In April 1898, Alfred Haddon led his expedition off the Duke of Westminster steamer on to Thursday Island, in the Torres Straits archipelago between Australia and New Guinea. They carried the latest tools for assessing psychology and perception, and the…
Monthly Archives: November 2016
Non-fiction Review: Headhunters by Ben Shepherd
Tagged with: Alfred Haddon, Ben Shepherd, Charles Myers, Craiglockhart, Headhunters, History, Psychology, Science, WHR Rivers, William McDougall, William Rivers
Posted in Book review: non-fiction, Wednesday Pontification
Posted in Book review: non-fiction, Wednesday Pontification
Under the Hooked Cross – 13: Harvest
Previous instalments: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 The image on the screen was in colour and good quality, but it still took Silversmith a moment to recognise the naked figure as a human…
Tagged with: Alternate history, science fiction, short story, Under the Hooked Cross
Posted in Under the Hooked Cross
Posted in Under the Hooked Cross
Listen
I stand. I look up. I see a patchwork of speckles on the ceiling of my world. Stars between branches. The forest gobbles their morsels of light, sparing none for me. Darkness engulfs me. I listen. I fill my world…
Inspirations: The psychology of a city under fire
9/11 and the Blitz both showed the fortitude of civilian populations under attack. Both contradicted assumptions that attacks would lead to mass panic. Behaviourist Solly Zuckerman documented civilian resilience during the Hull Blitz. Zuckerman’s work gives a more realistic picture…
Tagged with: Area bombing, Blitz, Civilian neurosis, Frederick Lindemann, History, Hull Blitz, Hull-Birmingham neurosis survey, Ian Burney, JD Bernal, Lord Cherwell, Morale bombing, Psychology, Science, Second World War, Shell-shock, Solly Zuckerman, War on Fear, World War Two
Posted in Inspirations, Wednesday Pontification
Posted in Inspirations, Wednesday Pontification
Under the Hooked Cross – 12: Pluto
Previous instalments: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 Silversmith felt slightly sick when he pulled himself into the communications pod, and it wasn’t the microgravity. He had the feeling that what he was about to…
Tagged with: Alternate history, science fiction, short story, Under the Hooked Cross
Posted in Under the Hooked Cross
Posted in Under the Hooked Cross
Seminar Awesome
My life began with his life coaching seminar. Twenty minutes in, I knew he was changing my life. When it finished, I went straight out and bought his book. I got it here. You should get it yourself, but don’t…
Greater Minds: How Isaac Asimov designed a brainstorm
Isaac Asimov described a process for generating original ideas for his friend, Arthur Obermayer. An idea generator must understand their field, make connections and be resistant to criticism. He suggested ideas would come from small groups in which some foolishness…
Tagged with: Arthur Obermayer, Creativity, History, Ideas, Isaac Asimov, Psychology, science fiction
Posted in Greater minds, Wednesday Pontification
Posted in Greater minds, Wednesday Pontification
Under the Hooked Cross – 11: Friends
Previous instalments: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 And what exactly was he going to do if Henkel cracked, he asked himself? He shuddered as he remembered the Polish cleaner in Peenemünde. “From some friends,” she’d…
Tagged with: Alternate history, science fiction, short story, Under the Hooked Cross
Posted in Under the Hooked Cross
Posted in Under the Hooked Cross
Special Relativity
I’m trying to learn how I journey in the world, and how the world journeys in the universe. I always understood the where. It’s the how I’m trying to get my thick head around. When all I knew was Newton’s…
Tagged with: Humour, Microfiction, Physics, science fiction, Stephen Hawking
Posted in Saturday Hooptedoodle
Posted in Saturday Hooptedoodle
Fiction Review: Blue Remembered Earth by Alastair Reynolds
It starts when the death of Eunice Akinya, matriarch of a powerful family. It takes us to the moon, to Mars and to the outer reaches of the solar system. At the same time, it tells the personal stories of…
Tagged with: Alastair Reynolds, Blue Remembered Earth, Poseidon's Children
Posted in Book review: fiction, Wednesday Pontification
Posted in Book review: fiction, Wednesday Pontification
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