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4th of May 2005

Oh SHIT

I just tried to close the window as it is a bit nippy. Problem is, one of the runners has been doing something odd recently and I've not been able to close it. To remedy this I tried to push it upwards to assist the window in closing. It closed a bit further, great! So I tried again and it went a bit further. I tried it once more and *SNAP*. I've broken one of the arms that leads from the runner to the window frame itself. And, of course, because these things always have to happen at the worst time imaginable, it had to happen the day before the inspection.

The window is hanging at an angle and tomorrow I've got to hope and pray they don't notice, because I don't even want to hazard a guess as to how much it will cost to get it fixed.

Blog #490, posted at 21:26 (GMT)

4th of May 2005

Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind

I watched this last night and it is one of the best films I've ever seen. A lot of people might be put off by the fact that it has Jim Carrey in it (doesn't seem the sort to do a serious film) but he was good in The Truman Show and he was fantastic in ESotSM. It's basically all about love and memory. I'm not going to spoil the film by detailing it all here, so just go and watch it.

Blog #489, posted at 15:21 (GMT)

2nd of May 2005

Robotics Assignment

Well, having read the code produced by my team-mates for the robotics practical, I believe it's safe to say we're all going to fail. I was doing the more practical stuff like respotting the robot after each trial run, taking measurements, marking distances, waving objects in front of it, etc, etc. Now that I see the code, I think we're screwed.

Also this write-up is ridiculous. We're basically being asked to repeat everything that was written on our original assignment sheet. What's the point of that?!

I'm shattered, I've had enough and I want to go to bed. But instead I am going to spend the next 14 hours or so trying to get this crap assignment into some kind of coherent order.

Blog #488, posted at 23:53 (GMT)

2nd of May 2005

Nice Extended Weekend

And so ends another weekend. Liz came to Aberystwyth for the weekend. I'd had 8 hours of sleep from Wednesday to Friday so I was bright as a button, as you can imagine. That didn't stop me going out for a drink with her and Woodsta, Surfr, Lambie etc. The reason for so little sleep was that I had been working on my artificial intelligence assignment, creating a Kohonen network to classify Olive Oil data. It didn't work when I handed it in but I didn't care. I gave a good argument as to why it didn't work.

Anyway it was a good weekend with a lot of alcohol. Now I have to write up my robotics practical by tomorrow afternoon (oh look, no sleep tonight either) and then I have to have written up the reasoning behind my retarded soccerbot. I submitted it on Friday before going out for beer. Actually that's not entirely true. Liz and I had walked all the way down the hill when I realised I'd forgotten to submit it, and so I had to walk all the way back up the hill in order to send it to the tutor.

In other news, I am trying to make Firefox stable enough to use as Mozilla's main client is not being maintained anymore.

Blog #487, posted at 15:43 (GMT)

26th of April 2005

Why Politics Doesn't Work

Some random thoughts on politics, particularly in the UK:

It's a two-party system. People don't believe that the Liberal Democrats will ever get in power, so they feel that voting for them would be a waste of their vote. Instead they vote for either Labour or Conservative ... just like everyone else, thus ensuring the vicious circle continues.

No one party shares your exact views. We are forced to choose between a number of parties, none of which exactly share our views. The Green Party's policies closely resemble my own beliefs, but even they have one or two policies I don't completely agree with. If I vote for them, I would have to accept that I am voting in acceptance of their policies that I do not agree with.

You need a representative in your area. I wanted to vote for The Green Party in the last election, but there was no candidate in my constituency. I was therefore unable to vote for the party of my choice.

Many people vote to keep one party out of their local council. Take for example, Newbury. It is very close between Liberal Democrats and Conservatives. Many people will be voting Liberal Democrat to keep the Conservatives out of the local council (or vice versa) even if they do not fundamentally support that party. They are voting for their local benefit, not the international benefit.

Some people vote to keep one party out of parliament. Similar to my previous point, some people will vote conservative to keep Labour out of power, and some people will vote Labour to keep the Conservatives out of power. I fell into this trap myself in the last election.

What a party says it will do is not always what it actually does. Labour made the promise to fix the NHS before the last election. I haven't the figures to hand but I'm pretty confident that most of you will agree that they haven't. Labour promised to end student debts before the last election. Likewise I don't have the figures handy, but student debt has increased dramatically since Labour came into power. Generally parties only really make an effort when they want to be re-elected.

Policies change over time. Similar to my previous point, a party's policies may change over time. What they say today may not be the case a year from now. 3 years with a party whose policies have changed radically from those they quoted in order to get elected is a long time.

Anyone who wants to be in charge of the country is the wrong person for the job. It's an old adage but that doesn't make my point any less serious. Look at America; George Bush really wanted to be president. Is he fit to be a president? No! He has an IQ of sixty-something. I wouldn't give him any responsibility in my daily life, certainly not the power to determine whether I live or die.

If a party is adversely affecting the country, there is no way to get rid of them. At least not until the next election. A party can do a hell of a lot of damage in four years -- five if they stretch it out. (According to my flatmate who is studying law, the government can in fact have a 5 year term if they so desire, but traditionally they have a general election every four years)

Too many people have lost faith in politics. I strongly believe that a great deal of the country simply don't care anymore. They've realised that it's bound to be either Labour or Conservative every time, and they've realised that they're both as useless at running the country as each other. Their vote will, they feel, make no difference and so why should they even care. A disturbing number of voters have been known to go into the voting booth and simply mark whichever name was at the top of the paper. Numbers of people actually voting are dwindling. Is this the way to run a country?

The House of Lords is unelected. Personally I fail to see how this can be classed as democracy. If they've not been elected then, in my opinion, they have no power at all. They are not representative of the country as a whole, only the top 1% wealthiest minority, and they have only their own gains in mind. These people have no right to decide what is and what is not law.

The country should be the master of the government, not the other way around. We the people should be running the country. The politicians should be listening to what we say and acting upon it. We should not be sitting back and listening to what the government tells us we should be thinking and feeling about important issues. The government should not be so well paid. They should have modest incomes, and that money put to better use. It's about time the government saw the way the people they represent live.

It's not going to get better. The problem is we're stuck in tradition. This country is obsessed with tradition and politics is full of it. That's why we still have a queen even though she has no power. So because this is how it's traditionally done, it's not going to ever be done any other way. Even if it's all completely wrong. No party would ever change the way the government is ran because it benefits them so much. How does change in the politics of a country come about? By a revolution or a coup d'etat and people who try such things end up serving rather long prison sentences, so that's far from ideal.

What can be done?

Sadly I don't see many options. The ideas of staging a coup or organising a revolution are bad ones. A coup is a very risky business, and a revolution takes money, time, people, dedication, and getting people to believe in your cause. In this country, getting people to believe in a cause is like trying to push a rock up a hill through treacle. The remaining option is less extreme: Simply vote as best you can in the next election.

Forget about your local council and vote for the party that best represents your views. Forget voting for one party to try and stop another party from gaining power. Don't believe anyone who says "a vote that isn't for Labour or Conservative is a wasted vote," because it's thinking like that which causes the two-party system we have. Do try to think about the bigger picture. Don't just vote for the party which will save you a few quid off your council tax, vote for the party which will ensure that your kids will still have a country to live in when you're six feet under. Don't feel like it's all a waste of time -- there's far too much apathy in this country -- remember that people fought and died to give you the vote.

Finally, don't believe everything a party says on TV. They'll say anything to get voted in.

Blog #486, posted at 00:13 (GMT)

25th of April 2005

Dreams

My dreaming took a turn for the worse last night when I dreamt that I was in the film The Exorcist which was fucking horrific.

Blog #485, posted at 14:43 (GMT)

21st of April 2005

Dreams

Last night I dreamt I was living with my Mum in a house that looked suspiciously like a house in Sheffield, but not the one I grew up in. There were some arsehole kids playing in the street with toy swords who did something - I can't remember what - that seriously pissed me off. So I ended up killing the lot of them with their own toy swords.

What the hell is wrong with me?!

Blog #484, posted at 16:42 (GMT)

20th of April 2005

Dreams

Yesterday night I had a dream that I was living with my parents. In the utility room at my parents house, under the carpet by the door to the kitchen, is an inspection hatch which leads into the pipes that lead to the sewer. In my dream this was open and one of their rabbits was running around down there. Yes, in the sewer. They had let it down there to get some exercise. This seemed perfectly normal at the time. Then I saw my cat down there too (he died about a year and a half ago) and decided I'd better go retrieve him.

I jumped down into the sewer which was easily big enough for a person to walk around in (in reality the pipes are about the size of a fist) and went to find him and the rabbit. I wandered a little and then stumbled across an exact replica of the living room at my parent's house set up in the sewer. My Dad and someone else (possibly my sister but I'm not sure) were watching TV. I can remember having a conversation before waking up wondering what the hell it was all about.

Last night I had a dream that I was living with my parents. Hmmm, notice a theme here? We were in the back garden. I don't remember much of the dream: It seemed to go on for hours and hours but I can only remember bits of it. At one point my mum had a fishing rod which had two hooks attached to the end of the line by another length of line. I had these two hooks embedded in the index fingers of each of my hands, kneeling on the grass screaming in pain as the stupid bitch pulled on the fishing rod and told me to let go. I was trying to tell her that the hooks were in my fingers, but I couldn't talk ... just scream.

I'm not sure how this weird situation was resolved, but I remember that later in the dream I beat the fuck out of her. I was punching her in the face repeatedly, as hard as I could, and her face was turning some interesting colours. Weirdest of all was the fact that she wasn't at all perturbed by this, and was in fact laughing as I punched her again and again and again...

...I swear to god I'm going out of my fucking mind.

Blog #483, posted at 19:29 (GMT)

19th of April 2005

"Dissertation"

Try plugging the word "dissertation" into Google and look at the results. Right at the top, in the sponsored links section, is

We Write Dissertations

www.ukessays.com, Custom Unpublished UK Dissertations - 2:1 and 1st Quality Guarantee

At first I was incredulous and didn't believe it was real, so I followed the link to have a look. They write dissertations for people. This makes me sick to the stomach: I've been working so fucking hard towards my dissertation and there are people out there who are willing to just buy their way through their degree.

Setting that aside for the moment, would you trust a company that writes on their website,

Whatever subject your studying ...

We give you, our client the edge, providing ...

If your are looking for the best essay service ...

... in fact were the only essays company ...

...to write your dissertation for you? A company that claims, "We are exceptionally proud of the standard of our essays and dissertations" but then goes on to use incorrect capitalisation, miss apostrophes, and several spelling errors.

I'm speechless.

Anyway I am now off to the department to see a friend hand his dissertation in, then we're off to the pub for a celebratory beer.

Blog #482, posted at 13:12 (GMT)

18th of April 2005

It Is Done

The dissertation is finished, printed, bound, burnt (the CD, not the print-out) and ready to be handed in. I can't believe how huge it is. When I collected the print-out I thought someone else's dissertation had printed out on top of it, but when I checked I found it was all mine. The two copies are sat next to me. 6 months of work in two little books...

It's just sort of caught up with me. Just now, while typing that last paragraph. I've just realised that I've finished my dissertation. It's over and done with. On the spine it says "Aberystwyth 2005". For the rest of my life I'm going to be looking at that and thinking "ahh yeah, I remember 2005".

I'll probably remember it quite differently in 50 years time though. By then I'll have forgotten all of the sleepless nights, all of the cash problems, the piles of work so high that terrorists keep launching planes at them.

I need to get some sleep once I've finally handed this in, but I don't know whether I'll be able to or not. Maybe I'll go to the pub and celebrate instead. Afterall it's not every day you print off nearly 200 pages, bind them, stick a CD to them and then give them to a secretary now is it?

Blog #481, posted at 11:51 (GMT)