Category: Social

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Women and their stuff

A few years ago I was getting fed up having to dust around all the toiletries on the top of the chest of drawers (dresser if I had one). So I suggested to my wife that we get some convenient boxes for the stuff and then I can dust the boxes easily. Agreement was forthcoming.

Since that time I have one box and Bev has two. In the picture you can see a can of deodorant on top of my box on the right and a room temperature sensor as my 10 week old son still sleeps in the bedroom with us. On top of my wife’s two boxes is stuff. I have no idea what is in the boxes, I don’t ask. I also know that there is a drawer of more stuff under the bed. My wife has informed me that she cleared out the drawer a year ago and now what you see is all there is. Women and their stuff!

Stuff
Stuff
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Trying to be quiet

It seems that I find it impossible to be quiet when needed. Not an ADHD thing but just a clumsy thing.
My house is quite small (compact) and I am normally cooking while my wife is putting my youngest to bed. So I’ll be washing up and trying to stir food quietly. It just doesn’t end up being that quiet! I unintentionally bang saucepans, drop cans and crash into the furniture. The more I try and be quiet the more noise I seem to make!
The kids sleep fine if there’s a constant noise but struggle with sharp bangs and crashes. This is probably an evolutionary thing (evolution is real, get over it you religious morons), constant rain or rustling is not a danger but sudden noises spell the end so run away.
So I think this phenomenon is the “don’t think of your name in lights” syndrome. When you try not to do things you end up doing them because you are thinking about the things you shouldn’t do. Richard Wiseman mentions this in his book Paranormality. For instance, on the last lap of a GT5 race I am mostly thinking of not crashing but I tend to spin off more in the last lap than at other times!
Trying our best not to do something often ends with us doing that exact thing. Oh, I’m trying to not buy a 3D tv at the moment!

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It’s a 4 dickday

Contrary to what regular users of the internet may think a 4 dickday is or comprises I can assure you that this post is not concerned with matters of that kind!
I drive to work and drop my son off at nursery on the way. It is only about 10 miles at most but does take in tiny streets, village roads, country roads, dual carriageway, motorway and town roads. In the 20 or so minutes of travel from home to work I can normally guarantee seeing at least one example of poor driving. Whether it is inconsiderate and dangerous driving by tailgating, no indication, late lane changing or just plain silly behaviour i.e. speeding or cutting in. These incidents sadden me. Knowing that each of these activities increases the chance of accident bothers me. Generally I would put most of these incidents down to people trying to get somewhere too quickly. Although Some people are just stupid and don’t get manners.
Yesterday was a 4 dickday. I saw four examples of poor road craft. Hence 4 people were acting like dicks on the road. I would say that the modal value is probably 1 but the maximum value for a 10 mile journey has been 6.
I don’t claim to be a good driver, see my previous post on Constant Speed, but I think I am careful and cautious. More so since I have children. The important things in life are my family and friends. Being late is just how things go sometimes. I would love to drive my car or any other car to its limits but until I can afford track days at Brands Hatch that is going to have to wait. That is why I play GT5 and end up crashing, no pain there.
Better to arrive late than to never arrive at all.

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Children – Post hoc fallacy delirium

I have two children. One is currently two and the other is two months. I love them both to bits and think it is the best thing I have ever done (bloody hard work too). I think that the best I can ask for is that they both end up with happy and fulfilled lives.
Anyway, the way we learn how to deal with children contains the biggest logical fallacy. We expect children to react to what we do and tell them. We hope and expect that when we ask something of that child they do it because of what we have done in the past. We expect that when I child is upset or being difficult whatever we try and works that particular time should work every time. Now that is a big no-no. I have become more and more convinced that children are complete random action generators.
They do not follow the rules of what we expect. They follow rules written in the edges of clouds and butterfly wings. We try something and it works, therefore it should work every time. Wrong. The reasons behind the action are different every time and so the reaction needs to change too. We are just very good at changing our reaction depending on what we see. We like to kid ourselves that we have it sorted and understand the children so well. We don’t. Humans just love the patterns in life and where we spend most energy and time gives us the biggest case for patternicity.

Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc!

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Constant speed or constant throttle?

So, which of these types of driver are you? Now, I’m not claiming to be a good driver, I’m too human to think I’m any good, I wouldn’t even claim I’m a good Gran Turismo driver! But I do know that these two types exist and I’m definitely one of them. This is probably a continuum so I’m not claiming a complete dichotomy.
Type A – Constant Speed
This type of driver maintains a constant speed along a motorway by varying the throttle as gradients increase or decrease. For instance, earlier today while travelling along the M20 I maintained a healthy and legal 70mph. I did this by increasing the throttle uphill and decreasing it downhill. Simple really.
Type B – Constant Throttle
This type of annoying driver maintains the same pressure on the throttle independent of the gradient of the road. This means that as the vehicle goes uphill it slows and then speeds up again as the gradient levels or goes downhill. Many times I have overtaken a car uphill only to be overtaken again going downhill. This is clearly wrong. How do I know this is wrong? Because cars have speed cruise control and not a throttle control.
This type of driving being wrong does not apply to big trucks but definitely to vans who like to go as fast as possible but slowing uphill because they are heavy, thereby blocking the outside lane.
Learn how to adjust your right foot, morons!

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Flat or heaped? A spoonful of sugar

My dad always asks for two heaped sugars in his coffee. Is it worth it? How does it compare to a level spoon of sugar?

Initial tests:

Standard Teaspoon – mass of granulated sugar (nearest gram)
Level 5g
Heaped 7g

Medicine Spoon – mass of granulated sugar (nearest gram)
Level 6g
Heaped 9g

It looks as though heaping sugar on top of the spoon increases the sugar by a factor of 1.5 (or thereabouts). I now need to get into the science department at work to use a more accurate set of scales.

Is it worth asking for heaped spoonfuls of sugar. Yeah, go for it!

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Tear Gas and gun shots

Following on from my blog post about bombs in London that I had heard I thought I would write about just 2 more incidents of “slightly scary stuff that has happened to me”.

I am pretty sure it was New Year’s Eve of 1995 going into 1996. We had an Eve Eve party the night before and I may have been feeling the worse for wear. I am sure I was not drinking alcohol and we had left our flat in Ealing and were in, I think, the Harrington Arms. Someone will correct me. I was drinking orange juice, because of the night before. We were in the basement area and I went to the gents. When I came back I was greeted by one of our party who I thought was really upset and crying. It turns out this was just the effects of the tear gas that was working its way through the pub. Someone had let off a canister for fun as far as I knew and it soon affected me. My eyes and nose hurt and I felt even worse than I had from the night before. Needless to say we left and went elsewhere before heading to Parliament Square for the midnight hour.

The next incident happened on FA Cup final day in 1996 or 1997. I was at a flat just off the North End Road in London and was happily not really paying attention to the game when there were three loud bands and shouting from the flat beneath. I called the police. A while later there were plenty of armed police outside the block and they were calling up to the flat below me. I just waited and eventually someone was led away from the flats and the police spoke to me about what happened. I think the guy below just fired blanks in a rage but it didn’t matter to me. I think it could have been worse if I was out in the open and heard gun shots when I knew there shouldn’t be any.

Oh well. Life is much less exciting out here in the countryside.

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Bombs

Following the bomb that went off in Oslo, I decided to write down my experiences of terror.
During my time as a student in London there were 15 bombs or left packages left either by the IRA or by middle east terrorists. I lived there from 1992 to 1996. There were some huge explosions and many people died, but 99.999% of the population were safe. I always checked in at home after an explosion, calling my mum from a phone that was attached to the wall via a cable! I never really understood the worry she would face but now I have my children I get it at last.
The first bomb I heard was during my first year at Imperial College. I was asleep in student halls in South Kensington (actually they were in Westminster but I’m being picky!). I woke to the sound of a blast of thunder and I turned sides. When I became a little more conscious I realised it was sunny outside and so the noise must have been a bomb. I mentally shrugged and then went back to sleep. I don’t know what time I then woke up but I remember not being really bothered by the bomb. Fortunately no one was injured or killed. Those sort of things happened. It was 10th January 1992.
The second bomb I heard was more of a shock. By this time I was working for the students’ union of Imperial College and we had offices in the Beit building. There had been a fire alarm and so we were gathered in the quadrangle waiting for the all clear when there was a very loud boom. I knew it was a big bomb and quite close. I was worried about people and hoped that help would arrive. I also knew there was nothing I could do. There would be many people gathering to help. Some other members of the student union staff were visibly shocked and moved by the bomb. This time it was a big car bomb planted by someone from the middle east as they had just blown up the Israeli embassy. 20 people were injured and there was a lot of damage. It was 26 July 1994.
These days it seems we are more worried about terrorism without having the terrorism. It bothers me that we have lots of hype from the press and the government. The rigmarole we go through to get on a plane or visit a tourist attraction bothers me. The data show that no threats have been beaten through these security measures, the plots that have been stopped were caught by old fashioned police and intelligence work.
Time to get real on terrorism I think. Yes, there is a threat, but there always has been. We are a global power and so will always face having to deal with disgruntled people.

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Salad Cream

I’m slightly worried. For the last 24 years I have preferred mayonnaise to salad cream. This has even gone so far as to be happy eating a steak with mayonnaise. I thought this meant that I was sophisticated and grown up. Having mayo seemed like the continental, better thing to do. I was happy with this for many years and always shirked the idea of having either salad cream or, worse, tomato ketchup. It is only since I have been with my wife that I have grown to accept that HP brown sauce is ok (but only on breakfast).
But all of a sudden things have changed.
Over the last month I have wanted salad cream with my chips and on the side with my pizza. I’ve not had steak yet so I don’t know what will happen then (it won’t be gravy though, that is even more wronger than ketchup). Does this mean I have regressed? I still feel intelligent and sophisticated (you might not be able to tell from this blog) but I like and even yearn at times for salad cream. I am worried, what if my other tastes revert back to a time when I was spotty and uncomfortable? Will I suddenly have the urge to buy a Madonna album or jump on a push bike and just cycle around all day? I never hang out at the corner shop with mates smoking and drinking but is that about to happen? Like headlines that are questions the answer is no. I am going through a blip and I can blame it on my wife. Her recent pregnancy hormones have infected me somehow and now I just have to wait for my senses and tastes to return to normal.
If you are interested it’s Heinz Salad Cream, Hellman’s Mayonnaise and HP Brown Sauce. Never ever any type of ketchup.

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