This is just about the most fantastic thing I’ve ever seen!  It’s a bracelet that spells out “I am starstuff” in amino acid code.  If anyone wants to send me an early birthday present, this is at the top of my list!!  ;)

In her translation of Luigi Menabrea’s memoir on Charles Babbage’s Analytical Engine, Ada Lovelace appended notes that included a method for calculating Bernoulli numbers with the machine – the first computer programme. The calculations were never carried out, as the machine was never built.

Understanding that computers could do a lot more than just crunch numbers, Ada suggested that the Analytical Engine “might compose elaborate and scientific pieces of music of any degree of complexity or extent.”

This photo was forwarded to me by my friend Shadan at JPL…  We’ve no idea who took the photo, but it’s absolutely the best picture of a night launch either of us has ever seen!

The only surviving print of the first-ever film version of Lewis Carroll’s tale has recently been restored to its original colors by the BFI National Archive.  With a running time of just 12 minutes (8 of which survive), Alice in Wonderland was the longest film produced in England at the time.

George Clooney’s Mustache alternately made me shudder and smirk with cruel delight, The Hidden Story had me weeping in the middle of a crowded airport, Crumble made my heart ache deep into the night, and Sweet Nothings had me laughing for days.

It’s a book I recommend unreservedly to all my lovely Valentines!
(That means you.)  <3

Love Songs for the Shy and Cynical is available from Big Finish.

…also, I should point out that Santa is a woman.  Which is awesome.

Art is most universal when it’s personal.

“I try to never watch. It takes me so long to get over it and I’m always so downcast. I find it really distressing,” he says. “Maybe when I’m very old, I’ll sit down and watch my earlier work. But it will just depress the hell out of me. I’m sure I’m not alone in this. It’s not like I’m some weirdo. You just see how far short it falls from where you might have imagined you were heading. I have a perfectly average skewed perception of myself. We often don’t know what we’re like. I hope that’s the case because otherwise I’ll kill myself.” He chuckles.

Pirate Radio isn’t really a film about music, though the soundtrack is exquisitely chosen and ever present; it’s a film about people who love music…  It’s about how perfect life can be when you let it take you where it will, and it’s replete with that joyous creative harmony, that amazing synergy of people coming together for a common cause.  It’s really a lovely film.

Go see it!  I promise, you will love it.