The ability to write a cheque (or check) seems to have been flushed down the toilet along with being able to spell, write by hand and walk to the bank. So here's what you need to do with that bright new cheque book.
Firstly you'll need a pen... remember pens? No, that's a pencil and can be rubbed out. Yes that's a pen... no it's not broken, you just have to press the top and the nib comes out... very good! Let's start with the easy part: the date. Mmm... you don't spell February like that... no the universe does not come with a psychic spell checker. Yes, I know, June and July are short and easy. OK, now who are you going to write the cheque to? That's nice but "my mum" is not really her name... what's her name? Just "mum", OK, perhaps you can ask her one day. Erm... that big space there is to write out the number in words so let's not run before you can walk, let's put a number in that big box there. This is just an exercise, so any number will do... except a zillion... and there is no way you're going to have a googol in the bank either. Yes, they're funny... marginally. OK, that looks likely, now for the PhD level part of this: writing that number out in words! Yes, words! .......... (!!!) ......... One thing, you also need to practise your signature. Good... and this one... and this one... you're good at this bit, aren't you! OK, that's wonderful, let me keep this for you until the next cheque writing lesson. Right, here's a bit of plastic, don't chew it or try to open locked doors with it.
If you really need help with writing a cheque (or check) then this might help.
Full Body Scanners at Heathrow and Coming to Your Airport Soon
Full body scanners are now part of airport security at both Heathrow and Manchester airports. Another step in Britain's march towards renaming itself Airstrip One. The usual pros and cons are tediously aired in the Daily Mail article's comments. There are, however, some ludicrous official guidelines on their use. Passengers are chosen at random for a full body scan, and this now includes children, but we are assured that people will not be targetted because of creed or colour - perhaps only those that merely look suspicious. If you refuse to reveal yourself you will be barred from boarding your flight. I figure it won't be long before such scans are as compulsory as metal detector scans and x-rays. Britain is also the perfect police state experiment as there is nowhere to go without boarding a plane - nowhere worth going to, anyway. The scaremongering about "boob bombs" obviously worked and interesting to see the two articles separated by mere days when in reality these scanners have been tested for a while.
One solution to all this invasion of personal space is to be a good citizen and get yourself tagged with an RFID implant so you can be tracked everywhere you go, the beauty being that you will never notice. It'll come... sooner rather than later.
from Xomba.
I See Rude People - The Battle Against Metropolitan Anger
"Buy and read Amy Alkon’s new book "I See Rude People: One Woman’s Battle to Beat Some Manners into Impolite Society". It will be the funniest book you read this decade. " So says Satoshi Kanazawa, evolutionary psychologist at the LSE.
Actually, what caught my attention was the description in the review of why so many people are rude and ignorant in our sprawling metropolises. The idea from evolutionary psychology is that we once lived in small communities in which everyone was somehow related to everyone else. Avoiding perpetual family feuds leads to a kind of social lubricant to keep the community together. In contrast, people from other communities could be raided and abused as needed. Nowadays, few of us live in such incestuous villages but rather we're surrounded by millions of anonymous people who all count as "others". They are not family, so they can be abused with impunity. I can see this in action here in Thailand where any show of emotion is frowned upon and being a fool is tolerated within the villages, but come to Bangkok and pushing people out of the way is the norm if you want to get anything done before sundown.
Actually, what caught my attention was the description in the review of why so many people are rude and ignorant in our sprawling metropolises. The idea from evolutionary psychology is that we once lived in small communities in which everyone was somehow related to everyone else. Avoiding perpetual family feuds leads to a kind of social lubricant to keep the community together. In contrast, people from other communities could be raided and abused as needed. Nowadays, few of us live in such incestuous villages but rather we're surrounded by millions of anonymous people who all count as "others". They are not family, so they can be abused with impunity. I can see this in action here in Thailand where any show of emotion is frowned upon and being a fool is tolerated within the villages, but come to Bangkok and pushing people out of the way is the norm if you want to get anything done before sundown.
Blondes Have More Balls
The Sunday Times recently published an article with the headline “Blonde women born to be warrior princesses.” The article reported that “Researchers claim that blondes are more likely to display a “warlike” streak because they attract more attention than other women and are used to getting their own way – the so-called “princess effect.”” The Sunday Times article quotes the evolutionary psychologist at the University of California, Santa Barbara, Aaron Sell. Sadly, none of it is true, or at least not according to Sell.
The Scientific Fundamentalist blog written by Satoshi Kanazawa has a field day slamming British newspapers for routinely publishing fiction. Yes, headlines are designed to grab your attention - they may even lure you with a false promise - but the content should still have some link to real news. If journalists can't get a scientist to utter a few sentences on the phone that they can then distort or publish out of context they will just resort to making up stories. The right to free speech seems to be the right to distort reality - anything to sell papers. These are the same people crying over a loss of revenue to the new online media. Your support for them rather depends on whether you want news or fiction.
I have a little experience of British newspapers and my advice to anybody who is on the receiving end of journalistic charm and flattery is to write down a statement and email it to them. Spoken words are ephemeral and you will have a hard time proving that you didn't say something. Write your own press release and if you're still misquoted you'll have a stronger case for the Press Complaints Commission to adjudicate on. As Kanazawa says "[...] it is their job as British journalists to make things up. They don’t care if it’s true or not." Strong stuff... now where's that article about blondes?
The Scientific Fundamentalist blog written by Satoshi Kanazawa has a field day slamming British newspapers for routinely publishing fiction. Yes, headlines are designed to grab your attention - they may even lure you with a false promise - but the content should still have some link to real news. If journalists can't get a scientist to utter a few sentences on the phone that they can then distort or publish out of context they will just resort to making up stories. The right to free speech seems to be the right to distort reality - anything to sell papers. These are the same people crying over a loss of revenue to the new online media. Your support for them rather depends on whether you want news or fiction.
I have a little experience of British newspapers and my advice to anybody who is on the receiving end of journalistic charm and flattery is to write down a statement and email it to them. Spoken words are ephemeral and you will have a hard time proving that you didn't say something. Write your own press release and if you're still misquoted you'll have a stronger case for the Press Complaints Commission to adjudicate on. As Kanazawa says "[...] it is their job as British journalists to make things up. They don’t care if it’s true or not." Strong stuff... now where's that article about blondes?
Global Warming Scientist Admits No Data For Glacier Alarm
The reputation of the IPCC is melting away faster than a Himalayan glacier. The repercussions rumble on after the discovery that the claim that the Himalayan glaciers would disappear by 2035 was pure speculation backed by zero science.
In an interview with The Mail on Sunday, Dr Lal, the co-ordinating lead author of the report’s chapter on Asia, said: "It related to several countries in this region and their water sources. We thought that if we can highlight it, it will impact policy-makers and politicians and encourage them to take some concrete action. [...] It had importance for the region, so we thought we should put it in."
In other words, this was a political statement masquerading as science. Dr Lal then tries to spread the blame thinly by saying that none of the 500 external reviewers picked up on this bogus claim at the time. This too, appears to be very far from the truth.
Professor Georg Kaser, a glacier expert from Austria, who was lead author of a different chapter in the IPCC report, said when he became aware of the 2035 claim a few months before the report was published, he wrote to Dr Lal, urging him to withdraw it as patently untrue. Dr Lal claimed he never received this letter.
Having been forced to apologise over the 2035 claim, Dr Raj Pachauri, the IPCC chairman, blamed Dr Lal, saying his team had failed to apply IPCC procedures. The mud-slinging has started and everyone is running for cover.
The UN report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) won a Nobel Prize - but it wasn't for Literature. Good to see that science has not yet been totally destroyed and become a mere tool to fool the world. The bad news is that nobody has been sacked, and nobody will be as at heart they are political not scientific appointments.
The Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF), a new body founded by former British Chancellor Nigel Lawson is also entering the fray. Benny Peiser, the GWPF’s director, said the affair suggested the IPCC review process was ‘skewed by a bias towards alarmist assessments’. More on that coming soon.
In an interview with The Mail on Sunday, Dr Lal, the co-ordinating lead author of the report’s chapter on Asia, said: "It related to several countries in this region and their water sources. We thought that if we can highlight it, it will impact policy-makers and politicians and encourage them to take some concrete action. [...] It had importance for the region, so we thought we should put it in."
In other words, this was a political statement masquerading as science. Dr Lal then tries to spread the blame thinly by saying that none of the 500 external reviewers picked up on this bogus claim at the time. This too, appears to be very far from the truth.
Professor Georg Kaser, a glacier expert from Austria, who was lead author of a different chapter in the IPCC report, said when he became aware of the 2035 claim a few months before the report was published, he wrote to Dr Lal, urging him to withdraw it as patently untrue. Dr Lal claimed he never received this letter.
Having been forced to apologise over the 2035 claim, Dr Raj Pachauri, the IPCC chairman, blamed Dr Lal, saying his team had failed to apply IPCC procedures. The mud-slinging has started and everyone is running for cover.
The UN report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) won a Nobel Prize - but it wasn't for Literature. Good to see that science has not yet been totally destroyed and become a mere tool to fool the world. The bad news is that nobody has been sacked, and nobody will be as at heart they are political not scientific appointments.
The Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF), a new body founded by former British Chancellor Nigel Lawson is also entering the fray. Benny Peiser, the GWPF’s director, said the affair suggested the IPCC review process was ‘skewed by a bias towards alarmist assessments’. More on that coming soon.
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