Black Dog Blog

Main impressions of Alice in Wonderland (2010). Not massively spoilerish but I'll put them behind a cut:

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Hi Southern USA, would you mind not cheesing me off today? Oh never mind, forget it:

US school cancels prom 'over lesbian date'

Fine. OK, China, you're still on probation. Don't let me down now… oh hell, why do I bother ungrounding you lot.

Eleven rare Siberian tigers die at Chinese zoo

Australia, Australia, I hardly dare even ask. Well wait a second, what do we have here?

Atheists meet in Melbourne to celebrate lack of faith

Sounds like lots of fun. I almost wish I could attend.

Female porn director to fight Parliament seat in Kent

It doesn't say if the films she directs make an attempt at being 'healthy', or are the usual creepy exploitative crap. Either way, well, if she wants to run, best of luck to her in evading the Daily Wail and not sabotaging the whole gig for Lib Dem voters country-wide… that's what I care about most here.

Escapologist's ferret escapes

In pictures: PUPPIES! Crufts 2010

I can't remember if I've linked this older story before. Japan's patient pets

This is one of those stories where you almost don't need to read the text, because nothing could outdo the headline. (Any suggestions for a snappy term for this kind of story?)

Mummified hand disappears from Wiltshire pub again

For some time I was wondering why E-Type's song "Fall from the Sky" was in my head, then I remembered I'd seen this story:

Mystery of 75 starlings falling from the sky

Genius.

Nanometre 'fuses' for high-performance batteries

UK treenage slang. A nifty section shows how kids in different areas express this phrase in their own patois:

"John's girlfriend is really pretty. But she got mad with him the other day because he wanted to hang out with his friends rather than take her to the cinema. She got really angry and stormed off. It was very funny."

Giant croc skull

• RT @NameYourTale: In the Hall of Mountain Dew http://is.gd/a9uH7 #microfiction // 'Commissioned' (well, suggested) for @Ree ;-P #
• Brunette and acoustic guitarist busking in reception. Sweet. #
• I'm returning to the first job I ever did for the BBC: making wrong answers for multiple-choice quizzes. Rediscovering how much I enjoy it! #
• There's something magic about making plausible wrong options: fooling people, putting in hidden references for anyone who knows the subject. #
• I'm @Degsy, I like meat and I think cats are sweet. I live in a tower 'caus I like the power and I like an RDF triple with my tipple.*ducks* #

• Uploading and testing #TFTD mightn't be the BEST time for my brain to have a panic twitch at the sound of the speaker's voice. #fail #aspie #

• #vss Some beginning mages turn people into frogs. Some make them think they're frogs (this is funnier). Suitov… just liked to watch frogs. #
• #vss Suitov spent many months observing a captured lizard. The mannerisms he learned proved useful for disconcerting aunts and other adults. #
• #vss A spell in a poorly-researched book of his mother's needed eye of newt. Reasoning that a whole newt was better, Suitov let one observe. #

• Signing off an email full of puns about copper, with the phrase "Cu tomorrow". Wonders if it will be noticed. #
• I feel like this when I remember to take my medication. *happy!* http://bit.ly/9TJCKH #
• Usually I'm high-functioning – can talk, remember to smile and so on. But sometimes I need some time simply to be autistic… #autism #aspie #

• Help. I can't stop listening to this. http://bit.ly/bcohIU [Still Alive remix] #
• Just realised it's someone's birthday on the 15th so I can't go and see Enter the Dragon. Rats. I WANT TO SEE PUNCHING. #
• Compromising. My usual verbal slang for "certificate" is "stiff", but I'm not writing "Thanks, I already have a stiff" over staff messenger. #

• It's a wossname. Metaphor. A tradition or an old charter or something. Or maybe it's a butterfly, dreaming of being a different butterfly. #

My brother's parents¹ keep a tiny weekend house in the Lake District. We went there with a couple of his other friends overnight yesterday. As it happened, I hadn't been there before (not often invited, usually busy).

During the course of the afternoon I proved myself the most adept fire-builder — which was amusing, since two of them claimed first-hand experience lighting fires, whereas I had to approach the thing completely from theory. Nevertheless, the thing lit up at my hands, and a good job it did, because it was below freezing overnight. I also beat an electric pump at inflating mattresses. Old-fashioned footpower for the win?

Also, we melted the nozzle off one of the air mattresses with a hairdryer. On reflection, when I suggested the idea, I should have specified that the thing be set to cold air.

The sheer number of stars in the night sky, out there as we were among sheep-infested hills six miles from the nearest village, was very nice to see.

We got in a little stroll this morning; just ten or twenty minutes or so, because two of the party were not best suited to the exercise. Yes, turns out some people are unfit even compared to me. n00bs!

I seemed to spend a lot of time teaching people things², ranging from how fire works ("small stuff burns faster and hotter; the big logs are the ones that will last all evening, but they need to be much hotter to catch fire, so we have to start with small…" …at which point I trail off, unable to compete with Nuts Magazine, and just get the damn thing going. Fire. Fiiiiire. Pretty pretty fire) to how sheep work ("why is that one's leg bright orange? Was it born like that?" "At a guess, I'd say it was antibiotic dip." … "You don't actually think sheep speak a language, do you?" "Not a syntactic one, but if you mean can they recognise bleats? Absolutely"). (Yeah, I don't know either.)

So, yes, turns out some people know even less about countryside than I. Pah! n00bs, I say!

Also. In general, much as I like 1960s music and classic rock, I've heard enough Magic-FM, Smooth-Radio, Late-Night-Love-Letters, Stuff-Even-Radio-2-is-Too-Embarrassed-to-Play utter shite over this day and night to last me quite some years.³ I had to sneak some headphones on and blast some DragonForce during the car journey or I would have gone quite, quite mental.

¹ Yes, brothers with different parents. It's an honorary thing. No blood-letting was involved.

² "The only one who could ever reach me was the geek-talkin' sonuva teacher man", etc.

³ "Do you not think it's choonage, Herms? You biiiitch!" Sadly, my tolerance of other people's music is not reciprocated when I should want to put on Symphony X.

• Mother: "Are you implying my cat is in any way disloyal?" Herm: "s slash any slash every" #nerd #perljokes #nobodyunderstandsme #

I'm lazy and thus quoting my mate Andrew:

"If you want to save BBC 6 Music, BBC websites, Asian Network, Blast, Switch etc. then you need to contact the BBC Trust. It's they who make the decision, not the Culture Secretary (Tory or Labour) or anyone else. You can give them your views here."

What's really cool is that once you've filled in the questionnaire, the site gives you a PDF of your own responses. For those interested, I've attached mine to this post.

(The questions in the PDF are abridged, so the "what do you think of those proposals?" ones won't make that much sense if you haven't seen what the proposals are. They're shown in full on the consultation site, so go along and have a look if you're curious.)

• BBC responses, 3 March

• #vss He could deal with the maggots, but not the way her face kept changing location between her torso and limbs. "Can we just be friends?" #
• #vss Orbital Station Par-Tay was founded in recognition of a simple principle: in space, nobody can thump the wall complaining of the noise. #
• #vss She was convinced his cat was a chav. Its fur was Tabby by Burberry and it had installed blue LEDs and a subwoofer under its mat. #
• Chav cat by John Riordan: http://www.johnriordan.co.uk/img/pictures/chavcat.jpg #scally #chav #cat #kitten #scum #

• Tech prog: "…trying to frag them at 2 frames per second." Herm: "Lol. See what she did there? It's a pun on FPS." … #nobodyunderstandsme #

• http://twitpic.com/15orhi – My paintings came back from the framer! Here's the star piece, showing Basaltine (middle), Suitov (r) and Weft ( #
• http://twitpic.com/15os51 – Clouded leopard and peacock, a print I bought a while ago. (In the flesh, the frame matches the wing perfectly.) #
• http://twitpic.com/15oshb – And Sherlock Holmes, framed to match the other small piece (the leopard, http://www.twitpic.com/15os51 ). I got #
• http://twitpic.com/15oso6 – "Suitov, sir, WHAT IS THAT?" "Hmm. Fascinating…" #
• http://twitpic.com/15phgh – Piper offers his advice on how to tackle anti-social behaviour in your servants, including sleeping when their s #
• http://twitpic.com/15pjek – I can't even begin to explain this one. #
• http://twitpic.com/15pkpq – Piper's tail has been brushed. LET ME OUT LET ME OUT LET ME OUT oh wait I've forgotten what I wanted to do outsi #

• Sex education – state school vs faith school http://youtu.be/MagSrvL5peA #
• Shock collars banned in Wales. http://bit.ly/c8sVWO In your FACE, Cesar Millan! #dogs #
• RT: Great, sensible & balanced analysis from @collingsa http://www.wherediditallgoright.com/BLOG/2010/02/nooooooooooooooooo.html #

Turns out you can't create multiple accounts on a Drupal site using the same OpenID identity (including if you stay logged in to your OpenID provider while trying to create/log into another account).

This is a Good Thing for Pro 2.0. We'll be enforcing the "one account, many character sub-accounts" model. You won't need separate accounts¹, and they won't be allowed.

This isn't how it's done among the old Viners who liked to pretend to be different people, but we're more about openness (no secret admin accounts, for example) and ownership of our own work – which is why our copyright rules are as they are. I try to keep those values in mind when making decisions.

¹ This software limitation does mean that I can't easily create a separate superuser account, as would be recommended practice, but I'm used to using messageboard software with the same limitation…

Electroshock collars banned in Wales. Ha! In your FACE, Cesar Milan!

Sheepies in the snow

Taking home leftovers from work parties can be bad for you, Ancient Egyptians find.

Stemming blood flow to the arm protects heart during attack. Not sure if I'd dare do this as part of my first aiding…

Naughty tigie behaviour. Remind anyone else of The Life of Pi?

'Most unfortunate names' revealed. How I adore puns.

Personally, I've come across the name Pritti Mistry – which is quite sweet, actually – and know of a Jane Eyre in my family history. Of late, I have persuaded a Ms Robson of my acquaintance to call her first son Jerome. (Luckily, I'm sure she'll forget long before she should have this opportunity.)

And as a Baskerville, don't think I have considered adopting a Howard or Howell. Not that a wolfhound would understand the intricacies of wordplay, so it wouldn't be cruel.

Is Switzerland a hotbed of "Zionism and foreign aggression", then?

Children 'over-exposed to sexual imagery'. I saw Dr. Papadopoulos interviewed on breakfast news this morning. Amazingly, it was a good interview (though dumbed-down, as usual). I can't see that clip online; here's another video report on early exposure to sexualised imagery.

• OMD! A young lady brought a baby on the tram and it was SO LOVELY! *meltyboots* #
• BBC News people: thank you! You updated the Euthanasia Q&A article on the URL we already link to, instead of making me change every link. <3 #
• I still want to steal that baby I saw on the tram. She was fidgety and kept making whingeing noises and looking around at people. TOO CUTE. #
• Dear website designers: If you prevent me from even seeing your normal content pages with cookies blocked, I will not visit. At all. Kthx. #
• FFS JAPAN. RT: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/feb/25/japan-stray-animal-death-trucks via @mydogminton @Shazzle01 #

[N.B. Baby was a Staffordshire Bull Terrier]