Google or Big Brother?

These days we surf the net, chat to friends, play online games, make overseas phone calls, and much more – without spending one shiny dime. If you’ve got a laptop, and a connection, the rest is gratis; and I’m writing this from a wi-fi hotspot, so that’s a freebie too.

Online behemoths like Facebook, Google and others are providing us these incredible services, free of charge. Okay. I’m not paying them, so how can these multinationals be worth billions? Where’s the money coming from?

Book Review: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time

Imagine being so overcome by fear, that you can barely leave your family house. Colours, sounds, and especially people totally freak you out, and you turn to mind-numbing math puzzles for solace. In Mark Haddon’s poignant novel, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, this is the protagonist’s reality.

Christopher suffers from Aspergers syndrome, a mild form of autism, but is extraordinarily gifted with numbers, science and trivia. IQ is formidable, but his EQ is non-existent. His memory is photographic, but he can’t read facial expressions or emotional subtleties – he makes sense of the world around him by creating formulas, and plugging in the necessary variables.