Live while you are alive
On a recent flight into Heathrow airport we were able to collect all our luggage, except for a bag belonging to my wife. We were told it would certainly be recovered and delivered to us within 24 hours. It turned up eight hours later (the point being that I couldn’t have been left by accident …
Continue reading ‘Totalitarian, or just a stupid mistake?’ »
A study of 1,014 individuals by Betsey Stevenson and Justin Wolfers of the University of Michigan, found that “happiness and life satisfaction are almost perfectly correlated with income”. Thus, when people hit the $100-$150k threshold, everybody was either “very” or “fairly” happy, and nobody described themselves as “very dissatisfied”. By the time they hit $500k, …
A group of libertarian “crypto-anarchists” in Austin, Texas has produced the world’s first 3D-printed gun. Hailed by some as the future of manufacturing, 3D printing works by building up multiple layers of a material, typically plastic, to create a solid object. The gun produced by Defense Distributed, run by 25-year-old law student Cody Wilson, was …
Continue reading ‘The printed gun – the ultimate obscenity’ »
Trainees at the world’s most famous school for nannies are taking martial arts classes to make them better able to foil kidnap attempts on their charges. The Norland nannies in Britain are also learning to drive at speed in all weathers, and manoeuvre prams away from danger. The Norland College, in Bath, says it is …
Continue reading ‘Nannies as security guards. Isn’t life wonderful?’ »
Anxiety is worse than bodily pain. Present suffering soon passes; anxiety lasts a long time. (Epicurus) And pharmaceuticals merely mask it. Moreover, for many the withdrawal symptoms are as bad as the malady.
