I've been on holiday in France for the last week, staying at Les Deux Alpes with some friends (susannahf, mrpj_antarctica, elvum, and terpsichore1980) to do some snowboarding. This was a fun week; I've got a few bruises, but I've definitely improved during the week ( Read more... )

"Do you know how to pluck a chicken?" said Miss Flitworth.
Bill looked from her to the hen.
BUT WE FEED THEM, he said helplessly.
"That's right. And then they feed us. This one's been off lay for months. That's how it goes in the chicken world."("Reaper Man", p130 ( Read more... )

I heard a conversation on the radio this morning, where the two presenters were moaning about vegetarians. Apparently Gordon Ramsey (the chef) has been in the news recently for refusing to serve vegetarians at one of his restaurants; after doing a bit of digging on the web, I assume that they're referring to this story, where he criticised the pop ( Read more... )

This post is motivated by a recent discussion in nou's journal, which some of you may have read. However, I hope that it will also make sense in isolation. Basically, this is an attempt to explain the way that I discuss issues, in the hope that it will reduce future misunderstandings. This is a fairly long post, because I'm trying to explain this as ( Read more... )

One for the meat eaters here. Well, vegetarians are also welcome to vote/comment, but I can probably guess what you're going to say :)

Over on my main website, I've explained my reasons for going vegetarian. In particular, I realised that I had a double standard, where I didn't like the idea of eating things that were cute and fluffy (specifically ( Read more... )

I think today's been fairly productive. I went off to PMSI (the company where I used to work) for a chat, and we've agreed that I'll resume work there in October. We need to sort out a few of the finer details before I sign a new contract, but basically I'll stay there for a year while I look for PhD places/jobs in research companies. This works ( Read more... )