Posted inGeneral

Immigrants: A threat or an opportunity?

North America, specifically the United States, has been a land peopled by descendants of Europe. At least, that’s how I perceived it to be. If you are ever in New York on St Patrick’s Day, check out the parade. It’s an endless procession of Irish descendants. The numbers could, of course, be attributed in part […]

Posted inLifestyleTech

Science fiction and the cellphone

Science fiction is not normally my first choice of reading material, unless of course it is about the trips through galaxy as described by a very funny writer called Douglas Adams. But I have been converted to the modern Cory Doctorow-style science fiction. Somehow his books seem to appeal to my vision of the future. […]

Posted inMediaTech

We are living in a free-love society

In a rather illuminating article in the latest Trendwatching brief, the discussion is about free love. It’s about businesses offering goods, services or experiences to consumers for free and making their money from other things. Prime examples that come to mind are the home printers that are dirt cheap but where you have to take […]

Posted inGeneral

What do we want from our life?

The American elections are quite interesting to outsiders for a change. Usually as a non-involved party, the endless primaries and the actual elections tend to be terrible yawn affairs. It’s normally time to cancel all newsletter subscriptions from the US. Not this time around. It’s good to see some of the younger generation engaging in […]

Posted inLifestyle

Let me count how many ways I love you

Apologies to Elizabeth Barrett Browning for the title line, which I creatively adapted from one of her poems. We have survived another frantic flower-buying, champagne-popping, pink-penguin-attack called Valentine’s Day. The retail industry, every year, lugs huge bags of money to the bank while gleefully chuckling at the foolish consumer who buys into the hype. In […]

Posted inLifestyle

We reward bad behaviour

Listening to the UK’s Classic FM today, a dramatic and thundering rendition of Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto by the Berlin Philharmonic under the baton of Herbert von Karajan and pianist Yevgeny Kissin gave me goose bumps. It also reminded me of a recent article on Von Karajan in the newspaper. Celebrations of Von Karajan’s 100th birth-year […]

Posted inNews/PoliticsTech

Bullies-R-Us

The armed forces always believed that subordination of the troops to the command was essential. If there were strictly enforced rules of behaviour maintained, then the soldier next to you would be able to rely on you performing according to drill during the times when the battle made everything else unpredictable. At what stage does […]

Posted inGeneral

Bullies-R-Us

The armed forces always believed that subordination of the troops to the command was essential. If there were strictly enforced rules of behaviour maintained, then the soldier next to you would be able to rely on you performing according to drill during the times when the battle made everything else unpredictable. At what stage does […]