My wife and I like to buy books. We probably like to buy books more than we spend time reading them… which is weird. But I recently read one of the books we bought solely on the basis of its title, “They Both Die at the End” by Adam Silvera. Here’s my short review: With just one modification to today’s world, Adam Silvera explores friendship, love, and the meaning of life in a compelling and moving way. They Both Die…
Correction (November 14, 2022): It has now been established that ‘Sans Forgetica’ does not aid recall (Source), so please know that what was written below is now not supported by the evidence. In an earlier post, I described how the font, Lexend Deca, was designed to make it easier to read some material. Since that post, this entire website has utilized that font (so long as your browser and operating system support WOFF files) and this post has hard-coded adherence…
This is not a political blog, but there are some truths that are self-evident or exposed by scientific research. With that in mind, here are some thoughts about how the United States Constitution needs to be changed. The bold green text could be inserted, with amendment, into a new constitution. The text below that green text explains the reasoning. Minority protection All persons are born with equal opportunity, and should retain equality of opportunity as far as nature allows. The…
Sometimes the thing that seems obvious, is just not worth the effort. Means testing is often the case for this. Consider: Medicaid and Medicare in the USA cost the same as the whole of the UK’s healthcare system, even though they only cover select groups*. Similarly, free college is not worth means-testing. This is only a short article because I wanted to draw your attention to this interesting piece by Christopher Keelty: On free college for billionaires. Source of claims…
In 1843, Ada Lovelace wrote a book. Ostensibly it was a translation of some notes of a lecture by Charles Babbage. The Italian author, whose notes needed to be translated, were focused on the mathematical capabilities of Babbage’s machine. Lovelace – and only Lovelace – grasped the power of Babbage’s machine to change society [1]; to introduce an Information Age. The world in which we now live – in the first half of the twenty first century – was imagined…
Despite both being English-speaking, western countries, there are several differences between the UK and the USA. One of them is how schools are organized. It is surprising that two countries that should be so similar, could diverge so thoroughly. To celebrate the United States’ 244th independence day, let’s review some of the differences. One of the most obvious differences is how years [US English: grades] are numbered. Year/grade numbering: Child age* UK post-1990 Year number UK pre-1990 Year number UK…
This post is not sponsored by Impossible but I’m always open to being contacted. Impossible burger has not been available to my wife and I in local supermarkets and as fans of our one-and-only planet Earth, my wife and I are always keen to reduce our meat intake, especially of beef. Well, Impossible recently started to sell directly (note: not a referral link). We ordered four 12oz ground [UK English: minced] ‘beef’ packages. They were delivered in environmentally conscious packaging,…
In my view, there is a flaw in Word that is getting worse over time: The default zoom is 100%. With 4K monitors becoming more and more common, and with higher resolutions no doubt coming soon, this zoom leaves us with a tiny Word document that we must manually zoom in on each time. So here’s the solution: In Word, click File, Options, Customize Ribbon In the right pane, ensure “Developer” is checked Click OK and click on the Developer…
I am a big advocate of using research to improve our daily lives. Some research is tangible, such as the invention of a device or machine that you can buy and use, but others is less so. A recent piece of research was completed by Shaver-Troup where she found that the font that some text is written in has a measurable impact on how easy it is to read. With Thomas Jockin’s help, she created a font named Lexend which…
I ordered some sourdough bread from Bread SRSLY because, as a celiac [UK: coeliac] I always want to try new things that are gluten free. I ordered Sourdough, Sweet Onion Sourdough and Seeded Sourdough. I thought it best to try the standard sourdough first. It is a bit heavier than real bread, but it definitely had that sourdough taste. I was diagnosed as a baby, so I don’t know how things should taste, but my gluten-able wife confirmed it’s a…