Annals of Important Research: An Economist blog post alerts me to a study that has apparently roiled the blogosphere, and that I slept through. Elmo¹ can make broccoli attractive to children.²

Bottom line:

[I]n the control group (no characters on either food) 78 percent of children par...

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Clickety clackety click. Yes indeedy, I'm firing on all cylinders here, and the room resounds to the rat-a-tat of my spiffy new keyboard. It's a Das Keyboard Model S Professional UK and I love it to bits.¹ As a typewriter, it's the best. Not just the noise but the spacing, pitch and feel of the...

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A neighbour is coming towards me, labouring to carry 18 kg of bottled water (plus the weight of the bottles). He seems glad to stop, put the water down, pet the dog. I comment that he has enough water for a month. No, till this evening, he jokes. I tell him I’m very happy with Roman tap water. Oh no...

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Melvyn Bragg’s In Our Time had a pair of episodes on the history of cities that were packed with fascinating ideas, any one of which could probably have spun off into a programme of its own. And of course I shouldn’t criticise for what wasn't there. But really, to spend 80 minutes discussing the h...

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I’m still reeling from a purchase last night: a 1Tb hard drive for 109 euros. First, who would ever have thought that I would need a 1Tb hard drive? And secondly, who would ever have thought that I could get one for chump change?