Year: 2013
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Memorial to Quakers' wartime service
A memorial recognising the wartime work done by Quakers has been unveiled at the National Memorial Arboretum in Staffordshire.
Quaker beliefs, among them pacifism, meant that many were unable to serve in the armed forces during wartime.
Many volunteered to serve in warzones in the Friends Ambulance Unit (FAU).
Leslie Steed, 94, from Birmingham, who served … -
TIL that microcomputer pioneer and inventor Clive Sinclair avoids the Internet because it "blurs the mind"
Personal flying machines will be a reality, home computer and electric car pioneer Sir Clive Sinclair has said.
He told BBC Radio 4's iPM programme that soon it would be "economically and technically possible" to create flying cars for individuals.
Sir Clive is best-known for the Spectrum computer and his failed electric car effort, the … -
The Worst Joke I Ever Heard
After refusing to share it for over twenty years, Dan performs his first (and only) re-telling of the worst joke he ever heard.
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Jury Duty, Part 1
Dan's been called for jury service. Naturally, he's going to be blogging about it (except for the bits that he legally can't, of course).
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What's Wrong With Monopoly?
Monopoly enjoys cult status and a massive following the world over, yet it's one of the worst imaginable board games. In a long-promised blog post, Dan explains why he hates the world's most-popular game.
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TIL that in 2004, a book was published that suggested that TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer was valuable as a guide to spirituality
What Would Buffy Do?: The Vampire Slayer as Spiritual Guide is a book relating to the fictional Buffyverse established by TV series, Buffy and Angel.
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My partner and her husband are on Orangered, but I'm on Periwinkle. How do I come out about this, to them?
Also: what in the world is going on with Reddit today?
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My old IAmA throwaway is on Orangered, so I infiltrated their camp and downvoted everything there.
AltDownvotes on 'the other' Reddit camp
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Review of Dear Esther
This review originally appeared on Steam. See more reviews by Dan. Dear Esther Rating: 👍 Not so much a game as a semi-interactive ghost story in a beautiful, Source-powered landscape, Dear Esther is worth playing... so long as it's on sale. The gameplay's not long enough to justify a £6.99 price tag, and there's almost …
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Non-transitive Games
Dan learns about non-transitive games, writes a program to calculate the probabilities of winning a non-transitive dice game, and gives you a non-transitive coin game to play for yourself!
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Hello 2013: Les Gets
Continuing his series of "catch up about the beginning of the year" blog posts, Dan talks about his trip to the French Alps by train, and the skiing he did when he got there.
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Alternatives to Google Reader
Google Reader is slated to be shut down on 1st July. Many of Dan's friends still use Google Reader as their primary RSS reader, so he's put together a quick guide to evacuating to pastures greener.
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Hello 2013: My Birthday
Dan managed to spend the afternoon of his birthday away from his computer and in the pub... but only because his office caught fire! This, and more from Dan's early-January trip to London.
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TIL that more than 1 in every 365 people die on their birthday, and nobody's sure why
A study by Swiss researchers has generated a startling statistic - you are 14% more likely to die on your birthday than on any other day of the year. But why should that be?
As the researchers put it, "birthdays… appear to end up in a lethal way more frequently than expected ."
This is … -
Hello 2013: Goodbye 2012
In a belated blog post, Dan looks back on 2012, and describes it as one of the hardest years of his life.