WD40 will not stop your shoes from squeaking.
It will merely change the pitch of the squeak and make you smell like an auto shop.
That is all.
Category: Life and Associated Annoyances
Science Bitches!
Apparently an article by the name of 8 Foods We Eat In The U.S. That Are Banned In Other Countries has been a bit of a sensation online lately, warning people about all the evil toxic substances being put into the food supply by evil toxic people for evil toxic reasons. Happily someone who has a basic (actually much, much more than basic, but basic is all that’s actually needed in this case) knowledge of chemistry and the initiative to actually look at the research has stepped forward and written a counter-article that completely torpedoes the original fear-mongering piece of trash.
You should really go and read it yourself, but the basic conclusion is something that I’ve thought for years – if the population at large had even a basic understanding of science, there would be a whole lot less bullshit in the world.
Some important points…
- Elements change their properties and behaviour when combined into molecules with other elements. Just because an element is toxic, doesn’t mean a molecule containing it is toxic.
- There is no difference between “natural” chemicals and “manmade” chemicals – there’s just chemicals. Chemicals don’t have any kind of memory of where or how they were made and don’t inherit any intrinsic “natural” or “unnatural” quality from their point of origin.
- All matter, everything you can touch, taste and eat is made of chemicals. The only thing that is “chemical free” is empty space.
- Nature produces all manner of dangerous, toxic, horrible substances that will really mess up your day. Science produces all kinds of useful, harmless, beneficial substances that you use without thinking about every single day.
- Poison is only poison above a certain dose. Below that dose it doesn’t hurt you at all.
If everyone could understand these very basic facts the world would be a much better place.
Good News, Bad News
Bad News – The Data Centre that hosts our servers went down on Friday afternoon, meaning that everything for all of our clients was offline.
Good News – It wasn’t our fault.
Bad News – Our clients are unlikely to understand the distinction.
Good News – They got everything back up and running in a couple of hours.
Bad News – Except for one of our critical servers.
Good News – The critical server was up and running by Saturday evening.
Bad News – One of my esteemed colleagues – who I have to work with today – lost a big chunk of his weekend getting it back up, and will most likely be in the kind of mood that would make the Pope kick little children in the face.
Good News – I got to go home early on Friday.
Bad News – Having gone home early on Friday I don’t get paid as much.
Good News – I decided to catch the bus into the city rather than to Subiaco, and along Mounts Bay Road, just near the Eliza statue I spotted a fin poking out of the river. My first thought was “shark!” but then I realised the shape was wrong, and a flash of back and a puff of spray revealed it to be one of the Swan River dolphins. Awesome! I’ve never seen one of them before!
Then when I got home I had to time to do up a few more Snoos for the Warhammer subreddit’s Snoo contest. Which was a good thing, because the Eldar Farseer Snoo I put together ended up winning! đŸ˜€ It can now be seen on top of the subreddit, and the mods liked my work so much that I’ve been contracted to create a new Snoo each month for the forseeable future. In return I’ve been allocated the title of “Honored Artificer of the /r/warhammer Snoo” and awarded a $25 Games Workshop voucher, which is nothing to be sneezed at.
Bad News – The $25 voucher is in US Dollars and hence (apparently) can’t be used to buy anything from Australia.
Good News – GW has an excellent customer service reputation, so I’m confident that if I email them I’ll be able to get it sorted out.
That is all.
My Empire of Dirt
I’m having the kind of week where Trent Reznor lyrics are making sense to me.
On the upside I’ve been having fun designing new Snoos for the Warhammer subreddit…
More on Flickr
I’m doing my best to reserve judgement on the Flickr redesign, but now that I’ve had the time for a good look around, and more information on the future of the site is emerging, I’m shifting towards really disliking it.
The entire interface seems to have been shifted towards “look at all the pretty pictures!” while making it a pain in the arse to see any of the meta-information – titles, descriptions, dates, locations, etc – that might have been entered about said pretty pictures.
Now, I don’t use Flickr to show off pretty pictures, I use it to store and annotate photographs of things that I find interesting, and other people might find interesting too. Without the context of the meta-information, a lot of my photos are pointless, so the redesign has made the site a hell of lot less useful for me.
I’m not making any rash decisions yet, but I’ll be watching Flickr very carefully over the next couple of months to see if things improve. If not, I may well cancel my pro account, pull all my stuff down and find somewhere else to keep it.
Zoids!
Status Update
Feeling tired, run down and depressed. Probably ate too much chocolate over Easter.
But hey, it’s Friday. With enough caffeine and Mates of State I should be able to make it to quitting time, then I can sleep all weekend.
(Ignore the Anime – Only decent version of the song I could find on Youtube)
Goodbye Telstra
On Friday my landline died. I called Telstra and was informed that the problem was at their end, and it would be fixed by Wednesday the 6th at the latest, free of charge.
Yesterday (the 6th), on getting home I found that my landline was still not fixed. I called Telstra to ask what was going on but the wait to speak to someone was estimated at 15 minutes, so I hung up and decided to call this morning at work.
I arrived at work and, literally as I picked up my mobile to call them I got an SMS informing me that ‘unfortunately’ the fix to my phone line has been rescheduled to Wednesday the 13th.
I am not going to rant. I am not going to rave. I am going to call Telstra up and calmly register my displeasure. Then, once my phone line is up and running again, I will be taking my business elsewhere. I will also be looking into what is required to register a complaint with the Telecommunications Ombudsman.
That is all.
Still Not King
Met up with Hobbits. Walked forty miles. Skinned a squirrel and ate it.
Still no Internet.
No TV and No Beer make Homer Something Something…
Got home on Friday night to discover that my landline was dead as the proverbial doornail. No internet all long weekend. Frankly it’s amazing I’m still alive.
Apparently Telstra are going to fix it either today or tomorrow. So they say at least. I ain’t exactly sanguine.
I did get some… stuff done though. Pictures will be posted when my home connection us back up and running, and my brain has recovered from going cold turkey.
