The Good Ship Narcissus

:)

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 23:34:23 +0000

Today was singularly wonderful, not even the usual feed of jaded intellectual naysayers will bring me down. Difference of opinion? Well, not really, more talking past one another in different rooms.

The next week or two of work should be fun. Loose ends to tie up, new project to begin, pomadoro to play with, yes I even have a real one.

Serendipity is a lovely mistress: I seem to keep covering something in one job, with assitance, then going into the other and doing a simpler version of the same thing for similar yet simpler problems. Shiny.

Though I think what really happened is Hazal’s book shopping had sympathy yays.

aksamala: lovehaight: Zooey Deschanel. How beautiful is she...

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 20:44:58 +0000

aksamala:

lovehaight:

Zooey Deschanel. How beautiful is she here? (via)

That is a pretty awesome umbrella, but how does it perform in windy conditions?

AFP: Chinese giant to buy US oil assets: company

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 20:42:00 +0000

AFP: Chinese giant to buy US oil assets: company:

Norwegian energy group Statoil said Wednesday it was selling some of its US offshore oil assets to China’s state-owned CNOOC, marking the first step by a Chinese energy major into the US market.

The sale, announced along with Statoil’s quarterly results, involves a limited stake for the China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) in four exploitation licences for deepwater blocks bought in 2007 and 2008.

“On 29 October Statoil signed a farm down agreement with the Chinese company CNOOC involving a number of Statoil’s leases in the Gulf of Mexico,” Statoil said in its third-quarter earnings statement.

Statoil, which is 67 percent state-owned, declined to disclose the value of the transaction but spokesman Kai Nielsen told AFP that the size of the deal was “very small.”

In 2005, CNOOC had to cancel an 18.5-billion-dollar (12.4-billion-euro) deal with US firm Unocal because the politics of a communist country buying key US assets proved too controversial for Capitol Hill.

Also buried somewhere and invisible to searching for Stat Oil America China Norway Oil (search fail) is the rather brief : http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8342327.stm

Drunks pissing on symbolic flowers are far more front-page-newsworthy.

myDesk 2.0, now with significantly less hard disk clutter and...

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 19:06:48 +0000

myDesk 2.0, now with significantly less hard disk clutter and greater keyboard flexibility.

peetypassion: I’m English! We’re European too. Go nuts....

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 17:55:16 +0000

peetypassion:

I’m English!

We’re European too. Go nuts. :)

Johann Hari: Violence Against Gay People Can - And Must - Be Stopped

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 17:50:32 +0000

Johann Hari: Violence Against Gay People Can - And Must - Be Stopped:

Almost all the new homophobic attacks have been carried out by teenagers who are in – or just out of – the education system. It is not a coincidence that our schools are the one place where homophobic violence is still absolutely mainstream. Britain’s school inspectorate, Ofsted, says that homophobia is “endemic” in our playgrounds and our classrooms. A study by Stonewall found 41 per cent of gay children are beaten up, and 17 per cent have been told they’re going to be killed (it’s 10 per cent higher still in faith schools). The young people who attacked PC James Parks were simply taking that culture out of the playground and onto the streets.

Jail threat for urinating student This just in: BBC News...

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 13:47:00 +0000

Jail threat for urinating student

This just in: BBC News becomes tabloid aggregating service. Public never saw it coming.

To the victim pictured: bad luck, and good luck with the job hunt. I hear Google is becoming a pretty standard recruitment tool.

To the shocked and appalled: you live in a society that encourages the young (largely through peer pressure, social pressure, ‘normality’ pressure) to go out and enjoy themselves, i.e. drink.

It’s not really fair to hand people over to an industry reliant on making them legal insane, then come back and say well it isn’t legal insanity because it was self inflicted. It wasn’t, really, was it.

Offer some alternatives, and make them normal and cool. Sure, they are already there, but they aren’t exactly normal and cool, are they. Drinking until you puke thrice a week is.

The bit that really tickles me is the ones who will find this offensive yet do the same thing themselves, and/or encourage others.

Consequences, fuckmooks. It’s not just your body you’re putting at risk. Of course, if you trust your inner child that much then let loose, see where you end up.

This may be symbolic and all that but it’s hardly the worst thing a drunk has done. Drunk drivers and rioters kill and maim.

Now fuck off in future when I say as a habit I prefer to drink 1 or 2 of something expensive slowly.

grayskymorning: enguerre: open-up-some-happiness: (via...

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 11:36:29 +0000

grayskymorning:

enguerre:

open-up-some-happiness:

(via sigaaondevaomeuspes)

"It’s now possible for columnists and companies to hear what people are saying about them. That’s..."

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 11:34:04 +0000

“It’s now possible for columnists and companies to hear what people are saying about them. That’s unnerving for columnists, not least because their opinions are now frequently challenged by people who know more than they do. Instead of responding like adults – correcting when they’ve made a mistake, engaging when someone raises a sensible point and defending themselves from false accusations – they are whining like children and dismissing technologies that they don’t understand.
It’s not the complaints culture on Twitter that annoys me, it’s the complaints culture among columnists that is getting tiresome.”

- Shane Richmond [via jhnbrssndn] (via earthmancomehome)

The last 30 hours of work, play, and in-betweens sucked. Time to...

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 20:24:22 +0000

The last 30 hours of work, play, and in-betweens sucked. Time to reject reality and live somewhere nicer for a little while.

I knew there was a reason I didn’t read this in September when it was gifted.

London mayor Boris Johnson has rescued a woman who was being...

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 19:35:00 +0000

London mayor Boris Johnson has rescued a woman who was being attacked by an armed group of young girls, chasing them down the road on his bicycle. (via Johnson saves woman from ‘oiks’)

Only this morning I linked an article containing this gem:

He[The PM] described Mayor of London Boris Johnson as a “subset of the entertainment business”.

laureola: FYI of the Day: Better get a move on. »...

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 18:00:02 +0000

laureola:

FYI of the Day: Better get a move on.

» makemymood

(via thedailywhat)

Sure, just waiting for someone to invent telepathy and I will clean up.

work, late, blarg, where has the time gone.

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 17:26:13 +0000

work, late, blarg, where has the time gone.

grayskymorning: psychoticgirl: howmyheartbehaves: meepmeepmee...

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 17:23:23 +0000

grayskymorning:

psychoticgirl:

howmyheartbehaves:

meepmeepmeep:

(via Furrrka)

If I had to dye my hair again..

Weird for the day: picking up a tab book and wishing I’d had time (2-3 years?) to...

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 10:33:00 +0000

Weird for the day: picking up a tab book and wishing I’d had time (2-3 years?) to “finish” my dissertation project so I could feed it this crap and get a proper arrangement out instead of having to use my brain.

Well maybe that wasn’t weird, but learning something I thought I didn’t like anymore and finding I still like it was nice.

Mr Brown said his strengths were “that I make big...

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 09:50:00 +0000

Mr Brown said his strengths were “that I make big decisions and I’m not afraid of breaking new ground”.

But he said: “I could present our message a lot better. I’m actually shy by nature rather than extrovert, someone who feels that your actions should speak for themselves, but that’s not the way politics works these days.” (via ‘Shy’ PM sees charitable future)

No, the way it works is you run your election platform for as long as you can. Inevitably the wheels fall off because nothing really changes fast enough for anyone to notice, and if it does (i.e. “events dear boy”) you’re doomed.

It’s somewhat amusing that labour is suffering from a New Labour PR hangover. And without good reason:

On the recent controversy over Andrew Marr asking him if he was taking medication he said he was not bothered by it but added: “I’ve been honest about it. I really dislike the trivialisation of politics.”

On his opposite number, Tory leader David Cameron, he said he was a “very good politician” but added he would never “hang out” with him. “I have my own friends,” he added.

He described Mayor of London Boris Johnson as a “subset of the entertainment business”.

theanimalblog: Barney (via BrianScott) Aw, Plop grew up!

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 21:57:00 +0000

theanimalblog:

Barney (via BrianScott)

Aw, Plop grew up!

"In her 70s Rand found herself dying of lung cancer, after insisting that her followers smoke because..."

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 17:01:10 +0000

“In her 70s Rand found herself dying of lung cancer, after insisting that her followers smoke because it symbolized “man’s victory over fire” and the studies showing it caused lung cancer were Communist propaganda.”

- Two biographies of Ayn Rand. - By Johann Hari - Slate Magazine

earthmancomehome: Democracy Live

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 16:40:00 +0000

earthmancomehome:

Democracy Live

First attempt at making Greek coffee: hasn’t really settled, drinking lots of bits. Better...

Sun, 01 Nov 2009 19:47:00 +0000

First attempt at making Greek coffee: hasn’t really settled, drinking lots of bits. Better luck next time!