My printing graph clearly applies to a great many circumstances. Having finished my thesis last night, I could not print it in Wadham because their printer was broken. I couldn’t print it in St. Antony’s because every scrap of paper had been used by other people scrambling to finish their own theses.
No problem, I thought, Temple Bookbinders says on their website that “photocopying service from disk or proof is also available.” As it turns out, the website is inaccurate in this regard. The nearest place that could print it was “around the corner,” by about a mile and a half. There, my thesis was printed at the rate of one page every 23 seconds (I timed it). For the 222 pages of black and white printing, they charged me £16 ($36 Canadian). The thesis will be bound and ready to be picked up at 11:00am tomorrow.
On the plus side, I did manage to see the Headington shark house.
[Update: 5:00pm] I have returned my thesis books to their various libraries of origin, re-filed the books I own into my normal non-fiction classification system, and put my box of thesis related articles out of sight.
Bravo! And your lovely title is a perfect choice. One ring to bind them indeed…
Even once the thesis is submitted you are not safe.
Oh, and for those insufficiently nerdy to get the reference:
Three Rings for the Elven-kings under the sky,
Seven for the Dwarf-lords in their halls of stone,
Nine for Mortal Men doomed to die,
One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne
In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.
One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them,
One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them
In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.
— J R R Tolkien
Back in seventh grade, an unusually good English teacher assigned The Hobbit to our class. This would have been in 1995.
I decided to do one better and read The Lord of the Rings. I distinctly remember buying the thick single volume which included all three books on very thin and delicate paper (like the Orange Catholic Bible Paul gets in Dune). I have remembered that poem ever since the day I first read it.
I suppose it might have been relavent to your thesis, but maybe not. Are you familiar with the Liberal White paper on the environment, and with the Green Party’s “Investing in Biodiversity”.
On balence, I don’t think I can vote for the liberals in the next election. Their system just isn’t serious enough. The Greens on the other hand seem to have a comprehensive understanding of biodiversity, toxicity, marine protection, forest policy, agriculture, and then they also have a carbon tax plan. (None of the Carbon tax plans look as good as Gore’s market-priced-finite-carbon-units plan).
Voting for the Greens is an exercise in futility, given Canada’s electoral system. Also, it bears remembering that one is voting for a candidate, not a party. The Green candidate in North Vancouver during the last federal election was very far from impressive.
More on the shark house:
My photo
Official site
Post on Google Sightseeing
“Voting for the Greens is an exercise in futility, given Canada’s electoral system. Also, it bears remembering that one is voting for a candidate, not a party. The Green candidate in North Vancouver during the last federal election was very far from impressive.”
I disagree entirely with this position. If the greens get more than some amount of the popular vote, they get funding – this makes your vote important for them in a way totally unconnected with the particular candidate you are voting for. More importantly, however, is that if the Greens are getting 10% of the popular vote, this serves to ridicule our electoral system – because a party which receives a significant amount of the popular vote is of course eligible for zero seats. The fact that 10% vote for the Green when they know it will not result in seats makes it easy to argue that they would receive much more if it was not considered a throw-away vote.
If any vote which is an exercise in futility is unacceptable to you, then in certain ridings you would have to vote liberal rather than NDP, if the NDP did not stand a serious chance of contesting the riding. It seems you are painting an unjustified double standard – on the one hand you vote for parties rather than Candidates, but people voting for the Greens are voting for Candidates and not parties – simply because those Candidates don’t stand a chance of being elected?
Voting algorithm flowchart for Canadian elections