Archive for October, 2014
How democratic is the United States when a tide of dark money is swamping the electoral process?
October 14th, 2014 by Roger Darlington
“More than half of the general election advertising aired by outside groups in the battle for control of Congress has come from organizations that disclose little or nothing about their donors, a flood of secret money that is now at the center of a debate over the line between free speech and corruption. The advertising, […]
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Visit to Malta (4): more Valletta
October 13th, 2014 by Roger Darlington
Sunday – the hottest day yet – was utterly different from Friday and Saturday because it was a totally free day with nothing organised by Voyages Jules Verne. Roger & Silvia were soon reminded of the downside of a day alone in an unfamiliar location. Having so enjoyed the visit to Casa Bernard in Rabat, […]
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Visit to Malta (3): outside Valletta
October 11th, 2014 by Roger Darlington
Saturday was another brilliant day weather-wise and equally successful from a sightseeing point of view. The whole day was occupied by a tour of locations outside Valletta with the same guide Audrey-Marie Bartolo using a minivan for the eight British tourists. First we drove to the town of Mosta (population 19,000) to see the Parish […]
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Visit to Malta (2): Valletta
October 10th, 2014 by Roger Darlington
On a Thursday afternoon, our flight from London Gatwick to Malta’s Luqa Airport on a British Airways Airbus A319 took 2 hours 50 minutes. We are staying at the Hotel Osborne which is conveniently located inside the oldest part of the capital Valletta. It was towards 10 pm when we reached the hotel but we […]
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Visit to Malta (1): introduction
October 9th, 2014 by Roger Darlington
Since 2006, my sister Silvia (two years younger) and I have established an annual tradition of taking a short holiday together without our spouses. For our eighth such venture, we have chosen the island of Malta – somewhere neither of us has been before (for me, this is my 66th country). It is a short, […]
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The Taiwanese vegetable seller turned philanthropist
October 8th, 2014 by Roger Darlington
Meet Chen Shu-chu, the 63-year-old vegetable vendor who has quietly donated over 10 million Taiwanese dollars ($350,000; £210,000) to her hometown. No matter how much money she makes, she spends no more than a few dollars a day on herself so that she can give away the rest. Her generosity has made many people wonder how […]
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Not the day I planned with my granddaughter Catrin, but still lots of fun
October 7th, 2014 by Roger Darlington
Following an earlier exploratory visit to Legoland with my granddaughter Catrin, I wanted to take her again before the weather became too Autumnal. So I arranged with her parents that I would take her today. Vee said days ago that this would not work out because a period of rainy weather was forecast. In fact, […]
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Why we still have a serious gap in online skills
October 6th, 2014 by Roger Darlington
Surely now everyone is doing everything on the Internet? Far from it, as I have explained in my latest column on IT issues. Here, in the UK, there are 9.5 million people aged 15+ without basic online skills. That is 19% or almost one in five. They are more likely to be older, disabled and have low […]
Posted in Internet | Comments (1)
Words of the day: homograph/homophone/homonym
October 5th, 2014 by Roger Darlington
Homograph = words that are spelled alike, but have different meanings and sometimes different pronunciations e..g. stalk the noun (plant stem) and stalk the verb (pursue stealthily) Homophone = words that are pronounced the same, but are different in meaning and possibly spelling e.g. rose (flower) and rose (past tense of rise) or to, two, too […]
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Why I am WEIRD – and you probably are too
October 5th, 2014 by Roger Darlington
In the behavioural sciences, there is a group of people – who are usually the subject of most of the research in these disciplines – who are dubbed WEIRD. I guess I fall into this category and, when I spell out the acronym, you may conclude that you do too. In this context, WEIRD stands […]
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