Journal of Flakery

The opinionated mouthpiece of Jon Clayden

Work hard. Be the best that you can be. Reach for the stars.

For those of us lucky enough not to have to worry about more fundamental needs, aspiration is woven into the fabric of our lives. It drives us to push on at work, to keep in shape, to self-improve. It’s underpinned by a psychological t...

Randomness is an awkward concept. Most people have some intuitive idea of what it is supposed to mean, but it’s too intangible for us to feel comfortable with. Worse, randomness is often conflated with arbitrariness, a distasteful and unsettling quality which we usually strive to avoid. Scientists a...