The answer is, of course, “In many manners, depending on what time you had breakfast and where the nearest bus-stop is.”  That was, of course, a self made joke that doesn’t actually make any sense - anyway, I’ll actually try doing some blogging again for a bit, with the comment making me realise that I’ve abandoned this place.  This is only a short one, as revision awaits, with my first exam being on Sunday its going to be eeeeep.  All I’ll say is a happy Yom Yerushaliyim to everyone (who cares), and proper post will commence soon.

Simeon

Hi all again.  As you can all tell, yes, I’m really back to the blogging thing - at it seems the spammers are too.  Since my last login, I’ve received no more than 20 spam comments, all geared to the same wonderful nature - a nature that, due the to the sensitivities of a younger audience, I’ll rather not mention.  Let’s just say that anyone that stupid to fall for that spam and click on the given link really deserves to loose computer access.

 Not much to report in the wonderful life of Simeon.  The work plods along, and the highlight is finally getting a planets simulation for my Physics B Computer Practicals Work done (I decided to make a system that could handle multiple objects - took ages to get a stable Sun, Earth, Moon style system).  I only have one more of these practicals left now (woo), which, once done, should give me a marginable bit of more free time.

Time for the obligatory rant section, and continuing the theme its a look into the Gaza situation (need to think of a name for it that has a nice ring).  Now, we’ll ignore those idiots based in the Law faculty here at Cambridge (occupying against occupation, or some other c**p like that) and get onto the current argument revolving around the BBC (and Sky)’s decision not to air a charity appeal from DEC (feel free to find its proper acronym-ical translation, but I’ll just call it D(.u.m.b.) Egotistical C**ks (where Dumb stands for Despicably Unfair Mightily Bumptious)).  Now, people are accusing the BBC of bias, towards Israel.  As a (I’ll say so myself) person who is informed in these matters, my opinion would be that the BBC is normally, at least in its news coverage, quite the opposite (reference here to a guy I used to respect as an impartial reporter, but now think is just a supreme tw*t, Jeremy Bowen).  Now, I for one am actually happy with money going to the citizens of Gaza, but considering track records on the matter of getting aid to where its needed, these organisations that make up D(.u.m.b.)EC will most likely not be able to deliver, with Hamas getting the majority of the aid packages.  They, as they have done in the past, will withhold the food and medicalsupplies, in-order to prolong the suffering of the population there and, as a result, promote more hate towards Israel (the money that they will receive will be used, as ever, to purchase more weapons).  Now, the BBC upper-management has made their decision, and whether you agree withit or not you have to respect it.  I for one and happy withthe decision (having not seen the advert I don’t know what kind of bias is present in the appeal itself), but not happy with the way the BBC has reported it - funnily enough, their news crews have reported it in such a pervasive way as to give it more publicity than it would’ve ever received otherwise.

As a by-the-way, you can find a much more eloquent version of the above, including reference to the DEC charities bias against Israel, in the wonderful Times column writeup by Andrew Roberts (yes, I actually bought a newspaper today for a change).

Well, that’s it for now.  I have an all day physics practical tomorrow (7 and ¾ hours!), and I’m about to have dinner.  Sorry about the lack of pictures (I working on it, seriously, but bloody 1&1 is still bloody 1&1), but I promise to try and upload some when I get some free time (ha!).  And sorry about the shortness of the post - there should be more by next time.  Remember to those in the UK - 27th (Tuesday) is Holocaust memorial day.  I know its not our day (I’m referencing Yom Hashoah later in the year), but support it wherever you are - and when I say support it, I also mean that you be vocal and logical against the inevitable illogical discussions that will crop up that dare to equate Israel and the Palestinians to Nazism and the Holocaust.

Simeon

Just been reading the BBC News again - now, I’ll post the exact links later when I’m not having my dinner, but the problem I’m having is with the figures being reported. Now, the Palestinian sources are saying that of the 950-ish Palestinians killed, a third were children. However, Israel says that only about 20% of those killed were civilians - and for those of you who don’t trust Israeli sources (not trusting a democracy - as long as you mistrust your government to an equal degree, I don’t have a problem with this), that wonderfully biased organisation the UN (who I’ll take here as an impartial witness (barring the fact I mentioned yesterday of the UN school being used to house munitions) place a figure of civilians killed at closer to 25%. The numbers plainly do not add up unless its assumed that some kids are terrorists (my calculations based on the UN figure show that, at minimum, 1/12 of the terrorists, or rather 75 of the terrorists were children, assuming all other civilians killed were children too). Now, I think its unlikely that the kids are counted as terrorists (Hamas may use them as human shields and teach them the ways of terror, but I would still consider that kids are not considered terrorists), and thus the conclusion I come to is that the figures published by the Palastinian health authorities are widely over-exaggerated (with the assumption that the Israeli figures can be relied upon by their backing of the UN figures to approximate levels).

Rant over.

Simeon

Hi all - in fact, hello to anyone out there.  I’ve probably gone and lost my reader base due to the half-year interruption in posts, but rest assured - I’m back on the blog job.  There was no reason for my absence from this site, except for the fact that I turned into a lazy **** over the summer, and then kept wanting to post stuff from the summer in last term, but never got round to it (read: LAZY) - I wonder if **** made it through the swear filter that Microsoft has installed on their browsers, in a rare collaboration with Google and Mozilla - surely one of these ******* words will get the @:[;#'[#{**/~@:[]]-] through.

So, what’s been happening with of late - … - not much really.  Today was the day of my return to Cambridge after the winter holiday, and Lent Term (I think - don’t crucify me if I got it wrong) starts this Thursday (well, it actually starts tomorrow, but Thursday is when lectures et all begin).  Winding back the clock, let’s have a few rants about the recently finished year, 2008.

.

Don’t have much to say about that it appears, so, moving on, it appears that we have a rant about Microsoft again.  They’ve gone and recently (recently being a very broad term) brought out an upgrade to Media Center, which, for those who don’t know, is a piece of software built into Windows Vista Home Premium and Ultimate (hey to Mac fans out there - you’re probably laughing about the multiple versions of Windows, but in order to mock companies evenly, at least we Windows users don’t have to pay £100 for the equivalent of a Service Pack) that allows you to play, among other things, TV on your PC (providing a TV card is installed).  Now, I like this software, and use it all the time.  However, Microsoft have just brought out the 2008 TV Pack, which adds support for tuners of different types (meaning I can use the same software to watch Freeview and Sky over the home’s analogue) and, FINALLY, adds support for MHEG, which, if you don’t know, is responsible for the interactive services in the UK.  So, understand my rage when it turns out that this TV Pack is only being released to OEMs, to be put only onto new PCs being sold.  I MANUFACTEUR MY OWN PCs!  Thus, I don’t (officially - rest of this comment truncated for fear of hanging,drawing and quartering) get to use this new software, which, by all rights, I should get.  Humph.

Now to the controversial news.  Many people will obviously be aware of the situation currently taking place in Southern Israel and Gaza (as opposed the many people who don’t know about much worse areas of conflict in the world, like Darfur).  This topic has received a lot of media attention, mostly bad media (of what I watch in the UK - BBC News is once again showing their notoriety for anti-Israeli bias), so I won’t go into too much detail here.  Yesterday I attended the pro-Israel rally that took place in the lesser known city of Manchester (as opposed to the better known city of London), where the number of Israel supporters was about 10 times the number of Palestinian supporters in attendance just across the street.  My main nagging point is that while we held a minute silence for ALL those killed in the violence (citizens of both Israel AND Gaza) the pro-Palestinian groups (including Stop the War coalition and the (time for a controversial word) traitors Jews for Palestine) were chanting “Slay the Jews”.  Here is group of people who claim to support all peoples, and just want there to be peace, and there chanting anti-Semitic slogans dating back to Nazism (and further back than that too).  With the wonderful portrayal by the media, the world believes that Israel has been the aggressor, and mercilessly slaughters civilian lives.  These people who believe this have not a clue of what it means to be Jewish - nothing is more sacred than a human life - all other commandments can be overridden for it.  No priority is made for whether the life is that of a Jew or a Muslim - both lives are equal in value (in being priceless so to speak).   The media would have you believe that Israel targets building with civilians with no reason - the reason is that Hamas uses civilian structures to store munitions and to fight from, and keeps the civilians there with the chance that the civilians will be killed in the crossfire - and thus increasing the number of “martyrs” for Hamas.  Israel has shown proof of this (including, for instance, secondary explosions at the UN school, indicating a store of munitions there).  My hope is that the world will realise the truth of what’s happening in the Middle East, before its too late for us all - if Israel falls, then the West has lost, whether they know it yet or not.

Enough of controversy - if it seems bleak after that paragraph, well, that’s because it is.  I could fill the rest of the space with some more jokes, yet I’m tired and the humour doesn’t come on like a tap (not sure what I’m trying to say here - probably a light bulb would’ve been better).  So, that’s me finished for tonight.  Stay tuned for next time, when the visual arts (i.e. some photos - no, not my sister’s blog) will feature (probably possibly maybe).

The author’s signature in a digital format was slightly misprinted, so it was scrapped with a suitable replacement.

#*2/*3^*&6′##’?/.//|\\##’** Simeon +_+_)(**(&)(&*908~@@}{;#*/

(P.S. The above joke referencing a swear filter was, if not guessed, a joke.  I also apologise for bashing Microsoft over its pleasant update procedure.  I like Microsoft, Google and Mozilla, and really think that they super-swell.  This is being said entirely of my own accord - I am not being coerced in any way.  Alls well, and any delay to my next post is not dependent on Microsoft and friends in anyway whatsoever.)

(As Mulder said in the last ever X-File (discounting the second movie, which was **** and completely trashed the X-Files): “I’m a guilty man.  I’ve failed in every respect and I deserve the harshest punishment for my crimes.”  Let’s hope they bring a third X-Files movie that finally finishes of the mythology of the series) 

(P.P.P.S.S.S. <- Don’t ask.  Only 13 days to go (or 9 to you lucky Americans) - take a guess as to what I’m going on about)

Please don’t sue.

Well, this is an uneventful day by all accounts (my accounts, or account, that is).  The only real thing to report is that I had my last practical till next year (and my last ever Java practical - I’ll miss them), and that my laptop’s fully working, such that (|) I could watch Heroes.  Yay.

My lack of enthusiasm is due to the joy of revision - I decided to make some wall-mind-maps for the subjects (you know, which parts I need to revise).  Due to the level of content in the small Algorithms course, my wall has 2 sheets on sorting, 1 sheet on trees and 3 sheets on searches.  Ahhhhhhh.  I still have to do charts for (mainly) Discrete Maths (very loud scream inaudible to all but bats - and that makes no sense, as volume is linked to amplitude of the wave, not to the frequency)), Operating Systems (specifically Unix and Windows case studies), Software by Design (mainly OOP diagrams) and Professional Practice and Ethics (legislation - read: waste of time).  And that’s just the CompSci course - I still have to jot down the Physics equations to remember (ranging from Special Relativity to Ampere’s Law to Maxwell-Boltzmann Distribution) and any Maths techniques (mostly differentiation and differential equations).

That’s me for tonight (and I didn’t do the security rota - it can wait till the morning).  Tomorrow’s post should be earlier (before Shabbat comes in).

In answer to my own question, its Wednesday (lets ignore the time inconsistency, shall we).  This post is late due to a most joyous event - my laptop has returned.  In enough padding to cover the walls of my room twice over (the joy of bubble wrap).  Thankfully, the box the laptop came in just fits into my over-vacation storage locker (that way, my room isn’t full of cardboard box and said bubble-wrap).  The laptop itself is healthy, and thanks to the joy of being able to download Office 2007 and Norton Internet Security 2008 from online and then enter in your purchased Product Key, its almost fully set up as well.  That’s a small load off my mind (it was very quickly replaced by the rapidly expanding load of exam panic).

Not much else happened today, bar the hand-in of my last Java Tick, thus, after the ticking session tomorrow, I have no more practicals, and can devote my entire life to just revision.  Oh joy.

Finally, two of my exams, which would’ve occurred on a Shabbat and Shavuot, have been moved to the Sunday in the middle - this means invigilation for three days though, but I can cope.  Its a shame the University doesn’t enforce a motion that was passed, that insisted that no exams occur on Saturdays and Shavuot.  What can we do?

Bye then till tomorrow.

PS  For amusement, here’s a review of COD4 recommended by Sam Fryman - only for mature languages due to language and content.

Hi all. Here’s a very sleepy Simeon typing and trying to continue the experiment. Not much to say about today - its a three supervision day, which leaves me, understandably, feeling knackered. The rest of the post is in a bullet point format.

• So, no change in laptop status. Asked the porters in case in comes without my name on the front, and they took down details of my laptop and name is case one gets delivered that matches my details.
• West Cambridge Revisited: Not only do we see all six healthy Canadian Geese chicks and nesting Moorhen, but I think to myself and wonder why this pond was chosen for nesting and child rearing. It’s sheltered but there must be some form of food present, in the form of fish and possibly frogs (this also explains the presence of the Heron last week). So, I look into the water, and find a swarm of tadpoles near one end of the pond (thousands - pictures up and end of the week hopefully) and a huge fish eating off them. Food mystery solved.
• Punting - CUJS decided to put on a punting event for those feeling the exam pressure, so I decided to go. Don’t punt late - its cold and although fun at first, the fun fades a bit on (especially if you go round in circles 3 or 4 times). My bottom is still soaking wet (only having gotten back about an hour before this is published).

That’s it for today - tomorrow is pretty uneventful, so bring on an even shorter post.

The second post in a series on my life this week (shhh about the date inconsistencies), I now relate the days events.

Attempting to do my Physics supervision work proved problematic, with me not able to answer most questions.  It turned out, as I read through my notes only a few minutes ago, that I had forgotten to print off a whole chapter, which, concidentaly, contained all the material that I was lacking knowledge in.  It remains to be seen how long I’ll remain awake to finish off the work.

On the laptop front, no sight haas be seen of my fallen comrade (I’ve really miss having my own PC).  I’m currently worrying about it being sent to the splodge (see glossary) without my name on the delivery - and hence no note arriving in my pig.  I my have to ask them every day as to whether a laptop has been delivered (but I want to avoid hatred from the ellusive and secretive Cambridge sect, the Guild of the Porters - imagine the Janitor in Scrubs).

Today saw the last Physics practical of term, involving the diffraction patterns caused by (multiple) slit(s) in an aperture in fornt of a laser beam.  All in all, not that eventful, except for having to work in the dark and almost being blinded by the Sun once outside.  On a pleasent note, all 6 chicks of the Canadian Goose family living in the pond outside the lab are still alive and are looking healthy (pictures will be online once upload and laptop working/returned).  Also spotted was a nesting Moorhen (ditto on pictures).

There was a CUJS committee meeting today, and my main contributuion to it was stamping envolopes for the propoganda to go out to parents (asking for money, I guess).  It was worth going though - we got ice cream.

Finally, I stupidly forgot that Dad was going off to America today and forgot to speak to him on Sunday.  If you read this (obviously I’m spaking unto my father here), enjoy Cincinati.

That does it for today.  We’ll see if tommorow brings enough news to justify this week long experiment.

btw, I’ve just realised that my blog is running on GMT, not BST, so posts appear an hour earlier (?) than they should.  I’ll sort this out after this post is published.

Well, there’s not really much to type about.  I’m now completely without a laptop, it going off to HP for repair on Friday (hopefully I’ll see it again before this week is out - hopefully not until after I go back home).  I still can’t upload images (although I haven’t tried since I’ve not attached my camera to the college PCs).  Revision and supervision work goes as revision and supervision work goes.  This probably makes reading for a very depressing post - eh.

Let’s stop that and get on with the real grunt of it.  We celebrated Yom Ha’atzmaut here in Cambridge with the presence of a band called Blue Fringe.  The noise apparently disturbed a resident (just the one), who’s child couldn’t sleep and had those most important, life altering exams ahead of him/her - the SATS (the author rolls around wheezing for a bit).  In all honesty, I wouldn’t have normally comented on this sort of complaint - it is justifiable - but coming out at only just past 22:00, and being abusive to our President is another matter entirely (for those who don’t know, the cutoff time in the UK for loud parties before it becomes a matter for the police is 23:00).  Anyway, the society had knocked onto all surrounding residents beforehand, none of whom having problems with us having the party.  She showed up again on Friday night (at 22:30), complaining about the noise again.  My theory is that she’s just recently moved in, as the noise level was no more than it has been for the past > 1000 Friday nights in CUJS history.

If you haven’t guessed, without my computer, I have no form of entertainment in my room (the laptop providing TV, DVD and gaming needs), and thus you might be expected to realise that the reason for my posts of late becoming more frequent and much bulkier is that crime of boredom (this is my relief from exam revision).  I’m going to go to bed now, and this post will continue later in the week (you might be wondering why this line has been left in, but to give you context of the events in the post, this part is being written on Sunday evening). 

Scrap that - I’ve decided to do an experiment, and attempt to do one post a day.  Whether there is enough material fro this work remains to be seen, yet I think it could succeed.  So, please ignore the fact that this post was puiblished on Monday - it was meant for Sunday (and its timestamp will be changed to reflect this).

Hi everybody.  I’m sorry about the lack of postings in recent months, so much so that (finally) people have contacted me and asked where I am - although the want of attention was not the reason for the absence.  No, the reason for my absence is three-fold:  the ever-persistent problems with getting image uploads working, more PC problems and a h*ll if a lot of revision and work to do for my exams.

I take the opportunity now to apologise for the complete absence of photos in this post.  In a few weeks time, after my exams (and when my computer is fixed - see below), I’ll do a bumper crop of photos form this term, which already includes rabbits, herons (well, a heron) and Canadian Geese (with 6 chicks), as well as the wonderful greenery that is Fitzwilliam College at the moment.

Well, lets get right down into business.  Much of the previous holiday will go unreported here, except for the interesting snowfalls that appeared about mid-way through the holiday, stopping at almost exactly a few days (roughly, about but precisely) before Pesach (Passover for those readers unsure of the Jewish festival names) began - justs to show that Pesach really is the start of spring.

Not much has happened since I’ve gotten back, except for my computer dying (well, not so harshly).  The primary hard-drive has, well, died, and as a result I can’t use Windows (or recover Windows onto the other hard-drive, as the recovery partition was based on the first disk).  Now I have to go through the joyous procedure of contacting HP (again) and waiting for a week or two for my laptop to be returned (again - recall that the other hard-drive died a few months back, and was replaced by HP, taking a week to return it to me).  As I said last time, why can’t HP just send me the replacement hard-drive and collect the old one - it’ll save them on labour costs.  Anyway, with two faults, you’d expect HP to replace the laptop - but they don’t do this unless three faults have developed - lets keep our hopes up (or down - I don’t want to be without a laptop again).

By now you might be wondering just what am I writing this post on.  Congratulations to those of you who assumed that I’m typing this from the University computers.  You’re wrong.  No, I’ve gone and bought a 4GB USB stick and have installed Ubuntu (a version of Linux) to it.  I have to give it credit - I’m very impressed.  Very fast and extremly reliable (plus, the GUI is amazing compared to Vista).  I’m still not going to use it permanently (game support, Office support and difficulties that I’ve had with TV setup have all hampered my enjoyment), but maybe a few versions in, when Wine (Windows emulator) and the TV software (most promising looked to be MythTV) have matured a bit, I’d seriously consider recommending  Ubuntu as a permanent OS as replacement for Vista (or Windows Vista + a few versions).

Right, just getting to the end of the post here, until I go back to revision (exams in 4 weeks time - eeeep).  I’d just like to end by wishing Israel a happy 60th birthday.  For your amusement, here’s a web link to an article by a wonderfully left-wing editorial on the BBC - that’s not the funny part though (although his choice of interviewees and the fact that he manages to pick (out of those classifications) the ones that seem to not like Israel is slightly amusing) - the funny part was as I was reading the comments, I read a good comment, and then read the name: it was authored by our very own Sam Gonshaw.  Without his permission (as the comment is now in the public domain), I reprint it here in its glorious glory:

As a young British Jew currently undergoing the transition to Israeli, I am afraid to disagree with Mr. Franks. This country is torn into many factions - true, impossible to label and count them all, but one thing that can be said for a large number of them, is despite heated political discussions on every street corner, the majority of Israelis; Jews and Arabs; I think that deep down will set aside their differences over a glass of Arak (local liquor) and toast the state that binds them and fractures them simultaneously.
Sam Gonshaw, Manchester, UK/Jerusalem, Israel

By the way, I absolutely hate the author in question (no, not Sam Gonshaw - rather the editorialist Tim Franks).  He shows (and has showed for a long time) an amazing amount of bias against Israel.  Whenever he has managed to talk to an Israeli Arab, he always manages to get those that hate Israel (as opposed to the majority from poles and those that I have personally met who would 100% prefer to live in Israel rather than a Palestinian state), and whenever he has managed to talk to Jewish people, he always manages to grab those at the extremes who hate Israel for one reason or another (i.e. far-right - not religious enough or far-left - too religious).  I mean, the Israeli-Arab in the article (who just so happens prefers the term Palestinian, which is in many ways incorrect) appears to not only advocate suicide bombings, but anti-Semitic attacks against Jewish people around the world.  Brilliant (just in case any of my readers who don’t actually know me (if there are any) I am 100% against any form a racism, sexism or anything that falls under that catergory (extending, but not limited to, being against Animal-abuse).

Leaving my rant I post, for your interest, as I can’t get the photos to upload, an embedded (for the first ever time) old clip (actually a welcome clip for recruits, I think) from the IDF (a film to the tune of Brothers in Arms by Dire Straits).  I may post another clip later in the week, closer to Yom Ha’atzmaut.

Simeon