Facebook's most recent set of changes prompted me to explore Google+ and if nothing else it is a lot easier on the eye, probably because I don't have all that many circle members, or whatever they're called, yet. Of course, ultimately one wants everything duplicated everywhere¹ so I wandered ove...

There’s more ➢

We recently took delivery of a new immersion water heater, the old one having given up the ghost after less than four years. Two problems arise, one of which I don’t really care about. I seem to remember, long ago in a distant galaxy, frequently getting embroiled over cocoa and crumpets on whether l...

There’s more ➢

When Luigi first told me he was...

There’s more ➢

We are legion, the folks who recognize that the Mac is not a Typewriter, and yet want -- crave, actually -- a blank piece of carbonless copy paper with its vertical lines at 40 and 60 characters on which we honed our skills, such as they are.

So when I read Kevin Lipe’s Guest Post at Forkbombr, M...

There’s more ➢

Occasionally I try to impart some elements of good science storytelling to people, and one of the points I make (based entirely on Garrett Hardin) is the big difference between literacy and numeracy. Literacy understands full well that the difference between a million and a billion is one letter. And that a billion is bigger than a million. But how much bigger? My example is simple enough. If a million seconds is 11 days (which it is, give or take), how long is a billion seconds?

It's especially worrying when the big numbers refer to big money. US Senator Everett Dirksen was clearly onto something when he said, "a billion here, a billion there ... pretty soon you're talking about real money". ¹

There’s more ➢