Czesław Miłosz: Alpha, the Moralist
Czesław Miłosz is a Polish writer and Nobel Laureate who first came to Western attention in the early 1950s with the publication of The Captive...
Standards Part Two: Comparative Standards
Standards: continued from Part One. [caption id="attachment_35719" align="aligncenter" width="270"] Why is this man smiling?[/caption] I. Introduction Why is this man smiling? He's smiling because he...
The Melbourne Suburban Rail Loop’s fragile business case shows governments need an Evaluator-General
We have a broken process for evaluating costly government investments. The evolving plan for an underground railway through Melbourne's middle suburbs reminds us that we...
Standards Part One (and now Parts Two and Three): Standards as windows on an alternative universe
I. Introduction Some prefer iPhones. Others prefer Android. These are the two standards left standing for what only old guys call smartphones. 'Standards wars' like...
Academia: when there’s no ‘there’ there
I The university is one of the finest creations of European culture. Alas, as a troublesome fellow once said, all that is solid melts into...
You heard it first on Troppo folks: Up from the archives
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OpKGzulGikQ Reading the publicity for this new book I remembered a name — pathologist Colin Manock — thinking it had been at the centre of some...
Needing the eggs: The podcast
https://youtu.be/cRhlvHQ0MWY Here's a podcast I did a few weeks ago which has garnered more reaction from people than any I’ve done before. That may just...