Wednesday  30 Jan 2019           comment?

Tuesday  29 Jan 2019           comment?

Back in 2005, I blogged about an idiosyncrasy of an early version of Google Maps, specifically that it (wrongly) assigned the same street name to a bunch of paths (not necessarily paved) in my neighborhood.

14 years later, Google Maps seems to give the same name to every street in a neighborhood in Germany. But it's not a street name because the streets there have no names. Houses in the area are numbered, and not strictly in sequence. You just have to know which street a house is on.

A 2013 referendum on introducing street names failed but another referendum is scheduled for this summer. There are evidently strongly‑held views on both sides.

Monday  21 Jan 2019           2 comments

Footnotes and endnotes both have pros and cons. In most cases I like footnotes better. If the reader has to hunt for a note on another page, they often don't bother.

Footnotes pose typographic problems. If the last sentence on a page refers to a footnote, making room for the footnote may boot the sentence to the next page.

HTML has no provision for footnotes (nor endnotes) because the HTML Working Group couldn't reach consensus on how to do it.

Monday  14 Jan 2019           comment?

Thursday  10 Jan 2019           comment?

Wednesday  09 Jan 2019           comment?

Graphic from a (mediocre) article Firefox recommended this morning.	Track of a plane in my area this morning.

Tuesday  01 Jan 2019           comment?

Yay—a year with 19 in it. Enjoy it while it lasts.

I read a bunch of political blogs but for several reasons I don't generally list them on my blogroll. But starting today I'm linking to Yastreblyanksy's blog, one of my favorites. His blogroll lists a plethora of political blogs for those who want more.

A couple months ago, I mentioned that the Bank of England was looking to put a scientist's portrait on a redesigned £50 note and was soliciting suggestions. The bank says they got 227,299 nominations during the six‑week window for submitting names from which they've made a list of 991 people who meet their initial criteria (they are sufficiently real and dead and have contributed to science in the UK). The Banknote Character Advisory Committee will now consider the candidates' merits, with a final decision expected this summer.

I nominated Paul Dirac and he's on the list (no surprise).

227299 is prime, as is 991.

Happy new year, everyone.