Month: January 2009

  • Veg Box Blues (and Blacks)

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    Marina and I are experimenting with what the Brits call a “veg box scheme”. Everything here is a scheme, but that’s a post for another day. One of the benefits/problems with veg boxes is that you never know what you are going to get. And you get stuff you might not have bought yourself. If…

  • A “Told You So” Moment

    One of the risks of being a person who is constantly processing information, forming opinions, and trying to predict the future is that when you get it right-ish, you tend to say, “I told you so”. Or if you are polite, you just think, “I told you so”. I’m not so polite so I blog…

  • O’Reilly Ignite, UK North

    Tonight I am giving a talk the Old Broadcasting House at O’Reilly Ignite, UK North. Here are my slides. Update: There’s a video here.

  • The power of debt

    Here’s a quote that turns everything you think you know on it’s head: When the debt is big enough, it’s the debtor who has the power, not the creditor. That’s Niall Ferguson talking in Vanity Fair. It’s for stuff like that I read Vanity Fair. Well, the photos don’t hurt either…

  • What he said…

    Marina and I saw Slumdog Millionaire a few days ago, and it was really excellent. Curtis agrees. Go see it. That is all.

  • Roger, Agent Carebear, Clear to Engage Enemy

    Check out this picture of the FBI mobile command center that’s been deployed for the inauguration: And this picture from inside: WTF? Carebears on the video screen of our nation’s most elite mobile command center? Perhaps this photo is counter-FBI propaganda promulgated by the Secret Service… inter-agency rivalry is a bitch!

  • Anathem

    I am reading Anathem by Neal Stephenson, and it’s pretty darn good. I can’t shake the feeling that it’s basically “Hogwarts with Math”, but that’s not Stephenson’s fault… he’s telling a perfectly good story, it just happens that Rowling was also telling a perfectly good story and the two seem a bit the same. There…

  • Back to school

    I was sick last week, and in my drug- and virus-induced haze of incoherence, the idea that I should write a Scheme interpreter in assembly language came to mind. I cannot explain from where, but there it was. So I started looking into it, wondering if I still had it in me to dig into…

  • Landlords – Les Propriétaires

    This posting on Boing Boing reminded me of something I wanted to mention about Switzerland. Though I sometimes makes it sound like heaven, with beautiful Swiss girls begging to marry you, cows that give chocolate milk when you milk them, and every man with an assault rifle, that’s not the whole truth. Swiss landlords are…

  • Welcome to the USA

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    The new ESTA (Electronic System for Travel Authorizations) that the US has instituted is really, really lame. Everything about the system screams, “Stop! Don’t come here! You are a suspicious foreigner and we don’t want you.” Check out this insane message that pops up on the website before you can even start: You are about…