Fletch has a new job, and like usual, the first few minutes of the book throw us right into a riveting high concept. Where we’re ultimately headed is anyone’s guess…
This just keeps getting better and better! This isn’t the fluff on food writing that I supposed it might be based on its title which drastically undersells the overall work. This is a great writer, and the translation is generally excellent. It borders frequently on poetry in its descriptions while maintaining a heavy reliance on underlying science. It manages to maintain enough generality to keep a broad audience while still expounding on the science at play. It will eventually sit in a place of pride on my bookshelf on next to Harold McGee who is one of the few writing at this level.
This does an excellent job of debunking some commonly held misconceptions about food and cooking while simultaneously creating a new vocabulary to make future descriptions and work easier to grasp.
Somehow I had been under the misunderstanding that the author was a chef when in fact he is a physical chemist. And the translator is a poet by trade.
His poetry just keeps flowing. This is not only great food writing, this is really great science writing. The introduction has some interesting philosophy both of and on science.
After having spent the weekend at IndieWebCamp Los Angeles, it somehow seems appropriate to have a “Voted post type” for the election today†. To do it I’m proposing the following microformats, an example of which can be found in the mark up of the post above. This post type is somewhat similar to both a note/status update and an RSVP post type with a soupçon of checkin.
<div class="h-entry">
<span class="p-voted">I voted</span>
in the <a href="http://example.com/election" class="u-voted-in">November 8th, 2016 Election</a>
</div>
Possible Voted values: I voted, I didn’t vote, I was disenfranchised, I was intimidated, I was apathetic, I pathetically didn’t bother to register
You should include author information in your Voted post so the registrar knows who voted (and then send another Webmention so the voting page gets the update).
Here’s another example with explicit author name and icon, in case your site or blog does not already provide that on the page.
<div class="h-entry">
<a class="p-author h-card" href="http://mysite.example.org">
<img alt="" src="http://mysite.example.org/icon.jpg"/>
Supercool Indiewebvoter</a>:
<span class="p-voted">I voted</span>
to <a href="http://example.com/election" class="u-voted-in">IndieWeb Election </a>
</div>
You can also use the data element to express the meaning behind the literal p-voted value while providing your own visible human readable language:
<data class="p-voted" value="I voted">I voted for the first female president today!
Finally, feel free to POSSE to multiple social media networks to encourage your friends and family to vote today.
† I’m being a bit facetious and doing this in fun. But it does invite some interesting speculation…
The set up for this was short and sweet and the ending was what we’ve come to love in a Paddington story.
This is just hilariously charming. I do wish the uncivil neighbor had been better set up in a prior story, but the short treatment done here is sufficient for the hilarity that ensues with Paddington attempting a magic show.
The pledge and the turn are reasonably well executed, but the prestige is lacking a bit.
It’s episodes like this that make me wonder why they turned Paddington into a movie instead of a TV sitcom.
“I’ll have one for worst if you like,” he said. “that’s my best one!”
Paddington had a very persistent stare when he cared to use it. It was a very powerful stare. One which his Aunt Lucy had taught him and which he kept for special occasions.
Bears were rather unpredictable. You never quite knew what they were thinking, and this one in particular seemed to have a mind of his own.
“I think,” said Paddington, “if you don’t mind, I’d rather use the stairs.”
Finished the section on the IPO of China Telecom (Hong Kong) and read through the more difficult IPO of PetroChina. There are some conflicting statements between the two accounts which I find interesting as they relate to doing business in general. I’m sure they stem, in part, from retelling the stories nearly 20 years later along with editorial oversight. In the first account he complains of not having enough time while in the second he complains of a client dragging things out and going too slowly.
The retelling of history from his perspective is perhaps a bit too measured but expected given that he’s still actively working and maintaining an image. There are a few interesting bon mots from time to time, but I’m beginning to think that reading a bit more hard-hitting history would be more enlightening given what I know of China. I’m beginning to read this more for enjoyment and entertainment that the original historical and economic visions I had anticipated.
While a generally interesting read so far, I find it to be a bit too antiseptic as if it’s either been over-edited or the ghost writer watered down all the personality.
The plot moves somewhat slowly and the action is mostly what one would expect from a 5 or 6 year old–except that it’s a bear–but the charming language and the way in which is told makes all the difference.
Bacon in a suitcase–indeed!
Love that he starts out with the goal of demystifying a person who has been more heavily shaped by myth and retold history than by direct fact.
H/T to Sawyer Hollenshead.
This may also be of interest to those who’ve attended Dodging the Digital Memory Hole related events as well as those in the IndieWeb who may be concerned about their data living beyond them.
by Donald T. Hawkins
I enjoyed his treatment of inversion, but it seems like there’s a better way of laying the idea out, particularly for applications. Straightforward coverage of nested intervals and rectangles, limit points, convergent sequences, Cauchy convergence criterion. Given the level, I would have preferred some additional review of basic analysis and topology; he seems to do the bare minimum here.
