I start the day with a quick look around Litoměřice. I return to the main square where I had dinner the previous night. Here the main feature is the town hall which has a chalice shaped watch tower on the roof, apparently used for meetings by local leaders. From the top — which just had to be climbed — there was a three hundred and sixty degree view of the whole area.
In some respects this was a difficult day. Not so much the cycling I’m happy to report, but I did start the day with the worst hotel breakfast that I’ve seen in a long time. I couldn’t get out of the hotel and onto my bike quickly enough. Later in the day I would visit an old concentration camp, which was not entirely fun either.
As the first day of cycling there’s an argument that today should have been easy, just to get everyone into the habit. But no, on a week where the average length of ride is 46km, today would be 50km. And that’s 50km with two steep up-hill bits, not 50km all flat or down hill.
Or at least it would be once the bikes arrived. Although scheduled to appear around 8.30, the mini-bus transporting them failed to come until well after ten meaning that I didn’t get under way until after eleven.
- Protect The Human – My favourite charity launches a new website.
- Artist Builds Temple of Science – “For people who are not practicing scientists, science is a place where certainties are promised and delivered — even if five years later another contradictory certainty is presented.”
- The Cringely Plan – You can argue with the details but Cringely is spot on with regard to what Governments are best at influencing. Directly bailing out Wall Street or The City of London is not it.
- waffle → Goodwill – The new MS ads don’t really work: “most of the Apple ads bring up either real problems that Vista users experience, or real improvements that Macs deliver. Microsoft doesn’t attempt well enough to fix those Vista problems … and they’re not pushing the things Windows can do that Macs can’t. Pointing and saying ‘he’s lying; just read this promotional copy and see for yourself’ doesn’t seem like a good response.”
I actually had plans to visit Prague on my previous visit to Continental Europe but the various transportation options didn’t quite work out, meaning that this was the first time that I’d made it to the Czech capital.
My visit here was the bread to my cycling sandwich. I started and ended my trip here, so the pictures that follow were taking on two consecutive weekends, over three days.
I’ve noticed a trend. Every time that I come back from travelling and write a blog about it I start with the words “only a fool would…” Spend a whole winter in Norway? Check. Three countries in one weekend? Count me in! Christmas in Iceland? Absolutely.
This time it was cycling from Prague to Meißen, nearly 230km or around 45km a day. If you get on your bike regularly that might not sound like much, but I’m what you’d call a fair weather cyclist. And the weather in the UK this summer has been neither fair nor summery. So as I sat on the plane at Heathrow I was both nervous and excited. I would get to see a lot of great towns and scenery en route, but I’d have to work for it.
- Graduates ‘short on skills’ – CBI – Note to business leaders: there’s a difference between “education” and “training.” The primary focus at university should not be “preparing [students] for the world of work.”
- Canon EOS 5D Mark II Hands-on Preview – If this (and the 50D) are as good as they seem on paper, Nikon’s reign as DSLR champion looks to be very short lived.
- New Hitchhiker’s author announced – Hmm. I’m not sure that this is a great idea.
- Has the Large Hadron Collider destroyed the earth yet? – Very handy.
- Bill Gates & Jerry Seinfeld – Shoe Circus Commercial – This Vista video is a lot like Vista itself. Microsoft clearly spent a lot of money on it but there’s no real point to it.
- How Anti-Intellectualism Is Destroying America – “No country in the West democratized education earlier, but no country has been more suspicious of too much education. We’ve always thought of education as good if it gets you a better job, but bad if it makes you think too much.” This article is about the US but it’s not dramatically different here.
Introduction
I don’t want to start off on the wrong foot again, but I’m afraid I might have to. If you read my discussion of the C programming language you may imagine that I’d like C++. After all, C++ fixes some of C’s idiosyncrasies, adds object orientation and a whole host of new features.
You’d be wrong though. In many ways I consider C++ to be a step backwards from its parent and this piece will hopefully explain why.
It’s been over five years since I last told you about my favourite computer and programming related books (don’t believe the date on that article. It’s been edited lightly a couple of times since I first posted it).
Having said that, some things have not changed. The vast majority of books on the shelves of your local retailer are very specific. Publishers seem to eschew broad, generally useful texts in preference for yet another beginners guide to Microsoft Word or C++ (or, more likely, Visual C++ 2005 Special Easter Edition SP2). I do not understand this. Sure, there’s a genuine need for “how to” books for specific technologies but is it not more useful to learn how to solve problems in general rather than how to solve a particular problem with a particular product?