The very best of (part of) 2004

A very small part, alas.

This week, I have been mostly

• playing with Emacs, LaTeX and R; more fool me, I suppose, but the depth of my disillusionment with MSWord shows no signs of stopping, and with a XXX-page thesis to right over the next 10 months, now is the time to make the (free) plunge. Better earlier, but still. If this resonates with your inner spell-checker, then read this and muse (or see PDF here).
  

• Reading – I will have a fuller booklist when I hit my post-present stride, but for now I should commend
  

  Kukla, Andre (2001). Methods of theoretical psychology. Cambridge MA: MIT Press. UK / US

  for managing to set me straight about the flaws in induction, the lack of a rationale for preferring simpler theories and several other ‘smell the coffee’ moments without freaking me out in the process

  Baggini, Julian (2004). What’s It All About? GRANTA UK / US

  for cool analysis, warmly given, that reassures me that maybe I have, roughly, got it sort of, well, right…
  

• eating. Apparently, the new posh Christmas lunch is a turkey stuffed with a chicken stuffed with a duck stuffed with a pigeon stuffed with hundreds of scorpions. Ok, so not the last bit. Anyway, Sunday pm I knew what they were going through. Is it bad when you sweat gravy?

Speaking of anyway, I’m ditching the crisp cheeriness of December London in favour of heatless, foreboding Stockholm, realm of the ice-bears. I’ll catch y’all in ’05.