radiac.net

Just had a Maths for Apps exammy thing. 4 short questions, if you know the stuff it'll take you about 15 minutes, so it's not much of an exam. But it does count towards the final mark, so it's not completely insignificant. Pretty insignificant, but not insignificant. By the way, I put insignificant onto the clipboard, so I'm going to try to get the word 'insignificant' into this as many times as the word 'insignificant' could be fitted into an insignificant diary entry without the word 'insignificant' getting annoying, and its meaning becoming insignificant (this occurrence wasn't my idea, someone insignificant suggested it), which would be a shame, since 'insignificant' is not an insignificant word. But it is fairly insignificant... this year counts for 40% of our overall mark iirc. 10 modules this year, so this module counts for 4% of my overall mark. Coursework counts for 40% of that 4%, and there are 5 bits of coursework. So it's pretty insignificant.

Anyway.

Going home for an un-insignificant (yes, I know it's cheap, but its insignificant in the grand scheme of things) party (Growse's girlfriend) and an otherwise insignificant few days or so.

Apparently an un-insignificant problem had caused the un-insignificant train service from Bath to Paddington to fail earlier... my great aunt knew some people who were turned back to London, told me. Which was nice, but, as it turns out, insignificant. The insignificant Railtrack website told me that a car drove onto the track. That must be really scary. Hope that never makes my guide to driving, or at least if it does, I get to put it in ;)

Anyway, have another insignificant lecture now, then off home.

Earlier tonight, I watched a fly-on-the-wall documentary about the removal of hereditary peers from the House of Lords back in 1999. Goddam Labour. Anyway, the documentary brought up some interesting points, and, knowing that people who are bored enough to be looking at my website will see this and skip over it, I decided that if I were to rant while paraphrasing and embroidering the aforementioned points, it wouldn't matter at all. So that's what I'm going to do.

For those of you who are still reading and have no idea of the ways of our government, the House of Commons is elected. Until recently, the House of Lords basically consisted of life peers (people who have been made peers by a Prime Minister) and hereditary peers (consisting of Dukes, Earls, Countesses and Barons) - you can find out more here. Anyway, the idea is that the House of Commons proposes bills, they pass it to the House of Lords, who either pass it (to the Queen, I believe), or throw it back to the Commons.

The way the people think is "Oh, the House of Lords consists of old men, out of touch with the world, who sit around drinking too much port after dinner and going 'bah' a lot". Thing is, the hereditary peers were more in touch with the world than people might think, and in fact, with most other politicians; lots of them were not in politics for the power, they had jobs, knowledge and wisdom, which they took into the House of Lords and used to protect the people from many rediculous bills.

To quote Douglas Adams, it is a well known fact, that those people who most want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it.

The PM and government are after power, they don't want another body above them to keep them in check, they are simply after an elected dictatorship. Hell, a dictatorship - maybe that's why Tony and George are so jealous of Saddam. Our government consists of career politicians; our political system is designed for amateurs, people with day jobs. But now, they come out of university and into politics, and use that as a stepping stone to move into a job in the city - the system has been turned on its head. People are in politics for the wrong reason; they are in it for the power. And the Prime Minister is now one step closer to being President. Thing is, with the Commons agreeing to most things to tow the party line, he already has more power the the US president.

And they push these things through by playing on the view of the people. "We represent the people, the Lords are stopping us from doing things, what do they know", they say. They point at the label of old English traditions as something holding us back, use our fears to try to do things to change the image, telling us to look to the future. Thing is, the future of your country depends upon the present, and that depends upon what happened in the past. And, more importantly, they still haven't presented solution to what will come to replace the House of Lords, they just said 'Well, let's get rid of them and then worry about it'. Probably because they dont want a replacement. And this, of course, means that if the government gets a silly idea (such as giving people like the Post Office unrestricted access to ISP records), nobody can stop them.

Goddam Labour.

They get rid of assisted places, would close Grammar schools if they could, implement top-up fees for universities, kick out the hereditary peers, screw over the services, get in bed with America and promise to fight in their crusade against terrorism (despite the years of supporting them supporting the IRA), and produce daft bills, riding on hysteria, which should never, and, if we had a decent political system, would never be passed.

And yet, people vote for them. Why? "Because they're better than the others!"

And this is how you use your vote that millions have fought and died for? You vote for someone because "What did the other guy ever do for us?", or "Ooh, doesn't Tony have a lovely squeaky clean new party promising Cool Brittania and a hip new theme song! I'll vote for him!". Shame on you. And it was by D:Ream FFS... couldn't you tell you were in for an ass raping?

But then like I implied a while back, it's not just Labour. It's the whole political system. Democracy, or at least what it has become. The art of asking everyone what they want to do, doing what nobody wants and persuading them it's what they asked for in the first place. Of persuading them the other party is worse and winning elections based on the fact that the majority of those voting are either too lazy or too gullible to look at the past, present and future.

So the conclusion that this innocent-looking documentary has led me to is that parliament sucks, democracy is doomed to failure, there isn't a solution, and we're all going to die in a chemical/biological/nuclear war between a power-crazed dictator who has the people of his country blinded by his propaganda machine, and Saddam Hussein.

Right, that's it. I'm moving to Alaska.

Oh yes, and the party last night was great :)

You know, I've always loved the Labour party. They truly are a wonderful party, who are always working on our behalf for a better country and *sigh* nope, still can't do it.

Anyway, at least they've FINALLY got something right. About time too.

I could say this almost makes up for them being so freaking stupid, but it doesn't, so I wont. They're only doing it because it would be one broken promise too far. That, and Euan's constant whining...

Still, it is good news.

Just wrote JIP a crappy Quake 2 mod which displays how much time you have left on the current map, and plays a 10 second countdown at the end.

Hmm, it's 5.35 am.

I should go to sleep soon.

I have new contact lenses. As in they're a new type. As far as I can tell, they're exactly the same, apart from they keep lifting up and moving around, therefore falling into and out of focus apparently randomly, which is (as you can probably imagine) quite disconcerting.

There's a new South Park episode. Very good :)

Went into town this morning with my mum and gran, where we met some of their friends and I ate toast. I drove home, because I take 10 minutes less than my mum, who is really bad at driving. Sane people would take 5 minutes at the most. I drove home, because I take 3 minutes less than sane people.

Had tacos tonight. It was nice. I am painfully full.

It is very very very cold here. Our boiler is screwed. Recently, it has taken to boiling the water, realising that the water is now too hot, panicking and pushing the water out at quite a rate. The water gushes upstairs, rockets through the pipes (makes them shake a lot - I'm sure something's going to snap or come loose soon), and goes into the cold water tank. After a couple of seconds, the cold water tank gets full, and the water goes into the overflow tank, which, true to its name, overflows all over my ceiling and pours onto my bed. So most of the time, we keep the boiler turned off. And since it is very very cold outside (our lawn was white today from the hail), it gets very very cold inside. Turned the cold water tap on for 30 seconds this morning, I swear the temperature rose 10 degrees...

Um, nothing much else to say. I'm a very boring person, really.

That Disneyland advert has to be the most disturbing advert I've ever seen. In case you've managed to miss it, it starts with these little kids, a brother and sister, getting dressed. They glance at the clock, the girl pouts her lips in a kissey motion, the boy holds his finger to his lips in a 'shhh' motion, then they go and check to see if their parents are in. I mean WTF?! It's almost as bad as that vibrating Harry Potter broomstick all the blogs linked to a while back, and almost as bad as this... And while I'm shamlessly ripping off the b3ta newsletter, I might as well link to this, because it's very funny.

It's the end of my week at home, so time for me to return.

Found some hard drive porn... nothing I haven't seen before though... have spent the past half an hour looking for the diary mentioned in this article, but I'm afraid that I've had no success.

Right, off to catch a train.

Christmas decorations have been going up in Bath today. Woo!

I'm really fed up with the way that this website works, far too difficult to swap themes. I'm going to have to do something about it soon. I'll probably USMLise it. And when I originally started the site, the plan was to split off radicam and guides into separate websites after they'd reached a certain size... it never really happened, since they didn't grow as fast as I thought they would. Probably about the right time for the guides section though, so maybe I'll do something about that. The thing I'll have to do first though is get the USML package manager working. Which will be fun. Not that any of you have any idea what I'm talking about... Bah. I will explain what the difference will be; it will look pretty much the same, and it will be a lot more complicated for me.

Saw Jim Davidson on some tv chat show this afternoon - very anti-Europe, it's great :) Also hoovered the carpets, the stairs and the sofas, washed the kitchen table top, swept the floor and took the rubbish out. I am becoming disturbingly domesticated. Anyway, am back at uni now, have a lecture in a couple of minutes. Databases. Mmmm.

Stuff like this pisses me off.

Interesting fact of the day: the Main Library at Indiana University sinks over an inch every year because when it was built, engineers failed to take into account the weight of all the books that would occupy the building. The same thing is happening at University of Kent, Canterbury, but only since BenC started working there...

I made


It tastes mmmmmmm.

I ate too much.

I feel sick.

Just been to see the new Harry Potter film. Twas OK.

This is more fun than it should be...

Been doing crazy amounts of work!

This is fun. Kinda tricky at first, but still fun. I did it perfectly.

Well, I have a 9.15 tomorrow, so bed would probably be a good idea.

Can't wait till they sell this in my local ;)

So much fun (thanks, thingy).

Just taught myself php. What a silly language.

Oh My God.

He drank some home-made dandelion wine. Half a bottle of. He is now very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very (use your imagination) very drunk. He says the wine is excellent.

He is actually quite frightening.

He has just attempted to prove to me that his hair does not come out, by pulling fistfulls of his hair out and shouting 'SEE! NO HAIRS!'

Oh sweet jesus, he just started on my hair.

This is not a good thing.

The other not good thing is that it is 4.24. AM. I would try pushing him out of my room, but I reckon he'll tip over, pass out, and leave his legs stuck in my room, putting me in a worse position than I am in now. Although maybe I could drag/push him down the stairs...

Good things about this day include that I drank my free tall hot Starbucks beverage of my choice (a triple chocolate bliss, mmmmmm), I finished coursework, and made my new printer work tonight.

Bad things also include me accidentally installing Portugese Windows NT printer drivers on this machine (leaving it unable to print, in fact, leaving it completely screwed), Simon and Nat persuading me to leave the uni before doing my maple coursework, Nat getting us banned from using the bus, Simon, Nat and Jane persuading me to go into Sainsburys, and me buying two rediculously expensive chocolate puddingy things, which were absolutely tasteless and very disappointing.

As an aside, I got a phone call while I was walking round Sainsburys... the others took advantage of this by putting everything they could find into my basket. Including a 8 chocolate mousses, a bottle of gin, a pack of 6 eggs and a Sindy doll.

And I somehow managed to cut my ear while shaving. I still have no idea how I managed that...

Thank god. He's left my room.

Time for bed. Well, at least I don't have a 9.15 tomorrow :p Uh, today. Uh... good night

He just came back in. And he thinks he's sober.

I am in need of a locksmith. Applications by email ASAP please.

This guy is my hero.

I am making pie again. This time someone called Sara Lee made it, I'm just cooking it and eating it :)