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| Saturday, June 20th, 2009 | | 10:26 am |
Democracy out of action
Democracy is not about harnessing the wisdom of the crowds. The notion that a crowd has wisdom can easily be dispelled by observing a crowd. In fact, the crowd is the biggest drawback in democracy, which is a terrible form of government. Anyone who's been paying attention to our own (UK) politicians can see that. And it appears that inevitably in a democracy, these are the kind of people you get as MPs. However, democracy has one important advantage, and this overrides any number of drawbacks - it prevents civil war. As long as everyone has hope that they can change their society by civilised discussion, by persuasion of the masses, by publicity, they have no need (or excuse?) to resort to arms. Since civil war is the most destructive process that can happen to a society, it should be avoided at all costs - even at the cost of having our MPs. In Iran, we've just seen the worst of both worlds. The 'wise' crowd has spoken, and doesn't feel it has been listened to. (With some justification, if they have been listening to the same reports I've been.) If the object of that government was to cause civil war, they've done their very best. I just don't know yet whether it has worked. B+ Current Mood:  aggravated | | Tuesday, June 9th, 2009 | | 7:33 pm |
Meme me
Jane Elizabeth Nicholson's Dewey Decimal Section:
004 Data processing & computer science
Class:
000 Computer Science, Information & General Works
Contains:
Encyclopedias, magazines, journals and books with quotations.
What it says about you:
You are very informative and up to date. You're working on living in the here and now, not the past. You go through a lot of changes. When you make a decision you can be very sure of yourself, maybe even stubborn, but your friends appreciate your honesty and resolve.
Find your Dewey Decimal Section at Spacefem.com Current Mood: i meme therefore i am | | 7:26 pm |
My result for The Steampunk Character Test...
Scientist9 Urban, -6 Physical, -2 Technophobic, -1 Belligerent and 16 HighClass! You are a scientist! Your mind bubbles with ever more ways to discern Creation's fundamental principles, and your daily workload is capable of frying the neurons of a casual reader. The income can be solid, but woe betide the scientist whose work lacks the appeal needed to obtain a sponsorship! Such a person might easily find themselves reduced to scrubbing apparata in their peers' laboratories for days on end. Scientists of the mad variety usually only suffer this sort of meddling in the final stages of their experimentation. Take The Steampunk Character Test at HelloQuizzy Current Mood: quisical | | Monday, May 25th, 2009 | | 8:18 am |
| | Sunday, May 17th, 2009 | | 3:46 pm |
| | Monday, April 13th, 2009 | | 5:10 pm |
I Am A Neutral Good Elf Wizard/Cleric (2nd/2nd Level)
Ability Scores:Strength-12 Dexterity-11 Constitution-10 Intelligence-18 Wisdom-14 Charisma-14 Alignment:Neutral Good A neutral good character does the best that a good person can do. He is devoted to helping others. He works with kings and magistrates but does not feel beholden to them. Neutral good is the best alignment you can be because it means doing what is good without bias for or against order. However, neutral good can be a dangerous alignment because it advances mediocrity by limiting the actions of the truly capable. Race:Elves are known for their poetry, song, and magical arts, but when danger threatens they show great skill with weapons and strategy. Elves can live to be over 700 years old and, by human standards, are slow to make friends and enemies, and even slower to forget them. Elves are slim and stand 4.5 to 5.5 feet tall. They have no facial or body hair, prefer comfortable clothes, and possess unearthly grace. Many others races find them hauntingly beautiful. Primary Class:Wizards are arcane spellcasters who depend on intensive study to create their magic. To wizards, magic is not a talent but a difficult, rewarding art. When they are prepared for battle, wizards can use their spells to devastating effect. When caught by surprise, they are vulnerable. The wizard's strength is her spells, everything else is secondary. She learns new spells as she experiments and grows in experience, and she can also learn them from other wizards. In addition, over time a wizard learns to manipulate her spells so they go farther, work better, or are improved in some other way. A wizard can call a familiar- a small, magical, animal companion that serves her. With a high Intelligence, wizards are capable of casting very high levels of spells. Secondary Class:Clerics act as intermediaries between the earthly and the divine (or infernal) worlds. A good cleric helps those in need, while an evil cleric seeks to spread his patron's vision of evil across the world. All clerics can heal wounds and bring people back from the brink of death, and powerful clerics can even raise the dead. Likewise, all clerics have authority over undead creatures, and they can turn away or even destroy these creatures. Clerics are trained in the use of simple weapons, and can use all forms of armor and shields without penalty, since armor does not interfere with the casting of divine spells. In addition to his normal complement of spells, every cleric chooses to focus on two of his deity's domains. These domains grants the cleric special powers, and give him access to spells that he might otherwise never learn. A cleric's Wisdom score should be high, since this determines the maximum spell level that he can cast. Find out What Kind of Dungeons and Dragons Character Would You Be?, courtesy of Easydamus (e-mail) | | Thursday, April 9th, 2009 | | 4:46 pm |
Courgettes
Today, for the first time, the organic veges were the free flow ones rather than the pre-packaged ones. In packets of 1,000,000. Because that's who's buying organics! Incidentally, courgettes feel sticky but actually have a nonstick surface, as both the 'organic' label and the price sticker will attest. We should be able to harness that as a power supply... Posted via LiveJournal.app. | | Friday, April 3rd, 2009 | | 7:13 pm |
FTW
M recently explained this internet meme to me. I'm still not sure whether I should be using it in a strictly ironic sense. I recently found a copy of The Sims 2 Free Time in a second hand shop. Not quite 50% off, but pretty close, and I'd been wanting it for a while. So I dithered for a while and then bought it. This also frees me from the fear of the scratches that are currently on my The Sims 2 Seasons disc after it hung around with me in the bottom of my bag for a couple of weeks while I vaguely searched for it elsewhere. Stupid falling off the couch arm into my bag when I'm not looking. I took it home, installed it, played it, all is well. Then I decided to register it (because I quite like EA, and I don't mind giving them information about my preferences so that they can build more games that I will like). No. The registration key is already in use. Well, yeah, it would be. I mean, the first person it own it probably registered it - why wouldn't he? Or she - apparently The Sims is much more a girly game. So I wrote to the forums, asking them to fix it so that I could register. They came back with that the game can't be used to create another account, that I should have got the account name/password from the seller, and that they don't encourage people to buy second-hand games. I pointed out that in was in their interests for me to register, that there was nothing illegal or immoral about buying second-hand goods, and that they should have a policy that makes this transfer possible. Also, I wanted all my games to be under the same account - I wasn't trying to create a new one. I wanted it linked to me so that they had the marketing information that they want. They came back with essentially the same response. I could buy a new serial number for 10£ (this would bring the total paid for the game to over the retail price) provided that I also sent them the old manual with the old serial number etc. I thought this was ridiculous and said so. I pointed out that it was in their interests, and that gamers are starting to dislike this kind of behaviour, and had they learned nothing from Spore? The came back with the same answer. I pointed out that they weren't answering my actual questions, and could they struggle to resist the temptation to answer questions I wasn't asking. They escalated to management. Management challenged me to send photos of receipt, case, manual and disc, to prove I was legit. Then maybe they would be able to do something. So I sent them photos. It's hard to take good photos of the manual with serial number; it appears to be designed to resist photocopying... I reiterated that I wasn't really after a new serial number, but I wanted their process to cope with transfer of ownership of a game. This is a right protected in Britain by the Exhaustion Doctrine, which is sometimes known in the US as the Doctrine of First Sale. They sent me a new serial number. Then they said this was a one-time only thing, that they didn't intend to have any way of allowing people to do this in future. I thought about telling them where to shove their serial number. Then I waited until I had calmed down. I registered the game, after making sure that all my old games were included in my new account (they seem to have changed their account server, and it took a long time to even find my right account). M pointed out that I had wasted sufficient of their time to account for at least one new purchase of the game, and if everyone did what I did, they would eventually change their policies. In essence, I had done all I could as a consumer to change their policies. FTW! Now it's up to the rest of you... Current Mood:  satisfiedCurrent Music: The Buzz Report | | Friday, March 6th, 2009 | | 10:40 pm |
Confluence
It's entirely possible that no-one else in the world saw this particular event-set: John Scalzi is wondering where that smell is coming from. about an hour ago - Comment - Like Current Mood: whimsical | | Thursday, January 1st, 2009 | | 3:04 pm |
| | Sunday, December 7th, 2008 | | 10:31 am |
ID
 At the bottom of an Ebert review in the Chicago Sunday Times. Current Mood: amused | | Thursday, December 4th, 2008 | | 7:55 am |
3G
Signal is significantly better from the top deck of a London bus. Posted via LiveJournal.app. | | Tuesday, December 2nd, 2008 | | 5:02 pm |
| | 4:49 pm |
| | Monday, December 1st, 2008 | | 1:51 pm |
| | 1:51 pm |
| | Tuesday, November 11th, 2008 | | 8:21 pm |
Mayor's show in Paternoster Square
As I was walking home on Friday evening I noticed the preparations for the annual fair goes on in Paternoster Square. There happened to be a vendor cart with a slogan along the side "A TOUCH OF CLASS". Sadly, the font they had chosen made all the Cs look like Gs, which makes for a rather unfortunate sentiment. Current Mood: bemused | | Wednesday, October 15th, 2008 | | 8:02 pm |
Well that will be interesting when I start playing again...
Your result for Which Vampire the Masquerade Clan Are You?... The Deceivers {Ravnos}8 Assamite, 4 Brujah, 3 Gangrel, 8 Malkavian, 10 Nosferatu, 11 Toreador, 12 Tremere, 12 Ventrue, 3 Lasombra, 10 Tzimisce, 9 Setites, 5 Giovanni and 13 Ravnos! The wickedly black Ravnos clan rely on illusion. Like the gypsies of old they use the greatest tool of all, the con. They know that things are rarely as they seem and they rely on this to get by. They tend to say exactly what they mean and mean exactly what they say. To assume anything beyond what has been stated is foolhardy at best when dealing with the Ravnos. Everything is about perception to them and karmatic action is very important to them. They see death as a natural part of life and they believe that you should never take pity on a sucker. For you to be a Ravnos means that you rely on deception and perception. You love to test those around you and you have no problem cheating at cards. The most important thing is for you to come out on top. You are always looking for the quick buck and for this reason I hope the luck is about you. Like all gypsies you follow your own moral code that outsiders wouldn't understand, be you natural Rom or not. So the question is, are you holding two aces or two duces? Take Which Vampire the Masquerade Clan Are You? at HelloQuizzy Current Mood: bemused | | Tuesday, October 7th, 2008 | | 4:10 pm |
Where would I be without my LJ friends to give me quizzes to take...
... oh yeah, working... Your result for The Classic Dames Test... Katharine HepburnYou scored 17% grit, 33% wit, 52% flair, and 7% class! 
You are the fabulously quirky and independent woman of character. You go your own way, follow your own drummer, take your own lead. You stand head and shoulders next to your partner, but you are perfectly willing and able to stand alone. Others might be more classically beautiful or conventionally woman-like, but you possess a more fundamental common sense and off-kilter charm, making interesting men fall at your feet. You can pick them up or leave them there as you see fit. You share the screen with the likes of Spencer Tracy and Cary Grant, thinking men who like strong women.
Find out what kind of classic leading man you'd make by taking the
Classic Leading Man Test.
Take The Classic Dames Test at HelloQuizzy Your result for The Classic Leading Man Test... Cary GrantYou scored 5% Tough, 14% Roguish, 29% Friendly, and 52% Charming! 
You are the epitome of charm and style, the smooth operator who steals the show with your sophisticated wit, quiet confidence and flirty sense of humor. You are able to catch any woman you want just by flashing that disarming smile, even if you're flashing it at a kindly aunt or engaging child at the time. When you walk into a room, women are instantly intrigued and even the men are impressed, but you're too nice a guy to steal anyone else's girl...unless the guy deserves it. You're stylish, yes, but you can also be a little bit nutty. However, you're primarily seen as dashing, suave and romantic. Your co-stars include Katharine Hepburn, Audrey Hepburn, and Grace Kelly, stylish women with a sense of fun.
Find out what kind of classic dame you'd make by taking the
Classic Dames Test.
Take The Classic Leading Man Test at HelloQuizzy Current Mood:  bored | | Monday, September 22nd, 2008 | | 10:26 pm |
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