I've done some work on MOSM, the mobile web site for seeing a map of where you are. For fun I thought I'd use HTML5. It worked out okay on the browser you get with Android 2.2.

One thing I had to learn to get a web page working …

Went for a stroll this morning, and mapped a new road. Finished reading Herland, by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. Herland is a feminist utopia, an undiscovered realm populated entirely by women. It's easy to mock utopias, but they're much harder to write about than dystopias, so I admire anyone who has …

Loving the holiday posts. Impressed with the kindle battery life.

Went for a walk and put some extra bits on Open Streetmap. I took a snapshot of the map beforehand:

I've now added in things on the route from the cottage to the Co-op. There are quite a few unmapped areas, I'll add in some more tomorrow. I took a …

Alastair Reynolds is a consistently fine writer. I've recently finished Zima Blue, a book of Reynolds' short stories, and every one has been superb. Reynolds is becoming one of my most highly rated sci-fi authors. I've lent the book to Bob at work, who's a sci-fi fan, he's sure to …

The one plot flaw is that Atticus or Aunt Alexandra would have gone to the pageant. It was a big event in Maycomb, and their daughter / niece was in it. Also, Alexandra was in the same social circle as Mrs Merriweather the organizer of the pageant, and Alexandra wouldn't snub …

Agnes Grey is the first book I've read on my new Kindle. I got the book from Project Gutenberg so it is free in the sense of Free Culture and also free of charge.

It's a very buttoned-up book. Agnes is a bit of a goody goody. Puerile as I …

My brother and his wife very generously gave me a Kindle for Christmas.

I first want to talk about the plug. Duncan tells me that the iPhone plug works like this as well, but the Kindle is the first place I've seen it. The adapter is built into the plug …

It was at the end of The Golden City, the last of the Fourth Realm trilogy, that J12H made a privacy argument that I thought had something going for it. In Gabriel's climactic broadcast, he says:

And some of you may ask: 'Is there any value to privacy?'
All new …

In Country House, Blur sing:

He's reading Balzac, knocking back Prozac
It's a helping hand that makes you feel wonderfully bland
Oh it's the centuries remedy
For the faint at heart, a new start

Eugenie Grandet is my first Balzac and I very much enjoyed it. He has fairly long …