free variable

Today, I share with you a great insight.

Do you like coffee? do you get fed up with the paraphernalia needed to make it, and washing everything up? I do. Why can’t it be as simple as tea? The fact is, you don’t need any hardware except for a cup and a teaspoon. And, you will probably use less ground coffee in the process.

How does it work? take a look at one of the traditional methods the Chinese use for tea. They just put a few leaves in hot water, and when the leaves sink, it’s ready to drink. (And you can top up with water again to make the leaves go further – most good teas are fine for this.)

Well, the same works for coffee! So try this: 2 teaspooons of coffee grounds in a normal-size mug, with milk (optional) and then top up with near-boiling water, and leave for a few minutes. Stir occasionally. After about five minutes, most of the grounds will have sunk and you can drink the coffee.

It’s not bad, is it?

Worth mentioning: the ‘Byzantine’ method (Greek coffee etc) is kind of similar – heating the coffee and water mix to boiling and then not bothering to separate them.

Someone asked. Well, I wanted something just a little bit geeky, but the delightful strictly positive has already gone, and terms like ‘iota reduction’ just don’t have the same ring. Plus, ‘free variable’ seems quite apt now that I’m away from the binder of organised education! – and having much more fun too.

This site has been set up by  Paul Callaghan. I’ll probably use it to discuss various aspects of programming language technology. I like programming, and like anything that helps me do complex things more elegantly and precisely. So expect to see something about Haskell, Ruby, and dependent types in the coming weeks. You’ll also see something about interesting algorithms and how to express them in a flexible language. Stay tuned!