You may remember that a few weeks ago I posted about the dumbing down of GCSE physics. As a follow-up to that post the instigator of the complaint, Wellington Grey, has created a petition on the No. 10 website. If you agree with his stance, that the dumbing down of GCSE physics is generally a bad thing, then I would urge you to sign his petition.
I have been very busy over the last two weeks or so. I won’t go into detail but I would like to thank Becky and Dave for a lovely housewarming and birthday party that they had last weekend. I made my own burgers to cook on their BBQ and it was all jolly good fun. I also went to see Pirates 3 this week which I thought was very swashbuckling. It was almost as good as this video found by Colin:
Don’t let the song get stuck in your head!
I went to the Brake Road Safety Awards on Friday evening with work. The company that I work for won an award for our risk management product which I thought was pretty cool. Nothing like drinking on company expenses.
I am going to have a Pimm’s party. It is called Pimm’s in the Park and will be on Saturday 11th August at 2pm in St Andrew’s Park, Bristol. Everyone is invited, just bring along a picnic, some chums and a bottle of Pimm’s!
I follow an online blog and cartoon published by Wellington Grey. For the last three years he has been teaching physics to high school students in the UK. Recently the examination board AQA changed the physics syllabus from what was a science based course to what is increasingly becoming a political debating subject. Please read his letter of complaint to the government. I received a C at A-level physics, I don’t recall what I received at GCSE. However the sample questions that Wellington posted are not the physics that I was taught and in my opinion belong more in a politics class than a physics class.
I sit here hot and restless. The weather is threatening and I am sure I just saw some spots of rain on the glass of the window. I feel like my life has turned into a whirlwind of busy this week yet I can’t pinpoint why. I look back to when I last blogged and realise that it was only last Friday, yet even this seams like an age ago.
I have visited my parents, met up with Lauren who is a friend from high school and now works in the same hospital as my Dad, been bowling – a sport that I definitely need more practice at, done a five mile walk over Cannock Chase, ate in multiple restaurants, been to the gym twice, wrote two Facebook applications on their new Facebook platform, washed the car, visited the Festival of Nature in Bristol and many other things besides.
Successful bowling is very much a combination of skill and luck. Dad was surprisingly good at sending the ball down the alley to remove all the pins in its path. However he did manage to slip over while showing off and cut his hand. Stuart, my sisters fiancé, had a quietly accomplished bowling technique while my aunt managed to get the ball into the gutter 99% of the time. The other 1% was when she got a strike halfway through the second game.
On Thursday I visited Casa Mexicana on Zetland Road in Bristol. A subtly themed Mexican restaurant with bored waiting staff greeted James, Jacky, Ross and myself as we chose a table by the window. Our drinks order was taken three times by three different waiters although we couldn’t complain when it arrived – the sangria that Ross had ordered certainly had a kick to it. The food was spicy and good although I think they were a bit stingy with the rice that was served with my Chimichanga.
Facebook is a social network site that began with American college students and has now rolled out across the world. Last week they released Facebook Platform, a development API allowing programmers to connect to and produce widgets for Facebook. I have created two Facebook applications this week. The first allows users of PleaseGetMe.com to display their wish lists on their Facebook profile page. The second, LifeKarma, allows you to give good or bad karma to your Facebook friends – and lets them retaliate. Your karma score is shown on your profile and you can even access a graph of your karma rating over time. If you have Facebook then please give them a try.
I have signed up to Last.fm so if anyone else is on that then add me as your friend 
Is anyone going to the QFC party in November? I was thinking of getting myself a ticket but only if others are going too.
Ok so this one isn’t that inventive but I made it up on the spot so I think that is good enough.
Take one chicken breast and slice a pocket in it length-ways. Shove some slices of lemon into the pocket you created. Grill in a George with some slices of red pepper until the chicken is cooked all the way through. Discard the slices of lemon and place the entire chicken breast and peppers into a wholemeal pita-bread. Consume with a side salad.
You get a sweet flavour from the red pepper mixing with a very light lemon flavour that permiates the chicken breast. An easy quick weekday evening meal with minimal washing up.
I was born 10,000 days ago. Today is my 10,000th day birthday. I tried to reflect on this while driving to work but the enormity of it was too big. I bought a smoothie from Sainsbury’s to compensate. Here’s to another 10000 days of my life. Rosie, Becky and Dave are coming round for food tonight to celebrate – I have naughty ice cream for desert!
I am off to visit my parents this weekend – and meet up with an old school friend. My mother’s side of the family are all meeting up for the bank holiday because my aunt is coming over from Nepal, where she lives teaching English to the natives, for a short while. It will be nice to see everyone again.
Oh, my friend Chris sent me to this web page showing a kite in the shape of a mouse pointer. How cool?!
Wow, Vauxhall make it really difficult to fit a third party radio into one of their cars.
Lots of effort but worth it in the end. I have lost the stalk controls (that would be another 60 quid) and also the speed dependant volume system but I think I can just about cope without them. Vauxhall also don’t provide a dimmer output in the standard wiring loom so that the radio doesn’t know the cars lights are on (which would normally cause the display to dim slightly). In their wisdom they also don’t provide an ignition wire which means I have had to wire the stereo directly to the battery cable – this means that as far as the stereo is concerned the car is always on. Apparently Vauxhall have moved these signals into a digital data bus and I can only have access to this by paying the £60 upgrade for the stalk controls.
After fitting all this into the car I went for a drive on Sunday, taking Norm off to Bristol Airport. When we were passing the new Broadmead extension I started to smell an acrid electrical burning. This is generally not good and I thought the car might be about to set on fire. I got Norm to start sniffing various bits of the car – although he had a cold so maybe this wasn’t the best approach. The smell turned out to be that bit of Bristol rather than that car… still quite worrying!
I was hoping that Bad Science would cover the Panorama debate about the safety of WiFi. As it happens they have, although not in amazing detail. Check out Bad Science’s article.
BBC News have also done a follow up article on the program.
Tonight the BBC documentary program Panorama are going to be broadcasting a half hour show investigating the claims that electronic smog and modern living can cause long-term health effects. Today’s papers have been gearing up for this by yet again getting themselves worked up about the safety of wireless data connections otherwise known as wifi and its use in schools.
Considering that I have two wifi access points in my flat along with a microwave oven and several cordless phones you might think I would be worried about this. However, I am not and neither do I think wifi should be banned in schools and colleges. I refer you to an article by Bill Thompson published on the BBC News website who sums up the arguments far more eloquently than I.
He concludes by saying that you can’t ever prove that wireless communications are safe, you can only aim disprove the supposed damaging effects on health.
I added some brain food to my diet on Saturday by cooking up some fish for dinner.
Take a salmon steak and place onto a sheet of lightly oiled tin-foil. Sprinkle on some thyme and add a knob of butter on top of the fish. Place two slices of fresh-cut lemon on the salmon and then wrap it up in the tin foil so as to keep the fish moist. Cook in the oven at 200′c for about 20 minutes.
I served it with mash potatoes and peas. It was delicious. Anyone want to come round for dinner some time?