Peter Sheil

What, an update?

2009-05-20T12:05:48Z

Today's news:

cute ducklings
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8058221.stm

medical use of a power tool
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/8058771.stm

speed
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/cumbria/8059437.stm

There, that should set you up for the day with the important things in life!

Peace
peter

Dangers of Ice

2009-02-06T11:46:10Z

I hear that both Severn bridges are shut due to the danger of ice ... not on the road surface but falling from the support cables. Apparently several car windscreens were broken! Glad I'm not travelling that way until this evening.

Peace
peter

Quotes of the Day

2009-01-14T09:20:19Z

If you can find something everyone agrees on, it's wrong.
Mo Udall

A nation is a society united by delusions about its ancestry and by common hatred of its neighbors.
William Ralph Inge (1860 - 1954)

The reserve of modern assertions is sometimes pushed to extremes, in which the fear of being contradicted leads the writer to strip himself of almost all sense and meaning.
Sir Winston Churchill (1874 - 1965)

I can't understand why a person will take a year to write a novel when he can easily buy one for a few dollars.
Fred Allen (1894 - 1956)

Quotes of the Day

2009-01-12T10:05:00Z

My mother was as religious as she was repressed. Her facts of life speech began with the phrase, 'Satan takes many forms...'
Dana Gould

They say that kissing a smoker is like licking an ashtray, which is a good thing to remember the next time you get lonely.
Fred Stoller

Employee of the month is a good example of how somebody can be both a winner and a loser at the same time.
Demetri Martin

Truth is more of a stranger than fiction.
Mark Twain (1835 - 1910)

I never know how much of what I say is true.
Bette Midler (1945 - )

Someday I want to be rich. Some people get so rich they lose all respect for humanity. That's how rich I want to be.
Rita Rudner

Never let your sense of morals get in the way of doing what's right.
Isaac Asimov (1920 - 1992)

Quote of the Day

2008-12-22T22:45:34Z

For reasons that are far too complex to even begin to explain, all of today's quotes come from Elayne Boosler:

My ancestors wandered lost in the wilderness for forty years because even in biblical times, men would not stop to ask for directions.

The Vatican is against surrogate mothers. Good thing they didn't have that rule when Jesus was born.
[Use of surrogate mothers? No way!
That's the Vatican's creed for today.
Guess that rule was a stranger
To those round the manger
As Jesus was born in the hay.]

To listen to your own silence is the key to comedy.
[ and, I think, the key to inner tranquillity]

When the sun comes up, I have morals again.

When women are depressed, they eat or go shopping. Men invade another country. It's a whole different way of thinking.

Wouldn't it be great if you could only get AIDS by giving money to television preachers?

Happy holidays and peace to you and all those you care for.
peter

Meme alert

2008-11-13T18:14:25Z

Peter's Dewey Decimal Section:

708 Galleries, museums & private collections

Peter = 65058 = 650+58 = 708

Class:
700 Arts & Recreation

Contains:
Architecture, drawing, painting, music, sports.

What it says about you:
You're creative and fun, and you're good at motivating the people around you. You're attracted to things that are visually interesting. Other people might not always understand your taste or style, but it's yours.

Find your Dewey Decimal Section at Spacefem.com

... or ...

Peter's Dewey Decimal Section:

173 Ethics of family relationships

Class:
100 Philosophy & Psychology

Contains:
Books on metaphysics, logic, ethics and philosophy.

What it says about you:
You're a careful thinker, but your life can be complicated and hard for others to understand at times. You try to explain things and strive to express yourself.

Find your Dewey Decimal Section at Spacefem.com

Both seem quite apposite.

Peace
peter

Ann Summers yanks chocolate willy spread

2008-10-21T20:54:43Z

I bet you never realised the danger you were all risking!

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/10/20/choclate_spread_alert/

Quotes of the Day

2008-10-20T08:12:07Z

A good selection today, enjoy.

peter

So much of what we call management consists in making it difficult for people to work.
Peter Drucker (1909 - 2005)

What is youth except a man or a woman before it is ready or fit to be seen?
Evelyn Waugh (1903 - 1966)

Critics search for ages for the wrong word, which, to give them credit, they eventually find.
Peter Ustinov (1921 - 2004)

It's not enough to bash in heads. You've got to bash in minds.
Joss Whedon, Zack Whedon, Maurissa Tancharoen, and Jed Whedon, Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog, 2008

Quotes of the Day

2008-10-17T23:03:39Z

Oh, number 4 clicks with me! Enjoy.
peter

Power corrupts. Absolute power is kind of neat.
John Lehman (1942 - ), Secretary of the Navy, 1981-1987

I hate life, I hate death and everything in between just doesn't interest me.
Chris Rapier

Today's public figures can no longer write their own speeches or books, and there is some evidence that they can't read them either.
Gore Vidal (1925 - )

Statistician: A man who believes figures don't lie, but admits that under analysis some of them won't stand up either.
Evan Esar (1899 - 1995), Esar's Comic Dictionary

Quotes of the Day

2008-10-14T19:59:18Z

I'm sure they are random, but #4 does seem right on! (and look who sad it ... it /must/ be true.)

Peace
peter

Nothing is impossible. Some things are just less likely than others.
Jonathan Winters

The man who insists on seeing with perfect clearness before he decides, never decides.
Henri-Frédéric Amiel

Everybody believes in something and everybody, by virtue of the fact that they believe in something, use that something to support their own existence.
Frank Zappa (1940 - 1993)

The only function of economic forecasting is to make astrology look respectable.
John Kenneth Galbraith (1908 - 2006)

Quotes of the Day

2008-10-10T07:41:05Z

Today's (and yesterday's) quotes of the day -- enjoy.

peter

Ninety percent of the politicians give the other ten percent a bad reputation.
Henry Kissinger (1923 - )

Always and never are two words you should always remember never to use.
Wendell Johnson

After all, all he did was string together a lot of old, well-known quotations.
H. L. Mencken (1880 - 1956), on Shakespeare

There are 10^11 stars in the galaxy. That used to be a huge number. But it's only a hundred billion. It's less than the national deficit! We used to call them astronomical numbers. Now we should call them economical numbers.
Richard Feynman (1918 - 1988)

Time is that quality of nature which keeps events from happening all at once. Lately it doesn't seem to be working.
Anonymous

You must first have a lot of patience to learn to have patience.
Stanislaw J. Lec (1909 - 1966), "Unkempt Thoughts"

Man is a credulous animal, and must believe something; in the absence of good grounds for belief, he will be satisfied with bad ones.
Bertrand Russell (1872 - 1970), Unpopular Essays (1950), "Outline of Intellectual Rubbish"

The man who writes about himself and his own time is the only man who writes about all people and all time.
George Bernard Shaw (1856 - 1950)

Random information

2008-10-07T09:57:42Z

The web site for Red Stags Morris (the side I dance with) is now at www.redstagsmorris.org ... hopefully this will stay a little more up to date than the previous one.

Peace
peter

Quotes of the Day

2008-10-07T09:36:10Z

Today's quotes ... enjoy!

peter

An ignorant person is one who doesn't know what you have just found out.
Will Rogers (1879 - 1935)

This paperback is very interesting, but I find it will never replace a hardcover book - it makes a very poor doorstop.
Alfred Hitchcock (1899 - 1980)

The effort to understand the universe is one of the very few things that lifts human life a little above the level of farce, and gives it some of the grace of tragedy.
Steven Weinberg (1933 - )

Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body.
Sir Richard Steele

Oxbridge lectures play on iTunes

2008-10-07T09:22:42Z

Oxford and Cambridge University are to make lectures available online through downloading software iTunes. (http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/-/1/hi/education/7655266.stm)

So, can I get another degree just by listening to them? I'll have a PhD on the philosophy of coding to produce supportable programs, thank you very much.

Peace
peter

Meme alert

2008-09-19T11:39:00Z

What? Me, do a meme??? Wow!

Leave a comment and I will:
a) Tell you why I friended you.
b) Associate you with something - fandom, a song, a colour, a photo, etc.
c) Tell you something I like about you.
d) Tell you a memory I have of you.
e) Ask something I've always wanted to know about you.
f) Tell you my favourite user pic of yours.
g) In return, you ~~must~~can post this on your own LJ.

Quote of the Day

2008-09-17T11:15:21Z

Snaged from the CERN operations web site:
The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not 'Eureka!' (I found it!) but 'That's funny ...'
Isaac Asimov

Health

2008-09-12T20:40:04Z

Thursday evening was 'fun'. After the Morris side meeting at Southampton I collapsed curled up in a ball in the car park with pain in my abdomen and a splitting, pounding headache. I ended up being taken to hospital by ambulance (no siren or blue lights :( ). After 4 hours there the final results were that it wasn't anything heart related, but that they weren't sure what it was ... maybe a kidney stone having an outing? The treatment seemed to be the same as we tell our IT users - reboot and try again :) I actually followed the advice of a friend and took today off sick, mostly to recover from a very late night and the shock of discovering that I just might not live for ever.

Special thanks to Kevin for staying with me at the hospital and Chris for offering to put me up for the night if I needed to stay. I actually drove back to London as I was almost back to normal (for me :) ) by then.

Peace
peter

A poem

2008-08-17T22:56:52Z

I heard this on the radio, and thought of one of my friends here.

Paece
peter

For Librarians

Imagine you can consider all ideas
And images represented by all words
And numbers in all libraries worldwide.
Open the book of this consideration.
Touch the paper. See the illustration
Of you, reading, when you were ten
In your local library. Turn
Several pages. Now read how you
And that other person ignited romance
In, of all places, the stacks, third floor,
In quite a different library. Snowflakes
Brushed against dark glass as you two
Stood between PQ and PR.

Now go to the index. Find “possibility.”
Look up from the book. The librarian
Who looks away was watching you.
She knows how to phrase the question
You want answered.

Librarians know where wisdom’s stored.
They catalogue the countless forms
Of silence and tell people what they
Didn’t know they wanted to know.
They treat the mentally fractured
As if they’re whole, the dull as if they’re
Sharp, Winter as if it’s Summer.

A band of sunlight angles through high
Windows, brightens shoes of a librarian,
Who knows the patron in the gray enormous
Coat will steal a book about sex or wiccans.
She knows some Christians will steal books
Deemed Satanic, ignoring a commandment
And the homeless person sleeping in a chair.
She knows some atheists treat Library as
Church, so when she moves into shadows,
She does so quietly. She worries for books.

For the librarian knows books are easily burned,
Recycled, or digitized, reduced to oxygen, carbon,
Silicon, and such basic elements as hate and
Budgetary cuts. She wishes presidents of
The United States would consult librarians
Before going to war. It would save so much time,
So many lives. She knows exactly which references
Know how badly any war will go and how soon
Citizens come to loathe their leaders. She knows
How to find stories about all the libraries
Wiped out by war. She knows patrons who’ve
Been harmed by war. Sometimes they set off alarms.
Someone asks her, “Can you help me find out
If I’m related to Napoleon? ” Yes, ” she answers,
“Come with me, please.”

All libraries may now gather inside invisible
Electrons. After closing time, books in Sweden
Send emails to maps in Chile. A librarian in Topeka
Posts a reply to one in Tokyo, adding to a blue thread
Wrapped around the globe.

As sincerely as librarians worry for books, for shelves,
For catalogues, buildings, and best practices,
So should we worry for librarians, for images and ideas.

At a table in a library, a circle of light
Lies on a book. The hand not writing turns
The page, and something important happens.

Hans Ostrom

Quote of the Day

2008-08-16T09:53:07Z

First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out because I was not a communist; Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out because I was not a socialist; Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist; Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew; Then they came for me-- and there was no one left to speak out for me.
Pastor Martin Niemoellor

Quotes of the Day

2008-08-06T16:08:55Z

Today's quotes are all from Augustus De Morgan:

It is easier to square the circle than to get round a mathematician.
Quoted in H Eves In Mathematical Circles (Boston 1969).

I don't quite hear what you say, but I beg to differ entirely with you.

Great fleas have little fleas upon their backs to bite 'em,
And little fleas have lesser fleas, and so ad infinitum.
And the great fleas themselves, in turn, have greater fleas to go on;
While these again have greater still, and greater still, and so on.
A Budget of Paradoxes.

Imagine a person with a gift of ridicule [He might say] First that a negative quantity has no logarithm; secondly that a negative quantity has no square root; thirdly that the first non-existent is to the second as the circumference of a circle is to the diameter.

The moving power of mathematical invention is not reasoning but imagination.

Quotes of the Day

2008-08-04T01:44:12Z

All progress is based upon a universal innate desire on the part of every organism to live beyond its income.
Samuel Butler (1835 - 1902), Notebooks, 1912

When dealing with the insane, the best method is to pretend to be sane.
Hermann Hesse (1877 - 1962)

One has a greater sense of intellectual degradation after an interview with a doctor than from any human experience.
Alice James

Too many people are thinking of security instead of opportunity. They seem more afraid of life than death.
James F. Byrnes (1879 - 1972)

Quotes of the Day

2008-07-18T12:23:21Z

I like life. It's something to do.
Ronnie Shakes

To knock a thing down, especially if it is cocked at an arrogant angle, is a deep delight of the blood.
George Santayana (1863 - 1952)

Fortune can, for her pleasure, fools advance,
And toss them on the wheels of Chance.
Juvenal (55 AD - 127 AD)

Where all think alike, no one thinks very much.
Walter Lippmann (1889 - 1974)

Overheard conversation

2008-07-18T12:16:02Z

Two web designers discussing how technical a solution they should take for a page ...

WD1: I think we should go for the middle of the road solution.
WD2: The middle of the road is where you find a lot of dead small animals.

So that's why ...

2008-07-09T09:21:26Z

http://xkcd.com/447/

Quotes of the Day

2008-07-06T00:41:59Z

Anyone still reading this? have some quotes to keep you going.

Peace
peter

Why shouldn't things be largely absurd, futile, and transitory? They are so, and we are so, and they and we go very well together.
George Santayana (1863 - 1952)

No one can earn a million dollars honestly.
William Jennings Bryan (1860 - 1925)

Books to the ceiling,
Books to the sky,
My pile of books is a mile high.
How I love them! How I need them!
I'll have a long beard by the time I read them.
Arnold Lobel

Character is what you have left when you've lost everything you can lose.
Evan Esar (1899 - 1995)

An effective way to deal with predators is to taste terrible.
Unknown

The reserve of modern assertions is sometimes pushed to extremes, in which the fear of being contradicted leads the writer to strip himself of almost all sense and meaning.
Sir Winston Churchill (1874 - 1965)