Culture

Description
Society and culture, including media (books, movies, television shows and new media) and commentary on contemporary culture.

Making coffee with Aeropress

For the record, here's my recipe for making coffee with an Aeropress using the inverted method.

  1. Set up Aeropress upside down. The plunger should be set at approximately (number of cups + 1), to leave a bit of working room.
  2. Place a filter inside the ...

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Matthew John's interview

Many of you would probably be aware of the recent Four Corners coverage of an incident some time ago involving members of the Cronulla rugby league team, including Matthew Johns. Johns and his wife gave an interview to Channel 9 shortly after the Fou...

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MJQ is retiring

The Sydney Morning Herald reported that the principal of James Ruse Agricultural High School, Michael J. Quinlan, will retire at the end of this year. This follows a 15 year stint at the very well-known selective high school.

Having multiple friends ...

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Film review: McDull, the Alumni

McDull, the Alumni

Title McDull, the Alumni
Director Samson Chiu Leung-Chun
Producer Peter Chan Ho-Sun
Length 91 minutes
Year 2006
IMDB IMDB entry
DVD Region 0 / NTSC / Dolby Digital 5.1 / DTS 5.1 / Cantonese, Mandarin audio / Traditional Chinese,...

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Four-day working week may improve productivity

A List Apart is a web design weblog to which I subscribe (and read occasionally). Normally the topics deal with web design (i.e. how to design a good, standards-compliant web page), or web design project management (i.e. how to deal with clients).

So...

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Throwing money

There was a time when one has to beg the bank manager to get a loan. Not any more. A couple of months ago I went to my local bank branch (!) for an enquiry. And, of course, as part of this particular bank's cross-selling strategy, they offered me a h...

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On the joys of not being contactable

Well not quite.

This article in the Sydney Morning Herald discusses the psychological isolation of those young people that do not have mobile phones.

Mobile phones are increasing being used as a mechanism of social networking rather than simple commu...

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How are your manners?

It all started with a speech given by Jim Spigelman, Chief Justice of New South Wales. Although the speech is more about the role of the rule of law in the development of Australian democracy, what grabbed the headlines is the second part of the spee...

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Apostrophe Man

As you may or may not be aware, I am an "apostrophe man". Given the recent coverage of the usage of "its" and "it's" in Column 8, I must admit that this particular mistake is one that annoys me most.

My other gripe is th...

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Asian success stories sweep our schools

The Sydney Morning Herald had a front page story today about the proportion of students from non-English speaking background (particularly Chinese) in selective schools.

It provided an interesting case study on what is generally accepted as the best ...

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