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| Tuesday, January 26th, 2010 | | 10:14 pm |
I am now two days into an IT Network Technician course. Just taking notes, being shown CV templates, and hearing how the course is structured so far, but at some point we're going to get to poke at things! Half the students are foreign residents from Romania, Poland, Cameroon, Iraq, Iran, Hong Kong, Bangladesh, and Washington DC with a tutor from France - you have ALREADY LOST, British National Party! We've also got a guy two days out of the British Army (infantry) and a guy who worked in sales. And we aaaaaaaaall had to stand up for 90 seconds to give a presentation on ourselves in front of A ROOM OF EYES while comments were made about how we were doing it, arg. Train home gives me a chance to do some reading - five months after Dragon*Con, I've now got around to starting one of the books I bought there. | | Friday, January 15th, 2010 | | 6:40 pm |
Neil Marshall's Doomsday has a scene where cannibals punks chase after an Armoured Personell Carrier, throwing petrol bombs at it which sets it partially on fire; it then crashes and flips onto its back. How did they do that scene? They had people dressed as punks cashing after the Armoured Personell Carrier, throwing petrol bombs at it which set it partially on fire, and the stunt drivers crashed it in a way that'd make it flip. (The stunt driver remarked "that was good".) | | Wednesday, December 16th, 2009 | | 1:44 pm |
I just passed an interview for a training course that'll fast track me onto... PAYING WORK! Fuck yeah chance at money! It's all about the Elizabeths, baby! | | Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009 | | 10:24 am |
You think you know everything stupid a fandom has done, then you find out some Harry Potter fans were upset that Cho Chang in the films had a Scottish accent. The actress is Scottish, damn your eyes. | | Thursday, October 29th, 2009 | | 2:53 pm |
Stephen Grant's Permanent Damage column on McCain's proposed "Internet Freedom Bill":"One of the big arguments against net neutrality is that "the free market" should decide what people want from their cable service, not "government edict," and what ISPs offer should be determined by "competition." But we already know what users want from their Internet access. They want unfettered access. There's no reason "the free market" needs to determine that we want what we already have." | | Monday, October 26th, 2009 | | 11:12 pm |
I've volunteered to assist the South East Coast Ambulance Service and local NHS if there's a major swine flu breakout. (Which they think there will be) So if I one day have an entry that proclaims "help i is dead BLEURGH", that's why. | | Saturday, October 3rd, 2009 | | 12:04 pm |
| | Friday, October 2nd, 2009 | | 2:28 am |
Spent a few hours in London hanging with a girl I met online, and Forbidden Planet was selling the old Legacy Of Unicron trade for three quid. It was a good day! | | Tuesday, September 29th, 2009 | | 3:15 pm |
(copy and pasted from someone who copy and pasted in from somewhere I can't remember) Socialism is bad! This morning I was awoken by my alarm clock, which is powered by electricity generated by the public power monopoly that is regulated by the US Department of Energy and travels on national electric infrastructure. I then took a shower in clean water provided by the municipal water utility that was heated by my water heater that meets the safety requirements set forth by the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and other local municipalities. After my shower I turned on the T.V. to one of the many channels regulated by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to see what the National Weather Service (NWS) of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) determined the weather was going to be by using satellites designed, built, and launched by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). I watched the weather while eating my breakfast with foods inspected by and deemed safe by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA). I then took my prescription drugs which have been determined as safe by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). At the appropriate time as regulated by the US Congress and kept accurate by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the US Naval Observatory, I get into my National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) approved automobile that also meets the safety standards of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) and set out to work on the roads build by the local, state, and federal Departments of Transportation (DOT). I stop to purchase fuel of a quality level determined by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and use legal tender issued by the Federal Reserve Bank to pay for it. On the way out the door I deposit my outgoing mail to be sent out via the US Postal Service (USPS) and then drop the kids off at the public school run by the Department of Education (DoE) in cooperation with local School Boards and State Boards of Education (SBOE). After spending another day not being maimed or killed at work thanks to the workplace regulations imposed by the Department of Labor and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), I enjoy two more meals which again do not kill me because of the USDA, I drive my NHTSA/NTSB car back home on the DOT roads back to my house, which has not burned down in my absence because of the state and local building codes and fire marshal's inspection. My house was not been plundered of all its valuables thanks to the local Police Department. I then log on to the Internet which was developed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Administration (DARPA) and post on freerepublic.com and Fox News forums about how SOCIALISM in medicine is BAD because the government can't do anything right. | | Wednesday, September 16th, 2009 | | 2:52 pm |
Have heard about an alleged journo doing exposes at ACORN offices, pretending to be a pimp and sex-trafficker and showing the officials give him advice on setting his business up. The video from San Bernardino breathlessly exposes one of the workers boasting she used to run prostitutes and that she murdered her husband - and she's totally going to help them traffick and will threaten to kill anyone they talk to that squeals! And look at all these politicians she has contacts with! Except, er, whoops, her husband is said to not be dead. And at least one of the politicians denies knowing her. And she was allegedly talking a load of shit because she was in the office on her own with fucking sex traffickers and was scared. Which, well, is a lot more likely to be true than what the undercover guy is claiming - "tell them what they want to hear until they go away" is a common defence mechanism. Which a proper investigative journo should be able to find out. And should check out that "shot a husband" story, which apparently he didn't. And the first of these vids, he declined to make comments to CNN about it for unknown reasons. Jesus Christ man, The Sun would think you're rubbish. | | Tuesday, September 15th, 2009 | | 4:58 pm |
Someone told me countries like France and Germany recovered from the recession before the US and UK because those countries didn't do eeeeeeevil government bailouts. "Yes they did." Shut up fool! I meant they didn't do eeeeeeeeevil stimulus packages! " Yes they did, billions of euros worth." I love you, BBC News Search function. | | Saturday, August 29th, 2009 | | 8:51 am |
James Murdoch, chief of News Corporation, has called for reform of the BBC, saying it's a threat to independent journalism, unaccountable, and that "to let the state enjoy a near-monopoly of information is to guarantee manipulation and distortion"! "The only reliable, durable and perpetual guarantor of independence is profit." What does News Corp own? Among others - the Sun, the News of the World, and Fox News. You'll be shocked to hear this, but the evil state-backed BBC is actually more reliable than the heroic commercial News Corp! More shockingly, I hear News Corp organs sometimes... distort and manipulate information on a larger scale than their rivals! Why, it's almost like... almost like News Corp is LYING, and actually just wants to cripple one of their main rivals rather than deal with their competition, so it can be the largest media provider in the UK! SURELY NOT. | | Saturday, August 22nd, 2009 | | 6:00 pm |
A comic review says: "While the rest of the Marvel Universe treads water waiting for the Green Goblin to be deposed and everything to go back, inevitably, as it was, Paul Cornell gets on with his story of Dracula launching a space-vampire invasion of the British Isles from the Moon." | | Friday, August 21st, 2009 | | 2:28 am |
Kurt Busiek sez: "I did want to write a CHARMED comic, just so I could do a three-part origin story, telling how they (a) discovered their powers, (b) were menaced because of them and (c) triumphed, and that way I could title the chapters "Armed," "Harmed" and "Charmed." But, well..." | | Tuesday, August 18th, 2009 | | 12:57 pm |
| | Thursday, August 13th, 2009 | | 11:42 am |
You may have heard of an Investor's Business Daily editorial that said a man like Stephen Hawking would NEVER STAND A CHANCE under a government healthcare system like the UK.* Well, Hawking heard too and he went "bitch, please". "I wouldn't be here today if it were not for the NHS," he told us. "I have received a large amount of high-quality treatment without which I would not have survived."* They since edited part of it after getting told Hawking lives in the UK. | | Friday, August 7th, 2009 | | 1:49 pm |
I have been linked to an article that says:"There was a telling incident at a town hall held by Representative Gene Green, D-Tex. An activist turned to his fellow attendees and asked if they “oppose any form of socialized or government-run health care.” Nearly all did. Then Representative Green asked how many of those present were on Medicare. Almost half raised their hands." Haw, haw, haw. | | Thursday, August 6th, 2009 | | 5:22 pm |
One of the main objections to the extradition of Gary McKinnon, the British hacker who broke into the Pentagon systems, is centred on his vulnerability. He’s been diagnosed as highly autistic, everyone from his family to Guardian reporter Jon Ronson have reported he’s suffering from severe anxieties over his sentence, and Lord Justice Stanley Burnton admitted “His mental health will suffer. There are risks of worse, including suicide.” Both of the main opposition parties decry sending such a vulnerable man to a prison environment. So they're all agreed it's wrong to send vulnerable people to prison and they'd need protection... so why don't I see the Conservative Party making noises about how we are sending vulnerable people to jail all the time? The Home Office’s Corston Report in 2007 reported that female prisoners were far more likely to be drug addicts or have mental health problems than male prisoners, leading to a far higher level of self-harm. A larger number were also found to be abuse victims. By March 2009, forty-five female inmates had killed themselves over a five-year period, prompting a Howard League for Penal Reform campaign. With young offenders, studies have found that a large number of boys in prison come from damaged or neglectful backgrounds, and self-harm is high. A survey undertaken earlier this year by the prisons directorate found a third of child prisoners felt unsafe, a quarter have been victims while inside prison, and that boredom and lack of hygiene was rampant. (Lack of hygiene was also noted in the Corston Report for female prisoners) In 2005, the Howard League’s research found two prisoners per week were committing suicide and more attempting it - over half of these while on remand, and 10% in the first 24 hours. Overcrowding was listed as the culprit: the figures had gone up when overcrowding had, the more overcrowded prisons had the highest suicide rates. Bullying was noted as endemic and seen as linked to the suicide rates. Almost every study and report and campaign has made suggestions of how to reform the penal system to reduce these problems. Shock horror! They don't get followed, or just followed in twatty little ways to look like they're Doing Something. Because, as we all know, prisons are “soft”. The Daily Telegraph says so! Specifically, the Telegraph on 27th July ran a story on allegations by a former drugs worker that Warren Hill youth prison was run like a “holiday camp”. She cited the presence of Nintendo Wii’s, toilet seats, and cannabis (the latter allegedly overlooked so the “night shift is quiet”). “As long as they behave themselves they get everything”. (This was presented as damning, even though on reflection it would seem obvious to reward good behaviour when you want to rehabilitate young offenders.) So we can't do anything about vulnerable people into overcrowded, unhygenic prisons where they will be at risk of assault, rape, and mental deterioration... because we'll lose the "hanging's too good for 'em!" voting lobby. Lovely. Current Mood:  annoyed | | Sunday, August 2nd, 2009 | | 3:25 pm |
The Commons foreign affairs select committee has released a report on Afghanistan. In shocking news, it's a fuck-up. In other shocking news, the government sent British soldiers in without a properly defined mission, with "unrealistic" planning, lack of manpower, and then a switch in focus to Iraq - which, add to the lack of kit they were given, means the British Army was put in a position where it's very hard NOT to get fucked. But hey, Brown created an Armed Forces Day holiday to celebrate the troops, so THAT'S alright. Current Mood: angry | | Friday, July 31st, 2009 | | 5:27 pm |
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