Our buddleia has sprouted an excellent crop of butterflies.
 |
| two Peacock butterflies |
 |
| more than two Peacock butterflies |
Saturday, 27 July 2013
Friday, 26 July 2013
Thursday, 25 July 2013
Yesterday I came across Butterick’s Practical Typography. It promises to make you “a better typographer than 95% of professional writers and 70% of professional designers” in ten minutes, by reading 5 rules (and, presumably, then following them). I instead read the whole thing – it’s fascinating (if you are fascinated by typography).
At one point, when advocating using wider margins, and making better use of white space, he sets an exercise, of making 2 documents with the same text.
Document A is the usual default style, and has the following format: “page margins of one inch per side, font is Times New Roman, point size is 12, line spacing is “Double” [...], first-line indent is half an inch, and no space between paragraphs.”
Document B follows Butterick’s strictures, and has the following format: “page margins of two inches per side, font is still Times New Roman, point size is 11, line spacing is exactly 15 points, first-line indent is still half an inch, and still no space between paragraphs.”
He claims that B looks more like a professionally typeset book, is more comfortable to read, and contains more words per page. And he's right. Here are A and B (using Lorem Ipsum, so neither is particularly comfortable to read!).
Then today I had to write a 250 word “vision” document. I heeded what I had learnt. I initally wrote the text in the Word default layout. Then I tweaked it, by changing the font, and increasing the margins and linespacing. I made the margins as wide as I could, and still get all the text on one page. The result:
I’m sold!
At one point, when advocating using wider margins, and making better use of white space, he sets an exercise, of making 2 documents with the same text.
Document A is the usual default style, and has the following format: “page margins of one inch per side, font is Times New Roman, point size is 12, line spacing is “Double” [...], first-line indent is half an inch, and no space between paragraphs.”
Document B follows Butterick’s strictures, and has the following format: “page margins of two inches per side, font is still Times New Roman, point size is 11, line spacing is exactly 15 points, first-line indent is still half an inch, and still no space between paragraphs.”
He claims that B looks more like a professionally typeset book, is more comfortable to read, and contains more words per page. And he's right. Here are A and B (using Lorem Ipsum, so neither is particularly comfortable to read!).
 |
| (left) document A, default margins, double spaced; (right) document B, wider margins, better spaced, more text |
 |
| (left) 250 words in Word default format; (right) the same words, after some minor formatting tweaks |
Sunday, 14 July 2013
The BBC reports on a special Dr Who Prom last night, celebrating the 50th anniversary of the TV show.
50 years ago the part of Susan Foreman, the Doctor's granddaughter, was played by Carole Ann Ford.
Carole Ann Ford was a surprise special guest at last night's prom, and the BBC reported it thus:
That puts the "50 years" into stark perspective.
50 years ago the part of Susan Foreman, the Doctor's granddaughter, was played by Carole Ann Ford.
 |
| Carole Ann Ford as Susan Foreman, in 1963 |
Carole Ann Ford was a surprise special guest at last night's prom, and the BBC reported it thus:
That puts the "50 years" into stark perspective.
The twin prime conjecture, a famous open problem in mathematics, states that there are an infinite number of pairs of primes of the form \(p, p+2\). Earlier this year, Yitang Zhang made a great breakthrough, publishing a proof that there are an infinite number of pairs of primes of the form \(p, p+H\), where \(H \leq 70,000,000\).
I've been watching what happened next with interest. Some people quickly seized on the result, and found better bounds. The encouraged Terrence Tao to propose a Polymath project, Polymath8, to help coordinate efforts to understand Zhang's proof, and to reduce the bound on \(H\). Subsequent progress has reduced \(H\) considerably, with it currently standing at \(12,006\), and with as yet unconfirmed results of \(5,414\).
That's an amazing 4 orders of magnitude reduction, in just a couple of months. To appreciate the progress, it's useful to look at a couple of graphs (based on that PolyMath wiki data). Here's how the best bound for \(H\) has fallen over the eight weeks since Zhang's paper was accepted:
Here we see a fascinating synergy between individual and group efforts. Zhang came up with the first, qualitative, breakthrough: a technique for providing a bound, and got a first (and now we see, rough) estimate. Then the community gathered round, and through a process of cooperation (and presumably, a degree of competition, too), chipping away at the various definitions and terms, have quantitatively improved the technique.
So, to all those administrators trying to force us to work individually, or in groups, depending on the current fashion at headquarters -- the answer is clear: diversity works! Some of the time progress is made by individuals, sometimes by groups, even on the same problem. Don't assume one size fits all.
Progress here appears to have tapered off recently, with no new results reported in the last few days. Is this due to the improvements having been pushed as far as possible (not likely, as there are several unconfirmed results yet), to enthusiasm having flagged (also unlikely, as the results are getting ever closer to the ultimate value of \(2\)), or due to it being vacation time? I'll continue watching with interest.
I've been watching what happened next with interest. Some people quickly seized on the result, and found better bounds. The encouraged Terrence Tao to propose a Polymath project, Polymath8, to help coordinate efforts to understand Zhang's proof, and to reduce the bound on \(H\). Subsequent progress has reduced \(H\) considerably, with it currently standing at \(12,006\), and with as yet unconfirmed results of \(5,414\).
That's an amazing 4 orders of magnitude reduction, in just a couple of months. To appreciate the progress, it's useful to look at a couple of graphs (based on that PolyMath wiki data). Here's how the best bound for \(H\) has fallen over the eight weeks since Zhang's paper was accepted:
 |
| best known value for \(H\), linear scale (diamond, confirmed result; +, unconfirmed result) |
 |
| best known value for \(H\), log scale (diamond, confirmed result; +, unconfirmed result) |
So, to all those administrators trying to force us to work individually, or in groups, depending on the current fashion at headquarters -- the answer is clear: diversity works! Some of the time progress is made by individuals, sometimes by groups, even on the same problem. Don't assume one size fits all.
Progress here appears to have tapered off recently, with no new results reported in the last few days. Is this due to the improvements having been pushed as far as possible (not likely, as there are several unconfirmed results yet), to enthusiasm having flagged (also unlikely, as the results are getting ever closer to the ultimate value of \(2\)), or due to it being vacation time? I'll continue watching with interest.
Saturday, 13 July 2013
I read recently, in the "Last Word" section of New Scientist, a piece asking for help to identify an Italian butterfly-like creature. The questioner couldn't identify it because "it doesn't seem like any butterfly I've seen, nor is it in any of my insect books". What caught my eye was the implication of ownership of at least three insect books. We have only the one insect book. And two butterfly books. Oh, and a dragonfly book.
Yet none of our books could help us to identify this splendid caterpillar we found in the garden today.
The reason I know that none could have helped is that I looked it up in them, after I had identified it using the web. To identify it in the first place, I googled "caterpillar black yellow stripes", and got
Looking through the results identified several promising candidates. The respective source pages all identified it as the caterpillar of the Cinnibar moth. The wikipedia page has more details, confirming the identification. But our insect book doesn't have it. Neither do our butterfly books (well, it is a moth, I suppose).
Back in the garden, the spiders (which will obviously not be in our insect book) have been busy wrapping up the plants in a dense web.
And the patio roses we bought back in early May are now blooming their hearts out.
The weeds are growing apace, but it's way too hot at the moment (28°C) to garden. So I'm blogging about the garden instead.
Yet none of our books could help us to identify this splendid caterpillar we found in the garden today.
 |
| at least it's on a weed |
 |
| it seems there are rather a lot of caterpillars using a yellow and black colour palette |
Back in the garden, the spiders (which will obviously not be in our insect book) have been busy wrapping up the plants in a dense web.
And the patio roses we bought back in early May are now blooming their hearts out.
 |
| The labels must have lied about the colours. I think we are going to have to separate these! |
The weeds are growing apace, but it's way too hot at the moment (28°C) to garden. So I'm blogging about the garden instead.
Boing Boing has recently pointed out the "best opening paragraph in wikipedia", on Lieutenant-General Adrian Carton de Wiart.
I wonder if he was related to Nicholas Courtney?
 |
| Lieutenant-General Sir Adrian Paul Ghislain Carton de Wiart |
 |
| "evil" Brigadier Sir Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart |
Monday, 8 July 2013
I'm back from the conference on Unconventional Computation and Natural Computation (UCNC) in Milan. Excellent conference, with lots of great presentations, conversations, and food.
My Evernote experience was a success. I managed to take the notes I wanted, using my Netbook. Fortunately, the venue being a university, the rooms had suitable benching for resting the Netbook on -- no more bruises where the computer's little feet dig into my legs. And there were enough power sockets around that I could recharge as necessary.
When there was a particularly useful or interesting figure on a slide, I took a photo of it, and added "[photo]" to my notes at that point. Then, when I got home, I downloaded the photos, straightened them up, cropped them, adjusted the contrast, and pasted them into Evernote in the right places. That worked even better than scribbling down a diagram. But it did mean that I had to remember to sit near the front.
So now I have enough trials to be convinced Evernote is the right approach, for SF conventions, for seminars, and for conferences. Legible, searchable notes are a boon.
When there was a particularly useful or interesting figure on a slide, I took a photo of it, and added "[photo]" to my notes at that point. Then, when I got home, I downloaded the photos, straightened them up, cropped them, adjusted the contrast, and pasted them into Evernote in the right places. That worked even better than scribbling down a diagram. But it did mean that I had to remember to sit near the front.
So now I have enough trials to be convinced Evernote is the right approach, for SF conventions, for seminars, and for conferences. Legible, searchable notes are a boon.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
