uncategorical

I Have Moved

2004-03-31T01:34:26Z

My new blog is point2point.

Please come visit. I have moved on to a prettier place.

Water Problems at the Oasis of Corporate Health

2004-03-29T23:59:14Z

Last Thursday I was given one day’s notice at the temp job where I had been working for six months. Since my assignment was originally supposed to be over last December, I can’t really complain.

Today I started a new assignment at a building that I have previously described as the most ugly building in the world, but which the BBC, on the other hand, considers an
oasis of corporate fitness. Apparently uglier buildings make for prettier occupants. This particular complex has always reminded me of the Victorian lunatic asylum where my mother used to work.

But this post is not about aesthetics. It’s about my drug test.

I was supposed to take a drug test this morning before going on to the workplace, so I did what I always do before a drug test: I drank inordinate amounts of water so that I would be able to pee on demand.

I drank five pints of water and then I went down to the lab. Unfortunately, it being a Monday morning, there was rather a long wait. After a while, I was desperate to pee. “Aha, this must be what it’s like to be pregnant,” I thought to myself, “It truly sucks.”

After about half an hour I felt as if I might burst at any moment and I gave up. I made my way in excruciating discomfort to the nearest toilet. Sweet relief. Afterwards I went back to the lab and was told to go away and drink more water and come back in at least half an hour.

So I drank the remaining three pints of the gallon of water that I had brought in the car and came back about 40 minutes later and gave them what they wanted. Then I went to work. I arrived about an hour later than I had intended but I had no idea that I was considered late because I didn’t think that they would expect me to take the drug test and still be there on time, even under optimal circumstances. Normally, I would have apologized profusely for being late but in this case I had no idea that I was even considered late. I only knew that I wasn’t as early as I had originally planned.

During the remaining three hours of the four-hour shift I had to go to the restroom twice more because of the cumulated effect of drinking so much water. I took no other breaks.

When I got home from work I received a phone call from the temp agency telling me that I didn’t need to go back tomorrow.

I was fired because of a drug test that I passed.

The Best Of You

2004-03-28T15:51:04Z

Fellow Bloggers, you have until midnight tonight to submit a post to the latest BestOfMe Sympnony, which will be held at Rocket Jones. You can also submit a post from someone else's blog if you prefer.

Food for Thought

2004-03-27T17:57:10Z

Francis Wheen has written a short piece on the Top Ten Modern Delusions that is well worth perusal, although I don’t agree with him entirely. Here is his list:

1. "God is on our side"
2. The market is rational
3. There is no such thing as reality
4. We mustn't be "judgmental"
5. Laissez-faire capitalism is the prerequisite for trade and prosperity
6. Astrology and similar delusions are "harmless fun"
7. Thin air is solid
8. Sentimental hysteria is a sign of emotional maturity
9. America's economic success is entirely due to private enterprise
10. "It could be you. . ."

Some of these headings won’t make a lot of sense unless you read the whole article.

Child Abuse (No Comment Necessary)

2004-03-25T02:18:06Z

From the Haaretz Daily:

"Israel Defense Forces paratroopers caught a Palestinian boy aged 14 wearing an explosive belt at the Hawara roadblock, south of Nablus, in the West Bank on Wednesday afternoon. . . . (snip)

Abdu told soldiers of his dream of receiving 72 virgins in heaven, which his dispatchers had promised him, and said that he had been tempted by the promise of sexual relations with the virgins. He said that he had been bullied at school for his poor academic performance and that he had wanted 'to be a hero.'

The commander of the Paratroopers Brigade, Lieutenant Colonel 'Guy,' told Haaretz that the boy was apparently instructed to set off the explosives he was wearing among the soldiers.

It appears that he was afraid to detonate the bomb at the site, as he was surrounded by Palestinians and the soldiers were too far away. Lieutenant Colonel 'Guy' added that the 'level of awareness' of the soldiers prevented a serious terrorist attack.

The family of the boy said that he was gullible. 'He doesn't know anything,' his brother, Hosni, said." read the rest

The Secret of My Success (as a Failure)

2004-03-22T13:40:42Z

For those of us ordinary folks who are not part of any privileged elite, the secret of maintaining sanity in the modern world is really fairly simple. It is a matter of balance. Equilibrium.

You have to balance the depression against the stress. The key to survival is to use them as mutual antidotes. You want to avoid getting so completely depressed that you are unable to function. Stress is the answer. Stress will keep you moving. On the other hand, you want to avoid getting so stressed out that you explode and do someone some serious damage. That is where depression can be a lifesaver.

I have found in my investigations that as long as one does not allow either one of these devils to get the upper hand, a single organism can carry almost infinite amounts of both stress and depression without ever completely yielding. I find in particular that the stress of having an out of control 11-year-old autistic child and the depression of being unable to find work complement each other in a most agreeable manner, thus enabling the particular organism under consideration to achieve a level of sustained and maximized futility that I can only describe (and yes, I am patting myself on the back a little here) as a marvel of the modern world.

Two solutions to stress and depression are Rocky and Bullwinkle, so check out the Bestofme Symphony 16 now up at Practical Penumbra.

Links

2004-03-22T00:15:05Z

If you link to me, email me at gclester@excite .com and I will link back to almost any blog (no nudity, hate, illegality though), whether you agree with my views or not. However, you must let me know that you have linked because I do not track my traffic.

My Limericks . . . Blog of Death . . . Stephen Pollard . . . Doggerel Pundit . . . 2 Blowhards . . . Puzzle Blog . . . Dean’s World . . . A Small Victory . . . Asymmetrical Info . . . Pickle Juice . . . Iain Murray . . . Baldilocks . . . Halley’s Comment . . . Because I Say So! . . . Sensitive Light . . . Tiger Raggin’ & Rantin’ . . . Outside the Beltway . . . Wizbang . . . Secular Islam . . . Big’n Juicy . . . Signal+Noise . . . Silflay Hraka . . . BrazosCantina . . . Mudville Gazette . . . Peoria Pundit . . . Sasha Castel . . . ChasingDaisy . . . Reflections in D Minor . . . Chaffinches . . . Absinthe&Cookies . . . Classical Values . . . Sharp Knife . . . Little Tiny Lies . . . Drumwaster . . . IMAO

See My Full Link List

grahamlester @ 2004-03-20T20:24:00

2004-03-21T02:23:51Z

Here’s an interesting story from New Scientist about an IT consultant’s one-man war against online pedophiles. He’s developed a program called ChatNannies. It creates spin-off applications called nanniebots, which pose as children initiating chatroom conversations. The nanniebots analyze responses from other chatroom participants and report anything suspicious. The inventor, Jim Wightman, claims that none of the 2,000 chatroom participants who have interacted with the nanniebots has caught them out so far. Story here.

Here’s a pair of fun sites where you can design your own bumper stickers and T-shirts. Great for fundraisers.

Saturday Evening Post

2004-03-20T20:47:04Z

Want some free exposure for your blog? Enter one of your favorite posts in the 16th Bestofme Symphony at Practical Penumbra.

Need a good laugh? The Emily Chesley Reading Circle is one of the best humor sites I’ve found. Start with the Letters of Annoyance section.

Or, if you prefer visual humor, check out these cartoons from Cleft Cartoons.

And in science news: British Scientists Decide that Bath is Best Place to Put Uranus.

Eternal Vigilance Meets Infinite Incompetence

2004-03-20T00:44:22Z

Eternal Vigilance US-Style
Eternal Vigilance French-Style
Eternal Vigilance British-Style

Because They’re There. . . African Blogs

2004-03-19T23:16:31Z

Here are ten blogs that are either based in Africa or written by Africans (in many cases both). All of these are well worth a visit. Have fun! If you’d like to recommend more African blogs, add their addresses in the comments.

Africa Blog
Cathy Buckle
Aderemi’s Notebook
Ethan Zuckerman
A Taste of Africa
Uganisha
Nehanda Dreams
Kenyan Pundit
Southern Cross

You can find more African blogs here.

For Saint Patrick's Day

2004-03-18T02:43:09Z

An Englishman, A Scotsman, and an Irishman go into a pub, and each orders a Guinness.

As they’re about to begin drinking, a fly lands on the head of each pint.

The Englishman pushes his pint away in disgust.

The Scotsman picks the fly from the glass, tosses it away, and downs his drink.

The Irishman picks out the fly, holds it up close to his face, and shouts:

“Spit it out ya little bastard. Spit it out!”

Monday Monday

2004-03-16T00:43:48Z

Where did the water on Mars come from? A difficult question to answer because it turns out that we’re not at all sure where the water on Earth came from.

A correlation between the establishment of casinos and a doubling in personal bankruptcy filings in the surrounding area.

How humane is lethal injection? It looks as if states that use pancuronium bromide had better consider switching to sodium pentobarbitol if they want to avoid accusations of cruel and unusual punishment.

Robin Picks Wrong Hood

British MPs Offered Amnesty In China Corruption Probe

2004-03-14T01:42:09Z

You’ve doubtless heard of the Teapot Dome Scandal. Well, we Brits have our own version. At least there’s no crumpet involved. Credit to Tom Watson, the Member of Parliament who blew the whistle on this perfidy.

Absorbing Site

2004-03-14T01:10:42Z

Courtesy of Waving at Myself, I just found this remarkably intriguing site.

Quick Rant About It All

2004-03-13T23:04:04Z

Well, this should be interesting. We’re going to have an election that’s largely about the economy fought between two contestants neither one of whom seems to know anything at all about economics.

Gay marriage? A massive and acrimonious public debate about what label to apply to gay couples. Are “civil union” and “marriage” not just two labels for the same state? What does the label have to do with the essence? Allowing gays to use the word “marriage” for their unions will have no effect whatsoever on heterosexual marriages.

It’s an interesting gamble though. Republican strategists and gay activists seem to have quite different interpretations as to the mood of the public. One side thinks going anti-gay will help garner more votes while the other thinks that society has progressed to the point that gay marriage will be officially tolerated. I tend to think that the Republicans have underestimated the speed at which cultural norms are shifting. I think that most Americans would prefer to just let gays make their own choices. We have been told so many times that the toleration of homosexuality will cause the sky to fall, but it hasn’t fallen yet. I think most of us would just like to try treating them with a bit of respect for a change.

I am embarrassed by Bush’s support for an anti-gay marriage amendment, but it doesn’t anger me because my gut feeling is that he sincerely believes that gay marriage is a violation of God’s will. Kerry’s opposition to gay marriage, however, seems to me to rest on no spiritual conviction. He is not against homosexuality as such but only against supporting gays when they want his to endorse changes that might cost him votes. So I think that Kerry’s stance is cowardly whereas Bush’s is just wrongheaded. I think that the Republican strategists are taking advantage of Bush’s Christian beliefs in a way that is rather ill advised.

I also think that the Republicans missed a major windfall this week. If they had not launched this silly “900 billion dollar” negative ad, Kerry’s “worst bunch of crooks” remark could have seriously damaged him. The use of negative ads by the Republicans so early in the campaign has prevented them from gaining the moral high ground.

I thought that Kerry came across as aristocratic in the worst possible way – the educated snob telling the dumb blue-collar workers how to think. It reminded me of Graham Chapman in the Monty Python North Minehead By-Election sketch (the part where he’s dressed in important looking clothes and mingling with the crowd and making supportive remarks about the candidate).

As for Martha Stewart, it’s just another example of why it is that Americans are so afraid of their government. Here’s a woman who was convicted of lying about nothing to a bunch of jerks who were trying to frame her for what wasn’t even a crime in the first place. She’s famous and has a bad temper so she goes to jail to teach us all a lesson. Dream your American dream boys and girls but don’t think that you can ever be totally free from the possibility of a selective prosecution. We’ll reinterpret the criminal statutes however we need to if we want to get you bad enough. The Stewart case is a considerable threat to civil liberties because it sours the dream for everyone.

I can’t think of a more honest business than teaching ordinary people how to improve the quality of their lives. But then again, somehow I always knew that style was a sin and not to be tolerated. If Stewart had been a pornographer or the leader of a religious cult, the whole world would have leapt to her defense. And thousands of shareholders lost a total of over 10,000 times as much money as a result of the prosecution than she saved by dumping Inclone. Go figure.

Links

2004-03-03T01:46:49Z

My Limericks . . . Stephen Pollard . . . Doggerel Pundit . . . 2 Blowhards . . . Puzzle Blog . . . Dean’s World . . . A Small Victory . . . Asymmetrical Info . . . Pickle Juice . . . Iain Murray . . . Baldilocks . . . JewelsMommy . . . Halley’s Comment . . . Because I Say So! . . . Sensitive Light . . . Tiger Raggin’ & Rantin’ . . . Outside the Beltway . . . Wizbang . . . Secular Islam . . . Big’n Juicy . . . Signal+Noise . . . Silflay Hraka . . . BrazosCantina . . . Mudville Gazette . . . Peoria Pundit . . . Sasha Castel . . . ChasingDaisy . . . Reflections in D Minor . . . Chaffinches . . . Absinthe&Cookies . . . Classical Values . . . Sharp Knife . . . Little Tiny Lies . . . Drumwaster . . . IMAO

See My Full Link List

This and That

2004-02-28T15:35:58Z

Some fascinating articles from the Guardian. This could be a major scandal:

Are the Americans Bugging the UN?

Are the British bugging the UN?

Is the UN bugging the UN? According to
this article, the British, the Americans, the Russians, the French, the Canadians, the Australians, and even New Zealand, are all at it.

And why aren’t the American press interested? A synopsis from Norman Solomon.

Some stories from the ever-interesting Science Blog:

The effect of Stress on the body as a possible explanation for Gulf War Syndrome.

The human brain as a potential source for stem cells

The fundamentalists’ worst nightmare: evolution in the lab.

And another science story from the BBC on the free radicals: were they framed?

On the subject of being framed, Snopes sets the record straight (the military record, that is) on John Kerry.

For balance, they also have a nice touchy feely story about George W.

Here’s a really useful site that advises on the most effective ways to search the web, depending on what type of information you require.

Ronald Bailey has the last word on the farmed salmon controversy.

And here’s a stimulating Ronald Bailey essay on Malthus and the law of increasing returns.

[You can permalink an entry by clicking on Calendar Link at the top of the page and then clicking on the date of the entry. Click for my blogroll and links page.]

Round Up

2004-02-16T16:49:06Z

Here’s a cute idea. Check out the Hype Gallery, which displays artworks emailed in from all over the world.

Ever wanted to write a book? This site will give you a short but not so sweet introduction to the realities of the publishing industry.

Need a logo? Here’s an excellent primer on how to design one.

More on publishing. The Washington Post’s Off the Page, a series of interviews with contemporary novelists, is always a worthwhile read.

News of a study suggesting that prenatal maternal exposure to fumes from leaded gasoline may significantly increase a child’s risk of developing schizophrenia.

Here’s a synopsis of the Kerry intern allegations that I found quite interesting. We shall see if anything substantial develops from it all.

Snippy Snippets

2004-02-07T19:40:25Z

The British are winning the space race thanks to two resourceful individuals who have apparently collected more of yer actual chunks of yer actual Mars than they know what to do with. And all for about a millionth of the price of the NASA program.

The controversy over Vitamin E continues to rage. A recent study suggests that taking Vitamin E together with Vitamin C can decrease your risk of developing Alzheimer’s. But you might want to avoid supplements and stick with reinforced cereal for your Vitamin E source. And here’s an earlier study that helps tie the first two together nicely.

It’s the Helium-3, stupid. If we find a way to utilize it efficiently as an energy source, the amounts of Helium-3 on the Moon may prove sufficient to finance innumerable trips there and back and produce an enormous profit to boot.

But space travel beyond our solar system may well remain out of humanity’s reach eternally. If there is any other intelligent life in the universe, it is probably at least 40 light years away. A light year is approximately 6 trillion miles. That is to say, if you had a spacecraft that travelled a million miles an hour, it would still take 6 million hours to go one light year. That’s 684 years, so 40 light years would take (very roughly) 27,360 years at a million mph.

Thought for the Day:
“The greatest moral teacher is not the one who encourages the selfish to act more generously but the one who encourages the generous to act more selfishly. Evil people can never be taught to be good, but good people can sometimes be taught to be wise.”

Bits and Pieces

2004-01-18T23:57:10Z

In case anybody’s wondered, I’m not dead yet just extremely busy with the combination of domestic duties and my dead-end temporary customer service job.

NASA seems to have proven Eintein’s Other Theorem – the one about about the limitlessness of human incompetence. According to this
USA Today article, “After the Apollo program ended, the equipment, tools and plans for building the rocket were lost.”

Kelly Bundy to serve on Robert Blake jury? You saw it first here. Well, here actually.

Forget gold. Even forget diamonds. This might be a good time to invest in Zirconia. It will take a whole lot of it to terraform Mars.

Here’s a study about how to change your “luck” by changing your way of thinking.

Here are some pictures from the Hubble telescope project, which is scheduled to be abandoned in the years ahead.

There are also newly enhanced photos of Venus. The Soviets landed there back in the 1970s. How hot is it? So hot that molten lead apparently solidifies on the mountaintops as if it was ice.

Speaking of pictures, the BBC is releasing 5 million aerial photos from World War II tomorrow. You can preview a few of them here.

Link List

2003-11-29T00:52:03Z

My Limericks . . . Stephen Pollard . . . Doggerel Pundit . . . 2 Blowhards . . . Puzzle Blog . . . Dean’s World . . . A Small Victory . . . Asymmetrical Info . . . Pickle Juice . . . Iain Murray . . . Baldilocks . . . Blog of Death . . . Halley’s Comment . . . Because I Say So! . . . Sensitive Light . . . Tiger Raggin’ & Rantin’ . . . Outside the Beltway . . . Wizbang . . . Secular Islam . . . Big’n Juicy . . . Signal+Noise . . . Silflay Hraka . . . BrazosCantina . . . Mudville Gazette . . . Peoria Pundit . . . Sasha Castel . . . ChasingDaisy . . . Reflections in D Minor . . . Chaffinches . . . Absinthe&Cookies . . . Classical Values . . . Sharp Knife . . . Little Tiny Lies . . . Out of Lascaux . . . Drumwaster . . . damnum absque injuria . . . IMAO

See My Full Link List

More Photos

2003-11-16T15:07:11Z

This fotolog.net site is extremely cool. It enables anyone with either a scanner or a digital camera to create a free photoblog. Here are some fine photos by somebody called Carlsen from his:
one
two
three
And here are some earlier images by the same photographer:
four
five

Another Good Photoblog

2003-11-15T23:12:31Z

Found another good photoblog recently called Fotomystica by a person named Meeradji, who apparently lives in Canada. Check
these out.

English Litritcher

2003-11-13T01:54:39Z

My full-time temp job continues but it leaves me with essentially no spare time whatsoever, so I have had to choose between my blog and my jog. I chose the jog because if I don’t do it now I never will. I have been running about 18 miles a week for the past two months or so. So far I have only lost one pound but I think that I shall begin shedding more soon enough. It’s surprising how long it takes for the body to adjust to daily exercise if you haven’t been doing it for twenty years.

In between calls, I have been reading online. The first book that I finished was The American Senator by Anthony Trollope (Trollope is like Philippines, no matter how many times I look it up I still can’t remember how to spell it). Trollope reminds me a bit of Seinfeld in the sense that he generally wrote about nothing, but his work is filled with so many insightful little observations about human nature that one just never gets tired of it. There is a constant flow of entertainment. The underlying theme seems to be a sort of micro-hubris – the individual’s constant tendency to grasp for things that are just a little too far out of reach. Trollope is also massively cynical. Another repeating theme, which is a sort of sub-theme of the first, is the counterproductive effects of ill-conceived attempts at reform.

I imagine that I would be rather contented for a decade or two if I could sit on a deckchair on a warm beach somewhere with two CD players and an endless supply of coffee and various forms of alcohol. I would have the complete Vivaldi concertos at my left and the works of Trollope on CD at my right and I would alternate between the two. Occasionally, I might also take a dip in the sea.

After the American Senator, which, incidentally, was the follow up to The Way We Live Now and would make perfect Masterpiece Theater material, I moved on to The Scarlet Letter, which I had never read. After that I decided that it would be less stressful to confine myself to short stories because I would not feel such intense pressure to get through them and would therefore perhaps not find the continuous interruptions of the customers quite so irksome. I began reading Chekhov. I heartily recommend this site for your workplace litritcher needs.

On the way to and from work, I am currently listening to Frederick Davidson reading the second half of Dombey and Son. I wrote about part one on my previous blog. Dickens of course is the original working class hero and a towering genius, regardless of what anyone says. The construction of Dombey and Son in particular has a sort of geometric elegance about the way its numerous memorable characters come and go and reappear in unexpected ways. The central figure of the novel seems to be the wonderfully evil Mr. Carker. Davidson does a wonderful job of recreating the speech forms of the various cast members, performing a task that may no longer be possible when another generation or two increases the distance between the Victorian age and our own.

At lunchtime, I’m slowly working through stories by one of America’s finest writers, O Henry. It seems to me that if you drew a line from Mark Twain to Jack Kerouac, O Henry would be located pretty much exactly in the middle between the two. His form was an unusual one: the very short story. Some of his tales are reminiscent of Aesop’s fables, others are more like slices of life in the big city or out on the plains, and a few are essentially just extended jokes. It seems to me that most all of his stories are suitable, indeed virtually ideal, for older children and teen-agers as well as adults. O Henry’s world is unmistakeably Rockwellian, but with an added twist of outlaw morality that often enables the good guys and the bad guys to switch roles at the drop of a hat.

In sum, I now have almost no free time at all, but I am getting more reading done than ever before.

[You can permalink an entry by clicking on Calendar Link at the top of the page and then clicking on the date of the entry. Click for my blogroll and links page.]