Author: 2011

• What’s going on with consumption?

  

  I was blown away by BBC’s article on the top economic graphs of 2011 for the UK: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/in-pictures-16090055 Not only do they paint a very [...]

   

• A Dramatic Turn of Events… or merely melodrama?

  

  If there’s one thing Dream Theater has as a band, it’s resilience. Still going after 25 years despite numerous setbacks and a few notable member [...]

   

• The Psychology of Playing Fast

  

  Being able to pull off a really fast piece of proficient playing on a musical instrument is something almost everyone would like to be able [...]

   
 

• A Fractional Bedtime Fiction

  

  Once upon a time, the great country of Englonia was ruled by the benevolent leader Neelios. He was famed for his mathematical methods of problem [...]

   

• House price vs wage: which city is the most expensive place to live?

  

  I’d noticed recently that a few people had mentioned the expensive cost of housing in relation to the average salary in their area. So I [...]

   

• Musical Interlude – Always With Me, Always With You

  

  Here’s a video of me playing Joe Satriani’s classic – Always With Me, Always With You. Enjoy.

   
 

• Marcus Wareing at The Berkeley

  

  Last week, my good friend Mr Fonz and I treated ourselves to a nice lunch at Marcus Wareing’s restaurant at The Berkeley Hotel in Knightsbridge. [...]

   

• Shuffling Cycles

  

  Playing cards and number theory go together like young boys and bishops. Here’s an interesting application of mathematical cycles that involves card shuffling. The type [...]

   

• Why LA Noire should have been more like Heavy Rain

  

  First things first – let me say that LA Noire is an enjoyable experience with a gripping plot. I had a lot of fun playing [...]

   
 

• The Pigeonhole Principle: Fun with Functions

  

  Maths is full of cool theorems. The Pigeonhole Principle is one of my favourites because of the fact that it is so powerful and quite [...]

   

• Asymmetric information and high school effort grades

  

  In high school, I remember thinking how our grading system was a total farce. We weren’t graded on ‘results’, allegedly. Instead, our teachers gave us [...]

   

• Interest Rates – or you say “jump”, I say “how high?”

  

  As you can see from the graph above, UK interest rates have flatlined at 0.5% since the recession took full effect in 2009. At the [...]

   
 

• Musical Interlude – The Repentance Solo

  

  Here’s a little musical interlude – me playing the solo from Dream Theater’s Repentance. A beautiful song. Sorry about the sound quality, and my suspect [...]

   

• Cereal Nutrition

  

  Yum. Breakfast is my favourite meal of the day. And hopefully, you should all know by now that skipping it is not a good idea. [...]

   

• VAT’s not looking too good

  

  The BBC reported today that, according to the latest figures from the Office of National Statistics (ONS), the UK economy shrank by 0.5% in the [...]