NUS Nazi Newsletter

A copy of the NUS newsletter just arrived in my inbox today, and I was quite surprised to find it entitled:

Vote Nazi?

A lot of the it was the typical tripe you'd expect from someone who loves cuddles and rainbows and everyone being nice to one another - 'let's all not talk to the BNP or invite them to our sleepovers'.

Now, I can't say I'm a particular fan of the BNP. For starters, their policies on expanding the country's technological framework are sketchy and badly thought through. However, I did find this newsletter to be frankly disgraceful.

It starts:

"NUS is an organisation which represents all students."

Now, I personally know (of) some students IN the BNP. Where's their representation here? Will a percentage of NUS newsletters be devoted to promoting the BNP, its aims and literature?

We then hear:

"We believe that everyone should be given the opportunity to participate fully in a society that celebrates diversity."

...everyone that is, except the BNP. They even encourage students to deny the BNP speaking platforms, events et cetera - hardly an incitement to democracy.

And so on. I could pick apart the newsletter point by point, but hopefully you get the idea.

Finally, I also love how on the NUS Campaigns Home Page there's a section nicely entitled 'Black Students'. Way to break down those barriers guys. In fact, why stop at some websites aimed solely at black students? Perhaps we could brand them all like cattle too..

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Since emailing the NUS back this afternoon I've had two people grab me to bitch about how awful the newsletter was, and one ask me to proof-read her email back to them. I love you guys <3

Edit 28/03/09: I'm not in the BNP, I don't hate all black people, stop messaging me if you're incapable of basic reading.

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People are asking for the full newsletter. The majority of it is available here and I've advise you to mail your discontent to either susan.nash@nus.org.uk or campaigns@nus.org.uk.

Except black students.

The NUS doesn't think black students should be treated the same. Black students should instead email the black students' officer - bell@nus.org.uk.

Happy Mothers' Day

Mums are awesome, especially mine. Also, putting the apostrophe in the right place in Mothers' Day is awesome too. Ever feel like burning down card shops that are stuffed with poor grammar? I do...but enough about arson.

Mr T. - Treat Your Mother Right


Possibly the worst song on YouTube. Utterly addictive though and video is to die for. Skip to the last minute if the middle's getting boring.

Now, I'm off to call my mum :)

Xx

Extreme Sheepherding

This one starts a bit slow, and then goes on to such epic degrees of win I nearly cried. Seriously, you've not lived until you've seen people playing Pong with flocks of sheep:



Enjoy :)
Xx

Our band room is pretty rad

It only just occurred to me that the posters in the band room in my house aren't quite cohesive. Take the following example:



Here we have party plates, a rubix cube and a slinky, sitting beneath a very charming lady's legs, beneath a hand-drawn guitar, beneath a John Coltrane poster.

Also decorating the walls we have a used* Amy Winehouse poster sitting next to charming hand-drawn posters for a band you've never heard of (more on that later), Ice-T next to posters for a ska gig at Barfly and a Battle Of The Bands we had some entries in..

And on. It's all very exciting :)

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* for games of 'get the blindfolded audience member to pin the crack on the crack-whore' at certain gigs.

Baking

I've been unbelievably busy recently - between procrastination and actually doing work I don't appear to have any free time for other things (except shouting at the TV during rugby matches). One thing there's always time for though, is food.

If I'm working away hard and things are going well, then a plaintive shout is enough to get the more female of my housemates to bring me up some oven-warmed goodness. When everything's falling apart though, I turn to baking and fancy cooking to cheer things up.

Here's some fun pics from yesterday's baking (as ever, click for better quality):

Step 1.
Bake cake (we made normal sponge with nutmeg and cinnamon, and chocolate with chocolate and chocolate), cut to heart shapes.




Step 2.
Fill with white&milk chocolate spread, layer.




Step 3.
Fight, or charm your way past the deadly guardian of the garden.




Step 4.
Pick some pretty flowers.




Step 5.
Nom.


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Tonight I think I'll try lamb sitting atop some mashed sweet potato (with tiny pieces of roasted parsnip and roasted leek in it), with a cherry and wine sauce. On the one hand I'm letting down students everywhere (and harming McCain's sales), but on the other...it's going to be so nice.

Xx

Mixtape

At one of our recent drunken house parties (yes plural, we're Cool) I decided to bring down Queen: Greatest Hits.


_{They're all so beautiful. I shotgun Roger though.}

Now, if you're not aware (somehow), that's the greatest album ever compiled. I've personally owned three CD copies and one tape copy of it (I used to have a portable CD player that liked scratching CDs whilst whirring away in my pocket). Naturally every other part of the party (poker, drinking games, and on) was completely abandoned in favour of everyone in the room singing and dancing along to the music.

Once the album was over, it was time to grab my iPod and search for any songs that could possibly compete. We found a few...but I thought to be safe, I'd compile a mixtape of songs that could have a similar affect.

Now, you may think I got a bit carried away, but it turns out there are 650 such songs - which meant my mixtape turned into four mp3 CDs. Totally worth it though.


_{Does this apply to CDs?}

The problem now, however, is that I just sit in my room and listen to the mixtape all day and sing and dance along. I don't get anything at all done and it's getting quite worrying. It's a like a descent into drug addiction, but with better music..



Xx

Fun With Games

Faced with the choice of taking Immersive Environments and Games Design paired with Computer Animation - or Geographic Information Systems and Data Mining I tried, I really did, to pick the sensible options where I'd actually learn useful, re-usable skills for my future employability.

Alas, I failed, and I'm now spending half of my teaching hours playing with various games engines and 3D models. I'm not entirely sure what, if anything, I'm learning - but it's fabulous fun and mostly coursework based (which I thought was great, until I realised how much more work I've got left for my Final Year Project).

Here's some samples of the fun:

1. An Unreal level

No, not one of the exciting kind of Unreal, like Unreal Tournament - but just the physics and graphics engine. Oh well, I still made a fun little 'puzzler' out of it - and managed to submit the coursework with 13 minutes to spare. Let me know if you want a copy of the map (the runtime's free to download) - and here's some screenshots for now.


<sub>It has flames and noises and smoke and everything in game ^^


This holds a big glass ball, eventually - looks quite cool empty though I think.


Stained Glass; technically impressive, visually quite nice too.


The great outdoors.



Holes in the walls o.O


Another arty angle.</sub>

Also, if anyone cares, there's a step-by-step guide to how I made the level, that I submitted as part of my coursework, available here (yes I know one of the links there is dead, you'll work it out though, you're clever people).

2. Pacman 3D

The end of today's lab class simply stated 'Create a PacMan-like game'. I always wondered what PacMan would be like if he was actually a sphere, rather than a circle, and obeyed the laws of physics, bouncing off and around things. Now I have my answer; rubbish.


_{Yes, the graphics are rubbish - but I did knock the whole thing together in 30 minutes.}

3. Pumpkin

I was quite bemused when we were asked to create a small game whereby a pumpkin (complete with flickering candle innards) bounced around, opened a door and jumped off the end of the world. I had endless fun setting up the pumpkin to be smashed miles into the air by the force of the opening door though:

Considerations

In relation to my Trading project (actually it's a project based on Trust and Reputation...) - I've had cause to question a few assertions I made earlier on in the year, even though they were backed up by some credible sources.

Some items for consideration which I, at least, find really interesting at the moment:

When trading online, how much do the opinions of others about a potential trading partner influence your decisions, if you already have experience trading with that partner before?

Is there a limiting point as to how much others can influence you? Consider that you've had a bad experience with a trading partner. Would 100 people saying 'this partner is good' be any more influential than 50? Than 25? Than 5?

When trading online, how much does a potential trading partner's reputation (eg, eBay rating) influence your decisions, if you already have experience trading with that partner before?

How good is your memory of people you've traded with in the past? How much does this depend on how the community is set up? Do very good or very bad experiences stay in memory much longer? How much longer?

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I've got some good answers for most of the above, but any thoughts are always appreciated. Any academically referenced thoughts are really appreciated :P

Now for the hard part - expressing all this mathematically. Ouch.

Pink Dolphin

In a beautiful combination of two dubiously moral fields; marketing and genetics - a cheap headline and profiteering event to warm the coldest corporate heart:

Pink Dolphin Spotted In US Lake
_{From The Telegraph}

Enjoy.
Xx

The Bible - illustrated

What? Simply because an entire label on my blog has been devoted to blasphemy, you immediately assume this is going to be some disgraceful and offensive link or set of pictures? Shame on you.

No, this is an ever expanding set of stories from the Bible, illustrated by an evangelical minister who wants to share the Word of the Lord with as many people as he can.

Through Lego.

You'd think I would have mentioned this in one of my previous seven posts about Lego - but apparently not.

Now, before I continue with the predictable hyperlink and some sample pictures, I feel compelled to post this following Not Safe For Work (NSFW) notice for those of you wasting your employer's time reading these ramblings. I believe it's a standard disclaimer at the front of all Bibles - let me know if not..

_{To be honest, this disclaimer was the only reason I started this post..}

The Hyperlink:

The Brick Testament


The Sample Images:

1. Epic battle scene. Literally, epic. And I'm sure it's not at all blasphemous to depict God as a bit of Lego.


_{And Yahweh struck down all of Israel before Abijah and Judah...}

2. You'll find some bits of the Bible you didn't know about too, like the following (which explains why Christians always look so uncomfortable on the tube):


_{'Whenever a woman has her menstrual period, she will remain in a state of menstrual pollution for seven days. Anyone who touches her will be unclean until evening.'}

3. I had other cheap jokes, and I was dying to end on a sex scene, but I couldn't resist putting in this one. It's given me so many ideas for a LoTR Lego photoshoot. Anyone got a spare year? It'll be an Internet phenomenon (the following is Sauron vs Gandalf in my head):


_{Moses then reported to Yahweh what the people had said.}

Manu Delago - Looking For The Core; Lyrics

It's always nice when other people who like Manu Delago get in touch via my blog (for the record, it's less nice when East European boys wanting to marry me get in touch; sorry guys). A recent visitor's just informed me she plans on covering Looking For The Core from Handmade - that song's going to be really quite difficult for pretty much everyone in the band, so I thought I'd help out by transcribing the lyrics.

Here they are, for anyone who wants them - her voice and accent are really hard to understand (seriously, listen to her pronunciation of 'encyclopedia'. Seriously), but the whole thing makes a lot more sense now when you listen to the track. I personally always thought it was 'small taste of fear' in the refrain..

There's a world,
That'll take our tragedies.
Go downstairs in the dark room(s),
Enter the world of the moon.
He's called Earl, he's pretty old,
His eyes are empty.
Although your eye is red, you can't see more than Earl, 'cause it's too dark.

Now you're looking for the core [close your eyes].

Smell
Smell Taste
Smell Taste and Feel
You have to Smell Taste and Feel Listen
Smell Taste and Feel and
Listen Smell Taste and Feel and
Listen Smell Taste and Feel and
Listen You have to Smell Taste and Feel Listen
Smell Taste and Feel and
Listen Smell Taste and Feel
Smell Taste
Smell

Earl knows lots, he is an en-cy-clo-pe-dia,
But there is something, there is something, he won't ever know;
Green red blue, are only names,
He's never seen them fire on a sky.
How do you like black?
Is anything different?
Try to differ with your heart.

So are you looking for the core?
You're looking for the core.

Smell Taste and Feel, and
Listen Smell Taste and Feel, and
Listen Smell Taste and Feel, and
Listen You have to Smell Taste and Feel Listen
Smell Taste and Feel oooh
Smell Taste and Feel, [ah] Smell Taste and Feel
You have to smell you have to smell
You have to smell and taste and feel and listen
[yes] and feel and listen
[ah] you have to, [ah] you have to smell
[ah] you have to smell and taste and feel and taste and feel and listen
[ah] you have to, [ah] you have to smell, and taste, and smell and taste and feel, and listen
[and] you have to listen
you have to, [ah] you have to, to feel and taste, to feel and taste and smell and listen
feel and taste and, you feel and taste and smell and listen
you have to listen,
you have to listen,
[to listen]