Half-Ton Man
Posted: Sun 12 February, 2006 Filed under: Thoughts, Weirdness 2 Comments »I realise it was on earlier this week, but last night I finally got round to watching Channel 4’s Bodyshock programme “Half Ton Man” about Patrick Deuel, who was admitted to hospital weighing 76stone (over 1,000lbs).
Thankfully the programme didn’t focus just on Deuel, but on other people who had similar weight issues, including one man who had managed to lose nearly 30 stone in weight, only to put it back on again, and then lose it. It made for fascinating viewing, but at the same time I found it remarkably sad. All the people involved talked about their need for food being similar to an addiction, but it was the guy who had lost, then regained the weight that summed it up for me.
“I got down to 150lbs, and went out to have a celebratory frankfurter. And one turned into two. And two turns into three, and into four. And of course you’ve got to have the frankfurter with fries. And the fries have to have cheese on”
“Other people who binge on food might put on 5lbs, maybe even ten. When I have I binge, I put on 20, 25, even 30lbs”
That’s exactly the same reaction as an alcoholic – one drink is never enough. It turns into two, three, four, the bottle.
I found the programme sad, but it also made me wander wonder (sorry) about the partners and family of the people involved. In Deuel’s case, when he got married when he was 40-odd stone, but at that point he could still walk, stand up, and so on. Over the next ten years though, he ended up laying on a bed, unable to move, unable even to turn himself over. A huge mass of fat, still eating – the doctor in the programme said that just to maintain his weight, he must’ve been eating 12,000 calories per day – and doing nothing else. In that situation, you’d think that at some point the wife would turn around and say “Hang on, don’t you think this has gone just a bit too far? Can’t you see this isn’t doing you any good?” – to at least say something to them, not keep on feeding them…
Phoning an Egg
Posted: Tue 7 February, 2006 Filed under: Weirdness Leave a comment »Some people just have WAY too much time on their hands.
Secure?
Posted: Mon 30 January, 2006 Filed under: Cynicism, Thoughts, Weirdness 2 Comments »As most people in the UK know, credit and debit cards have been switching over to the “Chip and PIN” system, which is supposedly more secure against credit-card fraud and the like.
On February 14, anyone with a “chip and PIN” card will no longer be able to sign a credit-card slip for their purchases, and must know their PIN number instead.
Anyway, that’s a minor digression. The main thrust is that supposedly “Chip and PIN” is more secure. It’s supposed to stop credit card fraud, and all this bollocks. We’ll ignore the fact that anyone can “shoulder-surf” and get the PIN number. And the fact that the PIN number is the same whether you’re using a cash machine or doing a transaction – which means that if someone gets your PIN number and card (you know, by shoulder-surfing the number in a shop, then grabbing the bag on the way out – that’s just one example, of course) then they can get the maximum cash transaction out like *that* (clicks fingers), which of course renders the card owner liable, as they’re not likely to have called the card company in that couple of minutes and registered the card as stolen. And, of course, the bank will say “Well, you let someone see your PIN number. Therefore you’re in breach of your agreement with us, and thus liable for all losses on that account/card”.
Again, a minor digression there.
My point is this : If “Chip and PIN” is so secure, how come I’ve just seen the following transaction…
“Did you know your PIN number’s locked on this card?” (ie you can’t use the PIN, because you’ve had three goes and failed to get it right)
“Yes, I was trying to use it in the supermarket, and got all flustered with everyone behind me, so I forgot the number, and now it’s locked”
“OK, just sign on the slip here”
“Thanks”
“And there’s your card back”
WHAT? So you can have a locked PIN, which signifies three failed attempts at the number, and instead of cancelling the card, or keeping it, it’s been given back once, then used just on the signature again, and then given back yet again? How the blue blazing fiddly fuck is that a secure transaction?
Anarchistic
Posted: Mon 26 December, 2005 Filed under: Thoughts, Weirdness 1 Comment »Now here’s a thing…
Am I the only one who sees these nice new “gated communities” getting built, all eight-foot metal fences, remote-control gates and so on, and then just wants to take a couple of big strong cycle locks and lock the gates together, then see what the snotty-nosed arseholes do?
There’s one being built on the way to work, and every time I go past the signs for “secure gated community” I want to do it. No real reason, it just strikes me as funny…
Word of the Week
Posted: Thu 15 December, 2005 Filed under: Thoughts, Weirdness Leave a comment »I don’t know where the hell I’ve picked it up from, but this week’s Word is “Crufty” meaning dodgy, manky, or mucky.
I’d love to know where my brain picks these things up from, and why it sometimes fixates on them to a strange degree.
Shuttle
Posted: Mon 12 December, 2005 Filed under: Geeky, Thoughts, Weirdness 6 Comments »A while back – quite a while back, as it happens – I bought a new PC. All very sexy, a little Shuttle box, 64 bit AMD processor, blah blah.
Regular readers will have noticed that I haven’t mentioned it all that much. There’s a reason for that – it’s still not working.
I’ve tried pretty much all I can think of, short of cannibalising the hard drive out of the old PC and shoving that in to see if anything works that way. The list so far includes:
- complete disassembly and reassembly – including checking the seating/positioning of the processor
- Installing Windows XP, Xp64 and 2000
- Installing Mandrake and Ubuntu linuxes (Linii?)
- Swapping out various components, to see if there are problems on those
I’ve also changed from an SATA drive to a normal IDE drive.
The problem is that while nothing has so far installed properly or run properly, the errors are never the same. It’s normally that some file or other isn’t installed, or is corrupted, but then every so often you get an “IRQL NOT LESS OR EQUAL” error, or a different Screen Of Death. The Linux installs die with a totally corrupted screen, so I’ve no idea what the problem there is.
The only conclusion I’m left with now is that the motherboard itself is screwed. Unless anyone else has any other ideas about what it could be?
Driving By
Posted: Wed 7 December, 2005 Filed under: Thoughts, Weirdness 6 Comments »There’s one facet of the story about South Yorkshire being gridlocked this morning due to a dead man on the M1 and a fatal accident on the A1 that’s rather more disturbing than any of the others. It’s this…
the body, which had been struck by a number of vehicles, was found near a footbridge, but it was not yet known if the man had fallen, jumped or been pushed from the bridge
Hang on, “struck by a number of vehicles“? How the hell does anyone in a car hit a body in the road and a) not stop or potentially b) not notice? Humans are bloody big things – they’re going to do damage to your car, regardless of whether they’re already dead or not. I’ve seen the mess a pheasant makes, and the one a deer makes – so I repeat, how the shit do you hit a body and not stop?
The mind boggles…