Here’s a photo I took from my phone, a few months ago.
I had to take an unexpected journey, and had to make a quick decision, in less than ideal circumstances, as to what I would take with me. If, instead of this book and my phone, I had picked up my battered old iPod, then subsequent events might have taken a very different course.
Archive for November, 2012
The concept of irony
Posted in out and about, tagged book, illness, photo on 26/11/2012| Leave a Comment »
Scrappy and derivative or ahead of its time
Posted in juvenilia, tagged book, Brian Kernighan, dissertation, London, memory, programming, Rob Pike on 16/11/2012| Leave a Comment »
Kevin Simler’s recent posting on ethics and programming features one of my favourite Brian Kernighan quotes. (I won’t repeat it here, as you can read it there.) This reminded me of another favourite thing: the cover illustration to The Practice of Programming, which features a little dog pointing out the book’s trio of key concepts.
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A reasonable question
Posted in theory, tagged book, fandom, knowledge, question, taxi on 09/11/2012| Leave a Comment »
In the light of Venkat Rao’s theory of gollumization and raving fandom, it’s reasonable to ask the question: “Am I a raving Venkat Rao fan?”
There’s evidence on both sides, but here’s my case against.
Admittedly, I dutifully gave away my stealth edition of Tempo, and claimed my free Kindle edition to replace it. But, although the content was all very interesting, there was something I didn’t quite like about either edition. I didn’t like the way they smelled. To quote Rupert Giles:
Smell is the most powerful trigger to the memory there is. A certain flower, or a whiff of smoke can bring up experiences long forgotten. Books smell musty and rich. The knowledge gained from a computer is a — it, uh, it has no texture, no context. It’s there and then it’s gone. If it’s to last, then the getting of knowledge should be, uh, tangible, it should be, um, smelly.
Let’s pick a different example. Perhaps a neglected difference between a satnav nomad’s understanding of a city, and The Knowledge of London is in smell: fried breakfast, stale cigarettes, diesel, piss.
Decoding Annie Parker
Posted in arts and crafts, tagged film on 09/11/2012| Leave a Comment »
I don’t normally pay that much attention to up-coming films. (I’m avoiding agreeing to see The Hobbit…) However this one recently came to my attention.
It all looks rather intriguing. Hopefully it will be shown at the Arts Picture House, when it comes out.
Kids these days…
Posted in arts and crafts, tagged graffiti, language, photo, swan on 02/11/2012| Leave a Comment »
I must be getting old. Surely it should be Mr. Asbo Swan. Also: “Evek”?
Data insights and open source search
Posted in out and about, tagged Cambridge, Open Source, pub, search on 02/11/2012| 2 Comments »
This week had risked turning into a disappointment, what with Richard Sennett’s lecture on “The Open City” being cancelled. But last night more than made up for it. The Data Insights Cambridge meetup group, er, met up, for a brilliant talk by Charlie Hull, founder of Flax, about open source search engines.
Instead of talking about how search engines are implemented, as fascinating as that stuff is, he largely talked about industry politics, which turns out to be fascinating too.
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CODE conference review
Posted in out and about, tagged Alan Blackwell, Cambridge, ice cream, Open Source on 01/11/2012| 1 Comment »
I was having a conversation the other day about a talk Alan Blackwell gave a couple of years back, about the history of the “Cambridge phenomenon”. This reminded me how, many moons ago, I attended a conference he organised entitled Collaboration and Ownership in the Digital Economy. It was about the possible wider cultural significance of challenges, in the software world, to entrenched ideas of intellectual property.
At the time I wrote a report on it, for my then employers. If only I’d had the foresight to keep a copy for myself…
I’ve forgotten much about it, but before I forget even more, here’s a brief review, a decade too late.
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rdn32 