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Paul Crowley
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| BiCon 2009 is six weeks away, on Thursday 20 - Sunday 23 August, in Worcester. The deadline for booking is three weeks away, on Saturday 1 August. I will of course be there; I haven't missed one since my first in 1991, and it changed my life then, and again and again since, for the better.
Some of you probably wonder what all the fuss is about! The important thing to bear in mind is that BiCon isn't really about bisexuality. BiCon exists not because 200 people are bursting to talk about bisexuality every year - I'm largely not - but because it works as an event. Bisexuality is just the tiny fragment of stuff about which the pearl of BiCon is built. Though people do talk about bisexuality every year at BiCon, it is sustained year on year not by those discussions but by the atmosphere that BiCon creates: one in which assumptions about sexuality are given a good shake, and one in which a lasting and (for its many flaws) lovely community welcomes new people and reunites old friends.
And don't think you'll be the only cynical old bastard in a building full of hippies either - I assure you that BiCon is quite diverse on the hippy/cynical old bastard scale too.
Read the links from this post to the BiCon community and have a look at what people say immediately after the event is over. Don't wait until *this* year's is over and you're reading what a great time everyone else had! | comments: 9 comments or Leave a comment   |
| OK, Torchwood delivered. How come you're not all posting about it?
(Doubtless spoilers in comments) | | comments: 17 comments or Leave a comment |
| Finally got around to watching the footage of two women being held by the throat, cuffed behind their back, and dragged to the ground for having the temerity to ask a police officer for their badge number. After which they were put in a cell, refused bail and not allowed to see their solicitor until the morning.
After which, of course, all charges were dropped.
They're barely even pretending that they're not using violence to dissuade people from trying to keep their behaviour legal - and now they've won legal restrictions on photographing and filming them, restrictions that film like this and the footage of the death of Ian Tomlinson clearly demonstrate the danger of.
I can't believe that the public can be distracted for weeks by footling nonsense like MPs fiddling their expenses. This sort of thing is by orders of magnitude a far greater threat to democracy than any duck house. | | comments: 11 comments or Leave a comment |
| Is self-deception always bad? Are there any beliefs so dear to you that, in a world where they weren't true, you would prefer to go on believing them?
Update: very interesting answers so far, I hope I get to hear from lots more of you! | | comments: 43 comments or Leave a comment |
| | Can't tear my eyes away from the situation in Iran. Please link me to any articles that provide evidence on whether the official results are legit or anything else you think is a must-read on this situation. | | comments: 18 comments or Leave a comment |
| Doncaster just elected English Democrat party candidate Peter Davies, who had not expected to keep his deposit, as Mayor. This whole post election interview is side-splitting:TF: You’re going to cut the Gay Pride funding.
PD: Yep.
TF: Erm, how much did Doncaster Council fund Gay Pride?
PD: Haven’t got a clue, I haven’t looked into… I haven’t got the details, I… I haven’t even started-
TF: About right, isn’t it? So how much did… how much was it worth to Doncaster?
PD: How…er, what?
TF: The Gay Pride march. 8,000 people in town for a day.
PD: I don’t know. They can still come. There’s nobody stopping them coming.
TF: So you don’t know what it costs, you don’t know what it earns, but you’re banning it?
PD: I’m saying that… hard-pressed taxpayers money should not be spent on promoting any type of sexuality whether it’s straight or gay.
TF: But for all you-, but for all you know it could be making a fortune for the town - you don’t know, you’ve not even looked at it. HT ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) booklectic | | comments: 10 comments or Leave a comment |
| You are, I think, entitled to the right to hold and express any opinion without being shut down by the State for doing so; that is where the entitlement ends.
Poll #1410915 I'm entitled to my opinion
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All"I'm entitled to my opinion"
(edit: removed Harlan Ellison quote, which doesn't really express what I'm getting at here) | | comments: 72 comments or Leave a comment |
| OK, looks like we need to put both Toshiba R500s in for repair. One repair place has quoted us between £90-£120 for a fix, based on my description of the fault.
However, I can't seem to find a way to find out whether this or any other repair place is any good, and I worry that if when they've got their hands on our laptops they phone us back and say the repair will be more expensive, I'll be left in something of a bind: should I just grumble and pay up guessing that anywhere else would also charge the same, or do I treat it like a bait and switch and try a second repair shop about which I know as little as the first?
So, can anyone recommend a laptop repair place in London, or failing that, can anyone think of what might be a way to pick a good one? | | comments: 2 comments or Leave a comment |
| lovelybug's laptop has now failed the same way mine did; I am posting this from a jury-rigged setup made from a broken laptop.
We bought two Toshiba R500-100 laptops (PPR50E-01401TEN) from dabs.com at the end of September 2007. On April 15th, mine did a weird thing - it turned the fans on full, then shut itself down. It would not turn on again; just blink the AC power light amber, in a repeating pattern: short long short short short long short long. So we were down to one laptop for a month; then on Saturday, inevitably, lovelybug's did the same thing.
We can't really afford to hand them to a repair place if we can possibly help it, but my Google-fu is failing to turn up any information on what this fault code means. From Dabs's returns web page, they'd rather we went straight to Toshiba, and Toshiba seem to want us to go via Dabs, so any advice on what my next step should be very gratefully received.
I think I'm suffering from some sort of computer curse. | | comments: 9 comments or Leave a comment |
| Went to get palmer1984 from the Internet cafe round the corner, and saw something that it took all my strength of will not to excitedly comment on right there. Two guys, black, late twenties/early thirties, leaning over one screen pointing at it and talking animatedly. The page they were looking at was an entry in the Talk.Origins archive - a huge collection of documents that, in accessible language and fascinating detail, refute the arguments for creationism that circulate world wide. Between the substantial Muslim presence and the various new evangelical churches, the area round us is probably full of creationists, so it's very pleasing to think of these guys looking up the counterarguments, and telling other people, and telling them about the website where they can find out for themselves. Hurrah!
ETA: I find myself playing with the idea of printing up and handing out leaflets about evolution and talk.origins. In large part because it could be fun and it would be interesting to see what reactions it gets! | | comments: 9 comments or Leave a comment |
| | The National Council for a New America "is a group of Republican Party members that is aimed at rebranding the party" that met for the first time this month. This is how fucked they are:
The Republican party appear to be tied to a boat anchor and sinking fast. *crosses fingers* | | comments: 6 comments or Leave a comment |
| Johann Hari, The Independent, 2009-05-08
Dear God, stop brainwashing children
Why is worship forced on 99 per cent of children without their own consent or even asking what they think?Let us now put our hands together and pray. O God, we gather here today to ask you to free our schoolchildren from being forced to go through this charade every day. As you know, O Lord, because You see all, British law requires every schoolchild to participate in "an act of collective worship" every 24 hours. Irrespective of what the child thinks or believes, they are shepherded into a hall, silenced, and forced to pray – or pretend to.
If they refuse to bow their heads to You, they are punished. This happened to me, because I protested that there is no evidence whatsoever that You exist, and plenty of proof that shows the texts describing You are filled with falsehoods. When I pointed this out, I was told to stop being "blasphemous" and threatened with detention. "Shut up and pray," a teacher told me on one occasion. Are you proud, O Lord?
[...] I am genuinely surprised that no moderate religious people have, to my knowledge, joined the campaign to stop this compelled prayer. What pleasure or pride can you possibly feel in knowing that children are compelled to worship your God? Why are you silent?
[...] Are there prominent religious campaigners on this issue in particular or State secularism in general that he's not taking into account? Are they getting articles in the national press, or trying to? Pointers welcome! | | comments: 45 comments or Leave a comment |
| We Didn’t Have to Lose Arlen SpecterIT is disheartening and disconcerting, at the very least, that here we are today — almost exactly eight years after Senator Jim Jeffords left the Republican Party — witnessing the departure of my good friend and fellow moderate Republican, Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, for the Democratic Party. And the announcement of his switch was all the more painful because I believe it didn’t have to be this way. Senator Olympia Snowe (R-Maine), NYT 2009-04-28
With Specter switching sides, Snowe and her Maine colleague Susan Collins are the two most moderate Republicans in the Senate.
I can't help but notice the total absence of anything to say that Specter made a mistake, or did something he should be castigated for. Rather, the Republican party are the sole focus of her blame and anger, for forcing Specter out. Is this Snowe getting ready to jump? The GOP are were in a very bad place a week ago; since then they've conceded a special election in NY-20 that they were supposed to win, and lost a senator to the other side. They're likely to force out disastrous RNC chairman Michael Steele over the NY-20 defeat soon, and they don't have anyone good to replace him with. If that's followed by the loss of another senator, or two senators, the Grand Old Party could be in its worst state since FDR took office. What's going to happen next? | | comments: 12 comments or Leave a comment |
| I thought I'd try omegle. This is a complete transcript of my first conversation, hot off the presses.Omegle
Talk to strangers!
2879 users online
Connecting to server...
Looking for someone you can chat with. Hang on.
You're now chatting with a random stranger. Say hi!
You: hello, it's evening here so good evening!
You: anyone out there?
Stranger: where r u from?
You: London, you?
Stranger: lol cool
You: where are you from?
Stranger: im in washington
You: DC or state?
Stranger: state
You: cool, I have a friend from Seattle
Stranger: lol othewise i'd of already killed osama!
You: how do you mean?
Stranger: take the WHITE house back for the WHITE MAN!
You: you are joking!
Stranger: nope, infact on his next trip ill be prepared
You: what's your plan?
Your conversational partner has disconnected.
| | comments: 13 comments or Leave a comment |
| I have a Twitter feed, and much of what I post there doesn't get posted here. I tend to assume that there's no point to things like LoudTwitter, because those who like Twitter-style communication will subscribe directly, but I'm willing to be corrected!
Poll #1382671 My Twitter feed
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: AllTwitter questions | | comments: 17 comments or Leave a comment |
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Paul Crowley
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