Wednesday, April 20, 2005

Geography quiz

http://www.sheppardsoftware.com/country_europe_G2_drag-drop.swf

28/44 = 64%

Avg error: 233 miles

Time: 415 secs

It's a bit unfair with how specific you need to be with the tiny 'dot'
states. And I didn't realise you could expand the window!

Good quiz tho! I forgot Liechtenstein existed, it's so tiny on me map. And
Monaco! Serves them right for not being in the EU.

Easy? Andorra, or 'shrub-covered land' - I must admit I was barely aware of
its existence..?

I thought Luxembourg was a bit small and insignificant, but now I know that
Europe's real small states are Andorra, Monaco, Vatican City, Liechtenstein
and San Marino! There's certainly room to question the sovereignty of these
places..

I didn't know Monte Carlo was in Monaco =:-o

Must try harder =:)

OK I'm back after a few more goes.

I noticed that quiz is ‘level 3’, which is pretty hard - but do you know it goes up to LEVEL NINE???

http://www.sheppardsoftware.com/European_Geography.htm

OMG - even I’m not that masochistic.

OK OK I'm back.

I got 85% on level 8..  (I was lying about the masochistic bit)

Prejudice test

https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/uk/selectatest.html 
"Your data suggest a strong automatic preference for Young relative to Old"

"Your data suggest little or no automatic preference for GAY PEOPLE relative
to STRAIGHT PEOPLE."

Is it me or does this test have so many flaws I wouldn't even know where to
begin?! It's about as scientific as a polo mint. But fun all the same..

I must admit, I found it a mental struggle to associate 'good' with 'old' or 'evil' with 'young', and much easier for the opposite. But 'old' doesn't just relate to people. Old cars, old sofas and old bibles (heh) are uniformly less 'good' than 'young' ones.

I found it easier to say Gay = Good. This was compromised by involving LESBIANS tho.. Many (most?) of the symbols were female/female, and that isn't 'gay' to me. I'd have a much stronger instinct towards e.g. two greek male symbols as Good. One of the people in the 'gay wedding' looked like a transvestite??

Wednesday, April 13, 2005

LGB electioneering

"Why should the LGB community vote for you?”

BRITISH NATIONAL PARTY

Doctor Phill Edwards, BNP National Press Officer was very quick of the mark,
with this response:

“Prior to 1967 homosexuality was a crime and led to prison. It is unnatural
and an undesirable lifestyle which can only be remotely tolerated if the
current law is obeyed i.e. consenting adults IN PRIVATE. The constant
promotion of this queer lifestyle on TV, soaps, radio, news papers etc as
something which it is not - equivalent to heterosexism (sic) - drains my
tolerance and I find the entire topic revolting, disgusting and scary.
Queers should remain celebate and don't talk about it. You should all be
ashamed of yourselves."
Dr Phill Edwards. BNP National Press Officer.

Looks like he didn't read the question?? If it were me, I'd have said E.g.
"Do what you like in private, but vote for us because we're anti-Europe".
But no!

It's one thing to be a bigotted, anachronistic, naïve fool - but another to
be incompetant at your main job!

I'm sure you've spotted lots wrong with his comment already, particularly
the poor English, but I thought it worth pointing out that homosexuality was
not illegal prior to 1967. The first real legislation was Henry VIII's
'Buggery Act' that buggered buggery from 1533.

So even being generous - it was illegal in the larger part of the world, for
about 450 years out of the perhaps 2 million year history of humanity.
Something of a temporary blip?

Tuesday, April 12, 2005

Are you worth it?

Ever thought it impossible to put a value on life? Apparently not..?!

“One way to value a life is to calculate a person’s HUMAN CAPITAL by working out how much he or she would earn were they to survive to a ripe old age. This could result in very different sums being paid to victims of the same accident. After an air crash, probably more MONEY would go to the family of a first-class passenger than to that of someone flying economy. This may not seem fair. Nor would using this method to decide what to spend on safety measures, as it would mean much higher expenditure on avoiding the death of, say, an investment banker than on saving the life of a teacher or coal miner. It would also imply spending more on safety measures for young people and being positively reckless with the lives of retired people.

Another approach is to analyse the risks that people are voluntarily willing to take, and how much they require to be paid for taking them. Taking into account differences in WAGES for high death-risk and low death-risk jobs, and allowing for differences in education, experience, and so on, it is possible to calculate roughly what value people put on their own lives. In industrialised countries, most studies using this method come up with a value of $5m–10m. "
-
http://www.economist.com/research/Economics/alphabetic.cfm?TERM=LIBERALISATION#LIFE

Tuesday, April 05, 2005

A brief history of Casanova

"Casanova toured the cities of Europe and seemed to be able to turn his hand
to anything. He introduced the National Lottery to France, he knew Mozart
and Voltaire and persuaded the Empress of Russia to introduce a new
calendar. He even wrote one of the world's first science fiction novels.

The Latin lover was also a soldier in the Venetian army, a preacher, an
alchemist, a gambler, a violinist, and a spy. He translated Homer's Iliad
into Italian, too."
- http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/106644.stm

Impressive! He knew Voltaire?? I want to have knew Voltaire!

"It is precisely by virtue of my coarse tastes that I am happier than other
men, since I am convinced that my tastes make me capable of more pleasure,"
he (Casanova) wrote.

"Like an 18th century Jeffrey Archer, but funny. He wasn't born an
aristocrat, he lied his way into jobs and positions of power with charm and
cheek. He's just irresistible."
- Davies, on the real Casanova

--
"One can promise actions, but not feelings, for the latter are involuntary.
He who promises to love forever or hate forever or be forever faithful to
someone is promising something that is not in his power."
- Friedrich Nietzsche, 'On the History of Moral Feelings'