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Let's revive thepetshop
General | Posted 14 years agohttps://www.thepetshop.co.za is my own forum for people interested in furry and BDSM. I made about two years ago, I think, but apart from activity just after I got it up it has been very quiet. I want to ask everyone that has an interest in BDSM, since everyone reading this obviously likes furs, to sign up and post. It's not just about BDSM, you can talk about anything you want and perhaps make some new friends.
zipeau has even posted a 4000 word story on thepetshop that is currently only available on the forum! To see it you need to register and pm me that you are over 18 before I can grant you access to the adult sections of the forum.
zipeau has even posted a 4000 word story on thepetshop that is currently only available on the forum! To see it you need to register and pm me that you are over 18 before I can grant you access to the adult sections of the forum.My Life Updated
General | Posted 14 years agoNothing hugely notable to report. Went to my second cousin's 21st today. (That's second cousin as in the son of my dad's cousin (or maybe it's 3rd I dunno) and not numerical cousin.) It was alright. Not well set out for conversation but there was Champagne (or sparkling wine to be technical) and so that made me happy.
I'm going to be learning Japanese now. I went to the interview for classes and met another guy. I offered to take him home but that didn't work out so well because the car was overheating (apparently I need to refill the water. I'll do that sometime) so drive was kinda sucky. It didn't help that I was unfamiliar with the area and took two wrong turns. Funnily enough my mom does not appreciate my phone calls and updates. That time I phoned home and pretty much said, 'My car is breaking down. I don't know where I am though.' The other funny time was when I had gone to another city and my flight back was delayed so I smsed, 'Flight is delayed because the plane's brakes are broken.' She didn't have phone with her though so no panicking.
Lastly I have one new member for https://www.thepetshop.co.za and so I want to try get it working again. If you into furries and BDSM please join AND post. It'll make a puppy happy.
I'm going to be learning Japanese now. I went to the interview for classes and met another guy. I offered to take him home but that didn't work out so well because the car was overheating (apparently I need to refill the water. I'll do that sometime) so drive was kinda sucky. It didn't help that I was unfamiliar with the area and took two wrong turns. Funnily enough my mom does not appreciate my phone calls and updates. That time I phoned home and pretty much said, 'My car is breaking down. I don't know where I am though.' The other funny time was when I had gone to another city and my flight back was delayed so I smsed, 'Flight is delayed because the plane's brakes are broken.' She didn't have phone with her though so no panicking.
Lastly I have one new member for https://www.thepetshop.co.za and so I want to try get it working again. If you into furries and BDSM please join AND post. It'll make a puppy happy.
Rakuen Reviews: Breaking the Spell (and a mini poll)
General | Posted 15 years agoI finished Daniel Dennett's book on religion, Breaking the Spell, recently. It starts by saying that religion is a very important part of society and has a huge ability to affect people. For this reason he says that it is irresponsible not to try study and understand religion. At the same time he makes the case that religion can be seen as a natural phenomenon and that it is capable of being studied scientifically, even if that might make people uncomfortable.
In the next part he shows how religion could arise without being deliberately designed. He supports the idea of memes and cultural evolution that Dawkins proposed and that functions the same way as biological evolution. He says that the origin of religion probably lies in humans' tendency to attribute intention to objects (theory of mind). Basically when we interact with people we assume that they are acting with intentions, perfectly reasonable, but we are susceptible to erroneously applying the same assumptions to inanimate objects. This leads people to see things like natural disasters as the Earth being angry and so people might make offerings to the rain in order to appease it and make it act more favourably. This can even be seen in day to day life where someone might yell at a computer when something goes wrong, or encourage your car when it struggles to start on a cold morning.
The next interesting idea to be brought up was that of belief in belief. Even if someone doesn't believe in something, god in this case, they might believe that believing in god is a state to which you should aspire. This means that people will want to believe in god even if their belief in god actually wavers. This obviously could lead to some problems, if someone admires people who believe in god and thinks that the right thing to do is believe in god but can't actually bring themselves to believe in god. In any case I found belief in belief a very interesting concept. Coming off of that was that people who believe belief is good don't want the belief criticised and so, apart from perhaps rules against blasphemy, make religions themselves so confusing that even believers don't know what they are believing. If there isn't a well-defined belief then there isn't a way to show that it is wrong. On the other hand this means some people say that since religion offers no testable hypothesis or even a coherent idea of god that there is no possible evidence to support a god.
In the last part of the book, Dennett says that if you want to look at religion you need to first get through a number of barriers opposing that investigation. People might want to know whether religion is good for us or not, but people will be opposed to the question itself. People don't choose a religion because it is good for them but for various other reasons. Dennett points out that he liked when researchers showed that drinking moderate amounts of wine was good for you, not because he drank wine because it was good for him but because he liked drinking wine in the first place and now it was shown to be good as well. He also criticises the idea of religion as a source of moral guidance, in fact calling it demeaning. Once again when you someone says religion is their source of morality you do have to get nervous that that person is saying that without the threat of punishment or reward they would be out there killing and raping. In the process of studying religion surveys often are used but he does make a point that they are not necessarily accurate as people for whom religion is a small aspect of their life won't actually bother to fill it out.
Finally he proposes that children are taught about as many religions as possible. He acknowledges that it might feel bad telling a parent what they can and can't teach to their children but it's not excusable to encourage ignorance. In his discussion he brings up some other hard questions, such as whether isolated people should be brought into society. It isn't right to treat them as some sort of zoo but even when they don't want our knowledge should the parents in those societies be able to make such a decision for their children.
Overall I wasn't a huge fan of the book but it did contain some good concepts, the discussion about attributing intentions and belief in belief.
What should I read next?
Brisingr by Christopher Paolini
Eulalia! by Brian Jacques
The Animals of Farthing Wood by Colin Dann
Assasin's Creed Brotherhood by Oliver Bowden
I'll be posting a small review as well.
In the next part he shows how religion could arise without being deliberately designed. He supports the idea of memes and cultural evolution that Dawkins proposed and that functions the same way as biological evolution. He says that the origin of religion probably lies in humans' tendency to attribute intention to objects (theory of mind). Basically when we interact with people we assume that they are acting with intentions, perfectly reasonable, but we are susceptible to erroneously applying the same assumptions to inanimate objects. This leads people to see things like natural disasters as the Earth being angry and so people might make offerings to the rain in order to appease it and make it act more favourably. This can even be seen in day to day life where someone might yell at a computer when something goes wrong, or encourage your car when it struggles to start on a cold morning.
The next interesting idea to be brought up was that of belief in belief. Even if someone doesn't believe in something, god in this case, they might believe that believing in god is a state to which you should aspire. This means that people will want to believe in god even if their belief in god actually wavers. This obviously could lead to some problems, if someone admires people who believe in god and thinks that the right thing to do is believe in god but can't actually bring themselves to believe in god. In any case I found belief in belief a very interesting concept. Coming off of that was that people who believe belief is good don't want the belief criticised and so, apart from perhaps rules against blasphemy, make religions themselves so confusing that even believers don't know what they are believing. If there isn't a well-defined belief then there isn't a way to show that it is wrong. On the other hand this means some people say that since religion offers no testable hypothesis or even a coherent idea of god that there is no possible evidence to support a god.
In the last part of the book, Dennett says that if you want to look at religion you need to first get through a number of barriers opposing that investigation. People might want to know whether religion is good for us or not, but people will be opposed to the question itself. People don't choose a religion because it is good for them but for various other reasons. Dennett points out that he liked when researchers showed that drinking moderate amounts of wine was good for you, not because he drank wine because it was good for him but because he liked drinking wine in the first place and now it was shown to be good as well. He also criticises the idea of religion as a source of moral guidance, in fact calling it demeaning. Once again when you someone says religion is their source of morality you do have to get nervous that that person is saying that without the threat of punishment or reward they would be out there killing and raping. In the process of studying religion surveys often are used but he does make a point that they are not necessarily accurate as people for whom religion is a small aspect of their life won't actually bother to fill it out.
Finally he proposes that children are taught about as many religions as possible. He acknowledges that it might feel bad telling a parent what they can and can't teach to their children but it's not excusable to encourage ignorance. In his discussion he brings up some other hard questions, such as whether isolated people should be brought into society. It isn't right to treat them as some sort of zoo but even when they don't want our knowledge should the parents in those societies be able to make such a decision for their children.
Overall I wasn't a huge fan of the book but it did contain some good concepts, the discussion about attributing intentions and belief in belief.
What should I read next?
Brisingr by Christopher Paolini
Eulalia! by Brian Jacques
The Animals of Farthing Wood by Colin Dann
Assasin's Creed Brotherhood by Oliver Bowden
I'll be posting a small review as well.
Need help from people
General | Posted 15 years agoAbout two or three weeks ago I posted my latest story onto AGNPH (http://www.furaffinity.net/view/5252664). After only about a day I got this message from Shiguya.
Shiguya:
"This kind of post belongs in the forums, not here. It is a collection of stand-up comic lines, small puns about the series, and a generally disconnected assortment of random humor, not a story. Please remove it within the next 48 hours, or it will be removed as spam and you will receive a warning. Consider this an unofficial warning. ~ Flygon, Proteus, and Shiguya"
Naturally I disagreed and sent this reply.
Rakuen:
"It's not just a collection of small puns, the starting and ending contain small unrelated sections but the middle does follow on itself. It has enough of a story and in any case, only being the first chapter, hasn't had time to develop anything major. It's perfectly appropriate for the story section."
That got ignored however and the story was taken down. I tried further to get the story restored and found out that it was Flygon's decision to have the story removed, one that I was assured was only to do with the lack of storyline.
Flygon:
"This is not a personal Vendetta. This is simply due to the fact that the material in question posted did not qualify much as a story"
My problem with this reason was that it just does not stand up. The amount of storyline has never been an issue with AGNPH before. For one thing AGNPH was set up as an archive that is meant to collect all pokemon porn (as well as accepting clean work) and, although the story section does not operate in the same free posting manner as the gallery, it is still part of the archive mindset, something Shiguya has recognised before.
9_6:
"It shows how much you can improve in 3 years actually also -as much as I dislike it- I'll have to bring up the dreaded 'agnph is an archive, not a gallery' argument up again in this context.
We don't delete pictures just because they're old and not as pretty as the recent stuff."
Shiguya:
"It's an archive for posting Pokemon pornography stories."
To support my point I also linked to a number of stories with even less storyline than mine that are still one the site.
Firstly there was the historical example of one of Cubone's works (http://agnph.com/fics/viewstory.php?sid=355&chapter=1) which I was told they were planning on removing. Why it's taken them a number of weeks to do it is a strange question then, one that was not answered.
I also brought up the hypocritical example. Scystorm's story (http://agnph.com/fics/viewstory.php?sid=901&chapter=1). As much as I love this story there is no way you can argue for it having any kind of storyline but, despite the exact flaw that my story was supposed removed for, that story wound up being one of the featured stories.
Lastly I used a personal example, one of Flygon's own stories (http://agnph.com/fics/viewstory.php?sid=2924&chapter=1) which also has no plot to speak of.
The only response I received on the examples was that they had been thinking of deleting Cubone's work.
Lastly I tried to find out how they were going to be judging storyline. It was particularly confusing considering there are many examples on the site of stories without a plot and this is the first I know of any story being removed due to lacking one. The response to that question was just that I must stop asking questions.
So now I've had little success in getting any straight answers, only vague and unsatisfactory explanations that my story didn't have a story. If this was applied to all stories then I could accept it, even though it constitutes a major change in the site's focus, but I've seen no evidence of that. So all I know is that my story was in no way exceptional in terms of plot and was breaking none of the site rules.
As a last resort I'm now asking for help from people reading this. I'm hoping you support me in this and will be willing to send a message to Flygon asking for the restoration of my story.
Shiguya:
"This kind of post belongs in the forums, not here. It is a collection of stand-up comic lines, small puns about the series, and a generally disconnected assortment of random humor, not a story. Please remove it within the next 48 hours, or it will be removed as spam and you will receive a warning. Consider this an unofficial warning. ~ Flygon, Proteus, and Shiguya"
Naturally I disagreed and sent this reply.
Rakuen:
"It's not just a collection of small puns, the starting and ending contain small unrelated sections but the middle does follow on itself. It has enough of a story and in any case, only being the first chapter, hasn't had time to develop anything major. It's perfectly appropriate for the story section."
That got ignored however and the story was taken down. I tried further to get the story restored and found out that it was Flygon's decision to have the story removed, one that I was assured was only to do with the lack of storyline.
Flygon:
"This is not a personal Vendetta. This is simply due to the fact that the material in question posted did not qualify much as a story"
My problem with this reason was that it just does not stand up. The amount of storyline has never been an issue with AGNPH before. For one thing AGNPH was set up as an archive that is meant to collect all pokemon porn (as well as accepting clean work) and, although the story section does not operate in the same free posting manner as the gallery, it is still part of the archive mindset, something Shiguya has recognised before.
9_6:
"It shows how much you can improve in 3 years actually also -as much as I dislike it- I'll have to bring up the dreaded 'agnph is an archive, not a gallery' argument up again in this context.
We don't delete pictures just because they're old and not as pretty as the recent stuff."
Shiguya:
"It's an archive for posting Pokemon pornography stories."
To support my point I also linked to a number of stories with even less storyline than mine that are still one the site.
Firstly there was the historical example of one of Cubone's works (http://agnph.com/fics/viewstory.php?sid=355&chapter=1) which I was told they were planning on removing. Why it's taken them a number of weeks to do it is a strange question then, one that was not answered.
I also brought up the hypocritical example. Scystorm's story (http://agnph.com/fics/viewstory.php?sid=901&chapter=1). As much as I love this story there is no way you can argue for it having any kind of storyline but, despite the exact flaw that my story was supposed removed for, that story wound up being one of the featured stories.
Lastly I used a personal example, one of Flygon's own stories (http://agnph.com/fics/viewstory.php?sid=2924&chapter=1) which also has no plot to speak of.
The only response I received on the examples was that they had been thinking of deleting Cubone's work.
Lastly I tried to find out how they were going to be judging storyline. It was particularly confusing considering there are many examples on the site of stories without a plot and this is the first I know of any story being removed due to lacking one. The response to that question was just that I must stop asking questions.
So now I've had little success in getting any straight answers, only vague and unsatisfactory explanations that my story didn't have a story. If this was applied to all stories then I could accept it, even though it constitutes a major change in the site's focus, but I've seen no evidence of that. So all I know is that my story was in no way exceptional in terms of plot and was breaking none of the site rules.
As a last resort I'm now asking for help from people reading this. I'm hoping you support me in this and will be willing to send a message to Flygon asking for the restoration of my story.
Birthday and books
General | Posted 15 years agoSo this was my birthday month, something none of my online friends noticed... But in any case I got a new 1tb hard drive, which is good because my other hard drive was totally full and I was looking for stuff to delete to make room for new stuff.
I'm still looking for a job. :( That's quite a depressing state of affairs but oh well.
I'm sure there was more that I wanted to say but right now I can only remember some book news. I read Stephen Fry's autobiography (The Fry Chronicles) and definitely recommend it. It's a lot of stage and TV stuff but none of that really matters because it's worth reading just to see how beautifully he uses language. I include here an extract (which was shortened and used as the blurb):
"Never, at any point in my life, can I remember feeling that I was any part of assured, controlled or at ease. The longer I life the more clearly one truth stands out. People will rarely modify their preferred view of a person, no matter what the evidence might suggest. I am English, Tweedy. Pukka. Confident. Establishment. Self-assured. In charge. That is how people see me, be the truth never so at variance... It may be the case that my afflictions of mood and temperament cause me to be occasionally suicidal in outlook and can frequently leave me in despair and eaten by self-hatred and self-disgust. It may be that I am chronically overmastered by a sense of failure, underachievement and a terrible knowledge that I have betrayed, abused or neglected the talents that nature has bestows upon me... All these cases may be protested, and I can assert their truth as often as I like, but the repetition will not alter my 'image' by one pixel. ..
What I wanted to say about all this wailing is not that I expect your pity or your understanding (though I wouldn't throw either of them out of bed), but that I am the one actually offering pity and understanding here. For I have to believe that all the feelings I have described are not unique to me but common to us all. The sense of failure, the fear of eternal unhappiness, the insecurity, misery, self-disgust and awful awareness of under-achievement that I have described. Are you not prey to all those things also? I do hope so, I would feel the most conspicuous oddity otherwise. I grant that my moments of 'suicidal ideation' and swings of mood may be more extreme and pathological than most have to endure, but otherwise, I am surely describing nothing more than the fears, dreads and neuroses we all share. No? More or less? Mutatis mutandis? All things being equal? Oh, please say yes."
I'm now reading Breaking the Spell by Daniel Dennett.
EDIT: Again just for FA readers, I might be in a heatwave this week. :( (not that's ben cool lately) Apparently today was predicted to reach 37 degrees, which as far as I can tell it didn't. Still it's been about 30 for the last week or so.
I'm still looking for a job. :( That's quite a depressing state of affairs but oh well.
I'm sure there was more that I wanted to say but right now I can only remember some book news. I read Stephen Fry's autobiography (The Fry Chronicles) and definitely recommend it. It's a lot of stage and TV stuff but none of that really matters because it's worth reading just to see how beautifully he uses language. I include here an extract (which was shortened and used as the blurb):
"Never, at any point in my life, can I remember feeling that I was any part of assured, controlled or at ease. The longer I life the more clearly one truth stands out. People will rarely modify their preferred view of a person, no matter what the evidence might suggest. I am English, Tweedy. Pukka. Confident. Establishment. Self-assured. In charge. That is how people see me, be the truth never so at variance... It may be the case that my afflictions of mood and temperament cause me to be occasionally suicidal in outlook and can frequently leave me in despair and eaten by self-hatred and self-disgust. It may be that I am chronically overmastered by a sense of failure, underachievement and a terrible knowledge that I have betrayed, abused or neglected the talents that nature has bestows upon me... All these cases may be protested, and I can assert their truth as often as I like, but the repetition will not alter my 'image' by one pixel. ..
What I wanted to say about all this wailing is not that I expect your pity or your understanding (though I wouldn't throw either of them out of bed), but that I am the one actually offering pity and understanding here. For I have to believe that all the feelings I have described are not unique to me but common to us all. The sense of failure, the fear of eternal unhappiness, the insecurity, misery, self-disgust and awful awareness of under-achievement that I have described. Are you not prey to all those things also? I do hope so, I would feel the most conspicuous oddity otherwise. I grant that my moments of 'suicidal ideation' and swings of mood may be more extreme and pathological than most have to endure, but otherwise, I am surely describing nothing more than the fears, dreads and neuroses we all share. No? More or less? Mutatis mutandis? All things being equal? Oh, please say yes."
I'm now reading Breaking the Spell by Daniel Dennett.
EDIT: Again just for FA readers, I might be in a heatwave this week. :( (not that's ben cool lately) Apparently today was predicted to reach 37 degrees, which as far as I can tell it didn't. Still it's been about 30 for the last week or so.
Rakuen Reviews: The End of Faith
General | Posted 15 years agoRecently I faced a bit of a dilemma. Either I could buy 'Hitch22' or 'The Moral Landscape' or 'The End of Faith' and 'Breaking the Spell'. In the end I took the last option, which both gave me two books and means I have the four horsemen's main religious books.
'The End of Faith: Religion, Terror and the Future of Reason' is a book by philosopher and neuroscientist Sam Harris. The book primarily concerns religion, belief, reason and faith, obvious from the title. Sam stresses the importance of evidence and reason as the basis of our beliefs and how faith leads to violence. If someone does not believe in an afterlife then they will be more concerned about life on Earth than if they truly believe that there is a second life after death. Religious faith will inevitably lead to conflict as long as people truly believe its tenets.
Sam delves into a number of examples of religiously motivated violence. In particular he considers Islam to be a particular threat to the world, including a whole chapter entitled 'The Problem with Islam'. He states that Islam is still a few centuries behind the rest of the world, where Christianity was during the Inquisition, but now has access to modern weaponry. While stating Islam is a particular threat to the world he also makes sure that people don't claim Christianity to be any gentler, just that over time the Christian faith has been forced to concede a number of points to secular science and this has, in a sense, tamed it.
Closer to the end of the book he describes how he sees morality and how he believes we should judge actions, a theme expanded on in 'The Moral Landscape'. He claims that questions about right and wrong are actually questions about happiness and the suffering of sentient creatures. He asserts that moral questions are the same as scientific questions in that there is a true answer, just that we might not know it yet, or ever. In that chapter he dismisses a certain form of moral relativity but never really addresses the sort of relativity to which I subscribe. I would say that no set of moral standards are better than another in a demonstrable way. Depending on what you would achieve the morals that would be appropriate would differ and there is no way to determine an absolute moral value. For this he claims that happiness is the aspect of concern we should be looking at but, while I have no problem with such morals, he does not justify his choice of criteria. I imagine such criticisms have been levelled at his more recent book but I have not been following those discussions all that closely.
In the final chapter he deals with conciousness but I am afraid I cannot comment much there because there was very little that I could follow or understand in its entirety.
On a side note, as interesting as the book can be, it is not easy reading. Some chapters are harder than others but my main problem with the book is its use of end notes. Each chapter has about 4-5 pages of extra notes at the back and often they are particularly interesting paragraphs which forces one to constantly flip back and forth to keep up.
'The End of Faith: Religion, Terror and the Future of Reason' is a book by philosopher and neuroscientist Sam Harris. The book primarily concerns religion, belief, reason and faith, obvious from the title. Sam stresses the importance of evidence and reason as the basis of our beliefs and how faith leads to violence. If someone does not believe in an afterlife then they will be more concerned about life on Earth than if they truly believe that there is a second life after death. Religious faith will inevitably lead to conflict as long as people truly believe its tenets.
Sam delves into a number of examples of religiously motivated violence. In particular he considers Islam to be a particular threat to the world, including a whole chapter entitled 'The Problem with Islam'. He states that Islam is still a few centuries behind the rest of the world, where Christianity was during the Inquisition, but now has access to modern weaponry. While stating Islam is a particular threat to the world he also makes sure that people don't claim Christianity to be any gentler, just that over time the Christian faith has been forced to concede a number of points to secular science and this has, in a sense, tamed it.
Closer to the end of the book he describes how he sees morality and how he believes we should judge actions, a theme expanded on in 'The Moral Landscape'. He claims that questions about right and wrong are actually questions about happiness and the suffering of sentient creatures. He asserts that moral questions are the same as scientific questions in that there is a true answer, just that we might not know it yet, or ever. In that chapter he dismisses a certain form of moral relativity but never really addresses the sort of relativity to which I subscribe. I would say that no set of moral standards are better than another in a demonstrable way. Depending on what you would achieve the morals that would be appropriate would differ and there is no way to determine an absolute moral value. For this he claims that happiness is the aspect of concern we should be looking at but, while I have no problem with such morals, he does not justify his choice of criteria. I imagine such criticisms have been levelled at his more recent book but I have not been following those discussions all that closely.
In the final chapter he deals with conciousness but I am afraid I cannot comment much there because there was very little that I could follow or understand in its entirety.
On a side note, as interesting as the book can be, it is not easy reading. Some chapters are harder than others but my main problem with the book is its use of end notes. Each chapter has about 4-5 pages of extra notes at the back and often they are particularly interesting paragraphs which forces one to constantly flip back and forth to keep up.
South Afrifur 2010 report
General | Posted 15 years agoHere's the news post I did but it doesn't have all the parts that are specifically about me.
http://www.flayrah.com/3396/south-a.....ur-2010-report
I had to drive
shark-blade and 
ozlion up to the meet. That took about 8-9 hours and was in 30 degree heat. When we finally arrived at 
nanukk's house I had a headache. I thought it was from the heat but since I had it after getting home as well,which wasn't as hot of a drive, I think it was really dehydration. I didn't drink all that much...
The meet was a lot of fun. I learned to play poker and some other card game (which I've already forgotten >.<) and got to eat sushi. I also met a cool guy who gave me a whole bunch of old Pokemon cards! Moral of that story is accept trips to people's houses. :) And no, nothing happened >.> I was curious to see his artificial pancreas he has to use.
When we were shopping I managed to get a big, but really cheap, piece of biltong. Then a dog stole it out my bag and ate it. I only got like two bites... I also got a new Redwall book (to add the 3 or 4 I haven't read yet).
On the book note I then went and bought a bunch more when I got home. I know have Assassin's Creed Brotherhood (apparently there are two AC books), The End of Faith, Breaking the Spell and a Warriors book. Warriors is a series about feral cats. It sounds interesting so I'm seeing whether they are written well or not.
http://www.flayrah.com/3396/south-a.....ur-2010-report
I had to drive
shark-blade and 
ozlion up to the meet. That took about 8-9 hours and was in 30 degree heat. When we finally arrived at 
nanukk's house I had a headache. I thought it was from the heat but since I had it after getting home as well,which wasn't as hot of a drive, I think it was really dehydration. I didn't drink all that much...The meet was a lot of fun. I learned to play poker and some other card game (which I've already forgotten >.<) and got to eat sushi. I also met a cool guy who gave me a whole bunch of old Pokemon cards! Moral of that story is accept trips to people's houses. :) And no, nothing happened >.> I was curious to see his artificial pancreas he has to use.
When we were shopping I managed to get a big, but really cheap, piece of biltong. Then a dog stole it out my bag and ate it. I only got like two bites... I also got a new Redwall book (to add the 3 or 4 I haven't read yet).
On the book note I then went and bought a bunch more when I got home. I know have Assassin's Creed Brotherhood (apparently there are two AC books), The End of Faith, Breaking the Spell and a Warriors book. Warriors is a series about feral cats. It sounds interesting so I'm seeing whether they are written well or not.
Meet is over
General | Posted 15 years agoThe South Afrifur 2010 meet is now over. I'm a little tired to write a report now but I will later, and a news article. I did manage to get internet so I didn't miss any of my news feeds and stuff. To tide you over until my proper journal post here is a good video I found.
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2011/01/lets_endorse_physical_intellec.php?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+scienceblogs%2Fpharyngula+%28Pharyngula%29
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2011/01/lets_endorse_physical_intellec.php?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+scienceblogs%2Fpharyngula+%28Pharyngula%29
Furmeet Time <3
General | Posted 15 years agoI'm disappearing for a bit. It's time for South Afrifur 2010! I'm driving to the meet tomorrow, for about 9 hours, and then will only be back on the 17th. I'll come on-line if I get the chance but don't expect much to happen. Unfortunately there's no way I will catch up with all my blog and news feeds :( Just hope nothing too interesting is missed.
EDIT: Just for you FA people, cause I'm lazy :p The predicted temperature tomorrow is around 30 degrees. :( I've got no air con.
EDIT: Just for you FA people, cause I'm lazy :p The predicted temperature tomorrow is around 30 degrees. :( I've got no air con.
2011 and the request journal
General | Posted 15 years agoHappy new year everyone. I want to do more drawing and writing this year, and try to set aside a certain amount of time a day to those activities. As such I need ideas so this journal is now my request list. Post requests here and I might do them when I have no ideas of my own. I can be motivated by trades and stuff as well.
Obligatory Christmas Journal
General | Posted 15 years agoHere are the presents I got, in no particular order or grouping:
The Grand Design by Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow
A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson
A black T-shirt
A small figurine of a dragon on a sword
Cadbury Whispers
Terry's Chocolate Orange
Gel Pen
Blank DVDs
3D puzzle
Laser pointer
Gift voucher (I hate gift vouchers -.-)
No surprises I didn't go to church in the morning, instead I enjoyed Monty Python's Life of Brian. If you haven't watched it I highly advise that you do. It's got the best satire of religion I can think of, and some pretty good jokes about other stuff too. Then we went to my Aunts place for lunch, which wasn't too bad. I got bored near the end though. I know need to look after her house for about a week or so while she's away.
I've finished reading The Grand Design now. It's really interesting, and a lot shorter than A Brief History of Time, but still explains things well, or at least I got the idea of what they were saying. If anything it taught me to leave physics to the physicists now. Classical physics is fine but quantum physics is getting a bit beyond me. I should probably reread it but trying to grasp alternate histories, 11 dimensions and the present influencing the past is quite confusing.
On that note though (present influencing past) there was a paper (though not very well done so kinda iffy conclusions) which claimed to have scientific evidence for psychic powers. They showed that if people were shown the answers after they answered the questions they more likely to get the answer correct (obviously that's not exactly what they did). They found that well-supported but the study offers no mechanism, is too small and hasn't been repeated so is not strong enough to rewrite how the world works. Of course if you want to take every chance to do well feel free to study after your exams as well, it might help.
Back to The Grand Design, I wasn't very happy with the treatment of the anthropic principle. They talked about the difference between the strong and the weak anthropic principle (how conditions are right for us) but I didn't really see a difference between the two (and they did later say that the strong anthropic principle pretty much becomes the weak anthropic principle). Pretty much it's the answer to the pitiful argument for god that says the world is so well balanced for us it must have been done by god. The anthropic principle just points out the obvious that since we are here it's a pre-requisite that the world is perfectly balanced for us. It's not possible to be anything else.
Hawking and Mlodinow's big conclusion which made headlines was that the existence of the universe is an inevitable product of physical laws and there is no need for god. Although matter in the universe cannot spontaneously come into being (due to conservation of the amount of energy in the universe) entire universes can spontaneously come into being as gravity acts as a negative energy that counteracts the energy of the matter that does come into being. Kinda weird but yeah, entire universes can be spontaneously created without the need for any sort of god.
The Grand Design by Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow
A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson
A black T-shirt
A small figurine of a dragon on a sword
Cadbury Whispers
Terry's Chocolate Orange
Gel Pen
Blank DVDs
3D puzzle
Laser pointer
Gift voucher (I hate gift vouchers -.-)
No surprises I didn't go to church in the morning, instead I enjoyed Monty Python's Life of Brian. If you haven't watched it I highly advise that you do. It's got the best satire of religion I can think of, and some pretty good jokes about other stuff too. Then we went to my Aunts place for lunch, which wasn't too bad. I got bored near the end though. I know need to look after her house for about a week or so while she's away.
I've finished reading The Grand Design now. It's really interesting, and a lot shorter than A Brief History of Time, but still explains things well, or at least I got the idea of what they were saying. If anything it taught me to leave physics to the physicists now. Classical physics is fine but quantum physics is getting a bit beyond me. I should probably reread it but trying to grasp alternate histories, 11 dimensions and the present influencing the past is quite confusing.
On that note though (present influencing past) there was a paper (though not very well done so kinda iffy conclusions) which claimed to have scientific evidence for psychic powers. They showed that if people were shown the answers after they answered the questions they more likely to get the answer correct (obviously that's not exactly what they did). They found that well-supported but the study offers no mechanism, is too small and hasn't been repeated so is not strong enough to rewrite how the world works. Of course if you want to take every chance to do well feel free to study after your exams as well, it might help.
Back to The Grand Design, I wasn't very happy with the treatment of the anthropic principle. They talked about the difference between the strong and the weak anthropic principle (how conditions are right for us) but I didn't really see a difference between the two (and they did later say that the strong anthropic principle pretty much becomes the weak anthropic principle). Pretty much it's the answer to the pitiful argument for god that says the world is so well balanced for us it must have been done by god. The anthropic principle just points out the obvious that since we are here it's a pre-requisite that the world is perfectly balanced for us. It's not possible to be anything else.
Hawking and Mlodinow's big conclusion which made headlines was that the existence of the universe is an inevitable product of physical laws and there is no need for god. Although matter in the universe cannot spontaneously come into being (due to conservation of the amount of energy in the universe) entire universes can spontaneously come into being as gravity acts as a negative energy that counteracts the energy of the matter that does come into being. Kinda weird but yeah, entire universes can be spontaneously created without the need for any sort of god.
FA: To stay or not to stay...
General | Posted 15 years agoI guess I'll stay. When they decided on the cub porn ban I thought about leaving on principle but then decided against it. FA is still the biggest furry site so it's the best place for me to post. However my confidence and trust in FA has taken a number of blows. First FA bans cub porn, then it gets hacked and the forum is down, though I think that's maintenance but it's certainly bad timing.
I have alternate accounts on both SoFurry (http://rakuen-growlithe.sofurry.com/) and Inkbunny (http://inkbunny.net/Rakuen).
SoFurry has a rather horrible layout at the moment but they still allow all sorts of art, as long as it's furry, so they get points for free speech. They are also looking to upgrade to a whole new style of site, because no one likes the current one, so that should be much nicer. So they get points for active development too, FA has pretty much stagnated with no repairs or new features in forever (apart from hiding comments which is just lame).
Inkbunny also has a sucky layout. Dunno what it is with sites and bloated looking menus. Maybe it's all this new web craze, I seem to like older layout styles. In any case they also seem to have integrity and are working on new ways to do things. They are also the youngest site so they still need to prove themselves. On a side note I have almost no watchers on Inkbunny, so if you are on there please go watch me. And Inkbunny is down for a few days doing some or other update.
I have alternate accounts on both SoFurry (http://rakuen-growlithe.sofurry.com/) and Inkbunny (http://inkbunny.net/Rakuen).
SoFurry has a rather horrible layout at the moment but they still allow all sorts of art, as long as it's furry, so they get points for free speech. They are also looking to upgrade to a whole new style of site, because no one likes the current one, so that should be much nicer. So they get points for active development too, FA has pretty much stagnated with no repairs or new features in forever (apart from hiding comments which is just lame).
Inkbunny also has a sucky layout. Dunno what it is with sites and bloated looking menus. Maybe it's all this new web craze, I seem to like older layout styles. In any case they also seem to have integrity and are working on new ways to do things. They are also the youngest site so they still need to prove themselves. On a side note I have almost no watchers on Inkbunny, so if you are on there please go watch me. And Inkbunny is down for a few days doing some or other update.
Mr Farenheit
General | Posted 15 years ago200 degrees! That's why they call me Mr Farenheit!
Well... okay, they don't. Some call me Firepuppy though. And if we lower 200 to 2 that's the number of degrees I now have. I got my BSc Honours in Molecular and Cell Biology.
Now I'm looking for a job. Although they say there is a shortage of science graduates there doesn't seem to be an excess of science jobs. Guess that's the problem with a science degree in a 3rd world country. The other possibility is that they don't advertise junior positions I must just ask around.
Well... okay, they don't. Some call me Firepuppy though. And if we lower 200 to 2 that's the number of degrees I now have. I got my BSc Honours in Molecular and Cell Biology.
Now I'm looking for a job. Although they say there is a shortage of science graduates there doesn't seem to be an excess of science jobs. Guess that's the problem with a science degree in a 3rd world country. The other possibility is that they don't advertise junior positions I must just ask around.
Rakuen reviews: The Human Centipede
General | Posted 15 years agoSo I went into this movie knowing it was supposed to be all disgusting and stuff but decided it would be okay. The idea holds some weird merit and could be kinda cool, though certainly not for everyone. Plot spoiler ahead. The Human Centipede is a horror movie about a German surgeon who kidnaps a bunch of tourists and then surgical joins three of them, mouth to anus, to make a human centipede.
I always would have thought horror is about scaring people, build up the atmosphere and then throw out a surprise. This movie is not scary. The first half plays like some twisted porno and the second half as though the director wanted to do his best to disgust people. There are pretty much no redeeming features to the movie. It is dull, boring and badly done. It's also the biggest meeting place of characters who make stupid decisions I've ever seen.
The two girls get a flat tire in a foreign country and they don't speak the language. Out of options:
(A) stay put in the car and wait for help
(B) Change the tire through trial and error
(C) Drive on anyway, a tire can be fixed
(D) Wander aimlessly for help when you are already lost
They chose D. Furthermore instead of following the road they decided to wander aimlessly, in the dark, through a forest. That kind of stupid decision making just astounds me.
Then there is a pathetic escape attempt where instead of going for help the one girl goes back into the house and tries to drag her unconscious friend along.
There's the Japanese guy, my favourite, who commits suicide when they are about to be saved.
There's the doctor who stays in the house when he knows the police are on to him and coming to investigate.
And lastly there's the police officers who split up in a crazy's house. The first officer, who has a gun, gets killed by the injured doctor who has a scalpel and can now only crawl. That has to have been due to a stupid decision. The other officer sees his dead partner, runs to him and completely forgets to check the room for the man who killed him! Yes they both die. In fact 6/8 characters in the movie die and one survivor is only in one scene anyway.
The American girls speak in English, the doctor in either German or English, the police officers in German and the Japanese guy in Japanese. In such a movie subtitles are important. The subtitles I had also seemed to think it important to add information like 'ominous music'. I'm guessing that's for deaf people but it sure doesn't help build tension. As it is the music is barely there and the dialogue is laughable. As no one understands Japanese all those lines are shouting and ranting that doesn't really need translation. The doctor says nothing useful and when he does it is boring anyway. The girls talk in the beginning but after surgery do nothing but whimper and cry, and if you don't appreciate the sound of sobbing you might as well watch on mute because that's all you'll hear.
I would go on but I think you get the picture. No matter what part of the movie you mention it probably sucked.
1/10
I always would have thought horror is about scaring people, build up the atmosphere and then throw out a surprise. This movie is not scary. The first half plays like some twisted porno and the second half as though the director wanted to do his best to disgust people. There are pretty much no redeeming features to the movie. It is dull, boring and badly done. It's also the biggest meeting place of characters who make stupid decisions I've ever seen.
The two girls get a flat tire in a foreign country and they don't speak the language. Out of options:
(A) stay put in the car and wait for help
(B) Change the tire through trial and error
(C) Drive on anyway, a tire can be fixed
(D) Wander aimlessly for help when you are already lost
They chose D. Furthermore instead of following the road they decided to wander aimlessly, in the dark, through a forest. That kind of stupid decision making just astounds me.
Then there is a pathetic escape attempt where instead of going for help the one girl goes back into the house and tries to drag her unconscious friend along.
There's the Japanese guy, my favourite, who commits suicide when they are about to be saved.
There's the doctor who stays in the house when he knows the police are on to him and coming to investigate.
And lastly there's the police officers who split up in a crazy's house. The first officer, who has a gun, gets killed by the injured doctor who has a scalpel and can now only crawl. That has to have been due to a stupid decision. The other officer sees his dead partner, runs to him and completely forgets to check the room for the man who killed him! Yes they both die. In fact 6/8 characters in the movie die and one survivor is only in one scene anyway.
The American girls speak in English, the doctor in either German or English, the police officers in German and the Japanese guy in Japanese. In such a movie subtitles are important. The subtitles I had also seemed to think it important to add information like 'ominous music'. I'm guessing that's for deaf people but it sure doesn't help build tension. As it is the music is barely there and the dialogue is laughable. As no one understands Japanese all those lines are shouting and ranting that doesn't really need translation. The doctor says nothing useful and when he does it is boring anyway. The girls talk in the beginning but after surgery do nothing but whimper and cry, and if you don't appreciate the sound of sobbing you might as well watch on mute because that's all you'll hear.
I would go on but I think you get the picture. No matter what part of the movie you mention it probably sucked.
1/10
Loose lips sink ships
General | Posted 15 years agoYou might have been wondering were this little saying comes from. It, in fact, originated a few hundred years ago when the Europeans started exploring the oceans. As you know there were a lot of sea monsters back then, big sea monsters (and tentacle monsters) which used to come and rape the ships. Sailors that fought back got drowned and that's what caused many shipwrecks. Often the sailors would have to suck off the monsters over and over (they cum a lot) and if they didn't swallow it all, or leaked, the ship would sometimes get overloaded with cum and sink. That's where the phrase 'loose lips sink ships' comes from.
PS: That left over cum is why a bowl of water has no foam but the water in the ocean has foam.
PS: That left over cum is why a bowl of water has no foam but the water in the ocean has foam.
Teh Cats
General | Posted 15 years agoI had a bit of a debate about whether it's good to let cats live indoors only or let them go out when they want to. I've lived with cats my whole life and they've always come and gone as they pleased but other people say cats that go outside only have a life expectancy of 2-5 years. I say that this is nonsense and is probably very area dependant with the city areas bringing the average way down. What are other people's thoughts?
In the meantime I'll tell you about my life with cats.
A few months before I was born my parents found a stray cat start living in their garden. I have no idea what happened to it but it eventually had 2 kittens in the garden, which they claimed. They're both dead now and don't remember much about them.
My aunt also found a stray cat, who looked abused, living in her garden. I was the first person we know who was able to touch it so, when she went on holiday, I got the cat. It later gave birth to five kittens, two of which we gave away. Of the three kittens one is now dead but the others are alive and well, going on 15 years.
There's a fourth cat living with me which my aunt found at her work and gave to my Gran. When my Gran died we got the cat, who is noisy.
In the meantime I'll tell you about my life with cats.
A few months before I was born my parents found a stray cat start living in their garden. I have no idea what happened to it but it eventually had 2 kittens in the garden, which they claimed. They're both dead now and don't remember much about them.
My aunt also found a stray cat, who looked abused, living in her garden. I was the first person we know who was able to touch it so, when she went on holiday, I got the cat. It later gave birth to five kittens, two of which we gave away. Of the three kittens one is now dead but the others are alive and well, going on 15 years.
There's a fourth cat living with me which my aunt found at her work and gave to my Gran. When my Gran died we got the cat, who is noisy.
New FA rule sucks
General | Posted 15 years agoThis isn't hugely surprising, and if what Dragoneer says is true then it might have been the best decision, but I still don't agree with it. There are so many bad things about this decision. Most importantly cub art is not real. No matter what you draw it doesn't mean anything and it's stupid to claim that drawn cub porn should be illegal but drawn murder is fine. Secondly this is an outside entity deciding FA policy, or a least forcing it's hand. I certainly hope FA keeps looking for other solutions rather than waiting for Alertpay, or whoever, to decide vore isn't allowed, or rape scenes or perhaps just anthro porn itself.
Fun times...
General | Posted 15 years agoMy car was broken into today and all they took was the spare wheel. In the process they also managed to completely break the locks for the boot and passenger door. Oh yay me.
Nearly end of studies... and some other stuff
General | Posted 15 years agoI handed in my project report today, the last bit of work for my honours, save for the presentation later in the month. That means I'm pretty much free... and have no idea what to do next year. I need a job but there's almost nothing in science, particularly for a new graduate and even more so in my area. :/ The thing I have been thinking about is trying to get a newspaper or magazine column. I could write for money but I'm not sure what it'd even be about. so here's today's question, what do you guys think I should do next year?
I had a bunch of things to tell you guys too, and pics, which I don't have on my pc. I could've shown you a hive of bees in a tree I walk past (They've been removed. Boring,), a flat bird I saw on a walk (So flat...) and then an Egyptian goose and its babies (I couldn't actually show that because I didn't take a picture). I think there were other things I wanted to say but I've forgotten what they were.
And, lastly, I found an article about what Americans know about SA.
http://www.news24.com/Columnists/Be.....ut-SA-20101105
Fun stuff.
I had a bunch of things to tell you guys too, and pics, which I don't have on my pc. I could've shown you a hive of bees in a tree I walk past (They've been removed. Boring,), a flat bird I saw on a walk (So flat...) and then an Egyptian goose and its babies (I couldn't actually show that because I didn't take a picture). I think there were other things I wanted to say but I've forgotten what they were.
And, lastly, I found an article about what Americans know about SA.
http://www.news24.com/Columnists/Be.....ut-SA-20101105
Fun stuff.
Fallout New Vegas
General | Posted 15 years agoI like this game but it is so buggy and has lead to so many rage quits. First off the good bits. It looks good, plays nicely, good story, lots of stuff to do, is somehow not boring to wander around a desert.
Now we get onto the problems with the game. Firstly it's buggy. I saw a dog wandering around. Not too bad, except it was 2 metres in the air! I've also seen an enemy fly into a rock and get trapped inside. In fact I also got trapped inside a rock and had to fast travel out. I've also had buttons stop working so I couldn't shoot at all, and it wasn't the weapon jamming.
The next problem is that it pretends to be an open sandbox world when it it's lying. It was bad enough when the change from Morrowind to Oblivion left cities as seperate worlds when there was no real need for that but New Vegas keeps that and goes even further. New Vegas has weird builders who apparently specialise in invisible walls. You can climb a cliff to a certain point and then suddenly you are blocked by an invisible force that prevents you going higher. If a fence is blocking your way and you try jump over it you find that it extends infinitely skywards! It's just ridiculous. Don't lie to me about the world being open and then doing cheap tricks like that.
Finally there is a balance issue with the strength of enemies. Some of them are over powered! Nightkin are killers and use pieces of rubble as weapons but you expect that since they're huge (The fact that they are invisible is a bit much but they aren't impossible to kill). Worse are the Cazadores, little flies that can kill you with just two or three hits. Shooting them is hard enough because they are small targets, unreasonably fast and dart in all random directions. I try to shoot off their wings and find they are apparently made of plates of some bullet resistant substance. Even when I do blow their wings off I still die because they travel in groups of three! They are not a fair enemy.
Havign a real love/hate relationship with that game right now.
Now we get onto the problems with the game. Firstly it's buggy. I saw a dog wandering around. Not too bad, except it was 2 metres in the air! I've also seen an enemy fly into a rock and get trapped inside. In fact I also got trapped inside a rock and had to fast travel out. I've also had buttons stop working so I couldn't shoot at all, and it wasn't the weapon jamming.
The next problem is that it pretends to be an open sandbox world when it it's lying. It was bad enough when the change from Morrowind to Oblivion left cities as seperate worlds when there was no real need for that but New Vegas keeps that and goes even further. New Vegas has weird builders who apparently specialise in invisible walls. You can climb a cliff to a certain point and then suddenly you are blocked by an invisible force that prevents you going higher. If a fence is blocking your way and you try jump over it you find that it extends infinitely skywards! It's just ridiculous. Don't lie to me about the world being open and then doing cheap tricks like that.
Finally there is a balance issue with the strength of enemies. Some of them are over powered! Nightkin are killers and use pieces of rubble as weapons but you expect that since they're huge (The fact that they are invisible is a bit much but they aren't impossible to kill). Worse are the Cazadores, little flies that can kill you with just two or three hits. Shooting them is hard enough because they are small targets, unreasonably fast and dart in all random directions. I try to shoot off their wings and find they are apparently made of plates of some bullet resistant substance. Even when I do blow their wings off I still die because they travel in groups of three! They are not a fair enemy.
Havign a real love/hate relationship with that game right now.
Well that was kinda pathetic
General | Posted 15 years agoSo we have the Woolworths shopping chain here who decided to stop selling Christian magazines because they weren't selling.
http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/N.....-mags-20101020
Ignoring the overly dramatic title of the news article (banning Christian mag? Really? How is not selling banning?) it doesn't sound that terrible. The magazines aren't selling so why stock them? That's basic business, don't waste space selling magazines that no one wants.
Of course this upset the Christians, and various other faiths and groups who all like to get upset together, because it was being mean and discriminating against them. How Christians can be the biggest and most influential religious group in the world and still feel like everyone is victimising them I don't know. In any case Woolworths gave up on their policy and is now stocking Christian magazines again.
http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/N.....zines-20101020
I'd certainly be interested to hear if the sales of the magazines goes up or not. It's one thing to protest on principle if they stopped selling religious magazines because they were religious (although a shop can choose what to sell and what not to. You don't go and say a shop is banning stuff because they don't stock your favourite brand of cheese) but they stopped selling them because no one bought them! Why the outcry for something hardly anyone wants? How many of those protesters even buy the magazines?
http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/N.....-mags-20101020
Ignoring the overly dramatic title of the news article (banning Christian mag? Really? How is not selling banning?) it doesn't sound that terrible. The magazines aren't selling so why stock them? That's basic business, don't waste space selling magazines that no one wants.
Of course this upset the Christians, and various other faiths and groups who all like to get upset together, because it was being mean and discriminating against them. How Christians can be the biggest and most influential religious group in the world and still feel like everyone is victimising them I don't know. In any case Woolworths gave up on their policy and is now stocking Christian magazines again.
http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/N.....zines-20101020
I'd certainly be interested to hear if the sales of the magazines goes up or not. It's one thing to protest on principle if they stopped selling religious magazines because they were religious (although a shop can choose what to sell and what not to. You don't go and say a shop is banning stuff because they don't stock your favourite brand of cheese) but they stopped selling them because no one bought them! Why the outcry for something hardly anyone wants? How many of those protesters even buy the magazines?
Broken car, new master, project over, Ubuntu 10.10
General | Posted 15 years agoSo today I take my sister to school and the cars going fine. Then I stop to let her out but the doors have the kiddie lock on. I lean out the passenger door to open the back door from the outside, quite painful on your shoulder and not particularly easy. In doing so I forget I've got the car in gear and it stalls. Then I try start it again and the engine sounds completely different, as though it's letting out air somewhere, and keeps cutting out. I manage to get it up the hill and park though and then leave it.
I go back in the afternoon to try and get it home and within 100m I cut out like 4 times and find that the breaks have suddenly stopped working. I can't push the pedal down. So it seems something got broken during the stall and has now blocked the breaks. :/ Sigh...
I also got a new master, or got an old master again.
Mew66 Hopefully that will work out. Holding thumbs,
And today was the last day of labwork for my project. Unfortunately I have pretty much zero results but have figured out why. The polymerase I was using does not work under the conditions I needed. I now have three weeks to write up all my 'results'.
And I'm now using Ubuntu 10.10 on my laptop. It's Linux so all free. :) And actually rather nice.
I go back in the afternoon to try and get it home and within 100m I cut out like 4 times and find that the breaks have suddenly stopped working. I can't push the pedal down. So it seems something got broken during the stall and has now blocked the breaks. :/ Sigh...
I also got a new master, or got an old master again.
Mew66 Hopefully that will work out. Holding thumbs,And today was the last day of labwork for my project. Unfortunately I have pretty much zero results but have figured out why. The polymerase I was using does not work under the conditions I needed. I now have three weeks to write up all my 'results'.
And I'm now using Ubuntu 10.10 on my laptop. It's Linux so all free. :) And actually rather nice.
Very mature....
General | Posted 15 years agoSo recently I commented on this submission http://www.furaffinity.net/view/4594568/ and was subsequently blocked by the user 
Remyplains because "Yup nice to see that this community supports Budding artists, since this is the first work I ever did, Douche "
This is the first time I've been blocked but not the first time I've seen or heard of someone completely unable to take criticism. Firstly I never insulted him or his 'story' but pointed out three points which he could easily improve and were noticeable without reading fully.
Sure you can ignore criticism and only pay attention when people praise you, and there's certainly no shortage of that in the fandom, but you'll never grow if that's what you do. Unless you can acknowledge some of your own weaknesses there is zero chance of you improving on them.
Short message. Grow up. If you post online you are opening yourself up to positive and negative reviews. The positive ones are there to make you feel good and the negative ones tell you how to improve.
Remyplains because "Yup nice to see that this community supports Budding artists, since this is the first work I ever did, Douche "This is the first time I've been blocked but not the first time I've seen or heard of someone completely unable to take criticism. Firstly I never insulted him or his 'story' but pointed out three points which he could easily improve and were noticeable without reading fully.
Sure you can ignore criticism and only pay attention when people praise you, and there's certainly no shortage of that in the fandom, but you'll never grow if that's what you do. Unless you can acknowledge some of your own weaknesses there is zero chance of you improving on them.
Short message. Grow up. If you post online you are opening yourself up to positive and negative reviews. The positive ones are there to make you feel good and the negative ones tell you how to improve.
Blasphemy Day... for real this time
General | Posted 15 years agoWell two months ago I made a terribly mistimed Blasphemy Day post (http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/1596265/) but now it really is the 30th of September and so I can make a new blasphemy post. What I guess would be interesting is to point out a recent survey on religion in America conducted by the Pew Forum.
http://pewforum.org/Other-Beliefs-a.....ge-Survey.aspx
This survey has a, unsurprising to me but perhaps surprising to others, result that shows that atheists and agnostics know the most about religion, answering 20,9 out of 32 questions correctly. This is particularly satisfying because it comes at a time when some people have been criticising atheists for not knowing about religion.
e.g. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-shook-phd/for-atheists-and-believer_b_715546.html
Mormons and Jews also know what's going on in religion, getting 20,3 and 20,5 questions respectively. After that there's a bit of a drop to White evangelical Protestants (17,6) and then all other groups are either average (16) or below average.
This makes an interesting question, do those people who claim to be religious actually know what their religion is about? And if they don't can they really be counted as members of that religion? Or perhaps it as Dave Silverman has said.
"I have heard many times that atheists know more about religion than religious people. Atheism is an effect of that knowledge, not a lack of knowledge. I gave a Bible to my daughter. That's how you make atheists."
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2010/09/want_to_know_about_religion_go.php?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+scienceblogs%2Fpharyngula+%28Pharyngula%29
Perhaps if people took the time to learn what they claim to believe in they would see how ridiculous it actually is.
Wait, that's just not blasphemous enough. I think I'll quote Richard Dawkins' speech on the pope.
"He is an enemy of women – barring them from the priesthood as though a penis were an essential tool for pastoral duties."
http://richarddawkins.net/articles/.....my-of-humanity
Pwned. No women priests because they can't sodomise poor, little kids.
Wait, it's only some priests that do it, right? That's what some people would argue.
http://www.newsweek.com/2010/04/07/mean-men.html
However, five months later, this came to light.
"We can say that no congregation escapes sexual abuse of minors by one or several of its members."
That came after the Belgians discovered over 100 victims of sexual abuse by priests, leading to 13 suicides and six attempted suicides.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/.....11/3009013.htm
Well, maybe it's a modern problem? Well thanks to the Catholic church we all now know about...
"Mary MacKillop, soon to become Australia’s first Catholic saint, was briefly excommunicated by the church in part because she exposed a paedophile priest."
http://freethinker.co.uk/2010/09/26.....c-child-abuse/
And that was in the 1800's. Not to mention the other things in the text like...
"Italian bishops say around 100 cases of abuse have been investigated by Church authorities in the past decade. But organisers of the conference say the true number of victims is much higher.
Sixty-seven deaf-mute children at Verona’s Catholic Antonio Provolo institute were allegedly abused by priests and lay staff between the 1950s and 1980s, according to testimony obtained by AP in 2009."
Happy Blasphemy Day
http://pewforum.org/Other-Beliefs-a.....ge-Survey.aspx
This survey has a, unsurprising to me but perhaps surprising to others, result that shows that atheists and agnostics know the most about religion, answering 20,9 out of 32 questions correctly. This is particularly satisfying because it comes at a time when some people have been criticising atheists for not knowing about religion.
e.g. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-shook-phd/for-atheists-and-believer_b_715546.html
Mormons and Jews also know what's going on in religion, getting 20,3 and 20,5 questions respectively. After that there's a bit of a drop to White evangelical Protestants (17,6) and then all other groups are either average (16) or below average.
This makes an interesting question, do those people who claim to be religious actually know what their religion is about? And if they don't can they really be counted as members of that religion? Or perhaps it as Dave Silverman has said.
"I have heard many times that atheists know more about religion than religious people. Atheism is an effect of that knowledge, not a lack of knowledge. I gave a Bible to my daughter. That's how you make atheists."
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2010/09/want_to_know_about_religion_go.php?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+scienceblogs%2Fpharyngula+%28Pharyngula%29
Perhaps if people took the time to learn what they claim to believe in they would see how ridiculous it actually is.
Wait, that's just not blasphemous enough. I think I'll quote Richard Dawkins' speech on the pope.
"He is an enemy of women – barring them from the priesthood as though a penis were an essential tool for pastoral duties."
http://richarddawkins.net/articles/.....my-of-humanity
Pwned. No women priests because they can't sodomise poor, little kids.
Wait, it's only some priests that do it, right? That's what some people would argue.
http://www.newsweek.com/2010/04/07/mean-men.html
However, five months later, this came to light.
"We can say that no congregation escapes sexual abuse of minors by one or several of its members."
That came after the Belgians discovered over 100 victims of sexual abuse by priests, leading to 13 suicides and six attempted suicides.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/.....11/3009013.htm
Well, maybe it's a modern problem? Well thanks to the Catholic church we all now know about...
"Mary MacKillop, soon to become Australia’s first Catholic saint, was briefly excommunicated by the church in part because she exposed a paedophile priest."
http://freethinker.co.uk/2010/09/26.....c-child-abuse/
And that was in the 1800's. Not to mention the other things in the text like...
"Italian bishops say around 100 cases of abuse have been investigated by Church authorities in the past decade. But organisers of the conference say the true number of victims is much higher.
Sixty-seven deaf-mute children at Verona’s Catholic Antonio Provolo institute were allegedly abused by priests and lay staff between the 1950s and 1980s, according to testimony obtained by AP in 2009."
Happy Blasphemy Day
I am sad
General | Posted 15 years agoWhen I'm sad I think of all the things in the world that make me happy...
Anyway I found out my supervisors aren't hugely happy with my labwork. :( They said I didn't talk to them enough and then wasted time trying to fix things by myself. Which I don't think sounds like such a bad thing, but anyway. So I decided I won't continue and do a masters right now and probably not with them even if I do do one. This means I now need to find a job... Well I have a few months left before I really need one so it shouldn't be too much of a problem.
I also just finished a looong story for an AGNPH competition (and can't get on AGNPH to post it) so please go read it. It took a lot of work and has a fetish for everyone.
Lastly tomorrow is 30 September! For real!
Anyway I found out my supervisors aren't hugely happy with my labwork. :( They said I didn't talk to them enough and then wasted time trying to fix things by myself. Which I don't think sounds like such a bad thing, but anyway. So I decided I won't continue and do a masters right now and probably not with them even if I do do one. This means I now need to find a job... Well I have a few months left before I really need one so it shouldn't be too much of a problem.
I also just finished a looong story for an AGNPH competition (and can't get on AGNPH to post it) so please go read it. It took a lot of work and has a fetish for everyone.
Lastly tomorrow is 30 September! For real!
