I seem to have finally gotten Rock Me Amadeus out of my mind now, but its been replaced with another song: The Downeaster "Alexa" by Billy Joel.

No, not that kind of booty. Sheesh, you people are dirty-minded.

For the labtest, I gave my students a small programming task that involved creating a system that catalogued diamonds.

I wrote earlier about the talk by Jared Diamond on the subject of societies collapsing. I have some further thoughts about the book that I wrote months ago but never got around to actually publishing on here.

There was a brief question time at the end of each of the Jared Diamond lectures. Some of the questions were very good and insightful and Jared made some very thoughtful responses. However, others made me ashamed to be breathing the same air as the questioner.

The third and final lecture by Jared Diamond (on Friday night) was not based on any of his previous books, and was about the need and ability of societies to reappraise their core values.

The second lecture by Jared Diamond (on Thursday night) was essentially based on his book Collapse. It examines the factors that cause some societies to fail while others thrive.

Natural is a word that is thrown around a lot. Things are labelled as natural or unnatural. There is a tacit assumption that natural=good and unnatural=bad.

The uni held its annual Sir Douglas Robb lecture series this week, with a series of lectures by Jared Diamond.

When the lid blew off the Bill Clinton/Monica Lewinsky affair, I supported Clinton. I believe that where he sticks his dick is between him, Hillary and other willing partners. Sure, cheating on a spouse is never a good thing, but it doesn't invalidate his presidential skills. Curiously, I'm not so forgiving towards Don Brash.