Point 4 in this rather daft article made me swear out loud, specifically this sentence:
Two divided by three makes 0.666 recurring (allegedly - actually it makes 0.6666666667).
What on earth are they teaching in hack school nowadays?
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These twelve short stories are as well written and entertaining as anything by Tremain, and skip easily between diverse locations and periods as convincingly as do her novels. So vividly realised and varied are these worlds that they often demand a considerable effort on the part of the reader in switching from one story to the next, and it is hard to see any clear theme linking the collection together beyond the author’s questioning need to explore her creations; thematic links are not in any way necessary, of course, and their absence does not detract from the enjoyment of reading each tale individually. The emotional range between and within the pieces is similarly wide, and Tremain is not afraid of exploring darker possibilities and scenarios, or, conversely, of writing a happy ending every so often. Good stuff.
It is unsurprising that The Daily Mail hated Hot Fuzz, because the only semi-serious theme in the entire film is a lampooning of the values of their core readership. As soon as you see Sandford, the primary scene of the action, you know exactly which rag the neighbourhood watch association read when they’re not tut-tutting over the spelling mistakes in the local paper.
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I finally cracked and bought something I’ve been secretly coveting since it was introduced: a Mac mini. So far I’m very pleased with it, and whilst it is not perfect, it is a massive improvement on the big old Windows box that it has replaced in the front room.
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Hooray! That ghastly old fraud McKeith has been forced to stop using the title “Dr.” in her advertising. It would have been even better if the ASA had forced her to be referred to at all times as “Doctor” with compulsory scare quote finger signs and a heavily sarcastic tone of voice, but that’s probably beyond their remit.
I found this block of ice full of dead leaves in my garden. As the ice melts the air bubbles make pretty patterns in the impression left by the leaves.
There shouldn’t really be any leaves in the pool this ice was in, but I’m just not a natural gardener, and I cannot be bothered with tidying the place up. I have recently given up entirely, and decided instead to hire someone to tame the place with a week’s worth of slash-and-burn; it was whilst admiring their efforts that I spotted this effect in the ice. I thought it was rather pretty.
This post brought to you by that fancy Flickr blog-posting technology stuff.
Atwood claims Oryx and Crake isn’t Sci-Fi, which is a pretty daft thing to say about a story describing a genetically modified apocalypse wrought by a mad scientist. Her denial left some entertainingly riled, but it probably helped her sell the book to her usual readers so I doubt she regrets it. (more…)
This may only apply to xtightvncviewer in Ubuntu Edgy, but it was an annoying enough problem that I want to make a note of it. Xtightvncviewer doesn’t capture keyboard input properly with it’s default settings, meaning that you can’t type anything on remote computers, and you can’t access the F8 menu to quit or manage the VNC session. If you’re in full screen mode you have to terminate the process manually from a VT, which is hardly elegant. Happily, there’s an easy way to get round this problem.
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I just acquired a new smartphone, with all the bells and whistles, including WiFi capablility, and upon trying to connect to my office network I discovered a particularly stupid piece of GUI design: it is impossible to paste a network key into the wireless key input box. You are forced to type it in manually. If, like me, you have a stupidly long and meaningless 63 character key for security and paranoia purposes, this is rather a pain. In combination with the fact that the input is completely replaced by asterisks it’s borderline impossible. After about four attempts to input my key manually, I gave up and formulated an alternative solution.
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These Nickelodeon-commissioned shorts from Aardman Animations are marvellous. Some highlights:
Seagulls.
Balloon.
Magic (Nice Tommy Cooper reference).
Alien.
Above.
I love the way the two main characters are endlessly amused by everything that happens to them, no matter how dreadful. (Via Cartoon Brew.)
