h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

That is the only thing I can think of too, Z. But the Council has very little housing stock avaliable and both Mr & Mrs tenant are employed so I'm not sure how high they would be on the priority list. They do have children, but they are teenagers, so they wouldn't win them as many housing points as young children would.

Because of the nature of bronze (whatever that is) cleaners for brass and copper can damage it, H says, you are supposed to let a natural patina develop, but it just looks grubby. We use it very rarely which may be part of the problem.

So I read an online comic called penny-arcade, they offer some fun views of gaming and the gaming gamers who play video games

Some of their rants are against people who claim that video games breed nothing but violence, so they decided to prove those people wrong. About a week ago they started working with a Children's Hospital in their local area (I think Seattle), the hospital gave them a wish list, and the guys at penny-arcade linked to it and offered it up to their readers.

About a week later they have received over $64,000 in gifts and cash donations.

So if you are looking for a charity to give to, I would suggest this one. The link follows:
http://www.penny-arcade.com/childsplay/

I gave last night, and it felt fantastic, they will post pictures of the kids getting the gifts later on.

Courtesy

Caer, as I remember the regulations, (and I did spend three months inputting forms with them printed on).

Even if council housing is in very short supply then the council are obliged to find housing for families who are homeless, (and certain other people). Being in employment doens't mean that they don't have a duty to house you, but if you have sold a property within a set numbers of years, and have more than £8000 savings as a result then they could refuse to put you on the list, but I'm not sure how it would affect homelessness.

The duty to home applies to homeless families - whatever age the children are. In fact it might mean that they could get a bigger property because when allocating the size of the property they don't expect siblings over the age of 9 to share bedrooms.

The priority for council houseing allcoation used to go like this - homeless due to being evicted due to council demolition programes, -homeless for other reasons, then the waiting list. Ages of children don't matter really.

In short ages of children (as long as they are under 16) and whether or not one is in empolyment have no bearing on whether or not one can get council housing.

I worry about how I can still remember the vast majority of the regulations.

In fact people were more likely to pull tricks like this in a high demand area, (I can remember exactly where the high demand areas of Birmingham were!) than a low demand area. To the extent that the only way to get housing in a high demand area is to be homeless.

Of course to get a flat in a low demand area, all you have to do is turn up and say that you'd like a flat in a tower block and they'll offer you one.

I remember Z saying earlier that 450 quid a month was reasonable in Brum for a 2-bedroom apartment (furnished?), and I was flabbergasted because I used to pay 6 quid a week for 8 rooms, unfurnished...

[MTG]

I donated there as well Courtesy, directed from a comic called This Life.

It is a very worth cause and it seems that the kids' #1 "choice gifts" are disposable cameras.

Sporky!

I saw the cameras too, I got some other stuff, but I think I'll go back and plunk down some cash for them to have cameras.

Courtesy

I signed up my daughter this year for a gift list. I'm not exactly proud of it, but as a grad student and (basically) single mom, I really think that I shouldn't let my pride get in the way of my daughter having a good Christmas.

Her number one wish? A tree.

Hey, Lil. I talked with the prof at 11:00.

This is officially the most frustrating class ever.

"What are you searching?"
"The primary table."
"No, you're not. What are you searching through?"
"The...sums? The probability sums of contained within the individual cells of the primary tab-"
"Stop. Explain it better."
"But the coding-"
"The coding's wrong."
"I'm trying to use the alphabet to go through the cells, each named after a letter of the alphabet, to move through-"
"Here, just go to the blackboard. Try to *show* me what you're doing. Use a diagram."
"Okay, here. *Draws a box with text in it* Now, I've got the probabilities found."
"Good."
"Now from here I-"
"Stop, you're drawing a flowchart. A said a *diagram.* Start with a horizontal line."
"Oh....okay....*draws said line*"
"Make the line go from 0 to 1."
"Ah, okay I see what you mean."
"Okay, explain with the diagram."
"Alright, the random number picks a number between 0 and 1. The random number is then compared to the cells-"
"No."
"What?"
"You coded something. What did you code?"
"There's....what?"
"Look at your code here....now, what is it?"
"That's the primary table."
"*Starts speaking, looking irritated*"
"Itcontainsthesumsoftheprobabilityoftheoccurancesoftheindividuallettersinit!"
"Okay, good. Represent them in the diagram."
"*Draws a block on the line with the letter "A", another with "B", and a trail of dots followed by a final block with the letter "Z"*"
"Oh, so yours ends with Z?"
"*Confused at hearing of a modern variation of the English alphabet that does not end with the letter Z* Yes?"
"Okay, now, what you're showing me is a bunch ofcells with the letters."
"Well,..."
"But what is the random number being compared to?"
"It's being compared to the data in the cells-"
"No, look at your code."
"I coded a table called that holds the sums of-"
"No, the code is wrong, now look at the code!"
"What?"

That's the type of thing that went on for a good ten minutes. There are some serious, serious communication issues here. Eventually,....

"How are you doing in the Java class?"
"Oh, I'm doing well. I've got a pretty high A so far, and-"
"Whatever you're doing in Java, do it here."
"But I'm trying!"
"No you're not."

Etc., etc., etc. I think that conversation made me more angry than I've ever been. I've sacrificed a good portion of my life and happiness for this project, and this guy thinks that I've been ignoring it entirely. I try not to get angry, but this guy...who talks like Socrates would have if Socrates had never had a point to any of his debates....just made me snap. So, he told me to go away and work on it, and to report back to him soon once I had somehow devined just what on Earth he was talking about.

Oh, and he also said that Python wouldn't solve my conceptual problems at this point, so there's no reason for me to switch to it.

I think that I'll keep trying to work through his Icon fantasies, but program in PYthon on the side. Then on the last day, I'll submit my barely readable Icon coding, and then the precisely coded Python-enhanced Java coding. So all in all, it's not been a good day.

Oh, and yes, my family is moving out of its current house, Lil, off to another place. Eight people thought that a sermon my Dad gave was directed straight at them (which tells me that either a) the sermon was needed at the time, or b) there's a very strange branch of mathematics at work here), and they threatened to leave the church. So, as it was, we've gotta leave the area as we are no longer paid to live in the parsonage.

Goodness, I can't wait until Christmas gets here....

This is my favorite penny arcade comic:

http://www.penny-arcade.com/images/2003/20031112l.gif

if you play ffxi you know exactly what they're saying there.

oh. that link, i suppose does contain vulgarity. i think we have all heard them before though.

the only thing i don't like about penny arcade is how down they are on other gaming sites. other than that it is a great community site and they're doing a very good thing.

You konw....I've never played that FF game of which you speak, yet I think that I get it.

Gotta hate those template monsters....

[GDZ]

Affi, that instructor is Socrates with an attack of hemhorroids. I don't know why so many entities think it's a good idea in debate to interupt the other pseaker with something like "No it isn't." That's what the chairman of our Preservation Board does (I'm the first person, including his wife, to ever tell him that he does this), and he's likely to get assassinated for it.

You could vitually assassinate this fellow. Or better yet, why not incorporate him as a particularly nasty obstacle in the game you're writing?

And that is rotten about the house but not surprising about the eight people who actually took a sermon seriously. Annie Dillard wrote once that people should wear crash helmets to church; every Sunday they go invoking a deity without ever taking into consideration that the deity might finally pick that time to answer and arrive through the roof of the church.

[fg]

On a complete change of tack, I've just been watching the snow falling in Times Square, NYC, via streaming video (earthcam.com) isn't the internet ?

I thought it might snow here this morning, but the clouds moved away off. And now the sun is shining.

This afternoon I broke into two of three cartons of books that have been sitting out in the garage since the carriers brought them here in Septemver 2001. Found my Mythic Tarot in the second box but also found Rilke, Camus,Jane Austen, a few Dibdins, some Bertrand Russell, and my boxed set of Motown's Greatest Hits CD's. And lots of other goodies. I don't know where I'll put them.

My mum phoned. Everything is ok.

I'm hoping for a better day tomorrow. On my bad days I look like Ozzy Osbourne .

Clear morning followed by clouds covering the sky again, and snow... and storm warnings on the weather report - and the temperature hovering around freezing point. The storm is already making the glass in my windows creak...

Affy, it sounds like you and my friend have the same prof. His prof did much the same thing to him the other day, and basically told him that there was no point in my friend being in graduate school.

At which point my friend turned around (mind you, this guy is highly religious and it takes a lot to get him to say "shoot," much less anything else) and said, point blank, "is the object of this class to make me feel like sh!t, or is it to help me learn? Because you, sir (still polite), are an ass and couldn't communicate anything to anyone," and left the room. From what I gather, this prof has been doing this to folks for some time, and the entire class is going to file a formal protest against him for general idiocy and being mean. Grad school is hard, but it shouldn't be that hard.

Then again, come to find out, the chemistry grad students aren't in the union because the faculty told them that if they joined the union, they could kiss their careers goodbye. That's illegal.