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  Have a Happy Thought: Content warning: gratuitous use of what many consider a swear word.   We have all, on joining a new organisation or industry, had to learn a whole bunch of new words. Or potentially had to re-learn the meaning of a word in that new context. This is often called “jargon” – being words that have a very specific meaning in a specific context. There can however be words and phrases that more rightly can be termed “bullshit”. And this is in the technical, jargon-y use of the word “bullshit”, as defined by philosopher Harry Frankfurt in 1986 : basically, a complete disregard for whether the words being conveyed are true or false, so long as the bullshitter is convincing their listeners to go along with what the bullshitter wants. Turns out that this is not confined merely to politics (let’s be honest, your brain had already gone there), this is a problem rampant in business culture. So common, in fact, that a recent paper has developed a “ Cor...

Have a Happy Thought: Dams on rivers have many benefits to humans (power generation, managing downstream flow, ensuring year-round drinking and farming water, etc). Unfortunately, dams have equal (or often greater) dis-benefits to creatures that live in and around those rivers. One major issue is allowing fish that use the length of the river for feeding and spawning, to actually travel the length of the river! The city of Utrecht, Netherlands, has addressed this issue by having a “ fish doorbell ”. When fish pass in front of a camera, the lock keeper can let the fish through. But to make sure the lock keeper doesn’t miss any fish… there is a website where you (and about 1,000 others at any given time, it seems) can watch the live feed, and press the fish doorbell on the fish’s behalf! Image: The Utrecht canal lock keeper opens the lock. About — The Fish Doorbell   Many other rivers, canals, etc have had fish passages installed, such as this one on the Waikato River in Ne...