Blog

  • that’s what you wanted

    A pentadecagram:

    pentadecagram

    Download: star.ps (and you can edit it to change the number of points)

  • a sometimes food

    I met someone yesterday who actually believes the Nieman-Marcus Cookie Urban Myth.

  • sunflowers again

    Strange mini-sunflowers are growing up the stem of the half-dead plants.

  • no shave and no haircut, no bits

    The Barber’s Chair has left Scarborough Town Centre. Seems that branch went bust. They left in a hurry; there’s still unswept hair on the floor. Now I have to go to Yorkville for Arthur’s Clydebank patter.

  • about to be gone

    This corner of Bloor & Bedford is about to be gone:

    244 Bloor W

    It has memories for us, as the first place we stayed when we arrived was just up the road. Breakfast was at Country Style (which became a Booster Juice after the massive Tim’s opened across the road), lunch was from Pita Factory, the daily paper from Gus at the Mac’s, dinner was sometimes at Swiss Chalet #1; all on the same block, all going to be gone.
    If you look at the bigger picture, you’ll see that hugin neatly severed a couple of heads. It might smart a little, but with some bactine and gauze, it’ll grow back in the morning.

  • Bored grad students of 1928

    also known as Seth, J. B., Chetan Anand, and Gian Chand. “The effect of moist air on the resistance of pencil lines.” Proceedings of the Physical Society 41.1 (1928): 29. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1088/0959-5309/41/1/303

  • amalgam squidge

    Got yet more mercury alloy trowelled into my head tonight by Dr Choi. I have to say, the best bit about going to the dentist is the squidgy noise the filling paste makes as it compresses into the cavity. It means it’s nearly over, and the burring slow drill is banished until next time.

  • frying tonight!

    We have 22 eentsy platy fry bopping around in the isolation tank. They may be small, but they’re crafty and difficult to net. There are about 3 I didn’t manage to catch, and they’re (figuratively) thumbing their noses at me from under floating fronds.

  • uptown senga

    The Yorkville matron, clad in too much Burberry, doesn’t realise she looks like a chav.

  • big boy’s book of big things

    Christmas came early. With money from Carlyle, I bought a reproduction of Knight’s American Mechanical Dictionary, a three-tome work from the 1870s which catalogued mechanisms, devices and machinery known at the time. It’s the ultimate nerd read.

    You can browse two electronic versions online:

    • at UMich; large page images.
    • at Princeton Imaging; in DjVu format, this is a little easier to read if you have the right plugin.

    I have to say, though, that the dead tree version is a splendid read.

  • in a jam

    I was supposed to have a book on the Golden Ratio waiting for me, but instead they had the Bernardin Complete Book of Home Preserving.

  • that was easy

    upgraded mac

    I upgraded Catherine’s eMac last night, which up until then was probably the last Mac on the planet running 10.1. It now talks to the network better, and runs quite a bit faster.

  • spider in the house

    Ole! Tarantula is in the house, but where’s the promised bonus CD?

  • pastry abuse

    Excel can (but probably shouldn’t) be used to make charts like this:

    hyperdonut

  • damp bandit

    I was busy making Möbius strips out of till roll, when I became aware of a little face watching me at the window. A very damp raccoon had one paw up on the window sill, and was looking at me as if to ask, “What are you doing making single-sided paper figures on a night like this?”

  • faint praise

    Dylan’s Modern Times is a bit, uh, adult contemporary.

  • beautiful bike

    Sorry there’s no picture, but there’s a beautiful Pedersen parked outside Chester TTC. It’s the original tallbike.

  • segue to black

    Could Segway’s voluntary recall be the end of it? Every single Segway needs a software update for safe operation. Corvair; Pinto; Segway?