Have a great day today, celebrating the feast day of England’s patron saint, St Edmund The Martyr
Tim
The Last Piece Of Chocolate Cake Scenario
There it is, on the table, it is a chocolate cake, a good chocolate cake.
There is only one piece left. You want it.
I reckon there are four types of people.
Selfish
You want that last piece. The challenge is to persuade everyone else to let you have it. If the room is empty for a moment, you eat it, you have plausible deniability … you can pretend that it wasn’t you, and blame someone else. Otherwise, you have to be more subtle…. a wistful “does anybody else want..” or a confident “Well if nobody else wants…” both often work.
Self-Centred
You see the last piece, it looks good. No-one else is picking it up, so you take it. It never occurs to you that someone else might have wanted it. Why didn’t they say before?
Self-Absorbed
It is your piece. You are entitled. Nobody knows how important that last piece of cake is to you. No-one understands what you have been through nor how much you need that last piece of cake. If anyone else wants your cake, they are clearly a bad person, greedy, unscrupulous and selfish (see above). After all it is your cake.
Four types? If you don’t fit one of the above? … Darwin is not on your side.
Rubbish Christmas 2010 – Must Have Christmas Tree
It is rare to find an item which is thoroughly awful in concept, tacky in execution and utterly ugly.
But then, there is always The Range.
This year, they are offering a 170cm Cascading Snow Tree – Black, a snip at £99.99.
This ghastly piece of festive tat awaits you at your local store, or if you prefer, for purchase online.
Get that Winter Wonderland feeling in the warmth and comfort of your own home with the Cascading Snow Tree. Artificial snow balls cascade from the top of the tree giving a life-like snowing effect. Comes with a special base to catch and circulate the balls through the tree so you don’t have to worry about any mess.
My thanks go To the Manor Born for drawing this vile monstrosity to my attention.
Affiliate link to amazon
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A Bit About PR
I have never been much of a fan of PR. For one thing, I would like to see truly local MPs, for another, in the past I had fallen for the “you will never get strong government” line.
However, looking at the opinion polls this weekend, I think, makes it clear that we have to have change.
For example, a YouGov poll today gives support for the parties thus:
Conservative 33%
Liberal Democrats 30%
Labour 28%
Our current system (on a uniform swing) would likely give seats to the parties thus:
Conservative 245 seats (37.6%)
Labour 275 seats (42.3%)
Liberal Democrats 99 seats (15.2%)
Which is just so wrong. If Labour are in the driving seat, we will probably end up having their scam for Single Transferable Votes foisted on us, which will do nothing but perpetuate the bias in their favour, and put off real reform indefinitely, as far as I can see.
There is a good article describing the various options for reform in The Independent today – “Electoral reform: So, just what system would give a fair result?”.
Shape Of Things To Come
Scientists from Rand Corporation have created this model to illustrate how a “home computer” could look in the year 2004. However, the needed technology will not be economically feasible for the average home. Also the scientists readily admit that the computer will require not yet invented technology to actually work, but 50 years from now scientific progress is expected to solve these problems. With teletype interface and the Fortran language, the computer will be easy to use.
A fake, I am afraid, but funny anyway.
