January 28, 2006
Centrist
| You are a Social Moderate (56% permissive) and an… Economic Conservative (60% permissive) You are best described as a:
Link: The Politics Test on Ok Cupid Also: The OkCupid Dating Persona Test |
Yup, that sounds about right, but I should be considered way more economically permissive.
Later
John
Kung Hei Fat Choi!
There may be no people to crib laisee from in the UK but it’s worth mentioning anyway.
Have a prosperous new year!
Later
John
January 26, 2006
Hahahahahahaha!
Some of the best World of Warcraft “You’re the Man Now Dogs”:
The New Alliance Race for Burning Crusade
If you don’t play World of Warcraft, the first one might still be funny.
Later
John
January 25, 2006
“Don't be evil”
Wasn’t that Google’s old corporate motto?
Man, those guys split with their ethics so quick they probably tripped over their beanbag chairs rushing to adopt CCP censorship policies.
Not cool. Not cool at all.
Later
John
January 22, 2006
Lots of local news.
There was a shocking incident at my old Secondary School (where my youngest two siblings still study) this week.
There has always existed an urban myth amongst students at the school that every year a “St Benedicts vs Philip Morant” fight takes place. Aside from a few isolated incidents this largely doesn’t happen (we always remember it as being an annual affair but when asked to call more than perhaps one scuffle to memory can’t).
This year some kids from outside schools did make it into St Benedict’s - a student unlocked the gate for them. However they weren’t here for a schoolyard rumble, they had brought knives with them.
One of the St Benedicts teachers (Mr Deaney, who wasn’t there when I was at school) managed to restrain a few of them but took repeated blows to the face and ended up heading to hospital. Eventually, after 5 phone calls the police arrived.
Then the next day, at Thomas Lord Audley school (the Secondary school where I have been working as an exam invigilator) Lesley West, a family friend, was punched in the face then repeatedly kicked in the shin, leg and chest whilst she was on the floor by a year 8 who she had sought to restrain during his lunch break.
In both of these incidents the teachers had to use as little force as possible and sustained injuries that necessitated a trip to Colchester General Hospital.
What the frack is going on? What about trying some damned parenting!?
At the same time, here in the UK a pressure group is calling for an all-out ban on smacking. For pities sakes people, I know that smacking isn’t going to alleviate instances where there is quite simply no parenting going on at all but legislating to remove tools from parents at a time when we have huge problems with unruly children just seems patently stupid.
There’s a reason why we don’t prosecute children under 18 as adults - there is a presumption at law that they aren’t capable of discerning the differences between right and wrong. It’s just plain impossible for a child to grasp some concepts and reasoning with them at an age when their mind isn’t sufficiently advanced to work these things out is foolhardy.
Smacking can easily be distinguished from physical abuse and I’m sick and tired of badly behaved children who’s parents refuse to take responsibility for them - stop tying the hands of willing and capable parents and start prodding the irresponsible ones into action.
Perhaps it’s because I grew up in a house filled with post-modern furniture which was worth millions of dollars and had an area of about 6 foot square to play in, or because I had been disciplined to the point that my sister and I could be taken to any expensive restaurant, wedding, christening or mass and not make so much as a sound but I’m getting that old man “kids are so ill mannered these days” reflex at the age of 21.
Anyhow, onto other local matters - Colchester United.
The U’s have had a ridiculous run as of late. I remember back when I was talking about Colchester’s 3 game run and now we’ve been defeated in 1 out of our last 18 games and have taken the top spot in League One. We’re going up to the Championship - it’s a done deal. Why? Because of the comedy value of Colchester United being a Championship (formerly Division One) side and playing on a ground like Layer Road.
Layer Road is poor for a non-league ground. So bad in fact that the common chant on game day is sung to bell chimes: “Shit Ground, Loyal fans! - Shit Ground, Loyal fans!”.
I have only gone to see Colchester United about 4 times, 3 times at Layer Road and another time at Wembley when we played Torquay in what was then the Division 3 playoffs. We won 2-1 and joined the 2nd Division. To be in a position now where we’re looking at Championship play is just amazing. I’m going along to the deciding game for sure - hell, I might actually be a lucky charm.
Might make up for Coventry’s latest form (although we did win 6-1 at Derby on saturday, we’re still languishing mid-table).
Later
John
January 20, 2006
New Paul Simon Album in March
Awesome.
Nothing more to say.
Later
John
Truce!
Time out! Seriously you poked my eye dude! No zippy sides*! *whew*
I love Osama’s assertion that “We would like to rebuild Iraq and Afghanistan.” What part of the strategy of blowing up schools and marketplaces was intended to demonstrate Al Qaeda’s desire to get the Iraqi people back on their feet?
Truce? You think civilization is going to stop pounding on you because you yelled “Uncle-but-only-for-a-while-so-we-have-time-to-finish-planning-to-blow-up-more-buildings!”? No, of course you don’t Osama, you either think everyone’s stupid enough to consider your gesture genuine making you look good (the clear memory of a certain day in September puts pay to that as an effective strategy) or you’re genuinely up shit creek without a paddle.
Iraqi insurgents have decided that shooting your warriors is more productive than killing Americans so you want to ‘withdraw’ from Iraq. Just exactly how much do you have to suck to have other terrorists attack you instead of their arch rivals?
This message was probably recorded a few months ago as an emergency plan for if the Iraqi elections went ahead and the coalition remained in Iraq. I bet there were some sour faces amongst ‘Allah’s Faithful’ when it had to be pulled out of its box and handed to the press.
Losing and losing hard.
Later
John
* The phrase ‘No Zippy Sides’ comes from to the bolster pillow fights that my father and his brothers used to undertake when they were kids, the bolsters had a zip along one edge and hitting your opponent with that edge was considered un-sporting
January 19, 2006
Guess the intelligence wasn't as bad as all that.
Uncle Sam: he sees you when you’re plotting, you’ve made a big mistake, he knows your precise geophysical position so be good for goodness sake.
later
John
January 16, 2006
Newton!
Adam Tow survives a slashdotting and reports on Einstein, the Newton OS 2.1 Emulation platform, running on a Sharp Zarus - The first Non-Apple PDA to run the beloved Newton OS! HUZZAH!
I’d followed the development of Einstein for a long time but I never thought the Newton community would actually get to see Paul Guyot’s latest timesink bear fruit. Now we’re looking at a future in which the Newton OS might actually see life on usable modern hardware. It’s really amazing news.
Denning, my Newton is still a great piece of kit but I look forward to being able to enjoy a smaller form factor without sacrificing screen resolution.
Later
John
January 14, 2006
January 13, 2006
Iran
Iran threatens to cut links with UN watchdog.
This will change things how exactly?
President Ahmadinejad: Don’t go to the UN to stop us from enriching uranium and we’ll continue to do exactly as we please!
Advisor: Sir.. Don’t you mean or we’ll continue doing exactly as we please?
Ahmadinejad: … Whatever.
It’s sanctions time! That special time when we come together to impose a punishment that only functions correctly if the regime affected gives a rat’s ass about its people! Go Team!
Later
John
January 12, 2006
Responsible Parenting
There are no words to really comment on this display so I’ll just offer you a transcript of what may in fact be the worst parenting I’ve ever seen:
“For some parents with a concern for their child’s future, a dabbling in cocaine is a far more digestible alternative. ”I’d rather my son take a more proactive, less habitual drug than cocaine, than lock himself away and play video games“ says Roxanne Richardson, 35, who has a young son, and is expecting another. ”It’s so lazy. At least with pills and coke you’re out and about doing something.“
From the Independent on Sunday, via GoNintendo.
I just… Wow…
Later
John
January 11, 2006
Wow I was pretty close
High powered iBooks didn’t turn up but the new Macbook (formerly a powerbook) and the iMac both hit the shelves featuring Dual Core intel chips. A welcome advance for two units who’s industrial design turned on piping out as much heat as possible - a faster and cooler chip! The Quad G5s will obviously remain for a good while, the intels aren’t up to the task of high power 64 bit processing and when that’s all that matters (rather than having a laptop that doesn’t burn a hole in your pants) then you can’t beat Quad G5s.
My favourite element of the new Macbooks is clearly the built in iSight. I’ve recently restarted my regular iChat conversations with my Uncle Jason (this time instead of being a cross-town conversation, it’s cross continental - all the way to Hong Kong) and Oh My Goodness iChat with H.264 is unbelievable. It’s Batman Technology.
Back on the Adam West TV series, Batman’s image analyzer was a freakin’ huge magnifying glass and his ‘computer’ was a set of flashing lights which he fervently jabbed at random, yet full screen video conferencing was a piece of cake for Bats.
It’s honestly like watching someone on TV. I’m not kidding here.
I took the train into London to spend 3 minutes handing in the coursework I’d completed on Sunday and then meant to catch the train back to Colchester, however as a pat-on-the-back (and in order to make my trip into the city a bit less farcical) I felt I deserved a sandwich. The queue to Subway was stretched a full 25 feet out from the entrance so I ended up checking out a little sandwich store opposite.
So why is it that on the last day that I really have to go in to university, I discover a little italian cafe which sells a Prosciutto, Tomato, Mozzarella and basil panino that tastes as good as one bought in Roma? Which is CHEAPER than any other sandwich store! It’s not fair! It’s just not fair!
Anyhow, I leave you with this excellent post on Mr Galloway from Harry’s Place.
Later
John
January 10, 2006
Second Christmas
It’s Macworld today! You know what that means? Yes, it’s Christmas #2 for Mac Users everywhere. Huzzah!
Here’s my guess as to what we’re going to see:
Intel Powerbooks/iBooks (a given)
Intel iMac (a possibility)
Intel Powermac (Not likely at all but would be cool)
Newton (I wish)
A mac mini functioning as a dedicated home-media box with Front Row and whatnot (possible)
As for the One More Thing… Who can say apart from Steve? I’ll be checking the blogs which are live-blogging the Stevenote such as Crazy Apple Rumors and will also probably watch the webcast of the Stevenote when it goes live (which will probably be a few hours after the address is done).
For now though, I’m going to systematically trawl mac rumour sites.
Later
John
Essay
People who finish 5,000 word essays days before they’re due in get beef sandwichs.. I get a beef sandwich.
Later
John
January 06, 2006
Gorgeous George
I was going to write a big ol rant about the intellectual immaturity of Endemol for slapping George “Sir, I salute your indefatigability” Galloway in the Celebrity Big Brother House but I kind of get the feeling that the public is more than capable of making their opinion clear and that Galloway’s behavior is far more despicable than Endemol’s infantile conflict-mongering.
How utterly disgraceful it is that a Member of Parliament who has already spent most of his term on a worldwide tour of extreme left podiums would in disgusting dereliction of duty, enter the Big Brother House for a term. Was the summer recess not enough for George? Here’s a great website that determines precisely how much of the British Taxpayer’s money is going into paying that fatass to sit around in the Big Brother house when he should be working for his constituency.
When you consider how hard Oona King worked for Tower Hamlets, Galloway’s indifference to his own constituents is even more sickening.
As one of the commentators at Harry’s Place put it: Good thing the BB House isn’t anywhere near East London, couldn’t have George actually getting within 10 miles of his constituents.
Disgraceful
Later
John
Can't stop the signal
I had my first Anglo-Sino iChat today. Video Conferencing from Colchester to Hong Kong.
The experience was great but we were a little miffed that there hadn’t been much improvement in the signal, even though my Uncle had moved up to 10.4 (iChat 3.0) and had an iSight. However I can’t help but feel that the massive distance probably had some effect there.
Equally, the quality of iChat AV is astounding, so asking it to get much better is probably a little greedy.
Even so, I think I’ll do some research on how to squeeze the maximum bitrate out of the app. There’s got to be a way to boost the quality that little bit further.
Later
John
Intel launches new Centrino Duo platform
This of course means that Macworld (on Tuesday) will feature new powerbooks using the new chipset. Yay!
It’s a good time to buy a powerbook, or more accurately, to have the money to buy one.
Later
John
January 04, 2006
Guest Posting
I submitted an article to Simon World: Hong Kong in 2006. Expect to see any serious posts I might write, pertaining to Hong Kong popping up there (assuming they pass editorial muster) - it’s a great privilege to be able to contribute to a site thats on the Instapundit’s blogroll and I don’t have to feel so bad about detailed posts being swamped by fun posts on Whatcomestopass.com.
The New Year brings with it the last string of assignments for my degree so I’ll be pretty busy over the next few weeks. Nonetheless, I’ll try to keep up posting so that this main page stops being so empty every week.
Best Wishes and a Happy New Year
John