Black Dog Blog

Archive for January, 2009

More worldbuilding enjoyment. Instarrians are insane and so much fun.

Beauty
Fashion
and more about striation, a beauty fault

This explains why you'll never convince Weft that he isn't ugly. He can prove it with maths!

Yay, I got to do the news this morning! (Such as we still do it… i.e. very briefly.)

MS stem-cell treatment 'success'. This is awesome.

Indonesia's transgender Qur'an school

*sends them feedback* As usual, "transgender" is used when you mean "male-to-female transgender". Please could you stop pretending the other side doesn't exist? Just specifying once that you're talking about male-to-female early on in the report would be acceptable.

Ministers fight church 'rain tax'

Considering how rich the Church is vs. your typical charity, the Church should be paying for itself and the charities. (Don't gimme "ooh, the Church is quite poor really". Do you KNOW how much land and stonework it owns?)

Porn images vicar faces expulsion

I'm disgusted that his expulsion from the clergy is surprising or notable enough to be 'news'. It should be a matter of course.

The president of the tribunal Gerard Elias QC said the recommended decision was considered after the "immense seriousness and depravity" of the offences coupled with the absence of "regret or apology".

Oh, so it's only because he didn't say sorry, not because he is a danger to children.

The Bishop of Swansea and Brecon, the Rt Rev John Davies, said the tribunal's order reflected the seriousness of Hart's offence.

He added: "It sends out the very clear message that there is no room for any form of child abuse in the Church in Wales."

It sends out the very clear message that if you're caught abusing children and you don't look sorry enough, there is no room for you as a practising minister in the Church in Wales. Everyone else is welcome back after you've served your slap on the wrist.

The Obama approach to interrogation

Equality law 'to close gap'

Did I miss something? Since when has positive discrimination become an unchallenged Good Thing?

Black-and-white cat helps postman (only UK readers are likely to get why this is funny)

This is what happened at my workplace two nights ago. Apart from the game of Werewolf, that is.

These people have been outside for several nights, protesting peacefully, and on Tuesday they suddenly rushed into reception and did what you see here. All reasonably peaceful from what I could make out. Mainly a megaphone and a lot of shouting.

Still. Imagine being the one guy, alone, behind the reception desk at that point. You can see him in the first video. I spoke to him later. There was nothing he could do – too late to lock the doors, and he said the protesters were worked up enough that they'd have pried them apart anyhow. It's apparently not that difficult (thanks, that'll help me sleep better at night). The people in yellow jackets in the videos are the police, who had to be called to control the situation and eventually make the protesters leave.

I have every sympathy with the protesters' viewpoint. I quite liked seeing them outside every day, a sort of reminder that people give a stuff about something other than their credit card bills. But when they invade my place of work and won't go, the turnstiles and waist-high glass security banners I pass through every day start looking awfully flimsy. These protesters were not violent, but imagine if they had been. We have security personnel in the building, of course, but enough? Suffice it to say that I'm nervous now, in a way that bombs on tubes in London didn't manage.

Oh, and for the record, here's my prepared speech for anyone who has a go at me for either my employer's decision not to broadcast the charity appeal for Gaza or our wider coverage of the current violence there:

I imagine, not knowing from personal experience, that the hardest part of journalism must be what you can't report. The BBC has a duty to be impartial and a legal obligation not to say anything it can't prove to be true (you also have the latter). But if you think a building full of journalists doesn't have an extremely good idea what's really happening in Gaza, I think you're probably wrong.

I believe in being prepared. But I hope I won't be in any kind of situation that necessitates using it.

I no longer wear my BBC baseball cap on my journeys home. Just in case.

And I leave by another entrance.

My head just jerked up and I stared across the room, muzzle quivering, as the sounds of the Mr. Benn theme tune started from someone's PC. I looked to my left and the other two guys on my desk-island-thing had done the same. People of a certain age, eh?

(Actually, I was born in '82, not '72, but they retransmitted them and I had a few on tape that I watched incessantly.)

Anyway—Werewolf last night was great fun. I'd read about it so was clear on the rules, but the dynamics, maths and especially politics only become clear when you start playing. Still, I was less of a beginner than the other three or four beginners. There were nine total, including Ian who was the moderator each time.

So, we got through four games in the course of the evening. Three normal games with two wolves and a Seer, but without revealing the status of the lynched players (seems better for a smaller group like we were), and then one with the Healer thrown in.

I was an ordinary villager each time (OR SO I CLAIMED!!… no, really). I managed to get lynched in my first two games before the experienced players cottoned onto my strategy, which was "play guilty every time"—I thought that was the only way a newbie would be able to fox people, given that I'm unable to dissemble.

When I got tired later in the evening, though, my strategy slipped out of the window and I reverted to my analytical, helpful baseline. After that I wasn't suspected once. Curse my honest face.

Oh, and thanks a bunch, A. and D., for killing me in the first round of game three. Eliminating the competition!

David Attenborough, presenter of much-loved British wildlife documentaries, reveals that he has received hate mail for not crediting God for the wonders he shows us.

You always get some nutters. Still, can't help feeling disgusted. Some people want to have their cake and eat it. Watch programmes about the real world and wonder why they aren't consistent with la la land, while, as Attenborough points out, crediting god for hummingbirds and not for parasitic worms.

Parasitology, one of those things about which I keep meaning to take Neal Asher's advice and read up a little. Parasites are beautiful and clever and a rich mine of horror-laced SF and fantasy. Anything that modifies behaviour, or otherwise affects someone's mind, taps right into that deliciously enduring fear of loss of individuality.

Christians try to invade the "spiritual but not religious" wishy-washies and epically fail.

Probably not realising that, chances are, said wishy-washies either come from Christian backgrounds or at least have been exposed to it already. Or maybe it's an "if you're not good an evangelised, they obviously didn't do it right!" thing.

A 1909 armed robbery that appalled the nation, encouraging red-masthead-style paranoia about 'alien' immigrants.

Wikipedia may introduce editors who have to approve all major changes before allowing them through.

Face it, this was bound to happen. (I suspect the tipping point was when the BBC started linking to them, but then, I would say that.)

I'm going to play Werewolf tonight. (NOT WtA, sod off.)

I've wanted to play this/see it played ever since reading about it on Zarf's site.

Coincidentally, I'm currently reading Fool Moon.

My weekend was spent:

• Making music (fun)
• Taking cat to a Sunday surgery on account of a sudden rush of blood to the urine (cystitis; he's had it before. Not fun, but interesting)
• De-virusing computers and memory sticks (Slen is the prime suspect for this. Not fun, but I don't mind doing things like this with computers)

From the music, I learned that I am awesome, and the three of us (Slen, me and our mother, who helped with the later stages of the lyrics) are capable of unbelievable heights of awesomeness. (Perhaps mostly me and my mother on the lyrics; it might have been a quicker process if I wasn't determinedly trying to keep Slen's attention on it so he'd have a chance to contribute. Noodling his guitar and canoodling someone else were both vying for his attention.)

From the vet palaver, we learned of a place that has reasonable prices and a Sunday surgery, and found out a few more interesting things about cat innards from the vet, who made the time to chat to my mother in some detail. (Probably because there weren't any other patients there; that and she's good at getting medicos to talk to her in a non-patronising way, which I can't make them do, even though I'm intelligent and interested too.)

I also put a pill in the cat and held him for ritual emasculation (claw-clipping and eye drops for his cohnjuhntuhvituhs). And fed the neighbouring cats.

From the virus kerfuffle, I learned that ClamAV does not find the particular autorun.inf virus we had. On the advice of some pages I googled up (having identified the virus by myself from behaviour and a little investigation), I installed Avast!, which is spelled with an exclamation mark, and which found and removed the thing.

Avast! demands an internet connection to download its libraries, which means my mother's laptop (which is never connected to the internet as a matter of practice, but was infected by Slen's memory stick) is a little stuck — ClamAV Portable, as I mentioned, not being able to deal with this virus. I asked her to take the laptop into work and have their technicians look at it, because in any case they should be made aware of the threat, but I don't know if she'll do as I advise. Meanwhile, any USB drive connected to it is of course immediately reinfected.

Happy Australia Day and Invasion Day to those who mark one or both.

A programme called Terry Pratchett: Living with Alzheimer's is coming to BBC Two "soon"! At last, I've got some use out of the annoying TV on the wall that's turned on all the time with the sound down. (It seems his face is the same as his voice, in that I always recognise the man if I catch him out of the corner of my eye/ear, for example on a television trailer. Weird. Even my immediate relatives can't boast that level of recognisability to me.)

I keep watching Demons even though it's crap and Glenister's accent is beyond self-parody. There's one character called "Mina Harker", which annoys me almost as much as if someone were to make a character called "Irene Adler". (Which they have. Not long ago, I saw some kiddies' series to do with Sherlock Holmes and the Irregulars, and there was a murderous jewel thief character who was meant to be Adler. NO. JUST NO.)

There are some things that are guaranteed to be rubbish if done by pretty much anyone, and portrayals of supposed Mina Harkers most assuredly qualify. Don't mention That Film based on That Comic Book, either…

Oh, there has been one good thing about Demons: at the beginning of the series, the Monster of the Week was a demon named Gladiolus Thripp, which is quite possibly one of the best names ever. He was killed off in the first episode. BOO.

Oh, and I saw on Amazon that All Cats Have Asperger's Syndrome, while All Dogs Have ADHD. What is this popery! My brother gets a better genetic deal than me in EVERYTHING! (I'll have you know I'm an alpha dog, morally if nothing else. I think too much about food and too little about sex to be a tomcat.)

Current music: Power Quest, Into The Light, of which there are no words to describe the wonderful uplifting cheesiness.

Large graphic in this entry…. if it's working. If there's a broken image, that's rather annoying.

Read the rest of this entry »

They've been less and less frequent, so I may as well make the final nail official.

At my workplace, over the last four years, we used to spend much of our morning looking through online news and collating it. At that time I used to do near-daily news updates in my blog over lunch breaks, highlighting stuff I found important or funny or really damn infuriating, for my sanity as much as anything else. A few of you enjoyed these so much that you friended me because of them, which was awesome and much appreciated, and I hope you've found it worthwhile to stick around even though the news snark has necessarily been dwindling in frequency.

This is because the way we do things in our little Religion webteam has been gradually changing—generally for the good and sane, if unfortunately tending more towards the bureaucratic—and part of that is that we're focusing our efforts on things other than the news. And, to be honest, it was ridiculous how much of our time we used to spend on the task compared to the number of people who actually visited our news pages. The stats apparently showed that quite plainly! So we've wound down the newsgathering to a token few headlines daily, usually done by someone other than me (pout—my own fault for keeping programmer hours). Which means I don't get to see much of the religious and ethical news any more, which means there's quite simply less to rant about.

I will, of course, continue to blog any stories and other links that catch my eye, like any normal blogger, and I expect the occasional rant and snark will continue too.

This does, of course, mean that this blog needs a new gimmick. Suggestions for that would be much appreciated.

To create a mailto: link to an email address that contains ampersands, like "bob&george@notadomain", escape the ampersand with %26 (mailto: links are URLs, after all) like so:

<a href="mailto:bob%26george@notadomain">bob&amp;george@notadomain</a>

(Problem courtesy of a problem I encountered in work today, answer courtesy of a quick Google.)

Daily Mail: Religion divides us more than race, say Britons

Religion is something you can choose. Even the most brainwashed, indoctrinated or abused child can be freed from it, given competent care. Whereas I couldn't become un-white even if I wanted to. Fake tanning lotion ain't the same. (More's the pity. On a completely superficial level, I'm marginally more attracted by the less pale skin types. I hate sunburn. :P)

So. I am angry. I am angry. I've just watched three clips from a television programme on whose website I'm working. Animal sacrifice. Not only the usual livestock-type animals (and I find that completely unacceptable in itself), but also babies of some animals we in Britain consider domestic companions.

It makes me angry that people still inflict fear and pain on a bound animal, hold it down and murder it and then dance around their pet's blood in the belief that it will make the sea calm. It makes me angry that people still load children with dogmas and guilt and magical thinking and useless lore and superstitious rituals in the belief that after they die they will go to fairyland. Do not come near me with pamphlets right now because I swear… *temporary transmission loss* …so far you'll have papercuts in your sodding mouth.

…

Nonetheless, I remind myself, I strongly feel that everyone may think whatever superstitious bollocks they choose—as long as no laws or bounds of common decency are broken in the process of whatever they choose to do about their superstitious bollocks, doing being a crucially separate thing from thinking. As part of that freedom, the superstitious bollocks should be continually challenged and held up to debate. And if they're rude or obstructive in how they act on their superstitious bollocks, "but it's what I beliiiiiiiieve" must not be a mitigating factor in how society censures the bad behaviour, which, remember, is not the same thing as the belief.

And that goes for people who think whales are fish, people who think they're psychic, people who think little grey aliens are obsessed with their rectums, people who think standing on a phone book will stop you getting pregnant, people who think the invisible beard told them not to eat animals that weren't murdered with the proper magic words, people who file Green Day in the metal section… you get the idea.

I'm having more trouble with the diet since picking it back up after Xmas. I'm still doing the cobbled version where I eat as much green veg as I want, but now I'm wanting other stuff. Like sundried tomato paste and cheese on a toasted bagel or muffin with faux sausage and fake bacon… mmm. Well, I'm still losing weight slowly(? probably too early to say, actually) and steadily.

It's just that the watermelon on the worktop's calling to me. I want it, that seedy harlot, I want to bite it.

Ah well, all very boring. Other than that, been co-writing on the first Twine Wars story, Seeds of Trouble, as well as starting another silly short called Rat Run, because we like being busy. (It's distantly based on the old kiddies' TV show Knightmare. That rocked so hard, dude.) And reading some of my Xmas books, losing weight, finishing Neoquest… I think that's it.

Someone gave me scented soap today, as a thankyou for feeding their cats. I find this hilarious. I thought scented soap only existed in clichés.

(Oh, and Anke, I discovered that there's a song called Rat in a Maze by Shade Empire. Hehe.)

:O Look at these and tell me they are not the awesomes. But I will not believe you if you do.

Ice crystals I

Ice crystals II

Latest doodle for something we're writing: A headband with a corporate logo on it. It's braided satin and gold¹, ooooooh!

¹ The production team reserves the right to use a gold substitute at the discretion of budget demands.

Really cool article.

They feature in the BBC's Around the World in 80 Faiths; the clip will eventually go up on the web. We're having some technical difficulties at present.

It's always nice to meet other oddly-gendered deity-mortals…

Attempt at Weft skull #1

Things I have learned:

It's practically impossible to draw this guy's eyes BIG enough.
Photoshop's Liquify filter is awesome (thanks Dev!). (Somewhere on a layer behind is a human skull that I deformed. That was fun.)

He is not meant to be particularly pretty… but apparently "he looks a lot more attractive if you capture him moving. Stills don't do him justice".

Pope: "Stop claiming you've seen the Virgin Mary. You're making us look nuts."

Migraine-inducing artwork… no, truly. Really nice article about migraines and their causes.

Evil cats in the news (note name of second felin)