Oh man how cool is this?

So, yesterday I picked up a second-hand first generation iPhone. This post has been written on it using the wordpress for iPhone application.

How cool is that?

You couldn’t make this stuff up

"It don't gitmo better" - photo from Reuters

truth really is stranger than fiction - but that’s a post for another day

Congratulations Fuzzy

I’ve always wanted to be a proper published author. Well Fuzzy’s beaten me to it.

But then again - I’d rather file my teeth than write the book he did.

I’m sure it’s an unputdownable rivetting read… really.

Calvin and Hobbes

Or Calvin and Jobs?

My euphemism is less insulting than your euphemism

Fuzzy has quite accurately summarised part of our dinner discussion about the word “chav” and why it might/might not be offensive.

We both thought the recent commentators had missed the point, by claiming that “chav” was a derogatory term for the whole working class - because it really isn’t - it’s a derogatory term for the working class that have enough money to start appropriating the brands and markers of the upper class (Burberry, Louis Vuitton etc) so it’s really a way of making sure we can all identify the upstarts.

(When I was a kid I went to a terribly, terribly posh school populated almost entirely with Embassy brats with double-barreled surnames - they used to refer to people who were NQTD “not quite top drawer” in the same way.)

Getting back to my point - Chav is just a euphemism - in the same way that NQTD was a euphemism, and they come and go - ban one word, because it’s insulting, replace it with a new word and over time, the new word will be used in an insulting manner…

Think about

• “Retarded”
• Special Olympics”
• “Differently abled”
• “xxx Challenged”

At some point all of these were the polite terms - they replaced the offensive, and, over time, became offensive themselves.

As Fuzzy says - it’s all just sound waves, it’s not the word that’s the problem - it’s the way it’s used. So perhaps we should worry less about whether the word “chav” is offensive, and worry more about teaching people manners.

Everyone loves puppies

My mum and dad got a new puppy last night.

(note: not actual puppy - although I’m told she looks just like this…)

Her name is Peggy, and she’s a West Highland Terrier. I don’t know much more because mum and dad were too busy laughing at her various antics to be able to talk clearly.

I’m looking forward to meeting her.

Topless Dwarf redux

and that’s all I’m saying on the matter.

(picture brought to you by The Newspaper Clipping Generator)

Researchers find the dim more likely to believe in God

Belief in God is much lower among academics than among the general population because scholars have higher IQs, a controversial academic claimed this week.

From the Times Higher Ed Supplement

My favourite bit of the article is this comment

David Hardman, principal lecturer in learning development at London Metropolitan University, said: “It is very difficult to conduct true experiments that would explicate a causal relationship between IQ and religious belief. Nonetheless, there is evidence from other domains that higher levels of intelligence are associated with a greater ability - or perhaps willingness - to question and overturn strongly felt intuitions.”

As the Reg says

Next week: exclusive Reg research reveals the link between obesity and love of cake.

Now let’s just wait for the Theists to come out shouting…

just how old is D&D

It’s an ancient Roman Gaming Die - Historians still don’t know what game it was used for…

I’ve got a few ideas…

Hârnmaster anyone?

(The die was on sale at Christie’s)

Is the internet changing the way we think?

There’s a very interesting article over at the Atlantic Online, Is Google Making Us Stupid? which raises some questions about how our interaction with, and use of technology can not only change the way we work with information, but also how we process it - in essence changing the way we think.

This isn’t actually a new phenomenon - When we began to use written texts much more heavily for information transference, over the spoken word - it freed the audience to begin to use the information in non-linear ways. In essence it became much easier to see that B did not have to follow A.

The article rang a bell with me for two reasons, firstly, like the author and many of the people he interviewed I was a voracious reader who quite happily devoured long, complicated books, or articles in a single totally absorbed session.

The difference is - despite spending at least as much time online enmeshed in the internet as any of the people in the article - I still read that way. So *I* haven’t experienced the sense of losing that ability to concentrate he describes.

The second reason is to do with that fact that - as a professional writer - I know how much the internet has changed my work, and to some extent my life - I don’t have to remember the pithy quote, the fun fact, or the relevant statistic - I can look it up, anywhere, anytime. That means I have much more time for actually constructing an interesting and well written piece… But - I no longer rely on my own ability to remember things - and how can I tell if the information I find is right?

What do you think - is the internet changing the way you think? Is it better or worse?

Is Google making us stupid?