Goodbye forever warwick blogs?

I have discovered that there are blogs out there with LaTeX support. I look at the “formatting” list to the right of the screen and I see no such thing. In truth, it may be necessary for me to migrate to somewhere else, e.g. wordpress. I’ll keep the blog title the same though. One last test, however.

$ \sum_{n=1}^\infty \frac{1}{n} \; \rightarrow \; \mathrm{yourmum} $

If that didn’t work, I’m out of here!

P.S. on the offchance that anyone else reads this blog, it would probably not be worth your time checking my new blog until a few months hence, as until then I intend to do some shameless pearoasting from this one.

: 22 Mar 2009 00:53 |  Comments (2) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Lurking on my hard drive…

... was this pensive, sleep deprivation driven little number. It is arguably less amusing than the sort of stuff I normally post, but has my usual quaint flair. It also allows me to reflect upon the old “second year depression syndrome” that hit me rather hard in a somewhat more positive light, knowing as I can that some good was yielded from it. Here it follows:

“I am often told by those around me that I say many things that are perhaps clever, or insightful, or wise, and am often advised to write a book(s) on the things I talk about. Truth be told, however, I cannot do this, for I soon forget the things that I have said. It has just now become apparent to me that recording my thoughts on a given day might allow me to learn from myself, and perhaps get a little closer to being as clever and wise as I appear to be.

The idea of keeping a diary held little appeal for me for a long time, and I do not take photographs of important events or people or places. This is because events mean little to me, and I have always been content to forget the trivial details of them. Sometimes I suspect that the reason my memory of the past is so bad is that I do not care enough about it to retain the memories. The thing I remember most about my childhood and my life in general are my thoughts and attitudes, and even these memories distort over time. It has become apparent to me now that much of my life is lived in thoughts, fancies, ideas and daydreams, and it is these things of which I should be keeping record. This is not because I am either clever or wise in all but the most superficial respects, but precisely because I am not.

When reading C. S. Lewis’ “The Great Divorce”, I noticed several occurrences of words to the effect of “when you were a child you knew that…” and it becomes apparent to me that, although I retained many of the better aspects of my childhood, such as my sense of curiosity and wonder, there is much to be gained by reflecting on it nonetheless. Although I often imagine myself in 10 years time looking back on my young self with disappointment, yet I suspect now that there may also be follies and pitfalls in the future that I can warn myself against now, just as my child self might have warned me of how foolish 20-year-olds can be, had only I kept an account then too. But this account does not concern events, and shan’t be ordered by chronology. This is a chronicle of my thoughts, which are, in essence, almost all that I am made of. If these were taken away from me, there would be little left indeed (yet, by God’s grace, not nothing).
]
In addition, I would like to combine this with my dream diary that I am using to try and invoke a lucid dream. There are some (perhaps somewhat amusing, now I think on it) reasons for this. Tonight, however, no entry on dreams will be featured, as I have done it to myself yet again: committed myself to an epic all-nighter (or three) that could easily have been avoided. This might have been a bad time to start this account.”

That’s right, I forgot that I already had a blog. Lolz!

: 23 Feb 2009 00:10 |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Titles for future posts/articles/letters/something

Recent events have caused me to devote much thought to writing an article or something concerning Biblical perspectives on this or that. I have a few well underway in my head. I am listing their titles only here so that I do not forget them. That way, the possiblility of me actually writing them appears on the horizon.

Being selective in what we rebel against
Criticising beliefs
In defence of perfection.
A critique of “moderate religion”.

I think that was all of them (so far).

: 21 Feb 2009 22:58 |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

A Cracking invention

Can anyone think of some kind of device of method for remembering why one is standing in the kitchen. I’m fed up with the lost hours spent thinking “I know I’m here for something”.

Extra credit: design it on the Rube Goldberg principle.

Thought for the day: Nobody cares about your blog.

: 03 Jan 2009 17:26 |  Comments (1) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

midnight snack–related curiosities

Reposted from an email I sent around a very long time ago:

Subject: midnight snack-related curiosities
Date: Mon, 25 Sep 2006 15:00:14 +0000

Last night I felt rather peckish and decided to partake of some post-bedtime nourishment. Unfortunately, I was limited in my choices of what to eat by the fact that nobody had gone out to buy food for a while. On the plus side, I made the following brilliant discoveries:

- Although it is normally impossible to smell one’s own breath, the consumption of enough raw onion makes this possible

- the more raw onion one eats, the less strong English mustard becomes. Enough onion enables one to eat whole tablespoons of strong English mustard without pain.

- the combination of Lea & Perrins and raw onion is unfit for human consumption, even if you like both of the above individually

- the tastes of raw onion and peanut butter CANCEL OUT PRECISELY. In short, peanut butter spread onto some raw onion is TASTELESS.

- lastly, the aftertaste of lots of raw onion lasts well into the following morning.

: 10 Sep 2007 13:17 |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Bad breath

This is my first post for rather a long time. This is quite simply because there has recently been too little idleness in my life to yield much fruit. However, I have, during these busy times, been thinking much about one thing in particular. People with bad breath. I theorise, with some reason, that people who have bad breath have it only to annoy others. They secretly struggle to contain their evil laughter as people gag at their every exhalation. I know this to be true because they refuse to eat mints.
Being a maths student, I run into a lot of people with bad breath (and also those who are malodourous in general). As such, I sometimes buy a pack of mints for the sole purpose of offering them to people with bad breath whom I can’t avoid spending time with. They always refuse. It doesn’t matter how hard I try to push them with things like “I’m trying to get rid of them”: they just don’t want to know. People without bad breath, on the other hand, are only too happy to allow people to share their polos with them. They, after all, do not derive a sick pleasure from making people choke. Thoughts on this subject anyone?

: 08 Nov 2006 22:09 |  Comments (2) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

room harmonics

One thing I often like to do when I’m alone is to find one of the sound harmonics of the room I’m in. I achieve this by humming in a variety of frequencies until I find one that sounds louder than all the others (without actually humming any louder). For those that have not done A-level physics, this is basicly caused by the sound wave of your voice and the sound wave of the resulting echo interfering with each other. Most of the time, this interference doesn’t have any percievable effect, but if you pick just the right frequency, Bingo! the whole room resonates to the sound of your voice. Try it! Bathrooms are paticularly good because of the echo. So are empty lecture theatres.

: 14 Oct 2006 23:30 |  Comments (1) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Duplicate post

This was originally a duplicate of the last post. Shouldn’t have clicked the button twice.

: 12 Oct 2006 23:35 |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Cool jobs

I often give some though to what I shall do when (and if) I grow up. Although I understand warwick Maths graduates to be highly employable, it’s not enough to get a cool job. Consider this list of cool jobs:

- Pirate. I’m told this job still has good prospects in Far Eastern waters. However, it’s the stereotypes that are half the fun (Yarrr!), and I suspect that sailing in on an impressive galleon, triangular hat on head, parrot on shoulder, might only result in one getting laughed at.

- King. I don’t just want to be a dictator. I want a royal sceptre and a golden crown. I shall of course be a benign monarch, bringing happiness and prosperity to my loyal subjects, and being kind and gentle to whomsoever I should condescend to deal with directly.

- Time traveller. I’ve been watching too much Dr Who.

- Ninja. All that dressing up in black, carrying a katana, throwing shurikens at people. Right up my street I think.

Any you would care to add to this list? I want to hear your thoughts.

: 12 Oct 2006 23:35 |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Have your say on…

Which lecture theatre do you think is the best to sleep in? Is it a maths lecture room? Is it a sociology lecture room? Of those I have encountered, R0.21 made me the most sleepy. When I did doze off, I slept soundly for the remainder of the lecture; I wonder if it’s open at night.

: 11 Oct 2006 18:28 |  Comments (16) |  Close comments |  Report a problem