This is where issue of marriage is particularly crucial. In effect, whilst civil partnerships, unions are a step in the right direction (to borrow form the phrase pool of Rudd) they are not equal to marriage. Civil unions are legally recognised for residents within the three states and territories present within Australia. In addition these unions also vary from state to state in the level of protection offered by the Government, some may receive adoption rights, whilst in another state couples may only receive property rights. Civil union may not even be portable, two may be considered ‘life partners’ in one state, and nothing legally binding in another. Marriage offers an entirety of protection, it establishes a spouse as the next-of-kin, substitute blood relatives in the eyes of the law. This title is essential for loving couples, as it provides peace of mind, knowing that your partner may have an official say in medical, property or funeral matters. Marriage is also legally recognised by all Governments across the globe (currently between a man and a woman, but this stresses the importance of the global community to expand the notion of marriage), and it can be performed anywhere and still be recognised, which is more than what can be said for civil – unions. Theoretically these unions were designed to provide protection and equality for single sex relationships, whilst remaining separate from marriage. Why? – To keep the sanctity of marriage in tact, to not redefine the notion of marriage, to keep the status quo. On those points I feel it is essential to meticulously dissect each argument for the purpose of revealing the sheer paradoxical and illogical beliefs behind this lack of equality.

This is one of the underlying factors in the heads of Government, regarding its stance on the debate. Again I evidence the idea that 60% of the population in support of gay marriage, with figures even higher in the youth of the nation. This continued stance is an insult to the ideals of democracy as the Australian public. The country is not ruled through communism, nor through any aspect of fascism, yet it would appear that elements are applicable in this case. The fact is, that this Australian Government is deaf to the pleas of the majority of the population, which directly contravenes the right of the tax paying population to be heard by their leaders. We do not live in a fascist country, but in regards to this issue, it appears that there is a sense of democratic dictatorship in the air. This merely evidences the idea that the Government must keep a somewhat conservative stance in order to retain funding from sponsors and large business. Yet whilst the country is based on the notions of capitalism, let it not rule in the political spectrum.

————————————————————-

Not to disrespect the religious people of “God”, I’m here to voice out something that hadn’t been done before for thousands of years starting from “The Dark Ages” which had been ruled by the almighty “Church” whom will silence for those people who contradict the idea of “God”, notably Galileo Galilie had been accused of been opposing to “God” by publishing his very first book which it’ll elucidate about the earth is orbiting the sun, gravitational pull will always be equal to any weights and much more. It’s your choice whether it’s true or false.

Image by Genzoman

“Does God exist?” this question had intrigued me to search for the truth of “God” and yet the answer seems logical enough to speak of, the hilarious matters about the answer is that it had captivated me to atheism, Why? I started out as a religious kid in my family, in those times for I had read, pray, write, and even worship about/to “God” until one day I started to question myself “Do I really believe in God?”, from that day onwards, I became an atheist due to the lack of evidence and other ridiculous claims of “God”.

Now, lets get on to the main topic of this post. For years and years of research about “God” I had found the definite answer to the question and it’s “No”, why? Here’s a catch: The lack of evidence is the main reason – Most theists admit that their belief is founded on nothing but faith, but there are always those who claim to have evidence of irreducible complexity, healing, out-of-the-body experiences and any other nut-case notion and treat them as evidence for the existence of their particular God.

The top second reason for the non-existent “God” was “Who created God?” – God cannot create himself, or even choose to exist. That is, he cannot use that which defines himself, such as his power and intelligence, in order to create himself. To put differently, if God didn’t exist, then he would had less power and intelligence than an insect; therefore, would have been unable to create himself.

All conscious beings, since self-creation is impossible, ultimately owe their existence to the conscious nature of things. That is, if God has a god, and so on, then the sublime god, with nobody around to create him, and unable to create himself, must owe his existence to something other than conscious creation, which is exactly we were before assuming God had god.

To support this radical claim of self-creation of God, we’ll imply the watchmaker argument, which it can’t be contradicts the natural evolution of man. That is albeit a watch requires a watchmaker, and a human is more complex than a watch, a human doesn’t require a human maker. Unless we make the sacrilegious assumption that God is less complex than a watch, in case of which he would be unable to perform his almighty duties, he too would require a conscious creator, and so forth. Correspondingly, it makes absolutely no sense to account for our complexity by assuming that we were made by an even more complex, and entirely unproven, God.

On top of that, we can say that religion fail at logical reasoning and a bunch of fallacies that had been used to convinced people on specific  matters such as something that can’t be explained without the help of science then jump into conclusion that “God” made it that way, for example, Christian and other kind of religious group convince norm people that the Earth was made in 7 days, in science, we said that it was made by a gas ( nebula ) then slowly big chunks of rock emerge to form a bigger chunk by mere asteroid because it was found that asteroid does contain minerals that might be able to create a planet-like star that will be able to sustain life on that very about-to-be a planet.

Yesterday we had a problem with an Informix Dynamic Server that wasn’t going to Online Mode. The problem was that the Logical log was full and it hang the Informix Dynamic Server

root@hp-ux:/ # tail -f /usr/informix/onlinep.log

Sun Nov 22 10:48:32 2009

10:48:32  Event alarms enabled.  ALARMPROG = ‘/usr/informix/etc/log_full.sh’
10:48:33  Booting Language <c> from module <>
10:48:33  Loading Module <CNULL>
10:48:33  Booting Language <builtin> from module <>
10:48:33  Loading Module <BUILTINNULL>
10:48:38  Informix Dynamic Server 2000 Version 9.21.FC5     Software Serial Number
10:48:38  Informix Dynamic Server 2000 Initialized — Shared Memory Initialized.

10:48:38  Physical Recovery Started at Page(4:21673).
10:48:38  Physical Recovery Complete: 0 Pages Examined 0 Pages Restored.

10:48:38  Logical Recovery Started.
10:48:38  10 recovery worker threads will be started.
10:48:41  Logical Recovery Complete.
0 Committed, 0 Rolled Back, 0 Open, 0 Bad Locks

10:48:42  Logical log files are almost full – backup is needed.
10:48:42  Dataskip is now OFF for all dbspaces
10:48:42  Checkpoint Completed:  duration was 0 seconds.
10:48:42  Checkpoint loguniq 5951, logpos 0×18018

10:48:42  Dropping temporary TBLspace 100120, recovering 8 pages.

The problem was solved when someone ran ontape -c and it backed up the log to the tape.

Sometimes its more difficult than others to read the signs. For instance (because this is my latest obsessive compulsive thought), I’ve been planning for a month or more to upgrade mine and my husband’s cell phones in December. We have been Palm users for a couple of years, now, (not counting the original Palm Pilots that were not phones, also) so were originally planning to move to the Palm Pre. Then we started researching the apps, battery life, durability, and countless other nit-picks about every smart phone on the market and are now right back at square one. Actually, as of this postingm, we aren’t even at square one, we’re behind square one…and its frustrating and heck! How am I supposed to stop obsessing about cell phones (to upgrade, not to upgrade, what to upgrade to if we go through with said upgrade) when the issue is not being resolved?

OK, so I decided the answer to my obsession was prayer. That’s certainly logical. Now that I really think that God cares what phone I have or don’t have, but I’m pretty sure He still knows what’s best for me and which phone will help more and which will hinder more, if you know what I mean. So, I prayed. Yes, I prayed about cell phones. I know, I know.

So, I arose from my prayer time over cell phones completely at ease with whatever came my way. That if it was best for us to keep the phones we have for now and make no change, that I wouldn’t pout. That if the upgrades were a good plan (or at least not a bad plan) then that decision would be made obvious as the nose on my face or the crows feet around my eyes from years of big smiles. And my mind was (note, was) at ease.

So, I’m good to go and no longer obsessing. Then, I get to the office, and I’ll be darned if the very first email that pops up is from Fora.tv telling me that they now have an app for the iPhone. Now I’m just confused, because I’m sure that God isn’t really giving me the go-ahead for the phone of all phones, the acclaimed iPhone 3GS…or is He? I can justify the hack out of an iPhone purchase (or even some of the Android phones, for that matter). I do tons of stuff on my phone, practical stuff…now just games and goofy stuff. I blog, email, work on the company websites, facebook (thats no goofy), tweet (not goofy, either), and so much more. Phones any more truly are our personal computers, and this is especially true for me as we do not even have a computer at home anymore since we use our cell phones for everything.

So, all of that obsessing to ask: When we pray for definite signs and directions, and we get answers that surprise us, how do we answer? As for the phone, I’m still not convinced that I’ve gotten the last of my direction on that matter and I won’t buy a new phone until I am sure, but really this is just the latest of many personal examples of this kind of signal reading test. When do we know the answers from the wishful thinking???

I’d love your input!!!

*******************************************************************

An hour or so later…

Anyone who reads much of my writing knows what’s to come. An little while after finishing up the posting on my cell phone conundrum, I came to the following passage in my New Testament reading. I won’t commentate further, the Word speaks for itself!

Then someone out of the crowd said to him, “Master, tell my brother to share his legacy with me.”
But Jesus replied, “My dear man, who appointed me a judge or arbitrator in your affairs?”
And then, turning to the disciples, he said to them, “Notice that, and be on your guard against covetousness in any shape or form. For this man’s real life in no way depends on the number of his possessions.”
(Luke 12:13-15, Modern English Translation)

and then further down…

“You must not set your heart on what you eat or drink, nor must you live in a state of anxiety.”
(Luke 12:29, Modern English Translation)

A question that sometimes drives me hazy: am I or are the others crazy?
-Albert Einstein

Yup. I'm definitely the crazy one

Well I thought this was a rather appropriate quote. I often think this at times. And then other times I’m thinking “What are these people on?”. But most of the time people have such opposite of the spectrum thoughts that it’s amazing we live in the same vicinity of each other.

Or…

Have you ever been somewhere to witness another person doing something so weird or out of the ordinary you pause to think “what are they possibly doing?” or “What could they possibly be thinking?” and then the situation could go one of two ways.

1) It turns out that the person was doing something completely sane, very well thought out, and completely logical and you feel like an idiot for second-guessing them

or

2) They actually are crazy and then you probably feel bad about making snide comments in your head.

Yeah, that’s the kind of luck I have So it turns out that I’m probably the crazy one in most situations. Imagine that!

OMG only 3 days left!!!

Question: Do you think that your mind thinks inside or outside of the box?

5+ Weaknesses for the Interview

This is in continuation to the earlier post named “5 Strengths & 5 Weaknesses @ Google!” since the weaknesses described in it couldn’t be used for a real interview.

We deceive!

We Live to deceive!

We  Live to get deceived!

We  want people to deceive!

No matter how much you sugar coat Lies and words of Self-Deception, they still remain what they Really are. Does Reality matter? I am not sure about it anymore really. Growing up in life, Growing up to life all those years, I have not been able to make up my mind on that and the notions I held in my years of innocent childhood have been tarnished by the ugly reality of the World I live in. Why is it that Truth doesn’t get us the desired results in life?

When it comes to interviews especially, one of the most likeable and expected questions is “Describe your strengths and weaknesses”.

I would certainly find it not very hard to answer that question but to answer it As Expected by the Interviewer is another story.  Over the years, I have come to realize that my Dictionary meaning of the Term Weakness when it comes to Interviews is completely wrong.

Dictionaries might describe Weakness as:

1. An inadequate quality; fault
2. A flaw or weak point
3. The property of lacking physical or mental strength; liability to failure under pressure or stress or strain

My version of Weakness means: “An extreme personality trait or characteristic (that you may have or not have) sugar-coated to highlight that it acts as a merit for earning big buck to the hiring company.”

Another important fact of life that I have learnt is that everything in the world is Relative.  Thus, naturally my definition of Weakness is discussed in the context of the interview.

Though I have always wanted to speak my mind on what I really believe my weaknesses would be in front of an interviewer but believe me, this will not get you anywhere especially in a job market. One in a million HR managers would actually admire your Truthfulness in this regard and you would surely face more rejections than approval to do the same. I still can’t comprehend the idea of what the interviewers really intend to understand in us from our reply.

Is it the skill and tact with which we can lie? Is it our ability to think One Step Ahead and get things done before being asked? In this case, the homework we might have done to have a well prepared answer. Is it the quality of shrewdness and self selling ability (i.e. marketing) in us? Or is it the diplomacy and ingenuity with which we handle the question?

However, I still want to maintain a shred of decency and truth in my reply to the prospective employer in hand. This is because I can’t think of losing my Truthfulness for one and secondly because my notions about life are quite different and distinct and I believe no matter how the world works as per others, it works how you want it to work for you; it works how you perceive it to work. Since discussing this is irrelevant to the scope of the current post, I would just resort to a quick list of 5+ Weaknesses that I believe can be used for the interview.

1. Lack of Experience: While I know that I don’t have any Direct experience for the position I am being interviewed for, I have professional experience that required all the desired qualities of professionalism.  My previous employer can second that I was effective and efficient in my previous job and I believe I can contribute and deliver fully to the new one. If given a chance and little time, this weakness can be overcome easily with my professional attitude.
2. Carefree Attitude: (While this is strength on one side, it can also prove to be a weakness. Dynamism and passion/enthusiasm is required to lead.)I am only carefree and relaxed till I think everything is under control. As soon as the deadlines and pressure pump in, I become proactive to meet them in the most efficient manner.
3. Working Alone: I prefer to work alone as I think I can deliver my best, concentrate and can avoid spending my energy on the team issues.  But since I like challenges and my past work didn’t really allow me to coordinate and work in team much, I am looking forward to grow in that area professionally.  I am excited that this will enable me to define some best practices in the area.
4. Getting Over Burdened: As mentioned earlier, I want to deliver my best and this perfectionist attitude makes me reluctant to delegate work to my subordinates. I can’t trust fully on their abilities and therefore, I over burden myself with work. The over-whelming feeling does take its toll sometimes. I realize this clearly and consciously and I have tried to work on it. Recently, I coordinated an event and tried to delegate as much work as possible and stick to concentrate to my duties.
5. Time Management Skills: Sometimes my perfectionism can affect my time management skills. Both of these are related and as I manage to curb that weakness, I believe this will be solved too.
6. Lacking Assertion: I don’t believe in coercion to get things done. My lack of assertion also stems from that fact. But I realize that this attribute is greatly required to build a strong character.  I have been working on this in my personal life as well as my teaching career and have successfully managed to have an upward graph.
7. Lacking Rational Thinking: Sometimes, I get over sensitive to what others have to say about my actions and notions. This is especially in areas of personality. I can’t meet everybody’s expectations and I can’t stop implementing the decisions I believe are right in my heart. I have tried on work on this area by researching and reading on human psychology and have managed slightly to understand and read people’s psychology and view every statement or comment in the light of practicality and rationalism.

There could be a much bigger list to use for the interview but since it was to match my Friend in order to carry the element of Truth in it, I have tried to keep it precise.  Also I believe that if asked to provide for 5 weaknesses or more, you should avoid the exact count since it makes the interviewer believe that you have had it planned already and that’s why he is unable to check your ability to respond to something out of the blues.

Some old fashioned, stereotypical employers do want the candidate to be well prepared and well read for all the questions so this decision will be based on your own personal analysis of the interviewer.

I personally believe that you can’t use one answer for each and every interview. Just make sure that your answer matches the position and business for which you are being interviewed. Analyze the interviewer’s personality, try to get into his mind, be attentive to his line of questioning, his attitude and what the things are he is stressing on.  For instance, if he’s insisting on finding the right candidate who can Grow with the company, you have to mention that this is one of your wish and desire. If you have had a couple of years experience with a previous employer, highlight it. If you don’t have this, then explain implicitly that its always been your dream and intention to Grow with a company but you also believe that you can and should not continue to work any longer when you start realizing that you can’t deliver your 100% and can’t work to your full potential. Since this won’t be honest and truthful to yourself and to your employer and you can’t continue something with a guilty conscience.

Another handy tip is to always have personal and professional experiences related to your strengths and weaknesses prepared since mostly the next question in line is to give an example to support your claims.

In a Nut Shell:

1. Be truthful.  Keep your conscience Alive.
2. Your strengths can actually be used as weaknesses.
3. Reply dynamically (as IT people would say). Base your reply on the given situation analysis. Avoid using the Prepared answer if it doesn’t fit well in a given interview scenario.
4. Understand the True definition of Weaknesses in the given scenario. Don’t start babbling your A, B, C ….Z personality weaknesses. Keeping in perspective the Job and Position, draft your weaknesses.
5. Your weaknesses are Actually things you professionally lack right now but are active and willing to develop.

The last thing to note here is that every person is different so no matter how much articles you read, no matter how much research you do on the Best Practices, there aren’t any hard and fast rules or text book definition of interviewer’s expectations or interviewee’s responses.

If you need any more examples to tricky interview questions, use a comment section below.

Share It!!

1.  Which of the following are examples of logical operators that might be used in a WHERE clause. (Choose Two)
AND, OR (*)
> <, =, <=, >=, <>
NOT IN (*)
LIKES
None of the above

2.  What will be the results of the following selection?
SELECT *
FROM employees
WHERE last_name NOT LIKE ‘A%’ AND last_name NOT LIKE ‘B%’

All last names that begin with A or B
All last names that do not begin with A or B (*)
No rows will be returned. There is a syntax error
All rows will be returned

3.  Which of the following would be returned by this SQL statement:
SELECT First_name, last_name, department_id
FROM employees
WHERE department_id IN(50,80)
AND first_name LIKE ‘C%’
OR last_name LIKE ‘%s%’

FIRST_NAME LAST_NAME DEPARTMENT_ID
Shelly Higgins 110

FIRST_NAME LAST_NAME DEPARTMENT_ID
Curtis Davies 50

FIRST_NAME LAST_NAME DEPARTMENT_ID
Randall Matos 50

FIRST_NAME LAST_NAME DEPARTMENT_ID
Michael Hartstein 20

All of the above (*)

4.  Which of the following is earliest in the rules of precedence?
Concatenation operator
Logical condition
Comparison condition
Arithmetic operator (*)

5.  Find the clause that will give the same results as:
SELECT *
FROM d_cds
WHERE cd_number NOT IN(90, 91, 92);
WHERE cd_id <=90 and cd_id >=92;
WHERE cd_id NOT LIKE (90, 91, 92);
WHERE cd_id != 90 and cd_id != 91 and cd_id != 92; (*)
WHERE cd_id != 90 or cd_id != 91 or cd_id!= 92;

6.  Which logical operators in the WHERE clause means “Not Equal To”? (Choose Two)
NOT IN (…) (*)
=+
<> (*)
><

7.  Which of the following statements best describes the rules of precedence when using SQL?
The order in which the columns are displayed
The order in which the expressions are sorted
The order in which the operators are returned
The order in which the expressions are evaluated and calculated (*)
All of the above

Chess the art of Logical Thinking,

This is a Logical chess move by move type book except with more recent games.

Neil McDonald, an International Grandmaster and chess trainer, knows the ironic, cold reality that every chessplayer faces, from novice to champion:

When you sit down to play a game of chess you are in command of exactly the same eight pieces and eight pawns that Capablanca, Fischer and Kasparov have used to create masterpieces of grand strategy and tactical precision.  Their pieces didn’t have heightened powers nor more fertile soil on which to work their stratagems: just the same 64 squares, 32 white and 32 black

http://forum09.faithfreedom.org/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=4808

Shaunm1963 wrote:

AND if you LOVE Jesus and Mary (as mentioned in the Koran) do you also believe that Jesus is the Son of God and the Word Incarnate and the Alpha and Omega and the Lamb of God? What do you MEAN you LOVE them???

Paarsurrey says:

Hi friend Shaunm1963

Yes, I love Jesus and Mary like I love all the Messengers Prophets mentioned in Quran i.e. Moses, Moses’ mother, Noah, Jonah etc. They were exemplary personalities for the human beings; that is why they were selected by the Creator-God Allah YHWH as Models for humanity.

1. I don’t believe Jesus to be son of god, in its literal meaning; yes I believe that he was one of the persons whom the Creator- God loved.

2. Jesus was never a Word incarnate in its literal meaning; but in the meaning that all the Messenger Prophets fulfilled the purpose of the creations of human beings; in that sense all the Messengers are the Word incarnate; nothing special with Jesus.

3. In the same sense all Messengers are Alpha and Omega; in the image of the Creator- God Allah YHWH; and they fulfill the purpose of human creation.

4. All the Messengers have to suffer and make sacrifices in the way of the Creator- God Allah YHWH; they are all Lambs of God, nothing special with Jesus.

5. Jesus talked in parables; the sinful and deserting scribes and the Church did not understand the parables sometimes and took it literally; they carved myths from the parables, we don’t have to follow their mistakes unnecessarily for nothing.

The human society is and must be rational, reasonable and logical; it cannot live in mythical castles. It is for this that I say the Jesus of Bible is no more relevant in the West. Jesus and Mary of Quran are real and relevant for the West and hence they must be loved as their celebrities.

I love Jesus and Mary as mentioned in Quran; not the mythical ones as mentioned by the cunning Paul and sinful scribes in the NT.

Thanks

I am an Ahmadi peaceful Muslim

So I’m in the middle of reading Bruce Hood’s Supersense, and so far it’s looking like a really worthwhile read. I’m going to wait till I’ve followed his reasoning through to the end before deciding exactly what I think of it, but it’s prompted me to think (and subsequently rant) about something that’s bugged me sporadically for some time.

The book’s about the natural human tendency to believe in supernatural ideas, seek supernatural explanations for phenomena we don’t immediately understand, and so forth. A big part of his thesis is that everybody, however rational they try to be, has some irrational or supernatural elements to their belief system. The main example he uses is the revulsion most people feel on being asked to don an item of clothing previously worn by a notorious serial killer. There’s no real, physical, material connection to anything negative whatsoever, it’s a completely innocuous item entirely unaltered by some irrelevant piece of information about its past… and yet most people would still feel icky about putting on Fred West’s sweater.

Our emotions – obviously a significant part of what it means to be human, and a part famously not over-burdened by rationality – are what he’s starting to talk about at the point of the book I’ve reached. As I say, I’m going to let him finish before passing judgement, but there’s an annoyingly prevalent assumption elsewhere in a lot of our culture that deserves a tirade.

Emotional != Irrational.

(That’s a makeshift “does not equal” sign, for anyone who was wondering.)

Films and TV like this one a lot. Whenever anyone in any kind of dramatisation does anything out of love, for instance, they’re generally seen as acting against logic. It’s a totally irrational act, they’re told, to have given up the chance for so many material pleasures just so they could get the girl – and this irrationality is held up as triumphantly praiseworthy. Screw reason, you’re doing something better.

Now, I acknowledge the obvious irrational aspects to something like love. Emotions are things that happen without recourse to reason, and I know there’s a significant difference between empirically assessing somebody’s attributes and calculating them to be laudable, and loving someone for being a wonderful person. I accept all that.

But that doesn’t make it an irrational thing to act on one’s emotions in any way, once they’re there.

Concrete example: I finished watching the complete series of Due South not long ago, and toward the end, Fraser gets an offer of some big fancy job of some sort elsewhere, with more money, more prestige, more whatever. It’s a promotion, a step up for him professionally in every way, and it’s his for the taking. But he doesn’t. He turns it down, and chooses to stay in his current position, a lower-paying job with a crappy apartment and few perks. And why? Because he wants to keep working with his partner, Ray, along with all the other people with whom he’s built up a relationship where he currently is.

Now, Ray’s the first to tell Fraser that this makes no sense, it’s an illogical choice. But it makes perfect sense. Fraser’s looking at his choices and deciding what would make him happiest, and it isn’t the pay rise and the fancy apartment in some other part of the country, it’s doing a job he loves with people he cares about. Staying where he is is entirely the correct and sensible decision, because of the emotions he’s feeling.

No doubt letting overwhelming emotions drown out any other factors at all can lead people to irrational decisions, where they fail to act in their best overall interests due to what feels right more immediately. But it’s annoying how everyone always seems to get described as “irrational” whenever they admit that emotions matter. Give rationalism a little more credit.

For that matter, don’t get me started on the phrase “I’m sure there’s a perfectly reasonable explanation for this”. “Reasonable” does not mean being in denial about the fact that there are very obviously vampires trying to eat you. For instance.

People saying that line (or one very like it) are so often mere moments away from getting shown up and humiliated/disembowelled for their oh-so-foolish-in-retrospect skepticism. Look, being skeptical when some crazy guy starts ranting about the zombie apocalypse is a good thing. Otherwise you’ll believe any old shit crazy people tell you. But once you’ve seen the hordes of dead rising from their graves, or looked into the dead eyes of your best friend as he gnaws on the leg of your brother’s corpse, or been provided with whatever extraordinary evidence the extraordinary claims in question need, then the “rational explanation” becomes holy shit you guys there’s fucking zombies.

Seriously, you’re allowed to be rational and still change your mind when new facts come in. If you’re Buffy, the most reasonable explanation for a lot of things is vampires, duh, but otherwise you really shouldn’t be chastised for not leaping straight to wacky assumptions about undead armies as soon as something odd crops up which needs explaining.

Okay, hold on… this has nothing to do with anything, but did anyone else see that the Large Hadron Collider was scuppered when a bird dropped some bread in it? It’s not clear from this one article quite how big a problem it’s caused – did they just notice that something was up, have a look, take the bread out, and get on with things? Should I take @ProfBrianCox’s silence on the matter as a sign that nothing too drastic has gone awry this time? Anyone know any more about this?

That’s derailed whatever minimal train of thought I might have had, now.