The Like of it Now Happens

The title of this blog, 'Pseudo Reality Prevails' is not an original invention. It comes from Robert Musil's novel The Man Without Qualities, first published in 1930. I picked up a paperback second hand copy from Onehunga's 'Hard to Find' bookshop a few years ago without knowing anything about it. The title itself appealed to me, and also the blurb on the back cover:

The scene is Vienna on the brink of the first world war, an epoch grinding to its tragic end.

Review of Peace, Power & Politics

Reviewing a book written by your mother is not an easy task. Do I refer to her as "my mother" or "Leadbeater" or "the author"? Do I tell the truth about how little I cared for protest marches as a young child in the 80s? In the end I think I worked through these issues reasonably well, but it still feels a bit weird. This review is a response to a request from the ISO for a review article for their magazine. 

The Misery of Statistics

A couple of straightforward lessons in statistics I don't get to teach my Y11 students:

1. The mean vs the median, as this issue applies to the 2014 New Zealand budget.