Author Archives: Alec
Why Do I Blog?
I have more than once been asked why I blog. Whatever reasons I give are probably lies and guesses, incomplete or over-thought, true today but not tomorrow (or vice versa). Things are rarely simple, life is not black or white, there are … Continue reading
Useless People
Another post from 2017 moved here from a no-longer-existing blog…. I’ve been reading a fascinating book, Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow, by Yuval Noah Harari. The book covers many things, and one of the things Harari talks about … Continue reading
I Hold These Truths (but others don’t)
I hold this truth to be self evident: that all men are not created equal. Some are born to privilege, some to a life of poverty and despair. Some are born intelligent, some lacking in intelligence. Some to caring parents and … Continue reading
Living Longer
I wrote this post in 2017 on a blog that no longer exists. Now that I’ve added a blog to Cycle Uphill, I thought I’d transfer the post over here…. I was reading an article about how a Professor Longo … Continue reading
Redisplaying the original blog posts
Originally, before I decided to focus this website on cycling and hiking, it was a blog named Contributing to the Problem. Then I decided to change its focus to cycling and hiking, and made it a website with static pages … Continue reading
More Choice, Less Satisfaction
We were watching Netflix a few days ago, and we couldn’t find the movie we wanted to see. But apart from that movie, there were so many choices of movie or TV series. It was overwhelming. Add in Amazon and all … Continue reading
A Whirlwind of Inactivity
I haven’t been doing very much, because my life has been a whirlwind of inactivity. There are many things I’ve convinced myself I should be doing. I should ride my bike, lift weights, learn French, learn web software development, write, create art, … Continue reading
A technology service Uber alles?
So what is Uber? Europe’s top court is trying to figure that out so European countries can decide how to regulate the company. Uber claims it’s an app, “an intermediary providing a technology service in exchange for a fee”. Taxi drivers … Continue reading
A Sea of Grass
After my last post about the Earth and Sun, I thought I’d post something I’d previously written about the scale of the Universe. As I said, this stuff fascinates me and boggles my mind. I love the feeling of utter … Continue reading
An Awe Full Hot Day
On a hot day, one of the things I sometimes think about is how much energy the Sun is putting out. I can’t conceive of this much light and heat from man-made sources. The Sun has been doing this for over 4 … Continue reading