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It doesn't surprose me that the trees still grow in Manhattan. After all they're captives. They still grow, because life always tries to grow.

What amazes me is the birds cheeping away. You can fly! You must have visited quieter, calmer places? Here in the city no-one can hear you sing. The machinations of the city drown everything out beyond a couple of metres - the cars, the subway, the helicopters. Not a place for easy singing.

Do you like it here? Do you have a good territory? All this human noise, is it a curse or an irrelevance? Or maybe, is it all worth it for the central park?

I'm going to a conference next week, and the conference invites me to "Download the app!" Well, OK, you think, maybe a bit of overkill, but it would be useful to have an app with schedules etc. Here is the app listed on google play.

Oh and here's a list (abbreviated) of permissions that the app requires:

"""This application has access to the following:

• Your precise location (GPS and network-based)
• Full network access
• Connect and disconnect from Wi-Fi - Allows the app to connect to and disconnect from Wi-Fi access points and to make changes to device configuration for Wi-Fi networks.
• Read calendar events plus confidential information
• Add or modify calendar events and send email to guests without owners' knowledge
• Read phone status and identity
• Camera - take pictures and videos. This permission allows the app to use the camera at any time without your confirmation.
• Modify your contacts - Allows the app to modify the data about your contacts stored on your device, including the frequency with which you've called, emailed, or communicated in other ways with specific contacts. This permission allows apps to delete contact data.
• Read your contacts - Allows the app to read data about your contacts stored on your device, including the frequency with which you've called, emailed, or communicated in other ways with specific individuals. This permission allows apps to save your contact data, and malicious apps may share contact data without your knowledge.
• Read call log - Allows the app to read your device's call log, including data about incoming and outgoing calls. This permission allows apps to save your call log data, and malicious apps may share call log data without your knowledge.
• Write call log - Allows the app to modify your device's call log, including data about incoming and outgoing calls. Malicious apps may use this to erase or modify your call log.
• Run at start-up.

"""

Now tell me, what fraction of those permissions should a conference-information app legitimately use? (I've edited out some of the mundane ones.) Should ANYONE install this on their phone/tablet?

Not only is Boulder Colorado the Hebden Bridge of the USA (I'm told it's "where all the hippies went"), but it also has a really impressive amount of craft beer. Following a tip-off (thanks Bob), tonight I went to sample a few IPAs in the Mountain Sun pub. For the education of no-one except myself, here are my tasting notes - first in visual form:

then in words:

• Illusion Dweller IPA: described as "biscuity" and "english-style" but still with a hoppy sour tang at the back of the mouth, very clear and nice. Tastes like a modern American IPA to me, doesn't remind me of England - but a great balance of tang and biscuit, super drinkable.
• Vagabond IPA: almost a pure grapefruit hit, reminds me of that Metal Man which I loved in Ireland.
• FYIPA: "piney" is the main impression. However it's not got the sharp piney poke of Becherovka which I really like. Maybe it's unfair to compare a beer against a spirit, but Becherovka integrates its alcohol flavour in with the pine, whereas FYIPA has a kinda noticeable alcohol taste separate from the pine, which is a bit of a shame IMHO.
• Hop Vivant: yes it's a hoppy IPA, but more balanced, multivalent, colourful than the others I'm tasting tonight. Not a session beer, a bit too rich for that.
• Cat Burglar: black IPAs are really confusing. Erm. I like it less than the Thornbridge Raven, but I don't know why.

Not to look a gift-horse in the mouth, these are all lovely beers, very well served, but when they're sitting next to each other I have to compare them. Hence the ups and downs in the notes. The winner for me is definitely the Illusion Dweller. The ratings over at ratebeer tell almost the opposite story for some reason, with Illusion Dweller the only one not scoring ninety-something. Who knows what to make of that.

Updates - more beer I've tried from Mountain Sun:

• Java Porter - a lovely perky porter, coffee flavours as the name suggests but not too exaggerated.

More beer from other breweries:

• 90 Shilling by Odell - I was not into this at all. Too caramely I think?
• Old Elk Brown Ale by Walnut Brewery - really really straightforward brown ale. Not too sweet which is good.
• 1123 IPA by Walnut Brewery - really very nice IPA, perky and floral, assertive yet balanced.
• Hoppy Knight by Twisted Pine - this black IPA is much nicer than the Cat Burglar, IMHO. It does remind me of Thornbridge Raven, both of them having a kind of clarity to the taste that other dark things like Guinness have (though they don't taste like Guinness! much hoppier etc etc etc). This has a very refreshing taste up-front, with a clearly-separated coffee flavour at the end - neat! And not weird either.

My faves, I think, are 1123, Hoppy Knight, Illusion Dweller.

Haggis and orange - why of course! This salad serves 2. The red wine vinegar really helps the flavours marry, and the beansprouts add a nice bit of crunch - if you're being posh you could also/instead add some pomegranate seeds.

• 1 portion of cooked haggis
• 1 medium orange
• 1 generous handful rocket
• 1 very small handful beansprouts (probably no more than 10 sprouts)
• 3 tsp olive oil, approx
• 2.5 tsp red wine vinegar

In a large bowl, break the haggis into small pieces with a spoon. The haggis we had was a little dry so I also added a dab of oil at this point.

Now prepare the orange. First, with a zester, scrape off about 1/4 of the orange's zest, into the haggis. Then, with a knife slice the top and bottom off the orange, then stand the orange on a chopping board and slice off the rest of the peel. Then cut the orange into segments, and cut each segment in two, so you have little bite-sized bits. Pick out any pips. Add the orange pieces to the haggis, and also tip in the small amount of juice from the chopping board.

Add the rocket and the beansprouts, and mix. Add the olive oil and red wine vinegar and mix it to dress evenly. You won't need to season much, since the haggis brings a lot of seasoning.

Serve with toast.

I saw Brandon Mechtley's splmap which is for plotting sound-pressure measurements on a map. He mentioned a problem: the default "heatmap" rendering you get in google maps is really a density estimate which combines the density of the points with their values. "I need to find a way to average rather than add" he says.

Just playing with this, here's my take on the situation. You don't average the values, you create some kind of interpolated overall map, but separately you also use the density of datapoints to decide how confident you are in your estimate at various points on the map. Python code is here and here's an example plot:

Dataviz folks might already have a name for this...

The Little Woodford Cafe does a nice line in sandwiches. They often have a Sandwich Of The Week which adds variety. Here I'm just noting down some good ones they've done, for the purposes of sandwich-filling-inspiration:

• Salmon, freshly-poached, with cucumber and a homemade tartare sauce
• Tuna fiorentina (with boiled egg and spinach)
• Christmas special (turkey, sausage, cranberry sauce, stuffing - oh my)