mssv

  • The Sunny State

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    After a week of dismal weather and tiring winds that sap all of the enjoyment out of cycling, not to mention dozens of niggling problems at the lab and a whole host of other things, things have finally started to improve here in Oxford. Yesterday I found out that I’ll be going to a vision…

  • Inarticulate

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    3–4 minutes

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    The Guardian’s Life section (science) has an article about the impenetrable writing favoured by scientists when writing in journals. This is hardly a new development but it’s no less interesting or disappointing for it; what is disappointing is that the author, Chris McCabe, has reduced this interesting subject to a directionless and misguided article, which…

  • Remembrance of Books Past

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    Remembrance of Books Past – an article by Ray Bradbury in which he talks about the idea of rewriting books from memory; a never-realised sequel to Fahrenheit 451. “Why not a sequel to ‘Fahrenheit 451’ in which all the great books are remembered by the Wilderness People and are finally reprinted from memory. What then?…

  • Oxford

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    One of the great things about living in a university town like Oxford or Cambridge is that interesting events and lectures are being held almost every day, and they’re usually free to attend. Most of the events that I go to, I hear about through friends or mailing lists, but of course there are many…

  • Ares Express 3

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    Ares Express Issue 3 is now online – this week’s issue covers a talk I’m giving to the Oxford University Society Society in a fortnight, in addition to a selection of the best threads from the New Mars forums and interesting Mars news from around the Internet.

  • Fourth Rock

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    7 comments on Fourth Rock

    Instead of watching the Superbowl last night, I ended up catching A Life Less Ordinary, which was assuredly a better experience than seeing American Football and Janet Jackson. It’s a much more quirky comedy than I thought it would be, and could in some ways be seen as a proto-Moulin Rouge; it even has a…

  • Accelerate

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    (Ten minutes later). Well, scrub that, it seems like I’m going out tonight after all.

  • Slowdown

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    It’s a Saturday night, and I’m in my room at college listening to someone’s shared iTunes music (Queen), guzzling lots of water and watching the end of Groundhog Day for the fiftieth time. Let’s just say that my plans for tonight didn’t turn out quite as expected. It’s a familiar tale to anyone who lives…

  • It’s Complicated, It’s Complex!

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    1 comment on It’s Complicated, It’s Complex!

    (Arrrgghhhh! Safari just crashed on me, right on the verge of finishing a long post, reconstructed below. Let no man give Apple unqualified praise now – they have erred, and they have erred greviously in allowing such a shoddy, slow, pre-beta, crash-prone piece of bug-ridden garbage such as Safari to be released to the general…

  • Let it Snow!

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    The snow has finally arrived in Oxford in force, accompanied by dramatic peals of thunder and lightning! From what I can see – which is very little, because the snowfall is very thick – the flakes are pretty large and sticky and I should imagine that if this keeps up for a few hours we’ll…