December 2009
32 posts
how-your-income-stacks-up: Personal Finance News... →
How rich are you? Try this interactive Global Rich List tool…
Sobering statistics on income distribution in the States…
« A new study from the Department of Agriculture found that nearly 50 million Americans struggled at some point in 2008 to get enough to eat.
More than 40 million Americans are officially living in poverty. And you might be surprised at how little income...
Job Outlook for Best Careers 2010 - US News &... →
The annual list is out… Here’s a slideshow, summarizing the top 10 jobs - which includes special education teachers and multimedia artists.
And if you want to see how robots are going to replace lots of factory jobs (and see how pancakes are mass manufactured), watch this YouTube clip of a robotic pancake stacker.
Image source
Being foreign: The others | The Economist →
Great article on the upside — and downside — of being an expat. Though perhaps more true for us parents - who had a home country to leave - than you 3rd-culture-kids (or whatever you want to call yourselves)…
« Every foreigner of inquiring mind becomes a part-time anthropologist, wondering and smiling at the new social rituals of his adoptive country. »
Is Food the New Sex? - Mary Eberhardt - Hoover... →
One of the essays David Brooks gave a 2009 Sidney (best essay) award to. Very interesting comparison…
« Of all the truly seismic shifts transforming daily life today — deeper than our financial fissures, wider even than our most obvious political and cultural divides — one of the most important is also among the least remarked. That is the chasm in attitude that separates...
WatchThe Way We Get By - a documentary film by Aron Gaudet & Gita Pullapilly about three senior citizens & Maine Troop Greeters
I definitely want to see this one… and not just because of the Maine connection.
Another Challenge for Ethical Eating - Plants Want... →
Fascinating stuff…
« Plants are lively and seek to keep it that way. The more that scientists learn about the complexity of plants — their keen sensitivity to the environment, the speed with which they react to changes in the environment, and the extraordinary number of tricks that plants will rally to fight off attackers and solicit help from afar — the more impressed researchers...
Caring for Your Introvert - The Atlantic (March... →
In support of all the introverts in our family… (thanks, Sam)
«Introverts are not necessarily shy. Shy people are anxious or frightened or self-excoriating in social settings; introverts generally are not. Introverts are also not misanthropic, though some of us do go along with Sartre as far as to say “Hell is other people at breakfast.” Rather, introverts are people who...
The decade in images.... from The Big Picture -... →
«Call it what you will, “the noughties”, “the two-thousands” or something else, the first decade of the 21st century (2000-2009) is now over. Looking back on the past ten years through news photographs, it becomes clear that it was a dramatic, often brutal decade.»
The best films of 2009 - Roger Ebert's Journal →
The Major Works of Counterintuitive Thought From... →
«Everywhere in the media, the former creators of mass consensus devoted themselves to contradicting the conventional wisdom. Here, a selection of the most unlikely ideas in a decade that was always looking to blow your mind.»
Image: via Capture Queen on Flickr
The 100 essential websites | Technology | The... →
It’s always interesting to check these lists and see what you haven’t heard of yet… British in orientation….
The 50 most interesting articles on Wikipedia «... →
Okay, someone has taken the trouble to find 50 great Wikipedia articles to while away your time… I was pleased to see Jim Corbett there — famous author of “The Man-Eaters of Kumaon”, one of my father’s favorite books. (Remind me to tell you the story of arguing with him re E.S.P. and how he used a Jim Corbett experience as the only example of E.S.P. that he...
WatchZeitgeist Films :: Afghan Star
A documentary film I want to see… The director above was interviewed back in June by Jon Stewart… The Aghan equivalent of American Idol…
The World's Smartest Cities | Newgeography.com →
Guess which city comes out #1?
« List of the World’s Smartest Cities
Singapore The 21st-century successor to 15th-century Venice, this once-impoverished island nation now boasts an income level comparable to the wealthiest Western countries, with a per-capita GDP ahead of most of Europe and Latin America. Singapore Airport is Asia’s fifth-largest, and the city’s port...
Test your grammar -- by David Foster Wallace →
Someone who had David Foster Wallace as a writing teacher has posted one of his grammar quizzes. See if you can find the errors…. (answers are available)
TED Blog: Cindy Gallop: Make love, not porn →
A short 4-minutes TED talk by an older woman who dates younger men — and thinks they need a few facts straightened out….
Rebound Designs - Handbags made from old books →
Look! These sell for over US$100….
TEDx Singapore : Ideas worth spreading - Saturday,... →
Proof that Sam and I attended TEDx in Singapore — an event which wasn’t quite what we thought it would be. No talks by anyone local — we mainly just watched regular TED talks in an auditorium….. They say maybe next year there will be a proper TED in Singapore…
