Richard Kettlewell

rjk@rackheath:~$ python -c 'print "møøse"'
møøse
rjk@rackheath:~$ python -c 'print u"møøse"'
møøse
rjk@rackheath:~$ locale
LANG=en_GB.UTF-8
LC_CTYPE="en_GB.UTF-8"
LC_NUMERIC="en_GB.UTF-8"
LC_TIME="en_GB.UTF-8"
LC_COLLATE="en_GB.UTF-8"
LC_MONETARY="en_GB.UTF-8"
LC_MESSAGES="en_GB.UTF-8"
LC_PAPER="en_GB.UTF-8"
LC_NAME="en_GB.UTF-8"
LC_ADDRESS="en_GB.UTF-8"
LC_TELEPHONE="en_GB.UTF-8"
LC_MEASUREMENT="en_GB.UTF-8"
LC_IDENTIFICATION="en_GB.UTF-8"
LC_ALL=
rjk@rackheath:~$ python -V
Python 2.5.2

(...but it's the same in 2.6.x.)

I think it's interpreting each byte in the (actually UTF-8¹) input string as a Unicode code point in its own right, though another (philosophically different but pragmatically essentially identical) possibility is that it thinks all input strings are encoded using ISO-8859-1.

¹ and don't give me the nonsense someone came up with last time about Python having no way to know how the input is encoded. It does have a way, that's what LC_CTYPE is for.

Apropos this and this:

naath bought me Pushing Ice for my birthday, which I have now read.

There's some familiar Reynolds ideas - human characters encountering technology far beyond their own culture; powerful aliens with questionable motives; important off-stage action; intense personal and societal politics within the human communities.

The book opens with a chase of a moon-sized quest object, with a definite hint of Rendezvous with Rama. Success in this, however, turns out to be a highly mixed blessing, with consequences that give the story a more claustrophobic in feel than the Revelation Space series in the medium and longer terms.

There's a couple of points where I wasn't quite convinced by the actions of some of the characters. In the first example this could reasonably be put down to the viewpoint we get; in the second there is simply not enough suspicion from someone who ought to know better by that point in the story.

That aside, I stayed up far too late reading it last night, which is generally a good sign l-)

00:32 < ewx> do you speak entirely in green?
00:32 < ceb> Non sequiteur, 30-15.
00:32 < ewx> you CANNOT be serious

I've always wanted to be John McEnroe in question tennis.

Extra points for guessing what kind of CPU it is.

...my back tyre burst on the way to IWJ's for dinner, and I forgot to video Rome.

Fortunately both dinner and the associated company were excellent, and I repaired my bike before heading home; and I can watch Rome on repeat on Sunday, if I remember. But still, I am getting rather bored of bike repairs. Time to find some kevlar-belted tyres.