of 92. He had been in failing health for the last few months and moved on peacefully. My dad was
Oysters in France, KFC in Japan... do they know it’s Christmas?
Dec 18th 2020 M y Jewish grandparents adopted many local traditions when they fled to Britain from Vienna in 1938. They became members of the Women’s Institute and Rotary Club, attended an Anglican ch
Concepts from The Obesity Code
Based on the recommendation of a friend who had once described his waistline as “changing more often than Britney Spears’s (?) bra size”, I read Jasun Fung’s The Obesity Code over the last couple of d
Seeing differently
Here are some books for the end of the year… fifty years of ideas that have helped me understand the world differently: Gödel, Escher, Bach — Before meta was cool, Douglas Hofstadter won a Pulitzer Pr
Funny Dutch names and the stories behind them | Expatica
Some Dutch names sound plain funny in the English language. So, what’s the story behind names like Kok, Pekelharing, and Smallegange? On first arriving in the Netherlands, I allowed myself a little sm
The problem with a mic drop
It’s fun to say the perfect thing at the perfect time. Mic drop. The problem is that then you have to bend over and pick up the microphone. Conversations take more effort but tend to be worth it. This
Jot
An almost magical idea, a tiny little word, a chance to make it real. If someone tasks you with carving something profound into a block of granite, the emotional overhead is probably too high to do ou
Welcome and problems
“You’re welcome,” is not the same as, “it’s my pleasure.” and “No problem,” is not the same as, “I’m happy to help.” These sentences are the closing parentheses of a simple conversation that opens wit
Jordan blogs | No human is limited
Photo by Peter Okwara on Unsplash Eliud Kipchoge a few days before he ran a sub two hour marathon. Pressure is everywhere in this world, if you’re a human being. I’m trying to stay as calm as possible
The Engineer/Manager Pendulum
Lately I’ve been doing some career counseling for people off Twitter (long story). The central drama for many people goes something like this: “I’m a senior engineer, but I’m thinking about being a ma
Jonathan Sacks died on November 7th
Nov 21st 2020 E VERY MORNING he could, Jonathan Sacks pulled on his tracksuit and went out jogging. He was not called the “rapid rabbi” for nothing. Jogging, as his desk-sign reminded him, led to posi
Like biological species, languages evolve
Nov 14th 2020 “B ECAUSE POLITICS. ” “Latinx.” “Doomscrolling.” Language is developing all the time, as new usages like these arise and old ones disappear. One common way to describe this process is to
Book: Becoming Monday - Feld Thoughts
Tags ai , books Categories Books I read G. W. Constable’s near term sci-fi book Becoming Monday . If you are a fan of near term sci-fi, AGI, or the singularity, go get a copy right now – you’ll love i