inferiority

the dung beetles march on the dung, surrounding it. drawn by its irresistable lure, they pick at it's flesh until nothing useful is left. there are a few futile moments, where they pick at it but the good stuff is gone. then it is time to go in search of more dung; later, with luck, they will find their way to another dropping a few tens of metres across the grass. if not, no matter, there is always more.

the humans crawl on the earth, surrounding it. they pick at it's flesh, tearing into it with their tools and sucking it dry. then the good stuff is gone and they scramble in futility to find more. they would go in search of another earth but they cannot find one or cannot reach it. adrift on their ravaged host, the parasites wither and die.

the beetles pick at their pungent carcasses. there will always be more dung.

cauliflower computer

on the subject of strange ideas i had in gothenburg, here's another one (there must have been something in the water)

a modern processor alone consumes 100W of power. Add the rest of a typical computer and you're looking at around 250-300W on average. Ok, so it's only a few light bulbs but computers (like light bulbs) add up. For the sake of argumnet, if we all did without one, we could shut several power stations.

But I'm not suggesting that we do without them. I'm just highlighting that a personal computer implies personal energy consumption. My suggestion is that we also personalise energy production.

Anyone who has had a curry will vouch for it's qualities in accelerating methane production (stop reading now if you don't want to hear any more of this, it's going to get worse...). Methane is a greenhouse gas, but only if you don't use it and let it float away. What I'm saying is, our doo-doo is potent shit man (sorry, bad joke). We've been using horse manure as fertiliser for centuries. We flush our energy down the toilet. What a waste.

So fast forward 10 years. I'm sitting on my Toto. It beeps at me. A red light is flashing: the power pod is ready. Enough of my output has been compressed and mixed in the right volume ratios with chemicals. I detach the pod, a battery powered by the remains of yesterday's Sausage and Mash I had for lunch. I fit a new empty pod, and wander into the living room. I connect my pod to my computer's power frame. I decide to write a new blog entry.

Powered by Blogger? Nah. Powered by my logs :)

urban warfare

When I was in Gothenburg at christmas time I had an idea. It's taken a while for this idea to make it to the blog, but hey I've been busy.

Let's recap. Some women (and some men) treat pushchairs (strollers for non-brits) as bulldozers (see my first post on the subject here) and it winds me up. Then I found out it's not just me.

Anyway, I was in this shopping centre in Gothenburg. It being christmas, it was absolutely packed with people and it was pretty hard to get to where you wanted to be. Everywhere you turned the way was blocked by a tide of swedes. And it was at this moment that a business idea formed in my mind.

Avis-Buggies

It goes like this. You enter the too-busy shopping centre and realise that today is not going to be pleasant. You need a weapon of mass diversion, to clear your path through the throng. A pushchair buggy and a child. Avis-Buggies rents you this (with fake child) and you can drop it off to any of the depots near the shopping centre doors and car parks when you leave. In between time, you are armed. By the cultural acceptability of piercing the crowd, wielding your child like a weapon. No-one will say anything, just wear the harrassed-mum's glare and you'll be fine (avis buggies will supply an easy 1-2-3 guide to this frown if you find it difficult). You can get your christmas shopping done in double time and with half the stress.

Child upgrades would be available so you can choose the appropriate realism level for your budget. From your basic plastic doll, right through to the realistic skin and hair. The deluxe model even craps it's pants after a random timeout, enabling you to push aggressively through the crowds going 'sorry, sorry, little william needs his nappy changing, i must get to the bathrooms...'

patent pending :)

so this is how beckham must feel...

i think i signed my name in excess of 40 times today. by that measure i must be a minor celebrity :)

boringly, this was only really because today I had to sign my tenancy agreement and my employment contract.

clearly this called for a celebration. so i went to nando's with a mate :) never let it be said that us northern boys don't know how to celebrate :)

word of the day: limerence

sometimes you find things you're not really expecting on a random blog. NetNewsWire (RSS reader for MacOS X) installed a subscription to Aaron Swartz's blog (he's the author of the RSS 1.0 spec) by default. I haven't uninstalled it.

but it made me read it. and i'm supposed to be at foxtons sorting out a flat. sigh.

guest blog

i asked arcoiris if she would write something for me about poland's reaction to what appear to be the pope's final few hours. everything else in this post are her words.

for a few minutes I have been sitting in front of the screen wondering what and how shall I write you, about Papa and the reaction of polish people for his illness..
As I have written in the sms: there is so much to say...but words do not come eaisilly to describe it...
people seem to be lost in thoughts,sad, quite and serious....but there is no despair as one could think...maybe becouse we are still waiting, he is still alive...
being catolics we should not call it an end, but there is a feeling in the air that something is ending...people have candles in the windows...
churches are full of people, praying in silence, in every church, but most of all in those places that Papa have visited,lived or liked....
there is this town: Wadowice, that Pope was born in, and during his last trip to Poland (or one before that..) visited...it was amaizing: he would not lead the schedule of the visit at all then, but was simply talking to the crowd of people, remembering things from the time that he lived there...laughed...;) so now, yesterday, today in Wadowice: everyone is on the street, or in church praying for him... everyone is wondering how shell we pray now and what for... for his helth?? seems sensless becouse he is dying....
There is something very mistycal in the air... you can see this reflection in people's faces, some of them are crying...but calm...
Now I see that the problem is not the lack of space in the sms...;)
it is just very difficlt to expres....anyway...
Pope is probably one of the most important persons in polish history( if not the most important...) he made us belive that we are a society, he made us belive in a solidarity, which started the fight with communism...He is a symbol, an icon, not only of faith for belivers, but of humanity for everybody...
Religion is only one aspect of his activity: he was the great fighter for human rights and humanity...he is a poet, a preacher, a politic, a Father...does it sound exaggerated? ;)
with all certainity: there is no other person in Poland, now, or including the history,that would cause such a response among people...
Nobody speaks of the other thing...time has stopped....
Of course there is the other side of that, I am wondering if it is not a kind of hypocrisy, superficiality.. Now, then we fear, we go to church, pray and love him.... why haven't we for the past 27 years? But then I realize: we might not love the church, me maight even avoid it: but we always loved the Pope...becouse he is so real and honest, his faith is his life, he preaches but he lives in the same way..
About hipocrisy: same thing with me: I do not go to church, althougt I belive... since yesterday, I spent there a few hours thinking, praying...not for him: but for me...I realized that I probably have lost a lot of his wisdom...I am thinking about all of Pope's messages and I wanna be better....somehow I feel that most of people thinks so....that is what I ment telling you about the sense of the soap opera about dying Pope...
I hope this feeling is not superficial and will not disappear...
Anyway...the things that are taking place all over the world now have different roots: in some cases this is faith, religion, in other : respect and the admiration for this charismatic fighter for peace...
So, no matter what reasons we have to cry out for his illness, and most probably- death...as soon as it cause something good in ourselves, let it be global...
I should not speak for others, I know what these days caused in my mind... It seems like weeks to tell the truth..( and I guess this was your point...;))
Of course I could not agree with every Pope's principles as I do not agree with all churche's rules....but as a whole he is the last authority I think...
He would not expect us to become saints, he only wants us to live the best life we can and not to renounce ourselves....and I totaly agree with that....
uppps, have you managed to get through this filosophic mess till the end?? :-) I guess it is kind of my confession...;)
I probably have not finished the subject....have I? ;)
Arcoiris

over-accessorize

it could be an april fool, i guess. what next? the iVibrator?

hmm

*rushes off to file patent* :)

it rises to the north

very strange dream this morning, in between waking up at 9 then drifting off to sleep again and waking up thinking 'fuck, what time is it' (it was 11.45) 'i'm supposed to be meeting gary' ...at 12.30, in borough :(

i don't remember too much about it now. but i remember a grassy hill crisscrossed by paths. my mum was moaning that the grass was wet and she would have to wander the long way around the path to get to where she wanted to go. that was the only time my mum was part of the dream. it all seemed completely normal. in the distance, forboding - in a mordor-lies-to-the-south sense full of dread and darkness - was a huge weird structure which was like a futuristic checkpoint charlie. oddly it looked like arsenal's new stadium near drayton park (perhaps not so odd given that i am staying near there at the moment). anyway the checkpoint - get within a mile of it and certain death awaited (presumably you'd be shot, but in the dream this was never clearly defined...). of course there was an overwhelming desire to find out what was on the other side.

that's about all i remember. i also have a recollection of running and running but i can't remember where or why. but i least i might have lost some weight :)

therapyX

i want to excuse myself before i even start my confession. it's the first one i've bought in 5 years. for a self-confessed gadget freak this is an impressive statistic. well i think so anyway.

I'm typing this blog entry on my (oh so) shiny new 12" powermac g4 which I have kitted out with a snarling 1.25Gb. Yep, I went shopping. I was supposed to be flat-hunting but had a hangover; memory gets hazy at this point but I think it must have been a classic impulse purchase. I have to say I do love Mac OSX. Slick windowing and unix shells in a way that Linux has never quite managed.

Anyway, I thought I would make use of my photoblog account at buzznet so here's a photo of this post being written in starbucks.



ok i admit it i am avoiding going flat-hunting. just found some good ski deals though :)