Weird little cars

I'm in the UK on vacation holiday. You see these funny little cars everywhere. Finally Daimler-Chrysler has realized that someone in the US might want one too.

Best World Cup Blog

I like this World Cup blog by John Lanchester from the London Review of Books. In the linked entry he talks about Philip K. Dick, Cheese, and...

... as I was lying there sweating out cheese and half-awake, I suddenly thought: Dick would have said that the England team have been replaced by robots. That’s why they’e playing so badly. They’re not in fact the England team at all, but physically identical cyborg replicas, who’ve been programmed to adopt a style of play based on the long-ball game prevalent in the English leagues about ten years ago. That’s why great players like Lampard and Gerrard suddenly look like they’ve been drafted in from Howard Wilkinson’s Sheffield Wednesday.

Very scary Folgers coffee advert

This is why I only drink tea now. Caffeine is a drug.

Doctor Who in London Review of Books

World Cup of Computing: Google 450,000, Microsoft 200,000

It's all very secret, but Google now has 450,000 computers. And they're building datacenters two at a time.

"No one says the 'G' word," said Diane Sherwood, executive director of the Port of Klickitat, Wash., directly across the river from The Dalles, who is not bound by such agreements. "It's a little bit like He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named in Harry Potter."

Also in the article there is new meme:

"Google is like the Borg," said Milo Medin, a computer networking expert who was a founder of the 1990's online service @Home, referring to the robotic species on "Star Trek" that was forcibly assembled from millions of species and computer components.

For years it has always been Microsoft that is called the Borg. Something has changed.

My Bloody Valentine

I have been listening to this bootleg of My Bloody Valentine playing in Vancouver in 1992. I saw them in 1990 at ULU and they were loud. I think I would like Loveless played at my funeral. A perfect album.

Gyorgy Ligeti

The cute image above is from the San Francisco Opera's production of Macabre. Which I went to and it was pretty funny (the best bit is the overture for 12 car horns). Anyway Ligeti has died at the age of 83. The NYT obit says that his first name is pronounced "JURGE", that can't be right? So now we know why everyone just calls him "Ligeti".

See also: this New Yorker piece by Alex Ross.

Automatic translation of a French recipe

Amy used Google to translate a recipe for Gougères au comté. Somehow it seems a little strange.

Excel for tasting of a wine or with aperitif.

Ingredients (for 6 people):

• 125 G of butter
• 150 G of flour
• 4 average eggs
• 1 egg yolk
• 180 G of county
• Salt
• Pepper

Technique:

1. To preheat the furnace on 180°C (HT 6).
2. In a thick bottom pan, to bring to boiling 25 cold water Cl with butter in pieces and 3/4 of spoon with salt coffee; to withdraw fire; to add the flour of only one blow then, to mix highly with the spoon out of wooden; to give a few moments on soft fire while stirring up in order to déssècher unceasingly this paste.
3. To let warm a few minutes, then to vigorously incorporate whole eggs one after the other by working the paste; to then incorporate 100 G of grated county; to pepper slightly.
4. To humidify a plate with pastry making; using two spoons or of a casing, to deposit the paste in well spaced heaps (the cabbages will inflate with cooking); to gild surface with the egg yolk diluted with a spoon with water soup; to strew with the remainder of grated county.
5. To make cook, 20 minutes, then to let warm in the extinct and half-opened furnace; to be useful tepid with a salad.

Suggestion: To add some small plugs in the paste.

USA vs UK

Fania records

On Sundays I get a physical copy of the New York Times. Usually the music articles are terrble, but this week an interesting and informative article about Fania Records.

Pictures of the new parts of the Bay Bridge

How to win the World Cup, part 2

Mark E Smith tells how to win the World Cup:

You don't want people to get too comfortable, because if they do, there's no way they'll be on top of their game. It's not a job for life. I see the Fall being like a football team with a two- or three-year cycle. There's always going to be a period where I'll need a new centre-forward.

[Part 1 of this series is here]

UK National Lottery 'Smiles' video

Grace's favourite video

How to get Fairtrade chocolate

It is a lot more work than you might think.