Posted by Eddie O'Shan
on May 29, 2007
An article at the website Zenhabits lists 52 ways to be happier. Here’s my favourite:
#51 Be lazy. There’s a time to be productive, and there’s a time to be plain ol’ lazy. I like the latter, and do it every chance I get. Does that make me a lazy person? Probably not, but even if it does, I don’t care. It makes me happy, and the kids love being lazy with me.
The great thing about the list is that the writer often writes about ways to be more productive. But then again, laziness can be defined as doing the least amount of work to achieve the desired effect. Sounds like productivity to me….
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Posted by Eddie O'Shan
on December 18, 2006
In a outbreak of shameless promotion, there’s a new website I’ve been working on for photographer and artist Katherine Harzman. It’s been a real privilege to work with such great images.
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Posted by Eddie O'Shan
on July 17, 2006
Ever notice how often we use the word “need”. I need it, I want it, I can’t live without it. Yet our real needs are probably minimal - food, shelter, affection, medicine sometimes. Shop less - stuff becomes clutter.
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Posted by Eddie O'Shan
on July 17, 2006
I live in the suburbs now, after moving half way around this country, buying a house, settling down. Last week I went to the neighbourhood pool, to spend some time frying my Celtic carcass in the company of loud kids and their thick-thighed mothers.
Coco Chanel has a lot to answer for, popularizing the suntan. Once a white complection was a sign of nobility, a signifier that you didn’t have to perform manual labour outdoors. Not to mention the modern fact of lower risk for melanoma and leatherface. It doesn’t take much sun to make me a crispy critter. At best I freckle.
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Posted by Eddie O'Shan
on June 30, 2005
A Slate article on Shakespeare In The Park reminded of my own mosquito-plagued venture onto a grassy knoll. I’ve never understood the attraction of watching pompous narcissists bellow archaic language in affected accents. Needless to say, I understood about one word in ten, and have no idea what little Hammy was making such a fuss about.
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Posted by Eddie O'Shan
on March 26, 2005
An article about fancy toilets in the March edition of Wired magazine that talks about fancy new porcelain pots with super efficient plumbing and even features that monitor your health. But my question is, why does even the most serious article resort to ‘poopy’ puns. I know I would, but isn’t it juvenile?
US consumers still describe their ideal toilet as one that appears only when they need it. Every advance - both incremental and excremental - will take years to filter down to the masses’ asses. Consumer acceptance will develop the way things often progress in the bathroom: slowly.
Even an NPR piece on the World Toilet conference in Beijing is filled with the same; My favourite mot describes an upmarket public John as a place where “the affluent meet the effluent”.
On a related note, I’ve always thought that Thomas Crapper never gets the respect he deserves.
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Posted by Eddie O'Shan
on March 05, 2005
John Dvorak, professional cranky guy, has a rant at PC magazine about slowdowns in network traffic with an example from the physical world.
Clogs are rampant worldwide. Recently a researcher, comparing the travel times in London through the years, noticed a peculiar consistency. The amount of time it took to go from point A to point B in horse-and-buggy days was actually the same as after the introduction of the car. As things got more efficient, the services were used more, nullifying any benefit and creating a constant. The researcher observed that the point-A to point-B travel times have recently worsened from the pre-car days. No improvements in efficiency have been able to stem this problem.
If you’ve ever been an American commuter you know the story. Cities build huge freeways to ease traffic flow so more people take the freeway so the new freeway clogs up. There are other approaches.
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Posted by Eddie O'Shan
on March 02, 2005
An article about The Law Of Unintended Consequences in the grandly named Concise Encyclopedia of Economics: Library of Economics and Liberty mirrors some old saying about the best intentions of men. It’s an ode to human creativity and the ability to circumvent artificial limitations.
The law of unintended consequences is at work always and everywhere. In 1968, for instance, Vermont outlawed roadside billboards and large signs in order to protect the state’s pastoral vistas. One unintended consequence was the appearance of large, bizarre “sculptures” adjacent to businesses. An auto dealer commissioned a twelve-foot, sixteen-ton gorilla, clutching a real Volkswagen Beetle. A carpet store is marked by a nineteen-foot genie holding aloft a rolled carpet as he emerges from a smoking teapot. Other sculptures include a horse, a rooster, and a squirrel in red suspenders.
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Posted by Eddie O'Shan
on March 01, 2005
Sucking face, swapping spit, tonsil hockey… Have you ever thought about kissing and where it came from? It must have been a sick puppy that came up with the slobbery embrace we use to bestow affection. there’s a theory that claims the action derives from a mother chewing food for an infant and passing it on. Aren’t you glad someone invented spoons?
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Posted by Eddie O'Shan
on February 28, 2005
A Slate article about The Clash swerves into Marxian territory with a paragraph on the use of education to protect position.
The postwar expansion had been accompanied by an idea of relative social mobility that expanded educational opportunity meant talent would be identified and rewarded, regardless of one’s social position. The reality was, however, that England was still, in relative terms, class stagnant. And when its economy stopped expanding at the generous postwar pace, the meritocratic ideal came under enormous pressure. Jobs in the professional elite were now increasingly being filled by the children of the professional elite, a pattern that continued into the ’80s and, some data suggests, intensified in the ’90s.
It’s hardly a new concept; C student Prince Charles would never have been accepted to Cambridge any more than G.W. would have waltzed into Yale. Lower down the food chain, the purpose of courses like pre-law and pre-med in the States is as much to heighten the financial barriers to entry as to educate.
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