Man in the long, black blog
27 Sep 2002
Some more people
15:40 Strikes me that nearly 40 % of parents are showing a bit of common sense, which is encouraging. I'm a little too tired to expound my ideas on this, but basically I'm wondering, if there was a technical filter for use in the playground or the library, would you make use of it?
27 Sep 2002
Some people
11:50 James, ya bastard!
27 Sep 2002
Nicht diese Töne
11:41 An Argh! moment this morning as I realized that the Berliner Philharmoniker recording of Beethoven's Ninth (Herbert von Karajan conducting) is in the car's CD changer and not in the jewel case I brought into work. Rats. Still, I had a Google and found some interesting stuff, for example, relating to how the great man turned a rather sentimental poem into something that leaves me breathless each time I hear it. Kate reminds me that that CD is always in the car, in position 10. Yes, dear.
26 Sep 2002
It's life, Jim
12:37 Those of you who know me will probably be aware of my interest in astrobiology. Lately, it seems that Venus might be a bug breeding ground. Strikes me that But conditions in the atmosphere at an altitude of around 50 kilometres are relatively hospitable: the temperature is about 70 °C, with a pressure of about one atmosphere is horribly consistent with the Panspermia hypothesis.
26 Sep 2002
Black & White
09:11 Nooo . . . please, let this be a joke. Although I guess if you dig deep enough (maybe not too deep) you'll find someone to say such crap as Teaching this word was needless and caused harm, it's unfortunate it was a 'church leader'. The teacher in question didn't need 'sensitivity training' (my, but that sounds like something out of 1984); the parent who reported her needs a good slapping, black, white, brown, yellow or off-pink.
23 Sep 2002
Blogzilla
15:52 Charles (someone give Charles a job, please . . .) pointed out to me that some people have too much time on their hands. Eyes light red and mouth lights blue when Hubzilla is plugged into the Firewire port on your computer. Still, one would look cool on my desk. While we're talking about dinosaurs, I rediscovered DECzilla. Hehehe.
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Blog by your man
12 Sep 2002
Silver and gold pt III
15:47 So I've been Claud-Butlering for a week, now. And I must say, it's a damn' good bike. Very light, very slick . . . a slight clunk after changing gear sometimes, but other than that a top show all round. Even though I don't have as low gear ratio as on the Dawes I'm going up the 'hill' (ha!) faster. Average time to cover the 5.5 miles is a shade under 18 minutes (slightly faster going home, natch), which is pleasing.
18 Sep 2002
Run, don't walk
14:36 Interestingly, grauniard is not registered as a .co.uk yet. And also interestingly, try googling for same. The second link is strangely familiar . . .
18 Sep 2002
Flashback
14:33 Quote: And those who opt to help themselves by taking a job will be rewarded. Welcome to Thatcher's Britain, 2002-style.
17 Sep 2002
New kid on the blog
17:15 CountB's dismal witterings. Because I want to, OK?
13 Sep 2002
Silver and gold pt II
09:39 Like stuff off a wotsit. Wheeee!
12 Sep 2002
Silver and gold
19:40 From the pecuniarily disadvantaged but cool department: Just had to get a new bike. My dear old Dawes died, and I couldn't afford an Audax. So I had to settle for a Claud Butler, here. It really is Ag and Au, too; at least in colour. Rhapsodic.
11 Sep 2002
Please . . .
11:40 Dear Lord, not another one.
X-Envelope-To: XXX
Received: from [216.250.221.10] (helo=mx0.global.net.uk)
by mx0.global.net.uk with smtp (Exim 3.03 #41)
id 17p3lR-0002vr-00
for XXX; Wed, 11 Sep 2002 10:26:27 +0100
From: "MICHEAL OKONTA" <okonta@myself.com>
Date: Wed, 11 Sep 2002 10:23:57
To:XXX
Subject: Contact
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain;charset="iso-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Message-Id: <E17p3lR-0002vr-00@mx0.global.net.uk>
X-Envelope-From: okonta@myself.com
Tenders Committee
South Africa Department of
Minerals & Energy
Pretoria, South Africa.
STRICTLY CONFIDENTIAL AND URGENT
I am Mr. Micheal Okonta, a native of Cape Town in South
Africa and I am an Executive Director with a South
African Government ministry. I am also the Secretary of the Tenders
Committee set up by the government to look into contracts under the
Department of Minerals and Energy.
We got your contact via the internet and I was mandated to seek your
confidential co-operation in the execution of the project I am about to
describe. This project will be of great benefit to all parties involved
and hope you will keep
it as a top secret because of the nature of this
transaction.
Within the Department of Minerals and Energy, we (me and four of my
colleagues) discovered and we have in our possession as overdue payment
bills totalling
Sixteen million, two hundred and fifty thousand US dollars
(US$16.25M) which we want to transfer abroad with the
assistance and cooperation of a foreign
company/individual to receive the said fund on our
behalf or a reliable foreign non-company account to
receive such funds. Moreso, we are handicapped in the
circumstances, as the South Africa Civil Service Code
of Conduct does not allow us to operate offshore
accounts hence your relevance in the whole
transaction.
This amount US$16.25M represents the balance of the
total contract value executed on behalf of this
Department by a foreign contracting firm, which was over-invoiced
deliberately. Though the
actual contract cost have been paid to the original
contractor, leaving the balance in the tune of the
said amount which we have in principle gotten approval
to remit by key-tested telegraphic transfer (K.T.T.)
to any foreign bank account you will provide by filing
an application through the Justice Ministry here in
South Africa for the transfer of rights and privileges
of the former contractor to you.
I have the authority of my partners to
propose that SHOULD YOU BE WILLING to assist us in
this transaction, your share of the sum will be 15% of
the total sum, 80% for us and the rest for taxation
and miscellaneous expenses. The business itself is
100%-SAFE for all involved. This is possible if on your part , you
treat it with
utmost secrecy and confidentiality. Please note that your area of
specialisation is not a hindrance to the successful
execution of this transaction. I wish reposed my
confidence (which the committee vetoed) in you and hope that you will
not
disappoint me. Endeavour to contact me immediately by
email, whether or not you are interested
in this deal. If you are not, it will enable me scout
for another foreign partner to carry out this deal. I
want to assure you that my partners and myself are in
a position to make the payment of this claim possible
provided you can give us a very strong assurance and
guarantee that our share will be secure. Please
remember to treat this matter as a very confidential
matter, because we will not comprehend with any form
of exposure as we are still in active government
service and.
Due to the funds we borrowed to process this project to this stage,
time is of essence because of interest on borrowed funds.
Also furnish me with your contact telephone and fax number, so
that I can forward to you more information concerning the project.
I await in anticipation of your fullest cooperation.
Yours faithfully,
Micheal Okonta.
11 Sep 2002
Lovecraft
09:52 I wasted a few minutes cthuckling at Cthuugle. Make sure you follow the Tales . . . link. And try entering a blank search.
10 Sep 2002
Heavy, man
12:09 Well, here's a problem that's been keeping me awake nights: Does gravity travel at the speed of light? It looks like we might find out soon. There, we can all sleep easier knowing that.
09 Sep 2002
Brummie rock gods in degree madness!
14:21 How about some good news? Slade getting the recognition they deserve. It helps if you say 'Wolverhampton' with the right accent.
09 Sep 2002
Clone me, clone my dog
13:34 How times have changed. A very nice exercise in having a laugh at the public's expense, but it would be interesting to see what kind of publicity this would generate today, and whether the Human Lust-Inducing Virus would meet with the same regard, increased environmental awareness notwithstanding.
06 Sep 2002
Cyberkid
15:56 The thing that gets me about implanting children with locators is not the technology, nor necessarily how a kidnapper might defeat it, nor yet the privacy issues; rather, Kevin Warwick is utterly sick and depraved to turn the public's fears (following the tragic Soham case) to his personal gain. What a wanker.
05 Sep 2002
Science sucks
15:51 Bit of a personal here. Just had a paper rejected. Now I know that happens, and I'm not complaining about that. What I am complaining about is that it was rejected editorially. What that means is that we had three reviewers' reports which said words to the effect that yes, this is a very nice paper, all correctly done, blah blah, but the editors of the journal took the view that as this wasn't outstandingly novel work, it was not worthy to be published in their journal.
Now let's just stand back a bit. Science doesn't work like that - except rarely. Science is made up of little bricks all stacking on top of each other, adding to knowledge and understanding. Truly novel work is rare, and leads to Nobel prizes. Surely it's obvious to anyone that the most you can hope for in general is incremental steps, new insights that build on the foundation of what has gone on before - which is what my work did. But nooooooo it's got to be NOVEL. That's because only NOVEL work increases a journal's impact factor. And yes, it would be nice to work for something for three years and then write a nice big paper that in and of itself makes an outstanding contribution to science. But it doesn't work like that because you have to publish frequently to stay funded which means you have to publish incrementally which means you're never - unless you're very lucky - going to publish anything outstandingly NOVEL. And given that this journal has fucked me around previously, and now that some tight-arsed, cold-titted bitches who only went into publishing because they couldn't succeed in science bumped my paper, my beautiful paper into which I poured God only knows what of myself, because it didn't come up to some arbitrary standard of NOVELty, I am feeling rather ticked off. </rant>
05 Sep 2002
Pitch
15:40 The slowest drip in the world? Cool, and yes, froody.
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