I just ran across a spam which pretends (rather sloppily) to be an e-card notification. However, it appears to want to install something in order to view it… since I’ve got Flash and Java on this Mac, I am not inclined to trust what it might want to install (presumably it’s a Windows thing). Might be malware… just thought I’d mention it.
Well, almost everyone already knows, but I’ve not posted it here yet so I’m going to, because this is a major change in my life.
A few weeks ago I was informed that I have been granted full funding to do a PhD in Computer Science at the University of Nottingham. Last week I handed in my notice, and will be finishing work on the last Friday in August. Term starts on the 26th of September.
It’s really quite exciting.
Well, I’ve read Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Was it worth the wait?
Yes.
Rowling’s writing has definitely improved. The tone of the book is slightly different, the characters have moved on, the plot has progressed… and it continues to do so. Roll on book seven!
By now just about everybody knows or thinks they know intimate details about what happened in London on the seventh of July 2005. Four bombs; three in the Underground, one on a bus. About fifty dead (so far), several hundred injured to varying degrees. I’ve been trying to think what to say about it, as I feel it deserves having something said about it, but I really haven’t been able to come up with much. I’ve read a number of other people’s comments on the matter, ranging from the sensible to the sympathetic to the absolutely absurd and offensive, to the absolutely absurd and offensive to the French. Some people clearly don’t have a clue.
Much has been written about the response to the attacks by Londoners. To be honest, I wasn’t surprised by how people dealt with it. They have, after all, faced years of attacks by the IRA and carried on going to work in the morning. This is still a significant event, of course — fifty people are dead — but we have seen and endured worse. We can endure this without losing our culture or our way of life.
I find myself completely baffled by the mindset of the people who could orchestrate and carry out such an attack though. The concept of deliberately causing such explosions, at a time and place to kill and injure as many people as possible, is something I cannot hold in my mind with any consideration that I might carry out such an action. Yes I know, I engage in simulated violence playing Grand Theft Auto on a regular basis, but that’s far removed from the real world. When real people suffer as a result of my actions, I simply cannot conceive of doing it.
So what kind of mind does a person have to have to do such a deed? That’s what worries me.
Powered by WordPress