noctothe more people you copy an email to, the more each recipient is likely to ignore it.
we’d never have known that without psychological research, huh?
Archive for July 23rd, 2002
tube stickers
did you know that you can loop the loop at clapham south? i think the tyne and wear metro needs a few of these added attractions. there already appears to have been a roller coaster installed between longbenton and south gosforth from the effect of the line there on my stomach.
[found via the null device]
mobile mathematics
the guardian point out exactly why we need algebra [*] though anyone who thinks that algebra is about x’s and y’s rather than inclusive minutes and monthly charges shouldn’t be teaching maths to start with.
You are choosing a pay-as-you-go mobile phone. Network X will give you 100 minutes calling time, and Network Y offers 60 minutes. You would like to invite some friends to join you at School Disco.com. Anyone you call on network X will come along, but each person you call on network Y has a 7-2 chance of bringing a friend with pigtails in a school skirt. Assume it takes you 53 seconds to explain the situation and that you use the phone up. On average, is it better to go with network X or Y if you want loads of mates?
[*]at least i think that’s the intention, most of the questions only require traditional algebra and most of the rest are just silly.
An Unhallowed Grave by Kate Ellis
I couldn't find the second in this series as it seems to be out of print in the UK so I skipped straight on to the third. I'm torn between enjoying this book quite a lot and finding the structure of the series too constricting to be liked.
This series is about Wesley Peterson and the other detectives of Tradmouth in Devon, where Tradmouth is a thinly disguised version of Dartmouth. I like the characters and find the majority of them believeable, especially the female members of the cast such as Wesley's wife Pam and his colleague Rachel Tracey. The plots themselves are believeable up to a point and the intersection of police work and archaeology is interesting. I'm finding this series to be difficult to get my head round though because there are just too many coincidences between the police work and the archaeology.
The structure of these books seems to be: Police start to investigate murder; Wesley bumps into his archaeologist mate Neil who is doing a dig somewhere near the murder; Dig turns out to involve a body who was murdered or a murderer; Murder involved in the dig turns out to be exactly the same story as the present day murder. And by exactly the same story I mean that the murders involve the same family members, the same places, the same motives, the same methods. In this one there is a element of copycatness involved between the two crimes but it still stretchs credulity a little bit far. I also think that it might make the later books in the series a bit predictable. In this one I was still willing to believe that the crimes wouldn't be as tightly related as they were.
It's almost that having dreamt up a series which combines police detection with archaelogical detection Ellis has done too well. The neatness of her plots is detracting from the other parts of the story. In a less well written book it would be easier to suspend disbelief and go along with the parallel crimes but the true to life characters make this a difficult task here. I'll certainly try another book in this series and see how I enjoy it.
Purchased on 11th July 2002.
Theme: DePo Square by Derek Powazek, generally messed up by Kirsty Darbyshire.
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