May 2013
3 posts
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Thumbs Up for Eurovision 2013
So, I think I’ve whittled 39 entries down to a dozen favourites. This is a continuation of my original post.
Thumbs up to:[[MORE]]
Italy: Marco Mengoni - L’Essenziale - 7th. Sounds like an Italian version of Ronan Keating but whatever, it was good enough to make me check out the rest.
United Kingdom: Bonnie Tyler - Believe In Me - 19th. With Bonnie Tyler, I’m not surprised we...
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Has Eurovision become better over the years?
Eurovision spawns listening parties, yearly rituals and full blown pilgrimages.
As for myself, I freely admit to not being the biggest Eurovision fan but I do try to stay in the loop with what happens, in passing anyway. For this year’s, I randomly picked a track from the Eurovision 2013 Grand Final playlist to listen to. It was Italy’s Marco Mengoni with his entry...
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November 2012
1 post
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Random Thoughts: Focus
Problem: Experiencing a period of increased distractibility. Attention drifting to distant, or “exterior” sounds, like people talking downstairs.
Workaround: Institute a louder, closer source of sound that I can control. Got music playing and volume turned up.
Note: It seems rather hit and miss how various conditions are diagnosed because there’s so much overlap in diagnostic...
October 2012
3 posts
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5 Awesome Halloween Light Shows
Compared to us here in the UK, over in the US they’ve really got a knack for doing certain things bigger and larger scale. Halloween is one good example. Check out these amazing installations synchronised to music:
[Or watch the whole playlist here]
Thriller (Michael Jackson) - KJ92508 The way the pumpkins light up to mark the path taken by the footsteps at the start of the song,...
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SciTech Editorial - Freshers Issue
So, a while back I promised you (or whoever reads my blog anyway) and myself that in an effort to keep my blog regularly updated, I’d put up articles and things that I write for Spark*, the student newspaper at my university The University of Reading. So this is me making a start on that. We used to have a “In Other News” column but I decided to re-purpose it into an Editorial....
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Gangnam Style: Top Parodies/Tributes/Remixes
When a viral hit or meme reaches a certain critical mass, anyone who wasn’t paying attention… well, you just gotta.
As is often the case when it comes to music viral hits from genres outside my usual mix, the first thing I usually look at is parody. Then any tributes/covers or remixes and then finally I’ll look at the original. I find it a good deconstruction of the meme and it...
September 2012
1 post
Queued Posts...
So, I’ve been incredibly busy with various stuff so I’ve not been on Tumblr in ages. Is it bad that having felt an urge to blog something, after completing the post I then have to queue for the end of next month because it’s a bit premature to talk about it right now?
May 2012
3 posts
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Will get round to finishing this game when I have...
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So, it's been a while...
Right, I haven’t blogged in months but I am still alive. I’ve just been more active in other places, like Twitter.
In terms of content, I’ll soon be posting up new articles on a (hopefully) regular basis - but more on that in a moment.
Anyway, how is everyone? I’ve been doing alright. I’ve been keeping quite busy actually. In the past few months I’ve been...
January 2012
7 posts
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Really need to use Wikipedia today?
Calm down dear, it’s only Javascript!
As you’ll discover, if you didn’t know already, Wikipedia is staging a 24 hour blackout which began 0500 UTC today.
So much has been made of the Wikipedia blackout… but what if you really need to use it? In case you don’t know how to get Wikipedia back because you didn’t follow the link to “Learn more” then...
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I want to cuddle...
…a large wolf :/
Originally posted on my Facebook but I suspect there may be others who’ve experienced a similar predicament so I’m sharing my story here! :)
The desire to lie in bed cuddling big cuddly toy increases proportionally to how worn-down I’m feeling.
Lestat de Lioncourt used to curl up with his mastiffs for warmth and comfort but a cuddly toy is going to...
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The Serotonin Experiment: Epilogue
For the full story behind this, see this.
November-Present
Things have got pretty bad. Towards the end of November I was seeing the GP repeatedly, trying to get him to give me something to stop me being so debilitatingly tired all the time.
The only thing he was willing to offer was to increase my dose of sertraline from 50mg to 100mg- because I found that the 50mg dose seemed to stop me...
November 2011
1 post
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It's not counselling I need...
endorphinmachine:
I wish there was more support in general for people with ME/CFS.
About the extent of it is “Here try these tablets and if you don’t die in the mean time come back and see me in a month.”
We don’t get offered counseling, any kind of therapy eg. art therapy, no support groups, no nothing.
I don’t know if that’s the case for everywhere else, but where I live it seems to be.
I...
October 2011
10 posts
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Priorities...
endorphinmachine:
Doing NaNoWriMo this year.
Are any of my followers?
I set my word count goal for 30,000 words. (I set it lower than 50k because of my ME/CFS, it’s kind of unrealistic to think that with my brain fog I’d be able to churn out 1,500+ words a day.)
So anyway, it’s my first year attempting NaNoWriMo.
Urgh. I wanted to last year. I planned to this year. But between health and...
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What Occupy Wall Street’s critics are really... →
wilwheaton:
Critics of Occupy Wall Street have a transparent objective: They want to persuade blue collar whites and ordinary middle class Americans to turn on the movement for cultural reasons — because its optics offend these voters’ cultural instincts — even if they broadly agree with its general principles and critique of what’s gone wrong.
This dovetails with a quote from John Cole I...
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The Serotonin Experiment: Mega Update, Days 11-19
For the full story behind this, see this.
Days 11-19: Wednesday 5th - Thursday 13th October
With the start of term approaching, things had become busy. I was focussing on making progress with my project work- or trying to anyway.
My GP assured me that as a side effect, my jumpiness would subside over time.
While at the Medical Practice, I discovered something annoying: starting this month,...
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That awkward case when...
…there’s someone irritating in a group you hang out with who you just have to put up with
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The Serotonin Experiment: Day 9 & Day 10
For the full story behind this, see this.
Day 9: Monday 3rd October 2011
Heatwave continues. Again not much to say here because I would just be repeating what I said the previous few days! (Too hot, can’t think!)
I noticed that I got a link wrong in the main article. Fixed it now. Not that it matters much because I doubt these posts have that many readers. I’m making these posts...
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The Serotonin Experiment: Day 8
For the full story behind this, see this.
Day 8: Sunday 2nd October 2011
I was wrong. It was not cooler today. Well, it started off cool first thing in the morning but as the day went on it just got hotter.
I think I’ve noticed something that may be a side effect of this sertraline I’m taking: I seem to be quite jumpy these past few days. Just now I was in the kitchen and I jumped...
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The Serotonin Experiment: Day 6 & Day 7
For the full story behind this, see this.
Day 6: Friday 30th September 2011
Heatwave continues. Not much to say here because I would just be repeating what I said the previous two days! (Too hot, can’t think!)
Day 7: Saturday 1st October 2011
It felt relatively cooler today than previous days. I say relatively because I was still roasting- it couldn’t have been more than a few...
September 2011
15 posts
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The Serotonin Experiment: Day 5
For the full story behind this, see this.
Day 5: Thursday 29th September 2011
Can’t function in this heatwave.
Still getting temperatures in the high 20s (°C). I think I’m starting to acclimatise at least so perhaps tomorrow will be better.
With my windows open, my door open and the fan on, I finally started finding the temperature tolerable. But it’s 11pm. Damn.
This is...
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The Serotonin Experiment: Day 4
For the full story behind this, see this.
Day 4: Wednesday 28th September 2011
Today was horrible. But not because of the sertraline.
Apart from the initial reaction on Sunday when I start taking the sertraline, I haven’t had any adverse effects. Although perhaps it’s still too early to tell.
No, today was horrible because it was so hot. We were getting highs of 27 °C....
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Serotonin Experiment: Day 3
For the full story behind this, see this.
Day 3: Tuesday 27th September 2011
I actually missed my dose today because I got carried away with my new found wakefulness and went to sleep late, last night. I then got up today around 1pm. Was tired either because of that or because I missed my morning dose.
I know I shouldn’t have done it but I ended up having a nap in the evening. I woke up...
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The Serotonin Experiment: Day 2
For the full story behind this, read this.
Day 2: Monday 26th September 2011
Second dose this morning. I’ve been trying to work out whether yesterday’s apparent positive effects were indeed due to this sertraline that I’ve started taking. The scientist in me is mindful that it could have been a placebo effect- that I felt better simply because I had started taking something...
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First look at OnLive
Gamers in US and Canada have now enjoyed access to cloud gaming service OnLive for over a year. Just when we were feeling left out the service was launched here in the UK last Thursday, 22nd September.
Pros
Play a game without having to install or download it first
Easy to try new games: Demos are likewise playable instantly so no more downloading a game demo, installing it and then finding out...
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The Serotonin Experiment: Day 1
For the full story behind this, read this.
Day 1: Sunday 25th September 2011
I took my first dose this morning.
I actually got my prescription on Friday but the instructions are to take one in the morning so I had planned to take it yesterday morning but I overslept and it was about 1pm by the time I got up. But I had an early-ish night last night and insomnia notwithstanding, I was up early...
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The Serotonin Experiment
Background
I was diagnosed with CFS/ME (Chronic Fatigue Syndrome/Myalgic Encephalopathy) at the start of 2010. Not so long after, I wrote a somewhat long post discussing what I was going through and what my plan was.
That was during my temporary withdrawal from my course for the 2009-2010 academic year. Since then I’ve attempted to complete the last year of my degree on a part time basis....
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Heck Ya Doctor Who: Fact: "I Love Doctor Who" is a... →
heckyadoctorwho:
Me and my sister, who are (obviously) HUGE Whovians, went to a cocktail party tonight. Both of us have TARDIS iPhone cases.
While at the party, we were introduced to our father’s partner’s son (who, sadly, is closer in age with my sister).
As we talked with him, he asked “Is that a police box on your phone?”. Expecting to (as usual) have to explain why we have Police Public...
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Tax us more, say wealthy Europeans →
Because we’re in it together.
Talking about “savings” and cuts without talking about tax rises for the wealthiest doesn’t make sense. Cuts may produce so called “savings” in the very short term but are ultimately costly in the long term.
I agreed with Warren Buffett’s article. It’s only fair. It’s in a significant part thanks to society that...
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Shame on you, Sarah Peel... Do your research!
To follow up on my previous post, it seems the article is question has been updated.
It’s still at http://www.bsckids.com/2011/08/90210s-mark-sheppard-joins-supernatural-this-season/ and it’s STILL erroneous, even ignoring the URL.
There’s a big photo of James Patrick Stuart but that doesn’t distract from the fact that it still refers to writer/producer Sera Gamble as a...
August 2011
14 posts
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“Many things are possible given the time. Many things are possible given the...”
– Someone find having difficulty finding motivation
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Let's Kill Hitler: About River Song... (Spoilers!)
Spoilers! Don’t read this if you’ve not seen the episode…
After River brings The Doctor back to life after he dies, Amy tells her that apparently River used up all her remaining regenerations to do so. I’ve been thinking about how Time-Lords are typically limited to 12 regenerations.
Questions:
How many regenerations did she have left? Did she start with a full dozen or...
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Sims Gone Wrong →
Got a lot of laughs from this Tumblr. I’ve never played the Sims but I’m starting to get an idea of what I may have been missing. XD
(via leymoo)
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