Archive of July 2005
Looking good!
Posted at 12:10 PM
Back from holiday to some very good news. No, Bush hasn’t backed down on climate change, but IE 7 beta 2 will support CSS about as well as I’d hoped. Thankyou, Chris Wilson and your team!
Holiday!
Posted at 10:43 AM
This coming week, Saturday to Saturday, I shall be on holiday. In other words, there shall be silence here until at least next Saturday. To help you cope in the meantime, I have three things that I wish you all to research in my absense, and report back on when I return.
- What do the Bible, the Koran and Richard Dawkins have to say about the meaning of life?
- Is atheism as much belief as theism?
- Is Aberforth Dumbledore the barkeeper of the Hog’s Head, Hogsmeade?
Secondly, I’d like to hear your opinions on the “God is a bird” entry because I’m starting to regret having posted it.
Finally, I leave you with news that the Internet Explorer development team is talking to the Web Standards Project.
God is a bird
Posted at 3:48 PM
While reading the Bible recently I had a sudden theological epiphany about what the parts of the Trinity are. We all know that the Trinity is made up of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. The clues to who they are can be found in the Bible, as I discovered on a recent search. To my wonder and awe, I realised that they are all, in fact, birds.
Consider the evidence. Firstly, God the Father. Psalm 91:4 says that “He (the Father) will cover you with his feathers, and under his wings you will find refuge”. This suggests that he is some kind of winged creature – potentially a pterodactyl or a moth, except that it also mentions feathers. Secondly, God the Son. Talking about Jesus (the Son) in 1 Thessalonians 4:17, we see that we will “meet the Lord in the air”. Again, this suggests flying. Add to that John 20:19, where we see Jesus getting into a room with a locked door. How else would he have got in but by going through the window – and how else would he do that but by flying? Finally, God the Holy Spirit. Right back at the beginning of time (recorded in Genesis 1), we hear that the Spirit was hovering over the waters. Yet again we have evidence of some sort of flying. This is coupled with the appearance of the Spirit as a dove at Jesus’ baptism (Luke 3:22).
So what kind of bird are we talking about exactly? In Acts 2:1-4 we hear of the coming of the Holy Spirit – “a violent wind from heaven”, suggesting large wings. This doesn’t quite tally with the dove, so I would suggest that these God-birds can in fact change form – after all, we are talking about God here. In this particular incident a phoenix is suggested by the tongues of fire – all legendary creatures have basis in fact, after all. Think of the minotaur – that was obviously Satan in disguise. As was Medusa (think of the serpents!), Hitler (an anagram of Tilreh, the alt-Hebrew word for “insane and powerful man with monobrow”) and in fact the inventor of Big Brother (no, not Orwell; the sadist copycat TV executive).
So what does this all mean for us today? Well, in order to tell the world of my theory I’m going to need an awful lot of money, so donating to this worthy cause would be a good start. Now you’ve read this article you’re in the club, so you might as well act like it or I’ll get cross, and you don’t want to see me cross. After all, in a few years this theory will be hidden deep down inside an innocent-sounding cult that practically ascribes deity to me, by which time I’m sure we’ll find some way of shooting down all those pesky birds.
Cuddly sounding names for this new cult can be sent to the usual address, as can blank cheques and contracts for your souls. Now I can finally realise my ambition to publish a work of fiction – er, I mean a holy book of truth of course – and become richer than my wildest dreams! (In the afterlife of course. Now, what plausible-sounding idea can I come up with that allows entry to the afterlife?)
Any flaws discovered in the above theories will be strongly denied by my elite team of assassins, probably with their pistols.
Have a nice day.
Globalisation gone mad
Posted at 11:14 AM
Tell me what is wrong in this panoramic photo. A prize to the first to notice. (A clue is in the address of this entry.)
To all the HP shippers…
Posted at 12:07 PM
This entry will be conducted completely in the comments to save those who haven’t read Half-Blood Prince yet from spoilers. (A review will come later.) If you haven’t read it yet, do not read any of the comments. If you’ve followed a direct link to this entry, press the back button in your browser now, etc. etc. All I will say is… it’s good.
A novel approach to discipline
Posted at 11:10 AM
Student A: “Sir, Boris just threw this bottle at me!”
Student B: “I was trying to throw it in the bin and missed!”
Teacher: “Archibald, have you heard of William Tell, with the apple on the head? Forget it. Aim for his forehead so he knows how it feels. On the count of three… Three, two – right, you can put it in the bin now. (*student throws*) I hope you’ve learnt a lesson, Boris. Practice makes perfect, and it helps if there’s no-one in the way.”
Don’t mention the ‘M’ word
Posted at 5:48 PM
This morning I woke up slightly concerned. Last night I dreamt I’d proposed marriage, completely out of nowhere, to a good friend of mine. There’s not much else that can be said after that, really.
(I couldn’t remember anything else about the dream, so unfortunately I don’t know if she said yes.)
The joys of school
Posted at 11:01 AM
Having completed A levels I had left school behind for good. Then I suddenly realised I could be useful. Consequently, I’m spending all the mornings this week helping out with science lessons for the year seven to nines (ages eleven to fourteen). Yesterday involved some twelve year olds accidently creating bleach (and spraying it all over their clothes and mine), a lesson on microbes (“No, Reginald, that’s a bacterium not a mushroom”) and a video on acid spills. Today so far has brought testing the pH of soil samples and trying to persuade two thirteen-year-old girls that science was a fantastic rather than boring subject (and it really does get more interesting once you start GCSEs – though possibly less true for physics).
The bell’s just gone – now for biology with year seven.
Update: a slight confusion with the timetable led me to help with a physics class instead. I spent the lesson trying to encourage one guy to actually engage with the lesson, explain to another the difference between mass and weight (mass = the amount of stuff, measured in kilograms; weight = amount of force per unit mass, e.g. Newtons per kilogram force, e.g. Newtons (see comments)) and finally have a philosophical discussion about meaning with two others (which rounded off slightly more on topic with a discussion of the topology of spacetime). Fun.
Ah
Posted at 6:31 PM
In all the fun of my parents’ absense and the various parties thrown during it, I’d forgotten that I couldn’t think of anything beginning with K to describe myself – and of course today was to be the ABC entry beginning with K. So, it’s over to you readers. What words beginning with K would you use to describe me? David suggested “Kleptomaniac” as I began this entry – hopefully you’ll be slightly more accurate.
Any sufficiently advanced technology…
Posted at 3:35 PM
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