Stet » News in brief

Define nitpicky

Ria — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 21:46:36 +0000

Of all the Jobs anecdotes doing the rounds from Isaacson’s biography, this one stuck in my mind:

“At one point, the pulmonologist tried to put a mask over his face when he was deeply sedated,” Isaacson writes:

Jobs ripped it off and mumbled that he hated the design and refused

Freedom means the right to choose your own truth

Ria — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 13:10:19 +0000

I love following American politics. It’s so much more fun than in other countries. I think my fascination comes down to the exceptional degree of chutzpah shown by candidates and commentators, and the almost inevitable exposure of the mismatch between what they say and what they do. Once the flaw is exposed, it is fascinating

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Come together

Ria — Thu, 21 Jul 2011 22:21:35 +0000

Ten days into the summer break and I feel a change coming on: no longer thinking about teaching projects and grading, my mind has been increasingly filled with personal geeky projects, driven in large part by the recent purchase of my first smartphone. I’m not going to give in to the boring clichés (it’s like

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Head in the clouds

Ria — Tue, 28 Jun 2011 20:08:05 +0000

I recently took advantage of the cheap software available for university staff and ordered Adobe CS5.5 Web Premium, bundled with InDesign and Captivate for … 26 euros … and MS Office 2010 for … 12 euros! I know! GTFOOH, I hear you cry enviously.

I actually hesitated about the second purchase since so much of

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Rinderpest begone!

Ria — Tue, 28 Jun 2011 09:41:00 +0000

Great feature in the New York Times today about the celebration in Rome of the eradication of rinderpest:

For only the second time in history, a disease has been wiped off the face of the earth.

I had a soft spot for rinderpest, or rather its eradication, and was proud to support FAO’s initiatives by

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The limits of tolerance

Ria — Fri, 11 Mar 2011 00:08:02 +0000

The Dutch like to think of themselves as an exceptionally, even uniquely, tolerant people. The precedent is often cited as Amsterdam’s reception of refugees fleeing religious persecution in the 17th century, although London too hosted Huguenots and Jews, in perhaps greater numbers than Amsterdam. And to the outsider today, the Netherlands is not obviously more

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Sure ’nuff ‘n’ yes I do

Ria — Mon, 20 Dec 2010 00:33:23 +0000

“Dinner time! All hands on deck! Chop chop! Set the table! Put out that fire … And get off the damn computer!”

6 pm rush hour chez les Bacon.

After my eldest daughter has logged out of her favourite social networking site, the Dutch faceoff of Facebook, Hyves, a graphic appears showing the most discussed

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Milk

Thanks a lot, Voltaire

Ria — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 20:48:08 +0000

News just in: seven out of ten Dutch people have participated in a poll about Geert Wilders.

Whatever issue Wilders addresses becomes the discussion of the day, and in such a way that Wilders himself becomes the issue once again. I’m not usually one for conspiracy theories, but I read somewhere that someone’s brother-in-law overheard

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Rollin’, rollin’, rollin’

Ria — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 08:20:52 +0000

Keep those wagons rollin’ …

Life is rollin’ on chez les Bacon — school’s almost out for summer, my contract at the university has been extended for another year, baby Didi is up and walking, and we interviewed a woman last night to come help clean for us, which of course meant we spent a

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Family lives 4 years with dead brother

Ria — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 11:53:25 +0000

The northern province of Friesland is considered to be on the outer fringes of the Netherlands, with its own language, cows, and … weirdness. Proof of just how weird was the following news story from last night:

In the village of Minnertsga, the body of a man who died four years ago has been found

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