Saturday, January 27, 2007

2: They Call Me Naughty Lola: Personal Ads from the London Review of Books, ed. David Rose

Hilarious.

Some of my favourites:


Blah, blah, whatever. Indifferent woman. Go ahead and write. Box no. 3253. Like I care.



Like the ad above, but better educated and well-read. Also larger bosoms. Man, 38, Watford. Box no. 2712.



Grave disappointment all round WLTM serious mistake in a nightie. Box no. 6453.



How can I follow that? Man, 47. Gives up easily. Box no. 9547.

Monday, January 08, 2007

BoingBoing

It's not a book, but I read it on occasion.

This analysis of incoming links confirms my long-held theory that Cory's posts are absolute bollocks, and Xeni is a blogging queen.

Tuesday, January 02, 2007

1: The Double Helix, James D. Watson

Hell, yeah! Drop some science on me right now!

This is not a science text. It's not even a pop science text. It is a history of science text, but a self-admittedly awfully subjective one. ("self-admittedly"? Jesus.) It's mostly an inspirational tale. It makes you (or me—I don't know what it makes any hypothetical yous do) want to go out and Do Some Science. Like, now. Gimme some science to do!

Two amusing bits to give you a taste of the writing:

Watson's fellowship was not meant for studying X-ray diffraction, and Washington balked when he tried to go to Cambridge to do so. He pretends to work on viruses instead, and needs a professor at the Cavendish to cover for him:


Markham took the news quite casually when I walked into his office and told him that he might acquire a model student who would never bother him by cluttering up his lab with experimental apparatus. He regarded the scheme as a perfect example of the inability of Americans to know how to behave. Nonetheless, he promised to go along with this nonsense.


On attending a garden party at the country home of a baroness:

Sol Spiegelman and I went straight for a butler carrying smoked salmon and champagne, and after a few minutes sensed the value of a cultivated aristocracy.


Anyway: it's funny, and plainly yet cleverly told, and it's short, and you want to read it. And then you want to go and do some science and win a Nobel prize or two.

2007

A new year, a new count.

In the last few weeks of 2006 I mainly worked on the Feynman Lectures on Computation, Bunnie's Hacking the Xbox, and Terry Pratchett's Men at Arms. I started Watson's The Double Helix on the 31st, while lounging about at Lisa and Erik's. I mosied through Knuth Volume 1 again, too, but, really, I didn't get anywhere with that.

So what to do in 2007? Jed expressed interest in reading more, and I thought The Game would befit his new lifestyle, so I got him that for Xmas. We were going to continue with The Rules, but...well. There'll be a post in a few days.

I want to make a dent in those 100 Greatest Books of All Time lists the BBC and such put out, but more likely than not it won't happen. I'll be reading a lot about algorithms these next three months. Whoo.