I read Orange is the New Black yesterday. It was entirely chance, as every so often I download all the books off the New York Times Bestsellers List, and this happened to be on it ( Read more... )

I came across this video yesterday while procrastinating. It's interesting, showing Hannah Fry using maths to talk about the 2011 London Riots. A lot of her conclusions seem pretty basic from a sociological point of view, although I like that she clearly emphasizes the link between deprivation/ government cuts and rioting ( Read more... )

A friend posted this list 25 Things to Do Before You Turn 25 up on Facebook today. It's full of fairly good advice, although the title makes me feel old. But mostly I liked the last thing in the list...

25. Quit that job that’s making you miserable, end the relationship that makes you act like a lunatic, lose the friend whose sole purpose in life ( Read more... )

Been trying out some more mapping in GIMP. This time I made a classic dungeon, following this tutorial. This one was pretty easy, much less fiddly than the last one I tried. I'm actually pretty happy with it, although I couldn't work out how to rotate the curtain image I downloaded, and the colouring isn't perfect. Guessing it's going to take a ( Read more... )

Life is good at the moment. New house with a not so new girlfriend, old job done, new job a couple of weeks off, free time... Starting tomorrow, I have a week's holiday in Shanghai and Suzhou. Today, however, I decided I would finally start learning how to use GIMP and craft fantasy maps.

After several hours fiddling, mostly following this ( Read more... )

( Read more... )

( Read more... )

Can't wait for April 1st!

Click to view

I tried Vinegar Peanuts (醋花生米/ Lǎo Cù Huāshēng Mĭ) for the first time yesterday. A group of friends and I met up at a local Chinese restaurant, and this is one of the appetizers we ordered... so delicious. Apparently it's easy to make. After scouring the interwebs, I found several recipes: the most basic one is below. I'm going to try it out ( Read more... )

I'm currently working seven days a week (only 23 teaching hours in total, but I have to plan 19 different lessons) which is kinda killing me. The upside to this is the money; with the downside, of course, being that I have absolutely no time to spend it. At least my classes on the weekend - 6 hours in total - will end in a month ( Read more... )