Book rec: Ariana Franklin

This is a series about a woman trained, around the time of Henry II, to perform autopsies. The result is involvement in a series of mysteries. I've just read the second one, the Serpent's Tale, and it's great. Well-written - my immediate reaction to this kind of quality historical fiction is to want to learn more about the actual history. When this happens in a period of history I usually want to ignore, then the writing must be good.

Games: physics game site

I am trying out collider at physicsgames.net. Roll things around to cancel + and - charges. After playing it for awhile, I realize it is not so much predictive physics but experimental. You need to try things out to see what various trip levers, sensors, etc. do to the configuration of obstacles. Actually fun.

Web site: free science lectures

Found this site of free science lectures via Andrew Sullivan, with a link to the video on making rats laugh. Looks wonderful.

Web site: French aerial photos

The Yellow Pages in France have a neat feature that you can view aerial photos of a place you look up. Go to http://www.pagesjaunes.fr/ and find a location; On the right of the page is an option to search for an aerial photo of any location in France.

Web site: Iain M. Banks

Web site of one of my favorite science fiction writers, Iain M. Banks, though I have not been able to get into his Iain Banks (no M.) novels, except The Bridge.

Book rec: programming meta

Three book suggestions: Diomidis Spinellis and Georgios Gousios, Beautiful Architecture: Leading Thinkers Reveal the Hidden Beauty in Software Design.

Scott Rosenberg, Dreaming in Code: Two Dozen Programmers, Three Years, 4,732 Bugs, and One Quest for Transcendent Software.

Annalee Newitz and Charlie Anders, She's Such a Geek: Women Write About Science, Technology, and Other Nerdy Stuff.

Software: zotero

A Firefox add-on to organize citations online. Produced by the Center for History and New Media with some strong foundation support. At zotero.org

Software: dipity

A website for creating timelines: dipity.com. And yes, there do seem to be some WWII timelines but I'll need more time to find a good one. The site is not totally fun when the internet connection is slow.

Book rec: Charles Stross

Krugman mentioned a book series he likes, the Laundry series, by Charles Stross. Looks promising as do several other of his. Besides, he was born in Leeds.

France: a walk from Trucy sur Yonne

Yesterday we did a 9 km walk starting from the cemetery at Trucy sur Yonne, through the village and up the wooded, and beautiful, Vallee des Vignes. The treat of this walk is that you climb slowly to the plateau and then come down past the grande Ferme des Aubues to a magnificent view of the Yonne valley, kms in either direction, with picturesque villages to the north. Nice walk. This is #19 in the Entre Cure et Yonne à pied.