The bloody mary (vodka), ruddy mary (gin), virgin mary (alcohol-free) and the bull shot (beef broth instead of tomato). Has the added advantage of almost seeming like it’s something healthy to get. I always seem to end up ordering them on flights. Happy days.

Bloody marys

I love this concept from Stewart Brand, that different aspects of the world change at different speeds. So, fashion and art changes and cycles faster than commerce which is faster than infrastructure, and in turn governance, culture and finally Nature. The outer layers tend to innovate faster and so pull along, or be stabilised by, the lower, slower layers. At the boundaries you get constructive turbulence, say between Uber and governance, or how the growth in video streaming requires Internet infrastructure to come along with it. I’m sure you can find counter examples, but as a framework for thinking about big complex things I find it quite handy.

Pace layers

A word that can be its own opposite. I learned this from Kathryn Schulz’ excellent article, What part of “No, totally” don’t you understand, about how “no, totally” came to mean “yes.” Contranyms — like heteronyms, portemanteaus, palindromes, and semordnilaps — are neat things to look out for. Like how you can dust something to pick up dust from a surface, and dust that surface to remove dust from it. So versatile. Or perhaps confusing.

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Contranym