Ben Finn

I like optimization of all kinds - productivity, creativity, happiness, investing, tea. Former music software entrepreneur; co-inventor of Sibelius

[Ben Finn @optimablog]

@SophiesNewWorld @InstaSim6 Doubling down on his ignorance. He was so ignorant about PHP that even after he’d heard of it, he didn’t realise just how ignorant his admission would reveal him to be

[Ben Finn @optimablog]

@InstaSim6 I once had a conversation with a UK personal finance journalist who’d never heard of an ETF (exchange traded fund - a common way to buy a fund on the stock market). Not quite PHP levels of ignorance, but even so

[Ben Finn @optimablog]

@archaeologyart “My pet rabbit casts a shadow in the shape of a hand” - Harry Hill

[Ben Finn @optimablog]

@m_jones_1797 @Ryan_Browne_ Maybe they should have appointed someone with a computing or at least science degree?

[Ben Finn @optimablog]

@neontaster My father had a teacher in the 1950s who insisted on calling television ‘teleoptics’, on the grounds that you shouldn’t mix Greek and Latin roots

[Ben Finn @optimablog]

@docmilanfar Some similarities to CEO/COO - CEOs are often visionaries and COOs implementers - but successful CEOs have to be practical too

[Ben Finn @optimablog]

@the_culturist_ If I recall correctly the designer wasn’t even an architect!

[Ben Finn @optimablog]

@JamesMelville @mattwridley A few years ago I saw Rod Stewart walking down my street in London with his wife, heading for a restaurant. He looked very elegant, with a stylish jacket and silver-topped cane.

Some youths shouted abuse at them, which he ignored but I felt embarrassed & sorry for them

[Ben Finn @optimablog]

@_____feifei Oddly, it stands for the same as the S in Harold S Truman.

(nothing)

[Ben Finn @optimablog]

@5goalthriller I don’t like the language either but agree we shouldn’t display mummies (human bodies) in what presumably would have been a sacrilegious way.

Any more than we should grind them up to make brown paint, as was done until well into the 20th century

[Ben Finn @optimablog]

@SongsInCWC @IT_unhinged And neither viewer will care

[Ben Finn @optimablog]

@hsu_steve But of course there are similarities and differences

[Ben Finn @optimablog]

@hsu_steve Indeed the chess analogy is not discussed enough. Chess was not killed by computers beating humans (Deep Blue), nor even by becoming incomprehensibly superhuman (Alpha Zero). If anything it was reinvigorated

[Ben Finn @optimablog]

@neontaster The NHS is not great (these days) but it is free at the point of use, whereas US healthcare can be absurdly expensive.

And dishwashers / dryers are not considered luxury items in the UK; total nonsense

[Ben Finn @optimablog]

@amazingmap TIL Columbus never visited mainland North America.

They lied to us

[Ben Finn @optimablog]

@FurtherOr French, according to 17th century grammarian Dominique Bouhours, who said (translated):

“French is perhaps the only language that follows exactly the natural order, and expresses thoughts in the order in which they arise in the mind.”

[Ben Finn @optimablog]

@paulg You have incidentally subtly signalled that you are from the higher classes (as you don’t put the milk in the cup before the tea).

Only middle- and upper-class Britons might understand this

[Ben Finn @optimablog]

@IndstnctChtr @BonkDaCarnivore There actually was one! (Maybe the student mistyped the book title into an LLM??)

https://t.co/Kq6woNeWye

[Ben Finn @optimablog]

@internetpreai Or see many many more at
@depthsofwiki

[Ben Finn @optimablog]

@TomBFlanagan Article was previously titled ‘Computus’ which is the excellently arcane but concise word for ‘the calculation of the date of Easter’

[Ben Finn @optimablog]

@TomBFlanagan Not a favourite exactly, but this unbelievably comprehensive page about the theology, history and mathematics of the date of Easter:

https://t.co/YdNYH3zKGs