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Dear America

If you could just tell me how much you want for that product and/or service, that would be swell. I know it might be more fun for you to give me a number and then expect 10%-20% more, but I’m really rather tired and jetlagged, and it would be nice to know upfront which of [...]

Dear $Majority

When I point out that something you say is ostracizing a minority of which I’m a part, or demeaning them; when I point out that something you’re doing seems exclusionary to the minority of which I’m a member, or just plain hurtful…

You really shouldn’t come back with “well, we asked around the rest of the [...]

And this, dear friends, is why I'm pro-choice

My little sister, probably the coolest person I know, laughed down the phone at me this morning, when I told her that universal suffrage did not exist in Switzerland, at the cantonal level, until 1991. The year before she started at school, the women of Appenzell Innerrhoden got the right to vote. Now, Rosie’s not [...]

Why I’m taking the Ada Lovelace challenge

Costigan Quist says he’s not taking the Ada Lovelace challenge. But I think he’s missed the point, and in my own rambling fashion, I’ll shortly explain why.

Before I do though, what is the challenge? Suw Charman-Anderson set up a pledge on PledgeBank, saying “I will publish a blog post on Tuesday 24th March about a [...]

Drinking responsibly

Kae has posted his thoughts on enjoying a drink. I can’t seem to leave a comment, but I think he’s missed a fairly vital point.

I’m all in favour of enjoying alcohol. Wine or sherry, cider or beer, champagne or cocktails. Red wine isn’t generally my tipple of choice, but there are apparently clear benefits to [...]

Goodness Gracious!

The instructions for the pizza said to put it on a baking tray in the oven for ten minutes, at 180°C. Hoping to avoid dirtying the scarily-clean Swiss baking tray I had bought earlier today (because there was no way I was going to dirty the terrifyingly clean tray provided), I put some baking parchment [...]

A Swiss Welcome

Once I got my start date from Google, it took us a little while to figure out when we should do the actual move. Obviously, we needed to have enough time to pack up on the Irish side, but we also wanted some time to settle in on the Swiss side, before I started in [...]

International Women’s Day 2007

I’m not sure what to say today. On the one hand, the things I said last year are as true today as they were then.

On the other, sentences like those found in the “Pink is not a colour representing women’s advancement” [caps moderated to save your eyes] section of the “Official IWD Colours” webpage, [...]

Clusterfsck

On Friday, Stephen’s latest Komplett order arrived in the office. He was due to have dinner with me after work, and duly did (including the tastiest chocolate brownie of all tasty chocolate brownies), leaving his laptop and the boxes to be picked up later. Mark phoned to say he was en route from Roscrea, and [...]

I think I might need help…

My program says that

“What Val gave a picture was a charity”

is a valid sentence – and I think it’s right…

I still haven’t decided whether

“Sal suggested Val to hate a cat”

is valid or not though.

I think I might love linguistics. Or hate it. It’s hard to tell.