Yesterday I was surprised and sad to hear that Harry Harrison died on August 15th. I was surprised because these days when somebody well-known dies you learn about it really quickly, either in the normal media or from Facebook or Twitter updates. I’m sure that quite a few people I follow on Twitter and Facebook […]
Entries from August 26th, 2012
Nazis at the centre of the Earth
August 23rd, 2012 · Comments Off on Nazis at the centre of the Earth · Life
When I saw a film called Nazis at the Centre of the Earth listed on the EPG I couldn’t resist it. The EPG promised subterranean robot zombies and the film delivered that, even if it couldn’t deliver decent acting, writing or special effects. Of course it could only be The Asylum that is responsible for […]
Headphone smackdown
August 22nd, 2012 · Comments Off on Headphone smackdown · Life, Technology
The other day I took possession of a pair of Philips Fidelio M1 headphones. They were a free sample for me to test out, which is nice. Coincidentally, Frankie had left his headphones behind (Beats by Dr Dre Solo) so it was an ideal opportunity to compare them head-to-head. The Beats headphones are ubiquitous. You […]
Alice in Zombieland
August 20th, 2012 · Comments Off on Alice in Zombieland · Uncategorized
Another book I finished this month: Alice in Zombieland by Gena Showalter. It is due to be published in October. I leapt in and started reading this just on the strength of the title, being a bit of a zombie fan, so I didn’t notice that this is a book aimed at the teen market […]
Soccernomics
August 19th, 2012 · Comments Off on Soccernomics · Life
Yet another recently finished book – it has been a good month for reading. This one is Soccernomics by Simon Kuper and Stefan Szymanski. Here is what I wrote about it:
Thihnking Fast and Slow
August 19th, 2012 · Comments Off on Thihnking Fast and Slow · Life
Another book I recently finished is Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman. It is another one of those books that occupies the intersection of psychology and economics, so if you liked Nudge, Freakonomics, The Wisdom of Crowds, Predictably Irrational, The Black Swan or any of the other many similar books you will probably love […]
The Prankster
August 19th, 2012 · Comments Off on The Prankster · Life
This week I finished reading The Prankster by James Polster. It was an advance proof copy, but the book is on sale now – I read it all in a day but had to wait until I finished a couple of much more substantial books before I could start it. The most notable thing about […]
Terminology
August 18th, 2012 · Comments Off on Terminology · Technology
Quick question: what to you call one of these? I have captioned it as a USB stick, but they are also called flash drives, pen drives, thumb drives, memory sticks, USB memory cards, and various combinations of those names. How is it that a device can become so ubiquitous so quickly and we can’t even […]
Final Olympic thoughts
August 15th, 2012 · Comments Off on Final Olympic thoughts · Life
A few final thoughts on the London Olympics, and especially about the opening and closing ceremonies. The closing ceremony seems to have been as universally criticised as the opening ceremony was praised, but at the time I quite enjoyed it all, even if I now can’t remember why.
Tags: Olympics
A few more Olympic thoughts
August 14th, 2012 · 3 Comments · Life
The last couple of days of competition found my mind wandering a bit more.
Tags: Olympics
