I’ve decided to separate the actual chess GAME I played last week, and that I was talking about in the last post, into a separate post here. The main reason for this is that specifically chess analysis-related comments can now go here, while anything else can go on the previous post.
So… arriving for my second competitive league chess match last Tu Continue reading
Opposite the advertisement for the Grant Arms Hotel, Grantown-on-Spey (“The Wildlife Hotel”) in Autumn 2011′s Birds magazine from the RSPB, Caroline Nash tells us she’s helping to save sparrows. As you might know, sparrows—which for some of us are the epitome of garden birds—are declining in numbers across the UK. Nash is wo Continue reading
In which I ponder where to hide my latest, and oldest, obsessive enthusiasm…
I have another of my chess games, played last week, I thought I might post up… but as I was thinking about this, a question arose.
Or rather – two related questions:
First – how many readers of the blog are there are that actually want to see chess Continue reading
This post comes on the heels of the heat wave that we’ve been suffering through (and my dreams of glaciers and mountains), here in the American Middle-West, which in itself comes in the wake of the flood. It also comes in envy of some of the fantastic photos that Steffi has posted over the past months in this post and others.
But the real ins Continue reading
We’ve had our snake Sid for some time now. Here she is, earlier today:
Sid is a corn snake (Elaphe guttata). We think she’s a ‘she’, based on the morphology of the tail, but don’t know for sure. Corn snakes are great reptiles for beginners – easy to keep, easy to handle, calm and laid-back. We’ve had her s Continue reading
As well as a dilemma, we have the potentially useful term trilemma and even tetralemma (the choice between two, three or four options respectively). But a lemma, in mathematics anyway, is a stepping-stone in a proof, and does not mean “half of a dilemma”, which is what I thought when I first came across the word.
As every person who tak Continue reading
Just to let you know (both of you) that I’ll be hosting the Carnival of Evolution on 1st September. That’ll be the 39th edition – before that will be, of course, counting backwardly in an inverse direction, the 38th edition, which Larry Moran will host over at the Sandwalk (you can submit posts – not just yours, but anyone&# Continue reading
I bought a Starbucks coffee and sandwich on Wednesday, and it made my day.
This might sound like a very bizarre statement, especially in a city with an abnormally high Starbucks density (two per block in places), and indeed I don’t usually go there. But Wednesday’s purchase represents much more than just lunch…
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So, farewell, Space Shuttle. However, don’t expect me to get all teary-eyed and nostalgic for the End of an Era in space exploration. Unlike most people, it seems, to judge from the eulogies on Facebook and so on and so forth, I think (and have always thunk) that the Space Shuttle was a flying white elephant, a vastly expensive and desperatel Continue reading
