On the day that Apple announces that they’ve sold a gazillion iPads in the last quarter (and that they can clearly see the near future when more iPads are sold than Windows PCs), I’m going to tell you about my Kindle Fire. Bucking the trend, moi? Wading upstream? Yep, that’s me. […]
READ MOREI was having a chat with a friend recently about the blog post I published on January 1, the traditional day for writing down on a napkin your resolutions for the coming year. He was saying that it didn’t sound like a bunch of resolutions of the form “I will do this new thing” or “I will change this existing behavior”. It read as more wishy-washy than that. […]
READ MOREI am slowly making my way through the Tintin comic books in the original French, just so I can keep my hand in. I’ve now got to number 7, L’île Noire, or as they say in English, The Black Island. […]
READ MOREOK, I was nuts. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, right? But what the heck, it’s part of the technology stack I’m supposed to know and use and promote, and furthermore I have a text editor and know how to use it. […]
READ MOREJust some warning that tomorrow, Wednesday 18 January from 8am to 8pm EST, this blog will be going on strike to protest SOPA/PIPA. The protest encompasses sites such as Wikipedia, BoingBoing, and even Google will have some kind of protest statement on their home page. […]
READ MORELast September, we stayed in Richmond, North Yorkshire, for a few days in order to go visit the graves of my parents – it had been the first opportunity for us to see the gravestones and to pay our respects. As is normal the day we arrive in England, Donna was really tired (it’s an effect of the travel medication she takes), and so I left her napping and went on a little walk around Richmond, a town that, although I knew superficially around the market place and the Castle, was not one I’d explored in any great depth. […]
READ MOREAfter the longest time dithering around, finally someone at the Beeb got round to publishing the complete set of this remarkable TV series from the mid-80s onto DVD. I bought it pretty much as soon as it appeared on amazon.co.uk. […]
READ MOREOK, kids, gather round old Gramps as he shows off the first calculator he ever owned. He got it as a present for passing his O-levels. (Actually, even if I’d had the calculator prior to taking my O-levels, I wouldn’t have been allowed to use it for the exams. Unlike math tests today, It was slide rules only in those days.) Are you gathered round? Here it is, the Litton Royal Digital 5-T from 1973. […]
READ MOREOK, this one is going to be short, because quite honestly I cannot follow the proof in detail at all. Either I don’t have the required continued fraction mathematics, or I can’t follow advanced calculus proofs any more. Probably option C: all of the above. For a quick refresh of what continued fractions are, see here and here. […]
READ MOREWe’ve just returned from our annual outing to Orlando so that my wife could run the Walt Disney World Marathon. (Before you ask: 4:04:16, which is her best time for a while.) When you arrive at the airport, you have to take the train from the gates to the terminal. It’s always made me laugh when the recorded announcement, in a very Walt Disney World voice, says “This train will be departing momentarily” and I feel like quipping “when’s it going to continue?” It’s the way I tell ’em. […]
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