Posts

  • 4th
  • 11th
    • Music needs shooting → They say music is shit these days, but does shit really smell this bad? It’s the hall quiz tonight, so Claudio’s memorising the periodic table, and I’ve been revising for the important questions - Pop Idol movers and shakers, and the UK singles chart. I knew it was bad, but I really had no idea. This [...]
  • 12th
    • Commercial bombardment: the solution → Someone was complaining to me about christmas music being played incessantly at supermarkets and shopping megaplexes. There’s quite a low-tech solution to this: earplugs and eyeshades whenever visiting large open commercial spaces. The christmas music is played to trigger memories of presents, which triggers feelings of guilt that you haven’t done your christmas shopping yet, which [...]
  • 13th
    • Who cares? → When I hear the word care, I nearly always think of it as used in the sentence “I don’t care.” I know it also means to care for someone, but for some reason, my brain is geared to interpret it as a statement about apathy. Which makes this BBC article about healthcarers extremely funny: The number [...]
    • The Natzional Trust’s Quarry Bank Mill → Did you know the National Trust doesn’t allow photography at most of its sites? I didn’t until today. I asked a guy if it would be OK to take photos if I didn’t use the flash, and he said the flash wasn’t the problem; it was the copyrights. I was allowed to take photos provided [...]
  • 14th
  • 15th
    • The labeling problem → Here we have an analysis of peoples’ reaction to the term Bright. If you don’t know, it’s an attempt to rebrand the word atheist, which has been mangled by religious hooligans. It’s also a terrible, terrible name. “I’m not sure what the image buffers were aiming for, but the name “The Brights” succinctly conveys the sense that [...]
  • 17th
    • The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King: The review → Barring a surprise release of Back to the Future 4 on new year’s eve, Pirates of the Caribbean was the best film of 2003. Return of the King was close though! Like all big franchises, the writing let it down in the end. Good, but not good enough. Certainly couldn’t compete with the Pirates script. I would’ve [...]
  • 18th
    • Frustration → The godlike shadow cast across the net by Tim Bray once again tempts us cruelly: “Er, your legal department blog is open to the public.” … A couple of details in the narrative have been changed to protect the guilty, but if I told you what went between legal. and .com you’d gasp. Obviously he can’t reveal the details [...]
  • 20th
    • Newtonmas → "Axial tilt's the reason for the season!"
  • 21st