Utilitarian Calculations

“It is possible to argue, using (Peter Singer’s) utilitarian calculations, that the deaths of thousands of people (in the World Trade Center) whose trivial consumer satisfactions included the imposition of fundamental misery and death on hundreds of thousands of chickens reduced the amount of pain and suffering in the world.”
– Karen Davis, UPC

Sounds perfectly logical to me… Kevin Atkinson is attempting to persuade me of his anti-animal rights views and has directed me towards https://www.animalrights.net/ (site no longer exists). This is one of their daily quotes which I assume designed to prove the folly of animal rights logic and morality. Needlesstosay it has had no such affect on me so far!

Mediteranian Canal Dream

I’ve just found this dream scribbled on a piece of paper shoved in a notebook. It clearly displays the date as: 15 July 2004, 12:58:32. I have therefore included it in Ringpull for that date although today, the day of adding is 10th of February 2006.

I leave our room and walk out onto the hot street. I know in advance what I am going to do. This is a canal dream. Although here, here in the mediteranian the heat and dust raising from the stone beneath my feet at every footfall will be in direct contrast to the cool murky water. I dive in and break the surface. Flipping through the looking glass I open my eyes expecting to be blinded by the water. I am suprised by how clear the water is from this side. I swim along the bottom for awhile before catching sight of the light above, I rise, gulping air as my head breaks the surface. I swim along the canal for some distance, and it is only when I consider getting out and attempt to make for the canal’s stone edge that I realise that there is a flowing current and that it might be stronger than me, that I might not make the shore. It isn’t that the current has just crept up like some mischievious water spirit, but because I wasn’t travelling against the current it hadn’t become aparent til now. As I reach my leg, dripping and splashing over the hot dry stone I climb from the canal. I walk along the street. There is a father and son working on a dusty building site, they watch my progress and the human slug trail I leave as I march down the street in my soaking clothes.

Kathryn is at the bureau de change. The gentleman behind the counter is plesant enough. Kathryn is explaining how much money she is passing to him. She points to some assorted change and tells him that “they are equal” or “it is equal” but equal to what I cannot fathom. The situation turns. She is rude to me, and the gentleman behind the counter is embarrassed, I am angered. I walk away. She does not go back for the money and declares that she too will walk away. I see that she means it. She says she wishes she was back at work. I know then that something is very wrong. She doesn’t need me anymore I can see it. I know that there is going to be some truth. Some truth that I am not going to like to hear. I am angered not that the situation is as it is, that being, it transpires, that Kathryn is in love with and having a relationship with someone she works with, but that she hasn’t told me the truth before now. She’s wasted my time, and time is precious. I ask who he is and am corrected but not answered, “she” she says and leaves it at that.

How can I not be enough? I just don’t see it. I would do anything, but it wouldn’t be enough. I storm away. Thunder clounds roll across my face with the knotting of my brows and the darkening of my countanance. I come to a strange room. Half indoor half out, it’s floor consists of some boards over water connected on axes, so that so long as you stand in the center they do not tip. Each square board contains one smaller than the last with it’s own axes. Paul Daniels is stood in the bottom right of the room. He is transfering gravel from something to a wheelbarrow. As the gravel disappears it reveals behind where it was quite lethal looking spikes concealed beneath the surface. Paul occasionally takes a handful of gravel and sticks it down his trousers. All the while he mutters as a gimp or a submissive. I assist him in his task with transfering the gravel. I don’t believe it was Paul Daniels. I think I just thought it was. Maybe it was, I don’t know. Certainly once I had decided it was that was whom I saw.

Off The Top Of His Head

I close my eyes and see inside my head,
The memory of your face…
A little world I know…
Starts sending images of the home I once had,
Of encounters, Of moments, I was part of.

If the world is to everyone,
What each one sees,
What then it’s definition?

A Dream of Writing

I dreamed I was writing a newspaper article. I was fighting with the wording of it. I was in a study but the room wasn’t mine. Object repetition in dreams is strange. An old friend of mine, Angus, used to always dream of a blue bong. It would always be there somewhere in the background of his dreams. For me also there are objects that turn up over and over again and which in some way are meaningful. A dark green standard desk lamp. Frosted glass with gold and black lettering. Sepia tones. Black coffee. A bright spotlight and darkened room. ‘H’ pencils in a jar. Blue-grey smoke from a cigarette in a green glass ashtray. …and thus this room that I find myself in is familiar, and yet unfamiliar at the same time.

Upon awaking I remembered the whole article that I had written and I felt pleased, because I knew it was the way I wished it to be, and it was finished. …The memory of the dream rapidly faded and now although I remember the intentions I had in writing the piece, the precise wording, that I had felt so pleased with, has gone completely, faded back into that dream world without me, as dreams are want to do. I can still see the title of my carefully crafted article:

The idea of a conspiracy: memes of greed

Maybe I’ll actually write it one day, and maybe I won’t. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see. I am reluctant to attempt to think further of writing down what I do remember of it. Already I am left with that feeling that anyone who has ever lost their work and yet been forced to attempt to re-write it from memory will be only too familiar with. The words are perhaps the same, but things are phrased not quite as they were before. Sentences do not gel together as they did in the original, and maybe, maybe it’s okay. However because it is discordant with what I remember of the original it sounds cacophonous as I speak the words in my head. It is an uncomfotable feeling.

6th Driving Lesson

I had my Sixth lesson today, and I think I like it best as it was today, when I have only one day inbetween my two weekly lessons. I had had to start the car with a hill start, and then it was back to the side streets for more cornering practice. I managed to slow it down a little and I think I dramatically improved the timing of my gear changes. Stalled a few times still and so got a bit frustrated. I understand how to drive, intellectually, but the body is taking a little longer to catch-up. As well as practicing getting around corners I also got to stretch my wheels by driving up to campus where I encountered my first mini roundabout.

It was good to get onto a straight road after all those corners and I got my trusty Renault Clio up to 50mph for the first time, sailing through gears happily and smoothly. On the way I got to negotiate my first stopped traffic lights which was relatively simple, although it was a strange feeling to be in stationary traffic and not be a passenger. I was sort of tempted to stare about, but knew I still had to keep my eyes on the road.

Once on campus as I already said I encountered my first mini roundabout, which was fairly obvious …and of course I got even more practice at driving carefully at low speeds.

I could learn to really hate speed bumps. I got to drive myself home for the first time today!

4th Driving Lesson

Despite the fact that I was looking forward to today’s lesson… I found my fourth driving lesson a little unsettling. Having a lesson the very next day after the previous one I didn’t have time to think about what I had and hadn’t achieved yesterday, to mentally go through it. …as a result I felt as though it hadn’t really sunk in as much.

Due to the fact that I had expressed suprise to Stuart at the change of location and the necessary change in driving style, he had decided to try and get me to practice cornering back off on the country roads so we could get in a bit of distance too. …and of course I’d got it into my head that because of what we did yesterday we would be again on the small roads practicing T junctions. So I was even more confused than normal.

Silverdale and Galloway Belted “Polo Cow”

At some point last summer, Kathryn and I, on one of our attempts at fresh air and an uncomputer oriented environment, ventured to Silverdale for a walk and an explore. Having had an enjoyable walk along the beach we cut back to the village along a path and through a field. A field with some lazily grazing cows in it. We were delighted to spot a cow that was completely black from nose to hoof, apart from a white circle all the way around its back and belly. We named it “Polo Cow”, and having giggled and marvelled at it for a time, we wended our way back to the car. I confess that I neglect to mention a slight foray to the pub on the way to the car, as this was back in the days when I still drank, but that is aside from the point.

On the bank holiday Saturday just gone we escaped Lancaster again to enjoy the sunshine! We went for a walk up and around Arnside knot, watched hot air balloons and a train crossing the bay and managed time for a quick coke in the Woodlands pub in Silverdale on the way home in the evening. As we were driving along Kathryn spotted a whole field of cows like “Polo Cow” and we began to suspect that it was in fact another breed of cow, and not your average everyday Fresian as we had assumed. Kathryn has just now discovered on-line that they are called “Galloway Belted” which is a pretty good description! I’ve included a picture for your entertainment, and to ensure that you can recognise one should you need to!

Galloway Belted also known as 'Polo Cow' (image)
Belted Galloway
Friesian (image)
Friesian

Galloway Belted also known as ‘Polo Cow’ and a Friesian for comparison.

Web Standards

I have developed an interest in Web Standards, and am working feverishly to understand the more complicated aspects of CSS. I want to be able to say: “Look ma! No tables!” at some point in the very near future.

It all began when I started to find out about the Fahrner Image Replacement (FIR) tecnique. This article explains the complexities and reasons for it, Using Background-Image to Replace Text (link to Stopdesign page no longer exists).

However it wasn’t until I saw the absolute beauty of the CSS Zen Garden that I knew I was hooked.

By separating Design and Content, you can (or at least will be able to one day) solve all of the current problems of accessibility and usability.

Driving Lesson Cancelled

You wouldn’t believe how dissappointed I am not to be able to go driving today. I hadn’t realised how much I was looking forward to my lesson until it was canceled. Oh well next lesson on Wednesday 5th of May. Which seems a long way off… *sob*

Hermann Hesse

I’ve been re-reading some Hermann Hesse this evening and I came across a short story that I don’t recall. This despite the fact that it is the title piece of a book (Strange News From Another Star) that I know that I’ve read things from… Very strange. I enjoyed greatly and was encouraged to venture off and discover https://www.hhesse.de, an internet community of Hermann Hesse enthusiasts. I was a little disappointed to discover how much of the site is in German, but I guess that’s my fault for not speaking German, not theirs for speaking it. If anything would encourage me to read German it would be the work of Hermann Hesse.