Terry Boon
@terryboon.bsky.social
Games & stories; maths & language; technology & risk; and thoughtful politics & law. Living in London, UK.
Views my own, not representative of employer or anyone else, & reposts and follows are not endorsements.
Also on Mastodon: @[email protected]
Views my own, not representative of employer or anyone else, & reposts and follows are not endorsements.
Also on Mastodon: @[email protected]
"Slide rules - anyone still use them?" on Hacker News reminded me of children's maths/puzzle book "Nut-Crackers" (1971) I once had, with cut-out paper slide rule at the back. And I now spot it was an early book (the first?) from subsequently prolific mathematician & writer Ian Stewart!
February 6, 2026 at 6:09 PM
"Slide rules - anyone still use them?" on Hacker News reminded me of children's maths/puzzle book "Nut-Crackers" (1971) I once had, with cut-out paper slide rule at the back. And I now spot it was an early book (the first?) from subsequently prolific mathematician & writer Ian Stewart!
Planning a dinner, reminded of the old saying on clocks & time - as I found a man with one recipe book may know how to roast pork belly, but a man with two may never be sure. (High heat first for the crackling, then low for the rest? Or the other way round? Or low heat all the way for *5 hours*?)
February 1, 2026 at 4:24 PM
Planning a dinner, reminded of the old saying on clocks & time - as I found a man with one recipe book may know how to roast pork belly, but a man with two may never be sure. (High heat first for the crackling, then low for the rest? Or the other way round? Or low heat all the way for *5 hours*?)
Reposted by Terry Boon
Could an unknown player really take down one of the world's best and win $1million?
This is on offer in the Australian Open's One Point Slam (OPS) tomorrow (14 Jan)
But what is the competition, and does an amateur really stand a chance of winning?
kityates.substack.co...
1/9
This is on offer in the Australian Open's One Point Slam (OPS) tomorrow (14 Jan)
But what is the competition, and does an amateur really stand a chance of winning?
kityates.substack.co...
1/9
The One-Point Slam
An unusual tennis competition that pits amateurs against professionals in one-point matches is launching at the Australian Open. But could an unknown player really take down one of the world's best?
kityates.substack.com
January 13, 2026 at 8:40 AM
Could an unknown player really take down one of the world's best and win $1million?
This is on offer in the Australian Open's One Point Slam (OPS) tomorrow (14 Jan)
But what is the competition, and does an amateur really stand a chance of winning?
kityates.substack.co...
1/9
This is on offer in the Australian Open's One Point Slam (OPS) tomorrow (14 Jan)
But what is the competition, and does an amateur really stand a chance of winning?
kityates.substack.co...
1/9
Reposted by Terry Boon
We have an update on Charlie’s newfound love of printing.
January 14, 2026 at 6:00 PM
We have an update on Charlie’s newfound love of printing.
Reposted by Terry Boon
The retirement of the MetroCard at midnight tonight is bittersweet for me. In 1983, as a young lawyer, I took a year's leave of absence from my law firm to serve as special counsel to Richard Ravitch, chairman of the NY MTA. He gave me the task of leading a study ...
It's the final day of MetroCard sales—so as we say farewell to an icon, let's take a look at how it all started.
Thank you, MetroCard, for moving New York to the very last swipe.
Thank you, MetroCard, for moving New York to the very last swipe.
January 1, 2026 at 3:33 AM
The retirement of the MetroCard at midnight tonight is bittersweet for me. In 1983, as a young lawyer, I took a year's leave of absence from my law firm to serve as special counsel to Richard Ravitch, chairman of the NY MTA. He gave me the task of leading a study ...
Reposted by Terry Boon
Yesterday @bootsmcgoot.bsky.social and I saw some techbro giving “30 pieces of advice for people under 30” over on Twitter and it was all grind culture bullshit. As adults of 38 and 43 respectively, we compiled 30 pieces of advice that people under 30 won’t have heard before:
December 28, 2025 at 10:34 AM
Yesterday @bootsmcgoot.bsky.social and I saw some techbro giving “30 pieces of advice for people under 30” over on Twitter and it was all grind culture bullshit. As adults of 38 and 43 respectively, we compiled 30 pieces of advice that people under 30 won’t have heard before:
Reposted by Terry Boon
remember having a /~name folder on a server a guy you knew had hooked up at uni and you could host websites from it and stuff?
i miss that
i miss that
December 27, 2025 at 10:44 PM
remember having a /~name folder on a server a guy you knew had hooked up at uni and you could host websites from it and stuff?
i miss that
i miss that
Reposted by Terry Boon
Just starting a running thread for “once famous figures now slipping into recondite knowledge now that they’ve died and society moves on” to come back to as and when I remember
=1 Peter Cook and/or Dudley Moore
=1 Peter Cook and/or Dudley Moore
December 22, 2025 at 8:10 PM
Just starting a running thread for “once famous figures now slipping into recondite knowledge now that they’ve died and society moves on” to come back to as and when I remember
=1 Peter Cook and/or Dudley Moore
=1 Peter Cook and/or Dudley Moore
Reposted by Terry Boon
I’ve been hyperfixated on Batman ‘66 lately. Here’s an incomplete list of reasons why this is my favorite show.
November 7, 2025 at 4:20 AM
I’ve been hyperfixated on Batman ‘66 lately. Here’s an incomplete list of reasons why this is my favorite show.
Reposted by Terry Boon
December 2, 2025 at 8:48 AM
Liked Wikipedia's "Signs of AI writing": en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikiped.... It's not just well-known tells like negative parallels and em dashes -- it's a tapestry of subtle yet powerful clues, from overused "AI vocabulary" to false ranges giving an illusion of depth from just a couple of examples.
Wikipedia:Signs of AI writing - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
November 23, 2025 at 8:38 AM
Liked Wikipedia's "Signs of AI writing": en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikiped.... It's not just well-known tells like negative parallels and em dashes -- it's a tapestry of subtle yet powerful clues, from overused "AI vocabulary" to false ranges giving an illusion of depth from just a couple of examples.
Reposted by Terry Boon
The second rule of math club is we index lists by prime numbers
December 13, 2024 at 12:58 AM
The second rule of math club is we index lists by prime numbers
Reposted by Terry Boon
Rule 57 is an unfortunate error and should be disregarded
October 27, 2025 at 10:08 PM
Rule 57 is an unfortunate error and should be disregarded
Liked "Color Engineering" at www.chartography.net/p/color-engi... by @infowetrust.com. I'd long known about the hue-saturation-lightness (HSV) model. But this post took me further in applying it for *collections* of colours: analysing the palette of a design, or choosing effective combination onself
Color Engineering
The tool that snaps mercurial design into mechanical focus.
www.chartography.net
October 4, 2025 at 1:41 PM
Liked "Color Engineering" at www.chartography.net/p/color-engi... by @infowetrust.com. I'd long known about the hue-saturation-lightness (HSV) model. But this post took me further in applying it for *collections* of colours: analysing the palette of a design, or choosing effective combination onself
Reposted by Terry Boon
on.ft.com/46M9mXI Why designers abandoned their dreams of changing the world. Free to Read.
Why designers abandoned their dreams of changing the world
Design was once seen as a tool to improve lives — but as modernism has become marketing, that sense of social purpose has drifted away
on.ft.com
October 4, 2025 at 12:41 PM
on.ft.com/46M9mXI Why designers abandoned their dreams of changing the world. Free to Read.
Reposted by Terry Boon
Does economics use too much maths - or the wrong kind of maths? on.ft.com/3IqOgGb
The wrong kind of maths
[FREE TO READ] Why the mathematics used in economics for decades needs a rethink
on.ft.com
September 25, 2025 at 6:39 AM
Does economics use too much maths - or the wrong kind of maths? on.ft.com/3IqOgGb
Reposted by Terry Boon
A lovely essay by RJ Andrews on lucidity vs luminosity in information design: www.chartography.net/p/clarity-un...
Clarity Unbound
Restoring Radiance to Information Design
www.chartography.net
September 21, 2025 at 8:54 PM
A lovely essay by RJ Andrews on lucidity vs luminosity in information design: www.chartography.net/p/clarity-un...
New "Eclectic Stacks" blog post: Getting a Rubik's Cube again after 40 years, I look at how I solved it then (with trusty copy of "You Can Do The Cube" at my side) and the approaches available nowadays - for beginners, speedcubers, and omniscient entities. www.eclecticstacks.com/post/revisit...
I Can (Still) Do The Cube: revisiting Rubik's classic puzzle
When I was a child in the 1980s, I had a Rubik’s Cube and a copy of Patrick Bossert’s book “You Can Do The Cube” - and carefully following the instructions, it indeed turned out that I could.
So when ...
www.eclecticstacks.com
September 15, 2025 at 7:54 PM
New "Eclectic Stacks" blog post: Getting a Rubik's Cube again after 40 years, I look at how I solved it then (with trusty copy of "You Can Do The Cube" at my side) and the approaches available nowadays - for beginners, speedcubers, and omniscient entities. www.eclecticstacks.com/post/revisit...
Reposted by Terry Boon
NEW: Are migrants more likely to commit crimes than non-migrants?
Here’s what the data does and doesn’t show.
1/8 @thetimes.com
www.thetimes.com/article/72b6...
Here’s what the data does and doesn’t show.
1/8 @thetimes.com
www.thetimes.com/article/72b6...
August 17, 2025 at 9:39 AM
NEW: Are migrants more likely to commit crimes than non-migrants?
Here’s what the data does and doesn’t show.
1/8 @thetimes.com
www.thetimes.com/article/72b6...
Here’s what the data does and doesn’t show.
1/8 @thetimes.com
www.thetimes.com/article/72b6...
Reposted by Terry Boon
they should be taken to The Hague for this graph crime
August 7, 2025 at 6:31 PM
they should be taken to The Hague for this graph crime
Reposted by Terry Boon
I think Tesco and M&S are doing everything in their power to break the person in HMRC who decides which food should incur VAT.
August 5, 2025 at 10:47 AM
I think Tesco and M&S are doing everything in their power to break the person in HMRC who decides which food should incur VAT.
Reposted by Terry Boon
With Tom Lehrer's passing, I suppose this is a moment to share the story of the prank he played on the National Security Agency, and how it went undiscovered for nearly 60 years.
July 27, 2025 at 9:01 PM
With Tom Lehrer's passing, I suppose this is a moment to share the story of the prank he played on the National Security Agency, and how it went undiscovered for nearly 60 years.
How a mixed strategy in a game (adding randomness to your choices) can beat a deterministic one, from @kityates.bsky.social: open.substack.com/pub/kityates...
(I'd pondered similar "Traitors" strategy of random murders to stop the choice of victim giving any hints, but that's not usually the issue!)
(I'd pondered similar "Traitors" strategy of random murders to stop the choice of victim giving any hints, but that's not usually the issue!)
Mixing it up
Can maths help you to do better in a penalty shoot-out? England's Lucy Bronze certainly thinks so.
open.substack.com
July 25, 2025 at 4:28 PM
How a mixed strategy in a game (adding randomness to your choices) can beat a deterministic one, from @kityates.bsky.social: open.substack.com/pub/kityates...
(I'd pondered similar "Traitors" strategy of random murders to stop the choice of victim giving any hints, but that's not usually the issue!)
(I'd pondered similar "Traitors" strategy of random murders to stop the choice of victim giving any hints, but that's not usually the issue!)
Enjoying John Caird's "Theatre Craft", a hefty A-Z on working as a director. I don't expect to be directing a play (or doing any more than sitting in a theatre watching one!), but liking the insights on how it all works, run through with entertaining anecdotes and dry humour. #theatre #books
July 24, 2025 at 8:08 PM
Reposted by Terry Boon
An AI slop factory apparently tried to rewrite our article about AI not replacing workers en masse, but hit the paywall... so just summarised the paywall. If this is the robot that takes my job I'll be v embarrassed
July 24, 2025 at 5:46 PM
An AI slop factory apparently tried to rewrite our article about AI not replacing workers en masse, but hit the paywall... so just summarised the paywall. If this is the robot that takes my job I'll be v embarrassed