• Write a draft of my "All the World's Code" talk for Allhands.
• Update my "Introduction to Twisted" talk for a Canonical-wide audience, and polish up the slides, probably moving them to OpenOffice format.
• Update my "Your Code Sucks" talk for same audience, polish up the slides etc.
• Read about Lisp …

• To throw a thing into the garbage bin is to say that the thing is meaningless to you and that you believe it to be meaningless to others.
• Thus, a garbage bin is a communication device, allow you to signal to others that certain things lack meaning.
• If an item …

Great post by Mary Gardiner; I'm disappointed that it needed to be said at all.

Quoting here in full with Mary's permission, since puzzling.org is under unusually heavy load.

How to talk about Sally Warhaft and Robert Manne

There's a lot of talk in various places about Sally Warhaft …

I do a fair bit of long-haul air travel. I'd like to get a decent pair of headphones or earphones or whatever that I can use on the plane.

Desirable features:

• Small (I'm traveling)
• Robust (I'm traveling)
• Block out or cancel noise (I'm traveling economy)
• Comfortable (I'm traveling economy for …

Seth Godin says that the first question every web site designer must ask is "Do you want the people visiting this site to notice it?"

The first question every writer must ask too, perhaps.

If any programmers are reading this, you don't need to ask this question: I don't want …

There are so many difficult things in the world: saying sorry, bring peace to the Middle East, adapting books to the big screen, accurately modeling turbulent fluids, wearing orange - I could go on forever.

Living in a world full of such difficulties, it's nice to know that there's the occasional …

I'm off to the Blue Mountains this weekend. Am really, really looking forward to being away from the "round eternal".

Just a quick post to say that I'm very much enjoying Post Captain by Patrick O'Brian, and that you should read it too.

Ever wanted to start a business in Australia? The World Bank is here to tell you exactly what to expect.

Found out about this report in The Economist, looking forward to having a flick through.

The populace is an aged Narcissus which worships itself and applauds the commonplace.
Les Miserables, Victor Hugo

It is a touch haughty, but it does rather accurately predict reality television & blogging, no?

The first thing I see when I step off the shuttle bus is a broad, grey, washed-out expanse of floor. The airline staff sit enthroned on their check-in desks, reigning over their empty queues. In the far distance is a wireless hotspot, an ATM and a display cabinet full of …

I finished Love in the Time of Cholera last night. I love the old age and the circular story-telling and the way it didn't end tragically, even though I was expecting it to. And, of course, Marquez's writing is beautiful, even through the dim glass of translation.

And you should too!

David Plotz read the Bible and then blogged about it on Slate.

After spending a year with the good book, I’ve become a full-on Bible thumper. Everyone should read it—all of it! In fact, the less you believe, the more you should read. Let …

• In Cold Blood, Truman Capote
• Night Watch, Sergei Lukyanenko
• Making It All Work, David Allen
• Day Watch, Sergei Lukyanenko
• Perla la Loca (A Love & Rockets book), Jaime Hernandez
• Twilight Watch,Sergei Lukyanenko
• Last Watch, Sergei Lukyanenko

This blog will be available on and off this weekend as I upgrade the server it's on.

I just did my first proper, authentic, recommended "Weekly Review". It's got three steps:

1. Get current
2. Get clear
3. Get creative

For "get current", the idea is that I empty my inbox, clear my desktop and sweep through my head for ideas or nagging worries on the tip of my tongue …

As part of a new lifestyle experiment, I've tweaked my router to block my laptop from all net access after 8pm.

The idea isn't to put a total ban on all nocturnal net activity, but rather to make a space for other things in my life. I'll still be available …

I'm really, really thinking of getting myself a smart phone. Something that I can carry around that has a good calendar, a good address book, a good todo list manager and a way to quickly make notes that I can easily process later.

Maybe it doesn't have to be a …

This weekend, I

• Flew over two thousand kilometres
• Met my newborn niece, Matilda
• Did six hours of supervised driving
• Got my accounting up to date
• Read Day Watch
• Read half of Real World Haskell
• Proved my infinite superiority at Sudoku

What did you do? :-P

Innervisions, by Stevie Wonder. I have no idea how I lost this album. All I know is that I feel this loss keenly.

If I had to guess, I'd say I lent it to someone.