But worth a listen if you don't mind music made, recorded and mixed by one guy in a grotty flat in London. At least his singing's in a key. Not sure which one though.
-Az
Sunday, 28 September 2008
Plug
If you look at the links somewhere off to the right, you will see a link to "Brawny: Life, thoughts, and drunken rambling". This is the blog of a London based techie, where he has uploaded his EP "Danger-Penguins in Sunglasses". I won't review it, because it's not crap enough (except "Can't Stop Smiling", which is dull, and "Synth Drums Loud Guitars and Backing Vocals", which sounds like the pop-punk-paedophiles Bowling for soup, no matter how ironic he may have tried to be.)
But worth a listen if you don't mind music made, recorded and mixed by one guy in a grotty flat in London. At least his singing's in a key. Not sure which one though.
-Az
But worth a listen if you don't mind music made, recorded and mixed by one guy in a grotty flat in London. At least his singing's in a key. Not sure which one though.
-Az
Thursday, 18 September 2008
New from Kellog's: Kredit Krunch!
As most of us know, in recent times the economy has ground to a halt faster than Kimi Raikonnen in the rain, and markets all over the world are collapsing. First Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac had to be put on life support, then Lehman's needed an ownership transplant, and now AIG has started coughing up blood as well. Amidst massive inflation, plummeting stock prices, and fearful insurance companies refusing to cover anyone "risky" enough to actually need it, one question comes up in my mind again and again: why the hell should I care?
The answers are probably not too far away. I use money, I use insurance companies, I use banks... so somewhere along the line it's entirely possible that I'll fall foul of this menace. But it is a system I don't understand, and this is something I believe is the fault of our education system as much as my own.
But this isn't just a rant about how the government is selling all our futures short. This isn't even much of a rant about the syllabus. This is the problems of teaching itself, and the main one I have found is: what do you teach? In school I learned algebra... or at least I remember someone multiplying the alphabet together as I played Rocket Ship with my pen at the back of the class. But where am I going to use algebra? OK, bad example as I need it for my course (how screwed am I!?!?), but I wonder how many people that applies to. Certainly not everybody that goes through the education system. So let's strike algebra from the agenda.
But then, what do we replace it with that is relevant to the real world? Haggling class? Restaurant menu arithmetic? Good ideas, maybe, but what I'd love to see in classrooms is more confusing than even the most incompetent PC World salesman. I am talking, of course, of taxes. We all have to pay them at some point or another, and there's nothing else that confirms you as an adult in quite such a devastating fashion. The trouble at the moment is, there's no need to pay taxes for the first 18 years of your life, then days after your birthday 20 different government sectors are threatening to take you to court.
Council tax eligibility, tax classes, tax refunds, VAT, road tax.... this is what children need to know. I don't care what sector of work you're pursuing, in a persons late teens knowing how to fill out a P45 is much more useful than calculating the hypotenuse of an isosceles triangle, fun though that may be.
Another example of dodgy teaching priorities was something that came to light after completing my driving lessons...where I had never had a lesson at night. Because of this, I hadn't been taught about the various different lights on the car, how they all work, and how you turn them all on. As a result, for over a month I got my high beams and side lights confused with my dipped headlights on my car. I dare anyone else to drive from Reading to Poole at 11:00 at night, in the rain, on SIDE LIGHTS; an activity as terrifying a prospect of repeating as Singstar karaoke.
The lessons we can take from these things is teach something relevant, and teach it thoroughly. It's no good being able to fly a 747 if you don't know how to use the runway, nor is it of any use to be able to under cook a microwave burger if you don't understand how to look gormless and dribble at people.
- Fox
The answers are probably not too far away. I use money, I use insurance companies, I use banks... so somewhere along the line it's entirely possible that I'll fall foul of this menace. But it is a system I don't understand, and this is something I believe is the fault of our education system as much as my own.
But this isn't just a rant about how the government is selling all our futures short. This isn't even much of a rant about the syllabus. This is the problems of teaching itself, and the main one I have found is: what do you teach? In school I learned algebra... or at least I remember someone multiplying the alphabet together as I played Rocket Ship with my pen at the back of the class. But where am I going to use algebra? OK, bad example as I need it for my course (how screwed am I!?!?), but I wonder how many people that applies to. Certainly not everybody that goes through the education system. So let's strike algebra from the agenda.
But then, what do we replace it with that is relevant to the real world? Haggling class? Restaurant menu arithmetic? Good ideas, maybe, but what I'd love to see in classrooms is more confusing than even the most incompetent PC World salesman. I am talking, of course, of taxes. We all have to pay them at some point or another, and there's nothing else that confirms you as an adult in quite such a devastating fashion. The trouble at the moment is, there's no need to pay taxes for the first 18 years of your life, then days after your birthday 20 different government sectors are threatening to take you to court.
Council tax eligibility, tax classes, tax refunds, VAT, road tax.... this is what children need to know. I don't care what sector of work you're pursuing, in a persons late teens knowing how to fill out a P45 is much more useful than calculating the hypotenuse of an isosceles triangle, fun though that may be.
Another example of dodgy teaching priorities was something that came to light after completing my driving lessons...where I had never had a lesson at night. Because of this, I hadn't been taught about the various different lights on the car, how they all work, and how you turn them all on. As a result, for over a month I got my high beams and side lights confused with my dipped headlights on my car. I dare anyone else to drive from Reading to Poole at 11:00 at night, in the rain, on SIDE LIGHTS; an activity as terrifying a prospect of repeating as Singstar karaoke.
The lessons we can take from these things is teach something relevant, and teach it thoroughly. It's no good being able to fly a 747 if you don't know how to use the runway, nor is it of any use to be able to under cook a microwave burger if you don't understand how to look gormless and dribble at people.
- Fox
Wednesday, 17 September 2008
More Gimmickry
Let's be honest here. Gamers aren't really the fittest breed of human. Most would rather sit around and play Mario Kart (Which is still shit) whilst consuming masses of McDonalds than go out and exercise. The concept of the Wii-Fit, therefore, must've been difficult to sell, seeing as the majority of gamers like to imagine that they're as well built as Dante whilst they jerk off to naughty pictures of princess peach that their mums would be horrified to see. Apologies to any female readers for the male bias there, but imagining you're any female video game character rather pushes the boundaries of fantasy, as to gain a passing resemblance one must go through years of extensive cosmetic surgery. But I digress.
So, seeing as the Wii is yet to prove itself, and in the wake of how many sodding copies of the Wii-Fit were quickly bought, I thought I'd give it a go. Within minutes of turning the game on, i was weighed up and had to enter my height, and the game proclaimed me as "Ideal" (form an orderly queue ladies) which confused me when moments later it told me I was unbalanced (form an orderly queue psychiatrists.)
Wii-Fit is a rarity on the Wii, in that it actually uses the Mii's that everybody sets up for their whole family as soon as they've got their little white box of disappointment, and aside from Wii-Sports, they get largely ignored. Well, they were used in billboards in Mario Kart, but then I'm less fond of Mario Kart than I am of prison gang rape. I rather like the Mii system here however, as seeing a playmobile idealisation of yourself on the screen failing to do simple exercises is remarkably entertaining.
Talking about failing the exercises is not a joke by the way. The board upon which the Wii-Fit depends is a bit obsessive. You must stand in exactly the right place, move exactly when you are told, and lean very slightly forwards for your centre of balance to be ok, if you wish to avoid complete failure. And even then you'll probably fail everything.
To me, the Wii-Fit is standard Nintendo fare. Gimmicky crap designed to appeal to a certain breed of human. In this case, the only buyer I can see is a mother, worried about how much weight she's put on and trying desparately to appeal to her vest-wearing, stella-swigging husband, and has decided to buy a game "for the kids" which she'll occasionally play when they're at school, and they'll refuse because it doesn't have Mario in it. Which just about makes this the best Wii game ever.
-Az
So, seeing as the Wii is yet to prove itself, and in the wake of how many sodding copies of the Wii-Fit were quickly bought, I thought I'd give it a go. Within minutes of turning the game on, i was weighed up and had to enter my height, and the game proclaimed me as "Ideal" (form an orderly queue ladies) which confused me when moments later it told me I was unbalanced (form an orderly queue psychiatrists.)
Wii-Fit is a rarity on the Wii, in that it actually uses the Mii's that everybody sets up for their whole family as soon as they've got their little white box of disappointment, and aside from Wii-Sports, they get largely ignored. Well, they were used in billboards in Mario Kart, but then I'm less fond of Mario Kart than I am of prison gang rape. I rather like the Mii system here however, as seeing a playmobile idealisation of yourself on the screen failing to do simple exercises is remarkably entertaining.
Talking about failing the exercises is not a joke by the way. The board upon which the Wii-Fit depends is a bit obsessive. You must stand in exactly the right place, move exactly when you are told, and lean very slightly forwards for your centre of balance to be ok, if you wish to avoid complete failure. And even then you'll probably fail everything.
To me, the Wii-Fit is standard Nintendo fare. Gimmicky crap designed to appeal to a certain breed of human. In this case, the only buyer I can see is a mother, worried about how much weight she's put on and trying desparately to appeal to her vest-wearing, stella-swigging husband, and has decided to buy a game "for the kids" which she'll occasionally play when they're at school, and they'll refuse because it doesn't have Mario in it. Which just about makes this the best Wii game ever.
-Az
Monday, 15 September 2008
Leprechauns
A few thousand years ago, Leprechauns built the Earth in 6 days out of the sheer power of their will. These fuzzy little Irishmen then set about creating all the seas, all the lands, all the animals and all the beer in the world. After this they built mankind, but then out of spite decided to punish mankind throughout its existence because someone ate an apple.
Replace a couple of choice words in there and you have the "science" that is being called to be taught in our countries schools. That's right, no longer is fundie insanity restricted to the redneck south of America, normal people are starting to turn as well. But how have they managed such a deed? Well, unfortunately the religious have a catch-all, 90% effective tactic that sways laymen in their favour: they break the ninth commandment.
Or to those of you whose biblical know-it-all has started to grow moss: they lie.
The trouble is the church doesn't cry outright to ban the teaching of evolution. They cry for both evolution AND creation to be taught in classrooms, making the rational squads cry for evolution only seem a tad discriminate. The church then pounces on this and claims persecution.
That's right! The church that brought you witch burnings and the Spanish Inquisition is now putting on the puppy dog eyes. And people are buying it. They don't understand why creation science can't be taught in science class!
So here it is in nice, simple English. Creationism is not science. Any theory, before it is taught in science classes, first has to go through the rigorous process of constant critique and evaluation in the scientific arena. Evolution, relativity, gravity, osmosis.... all have followed this process, as well as the scientific method:
- Hypothesis
- Repeatable testing
- Conclusions
- Edited hypothesis bases on conclusions.
Creationism jumps straight to conclusion. "Goddidit". It does NOT follow the scientific process and is therefore not science! QE-fucking-D.
And if we are to teach "both sides of the argument", why stop there? Teach alchemy as well as chemistry. Teach phrenology as well as neurology. The difference of course being that alchemy and phrenology were more scientific than creationism!!
Well, that turned into somewhat of a rant. I'll hopefully be back in a day or two with some funny issue or another! You know, when something moderately interesting actually happens. Until then, all of you stuck in the mire of reality, I bid you adieu, I am off to infinite unreality for the week.
....you heard me.
- Fox
Replace a couple of choice words in there and you have the "science" that is being called to be taught in our countries schools. That's right, no longer is fundie insanity restricted to the redneck south of America, normal people are starting to turn as well. But how have they managed such a deed? Well, unfortunately the religious have a catch-all, 90% effective tactic that sways laymen in their favour: they break the ninth commandment.
Or to those of you whose biblical know-it-all has started to grow moss: they lie.
The trouble is the church doesn't cry outright to ban the teaching of evolution. They cry for both evolution AND creation to be taught in classrooms, making the rational squads cry for evolution only seem a tad discriminate. The church then pounces on this and claims persecution.
That's right! The church that brought you witch burnings and the Spanish Inquisition is now putting on the puppy dog eyes. And people are buying it. They don't understand why creation science can't be taught in science class!
So here it is in nice, simple English. Creationism is not science. Any theory, before it is taught in science classes, first has to go through the rigorous process of constant critique and evaluation in the scientific arena. Evolution, relativity, gravity, osmosis.... all have followed this process, as well as the scientific method:
- Hypothesis
- Repeatable testing
- Conclusions
- Edited hypothesis bases on conclusions.
Creationism jumps straight to conclusion. "Goddidit". It does NOT follow the scientific process and is therefore not science! QE-fucking-D.
And if we are to teach "both sides of the argument", why stop there? Teach alchemy as well as chemistry. Teach phrenology as well as neurology. The difference of course being that alchemy and phrenology were more scientific than creationism!!
Well, that turned into somewhat of a rant. I'll hopefully be back in a day or two with some funny issue or another! You know, when something moderately interesting actually happens. Until then, all of you stuck in the mire of reality, I bid you adieu, I am off to infinite unreality for the week.
....you heard me.
- Fox
Wednesday, 3 September 2008
Interesting Customer of the Week (The Return)
In between ranting about how shit everything is, and pondering how jealous the entire cosmos is of my brilliance, I tend to spend time earning money in a shop, unlike a good few of my readers you freeloading, sponge-esque fucks. And we do get some interesting customers, which you may have guessed if:
A) You've seen this feature before
B) You read the fucking title and have enough braincells to fathom out that this isn't about cream slices.
But we had one guy today who deserves a mention. Normal shopper, which equates basically as somebody who spent his youth giving himself sloppy blow-jobs as opposed to learning basic etiquette. The dialogue between us went as follows:
Him: Your stock's a bit shit isn't it?
Me: Don't shop here then.
I think that I am totally justified in my opinions that anybody I meet at work is a tosser who should take their dicks out of their eyes long enough to see that anybody who gets paid minimum wage doesn't give a fuck about their shitty, pointless, nit-pick observations about anything. To customers the world over "Fuck off to an island and never come back you ignorant twats."
-Az
A) You've seen this feature before
B) You read the fucking title and have enough braincells to fathom out that this isn't about cream slices.
But we had one guy today who deserves a mention. Normal shopper, which equates basically as somebody who spent his youth giving himself sloppy blow-jobs as opposed to learning basic etiquette. The dialogue between us went as follows:
Him: Your stock's a bit shit isn't it?
Me: Don't shop here then.
I think that I am totally justified in my opinions that anybody I meet at work is a tosser who should take their dicks out of their eyes long enough to see that anybody who gets paid minimum wage doesn't give a fuck about their shitty, pointless, nit-pick observations about anything. To customers the world over "Fuck off to an island and never come back you ignorant twats."
-Az
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