Ok, so before anyone makes any assumptions, this is not me coming out- I’m straight, thank you (if anyone wonders why I made that the preamble, lets just say assumptions have been made before).

Anyway, back to the topic on hand. This has been brewing for a while, and there are various reasons for why I’ve not said anything before, which I’ll get to later. In essence what this is about is faith, and how I’ve lost mine. I doubt this is a shock for many, and I am mostly writing this to confirm a lot of people’s assumptions, as well as to actually tell the truth.

I’ll be the first to admit that I was always a pretty terrible Christian, I drink, swear, and was pretty lax with the whole prayer thing. For some reason, though, I never felt a connection to God the way that everyone around me back home seemed to- it felt like I didn’t pass muster or I couldn’t see on the same plane. I couldn’t seem to relate to the idea of Jesus’ sacrifice on personal level, it seemed so far removed from my life, for some reason.

Not only did I have these problems, but I saw things through rather different eyes compared to that of my close friends- let’s be honest, my sixth form years were fairly rough with a number of friends being lost to various different tragedies- illness, car accidents, cancer. A stronger person than I saw these as challenges from God- a la Job, rather than how I saw them- simply as tragedies. It seemed unfair that people who had done nothing wrong were taken from this planet. I didn’t see God’s mystery, I only saw his absence.

Not only that but I also began, through a number of friends and the internet, to see rank hypocrisy emerging in the faith (though granted not in my friendship group, thankfully), namely through the treatment of homosexuals- something that hit home especially with the gay friends that I have. It frustrates me that such a non-topic is blown out of all proportion, especially when it’s mentioned about 5 or so times in the bible, each time with a varying degree of vagueness (If you’re interested in this topic, a fantastically written blog by my good friend is at http://lesbihonesty.blogspot.co.uk/).

It’s quite difficult to quantify any other feeling or reason for having lost my faith after that preamble. Unfortunately I don’t have the necessary linguistic ability to articulate what other reasons I have for having lost my faith. I also know that, if people read this, I will get encouragement (mixed with a little disappointment), and people convincing me of God’s love. I can tell you now that won’t help (although I do appreciate your effort). It may surprise you to know that I am fairly intelligent, and I’ve been mulling this over for nearly every waking moment. The fact that I’ve written this should be reassurance enough that I know myself, and I know that I can’t justify calling myself a Christian when I don’t believe, I don’t go to church and I can’t seem to identify with the core of the faith.

I must apologise for being dishonest with a lot of people though. A number of you asked me regularly “Have you found a church?” or similar, and I’ve never had the balls to state “Well that wouldn’t really be a lot of use”. For that I am truly sorry. I was particularly vexed by the situation as I rather worried I’d be disowned- I know how big a part of someone’s life it is and I didn’t want to disagree on such a fundamental level, but I can’t keep on lying as I feel that would be insulting to both parties.

Thank you for reading though, please message me if you have any questions.

Now, this is a short one, as there are a few other gripes I’d like to raise, but let this one simply be about iCloud. What a great service (yes, dropbox et al have had them for a while, but I like it). One problem- I have a separate Apple ID to my mobileMe account. This is the case for MANY people- I signed up for itunes way back in 2005. I notice that you offer a free me.com address for people on icloud- why not, using this service, allow people to enter their EXISTING mobileme address. COME ON!!

That said, I love OS5, and your iPhone 4GS is groovy.

Love

Griff

Now I know that not all of the fault lies with you, but I have a number of issues I’d like to raise.

1) I’ve had this laptop for less than a week and I’ve already viewed the dreaded BSOD- What the hell?!

2) Your Office software may be the industry standard, but it appears to have been coded by an idiot.

3) Is there any way you could get the various hardware manufacturers to NOT install a headache-inducing amount of truly useless, awful software on to the machine alongside Windows?

4) Is there any chance you could actually make your software user friendly? The only reason people use Windows is familiarity, I’m fairly sure- there’s a reason that Apple has increased market share and yours has fallen.

Ok, so 1 and 3 aren’t directly your responsibility, I’ll grant you that, but seriously, what the hell on the other two. Your office software is a complete ballache- to a complete novice it must be HELL, as I’m a relatively experienced user and I find it to be a mess of cluttered options and an ingenious device to make the simplest things difficult.

For example- I want to number equations in my MPhil-PhD transfer report. This should be a standard. A STANDARD. But instead I’m led to an obscure blog on office.com which informs me that the only way I can do such a thing (which is a standard writing process in all scientific papers) is to put any equation into a table, and faff about with it. I can’t even directly link the numbering to the chapter number which you have enabled in the recently implemented figure captioning (kudos though- well overdue, but something that actually works). When you describe the unnecessarily complicated method of attributing the chapter number to the numbering (you have to do it manually), it doesn’t even work! AAAAAGH!

As for excel- well. The spreadsheet-cell-referencing-maths side of things are near-perfect (I can’t blame you for a lack of support for extremely complex mathematics as, to be fair, that’s not what excel is designed for). However, what in the name of all that is holy have you done to the graphs? Did you have a meeting where you decided that all of the graphs needed to be as chunky as possible to imply a complete lack of accuracy? Do you assume that your average user has eyes so bad that the lines need to be as thick as my arm?! And then the clunky method for adding new data, and the insufficient and seemingly random trendlines… Well. I won’t go there.

As for your usability, I’ll reiterate. It’s only familiarity that keeps people coming back, well, that and there are people who enjoy the ability to so freely mess with the coding… Oh, and games. But then I can easily install windows on a mac just for a bit of gaming. I understand why people are going to Mac and Linux. They are usable, straight away. Boom, look I can internet!!1one! Come on people, it’s not that difficult. You need to make a UI that is easy to use for the most idiotic cretin on the planet, and then add in the subtle, difficult stuff underneath. Make it less easy for people to cock around with the innards of Windows- or at least give people an IQ test before allowing them entry! The incessant screen dimming asking me if I want to do the thing that I clicked on is infuriating. YES I SOD-BUGGERING WELL DO WANT TO DO THAT! People dislike Mac/iPhone etc for being too simple, well I have to say that I don’t see that point of view- yes this may seem fan-boy-ish, but I do see a number of flaws within OS X (that’s for another rant, I feel). Yours however are so much more ingrained and baked into the system from year-old coding that has apparently been rewritten but still appears… Come on Microsoft, you’re looking like the grand dad of tech, you need to get with the easy peasy side of computing before people get so pissed off with you that they do something stupid like use Chrome. Nobody wants that.

In essense, get with the times, make stuff usable, sort your life out. AND STOP ALLOWING MANUFACTURERS FROM SELLING UNDER-POWERED HARDWARE! That is RETARDED.

Thanks a million everything else though…

Lots of Love

Griff

I’m not really sure why I expected a PhD to be easy… Well, not easy, but unchallenging. No, that’s not right either. It seems that the small bump in the road that is my transfer report has disheartened me beyond belief. Mainly because my base knowledge of semiconductor physics is WOEFUL at best. It seems I’ve picked up a number of technical things, but basic quantum physics just seems to elude me… This is stuff I should have picked up ages ago, but can’t seem to master. And that frustrates me.

Ah well, end of stream of consciousness.

This is terrifying. People out there see this satirical slight as a positive thing.

literallyunbelievable:

IMO

dmreporter:

Surprise! @LizJonesSomalia is a fake! Oh wow. No-way! Pah! Who knew?

About two thirds of you, actually - which is great, because if I’d got 50 negative replies a minute I’d have stopped a long time ago. I’m genuinely delighted that so many people get the joke and totally appreciative of the…

Um…. Thanks?! It’s a bit sparse, but I’m trying to get into it :)

Liz Jones is a charming journalist for the Daily Mail, whose last piece drew the ire of many when she unleashed a scathing attack on the NHS (bear in mind that she’s a fashion writer) as a result of them being unprepared for her wanting a holiday in Africa, and wanting jabs immediately.

Have a look at http://www.briankellett.net/brian-kellett-dot-net/2011/8/1/raised-expectations.html?SSLoginOk=true  to see the extent of the damage of her self-centred and self-aggrandising article, from the perspective of a GP.

The original article is here: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2020705/LIZ-JONES-The-caring-professions-They-just-dont-care-all.html

Anyway, back to the point- someone edited her Wikipedia article, and it read like this:

Liz Jones

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Liz Jones (born 5 September 1958) is a Welsh journalist and writer. She is the youngest of seven children (her siblings are Claire, Philip, Nick (1949-2011), Lynnie, Tony & Sue). She studied journalism at the London College of Printing. She currently writes vile and self-centered columns for the Daily Mail and the The Mail on Sunday.

Early Life

Arriving into the world with a carefree abandon (afforded only to that special class of Britisher who feels it is their privileged duty to look down upon everybody else) in 1946, Jones was the only child of an idiot and an old goat. She rapidly aged to 46 years and has maintained that ripe old age from 1949 to the present day. She undoubtedly had a lovely childhood in which nothing was denied, leading her to develop the warm & caring personality she still lavishes over retarded Daily Mail readers today.

Career

On leaving college in 1981, Jones worked for Company magazine as a sub-editor, eventually becoming a staff writer before leaving to go freelance in 1986. In 1989 she began an 11-year stint at the Sunday Times magazine, becoming deputy editor of their Style magazine in 1998. In April 1999, Jones was appointed editor of Marie Claire UK magazine, from which post she was sacked two years later. In 2002 she became Life & Style editor at the London Evening Standard, leaving to join the Daily Mail as Style editor in early 2006. She also writes for British Airways’ High Life magazine on destinations and hotels.

Jones now lurks in Brushford, just south of Dulverton, Somerset.

Jones tops the list of most hated women worldwide, pipping Myra Hindley and that Queen in the Philippines nobody really liked that much. You know, the one who wouldn’t let the Beatles play.

Bibliography

• Bright Wings Broken (1996) ISBN 1-896-32995-0
• Slave To The Rhythm: The Artist Formerly Known As Prince (1997) ISBN 0-316-64041-7
• Liz Jones’s Diary: How One Single Girl Got Married (2005) ISBN 1-844-00223-3
• Fur Babies: Why We Love Cats (2007) ISBN 1-844-00518-6
• The Exmoor Files: How I Lost A Husband And Found Rural Bliss (2009) ISBN 0-297-85443-7
• The Third Reich: One Man and his Quest for Common Sense (2011) ISBN 0-297-00223-0

Well, I thought it was funny.

samrayner:

Nailed it.

Ok, so the title is fairly emo, but I’ll explain that in a second.

At the moment I am feeling a little bit like I’m cheating or something- not sure I deserve this place at university. This is mainly because I am clearly on a different intellectual plane when it comes to everyone in my department… They are all ridiculously clever, and I’m aware that they’ve got years on me, but it doesn’t do wonders for your self-confidence. Especially after a meeting with my supervisor that I thought I was going to nail, but was definitely caught out by some very straightforward questions that, even if I was able to answer them, couldn’t articulate it properly.

Anyway, at least a smidgen of good news came out of today- I’ve got a plan (sorta) for my end of year report :D YAY. Thanks to the great Ed Clarke once again. Seriously, without him I’d be in a hole weeping and jobless.