Apr 01 2008
My birthday has been tainted
This is a round-up of things that don’t deserve their own blog posts.
My birthday seems to fall right in the middle of Homeopathy Awareness Week. The ignominy.
Last week Rowan Williams appeared to have contracted Hovind’s disease, a condition common in the United State of America, with symptoms such as absurd mischaracterisation of biological theories. The speech took place on 17 March as the first of three lectures, Faith and Science, Faith and Politics and Faith and History. The official transcripts of these lectures have not appeared online yet. I still don’t know whether he’s merely a nutty man with bushy eyebrows or something even weirder.
I’m re-reading Neuromancer for the Nth time and I’ve only just noticed that the Finn wears a tweed jacket. I don’t know how, but I always pictured him in a dishevelled wax jacket. Also, despite the nay-sayers, it’s still an awesome book.
I’ve decided not to wait to get myself an Eee PC. The beefier one probably won’t appear until the end of the year and I can always upgrade if it seems worthwhile. Now I just need to find someone who has them in stock…
If you’ve got some time to spare, and especially if you hated learning mathematics at school, you should read Lockhart’s Lament (PDF). It’s captivating, entertaining and educational — even funny! — not to mention an extremely accurate picture of what school maths was like. (Incidentally, if you search for
lockhart's lamentthere is a lot of discussion, and in nearly all of them someone has pasted the same mini-critique about it being in a “historical vacuum”. It starts “As I see it, Paul Lockhart’s essay would be much more powerful if…”.)Our internet connection still seems well screwed up so I can’t access Delicious from home. So if anyone checks my saved links you’ll not find anything new. Sorry about that.
Alien loves Predator has been updated for the first time in what feels like forever. Now when is Everybody Loves Eric Raymond going to take the hint and follow suit?
That’s all folks.