Lies, Damn Lies

Language usage

2009-07-09T03:04:00.000-07:00

Its easy to get irate on the internet. There are countless threads on feminism, sexism, racism, homophobia in which (inevitably) unoppressed middle class white men (and sometimes women, but it seems to be men), make ignorant statements. I think whats frustrating about these people is that I may well have shared their viewpoints on some issues while younger. While the very idea of racism has always been utterly abhorrent to me, including using racially charged words, I certainly acted in a homophobic way while younger, because I was ignorant.

Why do words have value? Why should someone saying something charged, if they don't mean in that way, matter? Gay is an example brought up again and again, as it used by many to imply that something is bad. The claim is that it is used frequently enough that the meaning of changed. This is, of course, not true. The common usage of the word in such a manner is really not that old, and currently the meanings are linked. After all, the reason people used gay to imply something was bad was because homosexuality was considered bad. Thats why I did it, after all.

For me the important thing about controlling words is actually about growing up. Having to spend one's youth being reminded about how margailised one is by the words of children is not a pleasent thing. It is something that we as a society have tried to do for racial slurs- it is known for most children growing up that using such charged language is not acceptable, that its hateful, and, this is most important, there is nothing wrong with being in another race. We have not done perfectly, but society has changed its attitudes, and language comes with attitude. Using racial slurs are taboo, and thats GREAT.

I want the same thing for homosexuality, because kids who are gay shouldn't have to grow up feelign disgusted at themselves, and feeling alienated. Thats how we get generational change, and language is a big part of that.

I understand that language is often changing, and perhaps in 30 years time it will be acceptable to use the term "nigger" as merely expressing friendship for all races. Clearly, we are not there yet, and to claim otherwise is utterly disgenous.

The thing is about language is it rarely hurts us to stop using certain words; in theory we can head to lunacy by making too many words taboo, but most stories related about not being able to say common sense words are exaggerated stories. Its not too hard, if we're honest, to see which words are charged and which are not, and we can make a conscious effort to stop saying those that are.

Skins is a wonderful show

2009-07-06T14:35:00.000-07:00

Having finally gotten round to seeing season three of Skins has really confirmed why I love that show. The writing is amazing, the actors are fantastic. The stories, while sometimes exaggerated, are all about the characters, who, for all their sometimes pantomime nature, are very human. What is very clear in this is that these are sixth formers, and in many ways they are children playing at being grown ups. They may act big and tough, but they are extremely vunerable- see Effy in season 3 for an example of this. Its a wonderful show, funny, moving, and clever, with an amazing sound track. Long may it prosper.

Incidentally, if you are a UK citizen you can see all three seasos for free here!

Conference-fail

2009-06-30T09:02:00.000-07:00

I am in Bath, which is bringing back a flood of nostalgia, both good and bad, of times past. I certainly miss my times in Bath: it was a time when I had a lot of close friends who I saw regularly, and we had the advantage of an utterly gorgeous city to hang out in. I have fond memories of strolling across empty streets late at night, looking at the glorious city. Fabulous times.

These feelings are countered by some irritation at myself for stupidity. First of all I've managed to lose my railcard, which is frustating but not an insurmountable problem. Second of all I've forgotten my shaver, which means I'm going to have some lovely facial hair growth by the time I leave Bath. Maybe that'll be interesting- I've never grown facial hair before in my life, perhaps I'll look debonair.

The third mistake is quite an impressive one. I brought my university of southampton laptop so I could getr some rather vital work done while here, but in the process of attempting to get access to the university of Bath's residental network I have locked myself out of my own computer... Sigh. I'm pretty sure I'd be able to fix it if I had administrative access, but sadly I am not trusted with that, so am stuck with a hunk of metal for a week. Sigh.

My trip to Eindhoven

2009-06-26T10:46:00.000-07:00

Ah, theres nothing like getting back from honeymoon from a home you haven't been in for two weeks with your new wife... and heading to Eindhoven for three days. I suspect conferences are a bad way to see a new place, I tend to not be particularly positive, or researched before going somewhere, so have no idea of any significance of whats going on, but Einhoven did manage to fail to impress me quite spectacularly. It's basically the Southampton of Holland, boasting some rather ugly architecture (presumably because what was once there was flattened during the war). As a result, my impression was none too favourable.

The conference itself was reasonably pleasant, and the talks interesting. Well some were utterly incomprehensible, but never mind. The trains in Holland were impressive; they have double decker trains! Whole worlds of awesome, and also kind of confusing. It's weird to be able to look up at the platform!

My least favourite experience in Eindhoven (other than booking a plane farrrr too late, leaving me intensely bored with nothing to read), was the toilets in the airport. They have automatically flushing toilets, which is a stupid concept in of itself, I'm not entirely sure who it helps, but it becomes even more stupid when you lean forward, and the toilet flushes. Sigh. Of course, as a man, certain parts hang.... further down, so that was fully pleasent. Yay for efficiency!

The honeymoon

2009-06-16T05:10:00.000-07:00

Prague is a gorgeous city. There's no doubt about that, although it isn't always completely welcoming. The architecture boasts elaborate decorations at all corners, including places such as the post office and even above a hard rock cafe. It's not hard to find beautiful murals in Prague, although getting an assessment of there history may be harder. Prague is a city that appears to live off tourism, and pretty much every activity will be charged for, especially if you want some information. Sadly many places lack much explanation unless you fork out for an audio guide. Having said that, you'll probably have guide books with you, which will provide some context at least. There were few people who we encountered who could not speak English, although, as mentioned, there was an undercurrent of hostility from some people. Certainly when we went into souvenir shops grim faced staff would follow us round, silently, evidently thinking we might steal something. Presumably this is fairly common, but it could have been done with a little more grace and style.

City breaks are hard work in many ways- hotel rooms tend to be a little oppressive, and while ours was nice, the idea of staying in and just relaxing wasn't that appealing. Besides, we'd still have to eat out! I think a week was just about perfect for us, we had a moment mid week where we just had to rest for a while, but spent most of the rest of our time seeing the sights, which were certainly impressive.

The main attractions are fairly well known, so there's no real point recommending them, but one hidden treasure is the national galllery. This is a little further out, but easily reachable by tram (if you can understand the arcane system, it's a little hard to follow on some of the maps), and is quite impressive. It has a mix of modern art, design, and painted art both by Czech artists and a collection of French artists (including many original Picassos). Because it is further out and the building less decorative, it was astonishingly empty when we arrived (friday afternoon in June), which felt glorious- there were 5 floors and we never spotted more than 2 or 3 people on each floor, which is astonishing considering the amount of art that is gathered there. Check it out before it becomes popular!

The food was cheap and nice, although rather stodgy. The vegetarian czech meals would inevitable involve melted cheese at some point, often slathered over grilled vegetables. Still, tasty and affordable- generally speaking we didn't need to spend over 25 pounds for both of us. One has to be a bit smart about ones choices of course- going to restaurants in tourist hot spots, such as the old town square, would inevitable add to the price. One slightly odd feature of eating out in Prague seems to be a far more relaxed attitude to service- you really need to seek out the wait staff, they often will not come to you. During our first lunch there we were trapped for absolutely ages waiting for anyone to notice us!

If you go to Prague castle, and you should, I would reccomend doing the short tour but getting the long audio guide. The short walk gives you access to slightly over half the buildings (it must be noted that the main attraction, St Vittus' cathedral is entirely free!), but the short audio guide only lasts 2 hours, which really is not enough time unless you want to rush. It's informative enough that it is worth it, although I admit that I fast forwarded through some parts.

Time spent with Alice, was, of course, wonderful, and this was our first long holiday with just the two of us. Prague was a great place for it, and we had a fantastic time, arriving home in time for us to read the guest book and watch a DVD of us on the day.

And then the next day I had to go to Eindhoven....

The Wedding

2009-06-15T02:59:00.000-07:00

The wedding day was perfect, and I may take this opportunity to gush occasionally. I had been worried about numerous things that might go wrong, and had decided that as long as the wedding went fine, then I would be happy for the rest of the day. Despite an initial upset in which the photographer, who was meant to appear at about half 1 did not. Cue photos of me pacing around worriedly and not really engaging in conversation of the well wishers who talk to me. He managed to arrive an hour late at Alice's house, having had, as he described it, a senior moment.

Still, it turned out all the same, and the service itself was great (although there was no "you may now kiss the bride" moment, which threw us, and was probably why nobody clapped!). The string quartet were lovely, especially considering some of them met for the first time that morning for a rehearsal. The photography session was fairly painless, and I got to utilise my lungs to gather our rather large families for the shots. Once Gordon Brown (the photographer) was there, he was a professional and got the shots done with a minimum amount of fuss: Alice and I will be having a look at them next weekend, which will be fun. The confetti run was fine, and as predicted, Alice's Aunt Liz did stuff confetti down my shirt (yay. Pam, Alice's mum, also put confetti in Alice's suitcase, which was rather amusing). We went for several laps round the village in the shiny car, amusingly going past some guests more than once, as the community centre was a very short distance from the church.

I maintain that people are wusses about bouquet catching, with a distinct lack of enthusiasm from the ladies, leading to the flowers landing in Laura's hands. Probably the most tiring part of the day followed, in which we said hi, and were congratulated, by around 120 people in a row. Of course we avoided getting burnt in the sun, so that was a plus!

The food was great, really delicious and far too filling (including the amazing chocolate cake provided by the caterer: wow), and the speeches were all good (including mine apparently) and, most important of all, short. The ceilidh went down a storm, as did the adventure playground outside, where a surprising number of people went on it, and Will Wilson managed to hurt himself quite spectacularly.

All in all a wonderful day, and thanks to everyone who took part in making it so, especially our parents.

Random anecdote

2009-06-12T04:59:00.001-07:00

In the pub in southampton, in my mini-stag, we discussed magic items from D&D, and the potential to have them in real life. We briefly discussed which item of great power one would like from the world of D and D, someone suggested a vorpal sword. Of course, as I pointed out, the utility of a vorpal sword (a sword with a tendency to slice people's heads off) is less useful in a world where ALL swords can do that.... A lot of magical items in D and D really wouldn't be more useful than their more mundane versions... (+1 longsword for the win!)

I'm back! (thoughts on the stag do)

2009-06-12T04:02:00.000-07:00

So I'm back after a rather large hiatus, which involved getting married and going on honeymoon. And then going to a conference. So all in all, a busy few weeks, leaving me rather tired. Still lots to do- Alice and I have to write many many thank you cards to those who showed us unbelievable generosity. There are an absolutely huge number of photos from the wedding, which is, and was, awesome. I'm going to try to blog in order of experiences, as otherwise I'll get all confused. So first, the stag do.

My best man suggested what seemed a very sensible stag do for myself- to go to Cambridge and crawl round a large amount of pubs. Simple, and effective, it would achieve one of my primary goals for the stag do, which would be to get very, very drunk. I was quite impressed as to the number of friends who managed to attend in the end. As well as most of my friends who lived locally coming, I had 4 friends from further afield travel down, which was great- I think there were about 10 of us in all, which was a good number.

In the end we didn't reach that many pubs, I think including the beer festival we only managed 7 different locations, but we did consume a great amount of alcohol to make up for it. As with all these kind of events, my memories become a lot more hazy towards the end, to the point where it was a bit of a miracle that I was able to guide the taxi to my house (seeing as I was the only one in that cab who knew where it was...).

The pubs were fun, and I drunk a variety of alchohol, saving the shots for the late evening (including a hideous tabasco shot given to me. I can still remember that, even though I was fairly gone at the point of drinking it). The only real disappointment of the day was the beer festival having almost run out of beer by the time (6ish) we arrived. A little annoying, certainly, but there was plenty of beer elsewhere, and we consumed it.

I, of course, paid for this the next day with the mother of all headaches, and being sick about 4 times. I had vaguely recovered by 1, although was exhausted for the rest of the dat.

Repaying the money...

2009-05-20T01:59:00.000-07:00

The financial scandal at the moment is enough to make anyone angry. It seems like every politician could barely resist taking advantage of the rules, and worse, that none of them seem to think they've done anything wrong! Yes many of them may not have broken the rules, but if ANY politician gets to the point where they have to repay 13,000 pounds, they shouldn't be bloody politicians anymore. As many people have pointed out, benefit fraudsters steal peanuts compared to this, and may well use loopholes to get out of it. They'll lie, say they forgot... and end up in prison. These MPs should count themselves lucky we do not luck all the bastards up. I know this rhetoric is all a bit tabloidish, but I really think politicians have been living in a bubble where they think things that clearly are not acceptable are fine, and they need to be shook up. Getting rid of Michael Martin is fine, but it's pretty clear that he's nothing but a scapegoat. I want to see politicians start going, including Hazel Blears.

On another note, I will say that I really don't see that much wrong with J Prescott asking for a new toilet seat- it was part of a plumbing bill, and one would assume that toilet seats are in fact fairly essential if one wishes to use a toilet....

Whack a kitty

2009-05-19T05:33:00.001-07:00

Little bit adorable...

Ladies and gentlemen

2009-05-19T02:04:00.001-07:00

Meet the spy

Buffy Season 4

2009-05-18T02:15:00.000-07:00

Season 4 is where some Buffy fans claim Buffy went downhill. The gang left high school, and were going to college, there was no more Angel, and soon no more Oz. I rather have a soft spot for it, however. It's true that the main plot doesn't quite work- the Initiative is a little bit amateur for a government organisation, and Maggie Walsh would have made a much better long term villain than Adam did. Still, this season contains some of the best and funniest episodes Buffy ever created, with some decent insight into the characters. I never particularly missed Angel, who felt out of place in the third season, and quite enjoyed Riley, a character who admittedly does not have much to work with (people like to blame Mark Blucas, but there's really not much going on- the only time Riley gets to be funny is in season 5..), and in many ways is very similar to Tara- someone who exists to be the partner rather than a character in their own right.

Tara, of course, brings another daring move from Buffy, a gay character, but not only that, making one of the main cast gay. How it happens feels entirely natural, despite some baffling claims that Willow can't be gay because she was with Oz (because there exist no gay people who initially enter into straight relationships. Or even get married). I really love the Willow Tara relationship, and the cutesy magic=sex metaphor that is used to get round bizarre American standards (no, it's ok they're orgasming from the spell... it's fiiine).

Tara isn't the only new character here- Spike and Anya become very interesting in this series. Spike absolutely shines here, as a soulless creature forced to do good, he consistently makes you laugh, and his character gets a lot of development ready for the next season. Anya meanwhile enters an amusing and awkward relationship with Xander, that grows into something very strong.

So, funniest episodes? Well theres a lot to choose from. Most episodes are infused with humour- the hilarious denouement of Fear Itself, the otherwise rather poor Beer Bad. Episodes that consistently bring the funny are Pangs, a New Man, Superstar AND Something Blue. My personal favourite is probably Pangs, as this is one of the first episodes that has Spike interacting with everyone else.

The best episode is a hard pick here- I'm going to say Hush, because it's such a wonderful episode, Joss Whedon proving the beauty of Buffy is not just about the dialogue, as he strips the words away and still crafts an amazing episode. Honourable mention must be given to Who Are You, an episode all about who Faith is, and her learning about who Buffy is as well.

Worst episodes? Thats not hard- Where the Wild things Are really is a filler episode that adds nothing (unless Buffy Riley sex counts), and Beer Bad's moral screams itself out from the fricking title.

Genre savvy and stressed decisions

2009-05-12T02:35:00.001-07:00

One of the most frustrating things I have encountered, amongst many friends and acquaintances is when watching a film or television, they will berate the characters for not making a particular decision. "Why didn't they just do that?" They'll inquire.

Now this is an easy mistake to make, and it's something I have indulged in, and sometimes it's an accurate criticism. Sometimes characters do act like colossal idiots. But here's the thing: we all act like colossal idiots all the time. We often don't think things through, we rarely make decisions based on all the facts, and if someone was to watch our lives they'd probably make exactly the same criticisms.

Often in these films it will be during points of high stress that characters will make these choices, when they don't have time to think through their actions, and they are not thinking rationally. It's impossible to know what one would do under such a situation until actually being encountered with it, so making sweeping generalisations can be foolish. Added to this is the fact that they don't know they're in a horror film- splitting up is not always a terrible decision, especially if you do not know that there is a dark horror waiting to devour your souls around the corner.

Ultimately I'm usually willing to give characters a break- their acting stupidly isn't always the writers making their lives easier- sometimes its them following through on the characters.

roleplaying joke

2009-05-10T12:21:00.000-07:00

Well, not joke, but only for roleplayers- here's a flaw that should be incorporated into every system.

Amazon reviews

2009-05-08T01:55:00.000-07:00

I was linked via meta-filter to a blog which shows 1 star reviews for much loved films. Amoungst these reviews, I noticed a theme in utterly inane and hilarious critisism by Chris Tyrell... enjoyable stuff!

Buffy Season 3

2009-05-07T04:54:00.000-07:00

Season 3 is probably the best in my opinion. The characters have matured and become more interesting, there are some fun plot arcs, some brilliant stand alone episodes, a brilliant villain in the mayor, and the scarred character of Faith all bring this together.

The only main weakness of this season, is, for me, Angel. I seemed to be alone amoungst many of my friends who also watched the show in cheering him leaving the show. Their relationship produced a lot of angst I found tiresome. I also found their relationship flimsy- the classic teenage first love thing, where they had very little in common (indeed they rarely had any real conversations other than fighting evil). While I have become detached from my irritation at Buffy/Angel angst in season 2, primarily because the arc serves a purpose, in season 3 is seems to be an opportunity to whine a lot, and set Angel up for his (very good) spin off show.

So, that aside, lets have a look at the episodes.

There's some extremely funny episodes here. My personal favourite is "The Zeppo", an episode focusing on the evolution of Xander's character (which does change. Buffy does suffer from the problem that writers forget about character growth, but Xander does noticably improve as time goes on). By following Xander entirely, we get a lovely little story, with the amusing back drop of the others fighting the apocalypse at the same time.

Theres a lot of humour in all the episodes, although the other main standouts are Band Candy and Doppelgangland (which also expands Anya's character, who soon becomes my favourite on the show).

Best episodes is tough, because there are so many. My favourite is definitely the Wish, a look at an alternate reality without Buffy, extremely bleak and giving us a clear message that what she does matter, but the bleak ending of Bad Girls is brilliant, and as always the concluding episode (Graduation Day Part 2) is fantastic (even if it doesn't make a great deal of sense).

Worst episodes here are Dead Man's Party, which really bothers me. Buffy ran away from home at the end of last season, and returns to recriminations. All the characters have legitimate grievances, although they are necessarily harsh to Buffy, but sadly none of this is ever resolved, instead a zombie ex machina bonds them together...

Another weak episode is Amends, which is a set up for the Angel spin off. My main issue with it is that divine intervention is the only thing that saves Angel here: Buffy's heartfelt pleas are completely sidelined.

Buffy Season 2

2009-05-05T02:14:00.000-07:00

Season 2 is where Buffy begins to seriously grow up. Some bad things happen here, and it's the first season where metaphors begin to play a big role in the show. While some of the villains in season 1 obviously represented some concepts (the pack being peer pressure, I robot you Jane being awful), here we have entire plot arcs representing metaphors- Angel turning into a soulless fiend after Buffy sleeps with him being about guys changing after having sex with you (this is made explicit in season 4 with Parker, an interesting contrast), and there's even a metaphor for homosexuality here, with Buffy coming out to her Mum about being a slayer, and then feeling rejected because of it.

Sadly, this is also the season of terrible accents. Spike and Drusilla, while excellent characters, sport appalling accents (while Spike's gets better as James Masters settles into the role, Drusilla's, if anything, gets worse). Then there's Kendra the vampire slayer, who's accent makes me want to cry. I know it's a minor thing, but it's hard to pay attention to the plot when accents are ruining everything- Passions is an excellent episode (and the first EXTREMELY dark moment for the series), but it does have an irish accent in it, which I could have lived without. Still, there are some excellent episodes here-

This season starts having some funny episodes as well. "Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered" sees Xander casting a misfiring love spell to get revenge on Cordelia, which gives us some hilarious moments as well as some touching character moments. Quite frequently the humorous episodes in Buffy will give us insights into characters and plot. The other episode worthy of mention is "Halloween" , where the characters become their costumes, leading to Buffy being helpless, and Xander being strong, with Willow being the only person who knows whats going on.

The stand out episodes of the season are probably Innocence, where we learn of Angel's curse, and, of course, get to see a rocket launcher in action, and Becoming Part 2, a brilliant battle between Angel and Buffy, this episode features everything that makes the show great.

Worst episode? There are a few stinkers here, and they're mostly the stand alone ones. My least favourite is probably reptile boy, which has a tiresome moral message to impart, and a hokey evil villain. It also features Buffy's amazing variable powers, which are utterly dependent on the plot...

Buffy the vampire slayer- the best and the worst (will contain spoilers): Season 1

2009-05-01T02:41:00.000-07:00

Buffy the Vampire Slayer is one of my favourite shows of all time, possessing wit and intelligence beyond many other programs, and exceeding most people's expectations of it. Certainly it had a slightly shaky start- some of the monster of the week episodes in season 1 are pretty terrible, but come season 2 it soon became it's own creature. So, for fun and profit, I have decided to list the funniest, the best, and the worst episodes from each season. Because I'm weird like that.

Season 1

This, as mentioned above, was not the strongest season, with the majority of its episodes being silly and stand alone, with rather hokey ideas.

The worst episode by far is probably "I, Robot... You, Jane" which shows a stunning lack of understanding of the internet, leading to a rather embarrassing story all round.

While many of the episodes are amusing, few are actually deliberately funny, so I'll just skip to the best episodes. These are easily the first and the last. Welcome to the Hellmouth
is a great introduction to the world of Buffy, which, with a few missteps along the way (some weird dialogue, Xander's skateboard and the soon to be eaten Jesse), ably lets us into the world of Buffy. Prophecy Girl
is in many ways where the show grows up a bit, with Buffy accepting her destiny, facing it and kicking evil in the face repeatedly.

Hark, a Vagrant!

2009-04-29T02:11:00.001-07:00

Kate Beaton's comics deserve much love. For your enjoyment-

She writes mostly about history, and some bits about her own life. I love the surreal humour that pervades her comics. Definitely would recommend.

Silly meme

2009-04-29T02:03:00.000-07:00

Rules- type "(your name) needs" in quotes into google, and see what comes up-

Kieran needs a kick
Kieran needs... to find some different psychologists to talk to?
Kieran needs... to be a man
Kieran needs help.. AGAIN!
Kieran needs education
Kieran needs to raise £1600 for Marie Curie Cancer Care
Kieran needs to stop making groups and adding everyone on his list to them
kieran needs U!
Kieran needs five balls of crochet cotton to complete a bedspread she began in 1950
Kieran needs to find his soul mate to break this curse

Why I hate D and D alignment

2009-04-28T02:48:00.001-07:00

Note- this post will be of interest of those who A-know what D and D alignment is and B-care about order of the stick. I give no promises for anyone else.

In the most recent order of the stick, Haley kills crystal. I found this act deeply disturbing. Haley, while often a little obsessed with making herself money, has had a tendency to do the right thing. This, however, was a rather cold and calculated act, taken when there was no pressing reason to do so- she is at peace with the thieves guild, and has decided to create a dilemma herself. For me, this felt, if not out of character for Haley, at least disturbing. Some people on the order of the stick forums disagreed, and thought it was just awesome. Some disagreed, giving fairly decent reasons as to why the act might have been justified. An annoying amount got very irate at the very notice of a criticism.

Now there were two main arguments that really irritated me, the first being that the comic is set in a different world, so the same laws of morality don't apply. This is in some ways accurate- if someone dies in this world, they can be brought back (although it is an expensive and not guaranteed process). Yet the characters mostly have fairly human attitudes, and indeed the comic itself does. Actions that we think of as evil or morally grey in real life are generally morally grey here. I think this argument bothers me most in the way it is presented- it is meant to shut the other person up, close off discussion, because my morality doesn't apply here. I would prefer to have a discussion about what is right and wrong here, and why the scene made me uncomfortable, but that is often hard to do.

The second argument, and this always bugs me, is alignment. Alignment is a pretty stupid concept in dungeons and dragon. The axis goes from good to evil, from law to chaos. This is meant to describe a characters moral compass, but it is woefully inadequate at doing so. The concept of evil is nebulous at best, and the idea of someone being pure evil is generally speaking, rather stupid. It's fine in a comic book world, which d and d sometimes is, where the lich is irredeemably evil, but it becomes far more complicated when you have a character who is driven to hurt others because of the oppression of his race.

The main issue with alignment is it seems like it gives people an excuse not to think about who their character is. What drives them to do what they do, what decisions they would make. Haley's killing of Crystal is driven by a multitude of motives. Revenge, a cool assessment of threat, perhaps a move to rid the world of evil. All possible motives. I'm very much NOT interested in whether doing this makes Haley evil or not, I'm interested if this makes her different to the character I thought she was, whether her actions were justly inspired, whether she is changing into something different. I guess I do sort of care as to whether the murder is an evil act, but to get bogged down in technicalities bothers me.

Alignment in roleplaying has always seemed stupid to me. Telling a character that they risk changing alignment is usually pointless, as it doesn't have that many in game effects, and also should not be necessary. A good roleplayer should be taking a character in a particular direction based on who that character is, and how they've been changed by the events they've encountered. Alignment might serve as a starting point, but it should never be a strait jacket to who someone is.

I am a childish man

2009-04-27T03:30:00.000-07:00

As per a request, linked is a version of my home town's wikipedia entry, which may or may not have been childishly changed by someone

Fantastic article

2009-04-24T03:21:00.000-07:00

This is an excellent article by Simon Jenkins, arguing rather eloquently that the government is far more beholden to special interests than it is to public interest. It is shocking how much many of the projects we are spending money on will cost.

Snape (warning, may contain spoilers. OK, will. From the very first sentence in fact. Probably only spoilers for Harry Potter though.

2009-04-24T03:00:00.000-07:00

I read an essay online about Harry Potter. It was mostly negative, and while I found many of it's points weak, one thing did bother me. Why is Snape idolised quite so much towards the end of the book? In particular, Harry tells us that Snape is the bravest man he ever knew (side point- one can only be noble if one is brave- a gryffindor trait. The only good slytherins are not really slytherins!)

Brave? I don't know about that, and even so, that doesn't necessarily make him noble. The reason he decided to switch from voldemort's side was the death of Lily Potter, but bear in mind that HE WAS HAPPY FOR HARRY AND JAMES TO DIE. Horrid. Perhaps the death of Lily made him realise the enormity of what he had done, and certainly he took great risks for the cause once Voldy returned, but he was still unpleasant. He spent a large amount of time attempting to get Harry expelled, and nearly succeeded in doing so on more than one occasion, he was a terrible teacher, guilty of extreme favouritism- it is clear from the books that both Harry and Neville would have been better at potions without Snape glaring at them 90% of the time- and most important of all, he was responsible for Voldy's return!

Voldemort would have found it extremely difficult to return to power without pettigrew joining him, and thanks to Snape's old jealousies, thats exactly what happened- without his interference it is likely that Sirius would have been cleared (and not been holed up, and encouraged to take terrible risks), and Lupin may have kept his job, and pettigrew not escaped. Phew...

I dunno, he's a flawed character, and that makes him interesting, and a wonderful read, but a last minute decision that he was entirely noble? Seems a bit wrong to me.

Waterboarding

2009-04-22T02:18:00.000-07:00

An interesting article by Christopher Hitchens on waterboarding: he underwent the process himself...