Jun 17
I’ve come across some corkers this past week. In no order:
Star Wars Imperial March:
Cryptae et Dracones
Dr G’s HEMA and XKCD Mashup
May 05
Sam Harris, he of the debates with religious nutters and Letters To A Christian Nation is looking for people to complete some online surveys. Help him out by going to samharris.org
Apr 24
A fairy princess linked me this delightful chappy and I am very glad she did. Funny, poignant and irreverent. I like this muchly.
I do fairy princess. I really do.
Apr 22
Via support site Get Satisfaction, a solution to the recent twitter woes.
Simply follow someone new and then un-follow them. This should reset your cache. Worked for me.
EDIT - there is an automated script for this here.
Apr 21
I spend a lot of time thinking about the mechanics of note taking. I find it a very useful activity, but a struggle to keep my notes relevant and legible. I tend to use a mix of my own symbols, mind-maps and lots of lists. It is far from perfect but it kinda works for me.
It is therefore very interesting see Darwin’s notebooks available online. Cambridge University has put up both the transcriptions and images of his notebooks, as well of versions of his more famous works. How utterly fascinating! On initial inspection he seems to have favoured longhand text, with surprisingly few side notes or diagrams. I wonder if there are more famous notebooks online like this?
Apr 19
A little birdy tells me that Dave Rawlings of Boars Tooth Fight School, is working on his second I.33 DVD. His first was one of the better Martial Arts DVDs I have seen [Hardly surprising given how good a martial artist Dave is], and I am really excited about the second.
If you have even a passing interest in Western Swordsmanship then you should see this new DVD. And the first one.
Apr 19
Whilst not a grammar nerd like some I know, I do find the intensity of those who are reassuring. I know grammar, spelling and the like is very important. I know this because I was taught at school. Repeatedly. Being made to redo the same piece of work for days if needed to get the spelling and grammar correct. Whilst this brute force approach did not leave me with the knowledge to really be a proper grammar freak, it did give me respect for those that are.
However I was not really aware of the Typographical Nerd until this article popped up in my RSS feeds [hat tip to 43 folders]. The way in which people are so concerned about this, and the way the mac caters to it with such care makes me smile.
For example there is a debate in the comments section about the correct character to use to divide currency. Should it be £9.99 or £9·99? A period, or an interpunct? And an ellipsis is not just three dots. It is a special character all of it’s own. This I did not know…
So thank you Mr Phin, a most interesting and informative article.
EDIT - Ironically the pound symbols above are not displaying correctly, at least not on Safari on my mac. Can anyone let me know why?
