Saturday 30 June 2012

Tumblr Mobile Upgrade

The upgraded tumblr app (I think it’s V3.0) is actually excellent. Seriously, a bazillion times better than the previous one. It looks better and it doesn’t crash. If you use tumblr, I recommend you download it, even if you hated the previous version.

Friday 29 June 2012

Spray Tan

You've got somewhere to be. Somewhere nice. Maybe it's prom and you want to look good in your new dress. Or maybe you're going on holiday and don't want to look vampirically white while you wait to tan naturally. You decide to get a fake tan.

Stop right there.

Seriously, don't fucking move. I'm going to try and make one thing perfectly clear to you right now: nobody in the history of the universe has ever looked good with fake tan on. Nobody. It's just not possible, okay?

It's one of these things you think looks good, like hair extensions or fake nails or the duck face. Fake tan looks fake. You don't look tanned, you look like one of these:



Now, I like oranges as much as the next guy - for a start, they're a great source of vitamin C. But they're not exactly attractive.

So remember, fake tan won't make you look pretty; it'll make you look stupid.

[You'll also smell like pennies]

God Save The Queen

I decided to write this out of confusion and frustration. Half of Britain is (or was; I posted this a couple of weeks ago on Tumblr.) jumping for joy over the queen’s diamond jubilee, and I don’t know why. I mean, what has she done for you lately?

I don’t hate the royals. Really, they seem like pleasant enough people. I bear them no ill will. But I can’t say, truthfully, that I think we need a monarchy.

Now, this isn’t exactly a popular opinion. Tell someone you’re not a fan of the monarchy and you’ll most likely be accused of being bitter at best and unpatriotic at worst.

The thing is, I’m not so sure that a person is unpatriotic just because they don’t worship the queen. As far as I can tell, the royal family isn’t particularly helpful to us.

I would understand it if the royals were in charge, but they are not. We have a democratically elected government to make decisions and create laws. I’m not saying they’re doing very well, but they do fulfil a purpose. The royal family, as I see it, does not. They are the remnants of a bygone era.

Of course, one can argue that they help with tourism. There may be some truth there. I’m sure plenty of people visit Britain at least in part becuase of the royal family. It’s so very British. Now , all this tourism does of course bring in money. But, in case you weren’t aware, the royal family spends a bazillion pounds - of the taxpayers’ money - a day. Okay, it might not be a bazillion pounds - that’s probably not even a number - but it is a lot of money. So, when all is said and done, they probably don’t contribute significantly to the economy.

What I’m really trying to say is this; we have a monarchy, and I don’t see the point. I just don’t. And I’m usually pretty good at understanding both sides of an arguement. But with this…I’m sorry, I can’t do it.

For all that, I’m well aware it doesn’t matter a damn what I think. Even if every person in Britain voted to get rid of the monarchy, to demote them, if you will, it would never happen. Britain is really old. We’ve had royals for ever. And so much is based on that idea. Loads of stuff - mostly boring, official stuff, mind - is done in the name of the crown, especially in England. It would be no easy task to restructure things to make Britain a monarch-less country. Just think about the government for a moment. They can’t reform anything. Certainly, they can’t do a good job of it. *cough* NHS *cough* No, neither this government nor any other in the foreseeable future would be up to the task of sorting things out if the monarchy was dethroned. But in any case it doesn’t matter much. We’ll never get rid of the good old royal family.

But we probably should, because they aren’t doing us any favours.

Thursday 28 June 2012

I Hope They're Lying

I just got an email from AllOut.org

What follows is the first paragraph of that email:
"A woman is raped every 17 seconds in South Africa. Many of the victims of rape in South Africa are lesbians or women who "appear" gay. Some call it "corrective" rape - to turn lesbians straight - but that's not the whole story. These attacks are often a brutal punishment for not behaving like a "real woman" or daring to love who you choose."
I hope they're lying, because that is a terrifying statistic.

Chrome for iOS

For all you wise people out there who use Google Chrome as your browser of choice, I have wonderful news: it's now available on iOS. That means if you're one of the bazillion people who has an iPod, iPhone, or iPad, you can use a real browser instead of Safari. And because i'm so nice, I'll even give you a download link.

If you'd like to read a little more about the app and what it means for mobile web browsing, read this article.

Chris Brown Fans - What Pleasant People They Are

This is a post I meant to write a while ago and never got round to. But I'm doing it now, and that's what counts, right?

Kelly Oxford is a Canadian writer. She also happens to be rather "Twitter famous" - at the time of writing she's just shy of 370,000 followers. Anyway, a while back she tweeted about Chris Brown. You know, the guy who punched Rihanna in the face? That guy. Here's that tweet:


That's fine, right? She's just poking fun at his "music".

Now, Chris Brown fans weren't too happy about her making fun of him, and they were very vocal about their unhappiness. Here are the responses to that tweet - at least, all I was able to get:










It's nice to see that these guys take criticism of the guy so well. That they handle it with such maturity. Especially the top one, @jayxocmb. She's really sensible and polite and doesn't take things too seriously at all.  Remind me to annoy as many Chris Brown fans as I possibly can.

The thing that really amazes me is that all these people are defending him, despite knowing that he's okay with punching women in the face. They see a man guilty of domestic violence and think that it's okay because he's a celebrity. I really don't know who I hate more: Chris Brown, or his fans/

Homoeopathic Medicine

I was watching a bit of Grand Designs a few weeks ago, because I have an exciting life. Anyhow, the couple making the “grand design” where talking to Kevin McCloud about their reasons for deciding to do it. Long story short the husband had a brain tumour, and they felt they wanted to get out of the city and live in the country. The reason for this was they felt they couldn't manage the treatment in the noise and bustle of London.
That’s what I getting at here; the treatment. They decided not to go down the traditional route of chemotherapy, radiotherapy and such. No, they decided to treat the cancer with a diet. I am not joking. The idea is that following an organic, vegan diet, you can cure a brain tumour.

I shouldn’t judge.

And yet, I will.

I’m a great believer in medicine. Medicine works. We can prove that it works. Indeed, you have to prove medicines or medical procedures work before you can start using them on people outside of a clinical trial. We know that chemotherapy and radiotherapy can make a difference, that these treatments can save lives. Sadly, they don’t always work. They don’t. And they’re not pleasant. In fact, chemotherapy looks more like killing someone than saving them. But still, if I happen to get cancer or a tumour during my life - and rates are depressingly high - I will most certainly go to a hospital and get treatment. I think that works.

On the other hand, I happen to think that fruit and soya milk doesn’t. The first thought is perhaps the most natural, irrational one: it doesn’t seem very substantial. Compared to injections and pills, diet doesn’t feel like it would have much sway over your health. Of course, just because something doesn’t seem like it’s going to work is no reason to ignore it. So let’s look at the evidence.

This is where it gets worrying. In nearly every area, there is little or no evidence to suggest that alternative or homoeopathic medicine is more beneficial that standard medical practices. Yet people still believe that alternative medicine (read: voodoo) works. And that seems dangerous. Believing something without evidence is never a good idea, but when it comes to medicine you're risking your life if you delude yourself.

I suppose you have to do what you think is best. But when it comes to medicine, please, let science tell you what's best.

Have a Listen

Following up on last night's post "Survival", I thought I'd drop you a YouTube link to the song. You know, because I'm helpful like that.

It's worth noting that in just over 15 hours, this video has been watched more than 160,000 times. Which is pretty impressive.


Wednesday 27 June 2012

Survival

Well, that was awesome.

It actually was. It sounds...epic, for want of a better word. There's an orchestra involved for crying out loud. And it gets better. Did I detect a choir in there? Yes, yes I did. Some heavy guitar and bass too, of course. Good. It seems like it'll sound damn good live. At any rate, it sounds promising.

As a side-note, I think it's a testament to the internet that the song was up on YouTube within 10 minutes of being played.

It leaves a couple of questions though. "Survival" is going to be on their new album, "The 2nd Law", so it's worth asking if this song will be indicative of the sound of that album? Do you want it to be?

We'll find out in a few months I suppose. Feel free to share your thoughts, on "Survival", Muse or the best way to remove grass stains from a white t-shirt.

If you missed the radio broadcast, you can find "Survival on YouTube (as I said) and I'm given to understand that it's available for download about *checks watch* 10 minutes from now. Enjoy.

Tuesday 26 June 2012

The Truth

'WHO KNOWS WHAT EVIL LURKS IN THE HEARTS OF MEN?'
The Death of Rats looked up from the feast of potato.
'SQUEAK', he said.
Death waved a hand dismissively. 'WELL, YES, OBVIOUSLY ME', he said. 'I JUST WONDERED IF THERE WAS ANYONE ELSE.'
- Terry Pratchett's "The Truth"

Don't Eat That, It's Unhealthy

Okay, I'm going to let you in on a little secret: there's no such thing as food that's bad for you.

Loads of people, all the time, say that they won't eat something - a burger, some crisps, a bar of chocolate - because it's "bad for you". Wrong. Eating 12 burgers, 20 bags of crisps, or 40 cubic feet of chocolate is bad for you. A little bit? No. Nothing - apart from perhaps lead and cyanide - is bad for you if you eat it sparingly. Indeed, I go further: all those foods are good for you. They contain stuff your body needs, stuff it'll struggle to get if you only eat salads and low fat rice crackers. And let's, face it, who likes salads?

What I'm saying is that - unless you have a serious medical condition - don't bother dieting to lose weight. Just go to the gym. Sure, maybe you shouldn't eat so much chocolate or crisps or burgers, but don't cut everything nice out of your diet because people say it's "bad for you". To borrow a phrase from Woody Allen:

"I can live to be hundred if I give up all the things that make me want to live to be a hundred."

Monday 25 June 2012

Finding Blogs To Follow - Is It Even Possible?

Okay, I feel I have to ask: how do you actually find blogs to follow on Blogger? Maybe I'm being stupid - it happens on occasion - and it's completely obvious. But I've been at this a few days and I can't for the life of work out how to find blogs to follow.

Hmm...

Almost every time I try to use Blogger I get the HTTP 503: Service Unavailable error message. Very annoying. I'll persevere for now but I'd like to see it fixed soon.

Sunday 24 June 2012

Ah!


Internet Explorer 7 Tax



From an article I saw a while back. I’ll add a link if I can find it.
This made me chuckle. In all seriousness, who is still using IE7? Indeed, who’s still using any version of IE?

Thursday 21 June 2012

Football Fields

Here's a thought: I'm always seeing videos or articles that try and give you a sense of how big (or small) things are. For example, if a hydrogen atom was the size of a football field, the nucleus would the size of a grain of salt.
That's all well and good (except it's pointless to try and comprehend that sort of scale. But that's for another post).
The thing is, comparisons using the size of a football field are really common in these things. Pretty much everything is measured relative to a football field when a science is thrown at the public. My - perhaps trivial - question is: what kind of football field? They use the same comparisons in the USA and the UK, only here we mean football fields, and in America they mean American football fields.
It's not important, it's just something to think about.

Friday 8 June 2012

Of Invisible Art

Sitting here watching the BBC news and they’re reporting on a “conceptual art” installation of “invisible art”. So, blank canvases, empty plinths, and bare walls. And they have the audacity to call it art.

Am I the only one who’s sitting here thinking that these “artists” should maybe actually do some real art? Come on, an empty room isn’t exactly an original idea.

Any thoughts on this? Does anyone think it’s art? Or are they just so pathetically lazy that they couldn’t think of a genuine piece of art to make?

Welcome

Good evening ladies and gents. I've decided to start a more "bloggy" type of blog for all the random and/or brilliant crap that's floating around in my head. Enjoy.

N.B. This blog's name is rubbish right now. I will change it. Any and all suggestions are welcome.