Headrush

One of the reasons I like climbing is for the views: - that picture (taken by Tom Povey) won 7th place on UKclimbing. It's me on the right...

Edit: Tom emailed to suggest the north face of Tete Blanche this summer - looks fantastic!

 

 

 

Strange spam

I received this today:

From: Xxxx 
To: [skellywag]
Subject: Message from the Principal of Brasenose
Date: Tue, 20 Dec 2005 17:14:51 -0000

Dear Member of Brasenose,

Many of you will, I am sure, have seen media coverage concerning a discussion document on Oxford admissions. This has prompted speculation that the University is planning to ‘centralise’ the selection of candidates and is ‘caving in’ to Government pressure to up the percentage of students from state schools and less privileged backgrounds. Let me put this into context.

Oxford prides itself on its admissions process. We have an extremely robust system, as the discussion document makes plain. Admission is by merit and merit alone, and assessment is based on variety of means, augmented by an intensive and rigorous series of College – based interviews. Hence the people who would oversee students’ academic progress are the ones who gauge their potential and agree to their admission.

Every responsible institution appreciates that even good systems have room for improvement, so a working party was established to evaluate current practice. It has submitted an initial discussion document which has suggested two alternative options.

At present, neither model represents policy. The Colleges and the University have not yet discussed next steps. Our aim is to make the admissions procedure simple and transparent. Any changes to admissions will be made with the long term health of Oxford and its Colleges, and the excellence of its teaching, as their guiding principles.

I will, of course, keep all our Members up to date with developments. Please, feel free to contact me with any concerns you may have.

Quite was this means, I am not sure. Why the need to spam every member of college? You'd almost think that they are afraid of more State School students! Err...

Progressive comic No.94

Turkey-stuffin'...

My name is Kiki...

[NWS]

Masters of Doom

The other night I was lent a copy of Masters of Doom, and found it strangely compelling, to the extent that I stayed up and read most of it in one go.

Aside from the faintly amusing tales of geek antics (which don't actually resonate that much, tbh), the most striking thing was how one guy, John Carmack, almost dual-handedly invented modern graphics engines and rendering as we know it today. At least, he was the first to bring into the commericial field some "way cool" ideas that had been languishing inside IBM research labs, like specular lighting and true 3D.

He now build, err, space vehicles. He is the ultimate geek in that he just sat down, and cranked out what he knew to be The Right Thing, whilst continuously pushing the boundaries of his abilites and knowledge, without really being too interested in the money.

Bad sex (pt. 94)

“I-Nnn…” was all that came out of his mouth before the aforementioned breast stopped all further words.

From JLA Unlimited ;o)

Ominous skies

The clouds were really strange this morning. This probably definately explains them:

Beautiful, bizarrely.

I have just started reading Eroticism by Georges Bataille - very accessible, and fascinating.