OK, I've opened a new LJ account and will be showing up as showingup . Now I'll be able to access that account and not rely on T's laptop having me logged in.

It's my fault for not updating my email address on the Livejournal settings. I can't change my email address because Livejournal won't accept the password I thought I had. I change the password because I can't update the email. I can't use the secret question because it had never been set ( Read more... )

I just realised that under-confidence can be a form of vanity.  Vanity isn't a moral problem, it's just a manifestation of fear.  It doesn't occur in people who do not need others to approve of them.  There's  a sliding scale of healthy confidence levels, and at one extreme there's the worry about what others think and trying to conform to that ( ( Read more... )

Apparently, American pseudo-Christian hate-group Focus On The Family is doing a survey on what issues interest youngsters and how they can best communicate their agenda.  If you want to spend a few minutes explaining that love, compassion, integrity and humility are more appealing than condemnation of ideas that scare them; that social justice, ( Read more... )

We spent the afternoon at my sister's place, with overexcited small children dressed as fairies and princesses hurling themselves around the place.  We don't need psychoactive recreational drugs if we can bottle whatever it is that's going on in the heads of the under-5s.  They are quite mad.

It was a good day, lots of fun.  There were, of course ( Read more... )

Contender for Best Ever Headline, brought to you today by The Guardian:

Visit causes Obama-Lama ding-dong

I think I'm recovering from my immune system's periodic freak-out and multiple infections.  Still really shattered, but finally off medication.  I'm trying to play catch up without overdoing it.

If the next house valuations match the first, we should be able to scrape up enough for a deposit and our first mortgage, which would - at a rough ( Read more... )

UK calls in Israeli ambassador as Dubai killing row escalates
Relations in Tel Aviv now in 'deep freeze', say British officials

* Julian Borger
   * The Guardian, Thursday 18, February 2010

Britain last night fired the first shot in a potentially explosive diplomatic row with Israel by calling in the country's ambassador to explain the use ( Read more... )

‘Straight Men, Gay Porn’ and Other Brain Map Mysteries

06 Feb 2010

For most of the last century, neuroscientists were convinced that adult brains were pretty much set. Now, recent neuroscience reveals that our brains are suprisingly plastic/ throughout our lives/. By learning techniques that help us sidestep unwanted wiring, we can even direct ( Read more... )