(no subject)
Oct. 13th, 2002 10:34 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
zotzIt annoys me how much publicity that the DC sniper's getting. Ten people have been shot, and eight killed, and it's front-page news. Where were the front-page articles when 500 people a year were getting murdered in DC? Pretty thin on the ground. But no, it's in the suburbs now and the victims are mainly white and middle-class, so the happy smiling British media deem it newsworthy.
I have friends who live in the suburbs around DC, so I'm not entirely unconcerned about the situation, but it would be nice if news coverage were a bit more consistent.
Also, Jerry Falwell has apologised. So that's alright then.
What else gives? I went to B-Movie in Lodnod on Friday with my erstwhile flatmate Tom. I asked him a very important question, and the answer was :
It was
Oooer missus. Bit of that genderbending going on, methinks.
Yesterday I went in search of people to fix the Rollei, and as predicted nobody'll touch the thing. Happily a couple of friends suggested people who may be prepared to have aquick look and see whether anything inside looks actually broken. If so, apparently Rollei in London are the only people who'll be able to get spares.
Last night I went to Tim's party, at which I was a drunken embarrassment, which I enjoyed greatly.
Quotation of the day's from
www.phys.washington.edu/~cobden/P224/ stuff/leidenfrost_essay.pdf
My failure may have been due to a lack of film boiling
on the feet, but I had also neglected an additional safety
factor. On the other days I had taken the precaution of
clutching an early edition of Fundamentals of Physics
to my chest during the walks so as to bolster my belief in physics.
Alas, I forgot the book on the day when I was so badly
burned.
I have long argued that degree-granting programs
should employ ``fire-walking'' as a last exam. The chair-
person of the program should wait on the far side of a bed
of red-hot coals while a degree candidate is forced to walk
over the coals. If the candidate's belief in physics is strong
enough that the feet are left undamaged, the chairperson
hands the candidate a graduation certificate. The test would
be more revealing than traditional final exams.
Still on the Bunnymen. Isn't Bomber's Bay fantastic?
I have friends who live in the suburbs around DC, so I'm not entirely unconcerned about the situation, but it would be nice if news coverage were a bit more consistent.
Also, Jerry Falwell has apologised. So that's alright then.
What else gives? I went to B-Movie in Lodnod on Friday with my erstwhile flatmate Tom. I asked him a very important question, and the answer was :
It was
Jake
the orange Tweenie!Oooer missus. Bit of that genderbending going on, methinks.
Yesterday I went in search of people to fix the Rollei, and as predicted nobody'll touch the thing. Happily a couple of friends suggested people who may be prepared to have aquick look and see whether anything inside looks actually broken. If so, apparently Rollei in London are the only people who'll be able to get spares.
Last night I went to Tim's party, at which I was a drunken embarrassment, which I enjoyed greatly.
Quotation of the day's from
www.phys.washington.edu/~cobden/P224/ stuff/leidenfrost_essay.pdf
My failure may have been due to a lack of film boiling
on the feet, but I had also neglected an additional safety
factor. On the other days I had taken the precaution of
clutching an early edition of Fundamentals of Physics
to my chest during the walks so as to bolster my belief in physics.
Alas, I forgot the book on the day when I was so badly
burned.
I have long argued that degree-granting programs
should employ ``fire-walking'' as a last exam. The chair-
person of the program should wait on the far side of a bed
of red-hot coals while a degree candidate is forced to walk
over the coals. If the candidate's belief in physics is strong
enough that the feet are left undamaged, the chairperson
hands the candidate a graduation certificate. The test would
be more revealing than traditional final exams.
Still on the Bunnymen. Isn't Bomber's Bay fantastic?
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
If it helps...
Date: 2002-10-13 03:39 am (UTC)Re: If it helps...
Date: 2002-10-13 03:48 am (UTC)Thanks.
Oh and...
Date: 2002-10-13 03:50 am (UTC)For my money, it's sensationalism rather than any form of social value judgement.
no subject
Date: 2002-10-13 03:54 am (UTC)I'm sure I used to have a copy of Porcupine (that's the one Bomber's Bay is on isn't it?) because I know I've heard Bomber's Bay. But since I can't find it and I'm now inspired to listen to the Bunnymen I'm making do with Heaven Up Here instead.
no subject
Date: 2002-10-13 04:10 am (UTC)Falwell
Date: 2002-10-13 04:03 am (UTC)"Unfortunately, I answered one controversial and loaded question at the conclusion of an hour-long CBS interview which I should not have answered. That was a mistake and I apologise."
Sectarian riots and eight dead, on one ill considered remark by a total muppet? That's truly frightening.
Fundamentalist Christians actually scare me far more than fundamentalists from any other sector.
Re: Falwell
Date: 2002-10-13 07:39 am (UTC)Found it
Date: 2002-10-13 07:52 am (UTC)NEW YORK (AP) -- The executive board of the National Council of Churches said the Rev. Jerry Falwell's remark in an interview that "Muhammad was a terrorist" was uninformed and dangerous.
The council called on President Bush to repudiate Falwell's words.
Thousands of Muslims marched in India's Jammu-Kashmir state Monday to protest Falwell's statement, while Malaysia's Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad advised Muslims not to take comments from such people seriously because "they don't understand Islam."
Falwell made the statement in an interview with the CBS program "60 Minutes" that aired Sunday.
Falwell explained that he wouldn't make such remarks in a sermon or book but that correspondent Bob Simon had asked whether he considered Muhammad a terrorist and he replied honestly.
In response, CBS said its transcript shows Simon asked: "You wrote an approving piece recently about a book called 'Unveiling Islam.' And you -- the authors of that book wrote, 'The Muslim who commits acts of violence in jihad does so with the approval of Muhammad.' Do you believe that?"
Falwell replied: "I do. I think Mohammed was a terrorist. He -- I read enough of the history of his life written by both Muslims and, and non-Muslims, that he was a -- a violent man, a man of war."
Re: Found it
Date: 2002-10-13 07:59 am (UTC)That's quite incredible.
Re: Found it
Date: 2002-10-13 08:02 am (UTC)I'm talking to The Rattler on ICQ just now, BTW, he was asking after you.
Re: Found it
Date: 2002-10-13 08:36 am (UTC)Re: Found it
Date: 2002-10-13 08:39 am (UTC)I'm trying to get him to come to London still. Maybe next month. (I'm thinking about having a wee party for non-Whitbyers or going out or something if you fancied wandering down to London.)
Re: Found it
Date: 2002-10-13 09:31 am (UTC)No, I'm afraid I don't.
I'm trying to get him to come to London still. Maybe next month. (I'm thinking about having a wee party for non-Whitbyers or going out or something if you fancied wandering down to London.)
That sounds like a plan.
Also, the Femmes are touring.
Re: Found it
Date: 2002-10-13 10:32 am (UTC)I have to confess I only know "Add it up". :}
no subject
Date: 2002-10-13 05:04 am (UTC)The 'when we said practical physics, we meant it' idea has been around for ages. I can't remember who first suggested candidates should put their hands in boiling lead - if they're too sweaty with doubt at the prospect, they'll get hurt.
no subject
Date: 2002-10-13 07:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2002-10-13 07:52 am (UTC)It's because rerunning US content is SO MUCH CHEAPER than making your own. That's why the DC sniper is news worldwide - because the US media dumps content overseas.
no subject
Date: 2002-10-13 08:17 am (UTC)Mmm, Rollei. They make very cute tiny cameras-- my uncle brought one back for my father when he (the uncle) was stationed in, um, the sea near Viet Nam in the sixties. Debriefing fighter pilots returning from dropping very hot things on villages. He doesn't talk about it, at all. (Aside from not being able to, as I'm sure it's all still classified, but you get _nothing_. He's a very nice and sweet guy, too, and has always been one of my favorite uncles. I didn't know this until fairly recently.) Anyway... Said Rollei worked very well, with minimal maintenance required, for something like 30 or 35 years. My father only recently retired it. It needed to have a few screws replaced at one point-- things being loose inside is, in fact, a fairly common ailment.
My fondness for teensy little cameras is the reason I picked that particular digital camera, too-- big cameras seem all wrong to me, after 20 years of my father carrying this little tiny thing around with him on all our vacations and hikes and things.
Your friend appears to have very attractive hands. 8)
no subject
Date: 2002-10-13 09:22 am (UTC)Mine went out of production in 1980, and as far as I know it's needed no new parts. It's been stripped to free jams a couple of times, and the battery is out of production (illegal in the US - it was a mercury cell) so I've got a weird adaptor, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's got another ten or fifteen years in it.
Your friend appears to have very attractive hands.
I've not actually met her. Tom seems to still be in touch with her, though. She's apparently working on another costumed children's TV show, with a lot of people who were headhunted from the Tweenies.
no subject
Date: 2002-10-13 11:18 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2002-10-13 11:27 am (UTC)