So, you're online every day, watching tv, reading newspapers, talking to people, commenting on articles, probably considering yourself to be well informed about what's happening with the world in the year of our lord 2013, yes?
Did you hear that the new generation of Samsung smartphones will have nanotechnology self-repairing coating, so you won't have to worry about scratches and breaks any more, as it will 'heal' if damaged? No?
Did you hear then, that you can use a 3D printer to create living human cells, that this technology might replace all animal testing within 5 years? No?
Did you hear then, that the scientists working on Hubble Space Telescope confirmed, that there are more planetary systems similar to out solar system in our galaxy than previously thought, possibly capable of supporting some form of life? No?
Or that a human liver has been successfully grown in the lab?
Or that a new generation of anti aging creams and pills will work directly on telomeres and stop them from shortening and the cells from dying so that a youthful look until we die of old age is not entirely out of the question, very soon?
Or that scientist identified the 'youth' gene and if they tweak it in rats, they heal quicker and live longer?
Don't worry if you've not heard any of these breaking scientific news this fall in the year of our lord 2013. It's because they are tucked away, in a little box of small print, on page 23 behind pictures of Kate Middleton's greying hair and a boring description of another struggle for power between political parties no one will remember about in 10 years time and another war that our species excels in. They are mentioned during these 5 minutes between sport and weather news, when everyone wanders off to make a cup of tea. Described online on that website we all avoid because of aggressive pop ups and persistent trolling. Compressed and pushed aside by the mediocre entertainment and all-the-same dramas and censored news designed to make us feel good but not think too much.
Instead of feeling like I'm living in the futuristic sf book, I sometimes feel like I'm living in the world of 1984...
Sunday 24 November 2013
Sunday 13 October 2013
Did you know there's 1 000 000 Neets in UK?
It's been proposed by one of the British politicians recently, that young people under 25, who are not in education,employment or training (hence the acronym - neet), might not get benefits as of 2015. Economically, it just means that Britain will finally level the overgrown welfare system with most other countries in the world, where if you don't contribute, you don't get. What is shocking is that we're talking about an estimated one million people under 25.
Who don't go to school or college or university.
Who don't train or apprentice to enter any profession.
Who don't work anywhere.
Who will now start shouting about how unfair this is.
Who are you people? What do you do? If you are healthy and fit and young what do you do with your life? Where are your parents, who seem not to care about what's going to happen with you? And why should you get help to survive just because you exist?
It is unfair on all of us who work to be forced to support you.
The job market is open across Europe, not only in UK.
There are always places in training for vocational professions.
There's free higher education, or uni loans, or training schemes.
What's missing at the moment is that push, the knowledge that if you don't do anything with your life then you will stay with your parents and live off their money, because the state is not going to help you unless you decide to become a citizen of the state and not a burden.
It's sad times when fear of failure has to replace ambition. But maybe this change will also help to limit the embarrassingly high number of teenage pregnancies in UK - if people know that their kids not only don't guarantee them a council house but might stay with them and live off their money for a very long time...
Who don't go to school or college or university.
Who don't train or apprentice to enter any profession.
Who don't work anywhere.
Who will now start shouting about how unfair this is.
Who are you people? What do you do? If you are healthy and fit and young what do you do with your life? Where are your parents, who seem not to care about what's going to happen with you? And why should you get help to survive just because you exist?
It is unfair on all of us who work to be forced to support you.
The job market is open across Europe, not only in UK.
There are always places in training for vocational professions.
There's free higher education, or uni loans, or training schemes.
What's missing at the moment is that push, the knowledge that if you don't do anything with your life then you will stay with your parents and live off their money, because the state is not going to help you unless you decide to become a citizen of the state and not a burden.
It's sad times when fear of failure has to replace ambition. But maybe this change will also help to limit the embarrassingly high number of teenage pregnancies in UK - if people know that their kids not only don't guarantee them a council house but might stay with them and live off their money for a very long time...
Thursday 5 September 2013
Cats vs. babies
After a recent baby boom within my friends group, that I'm still trying to understand, I couldn't help myself and prepared this crazy cat lady's smug comparison.
Cats vs. babies
When cats wake you up, it's always about food. They might pretend boredom, but put their favourite dry food out and you can go back to bed.
Also, they don't care what time you go to bed. As long as it's not before the appointed dinner time.
If they stay in the bed with you, you can fall asleep knowing you will not squash them, cats have a 'falling on me slumbering human body' radar.
No nappies to change.
You can go away for one night and nothing gets destroyed when you're away. If something got destroyed, you clearly didn't leave enough food.
You can go out, whenever, without social services on your doorstep upon your bleary eyed return at stupid time in the morning.
You can work shifts, on call, whatever hours come your way and not feel guilty about neglecting your cats. You can always catch up on cuddles and attention at 2am when you get home.
No nappies to change.
Litter trays to change, sure, but cats produce way smaller amount of bodily fluids than constantly growing babies. Even after eating half a tray of grass. They also don't puke, pee or poop all over you, ever.
Feel free to retaliate, parents.
Cats vs. babies
When cats wake you up, it's always about food. They might pretend boredom, but put their favourite dry food out and you can go back to bed.
Also, they don't care what time you go to bed. As long as it's not before the appointed dinner time.
If they stay in the bed with you, you can fall asleep knowing you will not squash them, cats have a 'falling on me slumbering human body' radar.
No nappies to change.
You can go away for one night and nothing gets destroyed when you're away. If something got destroyed, you clearly didn't leave enough food.
You can go out, whenever, without social services on your doorstep upon your bleary eyed return at stupid time in the morning.
You can work shifts, on call, whatever hours come your way and not feel guilty about neglecting your cats. You can always catch up on cuddles and attention at 2am when you get home.
No nappies to change.
Litter trays to change, sure, but cats produce way smaller amount of bodily fluids than constantly growing babies. Even after eating half a tray of grass. They also don't puke, pee or poop all over you, ever.
Feel free to retaliate, parents.
Tuesday 3 September 2013
Yet another British record set.
So, according to the latest figures, Britain has the biggest problems with addiction to opiates, such as heroin, and female alcoholism in Europe. Surprise?
Not really.
Heroin junkies here are treated like reasonable people who will get better with support and treatment I get offended when I see ads in papers warning these people to inject with caution cause there's been an anthrax outbreak recently. Because, you know, injecting who knows what into your veins is normally safe. I get angry when I have to wait in a pharmacy on methadone day, listening to them honking about where's the best place to get cheap Valium. I get even more annoyed when they come to the homeless assessment with a demanding needy attitude, people who have not worked one day in their adult lives, don't intend to and take all for granted.
And every Friday and Saturday nights there's scary packs of teenage girls and menopausal women roaming the streets of Scottish towns, filled with vodka and radioactive looking cocktails, with rage and idiocy, puking, falling over, starting fights, breaking glass, vandalising and screaming. I get annoyed when I have to jump over puddles of vomit and trip over unconscious kids on my way back home. When I have to get out of a way of a clucking hen party tottering down the middle of the road, slapping people out of their way. How are you supposed to not become an alcoholic if this is your idea of a good weekend since you're 13 years old until your liver gives up?
Great.
Britain's now not only a European capital of childhood obesity and credit card debts, but also a paradise for people who never learn to take responsibility for their life choices and understand that actions have consequences.
Communist style 'sober up chambers', where drunks and junkies were welcomed with an ice cold hose down to wash off lice and puke and then tied to metal beds for the night until they sober up and finally charged for this service, suddenly sounds like not such a bad idea...
Not really.
Heroin junkies here are treated like reasonable people who will get better with support and treatment I get offended when I see ads in papers warning these people to inject with caution cause there's been an anthrax outbreak recently. Because, you know, injecting who knows what into your veins is normally safe. I get angry when I have to wait in a pharmacy on methadone day, listening to them honking about where's the best place to get cheap Valium. I get even more annoyed when they come to the homeless assessment with a demanding needy attitude, people who have not worked one day in their adult lives, don't intend to and take all for granted.
And every Friday and Saturday nights there's scary packs of teenage girls and menopausal women roaming the streets of Scottish towns, filled with vodka and radioactive looking cocktails, with rage and idiocy, puking, falling over, starting fights, breaking glass, vandalising and screaming. I get annoyed when I have to jump over puddles of vomit and trip over unconscious kids on my way back home. When I have to get out of a way of a clucking hen party tottering down the middle of the road, slapping people out of their way. How are you supposed to not become an alcoholic if this is your idea of a good weekend since you're 13 years old until your liver gives up?
Great.
Britain's now not only a European capital of childhood obesity and credit card debts, but also a paradise for people who never learn to take responsibility for their life choices and understand that actions have consequences.
Communist style 'sober up chambers', where drunks and junkies were welcomed with an ice cold hose down to wash off lice and puke and then tied to metal beds for the night until they sober up and finally charged for this service, suddenly sounds like not such a bad idea...
Tuesday 6 August 2013
Welcome to Soviet Britain 2013
Hooray, it's been announced recently that we're all going to be saved from digitally transmitted boobs and bums and cocks by the enlightened UK government! Most recent news mentioned that websites containing information on violence, suicide and alcohol might also be blocked automatically. So we can all be calm, alive, healthy and vote for the caring UK government who saves us from ourselves!
The government loves you and does not want you, voters, to drown in filth of internet pornography. Never mind that pornography as such is legal, porn mags are available in every supermarket and adults living in a supposedly democratic country are free to drown in whatever filth they wish.
The government care and does not want you, underage future voters, to learn dirty adult things too quickly and ruin your innocence. Never mind that the 'forbidden fruit' phenomenon is well recognised by psychologists, that there's far worse things readily available online than scenes of sexual nature and that it's parents' duty to put boundaries on children' access to digital media.
The government needs you to stay focused and clear minded, not busy slobbering over unrealistic displays of disgusting digital trickery. Never mind that censorship is universally considered a breach of freedom of speech, restrictions will expand until they suffocate all but the pre-approved content and such government controlled media can only end in happy, happy, we're all so happy propaganda.
Ironically, I just tried to access a BBC page with an article about porn censorship and was greeted with: We're sorry but this site is not accessible from the UK.
It has began!
The government care and does not want you, underage future voters, to learn dirty adult things too quickly and ruin your innocence. Never mind that the 'forbidden fruit' phenomenon is well recognised by psychologists, that there's far worse things readily available online than scenes of sexual nature and that it's parents' duty to put boundaries on children' access to digital media.
The government needs you to stay focused and clear minded, not busy slobbering over unrealistic displays of disgusting digital trickery. Never mind that censorship is universally considered a breach of freedom of speech, restrictions will expand until they suffocate all but the pre-approved content and such government controlled media can only end in happy, happy, we're all so happy propaganda.
Ironically, I just tried to access a BBC page with an article about porn censorship and was greeted with: We're sorry but this site is not accessible from the UK.
It has began!
Sunday 23 June 2013
Not so killer instinct
I just read an article about a domestic cats' ancestor, African Wildcat. Cats obviously changed very little, they still patrol their territories, mark their property (including us) and turn into slinky killing machines when a greedy pigeon lands on the other end of the balcony. However they fine tuned these instincts so that they serve them equally well in the wilderness of street life and the comfort of their own home.
In comparison, our human instincts and reflexes and even body plan are so crude.
There's the instinct that was developed as a way of detecting threats and reacting to them quickly with an adrenaline burst, which means we all live with a background anxiety, constantly monitoring our environment for threats. As our environment is now safer than ever before, we make up things to worry about, wind ourselves up to the point where we overreact to minor things and develop anxiety disorders. Yey...
There's the one that makes us seek and consume vast amounts of fatty foods, as we don't know how long it's going to be till the next kill. Also, sugary foods being unnatural confuse our hunters-gatherers bodies that are not sure as to how much we need them. So here's an excuse for you for being fat. Your bloody ancestors are to blame for not being more efficient hunters and letting other predators take their prey away. Like big cats. Hm.
Oh what about the one that makes us afraid of the dark, because it might be teeming with predators, which paralyses people venturing to their own cellars with fear when a light bulb blows unexpectedly?
Or the fact that most eye conditions occur because our eyes are designed to look long distance into the wilderness to spot danger/prey/big cats and not short distance into collections of dots and dashes and swirling colours of tv/pc/mobile screens? Same with back problems, because we are supposed to be mobile and flexible and not stuck in a sitting position for most of the day.
For a so called superior species we are rather depressingly stuck in our African savannah past, burden with safety mechanisms we no longer need, that are actively used to control us by at least one species of predators. Did you know that cats are using our instinct to take care of and protect crying babies by emitting a purr on the same frequency as the babies' screams? Now that's what I call fine tuning.
In comparison, our human instincts and reflexes and even body plan are so crude.
There's the instinct that was developed as a way of detecting threats and reacting to them quickly with an adrenaline burst, which means we all live with a background anxiety, constantly monitoring our environment for threats. As our environment is now safer than ever before, we make up things to worry about, wind ourselves up to the point where we overreact to minor things and develop anxiety disorders. Yey...
There's the one that makes us seek and consume vast amounts of fatty foods, as we don't know how long it's going to be till the next kill. Also, sugary foods being unnatural confuse our hunters-gatherers bodies that are not sure as to how much we need them. So here's an excuse for you for being fat. Your bloody ancestors are to blame for not being more efficient hunters and letting other predators take their prey away. Like big cats. Hm.
Oh what about the one that makes us afraid of the dark, because it might be teeming with predators, which paralyses people venturing to their own cellars with fear when a light bulb blows unexpectedly?
Or the fact that most eye conditions occur because our eyes are designed to look long distance into the wilderness to spot danger/prey/big cats and not short distance into collections of dots and dashes and swirling colours of tv/pc/mobile screens? Same with back problems, because we are supposed to be mobile and flexible and not stuck in a sitting position for most of the day.
For a so called superior species we are rather depressingly stuck in our African savannah past, burden with safety mechanisms we no longer need, that are actively used to control us by at least one species of predators. Did you know that cats are using our instinct to take care of and protect crying babies by emitting a purr on the same frequency as the babies' screams? Now that's what I call fine tuning.
Sunday 26 May 2013
So, you're 30 soon, right?
Well, here's a little summary of what nobody tells you about being in your thirties:
You wake up with stiff muscles and creaky joints and need an hour or two to walk it off, even if the most strenuous thing you have done a day before was hoovering. Bastard treacherous body.
You can still down the pints as before, but you have to run to the toilet more. A lot more. And quicker.
You promised yourself that you will keep up to date with technology and internet developments but all of a sudden it takes you a while to catch up with new concepts. Trending on twitter...? Cloud storage? 4G internet network...? Erp?
Spending Fridays and Saturdays drinking excessively and Sundays recovering suddenly seems like a massive waste of time, there's box sets to watch, friends to meet up with for a coherent conversation, discount bowling in the mornings and sword fighting classes to go to and movies to see in Imax. Sleep all day..? No thanks.
Baby jokes have to get toned down a lot, as there's pregnant bellies everywhere you turn. Hm.
And to top it off, your mid life crisis is lurking to get you before you hit 40. I think we need a new name for it, unless the living expectancy suddenly went down a lot (unless you live in Glasgow, then your mid-life crisis should be at 25).
Happy 30th birthday Jimmy!
You wake up with stiff muscles and creaky joints and need an hour or two to walk it off, even if the most strenuous thing you have done a day before was hoovering. Bastard treacherous body.
You can still down the pints as before, but you have to run to the toilet more. A lot more. And quicker.
You promised yourself that you will keep up to date with technology and internet developments but all of a sudden it takes you a while to catch up with new concepts. Trending on twitter...? Cloud storage? 4G internet network...? Erp?
Spending Fridays and Saturdays drinking excessively and Sundays recovering suddenly seems like a massive waste of time, there's box sets to watch, friends to meet up with for a coherent conversation, discount bowling in the mornings and sword fighting classes to go to and movies to see in Imax. Sleep all day..? No thanks.
Baby jokes have to get toned down a lot, as there's pregnant bellies everywhere you turn. Hm.
And to top it off, your mid life crisis is lurking to get you before you hit 40. I think we need a new name for it, unless the living expectancy suddenly went down a lot (unless you live in Glasgow, then your mid-life crisis should be at 25).
Happy 30th birthday Jimmy!
Wednesday 22 May 2013
We don't need no education
Education is something else now, isn't it?
When I was at school, we were taught facts and figures, had to memorise endless battles and names and themes and geological stratas and capital cities of various countries and schematic pictures of insides of various animals and equations and chemical compounds and tables of German verbs and as much as it was annoying and felt pointless then, you couldn't help but practice your memory every day, your stealth (because it's a long established tradition in Polish schools to prepare elaborate ways of cheating for class tests/exams) and as hard as you tried to pretend you just prepared for exams and forgot everything the next day - some of it sticks deep in your brain in a form of general knowledge sludge and it leads some people to win hundreds of thousands of local currency in these random tv shows and be brilliant in their careers because they just know things.
My impression of education in UK these days, based on going to different schools to interpret during parent's meetings and such, is, that it all tries so hard to be interesting and entertaining and group work oriented that it leads to chaos and confusion for everybody. There's a volcano model building one day and igloos the next but the average school child doesn't know where to go to see a volcano or where exactly Eskimos live. There's Vikings and personal development projects and cooking and learning about different cultures and some maths and it's all neither here nor there, shiny and superficial.
Then, the time comes for exams and panicky memorising all you can with an untrained memory and then you end your education and suddenly realise that you will not get two weeks off every month off any more, but rather - two weeks every year and that you are expected to know a lot of things without consulting uncle Google every five minutes and do a lot of things to somebody else's timetable instead of cute group projects in your own time. Quite a bit of mismatch there, between the idealistic changes in education, curriculum of excellence and personal development and then the boring, grinding reality of office/factory/shop work?
But hey, maybe these idealistic changes will spread. Maybe, soon, the fact that we have ready access to all human kind knowledge in our pockets will register. Maybe, in a generation or two, our civilisation will be that of tech idiot savants swimming in the cyberpunk-sque bright ocean of digital information, shiny and superficial, darting here and there and finding what they need at this particular moment, abandoning bits of knowledge as soon as they stop being relevant to their highly specialised tasks. And who can say if it's better or worse than being a monkey with an overdeveloped brain, crammed full of facts and figures you rarely use on top of primal fears and phobias.
Damn you, internet, it's all you fault as usual...
When I was at school, we were taught facts and figures, had to memorise endless battles and names and themes and geological stratas and capital cities of various countries and schematic pictures of insides of various animals and equations and chemical compounds and tables of German verbs and as much as it was annoying and felt pointless then, you couldn't help but practice your memory every day, your stealth (because it's a long established tradition in Polish schools to prepare elaborate ways of cheating for class tests/exams) and as hard as you tried to pretend you just prepared for exams and forgot everything the next day - some of it sticks deep in your brain in a form of general knowledge sludge and it leads some people to win hundreds of thousands of local currency in these random tv shows and be brilliant in their careers because they just know things.
My impression of education in UK these days, based on going to different schools to interpret during parent's meetings and such, is, that it all tries so hard to be interesting and entertaining and group work oriented that it leads to chaos and confusion for everybody. There's a volcano model building one day and igloos the next but the average school child doesn't know where to go to see a volcano or where exactly Eskimos live. There's Vikings and personal development projects and cooking and learning about different cultures and some maths and it's all neither here nor there, shiny and superficial.
Then, the time comes for exams and panicky memorising all you can with an untrained memory and then you end your education and suddenly realise that you will not get two weeks off every month off any more, but rather - two weeks every year and that you are expected to know a lot of things without consulting uncle Google every five minutes and do a lot of things to somebody else's timetable instead of cute group projects in your own time. Quite a bit of mismatch there, between the idealistic changes in education, curriculum of excellence and personal development and then the boring, grinding reality of office/factory/shop work?
But hey, maybe these idealistic changes will spread. Maybe, soon, the fact that we have ready access to all human kind knowledge in our pockets will register. Maybe, in a generation or two, our civilisation will be that of tech idiot savants swimming in the cyberpunk-sque bright ocean of digital information, shiny and superficial, darting here and there and finding what they need at this particular moment, abandoning bits of knowledge as soon as they stop being relevant to their highly specialised tasks. And who can say if it's better or worse than being a monkey with an overdeveloped brain, crammed full of facts and figures you rarely use on top of primal fears and phobias.
Damn you, internet, it's all you fault as usual...
Sunday 20 January 2013
Subjective rant on benefit cuts
So, the beginning of the benefit reform is nigh.
It is a time of much grief and lamentation and cursing against the government.
I can't help but think that the welfare system in UK in 2013 is the most generous it has ever been in the history. In most countries around the world you can count on some food and clothes vouchers and a shelter from bad weather if you hit the hard times. In many other countries you don't even get that. In very few countries you get money, shelter, help with finding employment, reduced bills and no taxes. UK must be almost the only one that offers such benefits indefinitely. And the money going towards it has to come from somewhere so obviously when there's not enough of it around, it's time for cuts.
Grief and lamentation!
Why the hell would you expect the government to take care of your welfare anyway? What is the government? It's people lucky enough to get elected for a definite period of time, who traditionally do everything that they can to earn as much as possible during this period and not make any long term decisions. And you think these people really give a shit about long term prosperity and welfare for all?
Cursing against the government!
There's nothing your ineffective vocalisations will change - the era of rewarding people for doing nothing and breeding is coming to an end. This year the good times for average benefit scrounger will finish. Next year, who knows, maybe the unlimited time for claiming benefits will also come to an end.
Grief and lamentation!
Oh, I feel so sorry for all you people out there who relied on benefits for the past five - ten years and done bare minimum to find a job or obtain more qualifications and now you will be forced to cancel your full Sky package and cut down your 30 pounds a month mobile contract and quit your weed habit and start living like an average employed citizen, who, after paying all the taxes, bills and obligations is left with 10 pounds of disposable income a month. Welcome to the real world.
And in this real world the beginning of the benefit reform is nigh.
It is a time of much grief and lamentation and... oh bloody hell, shut up!
It is a time of much grief and lamentation and cursing against the government.
I can't help but think that the welfare system in UK in 2013 is the most generous it has ever been in the history. In most countries around the world you can count on some food and clothes vouchers and a shelter from bad weather if you hit the hard times. In many other countries you don't even get that. In very few countries you get money, shelter, help with finding employment, reduced bills and no taxes. UK must be almost the only one that offers such benefits indefinitely. And the money going towards it has to come from somewhere so obviously when there's not enough of it around, it's time for cuts.
Grief and lamentation!
Why the hell would you expect the government to take care of your welfare anyway? What is the government? It's people lucky enough to get elected for a definite period of time, who traditionally do everything that they can to earn as much as possible during this period and not make any long term decisions. And you think these people really give a shit about long term prosperity and welfare for all?
Cursing against the government!
There's nothing your ineffective vocalisations will change - the era of rewarding people for doing nothing and breeding is coming to an end. This year the good times for average benefit scrounger will finish. Next year, who knows, maybe the unlimited time for claiming benefits will also come to an end.
Grief and lamentation!
Oh, I feel so sorry for all you people out there who relied on benefits for the past five - ten years and done bare minimum to find a job or obtain more qualifications and now you will be forced to cancel your full Sky package and cut down your 30 pounds a month mobile contract and quit your weed habit and start living like an average employed citizen, who, after paying all the taxes, bills and obligations is left with 10 pounds of disposable income a month. Welcome to the real world.
And in this real world the beginning of the benefit reform is nigh.
It is a time of much grief and lamentation and... oh bloody hell, shut up!
Friday 4 January 2013
Selective memory or elective dumbness?
Don't you just love these dumb people who think they are being so smart by using carefully selected facts to support their beliefs and conveniently ignoring the whole picture?
I've just seen a bit of a documentary in which a guy supports his disregard of equality between men and women because in a pride of lions it's the lioness who does all the work, hunting, feeding and raising the kids and somehow we don't shout about how chauvinistic the male lion is. And we're all basically animals. Well, ok, so I take it Mr Lion you attack and maim any other young male that comes anywhere near your territory? That you mark with your urine regularly? And you raising other man's kids is just plain wrong, you should kill them to protect your gene pool. And of course you are a happy bigamist times six. No? Then fuck off with your limping logic.
Oh and all these ads for shampoos and other so called beauty products that display a big slogan for you to see '90% of women agree that this cream will work just as well as the blood of virgins' or something along these lines. And then there's a small additional info most people will not notice because there's a flash of boob above it, which says '90% out of 36 people' (or other ridiculously small number). Now, mathematics was not my favourite subject in school, it wasn't even in my subjective top ten, but from my recollection a statistically significant sample is one of at least a thousand people? And any statistics ever that are above 90% are suspiciously similar to 'real' voter turnout in communist Poland.
My absolute favourite is that guy who got a tattoo saying 'You shall not be with a male as one does with a woman. It is an abomination.' (Leviticus 18:22). And what else does Bible has to say just a few lines below? 'You shall not make any cuts on your body for the dead or tattoo yourselves.' (Leviticus 19:28) Bible burn! But hey, you became a meme for the dumbest choice of a quote for a tattoo ever, congratulations.
if you have any more examples please feel free to share peoples.
I've just seen a bit of a documentary in which a guy supports his disregard of equality between men and women because in a pride of lions it's the lioness who does all the work, hunting, feeding and raising the kids and somehow we don't shout about how chauvinistic the male lion is. And we're all basically animals. Well, ok, so I take it Mr Lion you attack and maim any other young male that comes anywhere near your territory? That you mark with your urine regularly? And you raising other man's kids is just plain wrong, you should kill them to protect your gene pool. And of course you are a happy bigamist times six. No? Then fuck off with your limping logic.
Oh and all these ads for shampoos and other so called beauty products that display a big slogan for you to see '90% of women agree that this cream will work just as well as the blood of virgins' or something along these lines. And then there's a small additional info most people will not notice because there's a flash of boob above it, which says '90% out of 36 people' (or other ridiculously small number). Now, mathematics was not my favourite subject in school, it wasn't even in my subjective top ten, but from my recollection a statistically significant sample is one of at least a thousand people? And any statistics ever that are above 90% are suspiciously similar to 'real' voter turnout in communist Poland.
My absolute favourite is that guy who got a tattoo saying 'You shall not be with a male as one does with a woman. It is an abomination.' (Leviticus 18:22). And what else does Bible has to say just a few lines below? 'You shall not make any cuts on your body for the dead or tattoo yourselves.' (Leviticus 19:28) Bible burn! But hey, you became a meme for the dumbest choice of a quote for a tattoo ever, congratulations.
if you have any more examples please feel free to share peoples.
Tuesday 1 January 2013
Books of 2012
It's time for another list of my favourite books read in 2012. Some urban fantasy (Griffin), some good old style space operas (Bear), some pure blood fantasy (Pevel), some surreality (Banks), some gothic stories (Lee), some alternative history (Kay), some hard sf (Egan), some well established writers (Atwood), some intriguing newcomers (Beckett, Bell).
Dig in and enjoy, fellow book worms.
1. Kate Griffin - Matthew Swift cycle - A Madness of Angels, The Midnight Mayor, The Neon Court, The Minority Council
2. Margaret Atwood - The Blind Assassin
3. Paolo Bacigalupi - The Wind-Up Girl
4. China Mieville - Embassytown
5. Chuck Palahniuk - Lullaby
6. Pierre Pevel - The Cardinal's Blades, The Alchemist in the Shadows, The Dragon Arcana
7. Greg Egan - Diaspora
8. Iain Banks - The Business
9. Michelle Lovric - The Book of Human Skin
10. Robin Hobb, Megan Lindholm - The Inheritance
11. Guy Gavriel Kay - A Song for Arbonne
12. Greg Bear - City at the End of Time
13. Iain Banks - The Bridge
14. Chris Beckett - Dark Eden
15. Iain Banks - Whit
16. Greg Bear - Moving Mars
17. Guy Gavriel Kay - The Lions of Al-Rassan
18. Alden Bell - Exit Kingdom
19. Tanith Lee - The Secret Books of Paradys - The Book of the Damned, The Book of the Beast, The Book of the Dead, The Book of the Mad
20. Barbara Kingsolver - Animal Dreams
Dig in and enjoy, fellow book worms.
1. Kate Griffin - Matthew Swift cycle - A Madness of Angels, The Midnight Mayor, The Neon Court, The Minority Council
2. Margaret Atwood - The Blind Assassin
3. Paolo Bacigalupi - The Wind-Up Girl
4. China Mieville - Embassytown
5. Chuck Palahniuk - Lullaby
6. Pierre Pevel - The Cardinal's Blades, The Alchemist in the Shadows, The Dragon Arcana
7. Greg Egan - Diaspora
8. Iain Banks - The Business
9. Michelle Lovric - The Book of Human Skin
10. Robin Hobb, Megan Lindholm - The Inheritance
11. Guy Gavriel Kay - A Song for Arbonne
12. Greg Bear - City at the End of Time
13. Iain Banks - The Bridge
14. Chris Beckett - Dark Eden
15. Iain Banks - Whit
16. Greg Bear - Moving Mars
17. Guy Gavriel Kay - The Lions of Al-Rassan
18. Alden Bell - Exit Kingdom
19. Tanith Lee - The Secret Books of Paradys - The Book of the Damned, The Book of the Beast, The Book of the Dead, The Book of the Mad
20. Barbara Kingsolver - Animal Dreams
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