Looking through some old comments that I’d left to moulder in the moderation queue, I cam across this gem:

why will we never know how dinosaurs died because we never knew what they were like i think that we will never know what and how they went extinct and you scintist stop tring so hard

First things first, this comment was left on a page listing 15mm scale miniature dinosaurs. Yes, a page about toy dinosaurs that doesn’t discuss the science of dinosaurs or the reason for their extinction at all.

It is true that we may never know with 100% certainty what caused the extinction of all non-avian dinosaurs some sixty five million years ago. However, their is a large and growing body of evidence that lets us form a number of hyoptheses. Falling sea levels, increased volcanic activity and a massive meteorite impact probably all played their part.

Further study into the K-T extinction will not only tell us more about the end of the dinosaurs but will provide us with insights into the effect that climate change can have on the Earth and the creatures that live here. A subject that is of obvious importance to all of us.

Dear Mrs pink_weasel’s firstname and surname run together as one word,

Your AEG Washing Machine is now over 3 years old …

First, I’m opening mail addressed to someone else but I could see who it was from and as getting the blasted thing fixed is a priority…

Secondly, the mangled name does exactly fill you with confidence does it?

Thirdly, we bought the washing machine when we moved into the flat, in August 2005. Um, something doesn’t add up there.

So, the dilemma, as the damn thing keeps breaking taking out some cover on it would probably end up saving us some money, but as they can’t get basic details like the name of the person who bought it, or when it was bought, correct I’m not really sure.

Via sharikkamur, ( Offensive Religion Meme )

Very True Mood: confused

( Old Toys )

For some reason I never had any Transformers (my brother had a porsche that turned into a robot but from a copycat range), so I’m not sure whether the above is a good result or not. Parts of the description are disturbingly accurate though.

( Older languages )

I have a week off work. What shall I do with myself? Ooo, the possibilities are endless. I’ll probably spend a lot of time sleeping and surfing the web.

The last two weeks or so has been busy enough even with the drawback of needing to go and be stroppy in the office every day. It all started with the work summer party at London Zoo, which didn’t seem to involve eating any of the animals, but pink_weasel got to molest a llama and only just failed in her mission to smuggle a penguin out with her. Last Saturday I attended a wedding where I got into a bubble blowing contest with a small child.

The weasel and I went to see Elling on Wednesday and it’s every bit as good as the reviews have been saying.

And last night was the much anticipated launch party for the new visitlondon.com web site. Which I still haven’t blogged about properly. Oh well.

I need a holiday. Oh good, I’ve got one.

Very True Mood: optimistic

Seeing as it’s his birthday, it seems like a perfect opportunity to plug my brother’s blog - where he writes about film reviews, scottish politics and his travels in roughly that order.

I’m watching the first episode of Dirt on the telly, and suddenly realised that Don the paparazzo is played by Ian Hart and not, as I thought, Max Perlich.

Oh, and last night I was apparantly saying “stupid, stupid, stupid” in my sleep. I wonder who I was dreaming about, but where do I start drawing up the short list?

It lives.

More later.

The thing I really love about Doctor Who fandom is that it’s very, very, very good at getting itself worked up into a good froth. And the reactions to the latest piece of casting news (not be confused with the day before’s news) are exceeding all expectations.

Very True Mood: mischievous

Via ggreig, the Programmer Personality Test

Your programmer personality type is: DLSB

You’re a Doer.

You are very quick at getting tasks done. You believe the outcome is the most important part of a task and the faster you can reach that outcome the better. After all, time is money.

You like coding at a Low level.

You’re from the old school of programming and believe that you should have an intimate relationship with the computer. You don’t mind juggling registers around and spending hours getting a 5% performance increase in an algorithm.

You work best in a Solo situation.

The best way to program is by yourself. There’s no communication problems, you know every part of the code allowing you to write the best programs possible.

You are a liBeral programmer.

Programming is a complex task and you should use white space and comments as freely as possible to help simplify the task. We’re not writing on paper anymore so we can take up as much room as we need.

Bearing in mind that I’m not actually a programmer (XSLT so doesn’t count. My PHP is mere dabbling. So the closest I come is JavaScript which forces so many atypical habits on you that it distorts the results) that’s not a bad assessment. If was to program full time I’d probably tend more towards High level but otherwise my habits would be as described.

I’m now scared to think what some people I know will come out as.