Forbidden Planet

Well ... maybe not. Forbidden Planet has new space-time coordinates. You can find it, in all its infancy (for the time being - eventually it will grow up) here . I have no plans to move this blog and its contents over (ok, maybe I might move 1 or 2 things). Image nabbed from here

Over the summer I saw a bunch of movies with the kids and here are my reviews of them: Prince Caspian A movie with no plot, no substance, just lots of fighting. To give you idea of how violent the movie is, whenever I asked the kids what they were watching on TV they would reply, "Don't worry, it's not as violent as Prince Caspian." I think the movie can be summed up as follows: Susan: (Examining the ruins of Narnia) "What happened here?" Peter: "I don't know, but lets go thump something" Lucy: "Shouldn't we wait for Aslan?" Peter: "Aslan's not coming. Let's go thump something." (One epic battle gone wrong, a macho hand-to-hand battle gone well for the hero , and in the midst of another epic battle going wrong, Lucy comes across Aslan.) Aslan: "Why didn't you wait for me?" (Lucy looks shamefaced.) Aslan: (Laughing) "Ok, let's go find your friends and help them thump someone." The...

Erm ... if it is filled by volume, settling of contents should not be an issue. Read this on the side of a bottle of pigment. I was tempted to buy the pigment, but decided against it. It came in a variety of colors, red, blue, green, yellow, black white as well as copper and silver and gold. The metallic pigments were more expensive. I can't deny that the thought of possessing those bottles filled with their exquisite powders excites me. Not that I would know what to do with them - aside from making a mess. [This was prerecorded]

I hate Home Depot yard waste bags. Every single one I have used has torn. I cannot even tamp down the yard waste in it without the sides splitting. I find the ones sold at Canadian Tire or Loblaws to be much more robust. Heck, I can jump on them and the don't rip. Makes me wonder were Home Depot gets theirs, because there cannot be that many different manufacturers of yard waste bags. [This was prerecorded]

Found this as one of the search terms leading to my blog: "do you need sunscreen to protect against fluorescent lights?" My answer is: No. If they are high UV emitting fluorescent's, then your best option is to turn them off, leave the area, or dress up. I still maintain that sunscreen is carcinogenic. Over the past 30 years or so that sunscreens have been heavily promoted, the incidence of skin cancer has significantly increased (not decresed). A little bit of sun is good for you, a lot can be damaging. Potect yourself by wearing loose fitting clothing and staying in the shade. Roasting yourself in the full sun, like a turkey being browned, is just plain foolish. [This was prerecorded]

I was laid off last Wednesday (27-August-2008) - for economic, not performance reasons. Not that I am upset or shocked or dazed and confused. It was a great company to work for, I was well treated and respected. I had no complaints (except that possibly the work was not always as stimulating as I hoped). It renders some decision making a bit easier. Clearly I will be moving to Montreal now, instead of Sofia coming to Ottawa. Sofia and my dad (especially my dad) seem more shocked by this than I am. My dad even dropped by on the weekend to try and cheer me up, gave me the "blessing in disguise" sermon. I don't believe in blessings in disguise. I don't think God plays mind games with people. "Oh look, you have cancer. Isn't that a blessing in disguise?" Erm ... no. Sofia is wondering what happened. "They loved you. You said the company was doing well. It is so cold and brutal." Well, yeah, they did like me and they treated me well. Yes, the compan...

It is interesting how we sometimes notice things in our peripheral vision (although, I am sure there is a lot more we miss). I don't think I parsed this the right way, but ... then again, I am totally oblivious to the latest trends. Screen capture, cropping and highlighting by Richard of Forbidden Planet. Content and layout of screen capture copyright Sympatico / MSN [Also noticed they changed the layout of the Blogger dashboard].

but you will not exhaust all your foes. If you quell your own anger, your real enemy will be slain. - Nagarjuna , a Buddhist philosopher, c150-250 CE He that will be angry for anything will be angry for nothing. - Sallust, Roman historian, 86-34 BCE. When we reject people in anger, or turn on them with the aim of inflicting pain, we damage our souls even more. - Marcus Aurelius, Roman Emperor, 121-180 CE (Meditations, Chapter 2) [For those who are curious where I've been ... erm ... mixture of a lack of enthusiasm, energy and time for blogging. But not to worry, I have had plenty of time to come down with Strep throat - twice. I am currently on my second round of antibiotics, apparently the first round wasn't wholly effective. Makes me wonder how 10 days was decided upon as the standard treatment duration because this is not the first time a round of antibiotics has failed to cure me and I have ended up going for a second round. I have also been busy reading about photograph...

People are illogical, unreasonable, and self-centered. Love them anyway. If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives. Do good anyway. If you are successful, you will win false friends and true enemies. Succeed anyway. The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow. Do good anyway. Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable. Be honest and frank anyway. The biggest men and women with the biggest ideas can be shot down by the smallest men and women with the smallest minds. Think big anyway. People favor underdogs but follow only top dogs. Fight for a few underdogs anyway. What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight. Build anyway. People really need help but may attack you if you do help them. Help people anyway. Give the world the best you have and you'll get kicked in the teeth. Give the world the best you have anyway. - Kent M. Kieth I also found this version, which, personally, I liked better: People are often unreasonable, illogical, and self-...

to win the respect of intelligent persons and the affection of children; to earn the approbation of honest citizens and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty; to find the best in others; to give of one's self; to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; to have played and laughed with enthusiasm and sung with exultation; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived -- this is to have succeeded." - attributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson

the chief guardian instructed. Vandara's voice was firm and bitter. "The girl should have been taken to the Field when she was born and still nameless. It is the way." "Go on," the chief guardian said. "She was imperfect. And fatherless as well. She should not have been kept." But I was strong. And my eyes were bright. My mother told me. She wouldn't let me go Kira shifted her weight, resting her twisted leg, remembering the story of her birth, and wondering if she would have an opportunity to tell it here. I gripped her thumb so tightly. "We have all tolerated her presence for these years," Vandara went on. "But she has not contributed. She cannot dig or plant or weed, or even tend the domestic beasts the way other girls her age do. She drags that dead leg around like a useless burden. She is slow, and she eats a lot." The council of guardians was listening carefully. Kira's face felt warm with embarrassment. It was true, ...

Yes. This is why movie stars, fashion models, politicians and pop singers have such dreadful personality and relationship problems - their souls have been severely depleted by all the photographs which have been taken of them. - from a very good Canon EOS Beginner's FAQ . Especially good is the section on lenses. I think the FAQ is general enough that any beginner with an SLR camera would benefit from reading it.

I think I have mice in the house. I'd found two dead mice in the basement last September, but saw nothing to indicate there might be any others, despite paying extra attention to it. Last Tuesday morning, when most Christian people are sleeping, I heard some scratching / scrabbling noise behind me as I lay in bed. (I sleep in a windowless room in the basement because it is nice and dark and quiet - my kids, who are with me in Ottawa over the summer, sleep upstairs in one of the bedrooms.) Later that morning I heard some scrabbling noise as I went into the laundry room. Wednesday night I heard quite a bit more scrabbling noise and even something that sounded like purring or growling. That was enough to send me upstairs to sleep. Last night, it sound like they were running in the ceiling above me - except the basement ceiling is unfinished, so it must have been a trick of sound reflection. Anyway, I decided it was better to sleep upstairs and so I dragged the mattress upstairs. Tonig...

Roswell is famous (or infamous) for the supposed crashing of a UFO there back in 1947 , from which there was apparently at least one alien recovered. The description of the "alien" has given rise to the familiar grey alien . I don't believe in aliens and UFOs any longer - I did when I was younger, but that is many decades behind (well, if 2 decades counts as many) - but there are better, more probable and less convoluted ways of explaining and understanding things. My take on it: (1) the crashed object was not a UFO, (2) it was a military test object, possible a style of plane or perhaps something along the lines of a balloon of connected to a balloon, (3) there was no alien recovered, (4) if a living being was recovered, it was human and very likely suffering from the genetic disease known as Progeria - characterized by accelerated aging, with death occurring in the early teens. Why would I come to this conclusion? Because people suffering from progeria look an awful lo...

it is many short races one after the other.” - Walter Elliot (1842-1928) Good advice for me. I have a tendency to look too far out and see that the final goal is seemingly unattainable. On the other hand, I have to work on reasonable short term goals. I find it easy to set trivial short term goals, unfortunately, achieving them doesn't satisfy; it is the difference between busy work and meaningful work. Also, I have a tendency to try to do too much, instead of just enough. For example, I might decide to reorganize my chemistry books (despite my best Hell paving intentions, my books have a tendency toward chaos), but I will end up trying to reorganize everything - possibly even catalogue them. Consequently, nothing gets done. Need to focus on just reorganizing what needs to be done and forget about the rest. Today's thought (no promise of thoughts tomorrow).

May and June saw a great upsurge in people searching for this SPAM . Normally, it makes up about half the search hits. During those months I saw it go up as high 85% of search hits. At the snapshot I have taken, it was making up 72% of search hits. I have highlighted in YELLOW two search hits that made me wonder what people are really looking for.

I don't know how many of you read the fine print when you sign up for things .. erm ... I generally don't. I used to, but always found them to be draconian terms of enslavement that that basically said they have all the power and rights and you have none, forever, in perpetuity. Recently I decided to read the Google terms of service , after all, I use Google to blog (Blogger is owned by Google), I have a gmail account, I have considered using their online office applications to store documents - leaving storage and backup to them (I reckon they are likely to be better at it than I am). Section 11 starts off promising enough: 11.1 You retain copyright and any other rights you already hold in Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services. I own the rights to all the content (intellectual property) I post, store or transmit (e-mail) using Google services and tools. Then it goes downhill: By submitting, posting or displaying the content you give Google a per...

for one simple reason: the pros hire really good-looking models... . They're models because they photograph really, really well. So, what makes our job so hard is that we are not surrounded by fabulous-looking models who just happen to be standing around not eating. Nope, we usually wind up shooting portraits of our friends, many of whom (on a looks scale) fall somewhere between Mr. Bean and Jabba the Hut. This is why our job, as portrait photographers, is actually substantially more challenging than that of a seasoned professional - we've got to make magic from some seriously un-model-like people. This is precisely why we're often so disappointed with our portraits (when its really not our fault)." - Scott Kelby, The Digital Photography Book: Volume 2 [Updated 02-July-2008 @ 10:26: added link to author's site selling the book (no, I don't get a commission)]

"Would someone go to Wimbeldon to play one match? Become a heart surgeon just to do one open-heart surgery and then go back to his regular life? Would someone go to law school to try just one case in court? Or go through all the trouble of opening a coffee shop to stay open for one day?" - Heather Sellers, Chapter after Chapter My response is "Yes! I would" , it is who I am. Some days, I feel I really need to be more passionate about one thing, rather than interested in many things. You can read a sample chapter (chapter 7) here . It is a pdf, so you might want to right click and download it first (for Windows users, I have no idea how a Mac user would do it). Loved the second and third paragraph on the second page. [Updated 02-July-2008 @ 10:27: provided link to author's site selling the book (no, I don't get any commission). Also added paragraph and link pointing to sample chapter pdf].

You are The Fool Idea, thought, spirituality, that which endeavours to rise above the material. The Fool is the card of infinite possibilities. The bag on the staff indicates that he has all he need to do or be anything he wants, he has only to stop and unpack. He is on his way to a brand new beginning. But the card carries a little bark of warning as well. Stop daydreaming and fantasising and watch your step, lest you fall and end up looking the fool. What Tarot Card are You? Take the Test to Find Out. Meme nabbed from Around The World In Beautiful Shoes . Although Tena also has it on her blog(scroll down, it is on the left side).

Amazing what you can find on Google Maps . I just discovered today that people put links to all sorts of pictures and videos on the map (I had to select My Maps to be able to enable this). Found a video of a "dancing" porcupine at the EcoMuseum near where we live (about 7.5Km or 5 miles). You can take a virtual tour here or look at some photos I have previously posted .

This was not exactly the response I was hoping for from the USPTO (United State Patent and Trademark Office) to my latest amendment to my trademark application. SUSPENSION PROCEDURE: This suspension notice serves to suspend action on the application for the reason(s) specified below. No response is needed. However, if you wish to respond to this notice ... I wondered if this was because I had waited until the last minute (as usual) to file my amendment and they were now preparing for abandonment proceedings. This Office action is in response to applicant’s communication filed on MONTH dd, yyyy . In its response, applicant amended its identification of goods and services. This amendment is acceptable and has been entered. Ok, this sounds good, they have accepted my latest amendment. Action on this application is now suspended pending receipt of a true copy, a photocopy, a certification, or a certified copy of a foreign registration from applicant's country of origin. I've ...

It was a time of great and exalting excitement. The country was up in arms, the war was on, in every breast burned the holy fire of patriotism; the drums were beating, the bands playing, the toy pistols popping, the bunched firecrackers hissing and spluttering; on every hand and far down the receding and fading spread of roofs and balconies a fluttering wilderness of flags flashed in the sun; daily the young volunteers marched down the wide avenue gay and fine in their new uniforms, the proud fathers and mothers and sisters and sweethearts cheering them with voices choked with happy emotion. It was indeed a glad and gracious time, and the half dozen rash spirits that ventured to disapprove of the war and cast a doubt upon its righteousness straightway got such a stern and angry warning that for their personal safety's sake they quickly shrank out of sight and offended no more in that way. Sunday morning the church was filled; a war chapter from the Old Testament was read; then came...

Lieutenent Cobb: "Only when we have the Source. It will give us the power to erase every stinking Hath off the face of this planet." The Doctor: "Hang on. Hang on. A second ago it was peace in our time and now you're talking about genocide!" Lieutenent Cobb: "For us, that means the same thing!" Exchange between The Doctor and Lieutenant Cobb in the Doctor Who episode The Doctor's Daughter (exchange occurs around time 2:00). Image nabbed from here (look under Posters).

a license of fighting at which even barbarous nations might blush. Wars were begun on trifling pretexts or none at all, and carried on without any reference of law, Divine or human." - Hugo Grotius, On the Laws of War and Peace (1625)

[I]f there are self made purgatories, then we all have to live in them. Mine can be no worse than someone else's. - Star Trek, This Side of Paradise

to secure the rights of exploited and abused animals. This year alone they, personally, had already chalked up the realease of several hundred prisoner-rats from a lab in Lisle, Illinois.It was too bad about the mutated bubonic plague spreading through Chicago afterward, but as Ken said, people had choices, the rats didn't." From Last Rights by Mercedes Lackey and Larry Dixon.

Two days ago, I picked up a very nice art book called Master's of Deception: Escher, Dali & the Artists of Optical Illusion . It features the work of many extremely talented illusory artists and at $19.95 Canadian it was an extremely reasonably priced book considering it is full colour and quite large. The problem was that the bottom edge of the book was dirtied and slightly damaged. I looked for another copy but could not find one. I asked at the cash if they had any undamaged copies and they found another, but it too suffered from the same imperfection. I asked if another store had any copies. They did, but it was in worse shape then the ones I had in my hand - the cover was torn. So I took the least damaged copy, they gave me a 20% damage discount (book is now non-returnable) and I got an additional 10% off because I'm an iRewards member. (Going online, I see I could have got an immaculate copy for pretty much the same price). Being religious, I find this picture by Octa...

Taken from this post at 101 Reasons to Stop Writing .

In the not-productive-but-sidetrack-distraction-of-the-moment I spent some time (please don't ask how much) translating two sentences from Tacitus' Agricola from Latin into English using an online Latin-English dictionary and what Latin roots I can glean out of English words. It wasn't a completely blind translation since I already had a translation for the above line: To ravage, to slaughter, to usurp under false titles, they call empire; and where they make a desert, they call it peace. . However, I wasn't completely captivated by the English and it didn't quite seem to match the Latin. After some searches for alternate translations, I came up with a fuller quote, Raptores orbis, postquam cuncta vastantibus defuere terrae, mare scrutantur: si locuples hostis est, avari, si pauper, ambitiosi, quos non Oriens, non Occidens satiaverit: soli omnium opes atque inopiam pari adfectu concupiscunt. Auferre trucidare rapere falsis nominibus imperium, atque ubi sol...

For those who don't know, Montreal is the largest city in the province of Quebec (located in that northern country known as Canada). Quebec is a French province and Montreal is mostly French as well. On Sunday, as the kids and I were walking downtown, we passed a man begging with a sign. As we passed, Tania asked me, "Why does he say he's ugly?" I asked what she meant and she said, "His sign says, 'Je suis laid'" . She further explained that laid means ugly. I had seen the sign but did not understand the first part since I didn't know what laid meant and I assumed (incorrectly) the kids didn't either. The rest of the sign (which I did understand) said ... help me out and I can get a facial. (ok, it said it in French not English). The word came up again last night as Jason was reading to me Les Trois Boucs : "... un ogre tres laid et très méchant ..." ("... a very ugly and very mean ogre ...") . It is pronounced the s...

Went downtown with the kids again and took a few pictures (412 - I wanted to experiment some more with panoramas). I took a number of burst shots on the highway because I was curious what AutoStitch would do with them. This is 1 of 12 shots heading down Autoroute 15. AutoStitch assembled them together in a sort of fish eye view. This is one shot (out of 12) on Autoroute 20 heading into downtown. This is the image retouched using GIMP (something similar to PhotoShop, but free). I straightened the image, cropped out the front of the car, eliminated some window reflections and adjusted the colours to make them brighter and more vivid. I think it came out pretty well. Total retouching time was about 30 minutes. This is one shot (out of 34) inside the Ville-Marie Tunnel. I liked the colours and the blur. This is a retouched version of the image (once again using GIMP). The image was straightened and cropped, the colours and contrast were adjusted and front of the car was painted out and t...

I have been trying my hand at panorama pictures lately - taking multiple overlapping shots and then stitching them together. My first attempts came out quite well. My later attempts highlighted some shortcomings with stitching software. 360 degree panorama in a park we went to for Mother's Day. This definitely came out well, even though I was just holding the camera and turning in spot. A smaller view cropped from the panoramic view. Part of a panoramic shot taken at St. Joseph's Oratory in Montreal. Subject matter which moves between shots end up looking like ghosts. I tried to capture a wall of graffiti by taking multiple shots and sliding horizontally between shots. Unfortunately, it seems the stitching software expects the camera to remain in a fixed position and not to be moving. As you can see, it did not stitch it together correctly. The red door on the left is in the wrong place and if you look to the right side, the automated parking ticket dispenser is partly ghosted ...

is the title of a fictional poem I quoted from in a play I wrote in 1985, for a course called Theatre and Drama . I was 19. Below are the 3 lines I quoted from it. Even then, I could be pretty morose. At times fear does seem more to be the enemy than the empty darkness which beckons us to our death. Oh, foolish mortal! Can you not see or has the darkness entered your eyes? See how the fool does dare to trek across the open hand of Death. I also came across a book of compositions from Grade 5. As you can see, my penmanship and artistic skills were a little on the challenged side. Feb 21 BEING A MALE MOSQUITO If I were a mosquito I would be small and I wouldn’t bite people yet one day someone will succeed in killing me. The captions are: HATCHING and KILLED Image credit: Richard of Forbidden Planet

Throughout the city [Jerusalem] people were dying of hunger in large numbers, and enduring unspeakable sufferings. In every house the merest hint of food sparked violence, and close relatives fell to blows, snatching from one another the pitiful supports of life. No respect was paid even to the dying; the ruffians [anti-Roman zealots] searched them, in case they were concealing food somewhere in their clothes, or just pretending to be near death. Gaping with hunger, like mad dogs, lawless gangs went staggering and reeling through the streets, battering upon the doors like drunkards, and so bewildered that they broke into the same house two or three times in an hour. Need drove the starving to gnaw at anything. Refuse, which even animals would reject, was collected and turned into food. In the end, they were eating belts and shoes, and the leather stripped off their shields. Tufts of withered grass were devoured, and sold in little bundles for four drachmas. But why dwell on the commonp...

"A man is thrown down on his back and three or four men sit or stand on his arms and legs and hold him down; and either a gun barrel or a rifle barrel or a carbine barrel or a stick as big as a belaying pin, -- that is, with an inch circumference, -- is simply thrust into his jaws and his jaws are thrust back, and, if possible, a wooden log or stone is put under his head or neck, so he can be held more firmly. In the case of very old men I have seen their teeth fall out, -- I mean when it was done a little roughly. He is simply held down and then water is poured onto his face down his throat and nose from a jar; and that is kept up until the man gives some sign or becomes unconscious. And, when he becomes unconscious, he is simply rolled aside and he is allowed to come to. In almost every case the men have been a little roughly handled. They were rolled aside rudely, so that water was expelled. A man suffers tremendously, there is no doubt about it. His sufferings must be that of ...

I love it when one of my off the beaten path observations is right . I find and article supporting my thesis in the Journal of Oleo Science published by the Japan Oil Chemist's Society. The article is quite dull (no, really, it is horrendously mind-numbingly dull), but it confirms what I had suspected that sunscreens containing TiO 2 or ZnO are damaging to the skin. You can find the article here . The citation for the article is: Hisao HIDAKA, Hiroyuki KOBAYASHI, Takayoshi KOIKE, Tsugio SATO and Nick SERPONE, “DNA Damage Photoinduced by Cosmetic Pigments and Sunscreen Agents under Solar Exposure and Artificial UV Illumination”, J. Oleo Sci., Vol. 55, 249-261 (2006) . [Update 13-May-2008 @ 23:48: fixed broken link] [Update 14-May-2008 @ 00:17: add graphic and more information] From the study, sun block using TiO 2 , ZnO or CeO 2 results in more DNA damage than exposure of DNA to raw UV. Note: the image is somewhat deceptive in that it uses 3 different timescales: 360 minutes, 120 ...

Before gaining entry to the afterlife, the ancient Egyptians believed that the deceased would be judged before a tribunal of gods (actually, his/her heart would be weighed to see if they had been just or not). They were also expected to recite this negative confession. There are a few different versions of this floating around - the exact number and specific assertions sometimes slightly vary. The form is always the same: "[Name of god] who comes from [name of place], I have not [committed this transgression]" . I have eliminated the introductory clause of each assertion. The Egyptians had a lot of gods and there is some overlap (e.g. "I have not stolen" and "I have not stolen grain" were affirmed to two different gods). I have not committed sin. I have not committed robbery with violence. I have not stolen. I have not slain men and women. I have not stolen grain. I have not purloined offerings. I have not stolen the property of God. I have not uttered ...

adj : very cold, icy. From the Latin gelidus which is from gelu meaning frost. I came across this word last night in Stephen King's short story I am the Doorway : ... the flesh was soft and gelid, like the flesh of an apple gone rotten ... . From the context, I guessed wrong at the meaning. My impression was it meant something akin to gelatinous - I was wrong. From a writing perspective, I wonder if the adjectives and the simile are both necessary. The simile amplifies the adjectives and repetition or amplification can be a good thing - it can also be wordy "... the flesh was soft and cold ..." "... the flesh was like an apple gone rotten ..." But who am I to tinker? Has anyone ever seen this word (and knew what it meant) before today? [As an aside, I notice I haven't been receiving e-mail notifications from blogger for the past few days, so I failed to notice that there were new comments. Yes, yes, I know, I can always check my own blog, rather than che...

Leonardo da Vinci

Seeing as I had nothing better to do last night, I calculated the taxes on my phone bill. There are two taxes: a 5% Federal Goods and Services Tax (GST) and (in Ontario) 8% provincial sales tax (PST). My bill was $50.07 before taxes. My GST should have been $2.50 and my PST should have been $4.01. Instead it was $2.51 and $4.02 respectively. I was over billed $0.02! Of course, that is really insignificant, however, this morning I discovered it is happening to others . Assuming Bell Canada bills 1,000,000 customers (probably low, considering the number of residential, business and cell phones available in Canada), that means an extra $10,000 per month for Bell or $120,000 per year. Typical rounding practice is to round down if less than 1 / 2 a penny and round up if 1 / 2 a penny of more. And Bell appears to round this way, except it then adds a penny to the final result. The numbers in bold should be the final result, but since Bell adds a penny, it is actually the numbers in italic...

Might I recommend listening to the CBC Radio's Ideas episode "How to Think About Science" featuring Richard Lewontin 's take on it. I think he offers a lot to think about. (Of course, if you don't like him, there are 17 other episodes and ways to think about science).

Seeing as today is Earth Day and I am strapped for time, I am gently appropriating this post from Ingrid 's blog. I think it is a powerful message to reflect upon.

Today, Princess Tania turns 9.

What else but destroying and overthrowing? Whom? The man of fidelity, the man of modesty, the man of sanctity. Is this all? And are we not overthrowing neighbourhood, and friendship, and the community; and in what place are we putting ourselves? How shall I consider you? As a neighbour, as a friend? What kind? As a citizen? How can I trust you? If you were a utensil, you would be so worthless that no man could use you, and you would be thrown out on the dung heaps, and no man would pick you up. But, being a man, you are unable to fulfill any role which befits a man, what are we to do with you? Since you cannot hold the place of a friend, can you hold the place of a slave? Who will trust you? Is it not reasonable that you too should be pitched somewhere on a dung heap, as a useless utensil, and a bit of dung? But then you complain, "Doesn't anyone care about me"? They do not, because you are bad and useless. It is as if wasps complained that no man cares for them; if a man...

My Canadian trademark application was approved on 20-February-2008 in accordance with section 37 of the Trademarks Act . 37. (1) The Registrar shall refuse an application for the registration of a trade-mark if he is satisfied that (a) the application does not conform to the requirements of section 30, (b) the trade-mark is not registrable, or (c) the applicant is not the person entitled to registration of the trade-mark because it is confusing with another trade-mark for the registration of which an application is pending, and where the Registrar is not so satisfied, he shall cause the application to be advertised in the manner prescribed. This is really a conditional approval. Basically, the trademark is published and persons have 2 months to challenge it. As with legal documents, it is worded in an odd way (reorganized by me): [W]here the Registrar is not ... satisfied [that the application meets the requirements for refusal], he shall cause the application to be advertised. There ...

Comment Jason made to me as I put him to bed about a week and a half ago. I asked him if he wanted to have my mother 's ashes in his room that night.

Earlier this week (07-April-2008), Forbidden Planet became a 3 year old toddler. Over a period of 1101 days, I have managed 556 posts (including this one). Not as prolific as some bloggers, but I think averaging one post every two days isn't too bad. My ground rules for posting are pretty simple: no more than 1 post per day (I have broken this rule 3 times, I think) keep the posts concise. My fictitious goal is 3 paragraphs avoid repetition leave the reader with something to think about I hope the approach I take to blogging is similar to what Lister Sinclair expressed about the way he approached the production of Ideas : (paraphrase) "I assume the listener is intelligent and very knowledgeable in all subject matters, except the one I am presenting." I think I have been reasonably successful. Some of my favourite posts over the past 3 years (there is no rhyme or reason to their selection, except that they came quickly to mind and I like them): Evolution of a Peeve What ...

Despite me not posting recently, people still manage to find their way here. This is a recent snapshot of search terms landing people here. I removed all terms looking for this SPAM (which makes up about half my search hits) and any clearly looking for the movie Forbidden Planet . What we are left with is this - feel free to enlarge and look at it. I sometimes search on the terms and manage to find myself, other times I have no idea how people managed to find me. Note: Google seems to track if you search on your own blog. Many times I enter the search terms and find myself, only to enter them a little later and find I have disappeared from the search. This is most evident when a search initially brings up 3 or so pages (including mine) and a subsequent search brings up those pages, less mine. So beware searching on your own blog. This also seems to apply to clicking on searches recorded within Stat Counter .

"It's a subject," he [Mustapha Mond] said, "that has always had a great interest for me." He pulled out a thick black volume. "You've never read this, for example." ... The Savage took it. "The Holy Bible, containing the Old and New Testaments," he read aloud from the title-page. "Nor this." It was a small book and had lost its cover. "The Imitation of Christ." "Nor this." He handed out another volume. " The Varieties of Religious Experience. By William James." "And I've got plenty more," Mustapha Mond continued, resuming his seat. "A whole collection of pornographic old books." ... "But if you know about God, why don't you tell them?" asked the Savage indignantly. "Why don't you give them these books about God?" "For the same reason as we don't give them Othello : they're old; they're about God hundreds of years ago. Not about G...