A new dawn in how we build [extract from an article by David Thompson in The Atlantic, Dec 2022] The story of the year in technology might be the emergence of AI tools that seem to trace the outer bounds of human creativity. Image-generating apps, such as Stable Diffusion and DALL-E 2, turn text prompts …
How to grow as a reader
Every year, since 1991, I have set a non-required reading goal. I track the number of books read (an inconsequential measure), and the number of pages read for books that I finish (for me, at least, this is whatโs important). Some books may appear interesting or important but after having commenced reading it is clear …
18 common myths about essay writing
Myths about essay writing abound. Some are valid; many are false. Some are universal in application; others apply to specific disciplines or classes of students. Below, I list 18 myths with suggested grounds for their dismissal. Can you think of others? Is there something here that you don't consider to be a myth? Let me …
Should I use Google Scholar?
Google Scholar (https://scholar.google.com.au/) is a simple free search engine that limits its searches to scholarly literature from academic publishers and research institutions. It excludes material from other corporations, non-scholarly organisations, and individuals. Google Scholar searches scholarly literature across many disciplines and sources--not only articles, theses, books, abstracts, and "grey literature," but also material from academic …
First steps: Letter to a young Christian
By John McCrindle Last month I shared the text of a pamphlet that my grandfather, John Cree McCrindle, wrote many years ago to commend and share his Christian faith with fellow workers in the coal mines in Ipswich, Queensland. That was one of two similar undated pamphlets I possess. In the other, in the form of a …
