Thank you for your praise, I can never get enough. I have a bit of an ego problem, I am big headed, shy and paranoid. It is an unstable mixture.

Recently my boss was talking about my underachievement at work, he said I was quite clearly the smartest person in the shop by a long way, so why didn't I do better? I was slightly flattered and at the same time wondered why he didn't say I was the smartest person who had ever been in the shop.

I will probably drop by the Fade to Black site at some stage when I have a little more spare time. If you have any suggestions as to how to develop the site further please let me know. Which bits work for you, which bits miss the mark and is there anything obvious that is missing? I am running the site principally for my own enjoyment but if I can serve a need I will have a go.

Was it Zaphod Beeblebrox who said something like If there is anything on board bigger than my ego I want it hunted down and shot? Something like that. It made an impression on me. Not enough to remember it accurately, but nobody's perfect.

I work best in an environment in which my ego is unchallenged. On Monday there were four people off sick from the shop and I was the biggest ego on the shop floor. I did more than half my weekly sales target in one shift. Normally I do less well as I get intimidated by other strong willed people. I hate parties for a similar reason, the extrovert behaviour of other people makes me shrink back.

So you have spent hours reading my stuff? I suppose you noticed a few errors, I usually do when I read it.

I don't know how much time I have put into the site, it is rather frightening to try to calculate. On my best days I wake at about 6:30 and go to bed at 23:30, with about forty minutes off for food and toilet breaks. That does seem quite a long time. I will have to learn to eat faster. ;-) That is not all directly writing articles. That includes newsgroup postings and email. But a high proportion of that ends up on the site too. The Feedback Zone is rapidly growing. Many people at first just imagine that it contains nothing but comments from visitors about the site, whereas in fact it contains some of the longest articles of all, the on-going correspondences.

Have you got any stories from your work that you would like to share? Why not write something for my Guest Zone? Can you suggest any ways that I can tell people how much stuff there is buried behind each link? It is a puzzle I want to solve. The site is enormous but it is difficult to gauge that from the first page. By the way, it is a mere 3.4MB in total at the moment, that makes me wonder why so many ISPs allocate 50 MB or more for personal webspace. Imagine if I could fill that much up in a similar way, mostly text, that would keep people busy for a long time. I suppose the size of the site explains why the apparent traffic to the site seems to peak every day that I add new material, it is not because people anticipate when I have added new material, simply that they cannot digest it all in one go and so come back for several days, registering as a new visitor after I have changed the front page.

The reason I split the site up into different zones is to separate the pages into broad subject groups, some pages fit into more than one zone so I put them in both. I assume that some people have found my site only for the atheism, others only for the weird politics, so separating them out seemed appropriate. There is a full page of contents too, giving access to all the pages, including some that don't fit in the zones. If I put all those links on the first page it would overload the attention span of many less than fervent visitors, the page would take too long to load.

The more I think about religion the more strange and dangerous it seems. I can't help thinking that if a genuinely intelligent alien race did find us they would keep their distance and merely observe us from afar, we are far too strange and dangerous to deal with directly. Our capacity to believe irrational things is enormous. Blood transfusion scruples is just the tip of the iceberg.

Martin

The navigation wins some fans and other people don't like it. Perhaps this is an accident of evolution.

I started out with a frame based design last year and introduced the Zones. Atheism, Politics and the Other Zone at first. The site operating in frames from the first page, each page having its own separate frameset and so its own title in the title bar. This was simple and effective but was useless on a minority of old browsers. (Luddites, Flat Earthers and those people surfing on old systems like those in offices and schools.) Also some people just will not get on with frames out of some misguided sense of principle.

So I then introduced a no frames page for them which at first mirrored the zones, but this got to be too big for all the graphics and links, as it was supposed to be for the benefit of technically challenged surfers it didn't seem like a good idea to make it full of pictures. So it evolved into the contents page, all the links, few graphics.

(Do you use the term technically challenged? It is quite useful, meaning the same as buggered or kaput but with interesting ironic overtones.)

If you start with the zones you can check out the pages connected with the major subject areas of interest to you first. Do you by any chance use Netscape? If you use Explorer instead you get a hint about page content by hovering over the balls next to the page titles, so revealing the "alt" legend. (Both title and ball are clickable and they usually point to the same page, except when I cock up.)

I suggest the best way to go through the site is to click on the "Full content, in frames" link. This will let you see all the pages, even those outside the zones and the links should change colour when visited, they also have clear descriptions about their subject. Once you are familiar with the site the What's New page should be the best way in to new material.

Sometimes links are wrong, sometimes links open inside a frameset by mistake, doubling up the navigation bar. I usually get to spot these errors eventually but please let me know if you spot any. I did check out Fade to Black but I can't relax on it. Perhaps when net calls are free I will be able to relax and enjoy it. I get twelve hours of net access per month, not really enough. The fear of large bills prevents me from relaxing and enjoying the net experience. I find newsgroups are easier to cope with. I can download messages that attract me (only skimming them) and replies to my messages then go offline to come up with some killer responses, then these can be uploaded in a bunch with my e-mail. Doing the same sort of thing on Fade to Black is less easy.

Susan Blackmore is quite an interesting person, intelligent and quite perceptive. I don't agree with all her theories, I think she has slightly overstepped the mark on a few points. Memetic analysis is very useful but it can be taken too far and too literally. Memes are an abstraction, not real in the most concrete of ways. They are as real as a centre of gravity.

Martin

I know what you mean now. There is quite a bit of repetition in the feedback zone, the same message appearing again on a different page. This needs sorting out. I will do something about it in a week or two. I am not sure exactly how to sort the mess out. It needs another system. I want to be able to put all the relevant material in front of the less than obsessed viewer, this does require using more than one way in to each piece in some way, as some messages are part of a series and at the same time work well as stand-alone messages, often in more than one broad subject area. I'll let this puzzle stew for a few weeks and perhaps I will come up with some novel way of handling the stuff. One of the big snags of confusing the visitors is that it can give them the impression that they have read it all because they keep coming across the same stuff.

As to page titles I have to hold my hands up. They are usually a bit abstruse. There are a few jokes in there too, although hardly side splitting.

Medicine, ethics and life prolonging

Medical ethics have, like everything, evolved in their own way. Certain basic principles were established early on which have guided everybody in the discipline. All professions recruit the sort of people who are in tune with their ethos; few economic libertarians become nurses or social workers, few anti-capitalist agitators become corporate lawyers.

Over time the basic principles have become stretched by experience and the pressures of the job. People who don't like the way a discipline is going don't join it. Very few Catholic fundamentalist types get involved in reproductive medicine, few Hitlerite types get involved in palliative care for the elderly and handicapped. So the entrenched attitudes get more entrenched. This is further reinforced by selfish careerism. Surgeons do new types of surgery because they can, if it is possible it should be done, if it is possible it is better that they do it, rather than somebody else. Medicine is full of prima donnas.

Should human life be prolonged?

There is no simple answer to this. There has to be a lot of attention given to quality of life and the costs involved. In many cases this calculation is simple, otherwise healthy person falls into icy water, resuscitation is obviously a good idea. But as time goes on and technology advances more and more difficult choices are faced. Such as the late abortions that become desperate attempts to resuscitate the "premature baby", that is a problem created by contrasting ethical standards. That particular one should be cured by getting clear in everybody's head that an abortion consists of two basic operations, killing and removing, and if done in two distinct steps without any window of opportunity for God or fate to interfere there need be no problem. An overdose of painkillers to the foetus and then remove it. Abortion cannot be done if the death of the foetus is seen as an unwanted by-product, that is typical of much wrong headed woolly thinking by believers, "if God wants to save the baby he will make it clear, and then we will do it..." Weird and wrong-headed.

Human life should not be prolonged no matter what. Firstly we need to be clear about why human life is precious. It is not because human life was created by God or because it has a certain number of chromosomes. Human life is precious because it is sentient. Keeping alive a non-sentient human life is no benefit to anybody. Without a quality of life and sentience human life is animal life, and normal veterinary ethics apply. People in comas with no prospect of survival should be deliberately put to death in a painless manner. I would probably extend that to braindamaged children with no prospect of an enjoyable and human life.

Did you know that Hitler never ordered any mental defectives be sent to gas chambers? He simply responded to the heartfelt pleas of one German father who saw no quality of life for his son. The rest is history, his henchmen simply interpreted his will from this one episode. Hitler ranted a lot, but gave few orders, an administrator's nightmare boss. Hitler probably put back the cause of science and the biological approach to politics more than any man who ever lived. It might take another hundred years or more to put right the damage he caused.

Usually we have a limit on who gets transplants. There are criteria that have to be met. But the rules seem to be getting more stretched.

Of course the rules will be stretched. Surgeons do not get any credit for the operations they decide not to perform.

Then I also think that we should just let nature take its course. Not bother to fight it. For instance, very premature babies would never have made it without medical intervention a few decades ago. And many are born with so many problems. I think that we should just let them go. Rather than pouring all this time energy and money into them.

I agree. Of course if the babies would grow up with few complications then we should intervene but there is no reason to bring children into the world to spend 70 years as a drain on our medicine and social services. The judgement should be made on the basis of a reasonable appraisal of their net contribution or cost to society. We cannot give too much weight to the siren voices of today's cripples. They will always make out a case for unlimited charity. People always look out for their own kind, people who probably share a genetic or memetic inheritance, that universal tendency even extends to the genes for diseases. Deep down inside cripples want more of their kind, even if they will not rationalize it as such.

You have problems with your beliefs and your work? Can you imagine me looking after brain-damaged children while reading about the Nazi's attitudes to eugenics and the treatment of the handicapped? I did that for a few months. I found that I was actually significantly more caring than those who believed that they had fundamental rights and deserved unlimited care. It was a strange experience getting paid a pittance to look after children, some with the intellectual ability in the laboratory rat league, who were costing more to care for than the gross income of me and the five adjacent households put together.

The next move for the site is an A-Z subject index which might help considerably in helping people make serendipitous discoveries on the site. I don't know how long this might take, I suspect that it might take a while, so I will put it up part-finished on Tuesday night (probably Wednesday morning for you.)

Now, this is a tricky subject to broach with anybody but please forgive me. I am fairly clear about your sexual orientation, but not totally sure about your sex. Do you want to make it clear or do you enjoy ambiguity? Just curious. :-)

I had the strangest dream last night, I sent you an e-mail that.....ooops.

Don't be too intrigued. I simply got the idea into my head that you might be a man pretending to be a woman. Now think about that, how can you ever prove it one way or another? If you meet the person in question there are ways, subtle and less so, but if all you see are text messages, what then? Well one way is to wait until you are very drunk and ask outright.

The reason I was suspecting is that I know a man who does this; Daniel the till girl by day, Crystal Dee playing Miss Scarlet on online Cluedo all night, flirting mildly with men who think he is a tall leggy blonde. Needless to say Daniel is as bent as a nine bob note.

Now can you understand my problem? Was I really that drunk? Anyway, it occurred to me that if I was right in my strange suspicion you would hardly be likely to admit it, would you? In a way this is a bit like the mystery of God. Once you postulate something of this sort you can never unprove it. You can never unprove the possibility of the existence of God, you can never disprove a conspiracy theory and it is very difficult to disprove the idea that you are only pretending to be female. How could you do it? Send me a picture? How do I know that is really you? Telephone me? Same problem.

What a strange dilemma to get into. Anyway. That explains the oops. Did I really allow that message to be sent like that?

Sorry about that whole saga. I hope you can see the funny side. By the way, I wouldn't have cared much either way.

I am fairly certain that a fair proportion of the people out there in chat forums and the like are very far removed from the image they present.

Have you heard of the Turing Test? A test to see if computers can fool people into believing they are real people, that was based on a thought experiment about men posing as women. Not surprising, Turing was gay. Posing as a member of the opposite sex is quite an intellectual challenge. It reminds me of a phenomenon I encountered a few years ago on CB radio; gay truckers. These were apparently screaming queens who were obviously genuine truckers but were they actually gay or not, nobody was sure. Naughty Norman and Gaylord were the two best. They kept it up for hours at a time, ooh, saucy.

Apparently one motorway policeman pulled Naughty Norman over one day and told him to get out of his truck

"What's the matter officer, have I done anything particularly naughty? Do you want to chastise me?"

"Err no. I just want to ask you a question."

"Fire away. Be brutal."

"Are you, or are you not a practising homosexual?"

"No ducks, I don't need to practice anymore. I'm an expert. Will that be all sir?"

 

I expect if the US military really are watching me they would be showing up in the dozens of "unknown" visitors or ".com" or ".net", don't you? I think the CIA budget probably extends to a tame ISP or two. The .mil visits I think come from a US marine who has contacted me on a number of occasions.

A good little ruse you might like to try is to overload the listening-in agent's computers. Always put a small section in each email you send that contains likely search words that the snoopers will be looking for.

So the plastic explosive is ready. I suggest 3 kilos of Semtex under the Sydney Harbour Bridge and the bomb in Big Ben should get 4 kilos. The heroin shipment from Columbia is due on Tuesday. I need those 5,000 M16 rifles by Thursday. OK?

Well, maybe it is a bit juvenile. But if it is fun, why not?

As for harmless, why not? Although I prefer Mostly Harmless.

Please don't do anything as silly as to try to gum up the eavesdropping of the intelligence community. Remember whose side they are on. Don't do anything to make the terrorists and criminals activities easier to hide. Do not encrypt your emails or do other silly childish things to make out that you have secrets. Transparency is good. Say what you mean, mean what you say and sign your name clearly.

26 September 2001

Do you want to see a picture of Clancy NAKED?

Have you got any ideas as to how I can entice some more visitors my way? I have just put up a bulletin board, it seems to me that this sort of think is a classic case of success breeding success. So how to start the snowball rolling? I thought I would ask you as you seem to be the most ardent bulletin board poster I know.

By the way, this is all done for the joy of it, no commercial motivation at all, and whatever I make I'll go halves with you... I have enclosed your advanced fee.

I know what you mean about it being not especially user-friendly. I will have to see if I can tinker with it. But it's free server space with working code so beggars can't be choosers. I will keep my eyes open for a better option. Maybe somebody who appreciates my work will let me have some toys to play with for free.

A tip to help with the bulletin board is to use a simple text editor like notepad to store your name and email address, so you can just quickly cut and paste it into the boxes with a couple of mouse sweeps and standard keyboard shortcuts. You can do the same thing if you know what message you want to post in advance.

Can you believe it? That homophobe has written back THANKING ME for the reply and saying he will send a photo next time, so I can see why homosexual men pester him. The mind boggles. Perhaps he looks like an arsehole too...

I never turn down free publicity, if you fancy having a go at promoting my site I'll not stand in your way.

Martin

I can't understand why so many men fall for this stick-insect idea of women. I honestly don't think that much of women like Kate Moss and the Corrs. While I wouldn't actually refuse to impregnate them if they asked nicely I would not go out of my way to do it.

In the shop I obviously get to see the full cross section of the population and I have to say that my tastes are very typically male, not exactly discriminating, I go for all sorts, while I have preferences these would, in an ideal scenario (fantasy) be about sequence rather than exclusion. I think it is very sad that I have such a poor choice of internationally known larger women I can say I think are attractive. There are none that I can think of. There are a few British celebrities that are above average size (which is itself far above the average size of celebrities). The average British woman is dress size 16 in the British system, anything over size 12 is considered fat by the media. My wife dreams of slimming down enough to fit the size 18 black number she keeps in the wardrobe. I don't tell her that it fits me because she gets cross ;-) Actually it probably doesn't anymore, shame.

Have you heard the one about the Foreign Legion troops in the desert?

Where do we get to get our ends away? Just wait till Friday when Mustafa brings his camels. Friday comes and there is a great stampede, what are you running for? What's the matter, you want to get stuck with an ugly one?

Why do men still discriminate between women who they are not actually going to impregnate? In an age of universal contraception surely one fleshy tube is as good as another? It has got to be about intra-male status. Otherwise the rational approach is to screw the women who are the least likely to give you a sexually transmitted disease or to bore you afterwards. On both those counts I think most modern men get it wrong.

Martin

So you go on Big Beautiful Women chat rooms? I didn't know such things existed. How about dropping in a link to my Big Women page and suggest they send me some comments? They all count on the hit counter. I quite fancy the idea of expanding that page a bit.

Do you by any chance have any good images I could use? Nothing too pornographic or likely to get me into other kinds of legal trouble. It is a difficult problem, thin women look better in clothes, but rounded women are better naked.

I have found that the odd tangential piece of work on the site often helps drive quite a bit of traffic my way and generates a lot of interest. Satanism, metrication, the Jewish lobby, Exotheology and the American Dream have all been minor hits.

The latest flurry of activity came on alt.atheism in response to a post about "young people these days", at least that is what the respondents seem to think it was about. Normally I expect to see blatant misunderstanding only when I post on Christian groups. Anyway, it is all good fun.

You have a couple of replies to your postings on my bulletin board. Finally I think there is some sign of activity reaching the point of "critical mass".

Dawn French.

100% agree. She is fantastic, one of the sexiest women on TV. She has beautiful hair and face, a nice smile a nice personality and what else, oh yes, THOSE. But even without those huge breasts she is a great woman. Humour, wit, a nice smile, a nice voice and an appetite for life and sex are far more important than trivial things like size, shape or hair colour. I want a woman, not a Barbie doll. Fortunately I have one. Unfortunately I have to settle for one...

Do you have any objection to me posting our e-mail on the site? I think there is enough now to make it interesting. I have found that my writing improves when I think I have a potentially larger audience to show off to. I get the impression that you are not averse to publicity, but correct me if I'm wrong.