Maybe the headline should have read "Space Station Disconvenienced" instead? Anyway - hopefully they'll get something to go on, if they can repack the shuttle.
The "bombs away" approach to disposing of the wastes is also a bit of a worry - has anyone else noticed a funny smell in the ozone layer?
Thursday, 29 May 2008
Friday, 23 May 2008
Wednesday, 21 May 2008
What's commendable, what's condemmable
Watch the clip. Hmmm. Yes a neat idea, that camp stretcher. Meh, not so impressed with the "room divider" attached to the bunk bed, after all, you just need a cardboard box, and if you were homeless you wouldn't have a Martha Stewart like compulsion to add floral wallpaper, because let's face it - homeless by choice people seem to prefer the rough look, and homeless by acccident people will get out of the homeless situation as fast as they can, and wasting time making prettyfied cardboard boxes is not in their best interest, getting out of the situation is.
The "pram canopy" attached to a bed I have no idea at all what purpose that serves other than to keep the sun from waking the sleeper, and that again leads to the "by choice" / "by accident" thing above where if you wanted to cease to be homeless you'd probably be better off not sleeping your days away..
But the camp stretcher idea, now THERE is a 100% total commitment to fuzzy logic! For a start - I just know that every homeless person will find themselves a deckchair, a spare bolt of material, and a bunch of glass fibre reinforcing hoops - aren't they found in every pile of rubbish in your city? Nah, mine neither... But the clincher which tells me that this is done by a bunch of people who have a limited frame of reference for thinking things through is this:
"...can easily be made with material and a sewing machine..."
And I suppose homeless peoples' first order of importance is to cart a sewing machine around with them, and an extension cord.. riiiiiiiiight... Yeah I never leave home without mine, even...
I was waiting for something at the end of the clip to tell me it was just a joke, but it seems they are serious about providing no help at all and making a virtue of it.
The "pram canopy" attached to a bed I have no idea at all what purpose that serves other than to keep the sun from waking the sleeper, and that again leads to the "by choice" / "by accident" thing above where if you wanted to cease to be homeless you'd probably be better off not sleeping your days away..
But the camp stretcher idea, now THERE is a 100% total commitment to fuzzy logic! For a start - I just know that every homeless person will find themselves a deckchair, a spare bolt of material, and a bunch of glass fibre reinforcing hoops - aren't they found in every pile of rubbish in your city? Nah, mine neither... But the clincher which tells me that this is done by a bunch of people who have a limited frame of reference for thinking things through is this:
"...can easily be made with material and a sewing machine..."
And I suppose homeless peoples' first order of importance is to cart a sewing machine around with them, and an extension cord.. riiiiiiiiight... Yeah I never leave home without mine, even...
I was waiting for something at the end of the clip to tell me it was just a joke, but it seems they are serious about providing no help at all and making a virtue of it.
Tuesday, 20 May 2008
Kangaroo Court, Too.
The hugely beaten-up and over-hyped kangaroo cull. *sigh* What can I say?
I wish the poor bleeding heart nurturing caring activists would look at things from a slightly more realistic perspective. Every year in my growing up years, there would be a carload of tourists in the Northwest that had died, rolling their car to avoid kangaroos. As far as I'm concerned, if it comes down to one family losing their lives or 400 kangaroos being culled, hand me the rifle cos human life is precious.
I'd like for each of those protestors to have to drag one child's body out of a wrecked car along the roadside, and then tell me they still prefer to save the cute fluffy oversized bunnies.
I'd like for each of those protestors to go and see a decade of someone's hard work building up farm and grazing land, only to see it vanish under literally acres of kangaroos.
And I'm so glad they made total idiots of themselves distressing a pen full of kangaroos that were recovering after sedation following medical fertility treatments... In front of everyone in Australia, they showed themselves to be the ***wits I suspected they are.
I wish the poor bleeding heart nurturing caring activists would look at things from a slightly more realistic perspective. Every year in my growing up years, there would be a carload of tourists in the Northwest that had died, rolling their car to avoid kangaroos. As far as I'm concerned, if it comes down to one family losing their lives or 400 kangaroos being culled, hand me the rifle cos human life is precious.
I'd like for each of those protestors to have to drag one child's body out of a wrecked car along the roadside, and then tell me they still prefer to save the cute fluffy oversized bunnies.
I'd like for each of those protestors to go and see a decade of someone's hard work building up farm and grazing land, only to see it vanish under literally acres of kangaroos.
And I'm so glad they made total idiots of themselves distressing a pen full of kangaroos that were recovering after sedation following medical fertility treatments... In front of everyone in Australia, they showed themselves to be the ***wits I suspected they are.
Monday, 19 May 2008
Perforated
Today I had a prick of a day - flu shot, blood sample for antibodies, blood sample for possible allergies, I feel like a pincushion.
Friday, 16 May 2008
The Acremaster Diplomat Strikes Again
President GW "Diplomat" Bush is in his second home, Israel. Or so he'd have you believe. According to this article, the man I consider the most unsuited to ever be in charge of anything larger than an Acremaster has been saying he will broker peace between Israel and Palestine and see all the Middle Eastern countries united and at peace.
Look, I don't know what he's on, but come on - the Middle Eastern bloc has inter-religious wars within factions of the same religion. Like they are going to go peacefully and obediently when told to do so by a leader of a different religion? As with all such things, you have to let that kind of tension burn itself out, while making sure the edges are damped down to prevent it spreading. About another, ohhhh - about another 2000 years should just about do it...
Lastly George - a word about diplomacy. If you set yourself up as "Israel's closest ally" then you're by definition the rest of the Middle East's "most detested enemy" - it's how factions and diplomacy work.
Just saying....
Look, I don't know what he's on, but come on - the Middle Eastern bloc has inter-religious wars within factions of the same religion. Like they are going to go peacefully and obediently when told to do so by a leader of a different religion? As with all such things, you have to let that kind of tension burn itself out, while making sure the edges are damped down to prevent it spreading. About another, ohhhh - about another 2000 years should just about do it...
Lastly George - a word about diplomacy. If you set yourself up as "Israel's closest ally" then you're by definition the rest of the Middle East's "most detested enemy" - it's how factions and diplomacy work.
Just saying....
Tuesday, 13 May 2008
Second Life gets Second Place
When Second Life goes down for the count, there's not a lot one can do. One's virtual life is just gone. As some of you know, I have an island in SL, and at some point when you do that, you realise you're spending way too much time online, but by then it's too late... hehehehe...
Those people who are in SL and WOW online and the other MMORPGs are a scouting party, a foretaste of what's to come. I know one person in SL who recently announced they were leaving because Real Life (RL) was making demands of them, we assumed a significant other had been applying a bit of pressure so we said goodbye to another person we'd gotten to know well, and moved on.
But a week later this person was back on. Apparently there's a draw to these VR worlds, a bit of an attraction. I could have told you that... %)
What this mainly makes me wonder though, is - what will happen when these VR sites become "homes" to some people. I can foresee when there will be a growing collection of people who can only live through VR (many people are disabled and use this as their primary therapy and social outlet) or even the first AI entities. Will this be the equivalent of the Cyclone in Burma, the tsunami in Banda Aceh?
Will such people have a right to sue the operator for breach of services? I'm waiting for the first person to succeed, because it's just a matter of time...
Those people who are in SL and WOW online and the other MMORPGs are a scouting party, a foretaste of what's to come. I know one person in SL who recently announced they were leaving because Real Life (RL) was making demands of them, we assumed a significant other had been applying a bit of pressure so we said goodbye to another person we'd gotten to know well, and moved on.
But a week later this person was back on. Apparently there's a draw to these VR worlds, a bit of an attraction. I could have told you that... %)
What this mainly makes me wonder though, is - what will happen when these VR sites become "homes" to some people. I can foresee when there will be a growing collection of people who can only live through VR (many people are disabled and use this as their primary therapy and social outlet) or even the first AI entities. Will this be the equivalent of the Cyclone in Burma, the tsunami in Banda Aceh?
Will such people have a right to sue the operator for breach of services? I'm waiting for the first person to succeed, because it's just a matter of time...
Sunday, 11 May 2008
The Long Dark Teatime Of Your Soul
There's no doubt about it. Some sites seem like a really weak idea when you read the first article, and you think to yourself "I've seen enough sites like this, I'll just forget that URL and not bother."
Then you read another article, and the pure awfulness starts to sink in. You realise that in some deep, Twilight-Zone-esque way, you *know* these people and have dealt with them yourself...
http://www.clientcopia.com/ if you want to know.
Then you read another article, and the pure awfulness starts to sink in. You realise that in some deep, Twilight-Zone-esque way, you *know* these people and have dealt with them yourself...
http://www.clientcopia.com/ if you want to know.
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