John, I'm only dancing

Mon. Jan 4th 1892

2011-01-04T12:04:00.000-08:00

Still freezing cold - went back to bed after breakfast as I didn't feel very lively. I have tasted five puddings now. Franc's, Mam's, Li's, Mrs Gracous and my own. Have at last got the paper signed by Mr Squire and shall be a member of the Kensington Public Library on Thursday. I have been pulling all the bills (paid and unpaid) tidy for the New Year and trying to find out where the money goes, but without success - sent a notice of withdrawal for the whole amount in the savings bank PO. Certainly it is only 2/- [£0.10 - Ed.] - but it will add to my "sixpence" bank. Had a letter to ask me to call on Mrs Keene about some work, for which I shall be glad. I had two surprises this evening, a letter came for Jim and he only told me it was from a fellow about a watch. He had sold his to Bert (I know B. had bought a watch from a friend and he asked my opinion of it and also Fred's - fancy me not knowing my husband's watch. I thought I might have been told about it at the time B showed it to me. So Jim thought of buying a new watch with the birthday present Mam gave him instead of a gold chain.

Surprise No. 2 - that Jim had passed the necessary medical exam before joining some benefit club which Jim Pegg had advised him to join. I should have preferred the "Hearts of Oak" but I was not informed or consulted in either case.

2009-11-03T16:30:00.000-08:00

Andrew Simms: We have only 100 months to avoid irreversible environmental disaster | Environment | The Guardian

2008-08-01T06:48:00.000-07:00

Andrew Simms: We have only 100 months to avoid irreversible environmental disaster | Environment | The Guardian

The Future of Software Development

2007-10-17T07:50:00.000-07:00

The Future of Software Development Found this by looking at 'popular' articles on del.icio.us.

Can an MRI See God? (News) Brendan Mackie

2007-10-16T08:17:00.000-07:00

Can an MRI See God? (News) Brendan Mackie

Ghosts in the machine | COSMOS magazine

2007-10-16T08:16:00.000-07:00

Ghosts in the machine | COSMOS magazine A quick summary of the ideas from his book wot Ihave, but haven't read...

The Learning Curve of Video Lighting | Common Craft - Explanations In Plain English

2007-10-16T02:10:00.000-07:00

The Learning Curve of Video Lighting | Common Craft - Explanations In Plain English These videos are really excellent. I wonder if you can use shared bookmarking within a private setting, ie amongst work collegues?

Guardian Unlimited | Comment is free | Extinction of the engineers

2007-10-15T03:17:00.000-07:00

Guardian Unlimited | Comment is free | Extinction of the engineers So why are we creating a generation of consumers and other 'modern' countries aren't?

evhead: On-demand QA

2007-10-09T08:06:00.000-07:00

evhead: On-demand QA

seems to work better in firefox than in IE...

No pain, no gain

2007-10-09T07:16:00.000-07:00

We are often told that light activities such as walking and housework are enough to keep us fit. Sadly, it's just not true. Well, at least not according to The Guardian

evhead

2007-10-09T05:20:00.000-07:00

evhead noted that blogger posts seem to be v slow - I just noticed that today, but I am sure it wasn't like that before - perhaps s0mething has changed?

Reading Hooke's notebooks online

2007-10-09T03:37:00.000-07:00

Royal Society press release worth following up

BMI target in sight now!

2007-09-20T02:11:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I checked out my BMI and stuff and found out that my target weight is 12st 9lbs. That would be 5st less than I was in April, but only 13lbs from where I was on the scales today. So the end is in sight. Will be interesting to see if I can get that last 9lbs off at the same rate as I have managed so far...

XMOS gets $16m funding, welcomes Hauser to board

2007-09-13T02:40:00.000-07:00

XMOS gets $16m funding, welcomes Hauser to board they are developing Software Defined Semiconductors - which is something I alluded to when I gave my IEE talk many moons ago.

Guardian Unlimited Politics | Special Reports | I'm backing Brown, Prescott declares

2006-09-28T01:37:00.000-07:00

Guardian Unlimited Politics Special Reports I'm backing Brown, Prescott declares

Back again

2006-02-24T05:28:00.000-08:00

Haven't been here for a while. Noticed that I seem to get spam comments. Inevitable I suppose...

Testing Firefox Livefeed

2004-12-14T06:46:00.000-08:00

How quick does my livefeed show up this article?

Using OneNote

2004-10-19T09:28:00.000-07:00

There is a post about how to link from one place in OneNote to another (as opposed to a URL).

Common Craft - Online Community Strategies: Podcasting Buzz

2004-10-14T05:46:00.000-07:00

Podcasting looks cool, but need to get an iPod first...

ic Southlondon - Architect George Lowe dies at 96

2004-10-13T01:27:00.000-07:00

Architect of Whitgift School Swimming pool - George Lowe dies at 96

History of Hypertext - what a visionary!

2004-10-12T06:48:00.000-07:00

Vannevar Bush outlined 'memex' - a hypertext-type concept in 1945. See History of Hypertext. What a visionary!

Must make a note of that...

2004-10-12T03:49:00.000-07:00

"Must make a note of that" suggests two useful links:
http://www.oreillynet.com/lpt/wlg/4780 and http://www.craphound.com/lifehacksetcon04.txt

The Internet And the Death Of 80/20

2004-10-07T01:21:00.000-07:00

The Internet And the Death Of 80/20 is, as usual, from this blog, a very interesting article. Basically says that the internet has turned the 80-20 rule upside down and companies like Amazon are able to take you to lesser-known artists with their recommendations, listmania's etc. I had imagined that the opposite was happening because of the way so many internet sites have the 'top 10 hourly' type of lists (not just Amazon). With this, I assumed that it would tend to reinforce and amplify sales of the most popular things - a bit like the way people gather round a crowd in the street, wondering what it is that has brought the crowd there.

If this is true, then a lot more people will make money from their creative output (but just less of it). But that will help make a more equitable world.

Apollo Alliance : Apollo Alliance Featured in Don't Think of an Elephant

2004-10-05T08:08:00.000-07:00

I like what I read in the newsletter I get from the Apollo Alliance - eg Don't Think of an Elephant and I need to read more of their stuff. Don't know if they have an equivalent here though?

Blog.org: E-commerce Archives

2004-10-05T02:19:00.000-07:00

This post at blog.org is about a tool that creates an RSS feed based on changing prices of watched amazon items. The combination of the internet, broadband and rss-type technologies is going to produce some very interesting results. Currently there are a lot of middlemen making money out of matching people and products, but they are slowly going to get squeezed as this sort of technology takes hold. Ultimately this has to be a good thing in that people will get exactly what they want at the price they want and its going to be harder for people to become instant millionaires at the expense of others.

Air travellers asked to pay voluntarily for CO2 emissions

2004-10-01T06:05:00.000-07:00

As Andii says in TheGreening: 09/01/2004 - 09/30/2004 it is no good asking people to volunteer to pay for CO2 emissions caused by their air-travel. a) they probably won't do it and b) what good would it do anyway?

A lot more work has to be done on finding schemes that require all of us to have a null effect on the environment. What is needed are schemes that tax 'pollution' - in the broadest sense of the word and similarly, credit back for pollution reduction.

Helping with homework

2004-10-01T01:37:00.000-07:00

So I am trying to help my 13 year old with her maths and my 11 year old with chemistry. I have done both to A-level, but why do I find it so hard to help them. Is it because I am getting old? Is the understanding in there somewhere?

Why do we teach quadratic expressions and factorising. I could and can do them, but I am pushed to say why we do them?

Why are acids acids and why are alkalis alkalis? I used to know, but it just seems like a murky tunnel now.

Need to find out if there are any self-help forums for parents helping children through their homework?

Call for rethink on private schools' charitable status

2004-09-30T05:52:00.000-07:00

The Guardian reports today Call for rethink on private schools' charitable status Now there is a very valid debate to be had here. Private education is viewed by some as 'unfair' in that it is only available to the well-off and also that it reinforces class divisions. It is quite hard to argue against that, although I think that there are two important points to make:

Every child going to private education saves the per-capita cost to state-education. If there was no private education, state education would have a higher overall cost, which, as it is funded out of general taxation, would cost more to everyone, not just to those who had to 'opt' back in.
If private education is objectionable on principle, then is the purchasing of books, private music lessons, museum visits and any of the other 'educational' activities you can carry out for your children?

But then there is another issue, in allowing universities to be able to charge 'top-up' fees and many planning to do so across-the-board, how is University education now different in principle from private (school) education? I don't think it will be. Developing this further, will universities also then lose their charity status?