One of the most active members of Toastmasters is my friend John Fletcher who was working towards the end of his Competent Communicator manual when I joined and has since completed it and moved onto the advanced speeches.
His 10th and final speech of the Competent Communicator was about how he was not a big fan of his job and so had finally broken free and set up on his own. It was a speech I strongly identified with, having recently done a similar thing.
John now runs Leeds Maths Tuition, offering one to one tuition for anyone looking to improve their grades.
The continued spread of unethical meat throughout the UK is of particular concern to those of us who try and avoid it for such reasons. Over time, this is likely to place increasing restrictions on what we can and cannot eat.
KFC are currently running a “Halal” trial but I was pleased to read on their website that they have adopted a version of Halal, which is less Halal and more ethical. Here is what their website says…
9. Is KFC’s halal chicken stunned before slaughter?
Yes, due to our strict animal welfare standards, we insist that all our poultry is stunned before slaughter. Our halal chicken has been accredited by the Halal Food Authority, one of the most widely recognised bodies in the UK and overseas. It allows the use of a technique called ‘stun-to-stun’ – a pain-free process that makes the animal insensible to pain and suffering.
That’s probably a tune that we can all dance to.
As many of you will know, we’ve recently spent a great time of time bickering with each other over whose attitude towards equal rights for women is the most equal. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia continues to cut out the genitals of their women before forcing them to walk behind the men.
At Leeds Skeptics we wanted everyone to have their say, so we held a debate “How should Skeptics deal with controversy?” Tom Williamson summed up his thoughts on his blog. Ophelia then wrote a piece about the blog post.
The original talk was entitled “Why aren’t their more women in the boardroom?” Seems like a sensible topic title, and one that fits very well into Ophelia’s suggestion that topics should be specific and useful. However, some of her commentors decided to suggest alternative titles.
“Precisely how stupid and misogynistic are male skeptics?†would make a good discussion. I look forward to Leeds Skeptics discussing this.
What?
The answer is a million. So, that’s settled.
Well, I have a question:
Are Tom Williamson and Steven Moxon REALLY equal to a pile of hog shit?
What? I’m just being skeptical!
I’m not sure they’re quite the same…
This is how to install APC for PHP on Fedora 15.
yum install php-devel
yum install pcre-devel
yum install php-pear
pecl install apc
Create a file in /etc/php.d named apc.ini, containing the following.
extension=apc.so
Michelle has very inconsiderately infected me with Korean pop music memes.
I’m told that it is Shutastic.
When did it become fashionable to start referring to the Union Jack as the Union Flag? Well, we probably all know when.
It was then this man appeared on our screen and, in the middle of a rant, his assistant helpfully snapped “That’s the Union Flag. It’s the Union Jack only when it’s flown at sea.”
It might have worked well in the heat of the moment, but it had one lasting problem – everyone believed it, even though it simply isn’t true. As the Flag Institute notes, this whole concept is a relatively new invention; and the flag, both on and off dry land has long been referred to as the Union Jack.
So stop arrogantly correcting me when I use the term Union Jack. I know you think you’re big and clever because you can parrot back a phrase you heard on the telly, but you’re not – go read an actual encyclopedia instead 😉 .
Tonight is “Ladies Night” at Oceana. You’ll notice the sexualised images of some young “buff” men in the posters, collectively known as the “Dream Idols” apparently.
This caught my eye because it’s easier to stand behind a claim such as “people should have the right to use their bodies for whatever purposes they wish”, when you’re not the victim. But take this example, it is my gender that is being used in sexual imagery to sell a product (in this case, entry to a night club).
Yet, I’m still entirely behind it. True empowerment and equality come from granting people the freedom to do as they wish. If they want to appear on a poster without a shirt on, who am I to tell them otherwise?
According to Wikipedia’s own figures, 91% of editors are male. According to another set of their figures, it’s 90%, with 9% women and 1% transgender.
Why is there such a bias towards males?
Stereotype threat doesn’t seem a very good fit for explaining – it’s a fairly anonymous system on the internet, and they only know what gender you are based on the answer you choose to give in the editor’s survey. Not to mention that the Foundation itself is dominated by women – Sue Gardner is Executive Director of the Wikipedia Foundation and Kat Walsh is the Chair of the Board.
The New York Times caused quite a stir when they wrote about it, quoting Jane Margolis who suggests “women are less willing to assert their opinions in public”. Meanwhile Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry, writing in Business Insider, suggests that would upset many existing editors if they were discriminated against by pro-female initiatives.
Many people have weighed in on the debate too and Sue Gardner has done an excellent job of rounding up the opinions on her blog.
Indeed, opinions are so varied, that perhaps the message we can take from it is that more research needs to be done on the subject. It’s interesting to note that while women are very unrepresented, transgender people are actually over represented (1% of Wikipedia compared to 0.3% in the general population), so suggestions of it being a patriarchal problem wouldn’t seem to stand up.
In the meantime, you can always take some positive action and begin contributing to Wikipedia.
When I was young, there was a lovely shopping centre in in the city named The Headrow Centre. It was located on The Headrow, hence the name. Inside there was a statue of a man holding a bunch of balloons and on the top floor was a toy shop packed to the rafters with everything a child could want (in terms of material possessions). Happy memories.
However, in 2008 they decided to kick all the shops out and renovate the centre, re-naming it The Core. Turns out this was a mistake. Indeed, probably one of the biggest mistakes in Leeds’ retail history. The Core is now a barron desert of white walls where shops used to be, and posters desperately trying to attract new businesses.
But of course, who would want one there? It has almost no foot fall; it is simply three floors of emptiness. I doubt they could even give the retail units away.
If that wasn’t the end of their trouble, they’re now surrounded by much more exciting retail prospects on all sides. Most notably, the new Leeds Trinity will form the showcase shopping centre of Leeds when it opens next year.
An entirely renovated Central Arcade sits just of Briggate too.
If that wasn’t enough, the development of the Leeds Arena has led to the Merrion Centre throwing a lot of money into renovating a lot of it’s units too, in the so called “Arena Quarter”.
No wonder the investor is going bankrupt. Sad times.
