I originally posted this on the Redbrick babble newsgroup. If you don’t know what Redbrick is, this entry will have little interest to you. However, I’m posting it here because I think it’s interesting and also I’m hoping that it might filter out to some of the other Redbrick users who don’t use the newsgroups.
I finished reading Ninjalicious’ “Access All Areas” over my holiday. It describes the hobby of Urban Exploration (UE). UE is exploring parts of a city that aren’t normally available to the public such as abandoned buildings and sewers. But this includes active building sites and employee only areas of buildings too.
It’s an interesting read but I’m afraid I’m not going to be taking the hobby up. The risks are too (be it an accident or getting caught). However it makes great reference about how to infiltrate these kind of places, how to deal with guards and employees etc. It’s great info for writing and gaming and it’ll sit there beside my copy of “A Guide to Committing Murder” and “Worst Case Scenarios”. There is a lot about the ethics of UE (Urban Exploration), which are also quite insightful.
There are few things in the book that made me start thinking. Many people say “oh yea, I used to that as a kid,” but they wouldn’t think of doing it as adult. Certainly as a kid myself, friends and I explored the mysterious sewers under the castle in Malahide park. Also, if you’re caught in while doing UE, teenagers will be more likely dismissed as being “bored teenagers” but adults will be looked on as very suspicious. We have such a strange view of being adults.
As a sport, something I would love to get into is Parkour (or Urban Freejumping I think it’s called in the states) you know “Jump London” and “Jump Britain” stuff. When I take Alice (my daughter) down to the playground, I see older kids trying to do things that the Parkour guys have turned into an art. But I can’t get over my inhibitions to play around with it and there isn’t any real group in Dublin. It’s another one of those things that you do as a kid but not as adult.
But, there is something I did as a kid (or at least as a teenager) that I do now: Gaming and Roleplaying. I’m on the verge of the big 30, yet I’m still playing and running games, even writing and thinking about them. I won’t be able to make a career out of it but I don’t see any reason to stop, unless it’s because of a lack of people to play games with.
For literally years, I’ve been trying to figure out what I want to do with my web space. At the moment it’s a dump for anything I’d like to keep online or be able to reference online such as my weird and wacky writings, my pleasant amateur art and various pieces of software or code I’ve done. And thats enough for me, I think.
However, I was interested in blogging software before the word “blogging” became hip. I didn’t blog, I just used the software from GreyMatter to MovableType and now WordPress (which now runs this site). So the question haunts me (only a little though)… why I don’t I really blog and who reads this anyway?
“Don’t blame it on the sunshine, don’t blame it on the boogie, don’t blame it on the moonlight, blame it on the quantum…” Doesn’t really rhythm does it?
I picked up three books to read over the holiday season seeing I was going to be away from home for the period. One was a space opera, another a horror/dark fantasy and the last was a genuine sci-fi.
All three used Quantum mechanics as an explanation! Read More…
I’ve been thinking on why people need to upgrade or change to new pieces of software. It’s just a cobbling together of some thoughts and offers no conclusions.
Read More…
Some of the recent discussions on the board and other chats I’ve had, started to make me think about ‘evidence’ in general. I started to categories evidence into ‘levels’, level 0 being the currently most objective evidence. This is different from implications of evidence but it seems to map nicely to applications of evidence.
Read More…
I haven’t posted anything in quite a while. Mainly due to the fact that I would have to say something about the war.
I don’t want to be labelled pro-Saddam, pro-sanctions or anti-American (or “unpatriotic” if I was American but I’m not) because I’m none of those.
I don’t’ have a full picture of the situation that led to the invasion/war. I don’t’ know what Bush/Blair, Chiraic or Blinx knows or what information they are privy to and all the sources of information and media from both camps are bias and prejudice. Its impossible to categorically say that one side is right and the other isn’t. All we can do is try to justify what we believe is right.
I believe that war should be the _last_ resort in all cases. I know the sanctions are terrible and shouldn’t have continued but this is essentially a separate issue. The sanctions weren’t affect Saddam but his people. They were failing and it was putting blood on the hands of the UN. Still the weapon inspectors should have been allowed to finish their job.
The problem for me is that the Americans had decided to invade Iraq well before it became an issue with the UN. They placed troops ready to invade while they “tried diplomacy” (note sarcasm) with the UN.
Maybe war was the only way to remove Saddam and his regime but I still believe war should be the last resort not first as the Americans had decided.
Also I don’t think the war was only about liberating Iraq. Maybe I’m conspiracy nut but I think in part it is about oil, it is about revenge, it is about testing new weapons and saving the American economy (and a few others). Theses are not good reasons for a global war and consequently dividing the world. I can not justify this war based on those motives.
If it was true that they were liberating Iraq then the aid for after the war would be just as ready as those troops were being prepared to invade but Blair/Bush don’t actually have the funds for aid and also they want to place a American military man in place of Saddam!
My wife whom I love dearly is French… labelling French as “betrayers”, renaming of “French Fries” (the only other time they did this was during WW2 and anything related to Germany), the suggestion of the government paying for the moving of American soldiers bodies who dies in the WW2 from France, a campaign to boycott French produce, American companies refusing to sell to French, German, Chinese and Russian citizens etc. I initially put it all down to crack pots and extreme “patriots”… but then I see the polls that the American _people_ are 53-54 % behind the war… I kinda made the emotional leap that it isn’t just a small group of extremists… and that scares me. And it scares me that they are willing to go against everyone else in the world in any matter and be willing to use military force.
I’m beginning to suspect that America believes they are absolutely morally right in this invasion and this saddens me. No war is “right” but only dirty. It can be necessary but it is never right. That is my humble opinion.
The current fallout from this act of war is a division in the western world and promoting racism on both sides. Rather then removing the teeth of Saddam’s WMD beast we’ve boiled the brewing pot of the western world and whose long term effects on the “global village” are unknown.
Some feel the war was necessary and I can’t rule it out that maybe they are right. But I cannot justify this war to myself – I cannot justify the consequences, the lack of diplomacy and respect and the hypocrisy (from both sides).
Amazingly, life goes on… I did a few more Alice in Wonderland drawings for the Wedding:
I haven’t really done any new content for the site in ages.
This is due for the most part because I have been updating Murder of Crows Blog which is a collabroate webage for my regular PnP RPG troupe. Added lots of functionality and features like a random quote, search engine and email subscribtion for comments!
Unfortantly only one other member from the troupe is using it. This may change when we start roleplaying again (3 weeks without a game; I’m going slowly mad!) because theres no need for it at the moment. It’s nearly enough to make you cry. Well okay not really then.
Anyway… plan to do some writing (finish over Dreamer in Paris and start Big Brother) and drawing over the next week. You’ll just have to hang on! 
Ah. The smell of the usual friday morning fry is wafting through my desk. Must eat greasy fattening food!