I started computer programming on punched tape and IBM 80-column punched cards, using Fortran, back in 1974. One of my first teachers was a young woman who could read the program directly off the punched tape, and debug it using a hole punch and some sticky dots. I fixated on her utterly, like a baby … Continue reading Software: Introduction
Tag Archives: Introduction
Writing: Introduction
When I was a solitary, bespectacled and distinctly oikotropic child growing up in Dundee, I seemed to be the only person in my class who brightened up when our English homework assignment was an essay. I liked writing. The first time I actually (sort of) sold a bit of writing was in 1977. Punch magazine, … Continue reading Writing: Introduction
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Walking: Introduction
But any ground that is not quite flat is of some interest to a mountaineer and the humblest hill is not to be despised, least of all by a mountaineer long past his youth. H.W. ‘Bill’ Tilman in Mischief Among the Penguins I chose “Walking” as the label for this category after rejecting “Climbing” (which … Continue reading Walking: Introduction
Phenomena: Introduction
Hardly a week goes by without some phenomenon in the natural world attracting my attention—the behaviour of waves and clouds, light and shade, animals and plants. There’s a great deal of physics going on out there, hidden in plain sight. Sometimes I can puzzle out what I’m seeing, sometimes I can look it up, sometimes … Continue reading Phenomena: Introduction
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Building: Introduction
When I was a solitary, bespectacled and distinctly oikotropic child growing up in Dundee, there was a close approximation to Heaven at the end of the red arrow in the photograph. That, in the late 1960s, was the location of Brian Sherriff’s model shop in the Cowgate. The place was stuffed, floor to ceiling, with … Continue reading Building: Introduction
Reading: Introduction
I’ve always done a lot of reading. And now there’s a whole lot of reading-for-work that I can stop doing and replace with reading-for-pleasure. This is a Good Thing, because there’s something of a backlog of books to be read for pleasure. This photo is of about half the stash: The Oikofuge’s Boon Companion has … Continue reading Reading: Introduction
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Words: Introduction
I’ve always loved words: unusual words, technical words, words with interesting etymologies, words that are often misused. For a while at the end of the last millennium, I wrote little filler items about words for the British Medical Journal, under the slightly self-congratulatory title Words to the Wise. Some have survived to become accessible on … Continue reading Words: Introduction
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