Furthermore: September 2004

September 21, 2004

Browsable Paris

Just happened to see this as I was checking out what happened to a site I used to like - dizzycity.com. They had photos of practically every street intersection in Manhattan, plus loads of shops and restaurants - you could really browse the city. Anyhow, it’s gone, though there’s a shadow of the original in the Internet Archive.

Anyhow, there’s a similar site for Paris, that runs from their Yellow Pages site. It’s quite amazing. I put in the address of the hotel (good, but I wasn’t paying) I stayed at when I won a weekend break there back in December 2000 and you can go from there up to the Champs Elysees. Awesome.

September 14, 2004

Oliver Sacks

Two pieces I recently saw about Oliver Sacks. I’ve been fascinated by his books since I discovered “Awakenings” and “The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat” back in the early nineties.

• Wired - The Fully Immersive Mind of Oliver Sacks


• LiveJournal - Oliver Sacks and the Iridium Ingot

September 13, 2004

A Mathematician Plays the Market - John Allen Paulos

(Penguin, ISBN 0-141-01203-X)

I have to admit to being a little bit disappointed with this book. I think I probably expected too much of it. To be fair, it’s a perfectly good introduction to some of the ideas in modern financial theory - portfolios, valuations, risk and the like. It has plenty of anecdotes - mainly about Paulos himself losing money on Worldcom, despite his mathematical knowledge - and the coverage is aimed at the intelligent layperson. There are one or two equations, but the maths is generally treated at the conceptual level.

I think my problem was that I thought the coverage would be deeper - more on the specifics of valuing different kinds of instruments, or on types of risk, or that there would be more mathematical speculation of the kind that say, Tom Koerner does in his “Pleasures of Counting” (Koerner on finance - that’s a book I’d like to read). Instead, I found the book paddled through the shallows that I was pretty familiar with already.

So, good fun, and if you are new to this topic, you can learn quite a lot, but it’s not for you if you are looking for any deeper treatment. Back to Bodie, Kane and Marcus for me - if only there was something in between.

September 4, 2004

Guided Bus Letters

I got a letter from the County Council containing various bumf and responding to my objections to the Guided Bus scheme proposals. I suppose it’s good that they’re responding to us, but I think it’s a bit cheeky to ask me to withdraw my objection now: I don’t think the documents answer my objections anyway, but it seems like just a cheap trick to make some of the objections go away now the public enquiry has started.

I shall be reading the stuff they’ve sent (some of which I already know anyway) and responding in kind - maybe I can offer them “sufficient comfort” to withdraw their scheme by writing to the Secretary of State. Unlikely you say? Then what on earth would make them think I’m going to withdraw my objection?

Bike Ride

Bit late as I actually did it last Monday, but it was quite a good circuit, apart from the intermittent rain. Anyway, I headed out south down Perne Road, as far as Addenbrookes, left at the roundabout there, and then right onto one of the roads that takes you over the ridge and down to the Shelfords. I thought there might be a good vantage point on the hill, but I couldn’t find a good place to stop there.

Anyway, through Great Shelford - couple of nice looking pubs, but it was kind of soon to stop. Through Little Shelford and then out to Hauxton. From Hauxton I took a bridleway west to Haslingford. No problem even with my street bike. Haslingford north to Barton. Stopped at a pub there - can’t remember the name though - it was on a main road. Not bad if you could sit outside - inside didn’t look too terrific though. Cut back on a path from just north of there towards Grantchester - over the M11.

Rain came down a bit strong at this point, and I realised I should probably have skipped the Haslingford pub and gone to one in Grantchester - they looked nicer. Anyway, missed my turn in Grantchester and ended up following the road back to Trumpington. Passed the Unicorn, which looked quite good. Then back from there along Long Road to Perne Road and home.

September 3, 2004

What am I Like

I did the BBC What Am I Like quiz last night and came out as somewhere between a realist (ISTJ) and a resolver (ISTP). At the end of the quiz though, they whizzed through the list of categories so fast I couldn’t see it. Went to look on the website, and it took me a while to even find links to the different categories, and I can’t find a keyed list (ie from the different personality dimensions to the types) anywhere.

So, here’s my version. I’ve also added the standard Myers-Briggs type codes after the descriptive names. You should be able to look those up from Google to find out more.

Update: Actually, try this site which seems to have a bit more detail on all the types.

Extrovert	Facts	Head	Planner	Supervisor	ESTJ
Extrovert	Facts	Head	Spontaneous	Go-Getter	ESTP
Extrovert	Facts	Heart	Planner	Provider	ESFJ
Extrovert	Facts	Heart	Spontaneous	Performer	ESFP
Extrovert	Ideas	Head	Planner	Leader	ENTJ
Extrovert	Ideas	Head	Spontaneous	Big Thinker	ENTP
Extrovert	Ideas	Heart	Planner	Mentor	ENFJ
Extrovert	Ideas	Heart	Spontaneous	Innovator	ENFP
Introvert	Facts	Head	Planner	Realist	ISTJ
Introvert	Facts	Head	Spontaneous	Resolver	ISTP
Introvert	Facts	Heart	Planner	Nurturer	ISFJ
Introvert	Facts	Heart	Spontaneous	Peacemaker	ISFP
Introvert	Ideas	Head	Planner	Mastermind	INTJ
Introvert	Ideas	Head	Spontaneous	Strategist	INTP
Introvert	Ideas	Heart	Planner	Counsellor	INFJ
Introvert	Ideas	Heart	Spontaneous	Idealist	INFP

September 2, 2004

Links

• New Yorker and Crooked Timber - interesting pair of views on wine.


• via Kottke - The Vice Guide To Everything - pretty funny list of things you should and shouldn’t do. A sort of modern manners guide?


• via Scoble - Google and the Semantic Web. Only a hundred years after everyone else read it. Very interesting ideas about what Google could expand into.



• via Ken McLeod - War Nerd on South Ossetia. Not heard of this site before, but I thought this was quite a good overview of some of the issues behind the conflict, told with a unique style.

September 1, 2004

Making the most of Summer

We managed to have a barbeque a week or so back - the week leading up to it the weather was bad, but miraculously it cleared on Saturday, and lots of nice folks showed up, so we had a good time.

Last weekend - the Bank Holiday - didn’t manage to do all that much. We did go out to Shepreth Wildlife Park though. It’s really close to Cambridge - 2 stops on the Kings Cross line, and right next to the station. Little bit expensive, considering that it’s pretty small - I think it was �6.50 for adults and �4.50 for children of 2 and over. Yes you read that right - once you’re past your second birthday, you have to pay. Extra also for the bug world display (which we skipped).

They do have quite a good selection of animals - tigers, monkeys, wolves, a snake, an iguana, etc. It’s about the right amount for a young child, probably a bit boring for an older one. There’s a good playground too, though again, aimed more at little kids than big ones.

We went in the afternoon, so we had lunch out at the Live and Let Live on Mawson Road in Cambridge - good food and good beer. Highly recommend.