unhelpful error message

Well, it’s nice to know there wasn’t an error, I suppose.

---

For all my social networking posts, see my Google+ page

what has the ECHR ever done for us?

Perfect!

---

For all my social networking posts, see my Google+ page

How to identify any language at a glance

How to tell Portuguese from Spanish, Norwegian from Danish, Dutch from German, Irish from Scots Gaelic, Finnish from Estonian, and Chinese from Japanese, and more – just by looking at the characters in the words.

How to identify any language at a glance

I was expecting a test at the end of the article!

[via BoingBoing]

---

For all my social networking posts, see my Google+ page

well, that escalated quickly

One minute, nice sunshine. Next minute, thunder, lightening, and rain.  And it’s not even summer yet!

flee, little bird, flee!

the camera never lies

Get a sense of perspective!

20 great photos from weird angles

[via Jim Hines’ blog]

---

For all my social networking posts, see my Google+ page

how to

Here's a brilliant paper on how to get ideas, build a model, give a presentation, write a paper, write a textbook.  It's addressed to Economics students, but the ideas are generally applicable.

How to Build an Economic Model in Your Spare Time

[via BoingBoing]

---

For all my social networking posts, see my Google+ page

snollygoster

Word of the day: snollygoster: “One, especially a politician, who is guided by personal advantage rather than by consistent, respectable principles.”

---

For all my social networking posts, see my Google+ page

sequestering carbon, several books at a time LVIII

The latest batch:

book review: My Real Children

Jo Walton.
My Real Children.
Corsair. 2014

---

Patricia Cowan is an old woman, forgetful, consigned to a nursing home at the end of her life. The staff note that she is “confused”; she can’t seem to remember the simplest things: which way to turn out of her door, who her children are, any of her life. But that’s not just because of her forgetfulness: she has two sets of memories, and keeps slipping between them. In one, she has a life where she said yes to Mark’s marriage proposal, in the other she has a very different life after she said no. Which life is real?

Walton weaves two very different life histories for her central character, based on a single turning point. Patricia’s life is profoundly affected, as are the lives of people she does, or does not, interact with. Most importantly, to Patricia, are her resulting children: two very different sets, one from each life, both loved. Which children are real? But also, in the background, we see there are two very different world (neither our own), one tending to utopia, the other to doom. Which world is real?

Although it is clear how Patricia’s choice affects her own life, and the lives of those close to her, it is not made clear how it affects the rest of the world, although it is implied that it does: presumably it is some sort of butterfly effect, changing remote people’s decisions. No matter; this is a skilfully drawn and deeply moving portrait of two very different people who are in fact the same person in different circumstances. Patricia’s second, shattering, choice at the end of her life had me reading through strangely misted vision.

---

For all my book reviews, see my main website.

one plus one does not always equal two

I don’t know enough about the specific case here to make a judgement, but this line leapt out at me:

as judged by QALYs, stopping 5400 people from getting a short viral illness from which all recover is more worthwhile than stopping one 3-month-old dying

[QALY = quality-adjusted life years]

So, if QALYs can’t simply be summed, how should they be combined to make a judgement?

---

For all my social networking posts, see my Google+ page

pull to grow

pull it, and it stretches both lengthways and widthways

---

For all my social networking posts, see my Google+ page