(no subject)

If I don't like doing something, but it doesn't really cost me anything significant and it doesn't really cause me pain to do it, I just find it pointless and it would make the person I'm doing it for feel appreciated and happy...

[Poll #135875]

Books galore

The BBC have released the results of a poll of 140,000 people of their favourite books.

The list is in alphabetical order at the moment - the final results will be voted on in the autumn.

Oh, the coolness

Having now seen the trailers for Half Life 2, Doom 3 and Halo 2 I can happily say that they all look dead pretty, but Half Life 2 is going to be the one I drool over the most.

Doom 3 looks insanely good - but is very glossy. It looks like it'll be a fun, frightening 1st person scare-em up.

Halo 2 doesn't look as pretty, and seems to be basically Halo 1 with extra nobbly bits. Nice nobbly bits, to be sure, but I didn't see anything I couldn't live without.

Half Life 2, on the other hand, is amazing. The graphics don't look as polished as Doom3, but the animation looks more lifelike, the engine looks more flexible and the whole package just looks unbelievable. Watching a demo where they shoot out bits of fence and have it fall naturally into pieces where you shot it, or having rubble bouncing off of things following the laws of physics, or people lip-synching perfectly to the dialogue or watching a video camera being thrown about the screen while several displays show the view (upside down at times). Very, very impressive.

You can get the trailers here: Half Life 2, Doom3 and Halo2.

You'll need Bittorrent to download any of these, but I recommend you install that anyway, because it's a fantastic downloader for large files (if you're interested in why, see here.

If you have a problem trying to download any of them - right-click and save the file, then open it up from your computer. That seems to force it to work.

Alert!

Just a reminder - Erin's birthday as of midnight, so those of you who are Edinburghside should be in Opium from 9 and then off to Vain at 11:30(ish).

I'll be making a list of those not present and emailing them naked pictures of myself.

Goddamit, will you stop!

I've already bookmarked 6 different Matrix Reloaded reviews/discussions! I'm having to skip-read chunks of my friends list and I'm going to see it the first moment I possibly can (8:30pm on Wednesday).

Will all people who go and see this film please refrain from saying anything whatsoever about it that's not behind a cut! Or at least the words ***Spoiler Warning***

Thank you.

Mmmmm

Dinner today was ginger chicken and pineapple stir-fry on a bed of Beansprouts (lightly friend with balsamic vinegar) with petit pois on the side.

It's amazing what you get the urge to take pictures of when you've got a webcam right there.

Obligations and Responsibilities

Kimberly A responsed to a previous post saying:

I don't think that someone else's potential happiness makes anyone else obligated to do anything for them.

and I think she's very right.

One of the changes between childhood and adulthood is that you stop having rules and obligations enforced upon you. Children are very morally absolutist. They know what right and wrong are, commandments handed down from on high. They have obligations they must carry out.

Adults don't have that - adults have responsibility - the knowledge that whatever your actions, you are responsible for their effects on other people. Adults don't tell the truth because "Lying is a sin", they tell the truth because they believe the consequences for lying are worse than the consequences for telling the truth. An adult doesn't keep their word because to fail to do so would be 'naughty', but because they recognise that failing to keep your word means that people trust you less and the trust of your associates is valuable to them. An adult world is grey and murky and full of different shades of morality because in the end, adults realise that they're the ones who makes the choices and they're the ones who have to live with the consequences.

And no, I don't think that there are nearly enough adults in the world.

And on a lighter note

Nice NY Times article on dating a blogger (and other problems with making your private life public).

Heather Armstrong, a 27-year-old Web designer from Utah whose blog is at www.dooce.com, might be the ultimate example of blogging gone awry. Her parents are devout Mormons, she said, but because they are also technophobes, she felt perfectly comfortable publishing an entry on her site in which she harshly criticized her Mormon upbringing.

Unfortunately for Ms. Armstrong, her brother in Seattle stumbled across her Web site that very day and alerted her parents to the entry. After that, Ms. Armstrong said, "all hell broke loose." "Next to my parents getting divorced 20 years ago," Ms. Armstrong said, "it was the worst thing that ever happened to my family. It was shocking for everyone."