Digg.com took me to this awsome article on the mad as hell “Shelley the Republican” blog; Do conservative Americans really agree with Microsoft’s Steve Balmer that Linux is a Cancer? Perhaps some do, but I suspect this entire thing is a trollsome jape intended to extract mirth at the expense of the credulous.
If you intend to post a comment on this site I urge you to play along. There are far to many rebuttals of the author’s preposterous arguments. Anybody can refute an argument that is blatently incorrect. It takes real rhetorical power to argue for utter madness. I want somebody else to tell me why Linux is evil!
Monthly Archive for April, 2006
Most people imagine that the risk of being struck by lightning is somewhat similar to the risk of winning the National Lottery, or perhaps that of “close-encounters” style alien abduction. Anybody who has spent some time in a hospital burns unit will know that this blatantly untrue: In the UK, lightning strikes are frequent incidents – the victims mostly die instantly, but those who are not electrocuted usually make a complete recovery. I know this for a fact because about fifteen years I was struck by lightning, and have lived to tell the tale.
The people who most frequently become victims of lightning are golfers and mountaineers. The first category tend to be determined men who play through the rain. On a gently undulating golf course, a raised golf-club acts like a perfect lightning conductor; a metal spike which will guide the millions of volts through the sportsman’s arms and into his heart and lungs.
The second group attract the lightning because like the golfer, their metallic mountaineering kit provides a more convenient route for for the spark to cross from the clouds and the earth. Climbing axes and crampons provide an ideal form of earthing which makes the climber into a human lightning rod. In the case of the unfortunate mountaineer, he is more likely to be killed by a sudden fall then the electric shock.
When I was struck by lightning I was neither a mountaineer, nor a golfer: I was a schoolboy.
I attended a famous school called Repton. It’s famous for being the place where Roald Dahl got bullied (and became his inspiration for “Boy”). It was also the educational institution responsible for that pillar of society Jeremy Clarkson. Like most British private schools, Repton had a profitable arrangement with the Ministry of Defense.
If you get a chance to visit the Alexandra Palace Farmer’s Market, do please stop by the “Chocolate Alchemist” stall; As you might guess they sell organic chocolate products; This British company make a range of bizarrely spiced and beautifully packaged chocolate treats. I would certainly rate all of their products above mass-produced organic chocolates (e.g. Green and Blacks), as even their plain chcolates seem to have a distinctive smoothness lacking in high-end supermarket chocolates.
I took some hyper-coloured photos of their products which can be found here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/salimfadhley/sets/72057594114637940/
I hope the Chocolate Alchemists find my photoset and are so impressed that they decide to comission me to take more of their lovely products. In case they are reading this… I will work for chocolate!
I’ve been playing “Phoenix Wright, Ace Atorney” for Nintendo DS. This is Capcom’s revival of the interactive fiction genre, almost 20 years after Infocom’s golden age of IF.
Phoenix Wright is a playable legal-soap opera; where Ally McBeal style, you have to guide Phoenix and his pals around a series of investigations and courtroom interactions. Phoenix is a defense attorney
The real drama takes place in court where Phoenix has to do battle with his arch rival, Edgeworth the prosecutor. Edgeworth has a nasty habit of coaching his witnesses and creating false evidence. He just hates to loose.
This court is run by a credulous yet officious judge who seems to be willing to accept any of the prosecution witnesses’ testimonies on face value. Naturally it’s up to Phoenix to defend his clients (who are always innocent).
The courtroom drama unfolds when Phoenix gets to cross examine the witnesses. For each statement they make Phoenix can “Press” them for more details or “Present” some kind of evidence that contradicts their testimony. The way to win the game is by spotting these gaps and contradictions.
As with the best courtroom drama, the fun comes from the sudden reversal of fortunes; One minute you could be about to loose the case, but a single observation might be enough to turn the whole thing. Fortunately Capcom have provided a cast of odd and well-scripted characters whose plots all intertwine.
Of all the game machines I own, it’s the DS which seems to be getting the most on-time at the moment. My super-de-duper Athlon 64 gaming PC can give me spectacular graphics and immersive experiences, but the developers of such big titles seem to be obsessed with delivering hundreds of hours of repetitive “play it safe” gameplay.
On the other hand, Nintendo and it’s associates seem to be churning out no end of bizarre, innovative and highly playable games.
Yay Nintendo.
I found a pamphlet from an organisation called [the] “Citizen’s Commission on Human Rights“, an group that I was surprised to learn was an offshoot of that notorious fruity cult, The Church of Scientology.
You can click the link below to see a full-sized version of the scan hosted elsewhere:
According to the L. Ron Hubbard’s unauthorised biography (Bare Faced Messiah), the cult’s founder and author of pulp science-fiction novels had a profound loathing of all psychiatrists; The Church of Scientology was fequently the subject of critical reports by the American Psychiatric Association. Hubbard believed himself the victim of a conspiracy theory, masterminded by a cabal of scheeming psychiatrists.
For more information, I suggest you check out the informative Scientology episode of South-Park (which despite it’s reputation contains a very concise summary of what Scientologists actually believe). You might also peruse Frank Key’s excellent notes on that most bizarre of religions.
Our second night in Madeira brought us to this net festooned seafood restaurant in the “downtown” area of Funchal. We had been informed that it was exclusive and “an excellent choice”, far from the main tourist strip.
Instead we found ourselves in the middle of a crowd that might be more typical of Siducp or Skegness than a Portuguese colony off the coast of Africa.
The centrepiece of this restaurant is a giant circular lobster tank. Lethargic looking lobsters skanked around the cloudy aquarium. They languished in a pool of cloudy stagnant looking water, the lobster equivalent of death row.
What is worse than knowing you will die? Surely it is knowing that your innocent death will be for an unworthy cause. Fortunately molluscs cannot philosophise – only humans suffered in O Barqueiro
The lifeless black eyes of Belinda’s prawns stared at us in grim reproach. These invertebrates bore the signs of hideous crimes against food. Their accusing eyes told me that they had been lumped on a skillet and then grilled until chewy. They had not been cleaned or prepared in any way justifying the twenty Euro price-tag.
My “Cod Barqueiro” turned out to be a surprise. I was told to expect locally produced cod fillet, served in a piquant sauce made from shellfish. It was their majestic signature dish, the pinnacle of Portuguese seafood, an unforgettable gastronomic opportunity.
Instead I found an unfilleted lump of thick-skinned bony cod, plonked in a dish with bland-boiled potatoes. This dish was then scattered with a smattering of prawn, tough squid-rings and unidentifiable “fruits de la mere” and then drenched in a kind of stringy molten fondue-cheese which was grilled to a dull yellow-brown.
This were served with a small tray of what appeared to be oven chips. The overall appearance was that of a microwaved macaroni-cheese served in a trucker’s service station.
We picked at our meals, and decided not to bother. I took a photo of Belinda making a sick expression and glowering at her plate of overcooked, under cleaned prawns and then we asked for the bill.
Our plates were removed swiftly, not a word of “did you enjoy your meal”. Clearly the waiters did not expect us to derive pleasure from this cheesy mush. When the bill came we had been charged for a bottle of wine that we never ordered. The basket of garlic bread and fishcakes which we had assumed were complimentary turned out to be extras.
This has to be one of the worst restaurants we have ever attempted to eat at. As one of the island’s well appointed taxis sped us to our mountain hotel, we wondered what process might have lead the chef to drown our fish in cheese. Was this mere culinary incompetence or more likely genuine loathing of the silver-haired foreigners who were our fellow diners.