On Sunday, motorsport fans around the world will be tuning in to watch one of the sport’s most prestigious events, the Indianapolis 500. The following day will be the 100th anniversary of the 1911 Indianapolis 500, the first running of this famous race. Marking the centenery, Ralph Kramer’s book Indianapolis 500: A Century of Excitement […]
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Books
Another attempt to start reading more
This week, I have decided to make another attempt at reading more books. I read stuff all the time, but almost all of it is on the web. A few hundred words at a time. Lots of breadth but not much depth. I have never done much in the way of reading books. Fiction is […]
Warp20 (Box Set)
Warp Records celebrated its twentieth anniversary this year with an extravagant box set, Warp20 (Box Set). Measuring in at 10 inches × 10 inches × 3 inches, it truly is a thing of beauty. Packed in there are five CDs and five 10 inch records, full of Warp goodness old and new. It was not […]
The value of GDP
There was an interesting blog post over at the Telegraph by Geoffrey Lean over the weekend. He asked if GDP is “past its sell by date”, noting that “the EU is due to publish a paper which will conclude that GDP is too limited a measurement.” I agree with the view that GDP doesn’t tell […]
Are newspapers ready to charge for online content?
Rupert Murdoch’s decision to experiment with charging for content has ruffled a few feathers. Fair play to Murdoch for being brave enough to put his head above the parapet. If anyone can take the risk, it’s Murdoch — and the rest of the media will have him to thank if the gamble pays off and […]
Patrick Hannan — A Useful Fiction
Have you noticed that there is a lot of introspection about devolution just now? I suppose it underlines the fact that devolution is a process rather than a settlement that everyone is still looking at how to tweak it. Maybe it is just the newness of it. The Scottish Parliament is very young as these […]
Five disturbing things about democracy
Here it is: that post I’ve been sitting on for upwards of a year. Before I start, I am going to make a few introductory notes about what I do and don’t mean when I call democracy disturbing. I find that all too often debates about this subject are clouded by dogma, which leads to […]
Sleeping patterns: At project completion
My new year’s resolution for 2008 was to get my sleeping pattern into check. To help me do this I recorded data about my sleep on a daily basis throughout the year. Although it was clearly impossible to get precise measurements of things such as the time I fell asleep, I managed to make estimates […]
Meme: Where I was when…
Sorry to make my first post for a couple of weeks a meme. I was much busier than I expected last week, and with a grand prix this week my blogging activities were focussed on vee8. I’ll still be busy this week but Steven Hill has tagged me in a meme and these are quick […]
My dad can has blog
For those who haven’t put the two and two together, my dad is Jack Stephen who can sometimes be found in the comments on this site. (I can tell you, it’s strange calling my dad ‘Jack’ just so that other people can follow the conversation properly.) Over the weekend I set up a blog for […]