Saturday, September 29, 2007

[blogfocus saturday] info you vitally needed


1. The Periodic Englishman headed this post on his cricket blog: "Learn some manners, you uppity burger" and thus had me in immediately.

There is just nothing I can say or do that seems to make any difference. I've thrown food up to it, waved, smiled, said good morning, whistled and made mooing noises. Not a flicker. Mooing paid spectacular dividends one time in France, you know, when I passed a very enjoyable few minutes in conversation with a receptive, and polite, cow. We just mooed at each other, over and over again. Total result. But this cow (in the picture) is having none of it. Hmm. It's starting to get me down, actually.

There's even a YouTube connected with this matter.

2. Andrew K. Brown lists some of Our Ken's achievements:

He [Ken] goes on to point out that his period in office has seen the numbers of new homes rise from 17,000 a year in 2000 to 28,000 last year (which exceeded the target that Ken had set in 2004, something that many saw as ambitious).

It also talks about tackling homelessness and overcrouding and sets out the structures that Ken expects to deliver the strategy. He also makes it clear he expects every part of the capital to contribute. We’ve seen before that housing is political, and locally that here in Lewisham there’s a commitment to meeting the targets.

3. Moggy brings us the latest about The Cat and that weigh-in:

I haven't posted anything lately about how The Cat is doing with his weight loss. It's been sort of up and down and not much down. This morning he was 28.6. At least it's not 30 still. I'm going to try to find something to give him more exercise. Even the pets today do not get the exercise they once did.

Quote: “Even overweight cats instinctively know the cardinal rule: when fat, arrange yourself in slim poses.” - John Weitz

4. Maalie requires you to don your philosophical thinking caps here concerning Pascal's Wager:

We can consider the consequences upon death for each of these situations.

Situation 1: God exists and you believe in Him

Consequence: you may surely expect to go to heaven

Situation 2: God does not exist, and you believe in Him

Consequence: nothing, but you are deluded and you waste time and effort on Earth

Situation 3: God exists and you do not believe in Him

Consequence: you burn in hell for eternity!

Situation 4: God does not exist and you do not believe in Him

Consequence: nothing.

In summary, the worst that could happen to a believer is nothing; the worst that could happen to an atheist is eternal damnation.

There are many well-known flaws in the logic of Pascal’s Wager that are listed at this website.

5. Daily Propaganda's brand new Mac site is in the building but he hit a few snags and here he returns and explains:

Have discovered what has been causing all of my hardware failures - the computer was overheating (I think the fans got a little clogged). But in the process, I had another hard drive failure (it seems when they get hot...). Also, a graphics card melted - literally. But no worries - the website is now installed on a brand new computer (well, my newest). This should improve things a little.... Need to install the gallery and blogging software again.

6. Robert Sharp reflects on the anomalies of colour and the paradoxes of life:

The paradox is that white people spend money getting a tan to make them look browner, while brown people spend buy these creams to make themselves whiter. The grass is always greener, yet equally cancerous, on the other side of the fence…

Other beauty paradoxes I have noticed: Hair straighteners for those with curly locks, sold next to hair curlers/rollers for the straight locked.

Oh yes, and of course: Women in the supermarket who put make-up, and make-up remover, into their basket… without so much as a bat of an eyelid to disturb their mascara.

7. Peteris Cedrins brings us the news on the tensions on Baltic Unity Day:

On Baltic Unity Day, I would suggest a meditation on what unity means, in this sense: sameness and homogenization aren't exact synonyms of unity. I can offer qualified support to the demonstrators in Rīga because I think Latgallian ought to be taught -- dialects are part of the living language and Latgallian is one of our language's roots, and a thick one at that. But the Language Law already stipulates that "the Latvian State ensures the preservation, protection and development of the Latgallian literary language as a historical variant of the Latvian language."

8. Roger Thornhill closes this evening with that story of the nice, kind policemen and the altruist:

A good samaritan is not just arrested, but brutally so on the M67.

Graeme Deacon was on the M67 near Hyde, Manchester, when he saw the accident on the opposite carriageway. He crossed over and helped the driver to safety. Then a second car drove into the back of the first and caught fire. Mr Deacon helped to free the young driver. Police arrived and offered to drive him to his vehicle. But Mr Deacon said: “The carriageway was empty. I could have crawled across on my hands and knees. There was absolutely no risk. A police officer said, ‘You’ll wait as long as it takes, whether it’s five minutes or two hours. You’ll stay there.’ I went to walk off and three of them pushed me face down in the gravel, hit the back of my legs with a baton and handcuffed me. One said, ‘Shut up or I’ll spray you with CS gas’.”

This is an example of when a fence panel is slid in place between the fence posts we are now surrounded by.

On that note, I wish you a good night and hope to see you next Wednesday evening again.


3 comments:

  1. Very intriguing focus.
    I too have lost a hard drive due to fan failure. A total disaster. I backed up externally for a while but have become sloppy again.

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  2. Nice focus. I love the ones about the cow and the cat! Err - how does R Sharp think you get make-up off, then? You really do need almost as many products to get it off as on!

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  3. Thanlks for the link, m'lord. My regular commenters had an interesting wee discussion about women's self-image too.

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