Weekend catch-up

Yesterday was, I think, the first day I didn't manage to post some self-generated content on my journal this year. I'd have loved to, but I didn't really wake up until eleven, and we left at 12:30 to have breakfast out, then see joexnz and red_phil for ajaz_nz's gaming session. I haven't roleplayed at all in months, and not outside of my standard gaming session for muich longer, so I was a tad nervous, but it was great fun. It was basically a dungeon-crawl, using a hacked-together beta version of Dungeon World. It was exactly as serious as we wanted it to be (i.e. sometimes very, sometimes not), the system seems to mostly work well, and we all had a good time slaying goblins, fighting the undead, and (in my case) making off with huge amounts of magic power (with a side-order of lich-possession).

Then we headed off to Brian (WINOLJ)'s birthday party, which was hitchhiker's-related, due to his forthcoming age being 42. Julie went as a telephone sanitiser, I went in my dressing gown, and we had multiple Zaphods (with varying qualities of second head), and lilaanne was there as a sentient shade of the colour blue. Lots of good conversation occurred, and we arrived home rather tired at 2am, sharing a taxi with lizzieandari.

Today I will have to do another post, to entirely catch up with my resolution. Probably about work, and thus friends-locked. I occasionally wonder how many of the people reading this _aren't_ logged in, and I can think of a way of telling, but frankly I'm not sure I can be bothered putting in the effort...

Interesting Links for 22-01-2012

• Where Livejournal is going
  (tags: lj business livejournal )
• Alien, as told from the point of view of the cat
  (tags: alien movies cats viaNancyLebov )
• Could Myanmar's u-turn towards democracy offer a blueprint for North Korea?
  (tags: Myanmar democracy NorthKorea )
• Car makers are moving away from buttons and knobs - and why this is a really stupid idea
  (tags: viaSkreidle viask cars ui design )
• The amazing amount of computing power behind Hugo (which you should all see, it's amazing)
  (tags: viaSkreidle movies cgi computers hugo MartinScorsese )
• 2011 Ninth-Warmest Year on Record
  (tags: globalwarming nasa )

Anyone here good with numbers?

I'm currently looking at the difference in price between going to a Samsung Galaxy Nexus by getting a contract (£35-ish/month) or by buying up front (£480+10/month). This works out to about £120-£140 cheaper by buying the phone myself, depending on exactly how I do it.

My question, then, is about discounting future costs. If I spend £480 now rather than in chunks then I lose the utility of that money over the next two years. How does one account for that?

I assume there's a simple equation I could plug in that would tell me to stop being so stupid and just buy the fucking phone, but I'd like to be sure...

Sometimes I'm happy to just watch a bunch of musicians being amazingly talented

I mean, everyone here is a virtuoso, why _not_ get them all in the same place and have them all show off?

via tanyad