If you're reading this, you've probably read a lot of what I've written.

Are there any obvious gains I could make with my writing style? Is there anything relatively straightforward I could do to make what I write more readable?

If you have any particularly scathing comments, I'd still like to hear them, and anonymous posting is available if you want it.

(2 Comments |Comment on this)

Monkey Chatter
The tiger, it knew of a monkey
And the monkey, it knew of a snake
Which had heard, from a shrew
Of a tale which it knew
From a leopard which lived by a lake

For the leopard, it relished the telling
Of this story it couldn't forget
Which it swore that it heard
From the Paradise Bird
In whose pranks it would sometimes abet

See, the bird, while engaged in some antics
Or some capers of mischievous bent
Saw some zebras aground
That were horsing around
At the news of a funny event

The event they had heard of from termites
Who'd been told by a friendly baboon
Who had gossiped away
On a hot sunny day
With some crocodiles in the lagoon

Now the crocodiles knew some hyenas
Who had cornered a boar by a tree
But before things got gory
The boar told a story
In hope that they'd let it go free

And the story begain with a tiger
Being told by his simian friend
Of a tale which it knew
In which larks would ensue
But it couldn't remember the end

(1 Comment |Comment on this)

How d'you like your apps in the mornin'?
Some questions about apps, and what you like about them, and what you don't. I know the first few questions are a bit dichotomous, but I want to know which side it's best to err on. Please feel free to expand, expound and opine in comments.

(2 Comments |Comment on this)

A Study in Stationery
I'm a little bit too pleased with this.

( Inexplicable Artiness...Collapse )

(7 Comments |Comment on this)

I have a couple of boxes of roleplay books, mostly 2nd ed D&D Forgotten Realms and 2nd/3rd ed Vampire the Masquerade.

I've seen a few people try and shift their old RP books on here before. Is there any point in me trying or should I just recycle them?

(9 Comments |Comment on this)

Housemate Wanted - South Birmingham
Please feel free to forward this on to anyone you think might be interested.

My current housemate is looking to move into a place of her own at some point over the next month or two, so I'm in the market for a new one. I'd rather it be someone I have some sort of social connection with, hence plugging it here before anywhere else.

The house is in Stirchley (B30), about four miles south of the city centre, just off the Pershore Road. It's a very short walk from Bournville train station and practically on top of the 45/47 bus routes into town. The area is not especially pretty but it's quite safe and reasonably quiet. There are a lot of useful shops nearby, including a Co-op supermarket in walking distance.

Room is £450pcm all in. This includes rent, utilities, council tax, TV license, hot and cold running internet, cable TV and a bi-weekly cleaner.

Tidy-ish non-smoking professional preferred. Other housemate is me, fairly easygoing non-smoking technical professional in his late twenties.

All enquiries email me@rikkhill.com

(Comment on this)

Foaming Election Fever
Can anyone else simply not generate the enthusiasm to really, properly care about this election?

( This got terrifyingly long...Collapse )

(14 Comments |Comment on this)

Here's an interesting game for all of Thatcher's Reluctant Children on my Friends List who are dreading a Tory victory: what positive things will come out of a Conservative government?

If your immediate response is "nothing", you're not playing properly.

(12 Comments |Comment on this)

Sickness
I just thought of something so simultaneously funny and horribly tasteless that I daren't tell anyone. Given that a month ago I cheerfully shared a six-stanza poem about systematised animal cruelty, I'll let you extrapolate how bad it must have been.

I can't be the only person who comes up with things like that. Things that deserve to be shared with the world, but are so tasteless/sick/controversial that you don't want your name attached to them.

So, anonymous comments enabled, no IP logging, etc. A free venue for expressing the most disturbing produce of your brain. What seriously disturbed stuff have you thought up?

(11 Comments |Comment on this)

A seething hotbed of miscellany

(16 Comments |Comment on this)

Women: Know Your Limits
I don't normally propagate this sort of thing, but it's a subject I actually care about, so I figured I should make the effort.

March 24th is Ada Lovelace Day, dedicated to filling the blogosphere with recognition of the achievements of women in the sciences and technology.

Extending the boundaries of human knowledge by tiny progressive increments is a surprisingly thankless job, and it's only going to get more thankless as time goes on. Most scientific and technological discoveries made these days are team efforts claimed on behalf of institutions or commercial ventures, and the findings they make are often seen as quite abstract to those outside their field, regardless of how useful they are.

The age of scientist rockstars like Newton or Pasteur is in swift decline, and while this is good for the process of science, it's bad for the publicity of science. Would-be scientists need role models, but if you ask people to name the great historical contributors to science and technology you will probably be met with a list of men.

I don't have a lot of truck with mainstream feminism, mostly because it's intractably entrenched in the humanities. Look at any list of influential women of the 20th century and you might find Marie Curie, but you won't see any engineers or mathematicians. It's not that they don't exist; it's that the people who compile those lists have some seriously out-of-whack priorities. They don't know that the preliminary work into computational algebra in the 1930s was carried out by a woman, or that the first assembler language was created by a woman, or that the switching topology protocol the whole internet sits on was developed by a woman, because they don't know of the existence or importance of these things.

There is an impressive body of evidence (Rosenbloom, Pinker, Benbow/Lubinski, et al) suggesting that the more social, economic, academic and vocational choice women have, the more they systematically choose non-technical disciplines. I for one think this is a great shame and a terrible waste of talent. Role models and visibility of women in the sciences and technology are only one piece of a pretty complex puzzle, but as pieces go, it's pretty low-hanging fruit. How's that for a mixed metaphor?

Next Wednesday, I implore you to engage with this however you can. There are plenty of potential subjects to choose from. Pick a historical, contemporary or personally acquainted woman in the field of science or technology, and tell us about them. Maybe you have a favourite already. Maybe you have a family member who qualifies. Even if you don't write anything, have a hunt around for interesting blog posts on the subject. See what tickles your inquisitive fancy. Learn interesting things.

And when you do learn interesting things, tell your friends about them. Tell your work colleagues and drinking buddies. Tell your mum and dad. Most importantly, tell your daughters and sons and nieces and nephews. Inquiring minds need to know.

(3 Comments |Comment on this)

Some absolute cockbaskets just stole my hat. Scooped it off my head and legged it.

(6 Comments |Comment on this)

The Fundamental Things Apply

(2 Comments |Comment on this)

Twenty-ten. It's the future.

(11 Comments |Comment on this)

Brave New Years
I Want To Become Stronger.

This is my New Year Idiom for 2010, which is officially the future. Until 2011, at least, at which point it will be the past.

See you all over there.

(2 Comments |Comment on this)

I'm not really in a position to do a 2009 retrospective, or one for the past decade. I'm doing alright, though, all things considered.

Hope everyone has a lovely new year.

(Comment on this)

Things I Have Going For Me
- I'm old enough to be taken seriously, but young enough to wind people up.

- I'm in immaculate health.

- I have a nice place to live with a wonderful housemate (three-month pilot scheme pending).

- I have a job I enjoy and some great work colleagues. When I leave it, I'm highly employable with earning potential far beyond my needs.

- I have enough money in the bank that I don't need to worry about it.

- I am engaged in a stimulating field of academic study.

- Over my life I have accrued an awful lot of friends who will offer me support in times of hardship. I am exceedingly thankful for them.

- I can swing dance. Oh yeah, motherfucker.

- When I dare to delve into it, I have a pretty snazzy wardrobe.

- Birmingham, for all its detractors, is a lively, modern, clean, cosmopolitan, architecturally pleasant and economically vibrant city, and I like living in it.

- I can prepare tasty and imaginative food.

- Although they need a trim right now, I have amazing sideburns, even if they are ginger.

- I like who I am. I make good decisions without too much fuss, and for the most part I've done really well for myself.


Have I missed anything?

(3 Comments |Comment on this)

Endings and Beginnings
On December 26th 2009, Heather and I broke up.

This may come as a bit of a big surprise to some of you, because to the outside world we loved each other enormously and worked brilliantly together. This was entirely accurate. We still do love each other enormously and work brilliantly together, and we had two years, ten months and ten days which, on the whole, we wouldn't trade for anything. But we also want nothing more than to see each other happy, and if we're honest, we can't do that as a couple.

We still plan to live together, pending a successful three-month pilot scheme. We think we can make it work. We can't force our relationship to be something that it isn't, so we're instead letting it flourish as what it is.

Boy, does it hurt right now.

I can't speak for Heather, but I am definitely going to need some help. I am extremely amenable towards being invited to social events, cinema trips, drinks down the pub, or any other happenings which could benefit from the presence of a free agent fitting my description.

(12 Comments |Comment on this)

Quick check...
v = u + at
s = ut + ½at²
v² = u² + 2as
s = ½(u + v)t

What do you collectively call these?

Edit: This isn't a quiz or anything. I'm curious as to what people were taught to refer to these by. We had a perverse teacher at A-Level who taught us that the factorial function was called 'pling'. This sort of activity breeds distrust.

(17 Comments |Comment on this)

You know that song-lyric-insert-your-username-here thing?

Keep hitting refresh for hours of entertainment.

(5 Comments |Comment on this)