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Messages - Slippery PD

#16
Off Topic / Re: Neither embarassed or ashamed....
27 May, 2008, 05:50:56 PM
The problem with Schrödinger's Cat is that its all very well and good but as has already been stated logically it doesnt work, until Hugh Everett III brought in the prospect of alternative Universes!  Lets be honest as sci fi fans we would be nowhere without Alternative Universes!  Therefore the cat isnt both dead and alive, its actually dead in one universe and alive in another.  

You see quantum mechanics is actually a complete mess, with smears of electrons and probability being brought into account to allow interpretation to meet factual results!

And there you have it my embarrassment I can waffle about quantum mechanics and other such nonsense far too easily!

#17
Off Topic / Re: Neither embarassed or ashamed....
26 May, 2008, 10:46:56 AM
Doesn't embarrassment just depend on who your with at the time.  Cos in reality I'm mightily confused.

I can explain Einsteins theories and describe in a simplistic way what we think gravity is, I also understand String theory and black holes - I wouldnt explain this to my footballing chums, but they know I can do it.  

I can tell you the Greenock Morton side that sat atop the premier league in 1978 or the fact that one of the greatest goals I ever saw was Kenny Dagliesh against Israel in the early 80's - I wouldn't say this to my work mates or my comic buddies, not because Im embarrased but because I doub they are that interested.  

I can tell you what memory you need in a windows 2003 server to run MSSQL, I can tell you what the standard permissioning is on a WINDOWS directory.  Open up a server and I can pull all the hardware out and put it back together without need for a manual! - would either my comic buddies or my football friends be bothered by this?

I can also give a potted history of Judge Dredd.  I like spiderman, JLA and other comic book characters - would my work mates or my football friends be bothered by this?

Personally I think it just depends on who you happen to be with at the time!
#18
Film & TV / Re: BlackPool
28 May, 2008, 05:13:36 PM
Blackpool looks fun, yeah, but really it's a depressingly crappy place and I really don't know why people go, even the kids can see through the glamour.

Recent;y it's become the stag and hen capital of the area and packs of drunks wander the streets. Last time I went a pack of about 50 people walked past roaring and the stragglers spotted a very fulsome woman and just walked over and tried to grab her. Nicky intervened and I did my John Le Mesurier impression ("Would you mind awfully not doing that?).


Its an awful place.  My family and I go every November for the National Ballroom dancing championship (my children compete - and yes its almost exactly like Strictly Ballroom).  I cant even escape off to a decent bar....  For those of us familiar with Bournemouth, Brighton or Torquay (the other three big tourist resorts in the country) it really isnt a place you want to be....

#19
General / Re: How many of us are there?........
20 May, 2008, 08:46:02 PM
Ho---pe thats not my wife!  

I read the board most days, post sporadically
#20
Off Topic / Re: Self Pimpage - Has It Come To ...
01 May, 2008, 06:57:52 PM
I guess Peter I missed the irony, after being on this board for longer than I care to remember, I still forget that irony doesn't translate well.  

An additional thought is this, who created the consumer centric world that the children of today live in?  It certainly wasn't them and we are probably to blame more or less.  

Yer Slips
#21
Off Topic / Re: Self Pimpage - Has It Come To ...
01 May, 2008, 04:29:38 PM
Heh.  There is some form of irony here.  Most of us were in our teens (the exception being Tanky) in the post punk era.  Brought up in small towns and villages were we dared to be different, wore black and grew our hair long (not forgetting the back combing).  

Ill just say this, if there was mass media representation of the music you liked, a computer in every home with a broadband connection allowing you to download exactly what you wanted, would we really be that different from the kids we see every day?  Im not so sure I would?  I listened to music I liked, I listened to music my mates liked, we travelled across three time zones to watch a gig (well OK I travelled an hour by train into dangerous Glasgow where a weird kid with long hair was bound to get a kicking of some tracksuit wearing twat normally in an old firm top).  But Im sure you get the point.

When I was young there was the kids into heavy metal (they dressed in tight bleached jeans and wore basketball boots and t-shirts with scary logos of dragons) or you were a goth (you wore black and had pixie boots and baggie jumpers) or an indie kid (you wore red trainers - or docs, a cardie and a t-shirt and jeans) or you were a pleb (you wore tracksuits and football strips as casual wear)....  of course there were mods and rockers and ska, but they were often in a minority.  

I guess the simple point Im trying to make without being shouted down is that we all dressed to fit in, we listened to this and that. Maybe humans are essentially a group of people trying desperately to be different whilst trying to fit into whichever tribe they feel most comfortable in.  Also I guess, with maturity comes the realisation that actually you don't have to fit in with everyone all the time (most of us have that maturity now being old codgers in our 30's)

Yer Slips
#22
Off Topic / Re: Stuff you were proud to teach ...
28 April, 2008, 11:32:33 AM
yes the teaching process is rather a flagellating escapade.  You say something which is basically true and then they pull it apart in their minds.  Ask you a question that you dont know the answer too, then you have to go and bloody look it up.  Its infuriating and satisfying at the same time.

Yer Slips
#23
Off Topic / Re: Stuff you were proud to teach ...
28 April, 2008, 10:02:56 AM
I do tend to teach my children a lot of science stuff, when they were younger the basics of why a plane stays in the air or how an engine works.  

More recently my son Ewan (again yes named after that Ewan) 10, will be doing the three states of matter at school.  So last week we were sat in our local coffee shop discussing what the main differences are and what they do.  We went much further than they will at school, but he got it, heat and energy make the different states. I think I was doing my higher chemistry when I learned that - since we moved our discussion onto entropy and the heat death of the universe......

My daughter is now 16 and thinks her dad dont know shit of any use, like which particular blue goes with that pair of shoes or whatever.  She now wants a job in fashion

Yer Slips
#24
Film & TV / Re: Expelled: No Intelligence Allo...
28 April, 2008, 11:28:23 AM
I found this rather funny to be honest.  Though Im a devout atheist, I do take Si's line here we need all ideas out in the open so they can be contrasted and compared.  It also keeps scientists on their toes.  One famous physicist once said that discovering the mysterious of the universe, was like looking into the face of god.  Suggesting perhaps there is too much order and too many things that fit together all to neatly (at least at our current understanding).

Secondly Im very much anti church schooling.  I most certainly believe that a number of our divides could be broken down by proper mixed schooling.  

Id go so far as to take any religion out of school and leave that for home.  But if we are to have RE then Id makes sure that as many religions are taught as possible Catholicism, Protestantism (and the other versions of christainity), Islam, Judaism, Budhism plus some fringe "religions" like Scientology, Thelemites, paganism, etc and taught purely on an academic basis not as a point of proof.  Again, religion is a personal thing I dont think its that states job to force religion on children, thats a parental decision.  

Yer "two pence worth" Slips
#25
Off Topic / Re: F**d, Glorious F**d!
23 April, 2008, 12:27:20 PM
"If your a meat eater, any bird tastes great if you stuff butter and herbs between the flesh and the skin."

MMMMMmmmmm

Which recipe book did that come from ?


To be honest Pete, one of my best friends was a chef in a restruant he gave me the recipe years ago when I left Uni.  Ive used it ever since.  I assume its the standard for most chef's (Devon's Daddy will be abel to tell us), so it probably appears in recipe books of that I have no doubt.  

The thing is I have a number of cookbooks, I read them.  Take note of what I like and then add different ingredients and change it.  I think thats what cooking is all about changing recipes given to us by our peers and parents creating our own...

yer "Eating home made carrot and butternut squash soup" Slips
 
#26
Off Topic / Re: F**d, Glorious F**d!
22 April, 2008, 10:55:28 PM
I do all the cooking in my house and its rather therapeutic.  Given my recent history of depression, it gives you fantastic focus and a real sense of achieving something in a relatively short period of time.  I spent about 5 years as a veggie, but now rather enjoy meat of good quality, unlike most meat eaters Id rather eat vegetables than poor quality meat.  

Hints and tips are all about saving time.  A Sunday morning is when I normally cook, I get up even at the weekends at 7-8am so spend sunday morning cooking a number of meals for the week.  Prepare vegetables and such like.  

So I spend time making soups casseroles and other dishes such as cottage pies.  It means you have an instant ready meal (without the E-numbers and the crap like that).  Other thins that are good additions to meals are pulses, a handful of lentils and beans to casseroles or mince dishes adds a load of fibre. Vegtables are great roasted or mashed, I tend to mash together swede carrots potatoes and squashes to go with sunday roasts.  Onion and garlic is great roasted and the garlic loses its bitterness turning sweet.  If you do it in the same tray as the meat, you get all the flavour in the juices of the meat making a lovely gravy.

If your a meat eater, any bird tastes great if you stuff butter and herbs between the flesh and the skin.  I also tend to marinade meat a lot.  Adding in vinegars and oils.  The one thing I find difficult with my families diet is fibre, adding in extra into sauces and soups really helps.  

Thats about it for now.... more later as I think of it...
   
#27
Off Topic / Re: R.I.Ps too.
17 April, 2008, 09:58:40 AM
I'm normal I tell you!

NORMAL!


IT PAYS TO BE MENTAL
#28
Off Topic / Re: R.I.Ps too.
16 April, 2008, 10:06:44 PM
Well I kinda missed this and much like a number of people here, not really sure where to start as such, but  I too have suffered from reactive depression.  People seem surprised that a number of us have suffered, but remember most of us are creative or intelligent, two indicators of people   who might suffer from depression.  

A couple of years ago, my father died through ill health.  A typical Scotsman, he drank his way into a grave, which gave me a health scare myself.  Add into that the fact that I had relationship issues, an unsupportive manager at work and my eldest was in the middle of her gsce's.  Also my best friend had disappeared of to Oz and my illness culminated with some money problems as well.  All in all everything piled on at once and my support system was gone.  (My wife doest and didn't believe in depression, no matter what shed seen.).  I reacted by staying basically staying in bed for nearly 4 months.  I was in a word an utter mess. A further 5 months went past of me just operating on a very basic level.  I went to work did what I had.  Came home ate and slept.  T

To cut a long story short.  I didn't stop work, which in retrospect was a mistake, I should have taken the time to get my head straight.  It was only when a very close friend told me I was close to in a phrase "taking my own life".  That it suddenly struck me how correct they were.  So I decided to basically move on and try and beat the bloody thing.  That was at the start of the year, Ive started exercising a lot and actually I am currently going through another health scare now.  But for some reason Im managing to remain positive and hopefully I now understand my own head.  Its a scary place to be sometimes, but its my own head and I have to live in it.

Those of you who know me will recognise that time as the point I dropped off the board, I still haven't really come back  full time and actually if this thread had been here a couple of years ago I would have had a word with some of you and created some sort of self help group!  

OK no more negativity, lets just get back to arguing about how many bars dredd has on his helmet.

Paul    
#29
Film & TV / Re: Who would direct, star in, orc...
02 April, 2008, 10:06:41 PM
What would it be called?
"What is it you want?"

Who would direct?
Alfred Hitchock

Who would star as you?
Mike Myers (now) or Keannu Reaves (ten years ago)

Who would star as the other characters in your life?
Wife = The Ginger one from Desperate Houswives
Daughter = Billi Piper (well as a teenager)
Son= Chunk from Goonies

Who'd do the soundtrack?
John Williams - though make it dark

What would the meaningful incidental songs be?
"Hallelujah" Jeff Buckley or Leonard Cohen in the Father Funeral Scene.
"The Scientist" Coldplay

What car would be in the chase scene?
1982 Mercedes Convertible

What product placement would you have in the film?
Absolut Vodka and Bison Grass Vodka (in fact any Vodka)

Who would play Tharg?
Gary Oldman
#30
Film & TV / Re: Ulysses 31 rarity...
27 March, 2008, 04:12:26 PM
I cant remember and I Wikipedia isnt clear on that either

Yer Slips

Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Ulysses_31_episodes" target="_blank">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Ulysses_31_episodes