To understand what it is like to try to become an MP you could read memoirs, learned tracts or rulebooks. It is better to ask MPs about letterboxes. Every MP will have spent hours leafleting, and few
Most of us have the distinct pleasure of going throughout our lives bereft of the physical presence of those who rule over us. Were we peasants instead of spreadsheet jockeys, warehouse workers, and b
My two years (thus far) of "involuntary retirement" and subsequent forays through more interview processes than I care to count has yielded some interesting insights on our industry, recruiting teams,
Business is noisy. Business is full of people worrying loudly about projects, processes, and other people. These people have opinions, and they share them all over the place — all the time. This colle
I think I have a problem with authority. Starting with my own. It troubles me greatly to hear that people see me as an expert or an authority, and not a fellow amateur. If I've learned anything in my
An allegory? Sarcasm? Humorous pastiche? You decide. The fanatical proponents of baseball tell us that it is a very exciting game, fun to play and fun to watch. They are clearly either stupid or evil
Atop an ordinary slab of office building in downtown Warsaw juts what at first might look like yet another example of architectural one-upmanship. But the 80-metre steel spire pointing out of the newi
Feb 29th 2024 |GRANTHAM “We could certainly fit 22 in here,” says Lee Steptoe, a Labour Party councillor, as he surveys an upstairs room in Grantham’s Guildhall. The room is large and imposing, with V
Feb 29th 2024 In the winter of 1991, around the time of the first intifada, Joe Sacco, then a young cartoonist and journalist, arrived in Gaza with no particular aim except “to see what’s going on”. H
The 20th century was not kind to ponds in Britain. Many were drained to create more farmland or filled in to make room for new buildings. Some went to waste, others were stuffed with it. The traffic w
They are dying out. Last month the final surviving member of the original SAS died. A year or so ago the last “Dambuster” pilot died. A few years before that, the last Battle of Britain Spitfire ace d
Not long after I moved to San Francisco, I started singing regularly with a choir. I hadn't sung with a choir in years, and this choir was pretty advanced: their material often included frequent key c
“EASY TO FIND and hard to leave.” That is how Sidmouth’s tourism website describes the small seaside town in East Devon, where the red cliffs turn the ocean water pink. The tagline could apply to live
In the nearly 40 years that The Economist has served up its Big Mac index, the price of the McDonald’s burger in America has more than tripled. In that same period the cost of another meaty treat—a ho
I t’s one of those things that, once you’ve seen, you can’t unsee. Once you’ve noticed the curved benches, the spikes embedded in doorways, the posts made for leaning rather than sitting, the carefull
T hat evening of April 3rd 1968, round Mason Temple in Memphis, Tennessee, a mighty storm was blowing. The tin roof banged in the rain, and the rafters blew against each other. Yet the vast hall was p
Listen to this story. Enjoy more audio and podcasts on iOS or Android . I f you ever hear a professional investor talk about a trade that taught them a lot, prick up your ears. Usually, this is code f
I t was his Mum who started it. She was always singing round the house, turning any stray remark into a rhyme, such as “Let’s go to the show, we have to go now, you know….” Uncle Everett added to it w
Q UITE HOW the Pacific Ocean’s early long-distance mariners found their way so impressively will never be precisely known. Islanders had no written language, and by the time Europeans arrived in the P
Let me introduce you to WordStar 4.0 , a popular word processor from the early 80s. WordStar 4.0 As old as it seems, George R.R. Martin used it to write “A Song of Ice and Fire”. Why would someone use
Listen to this story. Enjoy more audio and podcasts on iOS or Android . I f you have ever longed to make your own cider, Eric Freeman would soon show you how. First, find the right apples: not from th
Listen to this story. Enjoy more audio and podcasts on iOS or Android . J ourdan Thibodeaux has had a job every day since his tenth birthday. These days the dreadlocked millennial flips houses, manufa
E ven their downfalls are spectacular. Like a latter-day Icarus flying too close to the sun, disgraced crypto-god Sam Bankman-Fried crashed and burned this month, recasting Michael Lewis’s exuberant b
O PEN A TEXTBOOK for a foreign language, and one of the first things you see is an alphabet, enumerating the letters used in the writing system and the sounds they represent. This is obviously crucial
“I awoke one morning and found myself famous,” Lord Byron once said. Just over a decade ago a secluded avenue of ancient beech trees in rural north Antrim, in Northern Ireland, experienced something s
E ver watched a film about how important bureaucratic reforms are devised? Ever wanted to? Hopes were high among a certain type of nerd that a Hollywood blockbuster out this week would provide just th
W hen David Cameron resigned as prime minister in June 2016, hours after Britain voted to leave the EU , he said the country needed “fresh leadership”. What it would like now is a nice lie-down. Rishi
Imagine, if you will, the daily routine of a tortoise in winter: every day you wake up under the dog’s bed and set off on a series of clockwise laps around a large kitchen table. Your visual field is
Nothing worth knowing can go on living if it isn’t repeated. That especially applies for unit testing! This is because unit testing is two things: a practice, and a corpus of code. The corpus of code
I am burnt out. It’s 5:30pm and I’m just sitting down to write today’s NaBloPoMo post, and the only thing I can think to write about is that I am exhausted. I stopped working full-time in April and I’
I t is impossible , now, to watch it in the same way. The emphasis has changed—and emphasis is what matters in comedy. He’d always known that. The words, the sentence, the scene can be the same but al
I constantly rave about how much I enjoy the code review culture at Cash App. My colleague Saketwrote an excellent post about it titled “Great teams merge fast” , wherehe goes into detail on how we ap
When I was first hit by Covid-19 and struggling with brain fog, I knew there was only one thing that could restore my sense of wellbeing. A short brown bear with a blue duffle coat. Since Paddington t
W henever he walked round his patch of the northern Negev, Ofir Libstein fairly buzzed with ideas. Sha’ar HaNegev was not large, just 180 square kilometres, three kilometres from the Gaza Strip, with
Complicated problems have a solution, and the solution can often be found by breaking the complicated portions into smaller pieces. And complicated problems often have an emotional component, because
Listen to this story. Enjoy more audio and podcasts on iOS or Android . T wo and a half millennia ago, Socrates complained that writing would harm students. With a way to store ideas permanently and e
T he concert piece, Franz Liszt’s E-flat Concerto, opened with a bracing call and response: a seven-note motif from the strings, answered by a rousing clarion from the horns and woodwinds. Then the sa
Listen to this story. Enjoy more audio and podcasts on iOS or Android . “T IE AN ITALIAN’S hands behind his back,” runs an old joke, “and he’ll be speechless.” The gag rests on a national stereotype:
Listen to this story. Enjoy more audio and podcasts on iOS or Android . D O YOU EDIT text messages carefully before sending them? If so, you may be the kind of person who takes pride in crafting even