January 2012
1 post
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Ideas And Identity
“If you insult my religion, you’re literally insulting me!” I think one of the most pernicious elements in society is the degree to which people identify with their conclusions. Because none of us is omniscient, all of our conclusions are tentative. I insist that unicorns do not exist, but if you were to show me a breeding population of unicorns (and get some respected zoologists to study them and...
December 2011
3 posts
Right. That’s it. I’ve snapped. My scrupulous intellectual integrity prohibits me from saying that I’d prefer to be homeless than living with this stupid fucking asshole of a woman, but it is not much of an exaggeration. And let no one say it’s good that I’ve a greater incentive to move out; the incentive has been there for a long time, and I do not appreciate ...
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In Which A Pigeonhole Topples The World
From Pharyngula: The vast majority of scientists contend that evolution is an accepted cornerstone of modern science, and that there is no real scientific debate over the concept. [Ricky] Line counters that “it’s interesting that the great majority of scientists felt Pluto was a planet until a short time ago, and now they have totally changed that. There are scientists who don’t believe that...
November 2011
2 posts
2 tags
Good And Evil
Random atheist: “There’s no such thing as good and evil.” Random theist: “Oh yeah? Then why is murder wrong? Why shouldn’t I just murder you?” (I’m paraphrasing…) For fuck’s sake. This is another tedious bit of damnable wank from Facebook. I don’t know whether it’s because I’m a bit of a writer or what, but it frustrates the bejesus out of me when people have long, tiresome arguments about...
September 2011
1 post
1 tag
On Taste
“Why is Freddie Mercury dead and Lady Gaga alive?!”
“Bah. Queen were slick and superficial. Bob Dylan’s where it’s at!!1”
“Bob Dylan couldn’t sing his way out of a paper bag!!!!11one”
“Paper bags suck, you need plastic for everything short of holding a burger!!111eleven”
“BURGERS?!?! Fucking plebs, how can you eat that...
July 2011
1 post
Written While Drunk
I’m writing this while drunk. Not just a wee bit tipsy, either, but fairly severely drunk, for me at least. Night out with the sister. I’ve had… a number of beers. Yeah, I can’t remember how many.
Anyway. I sometimes wonder whether I have mild autism. Whether I at least land somewhere further along the autism spectrum than most people. This would not embarrass or upset me. If anything it would...
June 2011
4 posts
HOLY CRAP
“This is a system notification that your tier (article quality level) has changed. You are now a tier 4 writer (originally a tier 3).
Note from Editor:
Dear TCA writer, You are a very good writer. I am upgrading you to tier 4.”
WWWWHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAATTTTTTTTT??!!!
….Wasn’t expecting that…
Tier 4 writers can get twice — twice! — the pay of tier 3 writers.
Stupid Rant For Today
I have been getting an inordinate number of revision requests recently in my job. That means that the articles I have submitted have been deemed unsatisfactory in some way. When you get a revision request, it pops up with a brief description of what needs to be changed along with the name of the editor who is requesting the revision.
Recently, I have been getting revision requests from an editor...
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Short Thoughts On Marriage
Today I saw a discussion of marriage on Facebook (should gays be allowed? should polygamy be allowed?) and though I have long since resolved never to enter another Facebook argument — the one time I tried to engage with the cataclysmic inanity on display having left me clutching desperately at the ragged remains of my mental health — I figured it would at least make good blog fodder.
Today our...
April 2011
1 post
1 tag
March 2011
8 posts
3 tags
Singing "Twist And Shout"
I rediscovered this just recently, and I can’t get enough of it. It’s so fantastically raw, pure, simple, and emotive. And it sounds like someone’s just set fire to Lennon’s trousers.
I tried singing this today in the shower. It’s a great example of something that is technically simple, but near-impossible to get right because of the tone and attitude of the...
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Curmudgeonly Thought Of The Day
I’m consistently amazed at the number of people who seem to think that you can’t possibly hold a position unless you expressly, explicitly identify as holding it.
Guess what. Most racists don’t think they’re racist. Most sexists don’t think they’re sexist. Lots of misogynists will claim to love women, and they really mean it. They’re just wrong.
All too...
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An Old File I Just Rediscovered
Entry 37 - final entry?:
13 November 2004.
Aurora.
It has been a long time. Apparently Aurora was created first on 13 December 2003, although I believe that not much was written until January. Thus there has been eleven or twelve months spent on this novel. About 510 pages, 125 thousand words apparently, have been written, and therefore a little over three pages per day has been achieved...
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No Choice But To Believe
“Well, I want to believe there’s a God.”
What?
“…I said, I want to believe there’s a God.”
…What? What does that even mean? You say you want to believe there’s a god as though you have some sort of choice in the matter.
“Well, I can choose to believe anything I want!”
…Really? Prove it. Believe you’re an elephant.
“… … … <Half-hearted elephant impression>”
No, you see, you can’t. You...
4 tags
February 2011
8 posts
WTF Of The Month, At Least
Woke up last night at about five, and quickly wrote this:
“Dreamt about there being a serial killer who, rather than being put away, was transmogrified into a small, thin, imp-like creature that may have been immaterial. He lived in a small house in the back garden. He was free to come and go, and would be seen leaving to urinate in the bushes every so often. I would watch him go, knowing...
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A few things I’ve been up to:
Map Of Metal is an amusing site that maps through the years the progress of heavy metal in all its incarnations.
Manufactoria is a little flash puzzle game that involves building logic machines. Great music too.
There appears to be a TV series called Inside The Actors Studio, and I’ve been watching it on YouTube. It’s a series of interviews conducted with various actors. So far I’ve watched it...
Don’t Pull The Trigger.
All we emotionally challenging people have triggers — the one in the title is an egregious example. When someone pulls a trigger of ours we’re likely not only to feel bubbling up inside us some very unpleasant emotions linked to our past but also a seething fury at the inconsiderate person who pulled it. It’s not only “I feel like this again” but “How dare you make me feel like this again!?”.
...
What I Look Forward To
I look forward to getting some money.
With some money, I will be able to afford going out.
With more going out, I will inure myself to the horrors of “having a social life”.
With a better social life, I will become more extroverted, less shy, and able to move on to yet more social stuff.
I look forward to being able to get on better with people I don’t know. I look forward to not having...
Kim Jong-il Looking At Things
http://kimjongillookingatthings.tumblr.com/
On Productivity
“Joining a Facebook group about creative productivity is like buying a chair about jogging.”
– Merlin Mann, www.43folders.com
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Where I'm At With Computers, Part 03
see part 01
Part 03: Resolution Woes
I care a lot about the monitor I use; if I’m going to be staring at it for hours every day then I don’t want to put up with a mediocre one. There are a few things I care about in a monitor, including reflectivity, brightness, contrast, black level, colour gamut, and possibly refresh rate, but in this article I just want to talk about resolution. First off, I...
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Coding Horror On Writing
http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2011/02/how-to-write-without-writing.html
January 2011
12 posts
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Where I'm At With Computers, Part 02
see Part 01
Part 02: Thoughts On The All-In-One Design
I like the idea of an all-in-one computer. I really do. It’s neat and tidy and, in the case of the iMac, really really beautiful. The iMac is the sort of thing I would buy just to mount on a spike.
Beauty isn’t the only thing that’s important, though, and there are some practical issues that have started to gnaw away at me.
Redundancy...
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Where I'm At With Computers, Part 01
I wrote once before about the iMac and why I liked it, and for a while now I’ve been planning to write an update of sorts: my opinions about it have changed quite a bit, and I thought it’d make for an interesting article.
Well, time makes fools of us all. Nine months is going-on forty-three in computer years, and I’ve become hopelessly out of touch with what’s current in...
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Vocal Update
Kurt Moll.
Tried singing again today for the first time in ages. Went remarkably well. Several times today I managed to siren all the way up and down my range without any breaks or cracks. This is real progress, and it seems to be taking place partly through having a generally better control over my muscles and partly through learning to relax rather than push. Actually, those are pretty...
None Of My Fucking's Your Business
The influence of nature and nurture on a person’s sexuality and the degree to which it’s a choice are interesting issues, and potentially scientific ones, but they’re also irrelevant to any discussion of gay rights.
We shouldn’t be saying “it’s not his fault he’s gay”; we should be saying that no one’s at fault.
It doesn’t matter whether sexuality is a choice or not. That’s not the point. What...
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Customer Feedback
I hear all the time about stupid customers in shops. You know, people complaining inanely about trivial things, people with a daft sense of entitlement, that sort of thing.
I am also aware of an issue that crops up all the time with both my vocal experiments and my guitar playing, and that is that we often have no idea what we look like or what we sound like until we see or hear ourselves from a...
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Flame Warriors: Caricatures Of Forumites
“Some years ago a minor spat ignited a searing flame war that threatened to consume a once-placid discussion forum. While the forum burned I amused myself by caricaturing the chief antagonists. (…)
Over time the roster of online belligerents expanded and eventually congealed into the netizen’s guide to Flame Warriors.”
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Upgrades And Corporate Linguistic Nonsense
So I’ve just been upgraded to Tier 3 of the writing job. This means I can get more money. This is good. However.
They sent an email which, though not actually unwanted, is a bit weird. Firstly, they said that they were upgrading me to Tier 3. Then, in the next sentence, they said that I was making various errors in the texts of mine they reviewed. Well, if there are errors, why’d you...
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OVER ONE THOUSAAAAAAND!!!eleventy
So I just sent off an email to the writing crowd for a request for an upgrade to Tier 3, which would potentially allow me some better income.
I went to check how much I’d earned so far with them.
One thousand five hundred dollars.
Jesus.
December 2010
1 post
2 tags
Quantifying "Suck"
I have just done a little experiment.
I suck at guitar, see. Particularly with my sense of timing. Now, this is perhaps not surprising, given that I’ve spent all my time learning bits of solos and shit rather than, y’know, music, and as a result I probably just need to practice playing in time more. I doubt it’s an inherent deficiency.
Nonetheless, I was interested in trying to...
November 2010
2 posts
Pharyngula Again
From this thread:
“Profanity is a crutch for inarticulate motherfuckers.”
October 2010
8 posts
1 tag
Diary: Week 17 October – 23 October
Got up 1415 on average.
52 articles. $135.56. Slightly below average week, but not terrible.
Walked 4.4 hours.
Role playing!
Spent the evening role-playing with Will, Ruth, Niamh, James, Martin, Pearse:
A variety of excellent oddness. Got on well with everyone, including at least three people I did not otherwise know well, and didn’t even realise until after I’d got home that I...
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Diary: Week 10 October – 16 October
Got up 1540 on average.
68 articles. Something like $167.43, though I haven’t gotten my share yet.
Pretty good week, really, workwise. Much better than last.
Watched all three original Star Wars films:
Really good. I’d forgotten, and I think I’d been tainted somewhat by the prequels.
Came across RMC Hexaphonic guitar pickups:
I have wild plans for all sorts of clever...
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An Opera Singer Reviews Metal
http://www.invisibleoranges.com/2010/07/ask-a-real-musician-5-classic-male-metal-singers/
Excerpt concerning Bruce Dickinson of Iron Maiden:
“I have nothing but admiration for this singer. Listen how he starts off with a soft growl, then moves seamlessly into a well-supported, sustained high full-voice sound that then evolves into an effortless long scream! His diction is easily...
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Diary: Week 03 October – 09 October
Got up 1450 on average.
71 articles submitted.
Got paid $161.19 by TCA. Transferred €100. Got my €50.
Had a pretty poor week at work, TBH:
It was as though there was no good work available.
Basically, someone posted an enormous number of rubbish work orders that I couldn’t complete at anything better than €4 an hour, so I gave up and did some rewrites instead, which was easier and not...