2013/01/06 18:14
I decided to read Poul Anderson's Tau Zero because I was getting frustrated with the physical implausibility of most science fiction, in particular the ubiquitous use of the warp drive (i.e., faster-than-light space travel), and I had heard that this book explored space travel at slightly less than the speed of light.Although this did turn out to be the case,...
2012/09/30 22:21
I recently finished reading Going South: Why Britain Will Have A Third World Economy By 2014 by Larry Elliott and Dan Atkinson.While I enjoyed parts of the book, I don't think I can really recommend it: it reads a bit like some articles strung together with a bit of editorial glue -- there are too many repetitions and a lack...
2013/01/07 22:39
I got the wonderful Danish TV series Matador (“Monopoly”, as in the board game) on DVD for Christmas.
It follows a range of characters in the fictional town of Korsbæk between 1929 and 1947. It was made in loving detail, so apart from being great TV, it also makes for great history lessons.
Obviously, by now few people can actually remember that time well, but when it was produced (1978-82), it was still relatively recent history. It was the idea of Lise Nørgaard, who was born in 1917, so she was basically documenting Denmark as she remembered it from she was 12 until she turned 30.
It would be a bit like if person born in 1953 came up with an idea for a TV series set between 1965 and 1983, to be produced between 2014 and 2018. If it was done really well, it’s likely people would still enjoy it in 2048.
I think it’d be equally compelling whether it was set in Denmark, in Scotland or somewhere else.
2012/12/30 2:33
I've just finished watching the most amazing film together with Phyllis and Charlotte.It's about cooking and blogging, so it's no wonder that it tickled our fancy (well, my dear wife's and mine, but even Charlotte seemed to enjoy it).It's about a 30-year-old New Yorker, Julie, who decides to cook every recipe in Julia Child's cookbook (available in two volumes, one and two) and blog about the experience. Simultaneously, we are following Julia Child's life in Paris, her culinary education and...
2012/12/03 23:08
Phyllis and I watched the Norwegian/Swedish film Kitchen Stories ("Salmer fra Kjøkkenet") again last night.We enjoyed it the first time we watched it a few years ago, but it turned out that it is one of those rare movies that actually are better the second time.I'm not sure explaining what the film is about is a good idea -- the...
2012/02/22 23:03
I recently installed Ubuntu 11.10 – Oneiric Ocelot – on my work laptop, upgrading from Ubuntu 10.10.I had read about how many people criticised it for making Unity the default window manager, but I had expected it otherwise to be...
2012/02/16 20:51
For the past three days I've been working at a French company in Champs-sur-Marne, a Parisian suburb. Every day we've gone for lunch at a local restaurant, and it's been a pleasant experience every time.Today we went to quite a...
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