Marina and I saw Slumdog Millionaire a few days ago, and it was really excellent. Curtis agrees. Go see it. That is all.
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…
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…
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…
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,…
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…
I was reading a bit about Grub 2’s modules, including this page for gfxterm, a reimplementation of VGA console mode for Grub 2 — VGA console mode isn’t good enough because it cannot display Arabic, simplified Chineese, nor Inuit glyphs.…
I’m sick, and back in England. Not that the two are related… no, not at all. But the fact that I was irritable and chanting “I hate England” in my head all morning as I made my way in to…
Here’s someone else who has taken control of his life and chosen exactly what he’s doing and why. That’s part of why I work for MSF. It occurred to me about the time Silicon Valley was getting ready for another…
There is a really excellent article on aid work in The New Yorker. Though this is pretty much a write-only blog at this point, and I don’t really know if anyone cares, here are my reactions to the article: It…