This weeks PhotoFriday theme is “Purity.” Here is my entry. It was taken at a Cao Dai ceremony in Tay Ninh, Vietnam. These ceremonies and white cloaks suggest a type of purity.
Please also vote for my entry in last weeks challenge.
We went to see Pet Shop Boys play live at the Hammersmith Apollo on the 6th. It was a great gig, possibly the best of theirs that I’ve seen. This is perhaps the fourth or fifth time I’ve seen them over the years and the first time I’ve not left at least a little disappointed.
But despite the ups and downs of their live shows, they have maintained their prime position in my music collection since at least Actually came out in 1987. That makes me feel old! Of course you can’t really rationalise something that tugs at raw emotion in the way that music often can[^1], but that has not stopped me trying to figure out why I keep listening to them[^2].
This morning a member of the Darlington household passed away quietly in his sleep. Cornelius Maximus Willmington IV was less than a year old. He is survived by our other goldfish, Bob.
Cornelius was never the brightest fish in the bowl, and it’s not like he was up against stiff competition. He often did “Jaws” impressions, his fin breaching the surface of the bowl but terrorising few, and had a tendency to try to eat bubbles rather than the food we fed them every day.
You scored as Scientific Atheist, These guys rule. I’m not one of them myself, although I play one online. They know the rules of debate, the Laws of Thermodynamics, and can explain evolution in fifty words or less. More concerned with how things ARE than how they should be, these are the people who will bring us into the future.
| | | Scientific Atheist | \| \| \|—\|—\|—\| | 83% | |—|—| | Apathetic Atheist | \| \| | 75% | |—|—| | Spiritual Atheist | \| \| | 75% | |—|—| | Angry Atheist | \| \| | 50% | |—|—| | Agnostic | \| \| | 33% | |—|—| | Militant Atheist | \| \| | 25% | |—|—| | Theist | \| \| | 17% | |—|—| What kind of atheist are you? created with QuizFarm.com | |—|
This weeks PhotoFriday theme is “Futuristic.” Here is my entry.
When I think “futuristic” I think “space travel” and “space men.” I’ve never been into space but I have been down Karl Johans Gate in Oslo, Norway.
Please also vote for my entry in last weeks challenge, Large. I’m entry number 193.
Microsoft have been getting lots of press recently because of their new Zune music player. One of its major features is its wireless interface that lets you share music; even most of the advertising talks about the social implications1. But let’s have a quick look at that functionality in more detail.
If I decide that I want to expend an hour of battery life in order to see other Zunes in the area, what can I do? Most famously you can transfer songs. As I’m sure you’ve heard by now, there are limits. When I receive a song, I can play it three times or hang onto it for three days2 but after that all I get is an electronic post-it note reminding me about it. Clearly a lot of thought and a lot of engineering effort has gone into these limitations.
Last night we went to see the recording of a new BBC Radio 4 comedy programme called “His Master’s Voice.” It’s the first time that I’ve ever been to the Drill Hall (on Chennies Street in London) although I’ve heard many broadcasts of “Just A Minute” that were recorded there.
The programme itself is a political satire set in the offices of “The Blue Touch Paper,” the weekly magazine for the thinking Tory. I don’t want to give too much of the story away because I want you to tune in when it airs in July!
In this article in MacUser Howard Oakley notes that a number of schools have recently banned the use of wireless networks due to the unknown effects of the radio waves used. He then connects this with the declining number of people taking science subjects at those same schools and their ability to understand the likely risks of said networks.
It’s an interesting piece, but what I find interesting is that as the general populations understanding of how the world works dwindles, so our reliance on high technology increases1.
I enjoyed writing my CRAP Alert post yesterday. Very cathartic. But there are some serious points in it and while I might be overstating the case when I spell them out here, I think it’s worth doing just to be clear.
The truth is I genuinely do support the right of people to publish this kind of information. I am against pretty much all forms of censorship and am very much in favour of giving people good information so that they can make an informed decision themselves.