11.05.2007 - 1:54 p.m.

when i grow up i want to be a cruise missile

relaxing, just cruising about, none of this intercontinental, sub-orbital nonsense

i've also discovered this very week that my european playstation II plays region 1 dvd's, which was a massive surprise to both me and my wif, and opens the doors for purchases of all sorts of cheap dvds, this is a good thing. Does anyone else's PSII play non-region discs, i'd be interested to know.

In my quest for nice, arty 'coffee table' books i recently bought 100 Suns this also ties in with a general interest in atomic weapons i've had for years, the book is beautifully presented, as was his previous book which i got a few years back, this is also a gem of a book ( i like books ) with stunning photography, and as i've just checked on hamazon ( the best place for pork based products on the web ) is considerably cheaper now than then. If you have any money to spare ( and like picture books ) buy either or both. While going through the references i found some dvd's listed, i then bought the one currently available for region 2 for a stupidly low price, pocket money prices for grown up audiences = happiness.

The quality of the film and the information contained in the three documentaries is spot on, there's a little too much docu-drama in one of them for my liking, but the films are beautifully shot with the most expensive equipment available in the fifties and were put together by Peter Kuran who has a long pedigree of big ol' films, some involving billy shatner who by coincidence narrates this dvd.

The upshot is, if you have any interest in the history of nuclear stuff and also have about three squid knocking about in your pocket, just buy the dvd and sit back, it works out at about a pound an hour which is value for money by any standard.

a couple of posts ago i mentioned that i'd been laughing a lot at Conservapedia, well as it was, i was just laughing at the poor fools trying to carve out a place in cyberspace for themselves where they could be happy ( a bit like they did with america ) then i discovered that there was a 'discussion' tab where you could read through the infighting and heated discussion and dogma as it spewed from their god holes.

These two, and specifically the one about geocentric theory are just beautiful, you can always rely on blind faith to cause friction, especially in the terminally stupid and willfully ignorant and especially in two or more similar religious views desperate to better the others to prove that they are the 'One True Faith'

Geocentric Theory
Young Earth Creationism

I like the bit in the geocentric discussion where someone uses the phrase "trustworthy encyclopedia like ours" Are you sure it's trustworthy ? are you sure it's not dogma in a nice suit and shiny shoes? Would you like me to go into your 'trustworthy encyclopedia" and find one or many articles which have no basis in reality other than the reality of your hallucinations ?

As soon as we've worked out how to colonise other planets there should be a determined effort to segregate religious groups and then ship them off to elsewhere where they can found their own god havens and leave normal people to live normal lives. Or maybe just tell them we've found planets to colonise and the means to get them there safely, and just blast them off into space with no means of return, either works for me.

Given the popularity of this book, even after its multiple revisions it's still got the power to move people to stupidity, based on this i've reserved a place at Hogwarts for my first born, and if you try to tell me that wizards don't exist or magic is not scientifically possible, i'm gonna make up some stuff and throw it back at you as the bare-faced truth even if it makes no sense at all, everybody's doing it y'know.

Now that's freedom of speech