Scotland in pictures!

Nothing much to say, seeing how everyone in the world knows by now that I went to Scotland. I had a lovely time and I am here to share pictures. We stayed in West Kilbride, a tiny village on the west coast and went to Largs, Edinburgh, X-Scape(a giant arcade/indoor skiing thing in Glasgow), Loch Lomond(like Loch Ness, only without Ness) and boating on the Firth of Clyde. Now enough talk and let's look at pictures! (In no particular order because I had to use the blogger uploader, seeing how photobucket hates everyone lately).

Replica of the Crown of Scotland(the real crown was in the next room but we weren't allowed to take pictures)


This is where the Crown Jewels are held:

Edingurgh from the castle:

Possibly the most polite sign ever(in a restaurant on the banks of Loch Lomond):

Loch Lomond. Foggy.

Loch Lomond. Sunny.

A castle on the hill next to Loch Lomond. A suitable vacation house for when I become Queen of the World.

The hills next to the house we were staying in(and further proof that there is indeed sun in Scotland)

Hills and the Firth of Clyde(we went the other way in the boat).

Same as above.

And again.

Firth of Clyde, in all it's sunny glory. The silhuette in the back is the Sleeping Giant. Sadly, because of the sun, you can't really see it.

The island is for sale. I think it would make a suitable place for my castle. Donations would be kindly accepted. I'm just £2.5 million short. My PayPal account is.....

Random island in the sun.

Same as above.

Take a wild guess.

(The second I manage to solve my Facebook problems-technology hates me today- I'm posting a link to more pictures).

Self-indulgent post

I’ll post an account and pictures of my trip to Scotland and Belgium but first I have to share this with the world just because I am so giddy about it, it’s not even funny. The girl that checks my fanfics before they go online is a member of a forum and sent me a link today about Gilmore Girls fanfics. And guess who got mentioned?



Yep, lil’ ol’ me.




I am just so insanely happy with this it’s not even funny.



You can check the story they’re talking about here.

Ada Lovelace day or my tribute to women in technology

Today, in honour of Ada Lovelace day, 1800 bloggers have taken a pledge to write about a woman in technology. I’m one of those bloggers.

First off, a bit about Ada because I don’t know how many people are familiar with her. The only legitimate child of Lord Byron, she was born in 1815 and met Charles Babbage in 1833. In 1841-42, while translating Luigi Menabrea’s memoir on Babbage’s newest proposed machine, Analytical Engine, she also wrote a set of notes. That set of notes contains in complete detail a method for calculating Bernoulli numbers with the Engine, recognized by historians as the world's first computer program.

Now there are quite a few women in technology. Not as many as men and certainly not as famous. Well, the one I am going to talk about today was famous, but for different reasons. Hedy Lamarr was born in 1913, in Vienna. In 1937, she disguised herself as one of her maids and fled to Paris, where she obtained a divorce from her first husband(who, despite being part Jewish, was consorting with Nazi industrialists, up to the point where Mussolini and Hitler attended his parties). After her divorce she moved to London and later on to Los Angeles. There she made her debut in American films(she had already starred in 5 movies prior to her move) with Algiers. She is possibly best known for her roles as Delilah in Cecil B. DeMille Samson and Delilah as opposite Bob Hope in My favorite Spy. She appeared in more than 35 movies and almost managed to have more husbands than Liz Taylor(she stopped at 6 so Liz still wins).

So what does this glamour queen on the 40’s have to do with technology? Well, in 1942 her and her husband at the time, George Antheil(a composer, so next time you decide to mock either an actress or a composer for being dumb and not understanding real science you should remember this) were granted a patent for a Secret Communication System. This early version of frequency hopping used a piano roll to change between 88 frequencies and was intended to make radio-guided torpedoes harder for enemies to detect or jam. It wasn’t implemented by the USA until 1962, when it was used by military ships during a blockade in Cuba.

Still not impressed? Then I suppose I should tell you that the frequency-hopping idea serves as a basis for modern spread-spectrum communication technology, such as COFDM used in WiFi network connections and CDMA used in some cordless and wireless telephones.

So go out tonight and have a drink in honor of Ada, Hedy and all the other women in technology.

Thank you, Captain Retarded

So, I finally booked my ticket to go back to Romania for Easter break. Meh. Not exciting. Far more exciting is my trip to Scotland and Brussels before I fly there. That should be fun. But seriously, my airline is retarded. You see, I’m flying through city C(Constanta) to get to city B(Bucharest). City C is considerably closer to my home town. City C is also further away from Brussels compared to city B. However, the ticket for C costs 50 Euros more than the one for B. So to make this clearer for you: despite the fact that we’re stopping in city C, it costs 50 Euros more to get off the plane there.

Dude, that’s retarded.

And now for something completely different, I went to the ball last night. I managed to find a pretty dress and even prettier shoes(seriously, I’m in love with them. I am 5 seconds away from writing a love poem). They’re impossibly skinny heels and rather high as well. But I walked on them. All night. Without falling. Or twisting my ankle. I rock! I might post pictures of the heels or even of me at the ball if I can find a decent one.

My last point of the night. Watchmen is awesome! Seriously, go find a cinema right now and watch it! Warning though, it is violent and graphic so don’t expect unicorns and puppy dog tails. Well, there are some puppy dogs but you don’t want to know what happens to them. If anyone wants a more extensive review, let me know.

I've lost all hope for humanity

A new picture of Charles Manson was released today.

These were two of the comments on one of the websites I follow.

I just...give up. And hope they're playing stupid.

New look

Um...I did mention I am bored, right?

Opinions on bloggie's new look? Credit for the picture in the header goes to frerieke over at flickr, edited by me. Be sure to check out the entry below.

Dude.

Also, cookies is you guess the author of the quote in the header without google.

In which I rant

Dude…I’m tired. My insomnia is coming back with a vengeance. And by that I mean that I now consider myself lucky if I get 3 hours of sleep at night. And the weirdest thing is that I am tired, well, exhausted, but it’s not an ‘I need sleep tired’, but an ‘I need a beach and a cocktail’ tired. Of course, the fact that my department has decided that this is the week they kill us. While everyone else is finishing lectures we’re…not. And not only that but we’ve started labs again and we’re supposed to do these with a partner and my partner isn’t here. Which sucks. Did I mention that this is on top of the huge amounts of work we have to do? And the weekly tests?

Sucks.

Really, really sucks.

But hey, it just gets worse from here. So I should enjoy it, right? Before exams start again.

Fuckity fuck.

And I cannot even find a dress. See, this Cinderella is going to the ball. The chem society ball. Well, chem and every other science they could find, because you wouldn’t want to release us in the general public. Scientists are their own species. * So, yeah, the ball is on Friday. As in less than 2 days from now Friday. And I don’t have a dress. Not even after the almost 3 hours of shopping I did today. I guess that just means more shopping for me tomorrow.

Fuckity fuck again.

The good part is that because of my lack of sleep I am finally up to date with my work. Dude**, I even studied for my law tutorial. That’s how bored I was. I’m writing fanfiction again(as soon as my latest story is going up on ff I will torture you with a link. It’s intense. But I am biased.). No more emails going for weeks without a reply. Next I might start cleaning.

Bwahahahaha. I’m not that crazy.

*Please don’t pet the scientists. And, for your own safety, don’t go near their cages close to feeding time.

**No, I don’t know why I keep using dude. Just go with it.

Also. Chet Baker is awesome. And Noel Gallagher's unplugged album is not bad(The Butterfly Collector and Fade Away are my personal faves.).