Forbidden Planet

People are either charming or tedious." - Lord Darlington, Lady Windmere's Fan by Oscar Wilde.

Your Score : Androgynous You scored 63 masculinity and 60 femininity! You scored high on both masculinity and femininity. You have a strong personality exhibiting characteristics of both traditional sex roles. Link: The Bem Sex Role Inventory Test written by weirdscience on OkCupid Free Online Dating , home of the The Dating Persona Test

In an episode of the British series Yes, Prime Minister , the Prime Minister was keen on reintroducing conscription (National Service) as a means of bolstering the armed forces, reducing unemployment and providing skills training to young people. For various reasons, the civil service and military are opposed to the idea, which the Prime Minister believes to be a vote winner. In this clip, Sir Humphrey Appleby, the Cabinet Secretary, explains to Bernard Woolley, the Principal Private Secretary of the Prime Minister, how to get the poll results desired. This is one of the techniques used in negotiating with someone or trying to persuade someone - consistency. People want to act in a way that is consistent. Psychologists Jonathan Freedman and Scott Fraser, published a study in the 1966 Journal of Personality and Social Psychology titled Compliance without pressure: The foot-in-the-door technique showing just how consistent people will strive to be. The experiment was simple, people were

If you enjoy languages and the beauty of the written word, I suggest you take a peek at Omniglot: writing systems and languages of the world . I could easily spend hours poring over the scripts. Dhives Akuru Mongolian Both images are taken from the website. [Update 27-July-2007 @ 00:13 to add better sample of Dhives Akuru script.]

Last week I purchased a new memory card for my camera. This is a 2Gb card and is my third (fourth if you include the one that came with the camera). For some reason, I got it in my head to simply buy new memory cards when the old ones fill up (it is one way of keeping backups - aside from the ones on the hard disk). My reasoning is simple - the cost per shot, is cheaper than film. At a maximum resolution of 3.1 megapixels, I get about 2500 shots on a 2Gb card. At $70 for the card, this works out to 2.8 cents per image. Even if I buy film from the dollar store (which I have, but stopped because the film has sometimes been exposed to light), it works out to 4.2 cents per image (or 25 cents per image if you include processing costs of $4.99 per roll). Never mind that I can eliminate bad photos from the memory, but cannot retake poor film shots. As I slipped into the driver's seat and laid my purchase down on the passenger seat, I had one of those "What am I doing?" moments.

"No," I said, "and I am not going to buy you any candy, chocolates or chips." "Da-a-a-d, will you buy this gum for Jason?" Tania asked. "Smooth," said the cashier.

"That's nothing. My alarm clock is set for eight." exchange between policeman and Groucho Marx in Night at the Opera

That is what it sounded like when the New Zealand doctor said it on CBC radio and I went What!? . Fortunately, he repeated it a few times and I worked it was actually gesture . I consider myself pretty good at working out what people are saying in various accented English, but, man, that pronunciation was way off. The way I say it, it sounds something like: jess chure. Word of the day uxorial: adj relating to or characteristic of a wife. From the Latin uxor meaning wife. Got to love The Economist for using obscure snobbish words.

my Sudanese friend told me. The reason is that the homes have no roofs, except over the kitchen / cooking area. If you were travelling through the village perched atop a camel, you would be able to see over the walls and into people's homes. Image nabbed from here .

Following on the heels of Barbara , I have my own tale of consumer woe. Background Until the middle of August, I have the kids up here in Ottawa with me, since it is easier for me to get them to and from summer camp than it is for Sofia in Montreal. Since the kids principally live in Montreal, that is where their beds are. I live in a mostly empty house in Ottawa, so I need to buy a bed for them to sleep on. It was a pretty simple decision for me, I went to Mattress Mart because I've bought from them four times before (97 or 98, 2000, 2001, and 2003) and was happy with them. On 03-July-2007 I bough a futon from them and asked to have it delivered in the evening of 04-July-2007 - defined as being sometime between 17:00 and 20:00. ”Call tomorrow after three for a more accurate delivery time” , I was told. 04-July-2007 between 15:30 and 16:00 (I tried calling at 15:00, but the line was busy). me: ”Hi, I was told I to call after three to get a better estimated time of delivery"

I heard there was a 40% chance of rain this morning and a 60% chance of rain this afternoon. Does this mean there is a 100% chance of rain some time today? Assuming rain in the morning and rain in the afternoon are completely independent events* (they are not). We calculate the probability of rain in the morning AND the afternoon to be 0.4 * 0.6 = 0.24 (or 24%). We calculate the probability of rain in the morning AND no rain in the afternoon to be 0.4 * 0.4 = 0.16 (or 16%). We calculate the probability of no rain in the morning AND rain in the afternoon to be 0.6 * 0.6 = 0.36 (or 36%) Adding up all the probabilities of some combination of rain and not rain we get 24% + 16% + 36% = 76% chance of rain today. Alternatively, it tends to be more commonly calculated as the (1 - probability of no rain**), which is 1.0 - 0.6 * 0.4 = 1.0 – 0.24 = 0.76 = 76% chance of rain. * Independent events are events whose outcome (result) has no relationship to previous outcomes (results). For example, to

I have observed in church that the congregation half-heartedly mumbles prayers and maybe a few intrepid souls will join in singing any hymns, but when it comes to singing the national anthem, people stand to attention, puff out their chest and sing loudly lest their neighbour think them unpatriotic. This past Sunday / Canada Day (01-July-2007) proved to be no different - patriotism won handedly over godliness. Image nabbed from here .