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The Pile of Doom
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2–3 minutes·
No comments on The Pile of DoomIf you wander into the home of a book-lover, you will find books everywhere, arranged neatly on shelves, lying on tables, sitting behind the toilet and stacked beside the bed. These are the books that have been read, and they enjoy a happy and fulfilled existence. There is a darker side to life in this…
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Work and hair
My first chemicals arrived today! It may come as a surprise to many, but it isn’t the case (not entirely, anyway) that I just hang around in Oxford waiting for interesting things to happen – occasionally I do some real research. In preparation for an experiment on the mouse visual system, I’ve ordered a bunch…
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Strike Back
A recent conversation: Him: I need to get a new mouse for my computer – the right button doesn’t work any more. Me: Hmm, that sucks. I guess it means that you can’t- Him: Yeah, I can’t crouch in Counterstrike any more, I can hardly play it now. [beat] Me: I was going to say,…
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He Was A Crook
He Was A Crook – Hunter S. Thompson’s damning eulogy for his arch-enemy, Richard Nixon. “Some of my best friends have hated Nixon all their lives. My mother hates Nixon, my son hates Nixon, I hate Nixon, and this hatred has brought us together. Nixon laughed when I told him this. “Don’t worry,” he said,…
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A Cure
I was out in Liverpool doing some shopping and sherpa-duty for a friend when I saw a wonderfully stupid sign for a herbalist in a shopping mall. I lamented to my friend that I didn’t have a camera with me, and then did a double-take and realised that I did – I’ve just bought a…
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Stimulated
The great thing about not regularly drinking caffeinated beverages is that when you do, you get a real kick out of it. I basically never drink anything that contains any caffeine – no tea, no Coke and definitely no coffee. Every so often though, when I drink just a single cup of tea, I’ll feel…
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For everything else…
iBook G4 800mhz: £750 Airport Extreme card: £70 Bluetooth module: £30 Watching Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom with friends on a two hour coach journey along the M25 in the rain: Priceless There are some things computers can’t do. For everything else, there’s Apple. (Oh yeah, and I heard you can do work…
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Perfect Circle
One of the more annoying aspects of my PhD course at Oxford is that I have to go to these ‘Personal Development Course’ events every so often, which are about as bad as they sound. In fact, all new biology graduates have to go to them, perhaps fifty in total. The first one, held some…
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Wake Up
Wake up calls in Portugal – people pay for personal wake up calls in Portugal, and we’re not talking the automatic hotel-variety calls either. We’re talking human operator wake up calls. No, I couldn’t believe it either. More on those calls (scroll down).
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Thank you
Thank you… – this MetaFilter thread on how to write thank you letters is going to get very silly, very quickly.