Diary of a Deipnosophist

iheart-tbagging asked: Oi kid, what is your opinion on euthanasia? Tell me what you think or I will punch a hipster

I think that euthanasia should be legal in the UK or that we should not imprison those who help loved ones to get to Switzerland.

Although I believe it should be legal, I think there needs to be several things in place to make sure that the system cannot be abused. Every case must be assessed by a panel of experts in their fields. The panel would consist of a psychologist, the persons GP and several people specially trained in making correct and just decisions in this area.

This panel would decide if the person did, truly, wish to die. They would see if they were being pressured into by family or any other external influences. The panel would also decide if that person had an unclouded mind. Be sure that their decision to die was not effected by any mental illness. Finally they would assess the persons reasoning behind their decision, whether or not it was a declining quality of life or just a weariness of life. They would decide if they had a just reason to want death as an escape.

This system will be unfair, making it easier for people with illnesses like MND to get approval from the panel. Due to the degenerative nature of things like Alzheimer’s and dementia, where the mind is affected, it would be very hard or impossible to be sure that death is what the sufferer wanted.

Unfortunately, If this Euthanasia is to be made legal in the UK then it will be a very strict system. It shares an argument with the death penalty. If you allow someone to die, who didn’t really want it. (They were pressured by family or had a mental illness) Then you and the panel are responsible for killing this person and the nation will be in uproar. They system would have to refuse service to any persons where they were even slightly unsure about motives that the nation would probably cry out about that as well.

We have a right to live however we want; I believe we have the right to die whenever we want too. However, I don’t think that we, as a nation, are ready for it quite yet.

Anonymous asked: How or where do you find (presumably atheist) women to date?

Good question. Lately I have been having a good think about the nature of bars, clubs and parties in regard to the women attending each.

I have found that meaningful relationships are formed after talking to a person and therefore clubs are out, if this is what you are looking for. Clubs do, however, serve a purpose. They provide a place to go to have fun and look for other people with whom you might like to have more fun. It is a place where judging a person on their looks is normal because there is no way to hear what they are saying. To sum up, a club is where you find an attractive hook-up and not a soul mate.

Bars are a good place for making friends and meeting girls. Don’t buy every girl a drink, or even any girl unless you really want to. If a girl is interested in you, or is enjoying your conversation/company then she will stay and talk to you regardless of whether you bought her a drink. Ask questions and listen intently. Gently steer the conversation either in the direction of her childhood to try to form an emotional connection or towards a topic you are really interested in. (To see if there would be any interesting conversation in your relationship) Maybe learn a magic trick or two. Don’t take the magic seriously; make it into a joke by saying you bet a friend it wouldn’t work, or something similar. Bars are a place where friends and relationships are made and chilled fun is to be had.

Parties have the best of both worlds. If you are in the dancing room, you can pretend it’s a club, or you can sit in the kitchen or garden to just talk to people. Make jokes and be prepared to laugh at yourself if anyone makes a joke at your expense. A long-term relationship wont work if the girl thinks you can’t take a bit of banter. Getting them on their own is always good, that way you can have a good conversation without being interrupted.

The suggestions above are all rather alcohol fuelled. They work best because confidence is key and a drink and a half gives you all the confidence you need. Find places around your town that hold evening classes in something you’re interested in. Join groups for sports that you enjoy and most of all. By being part of these groups you will meet women who have at least one thing in common with you and you wont have to think too hard for first date ideas. Don’t be afraid of being rejected. The only answers you can get are YES and NO to ‘want to go for a meal later?’ Remember, don’t dig for a yes, leave them a number and walk away. They’re a stranger; you never have to see them again if you don’t want to.

Discovering The 3rd Dimension

FIrstly, sorry it has been so long since my last blog post. I had some stuff…

As you can probably guess from the title, I have decided to talk about 3d.

I am personally not a fan of 3d films. Not because they are mainstream and not because I want to be different. The glasses irritate my face and make it hard for me to concentrate on the film. Maybe when they get rid of the glasses, up the frame rate and eliminate strobing I will become a fan.

The thing I really wanted to talk about was 3d printing. You can have your own 3d printer for as $1,300. (makerbot) Think about what it means to have a 3d printer, you can print any spare item you need. Remember how the back of a gameboy always used to fall off and break? Well, now you can print a new one! Moved house and need shower curtain rings? Print some off! The printers at the moment can use many things instead of ink. They can use food, liquid plastic, hot resin, layers of paper or powders and glue. The powders can be any metal. Need a hip replacement? Print one out. New part for your car? Print one out. The possibiltes are innumerable.

Think about the consequences this will have on the manufacturing industry. There will be fewer jobs in an industry where all items are now created by printers. However, in  a world where we are trying to be green we can all see the benefits of being able to email someone a physical item. Instead of having to ship an item across the world we can now just send them a file and they can print it off at their current location.

There are companies around now that will print things off in 3d and send them to you for a small price. (compared to buying a printer) Shapeways offer this service. It’s really fun and useful to be able to draw something out on your computer and have it delivered to your door. Prototyping has never been easier.

Internet Browsers

What internet browser are you using? Do you know about all the other browsers available and their individual merits? But, most importantly, did you know that Google is dropping functionality for some older browsers?

Google spends loads of money each year making sure that all of their services like calendars and mail can be used by anyone in any browser. However, older browsers do not have the same level of support for website meaning that Google has to maintain many different versions of each service for use on each browser. This takes a lot of money to do, keep and store. The other reason behind them doing this is because older browsers can be insecure and not sophisticated enough to deal with the latest websites.

Google have decided that they are not going to maintain functionality for older browsers any longer. This means, if you are using an older browser you might see a drop off in some of the things you can do in Google applications. This is no real problem; all you need to do is update your browser. While you’re at it, why not see if different browser would be better for you. Check back later for a post about browsers.

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A More Mac Muddled Mind

The other day I thought that I was confused over getting a mac. I have since heard about an almost unbelievable story about the lengths one Chinese teenager went to just to own an IPad 2. Click below to read more.

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The Mac Muddled Mind

I need a new computer, more specifically a laptop. I need something that allows me to do work on the move. I have a desktop that functions fine but doesn’t quite hit the high specifications required to run nice looking games on “ultra”. What should I do? Click below to read more.

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Tawdry Technology

Today I was thinking about technology, computers in particular. Everybody can use them but a much smaller percentage knows how they work. Most people can open Word and write an essay or go online and send an email. But how many people could install Word or create a wireless home network connected to the internet? Are you a computer wizz? Click below to find out.

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Alternative Voting

I appreciate that a lot of my readers are from outside of the UK, this paragraph is for you. On Thursday the 5th of May 2011 the UK is voting on a referendum to change the way we vote. At the moment we use “First Past the Post” we have the option to switch to “Alternative Voting” the first step to “Proportional Representation”. Read on, tomorrow could be a record day for democracy.

With the vote tomorrow, I thought it was time that I made up my mind. The first thing I did was educate myself to how the system works. At first glance it seems to be fairer with more people’s votes actually counting.

In case you are unaware as to the working of the system, watch this video http://bit.ly/hwyPZ3. It explains it clearly. I will wait for you to go watch that now…….

Glad your back, from this point on I will assume you know what I’m talking about. With the current system, FPTP it’s less about who has the most votes but who has the best distribution of supporters. If you have 40~% of the population voting for you but they are evenly distributed between all constituencies then you will probably not win very many seats. This is unfair because if people everywhere are voting for you then it probably means that your policies are more suited to everyone than if all of your voters are concentrated in the rich constituencies.

People say that AV will lead to more coalitions, yes; this however is not a bad thing. This makes the parties think “How can we work with the other parties for the good of the people”. Do you really want a system that gives a majority that you didn’t want, a system where your vote against them is meaningless?

The other advantage of AV is that it makes MPs work harder for your vote. In areas where a certain party wins by FPTP with 30% of the votes this becomes apparent. The candidates have to try and secure the “Second Vote” of the people that didn’t give them their “First Vote” or they might not win.

What this means for you, it is no more confusing when you got to vote. All you have to do is rank the people you would like to win, or not.

By this point you might realise that I am voting YES tomorrow. Now i would like to address some of the points I saw on a “Vote NO” poster.

1. People who vote for fringe parties can have their vote counted more than once.

This does not mean that they get more than one vote. It means that when their first choice is eliminated their vote will be counted again and added to the votes for their second choice. This means that someone will physically count their vote more than once but it will not count more than once.

2. AV is a Lib Dem fix

This is not a rational argument. They are using this because the Lib Dems are out of favour at the moment for breaking their promise on Tuition Fees, a promise that would have caused the tax payer to put the students through instead of them paying it themselves.

3. It is complicated and expensive

This is rubbish. Although it is more complicated it is not more complicated for the voter, just the people counting the votes. You are not going to be asked to do any tricky maths in the voting booth just to put a “1” instead of an “X”. If you can manage it you can also rank the parties you want to win. As for being expensive, they are correct. It is more expensive. Not massively so, it’s not suddenly going to cost us £20 each in taxes. Can you put a price on true democracy? Where more votes would matter than ever before?

Vote YES to AV

Children

I recently had a dream where I had a baby. I myself didn’t give birth to the child myself, that was my partner whom I do not remember. I do remember not minding and actually being quite happy about the whole thing.

I have noticed that recently, when I was seeing my younger brother and sister (7 and 9 respectively) that I coped much better and that I actually enjoyed taking care of them. Today, I was seeing family. They have two children (1 and 3) I even enjoyed holding and entertaining them.

This comes as a surprise to me because up until quite recently I have found the whole baby/child thing repulsive. Every time I saw a baby or heard one I would find it massively amusing but now I just find myself smiling. It’s a change. Maybe once I find the right person I won’t have trouble with settling down.

But yeah, not for a few years yet.

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Happiness and Haters

Haters are essentially a good thing. If nobody hates your blog then it simply means that you have not broken out of your niche. When you become main stream and lots of different people start to view your blog you will enevetably get those who don’t like what they read. Rejoyce! You have broken into the vastness of the web.

Haters get no say here. Not here.

Everyone else, please keep sending me your messages.

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