History
“Your Man Friday’s Ideas” was originally conceived as a weekly email posting to faculty at Nipissing University. It was motivated by frustration with all the university emails I received invariably being trivial, usually administrivial. In the distant past, in my youthful naivete, I believed a university would be full of people interested in ideas and in sharing them. Odd then that the major communication media (email) among these academics I work with rarely contained anything vaguely resembling an idea. Was the university an intellectual desert island? Feeling sure that I wasn’t alone alone in my frustration with the lack of any university correspondence that could stimulate more than a single neuron, I started sending out these Friday emails to all the faculty, with three links to fascinating stuff I wanted to share with anyone who cared. We all like to share–if it doesn’t cost us anything. And the response was great.
So over time, because of requests, folk other than faculty have gradually been added to my mailing list. So for convenience I put up an archival website of each week’s recommendations. That way newcomers could view past links, and those who don’t arrange with me to have yet another email cluttering their spam-clogged inbox each week could just check this site at their convenience.
Find it worthwhile?
Since 2009 I have been doing this out of a love of ideas and the desire to share them. However, it does involve a fair bit of work very week. Appeciation is always appreciated, do if you wish to express your appreciation for Man Friday’s Ideas, please consider a donation of any amount here using PayPal.
Comments and suggestions
I also welcome comments and suggestions. I’m a writer, and this vocation has to take priority, so unfortunately I usually don’t have the time to respond. However, I am very interested in them. My email address is Ken AT Stange DOT com. Be sure to put “Man Friday” in the email subject line, so it doesn’t automatically get filtered into my junk drawer!
Subscribe?
Also email me if you want to be added to the actual emailing list. You will only get one email a week on Fridays! Of course, your email address will not be shared with anyone.
Caveat
Inevitably and unfortunately, given the ever evolving state of the Internet, some of the links on past postings may be outdated.
Acknowledgements
I wish to thank all those who have expressed appreciation or suggested ideas for this weekly project of mine, and of course to those who have suggested other possible themes or interesting links.
I especially want to thank my wife, Ursula, who is responsible for pointing me to so many things of interest, many of which have been incorporated into Man Friday postings.
Ursula is also responsible for laboriously editing my introduction to each set of links. I have a special talent for making confusing typos, and I would have embarrassed myself more times than I care to think about if it weren’t for her eagle-eye copy-editing and perceptive sense of what is good style and clear thinking.
Peace in complexity,
Ken Stange
(AKA Your Man Friday)
Professor Emeritus at Nipissing University.