Viewing profile — railton

I get all my high end electronics through Argos as then I don't have to run the "is it fake" gauntlet with Amazon. Highly recommend.

Also in the UK - I've noticed a gradient in "aggression around cyclists", i.e. it's most awful in the south and gets progressively better the further north you go. (I've never had …

Have you read "The Water Knife" by Paolo Bacigalupi? Mostly set in Phoenix when the water has run out. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23209924-the-water-knife

Not "how I learn" per-se, but how I make time for learning (biggest problem for me, by far) is to do 30mins of $whatever before I turn on my work laptop, no excuses. The book "Atom…

This is my experience too comparing UK and USA. I worked as a cleaner for some summer schools at university and only the American students (c.f. UK and Japanese students who were a…

Rebanks (author of this article) studied History, which I imagine has quite a different mix of people than e.g. engineering or one of the sciences. I can't find out the college he …

I've read both and think English Pastoral is marginally better. Less sheep, more general farming stuff and stronger narrative of old-school farming with his grandfather to modern i…

In the UK the majority of drivers who kill cyclists do not go to prison https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/newsbeat-28345522 It's a common bit of dark humour in the cycling community that …

The comic "Three" does a good job of telling the story of Helots in Sparta. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/20638282-three

He also points out in this post that rape was so common there's an entire, identifiable social class of Spartan bastards (_nothoi_ / _mothakes_). > But we don’t need to guess or re…

I've got another bit of anecdata like that - know a guy who never changed the plates on his French registered van. Had the misfortune of going somewhere with him once and he was do…

Sort of related is the story of a millionaire in Canada in the 1920s who bequeathed in his will a prize to whichever woman in Toronto could have the most babies in a 10 year period…

Blimey, you've made me realise that without knowing about and then going to a Facebook event of a not-great friend I never would have met my husband. I agree that the low friction …