(no subject)

These are courtesy of Mr Fortune. Usual rules apply. If you want to be infected by this meme - just comment on this with 'Words'.

Some of these are words given by another. However, I have integrity and will therefore not repeat myself excessively and have refrained from the cardinal IT sin of copy and paste...

Dogs, Sand-dancers, Medicine, Quiet, Wisdom

Dogs

It may amaze some people who know me now that I did not use to like dogs all that much. This is because one attacked me when I was young. However, I later learnt that this was not a fear of dogs but rather a fear of Yorkshire Terriers. Other dogs are sweet and nice. I have learnt that the larger the dog the soppier it tends to be - smaller dogs have more to prove. Such as their ability to perform telekinesis:






Something I posted about a while back referred to how society tends to blame dogs for doing things that we bred them for. A dog that chases something small and furry is only doing what it was bred to do and what it thinks its owners want. Its not its fault that society moves faster than genetics. And it is genetics because one thing I have learnt from working with dogs is that behaviour can be genetic - or at least hereditary (there is a small distinction). Border Collie pups display natural herding skills, for example. These skills are somehow passed on from dog to dog and form part of what we dismiss as 'instincts' but this word does not adequetly sum up the sheer fact that behavioural traits are being passed on from generation to generation. Sometimes these behavioural traits can be bad - for example, many dog breeds suffer OCD like symptoms and do things like obsess on areas of light and shadow.

Another thing that annoys me about dogs is the culture of blaming the dog. Dog bites someone, dog gets killed. This law seems to ignore the root cause of the problem which is the owner. The 'dog murdering law', along with the banned breeds law, was brought into play in an effort to stop hard men on council estates using the dogs for status symbols and training thier dogs to be vicious. However, I do not think it actually achieves this. Vicious dog bites someone, gets destroyed. Owner buys new dog, trains it to be equally vicious. The law does not stop the problem. As far banned breeds, criminals rarely pay attention to the law and all you do is encourage a black market in banned breeds. This, however, is a problem endemic in our current legal system - too many laws banning things but insufficient resource to enforce said law. I have yet to see anyone actually fined for not picking up dog poo and cannot see any way to effectively enforce it.

Sand-Dancers

You may not be aware of this, but all people in South Shields are actually called Rio. Because, as Duran Duran say, they dance upon the sand... bad puns aside, this term is often used to distinguish those from South Shields from those living in Sunderland and Newcastle. Actually, more often than not, it is used to confuse 'foreigners' (defined as anyone living outside South Shields) by making them uncertain of the correct terminology. 'You are from the North East, that means you are a Geordie.' 'No, I am a Sand-Dancer.' 'A what?' 'A sand-dancer.' 'What's one of them?' 'If you don't know I can't tell you...'

Geordies got their name from their loyalty to King George during the whole Bonny Prince Charlie debacle, thereby showing that Newcastle would do anything to get into a fight including deliberately choosing to ally against every other northern area and Scotland in order to ensure they were surrounded by enemies. Maccams from Sunderland were so called because they wanted a special name and didn't have the balls to pick a fight with anyone to get one that actually made sense. Middlesborough allegedly couldn't tell the difference between a criminal and a simian mammal and so gained the imaginative title of 'monkey hangers'. Those from South Shields were called Sand-Dancers because of... well... the sand on the beach (which, it has to be said, is the finest sand anywhere in the world I have been to so far... just a shame there isn't the weather to go with it...). To my mind it makes us sound like a species of marine bird...

There is one advantage to being a Sand-Dancer, however. For many years we have acted as a sort of Switzerland like buffer zone between the two warring city states of Newcastle and Sunderland (its something to do with inflated pigs bladders and whether your stripes are red or black). With a bit of effort it is possible for an intelligent Sand-dancer to modulate thier accent to be either more Maccam or more Geordie. This is invaluable when someone comes up to you in a dark ally and asks 'Which team do you support?'

Medicine

One of the things that most amused me several years ago was an entry in the Pagga wiki, written (I presume) by Ed, which stated that I 'may have already found the cure for cancer'. Well, I spent only a couple of years working on research for the Cancer Research Campaign (Cancer Research UK as it is now called) and didn't really get very far in curing cancer. But that is, as Jorge Cham discovered (http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=1162) because there is no such disease as cancer but rather lots and lots of diseases which are cancerlike. Actually, this seems to be a common problem in modern medicine. A lot of diseases are being misclassified because they have similar symptoms to something else. For centuries, doctors have classified disease by symptoms and this has worked, mostly, but is very crude. For example, there are diseases like 'IBS' and 'Migraine' which are actually likely to be a situation where a single symptom has a plethora of possible causes. Since we do not know the cause (because diagnosis is via symptoms) all we can do is treat the symptom and there is no exploration of the root cause (other than a vague 'you should avoid foods that make you feel ill' sympathy). A great example I saw in a seminar is 'Silk Road Disease', so called because it occurs all along Europe, more or less along the old silk route from the Orient. The Greeks and Turks have their own name for it, based on whoever they think discovered it, but I feel Silk Road disease is a less controversial name.

Now, by symptoms, this is classed as one disease. It is also known to be genetic. What is interesting is that it seems to occur in three different ethnic populations and response to treatment varies between populations. What occurs to me is that we actually have 3 (at least) distinct genetic variations, possibly occuring mostly in one of the three populations, each of which achieves the same set of symptoms by different mechanisms. Some of these variations respond to the treatment which is advised for 'Silk Road disease', some clearly do not. What is therefore needed is investigation of the genetics of this disease and reclassification based on which genes you have. I think medicine as a whole would benefit from wholesale research into root causes (now more possible than in the past due to biochemical and molecular techniques) and reclassification of disease based on cause rather than symptoms. At some point in the future, we may then be in a position to treat more of the root causes rather than merely treating the symptoms.

Quiet

I like quiet, I like being alone with my thoughts and quiet is the best way to achieve this. Sometimes, however, I need to quiet the noise in my head by playing loud music.

I also beleive that true love comes when you can simply sit and be quiet with another person, without the silence being so awkward that you need to fill it.

Wisdom

Its very important to have a high Wisdom score if you ever play a cleric in AD&D. Though it always occured to me that if these priests are so wise, why are they tromping around the wilderness with idiots in armour smiting goblins with a +2 mace? Mind you, the same applies to the supposedly intelligent mages...

I do tend towards playing priests in LRP though not as often as I play medics. Not (necessarily) the 'typical fantasy pantheonic god' type of priest, the ones with +2 maces and the ability to perform miracles, but rather real world style ones who bimble about doing good for the community in a self sacrificing sort of way. It may have been the Catholic school I went to and my RE teacher, who seemed convinced that I was destined for the priesthood despite not being catholic and having no interest in 'that no sex' nonsense. Mind you, my English teacher wanted me to be a novelist, my history teacher thought I'd be an archeaologist and my science teacher thought I'd end up blowing something up by accident. Aldric of Monkseaton, my Gall Saga character, is about as close to what I would likely have been like in a medieval setting as anything. Whether any of my priest characters are particularly wise is a matter I would not wish to comment on...

In serious world, I think that intelligence is no good without wisdom. Intelligence gives you the ability to make mistakes, wisdom tells you when you probably shouldn't. It is the part of the brain that gives you hindsight, sometimes as foresight, and makes sure there is a balance to the ever ambitious and hungrily primative parts of the brain...

(no subject)

I really must stop saying yes to these... :)

Trying to do two sets in one here, first set is from Electrobard...

Marketing (clearly!)

A wise old man (well, Mark Wilkin) once said 'advertising online is not advertising at all' (or something to that effect. He may have said 'advertising on Pagga'). And it is true. For all that the internet allows free marketing opportunities, we are so inured to the mountains of daily spam that none of it breaks through our consciousness. Scan, delete, ignore, forget. Spammers depend on the fact that the medium is free to use so they make a profit if even one person falls for thier scam. However, if you want to market a genuine product, you need to be a little cleverer than that and find a way to attract the attention of your target audience. I've always found that leaflets are good, especially if they are on coloured paper (a relatively inexpensive way of getting colour without paying a fortune for colour printing) but I am not sure even they are truly effective. It still depresses me that the majority of LRP events are advertised most effectively by word of mouth. Perhaps this is the only medium we trust - the bloke we met in the pub syndrome?

DJ

I fell into DJing by accident. GothSoc needed DJs to do the fresher's all day event (which they no longer seem to do) and me and Nathan (Toxicpixie, who I then knew as 'the bloke who used to live with my ex') volunteered as a double act. By double act, I mean of the Laurel and Hardy/Morcombe and Wise variety. We got things wrong, missed cues, got in each other's way and had a very good time while doing it. We later each went solo due to musical differences. I still occasionally DJ for goth soc and have also done 1 wedding and a university fetish night. I am still available for weddings, bamitsvahs, funerals, wakes, birthdays, christenings and circumcisions (I even have my own scalpel for the latter...)

Toast

In the 1990s there was a grave and serious religious issue. A war between two religious factions escalated to the extent of almost causing a nuclear holocaust. The factions were arguing over toast and it was to decide whether toast should be done in a toaster from presliced bread or on a grill from thickly cut slabs of bread. Small, almost heretical cults also argued over the colour of the bread, how much it should be toasted and what toppings are essential.

Now, in my wiser and older days, I have transcended (zen like) the mortal allure of toasted bread products. Indeed, in my sanctity, I forgoe all produce created from grains collected from the unholy wheat plant. This, you understand, is a result of an epiphany - an enlightenment of Damasncan proportions - and not anything at all to do with the fact that some bastard doctor told me that if I ate wheat I'd get moody, depressed, smelly, spotty and eventually die of bowel cancer.

I do still have toast, however. But this toast is made from cardboard and roofing tiles rather than real bread.

Aspirations

This is a hard one because I am not sure what I want any more. I suppose I aspire to do what I describe in the next paragraph and be a writer but I am not sure if that is a goal which is at all possible. I may have to content myself with being a teacher...


Writing

When I was in school there were two things I was very good at - reading and writing. Both excellent skills for surviving the rest of school work. If I could only do mathematics as well then I would have been considered the best student ever, though even then my natural laziness would have defeated me as it always does.

I enjoy writing and I occasionally entertain thoughts that I may even be able to make money out of it one day. At present I have a number of incomplete projects sitting on my hard disks, any one of which could potentially be polished into something saleable and I quite often take one or the other of them out and have a go at hammering out some more words. My biggest surprise of the last year was that several people who I asked to read and crit a short story I had written based on the Waypoint universe told me it would make a good novel. I have since begun to expand the story and am currently deciding what happens next... I also have one short story under consideration for an anthology I helped edit (second time of submission for this - no idea if it will be accepted or not) and have my eye on a couple of competitions (read the advert for one of them yesterday and have already started to write down my basic ideas for it...). We'll have to see how any of these go.

Now, from Mfl:

Science fiction

One of the greatest genres of both literature and LRP. I love science fiction and fantasy equally well - though Sarah will claim that I own more naff fantasy than I own Sci Fi and she the reverse, I claim this as one of the reasons we are so compatible. There should be more sci fi - especially in LRP. In fact, if no one starts up a Battlestar Galactica LRP soon I'll do it. In fact, if anyone wants to go in with me running this, it would be cool. I have ideas galore... :)

Medical Ethics

I have experienced medical ethics from both sides of the consent form. I have signed consent forms and have presented them to patients to sign (in the presence of a medic). I have also been forced to follow ethics committee rulings such as only taking 60ml of blood rather than our preferred volume of 'drain them dry by hanging them upside down from the ceiling and cutting all the veins'. We need medical ethics because of the age old adage 'what heals also harms'.

Birmingham

The city of a thousand trades, the Venice of the North, located on a central raised plain in Central England... none of my pupils could get the name of this city from these clues and, to be honest, neither would I if I hadn't written the quiz... still, Birmingham is not a bad city. Its main problem is its size - it is not as big as London but it is certainly bigger than any individual London Borough. It is too large for a single local council to effectively manage. This, I think, is the reason why we don't have wheelie bins...

Yes, Wheelie bins are a personal crusade for me. For all that (apparently) no one wants them (though who got asked...) they have to be better than the 'lets dump all our rubbish in fragile plastic bags on the street so that cats, rats and stray dogs can have a free lunch' method. And while we are at it, why not give each house a miniscule plastic box which we collect once a fortnight and occasionally lose or accidentally destroy for thier recycling so we can look like we are sticking to the required national rules...

If visiting Birmingham, I suggest a few places to visit. Cadbury World (but not Cadbury Land unless you have a mental age of about 2...), the Jewellery quarter museum, Soho House (meeting place of the Lunar Society), Aston Hall and Think Tank. There are others... I want to point out, however, that there are more places to visit than the Bullring.

Walking

I walk where ever I can. I have not yet learnt to drive (Sarah keeps pushing me to...) so I have had to learn to use public transport or walk whenever there is no one else around to drive me places. In South Shields it was possible to walk all the way from the town centre to my parents' house (on the outskirts) after a night drinking. In Sunderland, you could fall over and be at the other side of the City centre (the City of Sunderland is smaller than Newcastle, but the Borough of Sunderland is far bigger). In Manchester it was common to walk from Rockworld all the way back to Longsight if there were no taxis or buses free.

I now do all my walking while assisted by a dog. They are great exercise machines as they will fuss and mither at you if you do not get off your fat arse and take them for a walk. And Eddie gets at least two miles worth of walking a day, often more (we worked out that the route from our house, round the park was about 2 miles in total, he sometimes has that twice a day). This means we also get at least 2 miles walking a day as well. Actually, Eddie gets 2-4 miles of running (he sometimes runs up and down the same bit of park several times) while we get 2 miles of slow amble but at least we are exercising...

lrp

LRP is the greatest hobby known to man. If I beleived in god, I would say that he was a LRPer because, well, only people who are as wonderful as a god do LRP (its true, ask any LRPer, they all think they are god and can that many people be truly wrong?) Of course, I say 'known to man' but as many already know, LRP has become known to woman as well. I blame Vampire. It made a hobby that was geeky and muddy and a little wierd into something cool and romantic and gothy and so the vampgoth chicks all wanted in. Of course, what they didn't reckon on was that, once we have your soul, we have you for life... one minute you are sort of playing yourself in a black dress and angsting about the cruelties of existence, the next you are playing a starship captain with multiple personalities and a penchant for popular theater... I've seen it happen... it happened to me. I started as a user, then I became a pusher, then I established my own company with its own network of users and pushers... This is your brain on LRP...

At the moment I am in a LRP lull. This is mainly because of my course which is slowly eating up all my free time, free time that was formerly spent on writing characters and plots and downtimes. However, I was slowly by surely getting to the point where simply playing was not doing it for me any more. I enjoy crewing far more and organising even more than that.

However, one thing I am upset about with regards to LRP and roleplaying... Christian propaganda says that I should, by now, be due at least one fawning, nubile, pliant, hypnotised slave girl who is willing to do my every bidding because I have (apparently) used evil magics from the Players Guide on her... Clearly I am reading the wrong grimoires because I haven't got that spell yet... Of course, religions know all about evil mind controlling cults. After all, it takes one to know one and the most successful ones currently span at least half the world's population between them...

Laptop help...

I may be getting a new laptop sometimes soon. However, I do not want to go through the whole hassle of setting up all my preferences and transferring files and reinstalling programs etc.

A few years back, I had a program called ghost which allowed you to copy an entire hard drive, including working registry and therefore working programs, to a new hard drive (it also formatted the new drive for you and resized the partitions to be relative if the new hard drive is a different size). This program is still sitting on a floppy on my desk. However, I have two problems with this:

1) it is a floppy and I have neither a floppy drive on laptop or desktop (and no intention of getting one)

2) I suspect it is an out of date program by now (more than 10 years - worked with win 95) and therefore may not operate with more modern PCs with thier shiny new OS and different hard drive technology (this was the days when 1GB was considered a BIG hard drive... :) )

So, is there a reliable way to clone my laptop to a new model? I am happy to buy new software and things like cables if it will help...