The American Counterfeit Guest
The U.S. edition of Rose's second novel in the Mary Finch series, The Counterfeit Guest, hits American bookshelves today.
In the beginning was Word
Jeremy Reimer writes a nice Ars Technica piece on why, after more than 20 years of using Microsoft Word, he now almost never uses it.
Is the age of the word-processor drawing to a close?
Thanks to John for the tweet. Update: Well I never... at the other end of the table here, John was writing a blog post, and we both picked the same subject and independently came up with the same idea for the title!All that's best of dark and bright...
Just to stop my friends at home from getting too jealous, I should point out that the storm clouds sometimes gather even in Provence in the summer.
Some of the most impressive formations I've seen for a long time swirled overhead this morning, and the hills echoed with the low rumble of thunder.
Note that this photo was taken just before 9am this morning at the same spot as my post of a couple of days ago.
Still, I'm not expecting too much sympathy... we jumped in the pool, then had a splendid breakfast brought up by John and Fiona from the town below, and the sun is now shining brightly again...
En Provence
It’s tough here.
Yesterday afternoon in Cambridge I had my headlights and wipers on. It’s amazing what a couple of hours in a plane can do.
The joy of vortex
Know what a vortex cannon is? I didn't, but it sounded interesting when my friend @Phil_Boswell mentioned it on Twitter.
So I did a search and found this on YouTube:
Fun, eh? But...call that a cannon? This is a cannon:
Strange goings-on in the supermarket
Supermarkets are strange places. Sometimes they have bizarre ideas about how to make your life easier. And a couple of years ago I reported on how my local Waitrose had an area entirely free from long-life milk.
But just this last week I discovered a new product trend of which I was not previously aware:
I confess to having used the same kind of toilet roll all year round in the past. Perhaps certain types only grow at certain times of the year, though, and mine were being flown in from Portugal in the winter?
Or perhaps it's a fashion statement, and visitors have been whispering behind my back that my loo rolls are so last-season...
Science education and critical thinking
I've just been watching this great panel discussion with Richard Dawkins, Neil Degrasse Tyson, Ann Druyan and Victor Stenger. It's about the value of critical thinking and the challenges that religions cause for science teaching. It takes a few minutes to warm up but is well worth watching. It's an hour long.
I hadn't seen Neil DeGrasse Tyson before - what a great speaker!
Found on RichardDawkins.netStep in time
Just come across this - very nice demo.