Apathy Sketchpad

There are really only two ways to use the internet. The first is the simplest, and is an easy habit to slip into. The first is to visit the same few websites every other day and never really venture out of them. The first is the online equivalent of needing to get out more (which is ironic in itself).

The second is to use the internet properly. There are millions of websites out there that almost noone will ever see, and the only way to find them is to look around at random. Click everything that takes your interest, investigate people at random. For example, the other day we were looking for exam papers on the University’s web site. Then, mostly by clicking about at random, we found a page about one of our lecturers. Which liked to his personal page. Now, most lecturers’ personal pages are mostly just about their research, but not Prof. Olmsted, no, not he. The Olmsted Homestead has a couple of photos, and a page of links, including one to his brother’s website. His brother, it appears, is managing director of Cambridge Innovations, but far more interestingly also working on an album. Which isn’t bad, actually. And the first track is called “Brother”, which gave us all a good laugh. But by far the most interesting ang important question addressed on the Homestead is that of “Is It A Moose?“. Nobody quite knows what it might be if it turns out not to be a moose, why it’s there, or why it might be a moose in the first place, but we all eargerly await the results.

For all its uses and convenience, if you want to prove a point Dictionary.Com is not the way to do it. This, I think, is because it is an American dictionary. Specifically, it is The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language. This means it has some rather dubious definitions, such as this:

tr.v. leveraged, leveraging, leverages

To provide (a company) with leverage.
To supplement (money, for example) with leverage.
To improve or enhance: “It makes more sense to be able to leverage what we [public radio stations] do in a more effective way to our listeners” (Delano Lewis).

It also lists another definition which irritates the hell out of me. In all our lectures, at some point or another, whichever idiot it is who’s teaching us for that particular hour can be relied upon to refer to something as “trivial”. Personally, I define trivial as “irrelevant, pointless, or (and this is my favourite) academic”, and don’t see why we should have to learn trivial things. For some reason, physics lecturers think it means “obvious”. And Dictionary.Com inexplicably agrees.

The other interesting thing I discovered is about American/British spellings. For a long time, I used to think that words ending in -ise were the British spellings and -ize was American. Then almost everyone at Uni shouted me down on this because I refused point blank to spell “analyse” with a Z. This, to me suggested the form “analyzis”, which was plainly ridiculous. Lee wound me up no end by insisting that I had — and I quote — “been affected”. Dictionary.Com finally came through. According to Dictionary.Com, I was right. “Well the dictionary’s wrong,” Lee said. In fact, according to every single online source I can lay my virtual hands on, I was right. It appears that the Oxford English Dictionary reccomends -ize in most cases, but then The Times tends to use -ise. From what I can gather, the British quite happily used -ise for years until one day some American decided that using zeds would be cooler, even if he did call them zees, and managed to confuse an entire country in the process. Now we’re faced with a population who not only spells all -ise words in to different ways, but doesn’t even know which is which.

Not, of course, that Britain is in any realy position to criticise (with as S). From what I’ve been told, when Aluminium was first isolated, it was named “Aluminum”. Someone in Britain decided that “Aluminium” would make a better name, and somehow got it changed. Car tyres are only spelled with a Y because someone decided they were way too fad advanced from ordinary tires to be spelled the same way.

In the interests of fairness, -ize is also acceptable. Feel free to argue this irrelevant point in the Forum, I expect someone will. Lizzy.

What seems now like an eternity ago, the Halifax showed a very popular advert featuring one of their cashiers singing a rewritten version of Tom Jones’ Sex Bomb. This was all well and good. But now, in true Halifax style, they have gone that bit too far. The buildings are full of the same exact phrases they always were, but now they’re being held up by big pictures of Howard (who, for reasons known only to the Halifax, is now a computer generated idiot). Their website goes even further… Howard has his own Flash site, featuring a bad screensaver (Howard in that crappy car driving across the screen), a bad “screenmate” (four poor animations of Howard), and a bad driving game (Howard in that crappy car avoiding buildings labelled “Barclays” or “NatWest”). If I was Howard, I’d sue.

As we get into the last half of the last semester, my mind begins to turn to what Adam told me earlier in the year: “They’re not accepting any more applications for societies until next year.” This is because we have a great scheme: The Cynics’ Society. As the year has gone on, more and more projects have become apparent we could be involved in. For example, there is a small minority of young BNP members in the University, and there are a lot of people (caling themselves the Anti-Nazi League) who wnat them thrown out. In the Cynics’ Society, we want to mount a campaign to get them thrown out for being fascists and imposing thier political views on everyone else.

Also, last week was “Womyn’s Week,” which is a misnomer, since there is no such thing as “womyn”, and it does not last a whole week. We want to start an anti-feminist week, ideally the week before, and hold similar events. The whole concept of “Womyn’s Week” irritates my friends (especially Lizzy, irronically enough). It’s not so much the fact that they illustrate it with a very poorly veiled image of female genetalia; it’s not so much that they spell “womyn” with a Y (well, actually it is; they probably think the word “history” is sexist, too. I wonder what the singular of “womyn” is…); it’s not even so much the fact that their horrible posters are up every-damn-where. I think it’s mostly because their events are pointless (a female-only DJ night, a lecture, nothing that’ll achieve anything), and women already have pretty much the same rights as men (and in a lot of ways, more rights than us). There’s still some discrimination, but there always will be. That’s just how mankind is.

We want to field a candidate in the Union elections. At the moment they’re a farce. People think they’re going to get elected by ripping off other advertising campaigns. There’s one saying “what’s the worst that could happen” with a photoshopped picture of Dr. Pepper, and there’s an even worse one that simply reads “fcuk fees, voting is free, register your vote for…” and I can’t remember the guy’s name, so that should give you some idea of how well it worked “…for education officer”. Professor Hickey (who doesn’t so much lecture us as he does perform a set of stand-up physics) thinks anyone who can’t spell simple four letter words shouldn’t be an education officer, and I’m tempted to agree. To date, I have only ever met one member of the Union council, and he was sat in the Old Bar being a bit cynical and saying “look at these crisps: ‘Blue Cheese and Steak’ flavour. We’re students! What kind of a union is this?” “Well you run it.” “Oh, yeah.”

We’d like to set up petitions oposite the existing ones arguing the opposite point, and if the university try to stop us, we’ll accuse them of fascism as well. We want to organise showings of bad films then make fun of them. We want to see if the university has enough of a sense of humour to allow a cynics’ society. We want to put up posters mocking the other posters around Uni to advertise the Society. We want to make an alternate prospectus. But we can’t. Not until next year. Next year, we will either get our society, or form an underground one. That wouldn’t be the same, but it would be fun to do it ‘against the system’. It would save us obeying the rules, anyhow.