Wednesday 22 October 2008

I despair

... not just a title. I really do.

** sigh **

I have lived in the wrong era. I suffer (hah!) from Asperger's syndrome, which (partly - in my case) means that I am more guided by logic and reason than emotion.

In my early life, I made the mistake of assuming that all people were also driven by logic and reason. It took me until the age of 45 or so to realise (I'm a slow learner) that it is not so.

At times I am profoundly depressed by this. Sometimes it feels that intelliegence is a curse. I just want to spend a year away from other people. (except my lovely children of course). Just a year would do.

That's all.

Friday 11 July 2008

Max Mosley



So Max Mosley is sueing the News of the Screws over their admitted filming of his S&M antics. I'm really split on this one. One part of me thinks that it is dangerous to limit the freedom of the press in any way, another part thinks that the paper had no justification whatsoever in prying into someone's private life. When all is said and done, the blame for this sort of thing lies with the sad bastards who buy the rotten paper. To those people I would ask them to get off their overweight backsides, fire up their imaginations, and go get a sex life of their own, so that they don't have to voy all over other people's sex lives every sunday. As for the paper editor claiming it was all in the public interest... words fail me (not good for a blogger).

Besides, which one of us has not stood naked in a room while an 80 year old man dressed in an evil clown costume pelts us with rotten fruit? I know I certainly have!

(Actually, that last bit isn't quite true. I toned it down in case my kids think I'm a weirdo or something)

Tuesday 20 May 2008

Big brother and all that stuff



It's all over the news. The government want to build a database of all phone calls, email messages and text messages. They want to be able to spy on all of our communications. That's not the interesting bit though.

What interests me more is the argument put forward by MPs and pundits who are anti the proposal. The one argument they use is that because of the recent security breaches, the government is not fit to hold this information.

Well WOH! Wait a minute. Their argument isn't that spying on us would be inherently wrong, it's just that HM-Gov are too incompetent to do it. This frames the debate nicely. Get enough people to use this argument, and that gives the government a way in. All they have to do is prove that security has been tightened (and they are working on that like crazy) and then they can have their database.

I say be careful of using security competence as an argument. This should be opposed because nobody wants it, apart from the inevitable stupid "if you've done nothing wrong..." brigade.

Wednesday 7 May 2008

Aw Bollocks!!!!

Have you ever had a laptop with a touchpad?

If you have, you will know that it is possible to accidentally brush a thumb against it while typing. Now you would think that this would result in some pretty harmless results, like the floating cursor being moved a bit to the left or something. In the Murphy's Law universe, one of two things usually happens:

1. You find yourself typing on the wrong line. This happens in about 60% of cases. It's no biggie - you simply copy and paste the text to where it should be.

2. The accidental brush translates to: a. anchor the cursor, b. select all of the text of the huge message you have been typing, except for the first 3 words, c. press delete.

Have you noticed that? A single brush of the thumb and the whole bloody message is gone (apart from the obligatory 3 remaining words). If they can make a simple thumb gesture so meaningful, could they please design an operating system that does all of my work when I sneeze, pick my nose and cross my legs. Thank you.

p.s. you have no idea how careful I have been while typing this.

Tuesday 15 April 2008

Expelled Exposed

Seen the silly movie Expelled? Go read the debunking first.

Wednesday 2 April 2008

Nobel prize up for grabs...

...for whoever can decipher this sentance from Desmond Tutu:

"Even the dumbest of us would say that results would not have been held back... had it not been the fact that Mr Mugabe has not won," said the Nobel Peace Prize winner.

OK, I know what he means, but the 3.5 negatives in that sentance are making my brain sore. In reply to Tutu, I would say this:

"There's nothing that you've not got that I don't want."