Archive for the “General” Category

Just found this via StumbleUpon.

It’s a fairly old video but if you missed it the first time around, now’s your chance.

Good to see their spirits remain high as serving in the armed forces (of any country) can often be a thankless task.

I’ll address the second bit first. I finally got my act together long enough to get my Spore themed website, Spore Daily, up and running the other day.

Spore Daily will primarily be used to post my own creations, along with details of the creation process, any backstory, etc. I will also be posting important news about the game, links to tutorial videos or other video content and also some community challenges, for people to try and create Spore content with certain specifications.

The first couple of news-y posts are already up, though you may want to go to the Introduction post first. Up to you.

mythor.net has also been updated to the latest version of Wordpress and the theme has also received a sprucing up.

Gone is the “Now Reading” library. I still love the idea of the thing, but I just wasn’t using it. It may return at a later date.

Gone, also, are the old comments. Well, they’re technically still there, you just can’t see them anymore. I decided to also migrate the mythor.net comments system over to the “Disqus” commenting system, after implementing it on Spore Daily. I’ll probably write a complete entry on the system later, but for now you can signup for the system here (it’s free to join) or you can just continue posting here on my blog without it.

Why would you want to register? Firstly because you can use that registration across any site that uses the Disqus commenting system - it’s more than just this site and Spore Daily!

Secondly, because it allows you to rate people’s contributions to communities.

Third, and probably most usefully, it will send any replies to comments you make direct to your email, if you want, and you can even reply via email, and it will show up in the appropriate place.

I will probably continue tinkering with mythor.net over the next couple of days, so don’t freak out if anything weird shows up. I probably just broke something!

A man, that is.

She is pregnant, but a woman getting pregnant is not exactly one of the most amazing scientific mysteries of all time, is it?

How does rubbish like this even justify any attention?

Although, he legally became a man after undergoing a sex-change operation, Beatie kept his female reproductive organs.

A sex change operation where “he” kept the organs that made “him” be female? That’s quite some change!

Oprah’s trailer shows the TV star patting Beatie’s stomach and Beatie undergoing an ultrasound as Oprah asks: “Is the world ready for this?”

Ready for what, more idiocy spilling forth from your mouth, Oprah? Yes, I think the world is as ready for that as it is for a woman to be pregnant.

[Source: The Daily Telegraph]

[Update: It's back! Yeah baby yeahhhhh! Go there now!]

Just to let everyone know that I am aware The Biggest Loser Recap is currently broken.

Until the monkeys in charge at my webhost get their shit together, I can’t fix it.

If people are desperate for their recap fix, I could maybe post them here until the problem is sorted out… but I don’t know how many Recap fans are even aware this part of my site exists. :)
If there are any and you can cope with coming to a slightly different site for a couple days, holler and I’ll think about it.

Take the test!

As explained in the instructions, you simply pick which colour you think has been selected and hit the “Predict!” button. If you’ve predicted (or guessed) correctly, you get a point. If not, you don’t.

The answer is selected when the page loads, not after you make your guess. It could be done after you’ve guessed instead, but that would be a test of your ability to predict the future, rather than something in the present. I may make a test that does that in the future. Or I may not!

One answer will start out selected. This is not an indication as to which selection may be right or wrong, rather it is a facility to allow you to simply click “Predict!” repeatedly, as the highlighted option is chosen randomly. Theoretically, you ought to end up with an accuracy around 33% using this method, as the computer is both selecting answers at random and predicting at random.

It is possible to cheat on this test, if you’re desperate to get 100%. The answer is not heavily protected and the anti-cheat mechanism is really quite simplistic. I could have tried to make it more difficult to cheat the system, but realistically I couldn’t account for every eventuality. You’re really only cheating yourself if you do it and the result will obviously be invalid as proof of your phenomenal cosmic powers. :-)

Why did I make such a thing? Well, mostly because the idea took my fancy and I wanted to see if I could do it. It was also an opportunity to learn a little more about PHP and figure out how that fancy hidden text thing works. I’m not sure I learnt anything that is going to be useful to me in the future, but it kept me out of trouble for the day!

Is it a totally accurate test of a person’s psychic ability? No, not really. If you want a proper test there are better ways than a page on the internet. This is really more just for fun and to demonstrate the wonders of statistics. Unless you truly do have some extraordinary ability, be it psychic powers or just luck, you ought to get somewhere around 33.33% accuracy as a result, particularly as you go beyond the relatively small number of predictions required to get the HTML widget - fifty. If you want it to be as accurate as possible, I’d advise getting to at least a hundred. If you’re still above 45% accuracy and can maintain it beyond 1-200 attempts, you may actually have something.

Or you’re just cheating. :-)

And please, for the enjoyment of others, if you work out how to cheat, don’t go blabbing. Feel free to contact me and let me know, though. I promise not to dob you in.

First and foremost, as a wise man once said - shit or get off the pot.

Either continue with the tour and abide by the decision of the judge, whenever it may be handed down. Or go home.

Holding the threat of a cancelled tour over the heads of the Australian team, the Australian public and the ICC is very clearly “not in the spirit of the game.” It’s never been part of good sportsmanship to take your ball and go home if a decision doesn’t go your way. Harping on about the Australian team’s lack of sportsmanship while continuing to threaten the governing body if you don’t get your way only makes you look like hypocrites.

So do what you’re threatening or shut up and get on with it.

Secondly, you are very much entitled to appeal Harbhajan’s suspension. The system is in place to do so and you might get a better result from the appeals process.

A three match suspension is not the maximum punishment though which, as a repeat offender, is what he really should have received. The Australians did try and let it stay on the field the first time, but when it’s a pattern of racial abuse coming from one player, are they just supposed to ignore it? That is why racism in cricket became so prevalent - nobody did anything about it.

Cop it sweet and tell him if he can’t stop using racial epithets, just shut the hell up. It’s not rocket science!

Thirdly, I agree with the rumoured stance you will be taking in the Third Test, assuming you go through with it. If the Australians are such horrific sledgers, report them. Every single time. Gentle ribbing is to be expected, but if the opposition really is referring to your player’s as bastards, why wouldn’t you report them?

The only reason I can think of is that you know full well you’re replying with much the same language, or worse. Well, it’s time for it all to stop. If your team isn’t being abusive and the other team keeps getting reported if they start in, it’ll get cleaned up right quick, won’t it?

So don’t just mutter about it. Do it! You’ll have a lot of support from a lot of quarters. A lot of fans don’t like that aspect of the game, so you’d be doing us a favour as well.

Last but by no means least, if you’re going to talk the talk, you have to walk the walk. Criticising Australia’s batsmen for not walking when they were out comes off very hollow when many times your own batsmen are not walking when they have actually been given out by the umpire. The rules are very clear in this regard - you do not have to leave your crease when you have not been given out by an umpire. But you do have to do so when you are. You don’t get to walk down the pitch to question the umpire, nor do you get to stand around for 10-20 seconds looking down the pitch in disbelief.

That is not in the spirit of cricket, either.

Oh and if you could speed up your over rate while bowling, that’d be ace.

First and foremost, someone in the Australian Cricket camp needs to deliver an ultimatum to the Indian Cricket Team - either they give an assurance now that the rest of the Tour will go ahead, irrespective of administrative or disciplinary decisions, or they go home immediately. Whilst the Australian team did instigate the complaint against Harbhajan, what happened after that is not their responsibility, nor is it fair to punish Australian fans by threatening to cancel the tour.

If India refuse to provide such an assurance, cancel the tour yourselves. And refuse to play any further Test matches involving India in the future, unless the ICC sanctions them heavily for having brought the game into disrepute with their blackmail. The mere fact that they are threatening to cancel a tour unless they get their way ought to be enough to ensure censure, yet nothing is being done. Would Australia suffer the same fate? If not, why should you tolerate it?

Secondly if, by some miracle, the Third Test in Perth does go ahead, give the Indians a real demonstration of aggression, passion and general hard-nosed play. Put Shaun Tait in the team and give him free rein to rip some bouncers in. Ditto Brett Lee. If you think an Indian player is out, appeal, loudly, even if it is very clear - clean bowled should receive the same volume as a faint edge. Always be sure to appeal directly to the umpire and never look, gesture or otherwise acknowledge an Indian player.

Do not walk if you think you’re out. Wait for the umpire to signal that you are out, then immediately vacate the crease. You are entitled to stand your ground until such time as the umpire raises a finger, so do it!

And throughout the match, from the start until you’re back in the team hotel after the match, there should only be one word said to an Indian player, and it should be one of the following: Heads or Tails.

Do not sledge them, do not compliment them, do not shake their hands after the match. They do not deserve such signs of respect after the way they have carried on in the last couple of days.

And last but not least, take a hardline approach to any comments directed at Australian players by Indian players - if there is even a suggestion that there may have been some offensive intent behind a comment, report it immediately to the umpire. Every time. No exceptions. If you have said nothing to them then they will not have any excuses to fall back on.

If you haven’t noticed, the new year is rapidly approaching. In between the fireworks and alcohol and regrettable sexual encounters, resolutions are made regarding things people want to do - or avoid - in the new year.

I’ll make some occasionally but, like many, I don’t always manage to keep them, if I even try to do so at all!

Do you make new year’s resolutions? Do you keep them?

 Loading ...

Or, so she claims.

From the James Randi Educational Foundation:

Rosemary Hunter has applied for the JREF’s Million Dollar Challenge with the extraordinary claim that she can make people urinate with the power of her mind.

You can watch the results on YouTube (links here) but I think you can probably guess what the result was.

I think the most extraordinary part isn’t that she claimed she could make people pee using the power of her mind… the most extraordinary part was her claim that God gave her the ability to do this.

And I just have to wonder… why? Why would God grant someone such an ability? Maybe he has a bigger sense of humour than anyone has ever imagined?
I mean we’re not talking about water-into-wine here. This wouldn’t exactly rate very highly on the list of miraculous abilities, would it?

Despite her abject failure, Rosemary will be allowed to reapply in one year’s time. Please try not to wet yourself with excitement in the meantime, okay?

They’re over there, washing their hands.

Tom, Dick and Harry are on the other side of the room, washing Tom, Dick and Harry’s hands.

They’re is a short version (contraction) of they are. The two are interchangeable, though they’re tends to be preferred.

There is used to signify a location, such as when you point to an object someone is looking for and exclaim, “There!”

Their is possessive, it is used to indicate that something belongs to someone. “Give the ball back, it is their ball.” “It is not their ball, it is our ball.” “Their ball has white stripes, our ball has black stripes!” Or, as in the initial example, the boys are washing their respective pairs of hands.