The Daily Grind

Bob Park’s latest What’s New column at the American Physical Society continues his ongoing rant against manned spaceflight in general, and the International Space Station in particular. Why? Because it’s sold as a research lab, but it’s not doing any research. Oh, and putting it in a position where it could conceivably do some research would cost a fortune (in science research terms).

Read the Bob. He talks sense.

Here we go again – time for another shake-up of GCSE science teaching.

While I’m sure GCSE science is deeply dull, and I’m hardly in the camp that chants ‘they have to learn to walk before they can run,’ something about this does worry me. For example, how can one discuss the MMR nightmare in an informed way, without having done any formal statistics? This is, of course, the basic problem with the MMR situation – what’s perfectly reasonable for individuals is a bit of a disaster for the population as a whole.

Besides, haven’t we heard all this before? Wasn’t the whole GCSE thing, back in 1988, supposed to be about relevance and practicality? These may be good intentions, but are they actually new?

I’m such a twit. I’ve gone and installed this blog system with blatant disregard for actually reading the docs. And now I can’t work out how to make it do half the things I want.
Whereas, if I’d just slung up a(nother) Geeklog system, we’d be ticking right along, if not looking quite so crisp and clean. [sigh]. Content management systems are well and good, but sometimes, I want a decent content metamanagement system.

From one of the mailing lists I frequent, yesterday:

Has anyone come across a supplier of snake models or reasonably realistic toy versions? I’m after a sidewinder snake that can be handled for a feely box exhibit.

Followed, barely an hour later, by:

Try Daisy and Toms Deansgate Manchester; I purchased some funky models there recently.

What’s scary is that last Monday we had a similar exchange about insects in resin. Any offers for next week?

What the…?

Geek übersite Slashdot has just posted a review of Haruki Murakami’s Wild Sheep Chase and Dance Dance Dance. What is the world coming to?

Actually, I’m just checking to see what happens when I upload a graphic, since I’ve not done that yet with MT. But still, if you haven’t read the book, I heartily recommend it. One’s man’s account of a very personal war, against (seemingly) everybody in the Balkans and his own drug addiction. It sounds ghastly, but manages to be strangely compelling, even inspiring.

Here’s the Amazon UK link.

Testing to see if Moveable Type 2.2.1 installed correctly. If you can see this, I guess it did.
One of these days, I may even get around to writing something interesting in this blog. But I wouldn’t count on it.

Test entry for self. Please ignore. [edited]

Remind me to give up sooner. While I was suffering some browser death stuff there, fundamentally that gallery system just doesn’t play nicely with my web host. C’est la vie.

Meanwhile, I’m wondering if I’m really going to bother blogging like this. Somehow I doubt it. Enjoy it while you can, gentle reader.