Links
-
Blogs, in vague order of updatedness/niceness
- Funny Lonely Life
- Something about a future God...
- Dave's Blog
- Penny Arcade
- Bash
- Questionable Content
- XKCD
Other links
Archives
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It's only semi autobiographical
Thursday, December 29, 2005
We have a problem
I think I killed them again, but some people have said they are still about....
Let me know?
Tuesday, December 27, 2005
Pointless
Incidentally Bex, a sabreur is a fencer who uses a sabre. And I quote:
Sabreurs - or "sabreurs" fence sabre - a single-edged weapon characterized by sudden charges and wide, slashing attacks. Sabreurs prefer tight black leather clothing. Studded collars and wristbands are also quite common, as well as dog-collars, leather hoods, multiply- pierced body parts and grotesque or obscene tattoos. While many wear highly-polished pointed-toed boots with silver toe caps and spurs, most prefer heavier stompin' boots of the Doc Marten variety.
Sabre fencers tend to be more heavily built than the other two. In sharp contrast to the casual brutality of the epeeists, or the studied, exquisite cruelties practiced by foil fencers, sabreurs are most often prone to random behavior. Screaming is a common manifestation of this, and the source of much amusement for groups of sabreurs out on the town. (Particularly when touring libraries, museums, retail outlets, and hospital wards.) Occasionally a sabre fencer will leap without warning into heavy traffic. His compatriots will generally take advantage of the ensuing confusion to loot the nearest music store.
Courtesy of Fencingsucks.com
Anyway, allow me to point you to RoisÃn's Blog which clearly has more of a point to it than my own. Nah not really, I am just hoping she now writes something scathing about this, so more people will come see it!
Pure Silver
This never works. What in fact happens is that I forget what I was thinking about, and pure comedy silver slips down the drain. (Not gold, I am not quite of sabreur arrogance yet.)
Therefore I have resolved to write whenever the mood strikes me, this could be many times in a day, or it could be my normal schedule.
In any case, posts will tend to be around midday and midnight, because that is when I tend to be awake.
Incidentally, if anyone can tell me how to do t-tests, that would be greatly appreciated before I have to attempt my stats revision.
Now I'm awake, and I'm going to eat.
Monday, December 26, 2005
iStuff
This makes me think about the evolution of the iFranchise, and its undeniable advance to a monopoly of all sound.
I always used to think that they were after control of communication. Think about it, what can your mobile phone do? It can make calls, send text messages. These things it does well. It can do the following all pretty badly, display photos, display videos, record music, play music, and access the internet.
Now the newest iPod can do all these things (bar internet access) much better. How hard can it be to jam in an aerial and call it a phone? But this all seemed a bit silly when I thought about it, why go to all that trouble?
Then, it occurred to me that the evil white pod, nestled in its newest contraption of noise, looked a little like an extension kit for a laptop. Indeed, it probably has more memory than a lot of laptops.
These days you often see a laptop plugged into a real keyboard, monitor, speakers and mouse, which means these things are relatively unimportant to the laptop itself. All that is really needed is the software... Which is just data... Which you can save on an iPod.
Surprise assault on the computer industry anyone?
They can play music too I hear.
Fat kids
When I saw the 2nd bag of crisps, almost told the people I was sitting with to look, and had trouble containing myself.
The third made it blog material.
What kind of parent buys their already chubby child (who was, by the way, spherical) eat not one, not two, but three bags of crisps on a day out in the pub? What chance does the little porker have.
He is going to grow up thinking that's an acceptable way to eat, and I know myself it is hard to kick the snack habit. I did struggle a little with a stomach-increasing problem when younger.
What kind of parents do this to their children?
F*cking fat ones.
Thursday, December 22, 2005
That's it
That is all for now, I am revising.
Sunday, December 18, 2005
The unthinkable
(Insert Paul saying "Kieran" here if you are that way inclined.)
(That was Paul)
Anyway, yes, I have been revising (weeks in advance! Wow!) for Advanced Group Theory, a very dull, exact, and boring subject, lifted from complete tedium by a very intelligent-looking and softly spoken professor.
So, I have been very much in this straightforward, serious mindset, until I came across the following quote in a mathematical text.
"What is commutative and purple? And abelian grape."
Yeah, sad is it not? Ah well, back to revision.
Tuesday, December 13, 2005
Fat smokers
The first girl was blonde, had well groomed hair, and was chatting on a mobile telephone, whilst chewing gum. She was pretty, in a townie kind of way.
The second two were wearing the same revealing clothes as the first, but were significantly chunkier. They had thighs more in common with an elephant than a human being. They were also smoking, and clearly trying to imitate the way their friend walked. Oh how I laughed.
Now I'm tired, and I'm going to bed.
Monday, December 12, 2005
Filler?
But may I draw your attention to this...
Look! It's a demonic duck of some sort!
Sunday, December 11, 2005
Coursework
Fun fun fun!
(Dyslexic translation day:Fnu fnu fnu!)
Today I made a joke in very poor taste, so I can not really relate it here, but I stand by my viewpoint that comments made in jest do not count. Well, unless you know that someone will find them offensive.
But I do not really get that, I do not find any subject offensive. Weird, I just thought, essentially, all rules and laws that stop people saying abusive things are only keeping me down. They provide no benefit or protection for me at all. Even the common rules of decency and tact.
How bizarre.
So I have to be careful of what I say for no good reason. Gah, why can the whole world not come around to my way of thinking about language. No words should be offensive certainly.
As for religion, Jesus christ it annoys me when people get arsey about that. If I want to say that I think Judaism is a load of bollocks I should be allowed. If I call Allah a bastard, why should I be punished? If I were to suggest that the Church of England is nothing but a money-making scheme, devised by a long dead king, that is my business.
Meh, just a thought.
Now I'm tired and I'm going to work.
Saturday, December 10, 2005
Holy crap!
I read this recently...
Now it is called the century club, but is clearly recognisable as the centurion challenge partaken of here in Bath. As far as I recall, the only "secretion" of beer during the challenge, was in the urinal in the normal manner. Everyone in elements was doing it at some point, and I have done it twice (at least.)
What does this prove?
American univeristy, or "college" students are pussys when it comes to drinking. Lets face it, in a country where it is seen to be "cool" and dangerous to drink at the crazily young age of 20, there really is no time to build up a tolerance when it come to drinking.
I remember the bad old days, drinking cheap cider at age 16... that is essentially what is going on at American campuses at age 19 and 20.
The solution? The fencing club needs to go on a tour of the USA, spreading beer and swordfighting as we go.
In other news, I am depressingly sober. Bloody coursework.
Now I'm tired, and I actually am going to bed.
Friday, December 09, 2005
The News
"TREATMENT BAN ON FAT PATIENTS"
Now regular readers, if any still exist, will be aware of my obesity stance.
The front page story was essentially that if doctors have reason to suspect that a person's habits will hinder their recovery, or reduce the chance of a successful procedure, they may refuse treatment. I think this is an excellent idea, if we are to follow the ideal of the greatest good for the greatest number, the procedures will be cheaper and more efficient, so more people will benefit, and the patients who are treated will get a greater good from the procedure.
For example, two people need a hip replacement, both older than middle aged. One is active, enjoys their exercise and has damaged their hip in a fall. The other... Well lets say they have had a few too many cheese burgers. If the damage was caused by being over weight, and lets be honest, they are not going to be doing a lot of walking anyway, then it seems a bit of a waste. Like George Best's liver. The other person though, might be able to recover, and do the everyday things that they always used to be able to do. And probably a hell of a lot more walking too.
There are some counter arguments, and to address those set out in the newspaper...
"People are obese for a wide range of reasons, but those suffering arthritis may find that they have reduced mobility due to the pain which causes them to be obese. It would be very unfair to deny these people treatment." [sic]
Yes. It would. I have a simple solution though... Do not deny them treatment, it is not their fault. Their problem is medical in its cause, so they should be given treatment.
The other argument seems to be that decisions should be made for clinical reasons, or "clear evidence that the treatment will not be effective."
Well, that is what I am arguing too, if their personal habits reduce the effectiveness of the treatment, this treatment is better prioritised to those that will get more benefit from it.
I'm doing coursework now, so I'll wrap it up at that.
Thursday, December 08, 2005
Crisps
Here I present to the world a proof that crisps are by no means the ultimate snack, and I use MATHEMATICS, wich as we all know is the purest form of, and thus outranks, SCIENCE!
We prove by contradiction. Let us assume that crisps are the ultimate snack. Ultimate can be defined to mean "the finest or most superior quality of its kind"
Let S be a finite, unbounded set of all snacks, and let C be a subset of Snacks. Let C be closed and finite (but not necessarily bounded.)
Now let all flavours of crisps be members of C. We have that for all flavours f in C, f>=s
Where s is a member of S. This is because for crisps to be ultimate ALL crisps must be superior to all other snacks
So, for all x, y members of C, x>=s and y>=s.
But, x and y are in S, so x>=y and y>=s Thus we have x=y, for all x, y in C contained within S
Now, without loss of generality, let us take x=Cheese and onion and y=Salt and vinegar. Clearly these two flavors are not equal, so our initial assumption must have been false.
As required, crisps are NOT the ultimate snack.
Now I'm bored, and I'm going to do stats.
Wednesday, December 07, 2005
Blogging
In a vague attempt to recapture those heydays, I have promised to update every day for a week, then once every two days at least from then onward. Lets see how it goes!
Another motivation is to beat Kieran's counter. See the little black numbers at the bottom of the page? Reads about 3800 now. I need that to read about 5000. Thus, if you are reading this, send the link so someone you know, (or hate) and I will do my best to keep us all entertained. If every reader adds one more, potentially I could have an... INFINITE READERSHIP!
As a clue to what is coming tomorrow, an elaborate mathematical proof of Djykstra's theorem. Or possibly a proof on why crisps are not in fact the ultimate snack. (Everyone knows that in the game of proof, mathematics beats science.)
Now I'm tired, and I'm going to a job interview... type thing....
