(no subject)
Apr. 30th, 2009 08:11 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kerriesakuraI know that most of the UK people already know that Charlie Brooker is brilliant and - indeed! - Right About Everything - and the rest of y'all are sadly unable to watch him on the tellybox due to geographical restrictions - though, we get Brooker and you get hockey at a sensible time of day, I like that trade-off :D - but honestly, if you didn't see Newswipe last night for some reason, make sure to watch a repeat or iplayer it or something. The whole thing was excellent, but his piece on Susan Boyle - oh look, the media have fallen over themselves because someone who doesn't fit the appearance mould has some talent, something somewhere has gone very wrong - made me applaud the television, like a twat.
For international benefit, "Charlie Brooker is a British comedian, writer, columnist and broadcaster. He is particularly known for his TV shows Screenwipe and Newswipe and his review columns for The Guardian newspaper, and is one of four creative directors of comedy production company Zeppotron. Recently, he has become known for his five-part horror drama Dead Set for E4, for which he was nominated for a BAFTA."
But more importantly, he says things like "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, which is a pity because this week the National Association of Beholders wrote to tell me that I've got a face like a rucksack full of dented bells," wrote this about "psychics", and uses swearwords in a way I can only aspire to. He is great. This will never be disputed ever. Hurrah!
Today I am mostly pondering how to become cleverer. I don't think this will be easy. You see, I long to understand science and philosophy and psychology.![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
jennywooyay has sent me a list of books about how minds work, which will be enormously helpful. This leaves science and philosophy, which are broad, I know, so I MAY need to narrow that down... see, I'm reading lots about atheism and humanism right now. This, naturally, leads to wanting to understand evolution better, and that leads to Darwin. I know, however, that I am not clever enough to understand The Origin of Species properly, so I've ended up buying one of those beginner's guides to... In theory, this is sensible. In practice, I feel like I've bought The Duhface's Guide to The Bleeding Obvious. Seethe.
By the way, I was going to study philosophy as a second subject at university, but I thought no, that has no practical application in the REAL WORLD. So I did history. See if you can work out the flaw, there.
Humanities are as valuable as sciences, I know this. I just think I did one of the wrong humanities. English is a wonderful thing, all that literature, but history? I cannot remember anything I studied. I don't even have a copy of my dissertation and I can't remember a word of what I wrote, an enormous regret of mine since the subject - Vietnam and the publication of the Pentagon Papers - isn't exactly the most boring in the world. Ask me a question on that subject, though, and I will go so blank as to render me faceless.
Bollocks. I did ponder the idea of doing an Open University course in Psychology, but the fact that I know two people who are doing OU courses and they seem to be stressed out to blazes over them puts me off somewhat. Then again any university course can be stressful. Oh I don't know. I just want to be intelligent, god dammit.
Playoff round 2 is back tonight, I think I'll go and hide in it.
For international benefit, "Charlie Brooker is a British comedian, writer, columnist and broadcaster. He is particularly known for his TV shows Screenwipe and Newswipe and his review columns for The Guardian newspaper, and is one of four creative directors of comedy production company Zeppotron. Recently, he has become known for his five-part horror drama Dead Set for E4, for which he was nominated for a BAFTA."
But more importantly, he says things like "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, which is a pity because this week the National Association of Beholders wrote to tell me that I've got a face like a rucksack full of dented bells," wrote this about "psychics", and uses swearwords in a way I can only aspire to. He is great. This will never be disputed ever. Hurrah!
Today I am mostly pondering how to become cleverer. I don't think this will be easy. You see, I long to understand science and philosophy and psychology.
jennywooyay has sent me a list of books about how minds work, which will be enormously helpful. This leaves science and philosophy, which are broad, I know, so I MAY need to narrow that down... see, I'm reading lots about atheism and humanism right now. This, naturally, leads to wanting to understand evolution better, and that leads to Darwin. I know, however, that I am not clever enough to understand The Origin of Species properly, so I've ended up buying one of those beginner's guides to... In theory, this is sensible. In practice, I feel like I've bought The Duhface's Guide to The Bleeding Obvious. Seethe.By the way, I was going to study philosophy as a second subject at university, but I thought no, that has no practical application in the REAL WORLD. So I did history. See if you can work out the flaw, there.
Humanities are as valuable as sciences, I know this. I just think I did one of the wrong humanities. English is a wonderful thing, all that literature, but history? I cannot remember anything I studied. I don't even have a copy of my dissertation and I can't remember a word of what I wrote, an enormous regret of mine since the subject - Vietnam and the publication of the Pentagon Papers - isn't exactly the most boring in the world. Ask me a question on that subject, though, and I will go so blank as to render me faceless.
Bollocks. I did ponder the idea of doing an Open University course in Psychology, but the fact that I know two people who are doing OU courses and they seem to be stressed out to blazes over them puts me off somewhat. Then again any university course can be stressful. Oh I don't know. I just want to be intelligent, god dammit.
Playoff round 2 is back tonight, I think I'll go and hide in it.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2009-04-30 08:46 am (UTC)Could a possible option be an introductory evening class or something? Rather than going in full steam ahead to a horribly stressful degree course?
no subject
Date: 2009-04-30 09:21 am (UTC)The undergrad degrees in Psychology are a) based on newer and more exciting material and b) aimed at people who might not even have GCSEs, so they're not too hardcore. I've heard good things about OU's Openings courses - they don't count towards a degree but they're pretty cheap and are a good way of finding out whether OU methods suit you. This looks good, or maybe one of the other level 1 undergraduate courses.
no subject
Date: 2009-04-30 11:30 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-04-30 12:41 pm (UTC)The OU's pretty cool in that you can do a thing called the Open Degree, which is effectively a degree without a major where you can choose whatever modules you like.
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Date: 2009-05-01 11:22 am (UTC)It asked me when I was signing up if I wanted to link it to other courses, so it'll be linked to the Psychology BSc, if I go on to do it. Hurrah!!
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Date: 2009-04-30 02:38 pm (UTC)I can't stop giggling about that! If I saw a book with that title, I'd have to buy it. :D
I guarantee I can find you some interesting, clear resources about evolution and Darwin and any other aspects of biology you might be interested in. I use my uni library privileges to read lots of popular science books for free, then recommend the best of them to folks. One I've not yet finished but would certainly pimp to anyone interested in evolution is A Guinea Pig's History of Biology by Jim Endersby. It's an astonishingly comprehensive history of genetics and evolutionary biology taking the rather unusual perspective of the major research organisms that led to breakthroughs in understanding. Passion flowers, the fruit fly, guinea pigs, mouse-eared cress, zebrafish, and so on. The science is very clearly explained and placed in wider historical contexts, and it's a great illustration of how collaboration and competition have driven scientific progress.
A good popular science book is like a mystery story; you're compelled to keep going to learn how all the clues fit together, see what setbacks befall the "protagonists" and what twists arise from new discoveries.
no subject
Date: 2009-05-01 11:28 am (UTC)Will probably be bugging you lots in future going "what can I reeeeeead" :D
no subject
Date: 2009-05-01 04:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-05-03 10:28 am (UTC)http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYbL8BwTqnk