Nightmares in a Damaged Brain

khbrown @ 2009-12-31T02:56:00

2009-12-31T02:57:35Z

Shock horror:

Bought a new laptop with Vista to replace the netbook I brilliantly managed to spill liquid upon (i.e. discounted). So far no major issues with UAC etc. Biggest thing is getting the muscle memory for its keyboard. Do not like having numeric keypad. Nevertheless 3500 words, 2000 of proper thesis stuff and 1500 of trash film reviews, helped. Not sure why I wasn’t prompted for a password on my desktop Ubuntu machine for accessing the Samba share though.

Still waiting for new glasses, plus supply of contact lenses. Adapted to wearing sunglasses, but probably not good to be wearing them in normal light for two weeks plus.

Can’t sleep, but have avoided napping during the day / evening. Will no doubt hit tiredness eventually. At New Year not such an issue anyway.

Listening to Overkill Ironbound and Shakira She Wolf. Overkill always sound derivative, that they have just taken someone else’s riff and changed it. No difference with new album. Shakira very much a guilty pleasure but she (and/or her collaborators) can craft a catchy pop song. And not being US-ian is a plus.

khbrown @ 2009-12-10T10:35:00

2009-12-10T10:35:04Z

To follow on from Pride and Prejudice with Zombies etc.:

The Diary of Anne Frankenstein

khbrown @ 2009-11-30T23:13:00

2009-11-30T23:12:47Z

Blade Runner and paedophilia

Why is Blade Runner not banned / censored under current legislation?

After all it has female Replicants who are around four years old and whose function, as "basic pleasure models", is sexual.

khbrown @ 2009-11-30T22:52:00

2009-11-30T22:52:27Z

For perhaps the first time my sister and I had a discussion which did not turn into an argument. She had visited an art installation which was a dark tunnel and complained about other visitors who were using cameras and such, providing light, and thus going against the spirit of the work. I said that this was a legitimate reader/consumer response to the text.

khbrown @ 2009-11-24T18:34:00

2009-11-24T18:34:23Z

Thoroughly shit day. Just getting from A to B was a hassle with the various road works etc.

khbrown @ 2009-11-19T19:58:00

2009-11-19T19:58:13Z

Just ordered a book; 25p and £2.75 P&P

khbrown @ 2009-11-19T17:49:00

2009-11-19T17:49:44Z

I have been looking at safes. They have a money and valuables rating, which indicates the amount of each that the safe, if properly fitted, is fine with for insurance purposes. Generally the cash amount is one tenth of the valuables amount. However, they only seem to go up to £100,000 cash or so. So, is this just onlin; are bank safes similarly limited in what they actually cover for; and/or do banks have different insurance from individuals here?

khbrown @ 2009-11-19T15:51:00

2009-11-19T15:51:20Z

Backtracing:

I am self-employed. I pay national insurance every quarter. Two weeks ago I went to pay at the local post office. I was told that I would have to pay an additional charge.

How can I find out if this was this post office, the post office generally, or the government that is responsible for this, so that I can complain? I do not like Direct Debit, because that entails handing over control. I have never been overdrawn, so that in itself is not the issue: I can and will pay, in time, but when I am ready.

Of course, this just shows that I have too much time on my hands...

'The aristocratic rebel, since he has enough to eat, must have other causes of discontent.' - Bertrand Russell, probably more famous via Adrian Mole.

khbrown @ 2009-11-14T23:55:00

2009-11-14T23:55:24Z

The Incredibles = superhero deconstruction for those who do not watch The Watchmen?

khbrown @ 2009-11-09T13:37:00

2009-11-09T13:38:52Z

New nuclear power plants:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8349715.stm

A snippet:
Most people living close to power plants were "enthusiastic" about them and the developments would create jobs, Mr Miliband added.

And were the previous generations of these same people told the same thing when the previous plants were built? Looking at the map most of the proposed new plants are where existing ones were.

khbrown @ 2009-11-08T20:12:00

2009-11-08T20:15:07Z

Interns exploited:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8348394.stm

Shock, horror. And we wonder why such positions are largely closed to those who can afford to life off their parents or similar.

khbrown @ 2009-11-08T17:20:00

2009-11-08T17:20:55Z

Some epicfail here:

http://www.11points.com/Misc/11_Unbelievably_Insensitive_%28and_Often_Racist%29_Holiday_Advertisements

khbrown @ 2009-11-05T23:46:00

2009-11-05T23:47:59Z

I cut myself up for the first time in nine months or so tonight.

As a coping mechanism it is not good.

khbrown @ 2009-11-05T18:16:00

2009-11-05T18:17:32Z

The passing of Barry Letts:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/8344057.stm

Spearhead from Space etc; if you don't know his name then you're only a Johnny-come-lately Dr Who fan.

khbrown @ 2009-11-05T18:11:00

2009-11-05T18:14:38Z

"Tributes to five men of courage"

How about

"Tributes to five men of limited opportunity, with that limitation by economic and cultural design"

Or, they die for oil and US hegemony

After all, the only nation with a special relationship with the US, getting more than it gives, is Israel...

khbrown @ 2009-11-05T17:45:00

2009-11-05T17:49:41Z

Science fiction/Speculative fiction is like Psychological thriller/horror or slasher film.

As in, The Silence of the Lambs is okay and Halloween (the original, for sake of argument) isn't. But Lektor's superhuman/supernatural powers make him just as much an incredible bogeyman as Michael Myers.

"There are only two kinds of music [X]. Good and bad" - Ellington, Weill, goodness knows who else.

khbrown @ 2009-10-31T22:53:00

2009-10-31T22:56:01Z

My mother has been diagnosed with cancer, and will be starting chemotherapy/radiotherapy in the next couple of weeks.

I do not know how to respond 'properly'...

khbrown @ 2009-10-31T21:28:00

2009-10-31T21:29:31Z

Rape, paedophilia, the Holocaust, and so forth are not funny.
But jokes about them can be.

Discuss.

khbrown @ 2009-10-31T21:22:00

2009-10-31T21:27:16Z

Opinions?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/8327636.stm

I just wonder if having one Jew decide who is a Jew is like having one Christian (e.g. the Pope, or Ian Paisley) decide who else is a Christian, as in, it's not about religion, but about secular power politics.

Where are the humanist or atheist schools?

DVD-R / FLAC

2009-10-31T21:04:14Z

Is there a player out there which will play a DVD-R with music in FLAC format? I like the idea of being able to put an artist's entire discography onto one disc, lossless, and playing it in uninterrupted sequence. Or indeed having a CD-R with two or four albums on it.

khbrown @ 2009-10-21T22:23:00

2009-10-21T21:30:12Z

Piece on the BBC website about Blurton, Stoke-on-Trent and those supposedly abandoned by mainstream political parties, making the place ideal territory for the BNP:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/newsnight/8319515.stm

Two statistics in the piece seemed odd together:

"Though the population of Blurton is more than 98% white, people I spoke to endlessly blamed immigrants for taking their jobs and jumping the housing queue.
Stoke Council say less than 4% of social housing in Blurton is occupied by ethnic minority tenants."

Now, while the intention is clearly to say that immigrants are not to blame, and there could be any number of other factors in play, the two statistics together do suggest that ethnic minority tenants are twice as likely to be in social housing (4%) as their numbers (2%) would suggest. So, couldn't these figures be used to say (amongst other things) that there is some form of discrimination here? Non-white people (of certain types) are more likely to be given social housing than white people (again, of certain types, but not necessarily the same ones).

Intepretation...

khbrown @ 2009-10-21T01:07:00

2009-10-21T00:09:53Z

Fascists against the BNP?

As in, fascism is just a label used against those whose politics we don't agree with? And Fascism, of the original Italian variety, had its intellectual defenders and theorists just like any other ideology (cf. Mussolini's Intellectuals).

Does the BNP even mention autarky or syndicalism?

khbrown @ 2009-10-07T10:20:00

2009-10-07T09:21:53Z

The World of Yaad

A religion, not a D&D campaign or a fantasy trilogy.

http://www.uxbridgegazette.co.uk/west-london-news/local-uxbridge-news/2009/10/05/religious-sect-members-jailed-after-attack-on-former-members-113046-24857697/

khbrown @ 2009-10-06T23:06:00

2009-10-06T22:07:14Z

Two Jews, three opinions?

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article6857571.ece

(On Jews for Jesus in Israel)

khbrown @ 2009-10-06T22:42:00

2009-10-06T21:44:37Z

Are there any browsers or plugins for browsers (Firefox) which will allow the user to drag over an area and then right click with an option to open all links in the selection? Or, even better, which allow selecting non-contiguous links like files and then opening all those selected?