Interesting Links for 29-05-2014

• Tower Hamlets — London’s rotten borough?
  (tags: London politics voting viafanf )
• Why is finance so complex?
  (tags: finance )
• Not all Orcs.
  (tags: lotr gender metaphor )
• I hadn't realised that at one point Captain America had a gay best friend.
  (tags: CaptainAmerica LGBT comics )
• A simple, an hilarious, guide to drugs
  (tags: drugs funny )
• This is why the median is more useful than the mean
  (tags: statistics funny )
• Game of Cats...
  (tags: cats gameofthrones )
• FactCheck: will an independent Scotland be better or worse off?
  (tags: independence economy )
• I can't tell if this article about corporate tweeting is a hoax, or if the world really is that ridiculous
  (tags: marketing socialmedia WTF )
• Scottish parliament backs plastic bag charge (5p, from October)
  (tags: plastic Scotland )
• ‘No Way To Prevent This,’ Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens
  (tags: guns USA )
• The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling by Ted Chiang (An awesome short story about memory, technology, and understanding)
  (tags: shortstory scifi psychology memory truth )
• Photonic crystals used to make optical RAM
  (tags: memory light technology )
• Fascinating article on the history of scientific investigations into the lowest possible temperature
  (tags: temperature science history )
• Billions of kg of CO2 could be saved by scrapping DVDs (streaming much more efficient)
  (tags: tv videos environment technology )
• Internet trends 2014 (Tablets _really_ taking off, internet growth slowing, but still 10%/year)
  (tags: trends internet )

Things what I have achieved today

• Posted a birthday card to my mother. Just now. Should get picked up tomorrow and then whisked the length of the country thanks to the wonders of the Royal Mail, and then hopefully delivered to her on Saturday morning, which is coincidentally her birthday. She will be 72.


• Posted a not-actually-a-birthday present to my mother. Because her actual birthday present is being organised between myself and my two brothers, and will be delivered to my mother when we're all on holiday in July. But she said she didn't have a nice framed photo from my wedding to meaningrequired, so we picked out our four favourite photos, got them printed, and stuck them in one of these, and I stood in the post office near my work this morning, and packed it into a box, and then sent it off to her.*


• Posted back the incorrect toner that we were sent for our laser printer a couple of weeks ago. Had to wait this long while (a)they agreed that they'd sent us the wrong toner, and (b) the right toner arrived so I could print off the address for the box to send it back.


• Educated my doctor about FODMAPs. Julie and I share a doctor, and he's a bit of a geek. Not a massive one, but he has the whole "Ooh, interesting stuff, let's find out more about that." - so when I wandered in, told him about the research I'd been reading, and handed him two printouts from Kings College and Stanford his response was "I've heard the term, but know nothing about it. But it sounds interesting, and I've read about the microbes in the gut being vital for all sorts of things, so let's send you to a dietician, and I'll go away and read about this." Which is awesome.


• Played Super Mario 3D World with Noah. We got to the end of the Castle world, and discovered that the number of stars you need goes up from 60-odd to 130. So I left the game in the hands of my Nephew and told him to collect 70 more stars by next Thursday. Gotta give the youth of today goals, so I hear.

And that sounds like enough achievement for one day. Time for bed!

*I am sure that walking into the post office, buying a box, some bubble wrap, and some sellotape, and then proceeding to use up a corner of the shop to turn all of this into a parcel, is not optimally efficient. But it was either that or make _two_ trips to the post office. And life is too short.