A title this would be, had I the originality.

Just want to say there's a *fab* Canadian film called Last Night where the End of the World has been known about for six months, there's no getting out of it, and how people have prepared for it. It's quite fascinating.

Whereas in 2012, people get no warning whatsoever.

AudioLark launched yesterday: http://www.audiolark.com/

They're inviting submissions of previously published romance shorts, novellas and novels, for which authors have retained audio rights.

I have a friend going to the cosplay ball who didn't get tickets in time before they went offline for sale. I was going to pick on up in tokyo toys on the saturday for her, but to save me worrying, does anyone have a spare tickets that I can buy from them?

Originally published at Nick Bertozzi. You can comment here or there.

Do you believe, as many do that religious belief is hardwired into most of us? I am an atheist, but personally everything that I have learned about people leads me to think that a general "predisposition to religion" may be true, even though it obviously does not apply to everyone. These thoughts have started coming to me after begining to read about the Dragonriders of Pern series, and finding it difficult to believe that the people on Pern, while initially made up of pre-screened atheist types, would not develop some sort of religion over time.

If true, the idea that religion is intrinsic to human psychology has some interesting corollaries for atheism. For example, does it make sense to argue (as Richard Dawkins does) that people should try to avoid being religious if it is part of our cognitive makeup? And, while the general idea that religion is something people are predisposed to makes a lot of sense to me, I feel that I personally do not fit this mold - I cannot speak for other atheists, but I didn't arrive at atheism through faith, or ever experience the type of strong faith that I have seen others display. Rather it seems like I, personally, am the type of person who would be atheist because deep down, atheism is resonant with the way that I look at things and the views I have developed about the world. Even if this is true for most people, I am not predisposed towards religion.

And so another question is, if people are overall disposed towards religion as a facet of our makeup, how do we choose to discuss people who do not share that predisposition?

All the tickets are booked-

£345 from my poor bank account. We have a big set of 5 seats together, with two pairs in front of us for the £35 lot and a pair sitting in the grand circle for the £15 ones.

I'm happy to take money at the theatre, but if anyone wants to transfer money to me before hand it would be quite nice. Email Tab@khaoskomix.com for my bank details. You can also paypal the money if you want, but then there will be fees and things. Personal cheques are just bollox in this day and age of shit postal service.

I've arranged to have us pick up the tickets on the night which means no crappy "oh shit I lost the tickets" moments. Yay for planning on my part!

Originally published at Nick Bertozzi. You can comment here or there.

I'd love some help with this research. In fact, I desperately NEED the help. The paper I need to put together from this data is due Thursday (today actually, but she gave me a sick leave extension. This is for Anthropological Linguistics.

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Please match the foreign language onomatopoeias on the left with the English version on the right, by writing the number of the English word beside its non-English version. There will be more than one non-English word for each English word, but there are some sounds for which some languages do not have words therefore the number of non-English words is not evenly distributed.
Thank you for helping me with this research.


1)Woof woof (sound a dog makes) 2)Meow (sound a cat makes) 3)Moo (Sound a cow makes)
4)Oink (pig) 5)Neigh (horse) 6)Cock-a-doodle-do (rooster) 7)Ring (bell)
8)Clap (as in hands together) 9)Click (when you click a retractable pen) 10)Honk (car horn)
11)Thunk (pencil hitting wooden table)

Iiiou
Tak-tak-tak

Waw-waw
Pan pan

Ki-kiri-ki
Ow ow

Wick wick

Hihhin

Picki-picki
Kon kon

Pap-pap
Tak-taka

Guff-guff
Ko keh koko

Mao
Mobah

Coo ra coo

Pupuu

Kachi kachi (Silent i)

Zing zing

Took took

Halop halop

Wan wan

Nyao

Boo boo

zamour

Rin rin

Me-wa

Kewar

Seiah

Koo koo

Nahiq
Raneen
Tasfeek

I got the grade back on my Pre-Human test, and I got a 98. Knock me over with a feather! All I can say is he must have had a lot of mercy on that essay question, because I wouldn't have bought my lineage for pre-Homo evolution.

Now, back to the wench, Wench!

Originally published at Nick Bertozzi. You can comment here or there.

To heck with fitness. Darwin had it wrong. It's really about survival of the determined.

I got my make up test done today. I feel like I always do in his class....I'm certain I have a c, I very well could have a B, I hope I have an A but I have no confidence in that at all. Now, I HAVE had a very high B on one thing and an A on the rest, but I really can't take it for granted.
After, I talked to the Prof, who is also my student adviser, and I only need 1 more Anth class, and 3 more non-major. And then I'm done. If I make those 3 non-majors all Lit, I end up with the minor in Lit that I wanted. I won't take more than 3 classes a semester, but two more semesters is not a bad thing. I can even stuff a few more classes in there.
Then, it's grad school time.

I'm woefully behind on my Nano project. Not as behind as I was the year that my mother broke her hip, but close, and with much less free time on the horizon. I'm still plugging away at it though, and I'm starting to enjoy the idea of it. Starting to hear the character's voices. I give it the odd 15 minutes here and there.

There are many ways to run a competition on Facebook. Perhaps the way that the Orange Film Club did, isn’t the best one.

They posed a surprisingly difficult question (see a screengrab below the cut), but asked competition entrants to make their answers in the comments below. Being the mug I am, I did some fairly intense Googling, and thus became the first person to post the answer.

What did everyone else do? They quite sensibly copied my answer and thus within the hour you had 18 entries, who probably didn’t do the same intensive Googling that I did.

The kicker comes when they allocated the ticket – randomly, fair and square and within the stated terms of the competition – to someone else. When I’d done all the hard work! Bah!

It’s not just me with sour grapes – two random people who also entered have also said I should have gotten something!

Read the rest of this entry »

Mirrored from almost witty.

Originally published at Nick Bertozzi. You can comment here or there.

Last week a writer on Litopia mentioned an interview in which this year's Booker Prizewinner, Hilary Mantel, said that although writing came easily to her, she wasn't a natural storyteller and had to teach herself that skill, and the Litopian asked if other writers thought storytelling had come to them naturally or if they had learned it.

I was a writer first. When I was thirteen, my English teacher told me I was born to write. I took his comment to heart and kept it with me throughout my years at sea, which is where I learned storytelling.

There's an oral tradition among sailors, even today when everyone is a technician of some sort or other, and it may surprise some to hear that most sailors' stories are not about ships or big waves or bad weather, but about people - and especially about memorable characters. Every group of sailors will normally include at least one good storyteller, and every sailor will remember listening to at least one master storyteller. Anyone can tell a story, but only a gifted storyteller who can give it life will find his listeners asking to hear a story again and again.

When I listened to one such master on my first ship tell the same story in two night watches several months apart, I realised on my second hearing that he wasn't just reciting it. He was living it, and, because he was so skilled, we lived it too. After a sailor has been around for a few years, he'll recognise lesser versions of master storytellers' tales circulating among good storytellers - and he'll hear unsatisfactory versions recited by poor storytellers.

My aim is to marry my natural gift for written communication with the talent for storytelling I learned from listening to masters. And to keep listening and learning, obviously.

How about you?

Well, we have enough to do a group booking now, but I've called the ticket people up and the only availible tickets are either £15 each (which are restricted view) or £35 each for seats in the rear stalls. The main stalls and dress circle cost £50.

I'll be texting people not on livejournal, but what would people prefer to do? Personally I'd be more willing to go for the £15 ones as I've seen the show before so I'm not as fussed as other people. I can mix the group up if people want so just feel free to pick which ones you would prefer.

Well, that was definitely a very scary and chilling episode of Doctor Who meeting 28 Days Later. Either that or I’m just so proud of myself for not gibbering and hiding behind the sofa. My jumbled random thoughts after the jump…

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Mirrored from almost witty.

A lovely story I heard this week:

While at Balmoral the Queen heard that a local woman was about to celebrate her 100th birthday, and, since she was in the area, she decided to visit rather than sending the customary telegram. When conversation flagged a little over tea, the Queen admired a fine china tea set and asked if the old lady ever used it.

"Och, no! I'm saving it for a special occasion."

:)

Finally! Someone does an impression of a British-Chinese person without resorting to sticky tape or yellow-face make-up. On the other hand….

Mirrored from almost witty.

I finally sat down to watch Planet of the Dead last week – and after 9 months of having no new Doctor Who, I was just so glad to see Doctor Who back that there may have been moistness in my eye. Even if it was a very slight story with not much new, and not much froth or fun either.

However, I didn’t get the chance to rip the episode to shreds for fun, so I’m glad that the Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre have done it for me… (spotted via theta_g)

Shame there’s not much happening on British TV on Sunday…

Mirrored from almost witty.

http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2009/11/13/Atheist-billboard-is-moved-after-threats/UPI-87491258091561/

CINCINNATI, Nov. 13 (UPI) -- A pro-atheism billboard in Cincinnati was being moved to a different location in response to alleged threats two days after it was put up, sponsors said.

The copy on the billboard reads: "Don't Believe In God? You are not alone." It was put up Tuesday but was taken down Thursday because the owner of the property where it was posted reported receiving threats because of the message, WCPO-TV, Cincinnati, reported Thursday.

Fred Edwords, national director of the United Coalition of Reason, which sponsored the billboard, said the organization was contacted by Lamar Advertising of Cincinnati on behalf of the landowner.

"We weren't given the landowner's identity or precise details," Edwords said. "Nor did we pursue them. It was sufficient to learn that multiple, significant threats had been received and that Lamar would act quickly to alleviate the problem."

"Everything that has happened shows just how vital our message is," Shawn Jeffers, co-coordinator for the Cincinnati Coalition of Reason, said. "It proves our point, that bigotry against people who don't believe in a god is still very real in America."

Jack Jones of Downtown told the TV station he thinks the sign should not be put up.

"It's atheist," he said.