timthorn

> "Little black book" was an ubiquitous term when I grew up, and so using the term would just be a synonym to "address book" that nobody would think twice about.

Indeed, I'm aware of that meaning and its ubiquity. But amongst UK university computing staff at that time, knowledge of the Coloured Books was as embedded. Remember that JANET network addresses were the other way round, so rather than cam.ac.uk it used to be uk.ac.cam - the author of this piece will have been well aware of the double meaning.

It's that double meaning that gives the headline it's precise relevance and a dash of humour.

> The little black book of the internet

The article doesn't mention the Coloured Book protocols, but I'm pretty sure this phrasing isn't accidental: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coloured_Book_protocols

The irony of your comment is that Horizon famously went through a phase of making programmes that were all about doom a while ago. Asteroids hitting the Earth, Global warming, food supply collapse, tsunamis, volcanos, etc - and all with portentious narration.

As I wrote somewhere else, I rather like the cuddly hadrons from The Particle Zoo: https://www.particlezoo.net/collections/particle-packs

Perhaps Rbanffy meant to link here? https://cerncourier.com/a/a-bestiary-of-exotic-hadrons/

But I quite like the plushes here: https://www.particlezoo.net/collections/particle-packs/produ...

There's 3 part Radio 4 series from a while ago on the King James Version, with one of the 45 minute episodes focussed on the translation of the work: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00x3x68

They don't - random bit flips are expected over time. ECC memory is a thing because of this, but cosmic rays can strike the processors too.

Because the name is a contraction of T. E. Stockwell and Jack Cohen.

By any chance, was Andrew Strominger involved in this at all? He gave the Andrew Chamblin Memorial Lecture in Cambridge last month and demoed something that looked similar.

Ah, yes - The Jupiter Effect: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3400930-the-jupiter-effe...

Quentin was also behind the Trojan Room Coffee Pot: https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/coffee/qsf/coffee.html

> There is something in my brain that associates that style with “real” computing.

That's interesting. For me, it's green or amber terminals - perhaps it's like music where the genre of your teens defines the best music for the rest of your life. Were you a teenager in the Win3.1 era?

Global Entry is available to those from some other countries too. IIRC there used to be a threshold for the minimum number of entries in the previous year or so, but it looks like they've opened it up now.

https://www.cbp.gov/travel/trusted-traveler-programs/global-...

Definitely worth it.

> Our nation invented the technology...

Lewis Fry Richardson might have something to say about that.

> it consistently fails to produce better results

The performance of the English education system has improved markedly over the past couple of decades. At least, as measured by tests!

It is legal, but it also did get banned at my primary school. It continued to be played.

Oh, no. A faff is an activity, rather than a scenario. Going to the bank could be a faff, but your example is just a bloody nuisance...

Axiom Maths is trying to import the concept of maths circles to the UK, providing support and materials for schools to host their own circles.

It is run by a team with deep expertise in mathematics education, including the founding head of King's Maths School, a state school that is one of the top performing sixth forms in the country.

https://axiommaths.com/how-we-work/

The vessel is looking for a port to berth in but keeps being turned away.

The delights of MHEG-5 :)

It depended on the page. Clearly to have a complete cache you'd have to wait for everything to have come around, but common pages like contents or news headlines were transmitted more often than the others, so they entered the Fasttext cache more quickly.

And you can start your own service if so inclined: https://www.raspberrypi.com/news/create-your-own-teletext-se...

So is there a difference between a tracker and a sequencer?

And for people who did, but have never heard it referred to as chiptune nor trackers!

What that article doesn't address is the concurrent shift to electrify domestic heating. A worked analysis of the impacts can be found here: https://www.carboncommentary.com/blog/2022/2/11/how-much-ele...

> Every magazine I checked out was MOSTLY ads

Ads were always a big part of it, and indeed pre-internet were a reason to buy a hobby magazine. They carried value in a way they perhaps don't any longer - not because the print ads are different but because access to supplier websites + search engines is more useful.

> Is there a single web magazine making big bucks?

The Spectator has been growing both in print and online. The editor wrote about this, in the wake of the title's sale, this week:

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-spectators-new-owner...

> In this trade, there is always pressure to go for the digital ‘quick wins’ (clickbait articles, advertorials, etc.) but we rejected this as a false economy – so commercial that it’s uncommercial. It would take us downmarket, deform our character and, ergo, reduce the company’s value. So we went the other way, using our success to double down on the magazine’s finest traditions in the belief that quality of writing matters above all. We did a lot that went against the conventional digital wisdom. We put together a different business model and a unique way of working, based on close collaboration between all departments and journalists equally comfortable with print, digital and broadcast.

> When other publications were shedding sub-editors, we poached the best ones we could find. When newspapers shrank their books sections, we proudly kept Sam Leith’s at ten-plus pages and gave him a podcast. We created a research team who apply perhaps the most robust pre-publication scrutiny on Fleet Street (mindful that it matters more than ever that readers can trust the facts they read). When other weeklies started cutting costs by not printing over Easter and the summer, we put more effort than ever into the issues released in those holiday periods.

> The digital temptations that can lure publications to their grave (‘The world has changed! Look at the clicks! Drop the opera review!’) are dangerous as they come dripping in what looks like supportive data. You can end up not just being edited by algorithm but stripping a publication of nuance, variety and soul. Our belief was that if we innovated, and used the proceeds to double or treble down on what makes The Spectator different, we would maximise the value of the company as well as serve our readers. Much of what we did could be seen as uneconomic on an individual basis – but put it all together and you get a five times valuation uplift.

Working title, "Syntax Era" :)

I agree, and it is an unusual turn of phrase these days, but I think it's the scenario here that would be confusing. The number 68 bus is a label rather than a quantity, which makes a difference.

> German numbers are one-hundred-five-and-fifty instead of one-hundred-fifty-five and too many of my thoughts are in english

Both are fine in the UK, though the "five-and-fifty" form is somewhat old fashioned. My Grandmother used to say numbers like that, especially for time. I refer you also to "Sing a Song of Sixpence" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sing_a_Song_of_Sixpence