Nightmares in a Damaged Brain

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 20:15:07 GMT

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.

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 17:20:55 GMT

Some epicfail here:

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

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 23:47:59 GMT

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

As a coping mechanism it is not good.

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 18:17:32 GMT

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.

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 18:14:38 GMT

"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...

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 17:49:41 GMT

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.

Sat, 31 Oct 2009 22:56:01 GMT

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'...

Sat, 31 Oct 2009 21:29:31 GMT

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

Discuss.

Sat, 31 Oct 2009 21:27:16 GMT

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

Sat, 31 Oct 2009 21:04:14 GMT

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.

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 21:30:12 GMT

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...

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 00:09:53 GMT

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?

Wed, 07 Oct 2009 09:21:53 GMT

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/

Tue, 06 Oct 2009 22:07:14 GMT

Two Jews, three opinions?

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

(On Jews for Jesus in Israel)

Tue, 06 Oct 2009 21:44:37 GMT

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?

Tue, 06 Oct 2009 11:37:07 GMT

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racial_and_Religious_Hatred_Act_2006

And where is my protection as a non-believer? Or do I/we have to (non-)believe in a parody religion to be accepted?

Tue, 06 Oct 2009 11:19:48 GMT

"a number of MPs, including Rob Marris and Keith Vaz, called on the BBC to do more to represent Britain's minority faiths. "I am disappointed," said Mr Vaz. "It is only right that as licence fee payers all faiths are represented in a way that mirrors their make-up in society."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_the_BBC

What about atheism? Or the Satanist, Wicca, Jedi and Pastafarian faiths, for instance? I want to see a Jedi "Songs of Praise" ;-)

Thu, 01 Oct 2009 13:02:17 GMT

List of celebrities who have signed the free Roman Polanksi petition:

http://community.livejournal.com/ohnotheydidnt/39618660.html

How many would also sign a stop hunting Nazi war criminals petition, on the basis that that was all so long ago etc.?

Or a free Charles Manson one, that he's a political prisoner (okay, so he wanted a race war...)

Fri, 25 Sep 2009 23:09:57 GMT

This seems emblematic of the problems with white collar crime:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8275626.stm

a) The old bosses not being prosecuted
b) The fine less than the contracts won, and so presumably economically rational cost-benefit wise.

Thu, 24 Sep 2009 01:24:21 GMT

eXcepting the X Men, all the superhero franchises have been about individual heroes/characters. What is the box office success of these and does it suggest US-ians are unhappy with anything that is not individualist?

Would Luke Cage / Iron Fist as 'heroes for hire' be box office?

Or indeed any of Kirby's objectivist superheros. (IMO objectivism is crap, but at least it makes you think about your objections.)

Tue, 22 Sep 2009 23:41:01 GMT

"Our study does not mean that people should avoid going into hospital that week. This is a relatively small difference in mortality rates, and the numbers of excess deaths are very low," said Dr Paul Aylin from the Dr Foster Unit at Imperial College.

"It's too early to say what might be causing it. It might simply be the result of differences between the patients who were admitted."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/8269729.stm

But isn't the first thing that's drummed into you on a stats course is that 'correlation is not causality'?

Tue, 22 Sep 2009 17:00:46 GMT

"Givat Ze'ev has a friendly small-town atmosphere - young and old mill around a row of shops and cafes on the main street; a medical centre and a hairdresser do brisk trade.

Although Israel's settlement movement was born to advance sovereignty in the occupied territories, there was no sign - among people I spoke to - of political motives underpinning their presence.

On the contrary, people mentioned affordable accommodation, that it was a good place to live and raise children, getting around was easy via 443 and other bypass roads for Israelis."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/8268543.stm

But how far can any housing development be divorced from politics? Was it by chance that a road was built to connect this settlement, but not that 'Palestinian' one to Jerusalem? For example, didn't the Conservaties here freeze council or social housing building because that population didn't vote for them, just as they encouraged council house sales because homeowners were more likely to vote for them? Or there, isn't being on land that is 'offically' occupied likely to mean supporting political parties who are against 'giving up' said land and homes?

Gerrymandering has many guises.

Also, in the article, where are Israelis who are not Jewish? It seems very Israeli = Jewish / Palestinian = not Jewish.

Aren't there Palestinian Israelis, who are not Jewish? Do or don't they settle on 'other' Palestinians lands?

Mon, 21 Sep 2009 10:09:00 GMT

""I want to put my hand up in support of Lily Allen," Blunt wrote.

Describing Allen as "our leader", Blunt continued: "She's asking British musicians to galvanise over a serious crime: the death of a Great British industry - our music business.

"The world over, people are stealing music in its millions in the form of illegal file-sharing.

"It's easy to do, and has become accepted by many, but we need people to know that it is destroying people's livelihoods and suffocating emerging new British artists.""

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/8266287.stm

Ah, patriotism, the last refuge of the scoundrel.

Never mind that these are multinationals with no loyalty to anything except the bottom line.

I'd like to see a British music business person suggest that the public buy the work of British 'talent' whilst downloading that of non-Brits as doing so would help 'our' industry whilst harming 'theirs'.

I'd also like to see them call for shorter copyrights, so that 'artists' are encouraged to keep producing new material rather than living off royalties and so that new artists are better able to sample from as wide a range of pre-existing music as possible, rather than what they can afford to buy.

But of course these things won't happen, because it's not about 'artists' but corporate balance sheets.

Wed, 16 Sep 2009 17:26:40 GMT

Nelly Furtado's Spanish language album:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/8254582.stm

Or Portuguese, which would make more sense for her, isn't as big a market?

Tue, 15 Sep 2009 03:21:10 GMT

Just won the old Microprose Magic the Gathering computer game with a final score of 794 life to -64.

For about 45 rounds the computer player had an Island Sanctuary in play which I could not do anything about as I had no cards capable of destroying it and no creatures with flying ability.

What I did have, however, were two Ivory Towers and a Library of Leng in place, so I could keep more than 7 cards in my hand and get 2 times what the hand exceeded 4 of in life each turn.

I also had a Feldon's Cane, so that I wouldn't run out of cards until the second pass through the deck.

I ended up with four Maro in play at 24/24 each and was using a Foratog to sacrifice forests so they would go into the graveyard to go back into the deck when I activated the Cane.

The AI eventually gave in when I played two Wumpus's which allowed it to play two creatures. It then suicidally abandoned the Island Sanctuary, rather than continuing to do the same thing for the next 40 odd turns until I would have eventually ran out of cards.