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Archive for November 2012

Skyfall: My review

November 14, 2012 @ 08:29 By: gordon Category: Reviews

Spoiler alert: I am going to be talking about plot elements so if you haven’t seen it yet you might not want to read the rest of this before seeing the movie.

I saw Skyfall, the newest member of the James Bond franchise, on the weekend. Overall, I give the movie a score of 8/10.

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Remembrance Day

November 11, 2012 @ 11:00 By: gordon Category: Current affairs, General

We pause today to remember all those who have made the supreme sacrifice in order that we may have peace and freedom.

Thank you seems so inadequate.

Apparently I felt Tuesday morning’s earthquake

November 07, 2012 @ 00:21 By: gordon Category: General

IMG_0194I’ve been using an app called Sleep Time on my iPhone to track my sleep patterns. So far, it has revealed that my average bed time is waaaay too late (which I knew), that my average night’s sleep is shorter than it probably should be (which I knew), but that when I am asleep I sleep “efficiently” (i.e. lots of deep/REM sleep) (which I didn’t know). Monday night, I didn’t get a lot of sleep – couldn’t fall asleep until quite late and then I had to wake up earlier than usual and was zombie-like for most of the morning.

Looking at the graph for Monday night, it appears that just as I was getting into deep/REM sleep at 4am something disturbed my sleep and cut my deep sleep cycle short, which would correspond to when the magnitude 4.2 earthquake rattled the area in the wee hours of Tuesday morning.

Warning: Setting clocks back will result in increased accidents and messed up sleep patterns

November 03, 2012 @ 22:33 By: gordon Category: Astronomy, Current affairs, General

It’s time for my semi-annual rant about having to adjust the clocks by an hour for no particularly good reason. It’s also a good time to change the batteries in your battery-powered smoke detectors.

I rant on a semi-annual basis because daylight saving time has been promoted as a means to save energy, it’s generally accepted that it doesn’t. In fact, it almost certainly costs more to implement than it would save and the increase in accidents in the days immediately following the time change aren’t worth it. Check out David Prerau’s book Seize the Daylight: The Curious and Contentious Story of Daylight Saving Time (hardcover: 1560256559; softcover: 1560257962) if you want to learn more about the history of daylight saving time.

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