Dan O'Huiginn

Disclaimer

I use this blog to write on subjects I don't know much about. Chances are, most posts will be incorrect in some major way. Here's some guidance on when I'm more or less likely to know what I'm talking about:
  • Languages: English is the only one I speak fluently. My translations from French, German or Russian are probably about 80% correct - I've spent some time living in France, Germany and Russia, and had some formal education in French and Russian. Translations from Sanskrit, Latin and Classical Greek will be shakier - in theory I should read them well (degree in Sanskrit, A-levels in Latin and Greek), but in practice I don't. Anything else: trust me as far as you'd trust babelfish.
  • Politics: same drill here. I have studied South Asian politics (which means less than you might expect) and have a general interest in Iraqi politics (which means more than you might expect). I know plenty of facts about Central Asia and the Caucasus - but I've never lived there, my interest waxes and wanes, and so my perspective is pretty skewed. Likewise I find Russian politics fascinating but mysterious; my brief quasi-internship at a Russian news agency mainly just taught me how repetitive wire reports can get.
  • Economics and Social Science. I wish I'd studied these, but I haven't. I've sat in on a few lectures, talked to some economists, read a few books and a lot of papers. Overall, I expect to be wrong about economics at least as often as I'm right.
  • Technology. I program for a living, so I should have some competence here. As regards programming languages I know Python well, C, PHP and Javascript passably, and dabble in everything else. With OSs I know Debian/Ubuntu well, other Linux flavours passably, and almost nothing about Windows/Mac. I have no background in academic computer science. I'm moderately familiar with MMORPGs from my work on Runescape, but that world is changing fast and I make little attempt to stay up-to-date.

Copyright

Creative Commons License
All my work on this site is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 License.

Note: this doesn't apply if any particular page says something different, or if there is something on here not written by me. Also, if you want to use anything beyond the terms of this license (e.g. commercially) I'll probably say yes - just email me first.

 

Short Posts

Russia has 119,000 (dollar) millionnaires? Ick.

Americans' opinions veer toward the liberal as they grow older. Not clear from the article whether they mean socially, economically, or both.

The Telegraph writes on bloggers in Iran - but both its examples are blogging in English. Great research, guys.

These uprising-day protests in Tibet: they don't happen on this scale every year, right? It's because of the Olympics? And there's almost no chance of them achieving anything beyond upping international outrage and pissing off the Chinese?

Russia has allowed the extradition of a mercenary to Colombia. Between this and Bout, it seems the US have decided to apply the thumbscrews.

Death of grass: a major wheat disease, on top of the current grain crisis.

In the US, more federal disasters are declared in election years. Disasters make presidents look tough, and provide plenty of pork.

guide to some Chinese policy wonks

Ah, bitching about the British media. Richly deserved

'In the 1960-1980 most social science departments offered a course on “Revolutions.”' (from ICGA, but mainly just interesting by itself. I love nuggets of institutional history like this.

New Yorker profile of Benazir Bhuttor, from 1993.

It'd take a lot to make me defend scientology - but German attempts to ban it just might.

Lessig's corruption research - page on his wiki

A REPL loop for C

Nice explanation of type systems in programming languages

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