vmilner

18 ms·

91.
by vmilner 2y ago
I used to check the live world snooker championship scores on teletext in the 80s (when the BBC didn’t show it all live) Now skipping between it on iPlayer and hacker news in my phone…
92.
by vmilner 2y ago
Weird flashback to reading on Ceefax in 1988 that Feynman had died.
93.
by vmilner 3y ago
Returning to a Uk university after 30 years recently to do a taught masters (STEM subject) I noticed that modules were either marked on a curve or (more dubiously) had a “revision lecture” where essentially the lecturer described what quest
94.
by vmilner 3y ago
Christopher Priest was working on a biography of Ballard when he died this week.
95.
by vmilner 3y ago
Yeah - my mother has this (symptoms similar to the article) - annoyingly more teas seem to be including small amounts of bergamot in - currently Twinings English Breakfast in the uk is fine though - so we stock up when on special offer.
96.
by vmilner 3y ago
Really enjoyed the interview with Freeman Dyson here on his life story - “someone left some Real Analysis textbooks in the school library but they were in French. It was probably (G. H.) Hardy.” https://m.youtube.com/playlis
97.
by vmilner 3y ago
I’m always curious as to whether taking the top 1% (say) of articles in Wikipedia (ordered by view frequency over a year say) and possibly adding the articles that link to those to some depth (say 3 deep) would feel very different to the fu
98.
by vmilner 3y ago
The actor John Shrapnel read this and 4 others (including “The Sentinel”) beautifully with very subtle background effects for bbc radio over 5 nights (labelled “The nine billion names of God”) but annoyingly they don’t seem to have them ac
99.
by vmilner 3y ago
Even playing bridge (card game) with random people online can be pretty grim, though playing online games organised by some national authority (eg the English Bridge Union) is a lot better.
100.
by vmilner 3y ago
https://www.ffothello.org/livres/beginner-Randy-Fang.pdf
101.
by vmilner 3y ago
This reminded me that the Ready Player One audiobook is wonderfully narrated by Wil Wheaton and has Wil Wheaton mentioned in passing as a character about halfway through…
102.
by vmilner 3y ago
I hadn’t grasped the all-cause aspect from a skim read.
103.
by vmilner 3y ago
I’ve loved Henry Sugar since the 70s but assumed any video adaptation would make a mess of it - thankfully the Wes Anderson film is wonderful.
104.
by vmilner 3y ago
I’m enjoying working through https://www.amazon.co.uk/Mathematics-Its-History-Undergradua... by Stilwell Which is a history of mathematics but with serious examples to work on, and may appeal to self-study maths fans.
105.
by vmilner 3y ago
Do physicists really pretend to have read the Principia?
106.
by vmilner 3y ago
Any excuse to revisit BBC4’s brilliant comedy drama doc “Micro men”.., https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=sIcAyFVK0gE
107.
by vmilner 3y ago
Is the mention of the history of 3D printed firearms likely to be the issue, I vaguely remember those causing similar issues before. (Mandatory clarification: I don’t necessarily agree that that’s a good reason to shut an account, but Googl
108.
by vmilner 3y ago
Yep - those were the days when there was a pretty good chance that people doing Uk computer science degrees had a working knowledge of Z80 or 6502 machine code from hacking Elite/Jet Set Willy/Manic Miner on their ZX Spectrums&#x2
109.
by vmilner 3y ago
As an aside modern bridge dealing machines/algorithms generate a 96 bit random number and do a one-to-one map to a particular deal (ie not doing lots of random calls and moving cards with a Fisher Yates shuffle, say).
110.
by vmilner 3y ago
Weakness discussed here https://arxiv.org/abs/1909.06300
111.
by vmilner 3y ago
When I see perceivable sneakiness, I assume non-perceivable sneakiness is there too. (E.g. Poor product standards, worker abuse)
112.
by vmilner 3y ago
I bought Lidl Tower Gate Chocolate Digestive Biscuits because of the annoying look-like-mcvities-packaging thing, but they're actually pretty good... https://cdn.images.express.co.uk/img/dynamic/14/590x&#
113.
by vmilner 3y ago
Sainsbury’s don’t like changing the weights encoded in their urls so although Cadburys 180g “Price locked” Fruit and Nut has been shrinkflated for over a year the link is still: https://www.sainsburys.co.uk/gol-ui/produ
114.
by vmilner 3y ago
Can you get other (ie non-Cadbury) brands of chocolate that don’t have the butyric acid that (I believe) makes Hershey etc. so grim to most British palates?
115.
by vmilner 3y ago
You can still get UK blackcurrant yogurt (eg "Longley Farm") in the same little pots I used to get from the milkman in the mid-70s so not all is wrong with the world....
116.
by vmilner 3y ago
I remember Annapolis MD used to have a store with lots of British biscuits, Marmite, Bovril, marmalade, Ribena etc. - an oasis to the Englishman abroad.
117.
by vmilner 3y ago
I am with you on this.
118.
by vmilner 3y ago
That (betting pattern analysis) certainly happens in snooker betting and snooker has only around 100 to 200 pro players.
119.
by vmilner 3y ago
I remember watching a video of Adele recording a song (“When we were young”) at the Church Studios in London in a room that’s obviously part of a church without noticeable anechoic protection, and thinking “How on earth do you keep London n
120.
by vmilner 3y ago
Thankfully when I mentioned some topics from a Gardner book when at school in the 80s my maths teacher was encouraging and didn’t squash me for “reading ahead”. Also the Uk libraries near me at the time seemed to have enlightened people put

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