“Substitute ‘damn’ every time you’re inclined to write ‘very;’ your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be.” — Mark Twain

“Winter fashions are coming.”

Does anyone else find it slightly ironic that the credits are being handed out via Amazon? Because while Apple and their new-found friends in the publishing industry may have been colluding to fix the price of ebooks at a level they were happy with, there’s a case to be made that Amazon is no innocent when it comes to…

It wasn’t Odroid. I won’t name the vendor/board because I don’t want to be negative, and I was able to get the board up and running without too much pain. I think the situation is getting better with that particular device.

I’m happy to name ones that I think do it well. As Thorin said, the Raspberry Pi isn’t bad. I…

Having played with a number of SBCs, including some not listed there, I’m increasingly convinced that a key differentiator is how easy it is to get started using the device. Some vendors have really gone the extra mile to make the setup process as easy as possible. Others seem to feel that their responsibility ends…

Three-act structure:

Act 1: It’s a fuckin’ bear!
Act 2: Nooooooo!
Act 3: Drama, happy ending.

In the US, the insurance company would still be trying to figure out the correct billing code for “Moving critical medical equipment by fighter jet”.

Having been stuck behind many, many bike share riders “just gently coasting along” and “looking at the sights”, three abreast in the bike lane, I can confirm that this is indeed the case. What the studies don’t explain is why more of them aren’t beaten to death by their frustrated fellow cyclists.

I’m all for bike…

I once heard an American refer to “Lewis Vyten”; it took me a moment to figure out what he was talking about.

Actually, Hoegarden isn’t “who-gard-en” either. The ‘g’ sound sounds more like an ‘h’ than a ‘g’, but it’s made at the back of the throat, so that it has a rasping quality to it. For the ‘d’, Flemish speakers will often make the sound with the tongue tip slightly further forward than for a ‘d’ in English, so it begins…

Whenever I fly, I’m amused by the way that the diagrams on the emergency card haven’t caught up with the realities of modern economy flying. Seats are now so close together that no one over four feet tall could actually adopt the brace position as it’s shown on the cards, bent fully forward with their heads protected…

I’m writing a dystopian novel in which the gay CEO of a forward-thinking mega-corporation takes time out from fighting against intrusive government surveillance to announce the availability of a new nylon watchband.

My beta readers say it’s a bit implausible, but I insist it could really happen.

I recommend lithographer’s tape (‘rubylith’), a translucent red tape used by lithographers and designers. Rather than blocking the light completely like electrical tape, it lets a small amount of light through, dimming the eye-staringly bright LEDs of a typical consumer device to a muted red glow. You can still see…

Why would you do that? Shudder.

Why would you do that? Shudder.

In northern Italy, where dense winter fogs are a regular feature, they have large circles painted on the road at fixed intervals. There are also signs explaining what your speed should be based on the number of circles you can see ahead of you.

Fixed now. He must have come back and

Did the end of this piece get cut off? It seems to end abruptly in the middle of a sentence.

If it had been a QR code, I would have thought that this was a desperate last-ditch effort by the QR code people to get someone, anyone, to finally scan a QR code.

Having tried a number of clients, including Mailbox, I second @braf-d-log’s recommendation for Spark. It’s stable, attractive, and has a good feature set. And it’s just a regular mail client: unlike Mailbox, it doesn’t insist on routing all your mail through someone else’s servers (which was the deal-killer for me…

A movie producer friend for whom I’ve done occasional script-doctoring work once told me “I’ve been in contact with someone who currently owns the rights for a sci-fi novel called ‘The Stars My Destination’, and there’s a possibility that we might be able to buy the rights and make the film. Do you know anything about…