Just Random Shit!
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Atoms and Stories
We are all just stories. A collection of atoms and the stories of what those atoms have done while they hung out together in the form of us, for a brief period, along a path called time. We are real. For now. But the key word is now, because the ‘you’ that was real when…
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Volunteer Remuneration Strategy
Always remember to pay your volunteers well. If that seems like a contradiction or an oxymoron then bear with me. If you think that volunteers are people who give their time to you and ask for no payment in return then you are wrong. They want no financial remuneration but that doesn’t mean that they…
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Remember to Ask
The woman behind the counter of the supermarket rang the bell at exactly 11am this morning. I didn’t notice because I was in the middle of a conversation with a colleague in the café. I also didn’t notice when everyone around me went quiet. I carried on explaining the thing that I was talking about.…
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Intelligence
Are you scared that the machines are taking over? Are you afraid of what is coming? A lot of people are. A lot of people are really frightened that artificial intelligence will decimate jobs. Yet at the same time we sometimes seem to do everything we can to help the AI take over, often by…
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When You Can’t Un-See Something
Street furniture isn’t something I’ve ever paid a great deal of attention to. Public seating, park benches and the like are just things that are there. Recently at Preston train station I sat on one while I waited for the 0600 to London Euston. It was good. It was just a bench on the platform.…
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The Gift Graph
Yesterday my 17 year-old son asked me, “How much is the right amount to spend on a gift for someone”. It’s my birthday tomorrow and he saw me eying up a 4.5kg Toblerone in Costco after we’d been to get his eyes tested! He elaborated on his question, “If you could spend loads of money…
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Happiness – One Piece at a Time
Today I crossed a line. An invisible line that for centuries has been a boundary between rivals. A boundary over which wars have been fought, wars which changed the history of not only the nation, but of the whole world. A bloody line drawn between members of the same royal bloodline. Where kings were made…
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When I Was Very Young
When I was very young – probably around five or six years old – I would regularly keep my Dad company if he went to work at weekends or during school holidays. My Dad was something called a company director. And from what I could tell his job involved driving round to see people and…
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Hump Day
Whenever you set yourself a challenge or a goal, particularly where there is a measurable element (such as time or distance) then there is invariably some stage where you reach the half way point. You reach the hump. The point where, having done the ‘uphill’ half of the challenge, you pass the middle and you…
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Reasons
Sometimes, regardless of our intentions, things just don’t go to plan. I made a commitment to a group of strangers a couple of weeks ago. I committed to writing something every day for 30 days and posting it online. It was a commitment I made without any real purpose behind it. I enjoy writing. I…