Arcoarena

Update

Well, that’s a little better.
I’m not sure what upgrading actually got me (nothing as far as I can see)

On the plus side comments now appear to work again.

More later

Comments

Hmmm,

The comments don’t appear to be working for anyone other than me. I can see them (via phpMyAdmin) so the comments get put in, they just don’t get displayed. How irritating. I’ll try and fix it when I get time. I might even upgrade/change the system

Anyhow. For now, I can read them, you can’t.

Comfortable?

–Comfortable?

–Comfortable? How can I be comfortable? I have a large piece of metal in my arm and I’m bleeding!

Ok so it didn’t go like that, but that’s what I though about. It’s actually not that bad really. When it goes into your arm it hurts a little but other than that it’s fine.

If anybody hasn’t guessed by now, I gave blood last night. The only really wierd thing is the National Blood Services web address blood.co.uk. What ever happened to .org?

Narf

From a comment on Slashdot

-Pinky, are you thinking what I’m thinking?
-Narf, I think so Brain, but where are we going to get enough punchcard ballot machines for all the voters in Florida by midnight November 1st?

French drink-drive hosts cleared

French drink-drive hosts cleared - A French court clears a couple who failed to stop a drunk friend driving home and killing a family in a crash. [BBC News]

It has to be admitted that sometimes people (and I include myself in this) lack social responsibility. The case of a woman that lay bleeding by a roadside whilst atleast 12 drivers passed (some even having to swerve to avoid her then continuing on) is a very good example. There is however the other side of the coin where people have to take responsibility for their own actions. The idea of the couple actually being found guilty is quite scary. How about prosecuting gun-shop owners when shootings happen?

Admittedly not the best contrast in examples (the unconscious woman could hardly ‘take responsibility for herself’) but you get what I mean

Spelling Mistakes?

We saw some brilliant spelling mistakes/ translation in China for example the sign at the top of the escalator that said

“The tartness cannot be protruded from the edge of the staircase”

On that subject how about this

“With mouth on or click on the keys, the advantages of V850 series will be shown”

Allusions to those sorts of things are not what NEC want on their website I imagine

Justification

Now this is something I have been wanting to put into writing for a while now. Recently certain groups of people, namely smokers and fox-hunters (but I’m not going to talk about that), have been campaigning against various degrees of bans on their activities. I personally don’t agree with either but I shall try and keep this aside. What I want to do is focus upon what I see as some of the very dubious justifications used by the participants.

The first one of two I’m going to talk/(moan) about is the one used by smokers. In the Times recently (can’t remember which day) the age-old argument of ‘why do smokers get to take smoking breaks but I don’t get fresh-air breaks’ resurfaced. I don’t want to get too deep into it but one of the justifications used by the smokers interested me. Apparently smokers only spend around 10 minutes three times a day (or whatever) smoking and the rest of the time working solidly with no interruption of wavering. The argument that ‘non-smoking colleagues chat to their mates so I can smoke’ doesn’t work unless all smokers only have smokers as friends and are capable of super-human acts of concentration. Whilst some of the 10 minutes smoking might replace other breaks I’m fairly certain not all of it does.

The second point is choice. Smokers say, ‘it’s my choice’. The point being as John Donne said “No man is an island, entire of itself”. I find cigarette smoke entirely unpleasant and I really hate people smoking near me. What choice do I have in that? I accept that a ban in pubs and clubs would be silly but anywhere else it would make my life more pleasant, again not quite the point though however I think ethics is on my side since even secondary smoking causes health problems. The idea of choice is fine until real life comes into the equation. I don’t want to have to breathe in other peoples cigarette smoke even if they would choose to do it themselves. In an age when one can’t even choose to play loud music late at night without having environmental health coming round how is smoking allowed? I might just try that next time someone is smoking next to me….

Student targets ‘breach rights’

Student targets ‘breach rights’ - Universities which “discriminate” against private school pupils could be in breach of human rights, a report says. [BBC News]

There is something inherently stupid about this situation. Universities could be in break of the human rights act if they discriminate against public school pupils (in order to admit a larger number of state school pupils).

However, the government has set targets to admit a certain proportion of state school pupils, which, if not met the universities may incur financial penalties (including the loss of the right to charge top-up fees).

Now look at those two paragraphs. How do you both meet targets of admission of state school pupils and not discriminate against public school pupils. If the targets would be met without any form of positive discrimination towards state school pupils the targets wouldn’t exist.

As far as I can see the universities are in a bit of a corner here. Whatever they do they loose out somehow.

Money

Recently money appears to have disappeared into nowhere, huge amounts of it too. Well, when I say nowhere I kinda mean deposit for flat, rent x2, sofa, blinds, various house-type things, washer/dryer, food etc. All this adds up.

The end here hopefully, from now on I hope that when I update my finance program thingy I’ll be up each month. It’s pay day today. Yay, I now have money (well a little more anyway). Andrea now has a job too, as a stewardess of South West trains. This does have a downside though as for the next few nights she’s out until late working and so I’ll be on my own. I can feel a take-away coming on.