Farewell to the King of the World!

Ha bloody ha! If you could see me now you would see what I look like when I am dancing and clicking my heels together. Why? Because that tosser coke dealer who moved into the house across the street got pinched by The Filth today. To quote the local police…

Occurrence Type: Drug Dealer Arrested

Occurrence #: BA0934586

Date: 20 August 2009

Details:

On the 20th of August 2009, the Barrie Police Drug Enforcement Unit arrested a 25 year old male at his residence on Owen Street.

The male, charged with: Trafficking Cocaine, Possession of Cocaine and Fail to Comply with Probation will appear in Barrie Provincial Court on August 21st for bail.

This investigation is part of a police/community effort to address local concerns in the downtown core. A number of uniform and investigative officers have been working diligently around the clock to address these community concerns.

Not just that guy, but the whole cockroach nest got cleaned out. The landlords parents turned up as well so I got to entertain myself by thanking them for bringing prostitutes, cocaine dealers, addicts and other low lives into our neighbourhood. Farewell fucker! You are King of the World!!

Demotivators 3, again for the lolz

Demotivators 2, again for the lolz

Demotivators, again for the lolz

Book reviewed: The Archimedes Codex by Reviel Netz & William Noel

This was a $5 pickup from my local grocery store. I buy books there regularly, the actual readability is pretty hit or miss since all of these books get there through the remnants process.

If you did calculus or geometry in high school then you you were unwittingly taught by the Greek mathematician Archimedes. Pretty much anything discovered in mathematics right up to the 20th Century is based on the shoulders of the work this guy did 2300 years ago. Much of what he wrote has been lost in time and is only known from excerpts quoted in others work or in commentaries on his papers written before the medieval period. This book is about his third and believed lost manuscript that describes some core parts of what we consider modern math. This manuscript was recycled and used to record some Christian prayers in the 13th Century in Byzantium.

In the 1920’s this manuscript resurfaced and in a series of accidental and deliberate turns, was almost completely destroyed after having miraculously survived for centuries. The book details the efforts of a specialist team to recover and read the lost books of Archimedes. Amazing tale, brilliantly told (considering how dry the actual material found in the codex). I ate it in a weekend.

Technical books make me sleepy

Because of my work I am forced to read heavily technical books on a range of subjects, development, project management, security. Yawn fucking yawn. The part I find difficult is the most crucial, turning three pages without nodding off to sleep. The trouble is that these things don’t have a plot, have neither an antagonist nor a protagonist and frequently wander between the trivial repetition of the banal and stunningly wooden complexities that make ones eyes water.

I try my best but I am afraid that the ones beside my bed are unable to keep me awake for longer than ten minutes. Is there a trick in order to complete this? I am thinking the best idea is finding a dull ass job that doesn’t require an education. Hold on, I used to have one of those in municipal government! And I left because I couldn’t stay awake at my desk? Crom save me, I am screwed.

Again for the lolz

I do this just for the lolz

Hatched out of an old sleeping bag

I have always had an interest in genetics and over the past few years the discipline of geographics, or the application of our knowledge of the mutation rates of human DNA against theories of human migration. Up until now my engagement has been limited to reading popular books on the subject.

Now that’s about to change as my wahine bought me into the National Geographic Genographic Project for my birthday. I buggered around for a while before I took the required cheek swabs and sent them off. Now I am waiting for my results to be processed, they are at step 2 out of 3. If, as I expect, the outcome is that I am a member of an ancient line of bad motherfuckers you can expect to hear more on the subject. Ha!

Featured medal: GV Imperial Service Order

Here’s my latest addition to my collection of service and campaign medals, an Imperial Service Order from the period of George V, 1910-1935.

This one is named to a bloke called Albert Smith. Interestingly my research shows that Albert was a biologist who published widely on mollusks and was admitted to the order in 1911. Mollusks. Mmmmm delicious tasty mollusks.

Wiki has a short article on the medal, “… The Imperial Service Order was established by King Edward VII in August 1902. It was awarded to the administration and clerical staff of the Civil Service throughout the British Empire for long and meritorious service. Normally a person must have served for 25 years to become eligible, but this might be shortened to 16 years for those serving in unsanitary locations. Both men and women were eligible, and receipients of this one-class order are entitled to use the post-nominal letters ‘ISO’…”.