The Journal of the Dave

Mon, 01 Jun 2009 15:56:49 GMT

Just finished my third attempt at expanding-food-lunches - this time substituting risotto rice for the lentils. The recipe was roughly: fry peppers until skin starts to blacken, add a little garlic and then douse with 2xTins tomatoes to stop 'em burning; add spices (this time Ras el Hanout - have to use it for something) and risotto rice. As the rice sucks up the liquid from the sauce, add in white wine (bought a box of vin de table just for this - it actually works a treat) and a healthy slug of vinegar and keep going until the rice goes soft. Finally, add a few handfuls of chopped baby spinach (don't hold off - it will look like you've added the same volume spinach as sauce, but it wilts down pretty quick). As a final measure, I added a few slugs of Olive Oil, which loosened it up a bit.

Verdict - I added the spinach a bit late, I think - which made it sometimes a little disappointing, although probably better for me. Also, the dish tastes slightly unpleasantly of rice-flour. Not sure what to do about this, short of washing the risotto rice before starting. Also, have turned my nose up at pitta breads, and gone for the slightly more awkward but much for satisfying tortilla wraps (removing the need to fuck about with cling film - better for environment, yay!) A few dashes of tabasco made a passable dinner. It seems that stewing overnight (or possibly nuking it for a few minutes at work) improved it somewhat.

No mustard this time, and still no experimenting with worcestershire sauce ('cos I haven't bought any), and I'm left with a slightly obnoxious aftertaste that seems to haunt most of my meals made with garlic and tinned toms. Will need to think of a way of altering (or at least covering) that taste.

Synecdoche, New York:

Went to see the new Charlie Kaufman flick tonight, with some trepidation. It has wandered across my mind over the last few weeks that the main reason Kaufman is the only writer people can nail a style to is that he wrote himself into Adaptation - a move which only narrowly escapes being arrogantly narcisstic by gratuitous use of self-deprecation and observational humour.

I also had to wonder whether Kaufman's directorial debut would owe more to Spike Jonze or Michel Gondry, and personally I think he came down on the Gondry side (although the film reminded me more of Science of Sleep than Eternal Sunshine) - which is a pity, because I'm not really Gondry's greatest fan. Of course, while I detect both Gondry and Jonze in this film, I do have to credit Kaufman with heading solidly off in his own direction. In fact, if I had to compare him to a single director, it'd probably be David Lynch - in terms of my gut reaction to this film, it reminded me most of Mulholland Drive. Again, this is a pity. I didn't like Mulholland Drive.

I really wanted to like this film, and the fact that I didn't makes me sad because I think it says something unflattering about me. It sounds shallow, but really I wanted this to be a funny film. And it's not - it's definitely absurd, dizzylingly so - but the introverted, relentless misery of the entirely unlikeable main character, punctuated as it is by moments of sweetness leaves it devoid of real humour. It is a film I suspect one could come to love, if one watched it several times. Much like Mulholland Drive. Alas, I don't have much time for films like that. Sorry Charlie.

Not that I hated it. It had moments of brilliance, that almost - almost made it all worthwhile - but it seemed to be surrounded by so much fluff that I couldn't penetrate or discern any meaning through. Perhaps I'm just stupid, and like my allegories a little more straightforward. Perhaps he was deliberately sowing the film with allegories that made no sense.

It almost seems to me that this film his character tried to write in Adaptation, only without intervention (interference?) from his fictional twin brother and Bob McKee - or, from a few exchanges in the film, the pressure to produce another Being John Malkovitch. It feels a little bit like he's desperately trying to escape the mould of being "the guy who makes those funny films" (an impulse he gently lampooned in Adaptation). It makes me a little sad to think that the role that I love him for is a role that he hates to play out.

A glimmer of hope on the horizon. I felt more or less the same way about No Country for Old Men, and the Coen Brothers followed it up with imo probably their best since Miller's Crossing, so I shall go to his next film with great expectation.

George Tiller is Dead:

George Tiller, a Doctor who practises late-term abortions (sometimes on post-viable foetuses - i.e. on babies which could potentially have survived if born). I'm not sure what to make of this (beyond the obvious; whichever side of the abortion debate you're on, murder is not an appropriate way forward). I strongly support the right to have abortions (as well as the right to have detailed, accurate family planning information and freely available contraception); but it does open up the issue of where the line should be drawn on when abortion is ethically acceptable. I'm not sure I agree that Tillers practise was ethically sound.

Blah. Can't form coherent argument. Must go work. Blah.

Cogito Ergo Nom

Tue, 19 May 2009 10:27:52 GMT

I did a culinary experiment yesterday, reproduced mostly for my memory.

My objection to lentil-based foods is that they always seem to taste horribly bland; whether I cook the lentils in water, stock or straight into the sauce, they always seem to turn out tasting overwhelmingly of mushy, starch-y lentils. So this was a concerted effort to try and make an underlying sauce which had a strong enough flavour to get into the lentils and make them a bit more palatable.

- Chop and fry a whole pepper in ground nut oil in a wide frying pan. I find raw peppers quite disagreeable, so I tend to cook them quite agressively.
- Add Cajun spices (in my case, Fiddes Payne cajun spice, which has been doing me quite well for a couple of years now) - probably about a teaspooonful or so - fry a little further, and then add garlic (my first experience with Very Lazy Garlic from a jar - reasonably impressed). I never seem to get the garlic right; possibly I'm frying it too hot. Still, I like to have it in the pan for a few moments before cooling it with the rest of the ingredients.
- Add two tins of chopped tomatoes. (ALWAYS chopped tomatoes - whole plum tomatoes have a lot of jelly and seeds in the middle which make them taste vile. Chopped tomatoes cost a few pennies extra, but are 100% flesh. Definitely worth it.)
- About a cup of lentils (actualy, 2/3rds of a cup using my measuring cups)
- a pinch of salt and two pinches of sugar (tinned tomatoes apparently need it, although I've never managed to make a sauce with fresh toms without it going kinda funny)
- A few generous sloshes of lime juice - my favourite ingredient.

At this point I let the sauce simmer a bit. In my experience, to toms don't taste right until you reduce them down to a jammy consistency, and I wasn't sure how this would work with the lentils. Sure enough the lentils sucked the water out of toms long before they were cooked, but I was standing by with a kettle of hot water and added about the same volume again - at which point the oil seperated, and I was convinced I'd ruined the whole thing. Reassuringly, after a few minutes in became an emulsion again and the lentils started to fatten. Still, it was missing something, so in the final act I added a couple more ingredients:

- two healthy teaspoons of wholegrain mustard
- another few sloshes of lime juice - which had somehow gotten lost in all that.

The final result was a kind of cajun-spiced Daal that I spread into a toasted pitta, and was actually quite satisfactory. The idea was to make something I could have for lunches for a few days, and this is probably about four to six healthy servings.

Some thoughts for variations in the future:
- It might be interesting to use something other than water or stock to fatten up the lentils. Perhaps wine or sherry. Another possibility I've been musing on for a while is using orange in a savoury dish - so I suppose orange juice might not be beyond the realm of possibility. I might need to have a hard think about what other ingredients would go with it though.
- Spicewise, I didn't use any paprika, which was possibly an oversight - still, I don't think it needed it. Obviously could move more traditional and use balti paste instead of cajun spices; and could happily add some spinach for a sag daal.
- It might be nice to try a few vegetables - Could conceivably cope with some courgette, or even grated carrot in there. Onion is always a possibility, although I'm happier without it.
- Part of me is curious about substituting risotto rice for lentils - have only ever made "white" risotto before, which was nice but kind of... cloying, after a while. Perhaps answering that mushy blandness with a bit more flavour might help.
- Obviously there are options to add meat too - while part of the attraction was to do a good tasty vegetarian meal, frying a breast or two of chicken fajita-style before adding the tomatoes might work (although I wonder whether the water would undo the yummy stir-fried goodness - possibly fry the chicken separately and throw them in as the lentils are finishing; or even serve the chicken separate, on a bed of cajun lentils. Nom. Part-grilling, chopping and then adding some sausages in at the beginning would be another way to make it a bit more meatilicious.

Mm. Lots to try. Nom.

Tue, 14 Apr 2009 16:02:42 GMT

I made a post a few days ago, where an Archbishop slated the concept of Condom commercials as "demeaning of the young people of this country", depicting "casual sex on the street corner and drunken sex", happily ignoring that the ads in question are not Condom ads, but part of an NHS STI prevention campaign and are obviously lampooning the use of sex in fashion commercials - hence the tagline "essential wear".

But really, there's a deeper issue here - by opposing condom ads, you veto the possibility of comedy gold like this. I think you know what to do.

Requires sound, and as worksafe as a condom commercial could possibly be. Hat tip: Orac

CAP and BCAP code review

Fri, 10 Apr 2009 15:21:47 GMT

This may be of interest to some or none of you. After hearing on the news this morning about the new Archibishop of Westminster calling on Catholics to make their views known, I thought I'd nudge a few people with feelings on this matter in the right direction.

The situation is this; a whole slew of advertising regulations are up for review, specifically regulations pertaining to sexual health and/or family planning advice. The issues that the Archbishop is taking exception to in particular are allowing condom ads before 9pm* and allowing independent family planning clinics (such as Marie Stopes, who offer - among other things - abortions and sterilisations) to advertise their existence.

What exactly is the Archbishop urging his acolytes to participate in? The CAP and BCAP code review consultation. CAP is the "medium neutral" advertising regulatory body - this includes, for example, billboards, magazines and cinema ads - and BCAP is specifically the broadcast advertising regulator. On the above page, scroll to the bottom and you'll find links to the code review in each case, and a handy word document for typing out your responses to each point into. You don't need to respond to all points, only the ones you have an interest in. Print off the covering letter, print off your comments, lick a stamp and send it in.

It's likely to be a pretty dull way to spend half and hour, but if you object to having a religious group force it's values into national regulations, I'd say it's well worth it.

Of course, I'm not telling you what to write - I expect me and madelgine will probably have differing views on allowing abortion clinics to advertise - but it's in everybody's interest to make your voice heard.

* rather disingenuously attacking the NHS condom ads as promoting drunk and public sex; ignoring the fact that the content of these ads are completely consistent with their target and message (condoms as prophylactics for promiscuous individuals), contrasted by the adverts I've seen by, for example, Durex (condoms as contraceptives for faithful, monogamous couples).

Why I Don't Believe in Intelligent Design

Thu, 19 Feb 2009 15:34:01 GMT

I was commenting on a Guardian thread which was locked down (not sure if it's a time thing or just that the debate was getting out of hand), which is a pity because there's an interesting comment I wanted to reply to from someone called Wice:

it's nice to meet someone, who, starting as an ID proponent, finally accepted evolution as a better explanation. all the ID proponents i've met up to now, seem to be completely unable (or unwilling) to understand even the most basic concepts of the theory of evolution. could you provide some information, what helped you understand the subject and change your mind?

I guess there's not a great deal of point in responding here - I mean, I suppose he might google himself, but I'm never going to be top entry - but the answer is kind of interesting so I thought I'd share. I'm slightly amused at (what I took) as his suggestion that he hasn't met an ID proponent who was willing or able to understand evolution - if you did they would kind of stop being ID proponents! More seriously, if his experience with IDer's is through debate, most people (and nearly all theists) go into a debate prepared to defend their ideas to the death and are really not open to other points of view.

With that in mind, the change in my opinion was marked (at least in the early stages) by a movement from ignorance to enlightenment in the field of genetics. I clearly remember the moment of realisation, and was immediately aware that the only way anyone can hold a belief in young earth creationism was ignorance*.

As for what helped me understand the subject, in broad sense it has to be taking a degree in biomedical science; although I was over halfway through my degree (year two, semester two) before I accepted it. I regret this profoundly, as I had avoided taking an elective in Evolutionary Biology (on the grounds that I didn't agree that it had happened) and took Psychology instead, and looking back, I know what I would have enjoyed more. Looking back, it was embaressingly arrogant of me, but throughout my biological education (from watching Attenborough videos as a kid, through secondary education and into university) I had carefully refused to accept any teaching on evolution. I didn't demand that my views were recognised, I just quietly resolved to take a different stance. In my defence, I had never been clearly and coherently presented with the evidence for evolution; it was just sort of assumed throughout my education, and my willful ignorance was left unaddressed.

As I mentioned, it wasn't enlightenment in the field of evolutionary biology that changed my mind - I would have approached that in a closed minded fashion, and refused to be educated. It was in fact a genetics class - developmental genetics, as it happens, a lecture by Tanya Whitfield (a course which also, incidentally, set me down my current career path). Of course the whole premise of developmental biology is that species are linked in a fundamental way that allows you to draw conclusions between humans and animals**. However, the fact that analogous functions in species as diverse as insects and humans are not only fulfilled by similar genes, but by the same genes (the example that did it for me was the Hox Cluster, but it doesn't really matter which one) was what finally broke through to me, like a road to Damascus experience.

Of course, that wasn't quite the end of the story. I had, in effect, gone from being a young earth creationist to a day age creationist. Although my religious views at the time were agnostic, I truly believed that the creation account in Genesis was defensible as an allegory for evolution - starting with a bright flash of light (the big bang), appearance of planet, and then the gradual appearance of species in a stepwise fashion ultimately ending with the appearance of people. I have yet to hear a real knock-down argument to this idea (the most convincing one being that the Genesis account could a whole lot more accurate, for one thing describing the emergeance of flowers before the appearance of insects to pollinate them). But key to my acceptance of this idea was the notion that of the creation accounts of ancient civilisations (cf. Egypt, ancient Greece and Rome etc.) this one best matched our modern theory of evolution.

Another embaressingly arrogant statement. In fact, it was only when I started investigating my own claim a little that I realised that the creation account in Genesis was actually copied, almost word for word (swapping the polytheistic creators for Yahweh) from the Babylonian creation myth. This marked another turning point in my belief, definitively leaving behind my agnosticism (and sympathy with Christianity) for atheism, and making up for lost time by learning in detail about the evolution-vs-creation debate. The fruit of my research has not been favourable to creationism (intelligent design or otherwise), or theism in general. As a result, I've developed a bit of a bee in my bonnet about creationism, and become a christian apostate to boot. But that's a different story.

...Well. That turned into a bit of a long post. Apologies for not putting it behind a cut, but I somehow felt I wanted it all out there. I was thinking of also responding to the (earnest, I think) comments of an ID creationist on the same thread, but this post is already getting a bit out of hand. It also has not escaped my notice that this article doesn't exactly live up to it's title - this is what led me to question ID, not why I ultimately discarded (except in briefest outline). Both stories for another time, perhaps.

* or at least, a tolerance for severe cognitive dissonance.
** as in any field of investigation which uses animal models of human disease, but developmental biology - where investigation in humans is extremely tightly restricted for ethical reasons - especially depends on comparison between species

Sat, 24 Jan 2009 20:18:37 GMT

If you're anything like me, you've been following the Israeli invasion of Gaza over the past couple of months with a mixture of horror and frustration. Regardless of whether you consider the military action justified - and I'm biting my tongue to curb any inflammatory language which could be levelled at either party in this conflict - the bottom line is that innocent people died in their droves during fighting in one of the densest population centres in the world - and the suffering is ongoing. If you're anything like me at all, you'll have asked yourself "What can I do?" at some point over the last few weeks.

Really. Do this.

The BBC is refusing to air the appeal from the DEC on grounds of impartiality, so this is my attempt at an impartial, non-partisan appeal. It's probably not hard (even from this post alone) to tell what side I come down on, but please don't let that put you off. Innocent people are suffering. This is what you can do to help.

Finally, if you feel strongly that the BBC is wrong not to air this appeal - and I'm not as convinced of that as I am that donating is the right thing to do - please go here and make your views known.

Fri, 23 Jan 2009 20:37:25 GMT

I really want to make some comment, but for best effect, you really need to explore the Pomegranate Phone without any preconceptions.

That has got to be the oddest viral marketing I've ever seen. And for... what exactly? An island?

Film Unit Reunion Update

Tue, 20 Jan 2009 11:31:24 GMT

Okay, everyone who's interested in going to the FU reunion, they have sent me an email:

Hi Dave,

Unfortunately Film Unit has little information about former alumni and we've had to rely on the University Alumni department to send out information. It seems a though our letter has not reached you! We will be having an event on Saturday 21st February however. I'm attaching the letter we have sent out electronically and I would be grateful if you could return the information at the bottom of the letter. At the moment we are organising the renunion for that Saturday and we will get back to you with firm details later this month.

With thanks,
Daniel Wood
Film Unit Chair

...attached to which was a letter...

Dear Alumni member,

Sheffield University Film Unit cordially invites you to the 2009 reunion and 60th anniversary celebrations taking place on Saturday 21st February 2009.

Today Film Unit is a student run, professional quality independent cinema regularly showing four films a week in a 380- seat capacity auditorium with Dolby Digital surround sound. We are immensely proud of Film Unit and would like to celebrate 60 years of hard work with you!

If you have any information regarding other past Film Unit members we would be most grateful if you could make them aware of this event and pass on our contact details. Additionally, to ensure the success of this event we are asking you to consider loaning us any Film Unit memorabilia that you may have; memories, photographs, programmes pre-1980, posters, archive films, would all prove invaluable.

To receive more information about the 2009 Film Unit reunion and 60th anniversary celebration please complete and return the slip below or alternatively contact us directly.

We look forward to hearing from you soon,

Film Unit Committee 2008/2009

...at the bottom of which was a form, to be printed and returned.

I am/ I am not interested in receiving more information about the 2009 Film Unit reunion and 60th anniversary celebrations.

I would/ I would not like to contribute any Film Unit memorabilia that I may have.

My contact details are:

Name:
Home Address:
Email:
Telephone:
Year/s of Tenure:*

Preferred Mode of Contact: Post / Email / Telephone

Any other information you would like to provide about your time at Film Unit?

I replied to ask whether I could pass this on, and his answer was :

It would be great if you could pass the letter to as many former Film Unit Alumni as possible! Thanks,
Dan

I'm not sure whether emailing the requested information is acceptable (although FU will almost certainly send you this letter). If you are shy about emailing them, leave your email address in a comment here (and delete it if you're worried about having your contact details out there - I'll get it in the notification), and I can forward you the mail.

Fri, 16 Jan 2009 18:22:12 GMT

I don't know how many of you read this who won't have heard from other people already, but it's Film Unit's 60th anniversary this year, and they are apparently putting on some kind of reunion celebration on or around the 21st February. A bunch of old timers have fallen off my friends list; some of them are still there but probably don't read any more - but I see rich_jacko, tiggothy, chiv, and a couple of others kicking around in there. If you could make sure people like thegreatgonzo and purpletom and anyone else with a marginal connection to FU know about it, that'd be neat.

I don't know what's supposed to be happening, but I suppose a good start would be to email Film Unit on film.unit @ shef.ac.uk.

Wed, 26 Nov 2008 17:50:12 GMT

Sometimes comics take a bit of work to figure out, like this one.

However, usually, they're worth the reward. (DG in particular had me laughing out loud).

Fri, 19 Sep 2008 17:36:47 GMT

Second year PhD symposium today:

PhD Michael: I'll drive being Miles on the way to [our destination]. What car is he driving?
PhD Jurgen: He's driving a BMW. You'll recognise it as the car that doesn't look like a student should own it.
PhD Michael: Oh, right.
PhD Michael gets into Audi TT

Well, I lol'd.

Thu, 18 Sep 2008 19:57:58 GMT

The shininess of Windows Vista wears off pretty quick, when you realise they've removed a chunk of the functionality that you kind of like. A day of trying to wrangle it into some semblance of functionality - combined with the fact that it is SLOOOOW - and my brain is about to implode. I feel like this when using a Mac. I can kind of see what they've been trying to do, and if I was just dicking around with internet and stuff it'd be great - but I need a functional computer.

Sod this. I'm going back to XP.

Except after my presentation tomorrow - because I can't reinstall windows and be ready for my talk. So this is going to be interesting...

Wed, 17 Sep 2008 14:57:42 GMT

Who on earth is Ryan Estrada, and why does he own all my webcomics today?

Batman

Fri, 25 Jul 2008 00:19:18 GMT

Roleplay cancelled tonight, so we took the opportunity to see DCA's premiere of Dark Knight.

My anticipation was punctured by Pharyngula, who thought it was mediocre. I wasn't quite as dour as he was, but I'd have to say it struggles to make 6/10 in my book. Heath Ledger comprehensively runs away with the show, though.

I was praying, genuinely begging them not to go all Spiderman 3 and let Two-Face out of the bag too late. Or rather, too soon: for me "too soon" was anywhere before the end of the film, setting up for a third Chris Nolan outing. I didn't think it was likely, but hey, Tim Burton managed to have Harvey Dent survive through an entire film without going evil. (He did change skin colour when Schumacher got a hold of him though). It did quite neatly show up the pitfalls of supervillain genesis though - spend too long on your lovely luscious backstory and you risk not leaving enough time to have your supervillain shine in his moment of chaos.

By way of contrast, the complete opposite was true of Ledger's Joker. He has no back story, and what hints he gives out are made up on the spot. (We think he actually just ran with scissors in school). Instead he explodes onto the screen from the first act, deliciously insane and violently erratic. I'm not a fan of suddenly claiming Ledger is the best actor since time began just because of his recent death - I've never seen him give a bad performance, and he has played a remarkable diversity of roles, but at the same time, he's never really blown me away - but he absolutely shines in this film. With the exception of a somewhat lacklustre final act, where he does nothing much except get caught, every moment he's on screen is electrifying. I want to watch it again, solely to see his performance. You could sell me a pared down DVD that only had Heath's scenes in it, and I'd be happy.

That's not to say that Eckhart isn't brilliant as Harvey Dent - he is the second best thing about this film - unspurprisingly, as both he and the Joker are (in my opinion) the strongest Batman villains out there. This should tell you something about the rest of the film.

Christian Bale's Bruce Wayne is unlikable, and his Batman is underwhelming next to Ledger's flamboyance. Even the normally awesome Gary Oldman wasn't up to my expectations in this film. And don't get madelgine started on female characters who's value to a story is merely a love interest and plot device; sadly this is apparently all Maggie Gyllenhaal is good for, in Nolan's opinion.

But truly, the film really fails on it's uninspiring ending. It tries to lace the film with the philosophical debate of Batman's vigilantism - for which I will give it points for avoiding the twee "Batman saves everyone ever" scenario, but instead morphs into a twee "I settle for being beyond the law" scenario. A truly great ending leaves you with just a taste of things to come - Samuel L. Jackson has broken into your house, a bird-shaped shadow lurks in the lake, Gary Oldman has a playing card in a ziplock bag - but no, not a sliver of what's coming in the next film. If there even is a next film. They might yet pull a decent trilogy out of this (and let's hope it's not an X3...).

Final verdict - not as gripping as Batman Begins, in which I really cared about how Batman turned out. In this I was mostly fascinated by the villains, who were wonderful, but that wasn't quite the point, methinks.

Other things to consider:
- While no enough time had passed to rebuild Wayne manor, it apparently was enough to completely dismantle the city's long-standing monorail.
- They chose the wrong villain to kill off.
- We want a Poison Ivy/Harley Quinn as Nolan's next supervillain duo, although I'm already winding Mad up by suggesting that they will be romantically attached... to each other.

Thu, 03 Jul 2008 12:50:35 GMT

The contents of my last thesis committee document, ran through Wordle.

Well, Notch is right up there. You'd think I was focussing my project on it or something.

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 17:59:49 GMT

Anyone who enjoys reading the New Scientist feed might be interested to know that there are some interesting newsfeeds from Nature. The articles are written accessibly, but given Nature is a peer reviewed journal (one of the holy trinity of high-impact journals, the others being Cell and Science) I would trust it not to make some of the mistakes that New Scientist or the Beeb sometimes make.

I can't seem to find an LJ syndication of any of the feeds (doesn't mean they don't exist). I bring this up because I've been playing with GoogleReader (as well as GoogleDocuments, but that's another story), and am pretty impressed. I think accounts are open now, but if I'm wrong and you still need an invite, I have about a million. Okay, ninety.

Sadly, this is probably pulling most of my reading away from livejournal (which is at least half made up of syndicated blogs and comic feeds; now shifted to Google), so my already occaisional reading will probably be depleted further. I was mortified to find, for instance, that I have missed a bunch of xkcd/bunny comics because I read so infrequently. If I ever upgrade my account though, I may add my flist to an RSS feed. Alternatively, I will not catch on to checking RSS's and will stick with LJ. WHO KNOWS!?!1.

Mon, 26 May 2008 18:48:47 GMT

When did thetrainline.com become evil?

Damn you thetrainline.com! Who am I going to buy my rail tickets from now?

Edit: NXEC seem to have a low evil rating at the moment... (and seem to allow booking on non NXEC services, which is nice). I have to wonder if teh evil is just hiding somewhere out of sight.

From Orac

Sun, 11 May 2008 18:36:48 GMT

1936, much?

Fri, 02 May 2008 19:45:17 GMT

I have a new computer. This is, incidentally, the first new computer I've ever owned that I've had which I've paid for myself.

On the upside, this means I now have a computer that doesn't make silly noises. With 500Gb installed and a handful of expansion slots, I should be able to fit everything on there with ease (but damn, a 450Gb partition takes a long time to format). It should be able to cope with the spiffy upgraded graphics on EVE without too much of a problem, and I can finally get a go on my birthday present.

On the downside, I'm desperately trying to remember how to set up a computer, it now being over three years since I've had to (has now overtaken Win98 as the longest single install I've had). I have a horrible feeling Microsoft are going to pwn me for having not-entirely-legal software (I do have a copy of WinXP, but the serial has gone missing); I do however know enough *not* to install WGA (or updates of Windows Media Player, apparently).

Still, at the moment I'm using two computers at once, which is a bit tedious (especially for someone who'd like to be playing the Sims right now... 9_9)... and it's going to be a while before I've got the new puter running to a point where it will actually replace the old one.

The master of the dead-pan is dead

Sat, 26 Apr 2008 09:14:01 GMT

Half asleep as my radio alarm went off this morning, it felt like there were three tributes in the space of about ten minutes. As I was slowly coming to wakefulness, I gleaned more information from each successive tribute... someone had died, someone at Radio 4 had died, and... Humphrey Lyttleton has died.

I wonder whether I'm sorry I haven't a clue will fold now, or whether they'll try to replace him? I can't think of anyone who could take the helm without utterly changing the mood of the show. Le sigh. All good things.

Fri, 25 Apr 2008 17:16:55 GMT

I'm aware that this is being done to death in the science blogosphere, and part of me really wishes Pharyngula would devote less time to it, but still this is too funny to pass up.

The makers of the propoganda film Expelled have a poll on myspace on whether Intelligent Design should be taught in school, and the massive swarm of pro-science evo types have swung the scale to a hysterically amusing 10%:76% Yes:no score (reversing the balance from before PZ linked). In fact, "What is it?" ranks higher than "yes" at the moment (probably because a slew of Pharyngulites felt that was more appropriate than "no", for reasons varying from "teach it but not in science" to interpreting "what is it" as "ID? WTF?"), which is deeply amusing.

I'm not asking you to skew someones poll. Please vote in accordance with your own views. I only ask that if you do go to fill in the poll, you first go to Expelled Exposed - a counter-site set up to debunk the films central premise (that academics sympathetic to intelligent design are being discriminated against by learning institutions), if for no other reason but to make sure that it keeps it's google rating.

Done that? Good. The poll is here, below "what others are saying". Vote away. But don't read the comments unless you like the sensation of having your brain scraped out.

Incidentally, if you do agree that intelligent design/creationism are valid alternatives to evolution, I hope you'll reply and allow me to put the case against it to you. (Before or after you vote, I don't care). I used to advocate ID and have since seen the light, so I won't mock you or anything.

Well done, New Scientist.

Tue, 01 Apr 2008 10:02:21 GMT

Exciting developments in NeuroQuantology suggest explanations to poltergeists

Editor comments: "This looks distinctly flaky to me."

I'm so glad I remembered what day it was before reposting that. Seemed a bit far out, even by NS standards.

Sun, 23 Mar 2008 11:42:34 GMT

Hippy Oyster!

Wed, 19 Mar 2008 13:15:23 GMT

Boycott Livejournal, 21st March.

Probably won't achieve much in and of itself, but is anyone thinking of a mass migration to something else? Anyone already using something else? Enquiring minds want to know. (Facebook and Myspace are t3h suck, so don't suggest 'em).

Tue, 04 Mar 2008 20:58:58 GMT

Like myself, madelgine is a bit of an arty type and has expressed and interest in designing the flyers for the theatre productions she's been in. Until last year that was limited to the English department's drama group, Joot (she did a rather nice flyer for Faustus); but with Lip's previous chair gone (and his prestigious New York graphic designer contact gone with him), the floor has been thrown open at Lip too. So far my attempts (for example Reindeer Pie and High Girders) have intimidated her from trying, but Joot's next performance (John Fletcher's unofficial sequel to The taming of the Shrew: The Tamer Tamed) offers an opportunity for her to get something out there. I offered her to help digitalise her pen-and-paper artwork (in the absence of a graphics tablet), and as a demonstration asked her to send me a copy of one of her sketches to work from.

Being bored at work* and a bit of a showoff, I turned it into a demo flyer design. It came out looking kinda web 2.0. Okay, not really. But the only reason I mention it is that it just really reminds me of something - the colour, the suspended-card shadow look. I just can't think what. Does anyone know what I mean, and what the hell is it reminding me of? >_<

* not that bored of course - I think I've spent more time writing this post than I did on the design