Review: The Very Short Introduction
Infinity, A Very Short Introduction, by Ian Stewart This review was originally written for the London Mathematical Society November 2018 Newsletter. The book can be found here. The “Very Short Introduction” series by Oxford University Press attempt to take a moderately deep dive into various subjects in a slimline volume. Professor Stuart addresses the apparent […]
Of Wired, Wireless, Sky+ and 5GHz, and the Linksys ea6300 router
This is partly a ramble, partly a product review, and partly a howto, and mainly an aide memoire. It will naturally therefore be unlikely to succeed perfectly at any of those, but if you have questions, place them in a comment. We moved into this house just under two years ago, and when we moved […]
A review and response to "The First Jedi"
A few months ago, Allen Baird wrote to me courteously to tell me he had written a book about some experiences running a Jedi Course at Queen's University, that I was tangentially involved in. I discovered the book was available about a week ago, and obtained the Kindle copy and read it over a few […]
Gnome 3, or Gnome Shell issues
I use the Debian operating system on several computers. My "main" computer (Imladris) runs Debian unstable (Sid) while the others mostly run on testing. I've been anticipating the Gnome 3 upgrade for some time, mainly because of the switch to Gnome Shell which is a completely new way of using the desktop. I had played […]
HTC Desire versus Apple iPhone 4
I have both these phones. The HTC Desire is my personal phone, and runs Android (in this case Froyo, Android 2.2). I've been using Android for some time now, and regular readers will know I haven't been shy about commenting on its problems in the early releases. I also have, and have had for about […]
Cthulhu and Cosmic Terror
For many years now, I've been aware of the Cthulhu Mythos, since it infuses lots of popular culture. Indeed, Dread Cthulhu was recently blamed for the horizon oil spill, a theory that I rather enjoyed. Despite this, I hadn't actually read any of H.P. Lovecraft's books directly. Last week and this, I decided to try […]
Roberts WM201 Internet Radio
I recently bought a Roberts WM201 Internet Radio. I've used it for a while now and thought I'd post my thoughts. First of all, I was looking for a radio meeting certain criteria, it needed wifi, I wanted it to pack a reasonable punch since it would essentially be my main music source, it needed […]
Android 1.5 (Cupcake) firmware
I recently wrote about my experiences with the Google G1 dev phone running the 1.1 Android firmware, and discussed a number of problems. Last night I obtained the just released 1.5 (cupcake) firmware and performed the upgrade. That all went smoothly, it helped to have done it before and working out the idiosyncrasies of the […]
HTC Android G1
I obtained an HTC Android G1 dev phone to play with. I've been working with it for almost a week now, and so can post my initial thoughts. And they are quite seriously mixed. There are things about this phone that are just unbelievably good, but with some shockingly unbelievable flaws too, enough to possibly […]
Playstation 3 80Gb
I had a PS1 and have a PS2. I've put off buying a PS3 for a while because they were so dear, the graphics seemed to be at the expense of game play, and because I missed the boat on backwards compatibility on the first model. Today I phoned a friend to ask about backwards […]