December 2011
3 posts
November 2011
2 posts
Squashed: "Religion is a crutch" →
squashed:
I’ve always found this criticism a bit perplexing. What do you have against crutches? As medical technology goes, they’re not terribly controversial. If you break an ankle, there’s really no substitute. It’s great to have a crutch around when you need it.
And that’s the essence of the…
October 2011
4 posts
Jotly - Rate Everything ('cause it's... →
I found this via Swiss Miss and after looking at the video and glancing at their homepage (title link) I can’t tell if they’re taking the piss or not.
Their tagline is:
Rate Everything*
Everything about your life is exciting. To everyone.*
Really?
Everything about my life isn’t even exciting to me, and it’s my life.
*This text should be centered. I have tried...
August 2011
1 post
Never Yet Melted » On Climate Science →
Yep, it’s inconvenient alright.
July 2011
1 post
The Last Meals Project →
I found this link to The Last Meals Project via Neatorama. The guy running the site/project says… well I’ll quote him:
The core of the issue lies not on the emotionally loaded (for or against) arguments, but to question, how is society really served by the death penalty?
Call me clueless but whether society is served by the death penalty or not can’t help but lead directly to...
June 2011
2 posts
“Many historical figures kept work diaries or journals. Ben Franklin, John Adams,...”
– Wow.
Now there’s a varied group huh?
Two of the greatest men in American history and a neurotic who admitted that some of his “art” was done by his minions.
Stop right there guys, you’ve already sold me on this work diary thing.
5 Reasons To Keep A Work Diary :...
When will I ever learn?
I made the mistake of listening to the radio again the other day.
There was a guest on the George Hook show (suggested motto: “As intelligent as he is attractive!”) touting a book of suggestions for turning the economy around. I came in near the end of the conversation and heard the last point about duty on cigarettes and the evasion thereof, by…. well almost everybody.
The...
May 2011
1 post
I don't think you know very much about "God"
I’ve been reading PostSecret for a couple of years now and have generally found it interesting and funny, if occasionally frightening. I remember reading a card several years ago from a nursery worker who confessed that she like to laugh at the kids she thought were “stupid” after their parents dropped them off. That one certainly took my breath away.
Then today I came across...
April 2011
2 posts
Measuring Fairness - with genies!
Scott Adams, of Dilbert fame, recently wrote a post on his blog about men’s rights which turned into a huge internet hairball. He said that it was meant to be satire, feminists said that it was obviously misogynistic, and men’s rights advocates said he was a pussy for back-tracking on what they presumed to be the actual intent of the post when he said that it was supposed to be...
How to Find Intelligent Extraterrestrials →
The idea is to look for signs that they’re mining the asteroid belts in their system. By this criteria, we’re not intelligent life.
February 2011
1 post
January 2011
2 posts
General Musing →
There has been a lot written recently about the shooting of Rep. Giffords in Arizona this past Saturday by Jared Loughner and two things have popped into my head as a result.
The first is that everyone, bar The Grauniad, seems to be calling him Jared Lee Loughner. Why is it that when you shoot, or attempt to shoot, someone famous you automatically graduate to three name status? I’m...
December 2010
1 post
November 2010
4 posts
They're Man's Best Friend All Right
Writing like this is one of the reasons I love The Bleat.
When you have a kid who complains about delicious food that’s SLIGHTLY SOMEWHAT STRANGE and a dog who couldn’t care less if the curry makes his mouth feel like he ate a poisonous frog that was also on fire, you thank the dog for his support.
October 2010
2 posts
If you do this in an email, I hate you - The... →
I love The Oatmeal in a way that I’m sure is forbidden by all major religions, most Third World countries and several as yet undiscovered star systems.
He missed the one email hate that bothers me above all others… sending a detailed mail that requires a thoughtful response to allow you to continue working yet gets a “got your mail… give me a call” response. If I...
September 2010
8 posts
4 tags
It's just a saying man
I was driving to work the other day and stopped for a red light at a T-intersection. I was going to make a right at the T and then an immediate left. The car in front of me was most likely going to do the same.
The light turned green and we both started moving forward and turning with about half a car length between us. In the middle of the turn a motorcycle came up on my left, crossed in front...
But they go so well with ketchup!
I was putting on Secundus’s shoes one day as he was sitting on the stairs to the second floor. While doing it I made up a nonsense rhyme about eating his feet because that kind of thing generally drives him crazy (Noooooo Daddy! Don’t eat my feet/ears/nose/fingers etc…) and I’m a bad parent. The rhyme was something like:
Secundus’s* feet are good to eat Because...
August 2010
4 posts
I think when people try to send you animals... →
It says something about the ubiquitousness of Facebook and Farmville that, while I don’t use either, I know enough about them to find this quite funny.
No, I'm sure it was a complete shock to all...
I was sitting with my two boys (Primus(9) and Secundus(6)) the other night, eating pizza and watching TV. I was sick to death of cartoons and sports so I browsed through the movie channels and found Houdini. I left it on to see how the boys would react and after ten minutes there were no complaints, just solid munching and viewing. I tried changing the channel to the Simpsons, a perennial...
BBC World Service - Documentaries - Useful Idiots →
Good God, how did this get on the BBC?
June 2010
3 posts
Belgian euthanasia nurses 'fail to get consent' →
So much for the old “Don’t be silly, making it legal won’t be a slippery slope.” argument.
via Counting Cats in Zanzibar
BBC News - Work starts in £15m plan to get... →
Friends of ours live under the flight path for Heathrow, they both used to work for British Airways so they never complained about the noise, and I remember sitting in their back garden on summer evenings and hearing the Concorde taking off, or landing depending on the wind.
It sounded like nothing else I’ve ever heard and I was unexpectedly saddened by the news when it stopped flying....
May 2010
11 posts
“Many people with jobs have a fantasy about all the amazing things they would do...”
– It reminded me of this George Bernard Shaw quote:
People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don’t believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and, if they can’t find them,...
Trust me, I'm from the government
While driving into work this morning I turned on the radio for a few minutes as I was waiting in the McDonald’s drive-thru lane for my coffee. I generally don’t listen to the radio while driving into work anymore as the combination of caffeine and stupidity lofts my blood pressure to stratospheric levels.
I just caught the last few sentences of a piece concerning the death in state...
Yay! Chrome...
I had previously posted of my annoyance at Chrome’s inability to complete a Tumblr post. I was getting tired, not that I’ve been posting a lot, of having to switch over to IE to post items that I’d found.
Today I decided to give it one more try, and it worked.
Thanks for gettin’ on that Chrome guys*
*I have no doubt it was something I’ve done/not done. Although the...
Seth's Blog: All you need to know... →
is that it’s possible.
Strangely, this is both a comfort and a source of great fear, like looking into the sky somewhere far from light sources and realizing how vast the universe is.
KA-CHING! →
One downside to the old days was phone rental; AT&T owned the phone and you rented it from them.
When my father died I was going through his bills and realized that he never cancelled the phone rental. After totting up the figures it turns out that he could’ve broken a phone, and replaced it, every month for about five years and still have come out ahead.
Change Magazine - Bad Advice for New Graduates →
Well, here you are at your college graduation. And I know what you’re thinking: “Gimme the sheepskin and get me outta here!” Not so fast. First you have to listen to a commencement speech.
An oldie but a goodie, a commencement speech from P.J. O’Rourke. The best part is, it’s all true.
Sheesh, Chrome...
I use Chrome for browsing and have to say that I love it. It’s fast, it doesn’t crash a lot, and I like it’s (obvious) Google integration.
What I don’t like is Chrome’s inablility to successfully post a Tumblr, um, post.
Get on that Google.
“Not exactly…”
–
The hero of the Times Square bomb attempt was an immigrant. A Muslim. Senegalese newcomer Aliou Niasse was the first to notice the smoldering car and draw attention to it. He had no time left on his cell phone and realized his English probably wasn’t up to the task, so he got a passerby to call...