UK beats the US at: Bread. In England, you can get a lovely, inexpensive, fresh-baked, unsliced granary loaf from just about any corner supermarket (the sort that is a 5 minute walk from your house). In America, any bread other than sliced prepackaged is some kind of speciality item, available only in the European or… Continue reading US vs UK
Month: April 2005
Impulse buy!
Practical Common Lisp by Peter Seibel. I’ve studied a bit of Lisp; enough to get interested. Of course I studied functional programming in college so the concepts are not so mind bending as they would be at first. Hopefully this book will take my Lisp into the realm of the practical.
"You probably know a million songs…"
“…wouldn't it be nice to hear more than 20 of them?” So goes one of JACK FM's tags. I take issue: let's look at the facts. Assume a song is 3 minutes long on average. Assume that I listen to songs for 3 hours a day every day, never repeating a single song. Assume there… Continue reading "You probably know a million songs…"
The Da Vinci Code
(Warning: spoilers ahead) I read it. The plot was excellently contrived. The way it mixes fact and fiction is great. But as a whodunit, it's a bit rubbish. Dan Brown is continually treating both his characters and readers as simpletons. Now I realise it's not an easy thing to invent clues and a treasure hunt,… Continue reading The Da Vinci Code
SOE announce "Exchange Servers"
Sony are launching an escrow/auction service for Everquest 2, whereby players can sell in-game items, coinage and characters for real-life currency. They are applying it only to certain servers (to be decided via an in-game poll, and with the option for players to move servers). It’s a $200m-a-year industry, apparently, and 40% of their customer… Continue reading SOE announce "Exchange Servers"
"London, England"
Bill Bryson was right. The “London, England” effect is everywhere in the US; the media dumbs down everything to an absurd degree, hence “London, England” – as opposed to London, where exactly? To be fair there are plenty of other Londons, but I think it's pretty unambiguous in a story about the UK parliament. Case… Continue reading "London, England"