vmilner

15 ms·

151.
by vmilner 4y ago
BBC Radio did a great dramatisation of Espedair Street (80s Scottish Rock band story)
152.
by vmilner 4y ago
In these days of 100GB games I’m still in awe of how much fun I had from a game stored in 128KB (SimCity on the ZX Spectrum in 1990). And it was perfectly playable in 48KB.
153.
by vmilner 4y ago
It’s kilometres specifically that I hear used rarely in the Uk. Other SI units are relatively common I agree.
154.
by vmilner 4y ago
Metres and mm I hear a lot but kilometres very little - mainly because of miles on road signs. I guess the last reference I remember is to 5K runs.
155.
by vmilner 4y ago
I can’t remember when I last heard a Brit of any age use kilometres in any context.
156.
by vmilner 4y ago
I live on a road where all the houses on one side were built first and numbered 1 2 3 4... The houses on the other side were built later and have names and no numbers.
157.
by vmilner 4y ago
“The map that changed the world” Also brilliant - story of of how the first geology map was created by finding differently evolved fossils.
158.
by vmilner 4y ago
Andrea Riseborough plays her brilliantly in the wonderful Death of Stalin movie.
159.
by vmilner 4y ago
I loved these as a 70s/80s kid - favourites being Time Traveller, Voice from Space and Invisible Boy. I’m surprised they all made it to the UK but all the children’s libraries seemed to have them.
160.
by vmilner 4y ago
I thought that was from the Fast Show for a moment... “With my reputation?”
161.
by vmilner 4y ago
Red Dwarf was there first... https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LRq_SAuQDec
162.
by vmilner 4y ago
If Dahl were alive I think we can assume he would either veto this if legally able to, or loudly tell the public to read the original editions. I’m surprised his estate haven’t objected to be honest. (EDIT: Apparently Netflix own the Roald
163.
by vmilner 4y ago
"tarball (tar archive) While the term refers to an archive that has been created with the tar command, it can be negatively associated with the pejorative term tarbaby." https://s.wsj.net/public/resources&#x2F
164.
by vmilner 4y ago
It gives us evidence (for the above discussion) that the term “brown bag lunch” has actually been documented as harmful by someone - and wasn’t just made up as a stick to beat diversity initiatives with. I would argue it also gives an indic
165.
by vmilner 4y ago
Well, it (brown bag lunch) made the Stanford harmful language list. I agree there is enough moronic content on that list to give the impression that the writers were playing false-flag games. But I’m prepared to believe they were sincere.
166.
by vmilner 4y ago
I’m not getting a 5.
167.
by vmilner 4y ago
I’d be quite happy for my students to use the terms “tarball”, “git master branch”, and “American”. Am I getting a 5?
168.
by vmilner 4y ago
> (and every single British prime minister since Thatcher went to boarding school) I don’t think Major,May or Truss did - state grammar schools and private schools yes, but I don’t believe they were boarding schools - but I may have miss
169.
by vmilner 4y ago
“We decide on something, leave it lying around and wait and see what happens. If no one kicks up a fuss, because most people don't understand what has been decided, we continue step by step until there is no turning back.” - Jean-Claud
170.
by vmilner 4y ago
Horseradish may be a counterexample.
171.
by vmilner 4y ago
For years I read the word “Albeit” in my head as the sound “al-bite” and did not realise that other people were reading it as “all be it”. (I thought that they were reading something _written_ as “all be it”.) Clearly “albeit” is a contra
172.
by vmilner 4y ago
I made one of these in 1985 on my parents dining table. I had no idea Martin Gardners books were laying the ground for a maths science career. Those books (picked up at random from the public library) were the Numberphile (etc) videos of th
173.
by vmilner 4y ago
I’m wondering how many encyclopaedias make the cut. Bound to be something in any large one that gets it banned.
174.
by vmilner 4y ago
Something else I’ve found extremely useful in getting into maths topics is the Princeton Companion to Mathematics - it doesn’t have exercises but gives excellent overview essays of a wide range of maths topics - expensive to buy (mine was a
175.
by vmilner 4y ago
I’m reading and like Thomas Garrity’s “All the mathematics you missed (but need for graduate school)” which is this but for people who did a bachelors degree but missed certain areas (or forgot them). https://www.amazon.co.uk&#x2
176.
by vmilner 4y ago
I’m now puzzled as to how I’ve managed to buy Simon and Schuster audiobooks in mp3 form without DRM from audiobookstore.com.
177.
by vmilner 4y ago
Yes - see the “Making bridge deals” section of: https://sater.home.xs4all.nl/doc.html
178.
by vmilner 4y ago
Interestingly the method used to deal bridge hands for top tournaments doesn’t shuffle at all, it generates a random number between 1 and 52!/(13!^4) and maps that number to a corresponding deal of the cards.
179.
by vmilner 4y ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9039798 Is about Harvard and MIT being sued in 2015.
180.
by vmilner 4y ago
This was demonstrated vividly when Andy Serkis read The Hobbit unabridged live for charity then did a separate recording as a commercial release. Both were great, but you could see how many minor flaws were in the live recording that would

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