The Jolly Contrarian Life
Episodes
Computation, free will and the big bang
13 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
So remember, when you’re feeling very small and insecure—How amazingly unlikely is your birth.And pray that there’s intelligent lifeSomewhere up...
The end-to-end principle
27 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit jollycontrarian.substack.com“I once got all the way from Glasgow to Edinburgh without ...
Traitors, prejudice & how to get promoted
20 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Reality TV competitions like BBC’s Traitors offers an valuable insights into group dynamics and decision making under situations of uncertainty.Than...
Satellite of Love: Live Aid, Bad, Bono and the tragic triumph of irony
06 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Welcome to a new experiment in gratuitous discursion about music, culture and modernity.Thanks for reading! This post is public so feel free to share ...
A fatal typo
31 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Sightseeing trips to the iceIn the 1970s New Zealand’s national carrier Air New Zealand began operating “sightseeing” flights to Antarctica. The...
Better, stronger, faster
03 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Sorry for the lack of news recently — I’ve been tinkering around with a spanner in the underbelly of the great steampunk machine which is the JC. ...
System glitch
15 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Normal accidentsIn 1999, organisational sociologist Charles Perrow wrote the masterly book Normal Accidents: Living with High-Risk Technologies. In it...
JC update: format, AI, negotiable cows and Law Commission consultations
16 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Radio: live transmissionYou may have noticed in recent months that a few JC newsletters have been breaking out into audio format. I’m on Spotify. I ...
Gift cards, bills of exchange and cinema economics: it’s all about the popcorn
05 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Recently, as thanks for a minor accommodation, I received a Vue cinema gift card. Though it was a generous and thoughtful gesture for a trifling matte...
Cryptonomicoin
15 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Hello everyoneFollowing a sequence of minorly unfortunate but quite improbable incidents — at one point JC wondered whether he was in an episode of ...
Trolley Problem
06 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
is an audio version of last week’s newsletter.Original article on the JC is here. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with othe...
Bitcoin is Venice
18 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
This article started as a review of Allen Farrington and Sacha Meyers’ remarkable Bitcoin is Venice, but I got carried away and began ruminating abo...
Desktops, metadata and filing
30 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The desktopIn 1973, Xerox’s Palo Alto Research Center released the “Alto”. This was the first personal computer equipped with a “graphical use...
Reports of our death are an exaggeration, Pt 2
24 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The report of my death was an exaggeration.—Mark TwainIn 2017, then-CEO of Deutsche Bank John Cryan thought his employees’ days were numbered. Mac...
Reports of our death are an exaggeration Pt 1
18 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The report of my death was an exaggeration.—Mark TwainIn 2017, then-CEO of Deutsche Bank John Cryan thought his employees’ days were numbered. Mac...
The future of work part 2
12 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The debate chuntered on, recently coagulating around an unlikely, tearful graduate whom we got to know as “TikTok Girl”, confiding to her follower...
The Future of Work, Part 1
12 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In its abrupt dislocation, lockdown was a sort of miniature Burgess Shale — a sudden, dissonant punctuation in a long, flowing, paragraph of commerc...
Org Charts and what they don't tell us
12 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Der Teufel mag im Detail stecken, aber Gott steckt in den Lücken.“The Devil may be in the detail, but God is in the gaps.”—Büchstein, Die Schw...