Wank.

People don’t change. Only their costumes do. ~ Gene Moore

I got fed up of seeing all that grey when I looked at this blog, so I decided to change it to a dark green. I also spent some time on tweaking functional aspects of the site such as the top menu and the styling of comments.

I’ve also switched domains to recluse.me as I felt that it was more reflective of what I’m about, and easier to remember. If you used to link to my previous address, I’d really appreciate it if you could update your blogroll to the new one. In the meantime anyone who navigates to the old address will be redirected here.

My rss readers needn’t be concerned by these changes, as I’ve retained the same feed address.

I’ve still got a couple more things to do with the blog before I can relax (e.g. sorting out my categories and tags), but I’m happy with it so far.

Please let me know if anything looks strange (stranger than normal), and include your operating system and browser info. If you love it, tell me that too!

(I was sure that I posted this last night, but all I could find today was a earlier draft version which I’ve amended from memory – sorry if you’ve already seen this via rss.)

I haven’t paid much attention to my flickr account lately, though I’ve had the odd comment or group invitation from time to time. Today I had an interesting one, the Figurehead group invited me to submit the following pic to their photo pool:

It’s the figurehead of the Cutty Sark, a clipper ship which is held in dry dock in Greenwich. She looks quite attractive from this angle, doesn’t she? All long flowing locks and pert bosoms. Interestingly, she looks quite different from the other side of the ship:

Not so pretty now, eh? I did some research and discovered that her name is Nannie, and she is a witch from a Robert Burns poem:

Tam saw that among the ugly group of witches, there was one which was young and beautiful. Her name was Nannie, and she wore only a ‘cutty sark’, a short shift. Tam was bewitched and, as her dancing became wilder, in his excitement, he cried out “Weel done cutty sark!” The witches then pursued Tam who fled for his life to the bridge over the river Doon, for he knew that witches could not cross running water. Nannie was faster than the others and, as the mare galloped over the bridge, she seized it by the tail, which came off in her hand. Hence, the figurehead is always shown holding a horse’s tail in her left hand.

You’re a cop, and you come across a random guy who’s holding something that could be a gun. How long does it take you to decide whether or not to shoot? Does the skin colour of the person matter?

This was the question asked by the University of Chicago in an online psychology test, which gives you a split-second to decide whether to shoot the guy or whether to holster your gun for an unarmed individual.

Interestingly, the results showed that black and white participants shot the armed black guys sooner than the armed white guys.

I tried the test twice, because I was confused at first about which button to press, and took a few seconds to get used to the process. The first time I scored really low because I often took too long to make a decision, but my results showed that I took less time to shoot the armed black guys than the white guys.

Strangely though, even though the second time around I wasn’t trying to game the system, just wanted to play it right, I actually shot the armed white guys quicker than the armed black guys… I’m not sure what that means but the test has reinforced the fact that I never should become a police officer, especially as I shot a few unarmed guys too…

Of course the test isn’t realistic at all, but it raises an interesting point.

(via Neatorama)

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