What prompts a municipal CAO’s expenses?

July 15, 2010

Victoria British Columbia hired a new City Manager one year ago (July 2009). Recently, the city released its 2009 Public Bodies Report (PDF), which itemizes the city’s expenditures. On p.8, we read that the City Manager’s 2009 salary was $186,418.09 – and that her expenses were a staggering $168,443.94. What prompts expenses that come to […]

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Maybe ideas really do have sex. Or something…

July 14, 2010

Strange, how ideas and notions sometimes multiply and touch each other in unexpected ways. This morning, I got a Facebook message from my architect friend Elisa Yon – she sent me a pointer to Matt Ridley, who presented at TEDGlobal 2010: The Rational Optimist Matt Ridley says prosperity is “the saving of time while satisfying […]

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All together now?

July 13, 2010

Not sure who to credit for this image, but it seems to be making the rounds in gaming communities and elsewhere: . The image itself is quite horrible, isn’t it? But the caustic commentary? Mordantly brilliant. Thanks to my son, who sent this with a question about how it might apply to upcoming elections. (Draw […]

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Those versatile British actors

July 12, 2010

I just watched Anthony Horowitz‘s most recent Foyle’s War episodes (supposedly these three in Series Seven are the last, full stop – but that’s what they said the last time around, and then Foyle was resurrected: so there’s still hope for more). It’s an arresting series; I highly recommend it. What always strikes me when […]

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The Sunday Diigo Links Post (weekly)

July 11, 2010

Home Smart Home – Ideas – Dwell This article in Dwell relates nicely to the previous bookmark about Intel. The author’s husband’s company, Elan Home Systems, builds automated home monitoring and programming systems. QUOTE The real gains of a smart home, however, are in energy conservation. HVAC and irrigation specialists aside, most of us would […]

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Grayscale

July 10, 2010

Nicholas Carr may be asking if Google is making us stupid, but I’m pretty sure that technologies don’t make us stupid. Why? Because they can’t make us smarter or better. That is: a technology might make me better at something, or it might make me worse (especially if I’m missing it). But it can’t inherently […]

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Mosquito

July 9, 2010

In the part of the world where I live, mosquitoes are not supposed to be a problem, and generally they aren’t. Until, that is, one or maybe two (and who knows: a possible legion of them!) appear in your bedroom …at night …waiting …waiting. You have fallen asleep. Suddenly, the whining pitch known to anyone […]

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Tenure “what-if”

July 8, 2010

Of course the question of tenure has crossed my mind repeatedly. Having nuked my academic career by becoming a home-schooling parent instead of a professor, I relinquished claims to respectability long ago – ten years ago. But even that long ago, the question of tenure seemed an obvious problem to me, even if it wasn’t, […]

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Wow, iTunes + iPod = timesink…

July 7, 2010

Given that the user interface is so elegant, it’s amazing how frustrating and counter-intuitive it can be to synch iTunes and an iPod Touch. I first synched my iPod to the “family” machine in the kitchen, which we decided would be the digital home for our CD collection. But for my birthday last December, I […]

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Warmth

July 6, 2010

Today was the first day that actually felt like summer. Not the first day that looked like summer – we’ve had plenty of those eye-candy beauties already: gorgeous, if rather frigid, enticements to a voluptuousness that, chilled, ends not with sweet surrender, but with cold and somewhat grumpy feelings all around as sweaters – not […]

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