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Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in
ravenviz's LiveJournal:
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| Friday, July 17th, 2009 | | 2:38 pm |
Hofstede's Framework for Assessing Culture
While doing some e-learning about culture in business using Hofstede's framework, the result of a test question answered:  Now while all this is nice and everything, and I am all in favour, from what I have learned is that any company with high masculinity will just say bollocks to all that and do what they like. So, the question is, do we pay people to come up with these frameworks for fun, or actually listen to them? Usually it is a case of the individual making up their own mind on a sample dataset of one (their own experience), in preference to years of research and considered peer review on the matter. And don't get me started on speeding... | | Monday, July 13th, 2009 | | 1:56 pm |
No crowd surfing. No moshing.
As written on the back of my Sonisphere ticket. Dictionary.com enlightens us further: mosh (mŏsh) v. moshed, mosh·ing, mosh·esv. intr.To knock against others intentionally while dancing at a rock concert; slam-dance. v. tr.To knock against (someone) intentionally while dancing at a rock concert. [Perhaps alteration of mash.] mosh'er n.
How will the bouncers know if I'm intentionally knocking against others or whether it's by accident? Will they listen to my quandary (dictionary.com: A state of uncertainty or perplexity) while they're throwing me out? | | Tuesday, June 16th, 2009 | | 12:20 pm |
| | Friday, May 29th, 2009 | | 12:30 pm |
7kg
"seven kilograms of plutonium — enough for one or two nuclear weapons" - source"volume | 353 mL (milliliters)" - source"99.9% x volume of a U.S. beer can ( 12 fl oz )" - source | | Thursday, May 14th, 2009 | | 1:54 pm |
World Wide Military Deployments - USA
140,000 Iraq* 73,500 Germany 41,360 South Korea 40,680 Japan 38,160 Kuwait 11,965 Italy 9,877 United Kingdom 8,500 Afghanistan 4,500 Bahrain 4,490 Guam 3,300 Qatar 2,306 Cuba 2,030 Spain 1,742 Turkey 1,658 Iceland 1,300 Pakistan 1,220 United Kingdom *[President Bush] said that four combat brigades [of at least 21,500 troops] along with other support forces would return by July 2008. The President said that when these withdrawals were completed, about 132,000 US troops would remain in Iraq. Source | | Wednesday, May 13th, 2009 | | 12:31 pm |
| | Wednesday, March 11th, 2009 | | 3:35 pm |
No Smoking Day
I heard it's No Smoking Day today when "more than a million smokers across the UK will take the first step to kick the habit and make a positive lifestyle change". I have had a patchy past with smoking, I first smoked in pubs when I was 17, I didn't really like it at first, I think I was sick after my second cigarette (in The Sun in Leighton Buzzard). I took up the habit habitually when I was 19 and smoked about 10 Silk Cut or B & H a day until I was 23. While having advantages of sociability and "coolness", devil may care attitude, "Hey look at me, I smoke and I'm OK", I did realise that I'd need to stop to get fit for an Orienteering competition. I decided to not smoke for a month beforehand, and then just didn't take up the habit again... ...until around 2000 when I started smoking socially, only when I went out and *very* occasionally at home but rarely. Soon it was 2008 and I'd been smoking about 40 a month I reckon, depending on the month, I smoked a whole pack of 10 in one night on one occasion, it just depended. I used to look forward to going out so I could smoke. Also my definition of "going out" changed, it would be when I was with certain people who I "went out" with, even if we weren't "out". If I had a girlfriend that smoked I would smoke too so that I could be like them and they would like me (doh!). It was kind of cool, our thing, a social 'going outside for a fag', all the chat you otherwise wouldn't have. Fag and a glass of wine... Sex and a fag... On the balcony in your night clothes and a fag... Things came to a head in 2008 when on a holiday weekend in Whitby and I ruined a whole weekend, ill because of smoking and drinking. I finally admitted to myself that smoking made me feel rotten, especially the next day after a session. In fact it gave me a headache pretty much straight away, the benefit of the 'high' quickly squashed by an almost immediate headache and sick stomach. Why was I doing it? You may know that I am active in terms of outdoors activities and sports, I cycle everywhere and play squash regularly. Every time I'd been on a smoking 'binge' I could feel my body 'pushing back' during exercise, high pulse, over heating, not to mention shortness of breath - and it would ruin my squash game. Losing all the time is not a good feeling. So I decided to stop, I decided I didn't need to feel rotten all the time, having to spend a week recovering one night's smoking. I have not smoked for coming on 5 months and feel a lot better for it. Yes I am tempted sometimes, but it's all the habitual reasons, the social reasons, not the addictiveness of it (or is that the addictiveness...?). I would like to think that this is it this time and I can keep off them for good but I can't tell the future. That may be a statement active smokers are comfortable with, "You see, it's not easy and that's why I carry on" but that's up to them, I'm gave up for me. Prospective quitters must find their own method, I have my way, they have their way, using my way will probably fail anyone else. Nowhere on a fag packet does it say, "Smoke responsibly". | | 12:46 pm |
| | Tuesday, March 10th, 2009 | | 12:05 pm |
| | Monday, November 10th, 2008 | | 3:54 pm |
Mountainous catastrophe
Myself and Dan were carefully crossing the glacier, snow bridges are always difficult to negotiate, will they hold our weight, will they collapse? As we tentatively made progress Dan put his foot through the snow, up to his thigh, revealing the huge chasm below, glowing darkly blue, not really able to see the bottom. This enclosed space of frigid slow death beckoning us to its icy depth. Resistant I looked further down and decided we should hurry across while we still had some confidence. The snow was becoming slushy, we were almost sledging with our own bodies as we slid down an icy channel to the clear other side - terra firma, what a relief! Almost immediately, a large muffled bang, looking up across the other side of this icy wide 1000 year old formation I could see a huge boulder in mid air, spinning down the mountain, moving impossibly fast for something as large as a house. There were many climbers in the path, seated tourists rose to their feet en masse, looking around at this imminent danger, not knowing where to look, where to run, where to hide. The whole mountain side seemed to explode, what was happening, a volcano? - some massive natural event casting aside bodies like polystyrene packing chips, flying everywhere, the dusky smoke within which many rocks and boulders flew determined to raze irresistibly anything in its path. | | 12:42 am |
A pressing issue
Bite force of various animals:
| Human | 80 kg |
| Scarlet macaw | 80 kg |
| African lion | 425 kg |
| Alligator | 1360 kg |
| T-Rex | 1370 kg |
| Megalodon | 1800 kg |
| | Tuesday, October 21st, 2008 | | 2:52 am |
| | Tuesday, October 14th, 2008 | | 3:37 pm |
Generally overheard at work
Actual conversation* is generalised to make it more interesting: *for extra fun, the reader is invited to ascertain the gender of the same sexed conversationalists Gossiper 1: "they do that" Gossiper 2: "yes, they do that, don't they" Gossiper 1: "yes, they do" Gossiper A: "did you see that sporting contest?" Gosspier B: "yes, you were very lucky to obtain that objective" Gossiper A: "yes, we were" | | Sunday, October 12th, 2008 | | 7:46 am |
| | Wednesday, October 8th, 2008 | | 5:22 pm |
Chook therapy
I could watch these guys for hours (well, a little under 5 minutes anyway) | | Friday, October 3rd, 2008 | | 12:26 pm |
facebook blocked :-o
Work have finally blocked facebook. Right, where's the European Court of Human Rights? | | 9:55 am |
| | Thursday, October 2nd, 2008 | | 1:28 pm |
Safe as houses
 Still a good long tem investment, if you've bought at a peak then you just have to wait 5 - 10 years to let the price go back up. Chances are if you've just bought that you want to stick around for a while However buy-to-let is always a gamble. | | Wednesday, October 1st, 2008 | | 2:42 pm |
Gaia to intervene in global warming catastrophe
TEXAS CITY, TX -- In an unprecedented interview today, a spokesbeing for Gaia, the physical components of the Earth: atmosphere, cryosphere, hydrosphere and lithosphere, coupled to form a complex interacting system, issued a statement informing homo sapiens that there were to be active measures taken against the currently increasing imblance and untimely interaction of planetary resources. Deceased plants and animals laid down many millions of years ago to form rich hydrocarbon (HC) reserves were said to be becoming depleted against their natural process of slow release into the Gaia system via subduction, vulcanism and plate techtonic extrication. It was announced that such mechanisms form the transport method for the necessary trace molecules and compounds in the biosphere required to maintain Gaia's rich diversity at the correct levels. Citing a case example, the claim was made that Hurricane Ike had recently reached landfall at the Gulf Coast of the United States in an effort to reduce HC refinement thereby lowering demand due to a related increase in domestic fuel price resulting from the shortage. The spokesbeing went on to describe that such countermeasures would become ever more prevalent as HC production continues, eventually reaching levels of ferocity that will effectively halt any further increase. When interviewed, a spokesperson for a consortium of the world's leading energy providers including BP, ExxonMobil and ChevronTexaco, described the announcement as a publicity stunt and doubted seriously the ability of Gaia to take such active measures. In a dramatic twist of fate, while driving his company provided Ford F-350 back to his office in Houston, Texas, the spokesperson drove into a tree lying across the road, felled by extremely high winds uncharacteristic of the time of year, and was killed. | | Tuesday, September 30th, 2008 | | 1:38 am |
Chop me a match
What massive forest clearance in the Amazon looks like, this image is 80 miles across:  Look where the 'roads' are. |
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