May Contain Nuts

Today's contentious discussion

Thu, 15 May 2008 13:20:26 GMT

View Poll: #1188278

Inspired by the discussion here.

GPs

Wed, 14 May 2008 11:48:30 GMT

View Poll: #1187634

Movie Silliness

Wed, 14 May 2008 08:13:07 GMT

The Mulder and Scully viral videos here are great (and the trailer's not too bad). And the trailer for The Spirit is at least amusing and tongue in cheek.

Cheers to ladysisyphus for pointing me in that direction.

If you vote Tory then you're voting for homophobic scum

Tue, 13 May 2008 12:41:47 GMT

Because you're voting for people that believe that lesbians shouldn't be allowed IVF.

And no, there is no excuse.

Edit: Actual quote from the debate
It is in the interests of every child to have a mother and a father, but if no father is present—as is, unhappily, the case for many children today—a male role model should be available. For that reason, I, personally, do not regard the substitution of "supportive parenting" for "father" as sufficient. The reference to the need for a father, which has not been reflected in the code, should be re-cast in the legislation as "the need for supportive parenting and a father or a male role model."

Edit 2: As has been pointed out, they are, in fact, misogynist scum, not homophobic. Sorry about that.

Ikea and Belfast

Tue, 13 May 2008 08:11:50 GMT

Long evening last night - I went to Ikea to buy a bed for laserboy so that he has something to sleep on when he moves in in 10 days time. is_not_well came with me, which was lovely - keeping me company and helping me push things around, as well as looking at numerous beds, wardrobes, chest of drawers and other domestic things together was great fun. It's funny - I actually enjoy wandering around Ikea - it brings out the geeky efficiency fanatic in me "If only I had this lettuce slicer I could be 3.7% more efficient in the kitchen!" and having Julie there being excited with me just adds to that. We can excitedly squee together over the storage solutions :->

We're off to Belfast this weekend - I finally get to meet her family. It feels like an important thing to do. I feel like I ought to be more nervous than I am - but meeting people has never filled me with dread (well, apart from famous people that I don't have anything to say to as people). I'm curious to meet the grandparents who raised her, and her mother, and hopefully some of the friends she grew up with. I'm looking forward to seeing the places she's walked home from at 3am, the streets she's hung out on, the places she has fond memories of, and the city and village that shaped her early life.

I've never been out with anyone whose early life felt quite so foreign before. It feels like rather an adventure.

Boom Blox

Mon, 12 May 2008 11:53:55 GMT

You know how numerous companies have boasted about their Kewl Physics Engines that allow you to do all sorts of things that you couldn't do in computer games before - like fall over convincingly when you're shot in the head, or crash your car when you go around corners too fast? What if someone had found the ultimate game to take advantage of this..... Jenga!

Well, I say Jenga, but imagine Jenga where the towers are made from jeweled blocks, some of which explode when touched, some of which are worth more points than others, and some of which vanish when touched. Jenga where the towers are built into complex shapes and you get to throw tennis balls at them to try and knock more bits off than your opponent, or knock bits off without knocking off the penalty blocks that are worth negative points, or while trying to knock them into multiplier areas that double, treble or quadruple the block worth. And now imagine it with cute animals that can get hit by things falling off the towers.

That's what kept me and is_not_well happy for about five hours over the weekend, and it's what I left marrog and time_for_tea playing in my flat when I popped out for a couple of hours last night...

It takes about thirty seconds to get into, and it's insanely good fun. It'll be getting pulled out whenever people are over for a visit for quite a while. Oh, and the single player puzzle mode is _completely_ addictive. And it has a creator mode, so you can create your own puzzles and share them (not that I've got to that yet).

9/10 (cos I'm not sure of the longevity)

It's not just me that thinks it's great - see here for various mags scoring it A+ and 10/10...

Ultra-quiet PCs

Mon, 12 May 2008 07:45:42 GMT

I've currently got the Eee plugged into my monitor, keyboard and mouse. This gives me an entirely silent desktop experience for the first time _ever_.

I think my next proper desktop is going to have to be as close to solid state and passively cooled as I can manage...

Today's Media

Sun, 11 May 2008 22:39:29 GMT

Latest Irn Bru ad, inspired by Kipling (courtesy of henriksdal

David Tennant is exposed to Dr Who slash (courtesy of despotliz

and last, but not least, eduard_green in a ridiculous moustache:

Free Stuffs!

Sat, 10 May 2008 10:47:46 GMT

Before I dash off to FreeCycle, would anyone like a steam wallpaper stripper?

Or two ikea shelves - 4 foot wide, 6 inches high, with dividers, suitable for CDs, books, etc. They go direct onto the wall. Example here.

Or a glass chess-set. About a foot on a side. Rather pretty. Just got nowhere to put it.

All going free.

Anyone want a cat?

Wed, 07 May 2008 22:04:19 GMT

Things didn't work out with lizzie_and_ari and Denver. She was fine with it. The cat they already had - not so much. So after five days of Cedric refusing to come into the flat, Denver's back at mine.

So - would anyone like to provide a home for a housecat? She's very placid and friendly with people, loves falling asleep against people, and is good with pretty much everybody except other cats. She doesn't like the outdoors, and she's perfectly happy to live in upstairs flats.

Edit: Going with daisyflip - cheers to everyone for their suggestions and offers!

Tue, 06 May 2008 21:14:37 GMT

View Poll: #1183685

They're Nazis on the Moon, they carry a Harpoon

Tue, 06 May 2008 21:11:30 GMT

Trailer here.

Space Nazis. What's not to like?

(Did you guess this one was from octopoid_horror)

Shoppings

Tue, 06 May 2008 21:01:26 GMT

We went to The Gyle today, where I got a second Wii steering wheel, and Julie bought clothes.

No pics of the steering wheel - but here's how Julie looks in her new jacket:

Now bed. If I can tear her away from her computer games :->

Ch-ch-ch-ch

Sat, 03 May 2008 13:36:16 GMT

For the first time in seven years, I am not living with a cat.

At midday, lizzie_and_ari came over with a cat carrier and we carried her, her bowls, her food and her litter over to their flat (a five minute walk up the road). And then we sat in their study, let her out, and petter her while she investigated her new home.

She seems to be settling in fine - she was happily eating food, climbing on the desk, and winding herself around Lizzie's ankles. She even had a brief encounter with their existing cat (Cedric) which consisted of nose-sniffing and a single miaow, rather than the hissing I'd feared.

I'm hopeful that she'll be happy there, and have the kind of company and attention that I'm just not about enough to give her.

I'm not going to miss her waking me up at 7am to demand the breakfast she never gets before 8am. I'm not going to miss her constant demands for food at every other part of the day that's more than five minutes after her last meal. And I'm not going to miss finding her cat hairs in anything put down for more than ten seconds (including my dinner).

But I will miss her.

Brains!

Fri, 02 May 2008 17:55:28 GMT

Remember I had an MRI scan a while back?

They finally sent me the pictures. Not only was there a full set of slices in three axes, but also this rather spiffy set of all three mid-sections.

Anyone care to explain anything to me?

Why people deserted Labour

Fri, 02 May 2008 17:44:07 GMT

Three quick links before I go shower, shave, and dash off for dinner:

Voter reactions on the BBC news website
Voter reactions on the Guardian website
And a funny one

The Ultimate Zombie Movie

Fri, 02 May 2008 07:39:02 GMT

GENERAL FRED: The reports are confirmed. New York has been overrun... by zombies.

COLONEL TODD: Again? But we just had a zombie invasion 28 days ago!

GENERAL FRED: These zombies... are different. They're... philosophical zombies.

CAPTAIN MUDD: Are they filled with rage, causing them to bite people?

COLONEL TODD: Do they lose all capacity for reason?

GENERAL FRED: No. They behave... exactly like we do... except that they're not conscious.

---

A lab-coated SCIENTIST stands up at the foot of the table.

SCIENTIST: The zombie disease eliminates consciousness without changing the brain in any way. We've been trying to understand how the disease is transmitted. Our conclusion is that, since the disease attacks dual properties of ordinary matter, it must, itself, operate outside our universe. We're dealing with an epiphenomenal virus.

GENERAL FRED: Are you sure?

SCIENTIST: As sure as we can be in the total absence of evidence.

GENERAL FRED: All right. Compile a report on every epiphenomenon ever observed. What, where, and who. I want a list of everything that hasn't happened in the last fifty years.

CAPTAIN MUDD: If the virus is epiphenomenal, how do we know it exists?

SCIENTIST: The same way we know we're conscious.

The rest is here. Dennet's appearance is particularly funny.
Cheers to robhu for that one.

Dancing!

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 18:50:09 GMT

is_not_well, crm, marrog, tisme and I are going to Misfits on Friday. Where there will hopefully be loud music and alcohol. Possibly even at the same time.

Should you fancy joining us then it would be great to see you.

End of an Era

Sun, 27 Apr 2008 21:42:21 GMT

Today was spent:
9am - midday: Help eduard_green move his stuff out of my flat, into the back of henriksdal's Truck of Doom and over to his new flat (where he will be living with tisme and a pair of cats).
12:30pm - 5pm: babysit Noah with the aid of is_not_well. He was very well behaved, we all went to the park and he went down the long curly slide four times. Eventually he got a bit tired and grumpy, but I'm used to having that effect on people :->
5pm - now: Off to is_not_well's place, where we picked up a bunch of her stuff, as she's staying over for the next week, taking advantage of me being flatmate-less. Then back to mine to find a whole buncha-stuff that Ed had missed in his packing, wash up, hang up clothes, tidy up (somewhat), make stir-fry chicken, watch an episode of the IT crowd, and now bed.

All this and argue with idiots on the internet. It's been a full day.

(Apologies to the four people who left me messages on MSN - I wasn't near the computer most of the day, and I'll get back to you all in the next day or two!)

Aaand this is how my day's been

Sun, 27 Apr 2008 20:05:23 GMT

The bit about arguments...

Things that annoy me about Visual Studio #1

Sun, 27 Apr 2008 08:38:57 GMT

The solution at work has 11 projects in it.

Even if the compilation on the very first project fails, it continues to compile all of the other ones.

Why, oh why, would I want to compile projects that are dependent on one that failed to compile?

bad_sex poll

Sun, 27 Apr 2008 08:11:52 GMT

View Poll: #1178342

TV is the Gin of the People

Sat, 26 Apr 2008 21:34:03 GMT

Clay Shirky talking about how we spend our free time. I don't necessarily agree that this is going to be a wholesale cultural change, but it's a fascinating set of thoughts anyway, and the figures on "hours society spends working on wikipedia" versus "hours society spends watching TV" are enlightening.

Wiiii Fitness

Sat, 26 Apr 2008 16:10:41 GMT

Alison Scott has a blog entry here on Wii Fitness - if you're the kind of person that wants to be fitter, but would like to find a _fun_ way of doing it, I recommend taking a look.

I also recommend taking a look at the before/after shots here, showing the end results of 7 weeks of Wii workout. (It was on andyduckerlinks before, but I figure it's worth reposting the occasional thing.)

One wonders what the reaction will be.

Fri, 25 Apr 2008 20:19:12 GMT

Boris Johnson, Conservative candidate for London Mayor has just spoken out in favour of cannabis being legal for medical use.

The Conservatives are notorious for their anti-drugs stance.

Will they publically distance themselves from him right before an important vote?

Change their official stance?

Or (and my money's on this one) say "Oh, it's just Boris. You know what he's like?"

Which, I suppose, is the advantage of having one of your more zany representatives stand for Mayor...