review
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 […]

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hardware
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 […]

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hardware
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 […]

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review
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 […]

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hardware
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 […]

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random musings
Ethics and Terminators

I went to Terminator Salvation tonight with Andy. I don't think what follows will act as a spoiler, but if you haven't seen it, plan to, and worry about that, look away now. I enjoyed the first two Terminator films hugely. The third one, ho hum, and this one was good entertainment except for the […]

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hardware
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 […]

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hardware
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 […]

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hardware
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 […]

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hardware
Nokia N95

Just before we went on our family holiday, I went with Karen to look at new phones for me and for her. Karen liked the look of the phone, but wanted it in a specific colour and was prepared to wait to order that. I decided I liked the look of the Nokia N95. The […]

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