thoughts on NYE, and wine instead of whisky

http://halftalk-random.blogspot.com/2011/12/nod-to-past-look-to-future.html

don't regret regret

interesting talk on regret on TED (here)
Especially liked the idea of the 'ctrl-z' generation. Some thoughts on  are here

BBC's tips topped

It's an odd eccentricity of BBC radio 4's Today programme that they still give out racing tips. Especially since it's quite a high brow show, I've often wondered why they do it, and what sort of credentials they have, so was interesting to hear that one listener had been logging and checking their tips for the last year. And their success rate? 20% , or 100 winners out of ~500 tips.
Not exactly amazing, but seems when compared to other sources (eg tips on newspapers) this seems about average. The test seems to be how much of one's stake is retained cumulatively, and their 88% is in the middle of the 86-93% range for such tipsters.
So not a lot of reason to use them it seems! If had bet one euro on each horse, would be down €67 by end of the year. Though again about average so,as they said, their slogan could be ‘bet with us - you won’t lose too much!!!'
Also liked the idea of logging john humphrey’s (known as the beeb's political attack dog) questions for the next year – and more importantly – how many of them  get an answer!

the US leaves Iraq, and many wasted possibilites behind

With the official US withdrawal from Iraq, think worth once again to see just what else the $700bn it cost could have been spent on....

• 46 years of global cancer research (at current levels)..
• 3 entire Space Shuttle programs...
• 28 Apollo programs...

What a waste of money and life. (more on this here)

no news is really good news, or at least better than FOX news

While it goes without saying that there are serious questions about Fox news' journalistic balance, it could be assumed that even biased opinions on reported events would raise awareness about those events themselves. Unfortunately this might not be the case, as a study by Fairleigh Dickerson University suggests.In response to questions about middle east events, people who watched FOX news were less able to judge how things had actually turned out, than people with no news source at all.

my full post on the topic is here

out of the blue or in the pink

The famous Hamley's toy store in London has decided to scrap its traditional separation of boys and girls toys and instead arrange the sections by type of toy. Apparently until now some floors were floral and pink for the 'girls stuff', and 'boys toys' were in their own levels , all noise and action.
Some comments and article links are in this new post in the Society & Psychology section

On writing a notebook....

Came across a nice wrote of Joan Didion's, from her essay On Writing A Notebook : "Remember what it was to be me: that is always the point...our notebooks give us away, for however dutifully we record what we see around us, the common denominator of all we see is always, transparently, shamelessly, the implaceable 'I."

Remember what it was to be me - Ilike that! Captures nicely the desire not just to share but also to somehow preserve the things that impress and enthuse us.