The US Open overran its schedule for the fifth year in a row, and once again the men’s final was on a Monday. It was also Andy Murray’s fifth chance to win a Grand Slam final, and this time he took it, defeating defending champion Novak Djokovic 7–6 (10), 7–5, 2–6, 3–6, 6–2.
Further, it was the first time a player from the United Kingdom has won a Grand Slam title since Fred Perry’s US Open win in 1936[1]. More significantly for modern men’s tennis, it meant that for the first time since 2003, all of the Grand Slams have different champions, with the Australian Open, the French Open, and Wimbledon having gone to Djokovic, Nadal, and Federer respectively[2]. [more...]
I use plain text formats for all of my writing, and you should at least consider doing the same.
By “plain text” I mean not only a text (as opposed to binary) file format, but also something that is plainly readable when simply listing the contents of the file—that is, a format you don’t necessarily need a specific tool to read. Such formats are more flexible, more robust, more malleable, and more future-proof than more complicated alternatives. [more...]
I’ve been experimenting with using terminal Vim[1] in a tmux environment recently. I like it as a programming setup, primarily because of the ease with which I can set up new workspaces[2] and switch between them—without, of course, having to move my hands off the keyboard. I did encounter some annoyances along the way, and my solutions for them are included below. [more...]
Spit is a two-player card game played with a standard 52-card deck. It is a game of speed, and is conceptually similar to a competitive two-player version of patience. The rules I lay out below are close to the Irish two-handed version, with minor tweaks that evolved along with intense play of the game. This is one of my favorite card games. [more...]
Andy Murray beat Roger Federer in a best-of-five-sets match for the first time today, comprehensively defeating him 6–2, 6–1, 6–4. That is Britain’s first men’s singles tennis gold medal in over a century, although that gap is less meaningful given that tennis was absent from the Olympics for an extended period. It was certainly an impressive feat for Murray, who went through both of the top two players in the world in order to win. [more...]
Nadal stumbled early, Djokovic managed a set, Murray did the same, and today, atop the men’s game once more, is Roger Federer.
By beating Andy Murray 4–6, 7–5, 6–3, 6–4 today, Federer tied the record for most men’s singles Wimbledon titles (sharing it with Pete Sampras and William Renshaw)[1], extended his record number of total men’s singles Grand Slam titles to 17, and reclaimed the number one ranking for a record-tying 286th week.[2] Those are phenomenal numbers, and none of them looked likely to become fact during the first set. [more...]
I just haven’t been able to put together a blog post today. It hasn’t been the usual lack of ideas for topics, but rather that no topic will come together, somehow. So I’m calling it a night; between this and the laptop issues from two weeks ago, I’m two posts behind for the year…
What is an android? The first Wiktionary definition is “a robot that is designed to look and act like a human (usually male)”. Looking like a human is the easier of the two components, particularly when not in motion, despite the potential difficulties in artificially replicating skin in a convincing manner. The real difficulty is acting like a human. Our stories are full of creatures (döppelgangers, aliens, golems[1]) that look like use but are not us, and this familiarity with the concept may mask how difficult accomplishing such a thing would be—an oversight that forms a core weakness in Prometheus. [more...]
The death of my old MacBook Pro this evening has caused the loss (hopefully only temporary) of the blog post I was working on today (on androids in Alien and Prometheus), which I will try to recover and finish next week.
In the meantime, here are some interesting things I encountered on the internet this week. [more...]
Today, one day behind schedule[1], Rafael Nadal won his record[2] seventh French Open, breaking a tie with Björn Borg. He also gained his 11th Grand Slam title, tying Borg and Laver. He also got back on track in his pursuit of Federer for the all-time Grand Slam record—and at the moment it looks as if he could catch him simply competing at Roland Garros alone[3].
He defeated Novak Djokovic in the final, halting a couple of streaks in their rivalry: Djokovic had won seven straight finals against Nadal, and had defeated Nadal in the previous three Grand Slam finals. Perhaps more significantly, he prevented Djokovic from becoming the first man since Rod Laver to hold all four Grand Slam titles at once, and from completing his own career Grand Slam. [more...]
Yes, really: this week’s post is on the French Open, and rain delayed the men’s final between Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic. The post will show up after the tournament is actually over.
In the time since I bought a Kindle, I’ve been extremely happy with it. But the rise of the ebook has brought with it questions about my relationship with books, specifically about book ownership and the notion of a personal library. I’m still trying to cut down on the physical books in my possession—the limited physical space that partly prompted acquiring a Kindle in the first place is still the same—and am finding it difficult to do so. [more...]
Bethany couldn’t believe they would actually kill her. For what? In some kind of insane ritual? They looked like cheap horror extras, with a cramped basement for their stage and an altar that was despite its appearance certainly not solid stone. [more...]
I’ll start with the half-review first: I enjoyed The Cabin in the Woods more than any other movie I’ve seen this year. It was clever, well-written, amusing, and delivered a very satisfying combination of genre-tweaking and genre-fulfilling elements. [more...]
Same-sex marriage has been a major news topic this week, because of the passage of North Carolina’s Amendment One and Barack Obama’s statement that he thinks same-sex couples should be able to marry. A good time, then, to explore the subject. [more...]
Afternoon, a sunny suburban backyard. In the background, fluttering like clothes on a line, is a large sheet of white paper. Unintelligible writings in blue and black cover it. In the foreground, white-shirted Benedict Cumberbatch[1] drinks from a beer bottle, talking to unseen others. [more...]
Caroline gestured, and the two acolytes came forward, hustling Bethany between them. She was gagged and her arms bound behind her, but she tried to struggle anyway, her eyes wide and wild. While they tied her to the slab, Caroline began lighting the candles in sequence, waiting for them to finish and step outside the circle before she lit the final one.
Agent Gastusky reversed fast, too fast, out of the driveway. 20 minutes of sneaking around, 10 minutes of brandishing a gun and threatening, and finally the realization that someone had transposed numbers on the address. Someone along the chain, or him, he couldn’t swear it wasn’t his mistake. He yanked the wheel around and shifted into first, flooring it. The delay likely meant the girl’s death, and if she died he knew he’d have to account for it in his report—and that no-one would likely own up to the address mistake. [more...]
PixelJAM won me over with Dino Run, and I like pinball games—and who doesn’t like snow?—so I was happy to see them take on the genre in their own way with Snowball, which feels more relaxed than your usual pinball game. Oh, and snowballs are apparently magnetic.
(Blog posting of the usual length will hopefully resume next week.)