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| Wednesday, November 18th, 2009 | | 11:01 am |
Take a look around, nothing much has changed.
The patest issue of Wired magazine is the 'Ideas Issue'; they look at probable developments in society and technology over the short and longer term. Mostly this is in the field of communications media and the exciting new avenues for sharing pictures of your cat with the world which will soon open up. I have to say I found reading all of this a bit intimidating. Just when I've come to terms with one set of technology a whole bunch more comes along and invalidates everything I've just learned. When I were a lad, I found myself thinking, we made do with two tin cans and a bit of string to talk to our friends. Kids today. Eeh. They don't know how lucky they are. Tchah!. I then stopped myself with the awful realisation that I have finally started sounding like my dad. It struck me, though, why teenagers always seem so okay with new technology when most of the rest of us constantly feel like we're running to keep up - it's because when you're 14 you're seeing all this for the first time, but as you age you have to forget and learn anew every couple of years or so and it's not that you cannot do it, it's that you just really can't be arsed. A new iPhone? Why care? There'll be the next gadget du jour along in a week, so why develop a skill which is soon to be obsolescent? It's this mindset, expanded, which is what makes people get old. The world changes, and it's really tempting to become dogmatic about it; to rail against changes rather than adapt to them. It's like a couple of years ago when I sulked and stamped my foot and said I'd not go and visit the US again because of their overly complex and prescriptive immigration rules; obviously, as an attitude on my part, this was foolish as it displayed unadaptive thought patterns. Rather than complaining about things which one cannot change, it is better to change behaviours. It's better to learn new skills, even ones of short-term use, as they make the brain forge new connections and that increase in plasticity helps delay neural degredation and the resultant dribbling and incontinence. Anyway, this post is more of a reminder to myself than anyone else, but I'll cap it with a question: What do you complain about, when really you'd be better off just changing what you do? | | Monday, November 16th, 2009 | | 9:49 am |
Friedrich Nietzsche was a pillock
Nietzsche's most famous observation was 'that which does not kill me makes me stronger', which plainly isn't true. I can think of loads of non-fatal things which won't do that. Ten things which probably won't kill you but are highly unlikely to make you stronger: 1) Halitosis 2) Accidentally sitting on a cactus 3) Deliberately sittting on a cactus 4) Happy Meals as part of a calorie-controlled diet 5) Forgetting to wash your hands between putting Deep Heat on and going to the toilet. 6) Voting Labour 7) Haemarrhoids 8) Gout 9) Livejournal 10) Eating three large bowls of All-Bran in one sitting | | Wednesday, November 11th, 2009 | | 9:47 am |
| | Tuesday, November 10th, 2009 | | 9:06 am |
| | Friday, November 6th, 2009 | | 10:44 am |
Deleted Scenes
One side-effect of DVD's becoming the delivery medium of choice for films is that the extra storage space can be used for cool things like making of documentaries and deleted scnes which were filmed but then didn't make the final cut of the film. Some deleted scenes didn't even make the DVD release, though. The Bourne Ultimatum (2007) JASON BOURNE (Matt Damon) has broken into CIA headquarters, where he has confronted ALBERT HIRSCH (Albert Finney), then man who robbed him of his memories and made him into an unstoppable international hit man. Bourne: Tell me who I really am! Who am I!? Why Did you do this to me? Hirsch: Do this to you? Jason. You came to us. You volunteered. Bourne: You're a liar! Hirsch: Am I? You committed to the programme, Jason. We did nothing to you which you didn't agree to. Bourne: Damn you. You would say that. If it's true, prove it. HIRSCH takes out a suitcase. Hirsch: Inside this case are the things which were most important to you in your previous life. The things which you said mattered the most to you. We keep them, in case any of our sibjects ever want to come back. If you open this case, Jason, you'll know who you were, remember everything. But I advise you not to. Accept who you are, Jason. Come back to us. Bourne: It's gone too far for that! I've got to know who I was! BOURNE opens the case and takes out a huge piece of oddly-shaped fabric. Hirsch: I warned you. Bourne: Is this... HIRSCH nods. Hirsch: Yes. Oversized ladies underwear. Quite a lot of it. BOURNE pulls a sheet of paper out of the case. Bourne: Oh, God. Hirsch: I'm afraid so. A restraining order banning you from every launderette and washing line in Nuneaton and Kettering for the rest of your life. BOURNE hangs his head. Bourne: Can you...? Hirsch: Wipe your memory again? Sure. Star Trek (2009) JIM KIRK (Chris Pine) and SPOCK (Leonard Nimoy) are talking round a campfire in their ice cave. Kirk: So we're friends in the future? But you're got a stick up your ass a mile high and a chip on your shoulder a mile wide! Spock: That may be an accurate description of my younger self, yes, but likewise his opinion of you is also not innacurate. But with time you two will...define one another in ways you cannot yet begin to imagine. Kirk: So how old are you now? Spock: In your terms? A little over three hundred years old. Kirk: Must say, you've aged pretty well. (grins). What am I like when I'm older? Spock: I do not think it would be wise for me to answer that question. Kirk: Aw, c'mon! What's the worst that could be? Spock: Well, I suppose you have a right to know. SPOCK produces a picture of William Shatner. Kirk: That's me? What the Hell happened to me? How did I get so fat? And what the Hell is that on my head!? Spock: It's called a Tribble, Jim. You said it suited you. Kirk: But...how'd I get so...fat? Did I lose the use of my legs in a warp-core breach? Attacked by cholesterol-injecting space flowers? What? Spock: Any answer I give could risk a severe change in space-time, jim. I can't- Kirk: What? Vulcan is a Black Hole, Time-Romulans are threatening Earth and above all, you're here, and you're afraid of changing the future? It's already changed! Spock: Jim. All I'll say is... If you ever come across a planet made entirely of pastry and jam just...just don't land there. Trust me on this one. | | Friday, October 30th, 2009 | | 9:38 am |
SI Units
The system of SI units is a largely internationally-agreed standard units of measurement; things like mass being measured in KG, temperature being measured in degrees kelvin (like a degree centigrade, but colder), and time being measured in seconds. There are several specialist SI units for very specific circumstances which are rather less well known: Dinosaur Measurement: The standard unit for measuring the size of a dinosaur is the 'car', so a triceratops is 'about the size of a car' or the Pleisosaur recently found in Devon was 'big enough to eat a car' (hence it being carniverous*). Scaling up is easy, with three cars equalling one 'bus', so a Tyrannosaurus Rex was 'taller than a bus'. For extremely precise dinosaur measurements, we can use the specific measurement of the 'London Bus' (roughly 1.1837 busses), so a Brontosaurus was as 'long as three London Busses' Poor government and emotional blackmail: The SI unit of bad government is 'the child'. The value of a child rises according to the degree of social control and emotional blackmail being attempted, so we start with If seatbelt laws save one child from harm, then they are worthwhile. This leads to: If 24-hour surveillance and banning parents from playing with their own children saves one child from harm, then they are worthwhile. And hence inevitably to: If harming a hundred children saves one child from harm, then it is worthwile. Internet outrage: 'The Twitter' replaced the 'Blog Post' as the SI unit for internet outrage in early 2008. A remarkably small unit of measurement, a single twitter is a barely noticable fluctuation of outrage on the quantum level. However, several units for scaling up have since been developed, including the Lily Allen (equal to five ordinary twitters), the Paris Hilton (equal to twenty ordinary twitters) and the Stephen Fry (equal to a thousand ordinary twitters). *Ah, I kill myself sometimes. | | Wednesday, October 28th, 2009 | | 9:38 am |
Economics, governments and sundry nonsense. With cows.[2]
There's a piece which does the rounds of the internet every so often which offers to explain economic/governmental forms with cattle - "Democracy - you have two cows. Your neighbours decide who gets the milk', that sort of thing. I've skitted it before. Here's some more. Gordon Brown Economics: You have two cows. You write on a bit of paper that you have 17,000,000 cows and start handing out milk accordingly. In fifty years time, they’ll still be taking milk off our great-grandchildren to make up the deficit. Sarah Palin Economics: I can see some cows from my house! BNP Economics: You have two cows. Neither are white so you repatriate them to Africa and starve to death shortly afterwards. Trade Union Economics: You have two cows. When someone starts providing nicer milk cheaper than you, you go on strike to force the government to make them stop. When you come back to work you find that both your cows have died from lack of care so you go right back on strike again to force the government to give you some more. Barack Obama Economics: You have two cows. This is enough to get you the Nobel prize for Economics. British MP Economics: You have two cows. You designate one your personal cow and the other your second cow, and claim four additional cows in expenses. At the same time, Silvio Berlusconi gives your husband another eight cows. Then you put on your sad face and tell the voters that, thanks to Gordon Brown Economics, they’re going to have to make do with less milk for the next fifty years. EU Economics: You have [Classified] Cows. Every year you receive a further [Classified] Cows in contributions from member states, but [Classified] go missing. When the person you appoint to find out where the missing cows have gone actually finds out, you fire her and threaten her with prison if she tells anyone what she discovered. Student Union Economics: Actually, cows are intelligent, sensitive living things and using them in examples like this makes you worse than Hitler. Any more for any more? | | Tuesday, October 27th, 2009 | | 10:01 am |
Adventures in Time and Space.
It's a matter of historical record that the best Dr. Who was Tom Baker. All who claim otherwise are, alas, hopelessly deluded and should be incarcerated and kept away from sharp objects for their own safety. Obviously Dr. Who is just a television series and he never really travelled in time. Or did he? Take a look: Tom Baker as Dr. Who:  And then we have this portrait of Elizabethan dramatist and crackpot Ben Jonson:  And finally, details from The Burgher of Delft by Jan Steen:  Coincidence? I THINK NOT. | | Sunday, October 25th, 2009 | | 1:00 pm |
Chariots of Fear
Some time ago, I read an interview with Olympic gold-medallist Sebastian Coe in which he was talking about his long-term rivalry with (silver medal winner) Steve Ovett in the 1500m. Aparently, Coe's training regime involved him going running twice a day, every day. The only day he had off from running, short of debilitating illness, was Christmas day. On Christmas morning back in 1983 he got up and pottered about the house and then, feeling a bit edgy, he went for a run. I'll take this afternoon off, he thought to himself. He got home and had his Christmas dinner and, as he sat in front of the TV watching the James Bond film, he said he found himself thinking. I wonder what Steve Ovett is doing right now?, he thought. "So I got up and went for a run", the interview concluded. Anyway, I find myself working this weekend (and I'll be working all next as well). Sat in the office doing stuff which is, to be frank, quite astonishingly dull. To maintain my motivation I'm trying hard to compare myself to Coe. I bet none of my competitors are working this hard! Tee Hee!, I try to think. The reality is that the recession has forced me into it but pretending I'm the Seb Coe of dynamic entrepreneurs, whizzing fleet of foot ahead of my competitors, just makes me feel better about the whole thing. | | Friday, October 23rd, 2009 | | 10:40 am |
| | Wednesday, October 21st, 2009 | | 1:17 pm |
Exclusive footage
With Roderick Griffin to appear on Question time tomorrow night, remarkable film has emerged of him practicing for his time in the public eye. | | 9:49 am |
Prime Time.
Roderick Griffin, leader of the the Brownshorts National Party, is to appear on the BBC's Question Time tomorrow night. Some people feel that he and his supporters should be denied any public fora, despite the undeniable fact that they did poll in excess of one million votes (6.2% of the vote) in the recent European Elections, and now have elected representatives squatting like toads in Brussels. Personally, I feel that they should be allowed into public debate; they've got as many elected representatives from this country in Brussels as the Greens or the SNP, and Alex Salmonds' unappealing features are barely ever off our screens. By marginalising them they can cast themselves as martyrs; it is only with free, open debate that imbecility and unfitness for power can be publicly demonstrated. But what do you think? Poll #1474164
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 35 Your opinion on the BNP on Question Time? | | Tuesday, October 20th, 2009 | | 10:06 am |
Blog of the living dead.
There's a theory which says that the monsters in our stories are simply anthropomorphisations of those parts of ourselves and our environment which we fear, and the purpose in telling those stories is a way to control ourselves and our environment and to face our fears in a safe way. The witch scares of the middle ages (and which still go on in some part of the world) were a way of finding a human agency to be responsible for accidents and disasters in an uncontrollable world. The Martian Invasion films of the 1950's and 1960's were a way of representating fears of Reds Under the Bed. In the 1980's and 1990's, vampires (of the traditional, Bram Stoker sort (not the friendly modern sparkly sort)) were the monster of pop culture choice. However, in the last decade zombies have become the ascendant supernatural threat. Perhaps this represents a comtemporary social fear that we're all becoming mindless drones in a society in which individuality counts for nothing, or something. Anyway, it's amazing how pervasive ideas contained within entertainment media can be. Studies showed that people were more than three times as likely to believe in the likelihood of catastrophic climate change after watching Eco-Thriller The Day After Tomorrow, and that was quite astonishing cobblers. In the same light, it never ceases to surprise me how many of my friends have zombie-apocalypse survival plans. You know, just in case. So; question for the day. Do you have a zombie survival plan, just in case? If, on the morrow, the dead start rising from their graves and feasting on the flesh of the living, what will you do? | | Thursday, October 15th, 2009 | | 10:17 am |
Victorian Blind Date.
Victorian Blind Date Drum Roll
My Lords, Ladies and Gentlemen, Your Majesty, it’s Previously Unseen but Suitably Chaperoned Assignation – and here’s your host, Mrs Priscilla Black!Black: Good evening and welcome to Previously Unseen but Suitably Chaperoned Assignation. We’ve got some lovely young ladies hoping to meet the perfect young gentleman and make a fine matrimonial alliance tonight! It’s going to be a lorra lorra fun! So lets meet our gentleman – come on in! Man: Good evening, Mrs Black. Black: Good evening. Now who are you and where do you come from? Man: My name is James Edward Ernest Wilberforce, 3rd Duke of Llandudno. Black: And what do you do, your Grace? James: I recently returned from commanding a platoon of cavalry in the overseas dominions. Black: And did you kill many benighted heathens, chuck? James: Scores. If one Briton is worth a dozen foreigners, then I must be worth a dozen Britons! Black: Isn’t he a card, ladies and gentlemen! Now lets meet our young ladies! Are you there contestant number one? Lady: I am, Mrs Black? Black: Who are you and where are you from? Lady: My name is Chastity Flora Smith, Priscilla, and I’m from Bognor. Black: And what do you do in Bognor, Chastity? Chastity: I’m adept at needlepoint and scripture knowledge. Black: Eeeeeeeh, she sounds a proper one, eh, James? James. Indeed. Black: Are you there contestant number two? Lady 2: I am. Black: Who are you, and where are you from? Lady 2: My name is Faith and Temperance Anderson, and I’m from Maidenhead. Black: And what do you do in Maidenhead, Faith? Faith: I make polite conversation when I am spoken to, and submit to the will of my father at other times. Black: And contestant three! Are you there? Lady 3: Aye. Black: Who are you, and where do you come from? Lady 3: Me names Tuppenny Upright and I’m from Bow in the East End. Black:…And what do you do, Tuppenny? Tuppenny: Most things fer a penny and owt for a shillin’. Black:… James: … Black: Well, James. What questions do you have for our ladies tonight? James: My first question is: Are you fertile? Black: Good question, chuck. Chastity? Chastity: I pray that, when I am wedded in Holy Matrimony, the Lord shall bless my union with many fine, strong children. Black: Faith? Faith: My father says that if I am not, you should send me home in disgrace. Black: Your father sound like a proper upstanding man! And Tuppenny? Are you fertile? Tuppenny: Eeeh, I ‘opes not. That sort o’ fing costs a packet in gin an’ I’ve not ‘ad sight o’ an ‘ot baff since ‘ ‘fore Michaelmastide. Black: Er… James: … Black: So, um, James. What’s your next question? James: Is your father titled, a landowner or a major industrialist? Black: Eeeh! That one’s always important. Chastity? Chastity: My father owns almost five hundred acres of prime arable land in Hampshire, and nigh two hundred head of cattle. Black: By Jove, she’s an attractive woman is our Chastity! What about you, Faith? Faith: My father owns several large mills in Birmingham, plus he holds almost two thousand coolies in indentured servitude making cotton undergarments in China. Black: And what man could ask for more in a wife? And finally, what about you Tuppenny – what does your father do? Tuppenny: Buggered if I know. Me mam ‘asn’t got a clue ‘oo ‘e were, what wiv ‘er working making ‘ats since she stopped as a barmaid. The Mercury got into ‘er brain, like. Fer all I knows me dad might be the Prince of Wales hisself! Black: Not something for a girl in your position to say, Tuppenny! So, James – what’s your last question? James: Oftimes I am overcome with animal urges which cause my bestial parts to become engorged. At those times I am nigh overcome with an urge to clean the streets. How would you help me overcome these times? Black: Chastity? Chastity: I should provide strong restraints and read extracts from Saint Paul’s Epistle to the Corinthians until the time had passed. Black: Faith? Faith: I should run you a cold ice-bath and flagellate your sin from you with birch rods. Black: And finally, Tuppenny? Tuppenny: I’d toss yer off fer a farthin’? James: … Black:… James:… Black: Well, James, that’s your questions. Let’s hear our Graham help you decide. Graham: Well, Priscilla, James and his lucky lady will be swept off with an appropriate escort to the asylum at Bethlehem hospital, where they will have their date watching the amusing caperings and gibberings of the afflicted! But will you take Chastity, who sews and reads the Bible, Faith, who adheres to her fathers wishes and will bring a dowry of cotton mills in China, or Tuppenny, who’ll do anything for a shilling and some gin. Black: Well, James? James: Well, I have to say it’s a hard choice, but I’ll go to bedlam with Faith, and I’ll meet Tuppenny round the back of the theatre in five minutes with a handful of loose change and a surgeon’s bone-knife. | | Tuesday, October 13th, 2009 | | 3:19 pm |
| | Monday, October 12th, 2009 | | 9:25 am |
Barack Obama.
A common claim I’ve seen bandied about on the internet is that Obama is ‘Un-American’. A handy catch all phrase this, as the speaker doesn’t really have to explain what it means but it sounds pretty damning all the same. Leaving aside the socialization of medicine argument that the US is having with itself at the moment (that’s an internal affair and entirely their own business), the second most common reason for Obamas UnAmerican-ness is that he’s cosying up to some people traditionally not seen as the best friends of the USA (like China and Russia) and not so much repudiating as simply ignoring the US’ old allies in Europe, leaving people like Gordon Brown and Silvio Berlusconi hanging round looking as lonely as ugly kids at a school dance. When Gordon Brown first whizzed over to Washington, all full of himself due to being the first international leader to be invited after the inauguration, Obama gave him five minutes and then said he had to go because he had an important meeting with the Boy Scouts of America, but here’s a box set of DVDs to entertain you on the way home. Don’t let the door hit you on the way out. At the time I saw this as a move straight out of Machiavelli; when greeting the ruler of a supplicant people, he wrote, always be cruel first, to let them know you can be. After that you can be as kind as you like, but they will always know where they stand. Subsequent to that, however, I stopped being so sure. Various Euro-leaders desperate for a bit of the Obama shine have been politely accommodated but not exactly been the bosom buddies they once were under Clinton or Bush. Anyway, I've lately been browsing Thomas Hobbes' Leviathan. It's a pretty hard read, in that way that anything written 400 years ago which isn't Shakespeare tends to be, but he makes several points which it's handy to be reminded of from time to time - cheif amongst them being that Political Power derives from the Ownership of Property. It's one of those things which is self-evident but is also often forgotten, especially at an individual level in Democracies where universal suffrage weakens it as a rule as my vote is, theoretically at least, worth as much as yours. The more I think on it at a societal level, though, the more applications as a rule it has: for instance, it explains why Communism doesn't work. If all property is held in common, then nobody holds any property and so nobody has any political power except the lucky Comrade at the top of the heap who has power of disbursal over everything. Back in the 1760s, both Benjamin Franklin and William Pitt realised that this rule meant somehting important: that the American colonies, with their effectively unlimited space and natural resources plus rapidly growing population, would sooner or later outstrip the mother country and the centre of political and economic power would shift from Westminster to the east coast of the Americas. They advised Westminster to make accomodation with this in order to prevent an otherwise inevitable split, but it was ignored with rather famous historical results. As it was, thanks to the success of other colonies in india, Africa and Australasia, it took longer for this shift to take place (About 180 years) than perhaps they expected, but happen it did - and I can't help but find myself wondering if we're seeing a situation again in which a shift of political and economic power from the Atlantic to the Pacific Rim is now almost an inevitability. China, Russia and India are all in a comparable position to the American colonies with huge potential natural resources and rapidly growing populations. In other words, the amount of property ownership, and hence political power on a global and realpolitikal scale is growing. I'm wondering if Obama is looking to avoid the error made by the British 230 years ago and is trying to come to an accomodation with growing powers before they outstrip the US. With an aging population and a declining economic base, sidelining Europe, no matter how much it stings them, certainly makes solid political sense from his position. | | Friday, October 9th, 2009 | | 11:07 am |
A musical interlude.
I've been reading Thucydides' History of the Peleponnesian War. It appears to have done something to my brain. Thucy-didy-doo, where are you?
We got some work to do now.
Thucy-didy-doo, where are you?
We need some help from you now.
Come on Thucy-doo, I see you
Pretending to quote Cleon
But you're not fooling me,
Cause I can see,
You wrote Pericles' paean.
Well, You know we got hist'ry to compose
As Athens and Sparta have come to blows.
On Pylos!
And Thucy-doo if Amphipolis falls
You're going to have twenty years in exile!
That's a while!
Thucy-didy-doo, here are you.
And all the Greeks are fightin'.
If we can count on you, Thucy Doo,
You'd best get to some writin'. | | Tuesday, October 6th, 2009 | | 9:35 am |
[Politics] Thought for the day.
As the yes/no votes in the Irish Referenda on the Lisbon Treaty are now tied at one-all, I think we should have a tie-break question or maybe a penalty shootout to settle things. | | Monday, October 5th, 2009 | | 10:21 am |
Body Modification
Back when I was a student I used to frequent a nightclub called the Banshee. it was a wretched hive of scum and villainy, whose legend was only enhanced when the building which housed it collapsed one night about two weeks after it was closed down as being unfit for human habitation. The clientele was the predictable assortment of punks, goths, recidivists, reprobates, ne'er-do-wells and second-year engineering students. I used to go there to dance around in my flailing way and to try and meet girls. One night I noticed a remarkably pretty punk girl wearing ripped fishnets. Nothing unusual in that you might think, but as I checked her out I realised something. She wasn't wearing ripped fishnets - they were tattooed directly onto her legs. Being an impressionable 19 year old at the time, my immediate reaction was Wow, that's the coolest thing I've ever seen!. However, then the bit of my brain which actually does the thinking took over and my opinion changed. She's really going to regret that in ten years, I thought. That pretty much sums up why I never got a tattoo. They've grown increasingly fashionable as the years have gone by, but I've always been put off by the permanence. There's bound to come a day when I'd look in the mirror and wish I hadn't had a dotted line with "cut here" inked onto my neck, no matter how attractive a thought it might be right now. The problem isn't just the permanence; it's the fact that fashion changes, and getting a tattoo is like being required to wear the same piece of clothing every day no matter how dated it might look. I mean, I do very much like my Oakleys, but there are limits. Following tattoo fashion is a quick way of permanently dating yourself to the moment you wanted to be at your most funky. Got a swallow tattooed on your hand? You were in the navy before 1985. Got one of those big, pointy, swirly polynesian tattoos down your arm? You were doubtless the coolest person in Aiya Napa in 1997. Got an ornate yakuza-style sleeve? Your best ever year was 2005. Moreover, with the inexorable march of time those Yakuza sleeves are just going to start looking like you haven't ironed your shirt. So, question of the day; if you've got a tattoo, what is it, why'd you get it and have you regetted it since? And if you haven't, any particular reason why not? | | Friday, October 2nd, 2009 | | 9:23 am |
[Gaming] It's Follower of Set!
I found this whilst trawling the depths of my computer. I think the wierdest thing is the realisation that this was almost ten years ago. Ten Years!  I've got a few more if anyone would like me to post them. |
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