How many Halo Spartans does it take to kill a Space Marine?
Find out for yourself here!
[Thanks to Edd for spotting this one]
Experiences of the Dark (Tate Modern)
Miroslaw Balka’s How It Is and the Experiences of the Dark talks are currently at the Tate Modern. I saw it last week and it’s well worth a look if you’re in the area – remember of course that entry to the Tate Modern is free. I won’t say any more as the experience is a matter of personal interpretation and I don’t want to bias people before they see it.
Facebook Gold Account
I’ve seen this image pop up in normal Facebook albums over the past few days, normally tagged as containing various friends.
Before people start to panic that they are missing out on premium content I thought it was worth pointing out that a little bit of Google-fu revealed that these are a hoax. So no need to worry. 
Blog Update
In the spirit of sorting out my ‘online precense’ I’ve given the blog a bit of a revamp, changed things around, etc. I’m now sporting the lovely ‘Fjords’ theme; the header image is only temporary until I can sort out something better and perhaps a bit higher res. I’ve also linked my phone, Twitter account, Facebook profile and this blog – probably a year or two behind everyone else but never mind, I was never a trend setter. 
New features of the blog include an RSS feed from Twitter and another feed from the Surreal Science webcomic that I work on with sorchajayne (who I’ve just noticed is also using Fjords). Now that I’m attempting to make the most of it I’m sure ‘tweeting’ will shortly become passé, so apologies to everyone who was still enjoying it.
Anti-Atheist Discrimination?
I don’t usually blog about religion, but I was a little taken aback by what I heard yesterday.
It would seem that Cherie Booth – judge, wife of the former prime minister and a noted Catholic – passed a lighter sentence on a Muslim man specifically because he was devoutly religious, a fact that she referenced twice in her judgement.
So are we supposed to infer from this that if he had been atheist or agnostic he would have received a harsher sentence?
She said “You are a religious man and you know this is not acceptable behaviour.” But if he did indeed ‘know better’ because he was religious, couldn’t it be argued that he should have received a harsher sentence because he was ‘more aware’ of the unacceptability of his actions? If she believes his faith is enough to stop him acting this way again, then why didn’t it stop him acting like this in the first place?
If I was the person whose jaw he’d fractured I think I’d feel a little cheated of justice by this ruling.
War Horse
Today I was surprised to realise that I haven’t written anything on my blog for nine months now! Hopefully people didn’t think I’d been snatched in the night by the secret police for my last post. The whole thing needs an overhall really, so you might notice some cosmetic changes of the next week.
I’d like to start getting a bit more use from my blog again so I’m going to start by highly recommending War Horse, which we saw at the New London Theatre last week. A heart warming tale about a boy, his horse, and the gruelling trench quagmire of World War I, the show featured some amazing animal puppetry. In fact it’s probably worth seeing just for the puppets alone. I’d strongly recommended if you’re looking for something to see in London.
Petition
There’s currently one of those e-Government petitions on the Downing Street website calling for Gordon Brown to resign as PM. Obviously the results will be ignored, but I thought I’d share the link in case anyone was interested in making their opinion known.
Woodstock House Hotel
Over the previous weekend we visited the Woodstock House Hotel in the village of Charlton, near Chichester. It’s such a lovely place that I feel compelled to recommend it to everyone.
The village is small and picturesque, and nestled in the heart of the South Downs, and there are three good pubs within a mile; The Fox Goes Free, the Partridge Inn and the Star and Garter.
The staff at the Woodstock were very friendly, and served us complementary tea and cake on arrival. They were also kind enough to phone the local pubs for us to book a table for our evening meal, and even phoned a second pub without complaint when we changed our minds about which one we wanted to visit.
Our room and en suite bathroom were lovely and clean and included a small flat screen TV. We were able to order a newspaper for delivery to our room on Sunday morning, and a very tasty full English breakfast is also included in the price of the room.
It was a wonderful friendly place and I’d definitely visit again, as well as recommend it to anyone who would like to get away for a relaxing weekend break without travelling too far.
Twitter (sigh)
Whoops, it seems I haven’t blogged for a little while. Well let me assure you that I’m still alive, just quite busy.
Anyway, there seems to have been a lot of talk on the TV and radio about Twitter lately, with many people talking about it as though it was something brand new. I’m pretty sure it’s been around for ages, but never mind…
So under peer pressure I’ve signed up for an account. My page (profile, feed, what’s the right term?) can be found at http://twitter.com/chris_buxey if any is interested in “following” me. Let’s hope it lasts longer than my MySpace page, which was approximately 2 hours.
The Internet in SPAAAAAACE!
I thought this story on the Register was quite interesting, and just wanted to draw people’s attention to it. The story concerns tests of a new communication protocol called Disruption-Tolerant Networking (DTN), specifically designed to be an alternative for TCP/IP communication across the vast distances between planets, moons and space stations. Over such vast distances, lag and interruption are obviously very common. If this sounds interesting, then I urge you to take a look.
