'News for your neurons', or those of you who have some

Right. Im fucking sick of this. I am through to the back fucking teeth.

DEAR WIRED.COM COMMENTORS,

YOUR COMMENTS FUCKING SUCK. ARE YOU FUCKING STUPID. AM I SPEAKING IN SMALL ENOUGH SENTENCES FOR YOU. CAN YOU READ THIS WITHOUT CAPS LOCK. try this. oh, you can't. SORRY I MEAN OH, YOU CAN'T. ergh, i give up already.


-Case 01-

Ok lets start with todays one. It's an article about electric fish. You know, eels & stuff. Utterly fascinating. Anyway, the comments: You probably won't believe me so i took a screenshot:


..What the hell?
"Hi guys, just in case for some reason you can't read the last 4 comments, thought i'd just let you know 100hz is a low buzz and not a high whine, even though obviously, such descriptions are entirely relative."
I can't decide if these guys have some mental condition which makes them assume Wired can only read their comments; or if they all had some extreme derren-brown-subliminal-brainwash moment and just mindlessly re-iterated the first thing they saw in their peripheral vision, instead of whatever they meant to put. Any thoughts?


-Case 02-

Ok this is one that comes up every fucking time an article contains the word evolution in it. This article is on Darwin. Yeh, can you believe a science mag did an article evolution? Oh yeh! They so went there. Wired have - and i would normally disagree with censorship, but here i think it is totally justified- removed the bulk of troll comments. Never the less, odd gems remain:

Posted by: Kyle | 02/11/09 | 9:32 pm
may i suggest you leave this kinds [sic] of topics alone. bad move wired. i am a huge fan but not with this stuff.

Posted by: Anonymous | 02/11/09 | 6:54 pm
False Teaching

Posted by: Anonymous | 02/11/09 | 8:21 pm

“— and there are lots of big, unanswered questions”. That’s why it’s a therory, [sic] not a law.

Posted by: Eternal | 02/12/09 | 12:21 am

200 years later and 64% of the American populace still realizes that intelligent design makes more sense than evolution. Only 26% of the population is so close-minded they won’t look at the evidence that doesn’t support their theory.

Posted by: Scott | 02/12/09 | 3:24 am
Science gone mad. Using scientific method, noone could be serious that evolution makes sense. Find a new theory and stop trying to be clever.

What.. the hell? What kind of magazine did these people imagine they were reading? Its got "WIRED SCIENCE" written across the top in full capitals, bright green ones at that. Were these people expecting some kind of creationist sermon? Ok so even you honestly believe your religion cannot co exist with evolution, that's not an excuse to be a moron.. right?


-Case 03-

Here's another one, that, being a SCIENCE magazine, wired cannot help but occasionally report on. It's about the environment, and how some scientists have been able to peg down environmental thresholds before human civilisation is threatened. Note, it is a SCIENCE magazine, reporting on what some scientists say they have found.



Ah, the good old 'We-armchair-readers-know-better-than-trained-scientists' brigade.. it wouldn't be a wired post without them. Again: what did they think they were reading? "Oh hey, look at this mag! they've got an article on earth science! What are they, some kind of SCIENCE MAGAZINE!?" I think you're getting my point by now.


-Case 04-

Finally, although by no means the last example- jeez, we've barely scratched the surface here- a potentially ethical article. The article basically says some scientists have found that torture is a flawed method of interrogation because stress affects recall negatively, as well as affecting memory function itself in prolonged cases. Note that the article doesn't really touch on any ethical or moral ideas about torture.
Not that wired commentors would have noticed.

Posted by: PJW11 | 09/21/09 | 1:33 pm

So torture is bad. Alrighty then, we have the moral high ground. At least until it gets blown up from underneath us. It’s like being a pacifist yet expecting a police officer to defend you if you’re being burglarized, you can’t demand security from groups willing to torture you and then pick and choose how you will be defended.

For those of you who don't speak moron, I offer a translation: "dddduuugh, cant read."

Posted by: PR3DA7OR1AL | 09/21/09 | 2:59 pm
Waterboarding, sleep deprivation, stress positions (such as seperating one from many) and the exploitation of phobias are all used TO BREAK A PERSON DOWN TO AN EMOTIONAL LEVEL.

Again: Probably cant read. Yes, torture breaks people down to an emotional level. Congratulations. Now go back and read the article again and observe what it has to say about that emotional level interfering with memory reliability. You are looking for information remember.. not emotions.. remember? Oh, maybe you just didn't care. I get the feeling your interest in torture has absolutely nothing to do with military intelligence. So why comment on the article? Just get yourself on down to your local BDSM club!


Oh, i could go on and on. Take for example, how the comments on this and this article completely disagree about wired's ulterior agenda for Apple. It's just bizarre. Where the hell do these readers come from? Maybe they should do an article about that.

With half the race gone, theres only half the race still to go

In my [second from] last post i left you guys on a cliffhanger, wondering whether the next post would be today, tomorrow or yesterday. If you correctly guessed 'today', congratulations! You must be psychic, you freak!!


Back in my latter teen years, i lived with my dad in a little 2-bedroom terraced cottage in the village. Downstairs we had a little kitchen, and a dingy bathroom, but there was no living room. Instead, the huge area of space formerly the lounge was my dad's office.

My father is an 'engineer consultant', meaning folks hire him to design engine parts [for cars, bikes & others] and/or explain to them why their previous rubbish designs have gone horridly wrong. His desks- and usually the chairs, floor and rest of the room- would be covered in drawing tools, A1 design sheets, computers & peripherals and most interestingly- aluminum prototypes of the parts he was working on. He would bring them back from the factory and conveniently dump them on the floor in the one spot i was most likely to trip over or bash into them- a careless injury we both fell victim to several times, but he just never seemed to learn from.

I would come in from school or college each day and it wasn't hard to tell how my dad's day had been. Some days i would be flatly ignored. Other days i'd walk in to be greeted by an ecstatic HELLO!; have some cylinder head model shown to me and asked what did i think. In pretty much both cases i hadn't a clue what i was supposed to say.

Given the good relationship i have with my dad, the fact i lived in his office a few years and met many of his colleagues, it does seem strange that i've never been exposed much to the industry he works in. I've never been to any races before so the racing industry is an alien world to me. So, when he invited me, it was with mixed anticipation that i went along to see his latest project working for Embassy Racing, WF01, race at Silverstone, in the final round of this years Le Mans Test Series.

Le Mans, 'The grand prix of endurance racing' is the grand prix for sports cars. Unlike formula one- a dull sprint for race drivers in prototypes that are only built to survive the race- These are actually intended to be real cars for real people on real roads. The main race lasts a full 24 hours(!). It is accompanied by the test series- in which cars race for, oh, "only" 6 hours. Also, rather than the Formula1-esque procession around the track, four classes race at different speeds on the track at the same time. Each car only competes with other cars in the same class, but they all have to negotiate each others traffic. The race the long, cars often do not make it to the end and positions are constantly changing.

Saturday was test day, and rich-people-get-your-old-museum-cars-out day, so we went down to the pits to check up on Team WFR - formerly Embassy Racing until they went bankrupt last year- and their car, WF01.
Apparently the night before they'd had, well, a bit of a crash. The back half of the body work was in a big pile lying around outside, with dazed mechanic dude casually picking bits up wondering what would be good to take home for the kids.




fortunately, race teams pack spares, so the car won't be racing like this.




As you can i see.. it was one of those times when i didn't think to bring a camera. Hence the shakey pics off my dads phone.

Surprisingly, I didn't get bored, to both my and my dads delight, in fact i enjoyed it so much i agreed to come back the next day for the full 6 hour course.

The car did pretty damn well. About an hour in it reached 3rd place in P2 class. It then reached 2nd place which it held for an hour, causing my dad to bounce around in his seat. Then, with a couple of hours left, something went wrong and they had to get back to the pits. Apparently something to do with a generator? They lost a lot of time but got it back out. The car made up laps and managed to get 4th place, respectable given the circumstances. The final race results are here (p2 class are in blue). And, if you're really sad and geeky, the timings and mid-race results are here.

We didn't leave empty handed though, dad went back to the pits to pick up something dazed mechanic dude had promised for him- a trophy from the smashed car body work, which, having also designed, he was immensely pleased with. When we got home he cut it in half and gave me half.. which was pretty immense. So: if u ever see a chunk of carbon fibre lying around in my room, you all know what it's from.



If you look closely at the first picture you can probably work out where it's from.. it's off the main chunk, at the bottom- which was once originally the middle in between the back wheels. The lump goes over a joint in the rear wheel suspension. The edges have been taped over with gaffa tape, after he cut his finger on the rough edge earlier. At least that's one careless injury he did learn from.

Peado on the street

Guys, i need your advice. I think there's a peado on our street, and i'm not sure what to do. Ok i'll explain.
Yesterday i was walking back to the house and the weird neighbour guy was hanging around outside his house with the kids of our street like he often does. He looks kinda old and sleazy you know like how peados do. And he started talking to me and asked my name, then pointed to himself and slowly goes 'Clarence' like i'm some non-english-speaking polish person. And the kids go, 'you can call him Clary' which is a shit name but its like he's got them all used to his presence, u know? So I said, are they your kids and he says, no theyre from next door. And now i think of it, they ARE from next door. BUT THIS IS FREAKY BIT. And then he goes, 'but this one..' [he puts his arms around the girl stood next to him] 'shes my special girl' and then he pulls her close and kisses her on the head and goes 'love her to bits.' And i'm like WTF, but i didnt show it, i just kinda chuckled and said oh right and then went back home.
But this other time, i was walking past the girls house and her and her mum were looking out a window at 'Clary' and her mum was going 'you're a smooth talker aren't you? piss off!' So i guess she obviously knows.

But still amirite to think its weird, or am i just over reacting?

Btw: whilst typing this, one of spellchecks alternatives was 'peadar'.. is that, a peado radar right? guys, where do i get one?

Postarama woot

Today i had i quick look through my blog folder and realised a huge quantity of of my posts are still sitting behind the scenes as drafts. You probably only see up to about two thirds of the posts i write.

Some of them are long rambling posts i got half way through and abandoned; actually most of those are still in Notepad and aren't even held on this site. Some were too brief- just a link and title left waiting for some intended content that i've clearly forgotten since. On at least one occasion i was going to post something quite fun with lots of links, but it required me to scan a flyer i'd found and i seem to have thrown away since :( The majority were abandoned because at the time i thought they were too boring, or i'd got part way through and had a thought that un-did everything i'd just said.

Anyway, today i went through a few of them and picked out a couple i could polish off and release, and that is the reason why these posts seem out dated or second rate. More might be released in future, especially if that flyer, or another one like it, somehow turns up.

Btw, tomorrow i may post aswell, as 'stuff' happened at the weekend with photos. But i don't know, check tomorrow. Or today, if you're reading this tomorrow, or yesterday as it'll be tomorrow, which'll actually be today, even, or whatever.

On the wings of a paradox

I'm gonna go out on a limb and assume no one here is an avid fan of the daily mail.

Today RobManuel posted this link on twitter. The tagline efficiently sums up the project as: 'Help to make sense of the Daily Mail’s ongoing effort to classify every inanimate object into those that cause cancer and those that prevent it.' The articles from which they are sourced are here.

Well.. dunno 'bout you guys, but it's good to be informed that i can reduce my chances of breast cancer by just getting morning sickness, and that radiation can apparently cause it.

Spot how many contradictions occur throughout the table. Red wine seems to be the most frequent, and each time the pill is mentioned it seems to be conclusively responsible for one or the other. Sex is another thing they're undecidedly certain about. Also 'work' re-occurs throughout the 'causes' column, and we know how daily mail readers feel about those who don't work.

I guess the truth is many of these items are responsible for solving one problem, but then cause another. Frankly, that's just the ebb and flow of life, nature and all it touches so far as i can tell.

So i guess the only thing we can learn from the daily mail today is: Sooner or later, one thing or another is going to get you. So why waste your life panicking about it in shitty newspapers?

Sunday Morning Debates: ignorance is bliss

In the mornings, i tend to debate things with myself. It's still early, so i'll allow it to spill over on the internet. Good idea? Bad? Dunno.
I was watching a mildly humorous retelling of harry potter last night, narrated by an 'alcoholic wizard'. The whole film is on youtube, this is just chapter 9.


Amusing narrations aside, it fascinates me how harry potter, and others- Discworld, Middle Earth, Azeroth etc are those exciting fantasy worlds people get so entranced and absorbed by. It can be so absorbing that people will happily spend their wages on fake encyclopedias, maps and even cookbooks, and this is still not enough for some people who simply cannot be persuaded to leave that world. That's pretty potent, isnt it?


Aside from just 'looking different', the awareness and beliefs in these realms are fundamentally different from our world, in that they're worlds full of 'magical' unknowns.

For example, in Mr. Potters adventure there's a moment where you see the snitch before it's turned on. Its a metallic looking ball with "wings" that essentially look like bits of wire. How can wire flex so rapidly? Let alone make a metal ball fly? Your simple answer is.. you're now in a world where that just happens, you can't explain how, so don't even try. Mythical creatures do lurk in the forest, people do turn into animals and tiny stones do hold legendary power. There's no explanation, other than the fact you don't know enough about this world to argue with it. The viewer is now in a world that is very powerful, and they are very innocent.

This kind of gives a sense of exciting freedom. There are no 'laws' dictating what is and isn't possible. Anything could happen tomorrow. It also gives a sense of hope. Any problem could, potentially, be solved. How can you assume that there is no one watching, and nothing out there?

It seems to me the majority of these worlds are inspired at least partially by the Age of Faith, or pre-Age-of-Reason times, when ignorance left holes that were lovingly filled by religious and superstitious beliefs. This was a time when living creatures were born from rocks (or in the case of mice "a piece of soiled cloth plus wheat for 21 days", people's personalities were defined by excess bodily fluids, creatures the size of small islands await submerged out at sea, and spirituality overrode science as a reason for doing anything. People had no choice but to believe what they heard, and no doubt they saw the world as an imaginative, scary and limitless one.

Ironically, in modern life, by shunning ignorance and pursuing knowledge we actually have become capable of more, yet we feel more limited. By knowing all about physical laws, we're constantly aware of what can't happen. Experts are keen to remind us that telekinesis isn't real, there's no cure for cancer, and essentially all the land on the planet is mapped. We know virtually all the creatures and have categorised them several times over already. Mysterious, supernatural phenomena are always met as soon as possible with some boring rational explanation- and if not then we are informed they couldn't have actually happened at all. If you like the unknown, you may find that more depressing.

Having said all this.. We are no doubt on the innocent side of many paradigm shifts yet to come. Today's unknown is in the future, probably the sub-atomic, and space. In the future, there may or may not be spaceships.. we don't know.. If there are, we'll probably think it no more spectacular than today's cars. Right now, spacecraft are full of wondrous, innocent speculation, but when they are made, they will operate within known physical law like everything else, and overlooked as mundane tools by their generation.

Anyway i had no plan for where this was gonna go, so i guess ill stop there with that point. Ignorance is exciting bliss, and knowledge is predictable power. And humans will just have to fantasise about one or the other.

Shake it baby

People are complaining about this app because it's offensive.

If i have any complaints about it, it's because it's a shit app. Look what happens. You get a picture of a baby, you shake the phone, and red arial bold X's appear on its eyes. That's it? That game sucks. In fact i dont think it even counts as a game. And it gets worse.. you actually had to pay for it! How did no one feel ripped off by that?

Come on people, if you're going to be all controversial and sick at least put some fucking effort in. And if you're going to jump to the defense of this because 'its just a joke!' then go research humour.