stuff

marks blog, and ask me about 'e : the story of a number'

BOOKS : In Code

read this on the weekend - it's all about an irish girl who enters a science competition with a maths (specifically encryption) project and is so successful she (eventually) ends up on the front of The Times and famous (for about 15 minutes).
It is written by the girl in question, and clearly introduces us to the concepts of her project and cryptography (I guess she must be good at it by now...). But the most interesting stuff was about her - how she played maths games with her dad and worked so very hard on the project - deserving the praise she got no doubt - and coped with 'fame'.
Really interesting, worth a read - especially budding mathematicians!!

MOVIES : Dodgeball

OK, I would never normally see this film but Jo recommended it and the only other option was Collateral with Tom Cruise - not something I was really looking for.
It was really good. Surprisingly. If there'd been a big audience laughing along with me I think I would have liked it even better. There were points I was crying with mirth.
As for the obvious (or is it?) story - pretty much summed up by the subtitle 'the story of the real american underdog.' So you can guess how it finishes (or can you? ;)
Everyone does a great job except that guy who seems to be in all the comedies these days who was just gross and overacting. The script was nice, playing up on every cliche there is about the underdog story.
I would definitely recommend it.
(BTW Collateral looks like another american as a terrorist story, and AvP looks OK but not great)

PROGRAMMING : Really good Ruby intro, via JRuby

The IBM kids have all done their usual good working introducing JRuy, and therefore ruby, in a concise and powerful way - somwhat like the language itself!! Any way, check it out

COOKING : Now isn't this easier

I love this! Engineers need to cook too, and here's how to write recipes for them!
It comes out as a table of ingredients, with the instructions for their combination as boxes to the right - instantly and easily outlining not only what has to be done, but also what stuff can be done 'in parallel' and what dependencies between results are.

Essay on Essays

What do you think mum and dad? Here is an essay where a guy (programmer) talks about the art of essay writing. I found it quite interesting... but you guys are of the english lit. tradition so what's your opinion?

BOOKS : Harry Potter and the Order of the Pheonix

What the hell are people complaining about. I thought this book was an excellent continuation of the story threads started in the 4th book. And of course Harry is going to be confused, angry and so on - look at all the stuff that's happening too him, and his hormones too. He's just a normal boy, not some super hero, and is deeply effected by seeing a real human being he knows die right in front of him. Have you? And did you just brush it off, because if you did then I think you are the one who needs help...
Anyhoo, I thought it was great, well worth the 750 pages (mind you I read it quite fast because it's easy/kiddie reading)

GENERAL : how words are read?

Here is an interesting document (from slashdot) talking all about the various models that people have come up with concerning how humans read. It would be interesting to look at how we could use this information to upgrade the readability of our letters... not that that would happen before we changed form qwerty keyboards :)

PHILOSOPHY : Anthropic Principle

Mark sent me this site a while ago, but I've only just looked at it. It seems to be interested in the idea of bias sample spaces, either because of the tools used or the position of the observer. Bears looking at.