Rick Dearman's Blog

Today when you think of innovative retailers you think of Jeff Bezos at Amazon, Phillip Green, Sam Walton, or Steve Jobs, but one of the richest men in history opened the first department store in 1848. Alexander Stewart business success is estimated to have made him one of the twenty wealthiest people in history, with a fortune equivalent to approximately 90 billion 2012 US dollars.

Mr Stewart was a true innovator. Not only did he open the first department store (The Marble Palace), he wa...

The progress of technology is pretty amazing when you think about it. The HP-35 was the first hand-held calculator which has trigonometric and exponential functions. Today there are dozens of apps you can get for free on your smartphone which does much more than this simple calculator, and costs less. The $395 price tag of 1973 would be about $2,500 in today's dollars.

Before the introduction of hand-held calculators people had to use slide-rules for most complex calculations. The HP-35 wa...

I recently joined up to The Free and Legal Language Challenge which dares participants to learn a language to the European A2 level using only legally accessible materials available for free on the Internet. There is a variation of this challenge which allows the use of library material, not just the Internet. I myself signed up for two languages, Czech and Setswana.

For the Czech challenge I opted to use the library exception and I've taken books out of my local library. One of the stipul...

Have you heard about the new GDPR law which the EU will begin enforcing soon? It is another example of a law which isn't well-thought-out and causes unanticipated reactions.

GDPR is a data protection legislation which will allow EU citizens to review and have their data deleted. The premise is admirable, the results not so much. In order to implement all the required security, hire data managers and store consent forms and all the other associated work this regulation requires it has creat...

Have you heard about the new GDPR law which the EU will begin enforcing soon? It is another example of a law which isn't well-thought-out and causes unanticipated reactions.

GDPR is a data protection legislation which will allow EU citizens to review and have their data deleted. The premise is admirable, the results not so much. In order to implement all the required security, hire data managers and store consent forms and all the other associated work this regulation requires it has creat...

When you are learning a new language it is often difficult to use; it even if you're in a country where that language is the primary one. If you set yourself some objectives or "secret missions" for things to do while in country it can make your language use more fun and more productive. I've listed 46 missions below that can help you get started speaking in your target language. This series of "missions" will involve you talking to real people in real situations to help speak outside the sa...

When you are learning a new language it is often difficult to use; it even if you're in a country where that language is the primary one. If you set yourself some objectives or "secret missions" for things to do while in country it can make your language use more fun and more productive. I've listed 46 missions below that can help you get started speaking in your target language. This series of "missions" will involve you talking to real people in real situations to help speak outside the sa...

I'm going to have a little rant today about mens clothing retailers and shirts. I'm sure that if you're a man who regularly wears trousers and a collared shirt you've noticed how painful it is to keep your shirt tucked in.

What you might not realise is that the reason is economical. You see when a retailer places an order at a factory for some clothes, both the factory and the retailer are trying to optimise the margin they make. This means they are both economical about the materials used...

I'm going to have a little rant today about mens clothing retailers and shirts. I'm sure that if you're a man who regularly wears trousers and a collared shirt you've noticed how painful it is to keep your shirt tucked in.

What you might not realise is that the reason is economical. You see when a retailer places an order at a factory for some clothes, both the factory and the retailer are trying to optimise the margin they make. This means they are both economical about the materials used...

I've been wondering lately what to write on the blog. I want to write but sometimes I struggle for ideas about what to write. As Walter Wellesley ���Red��� Smith said in 1949, ���You simply sit down at the typewriter, open your veins, and bleed.���

If only it was that easy!

I suspect the majority of bloggers did the same thing I did and turned to Google for help. Searching for blogging ideas turns up pages of "101 best blogging...", or "35 Blog topics that work", etc. But mostly these ar...