Pushing Against the Glass Ceiling With the 8th March marking International Women’s Day, it’s a time to consider and celebrate all that women have done for the world. Names, but some amongst many, are called to the fore. From science with Marie Curie. To matters of state with Angela Merkel, Condoleezza Rice, Hillary Rodham Clinton, Janet Yellen, Madeleine Albright, Margaret Thatcher, and Queen Elizabeth II. To business and industry with Sara Blakely and Gina Rinehart. To those who’ve done their best to make the word a better place, such as Florence Nightingale and Mother Teresa. To those that entertain us, such as Oprah, Ellen, Meryl Streep, and Julianne Moore. The list of women who have achieved both greatness and public recognition in their respective fields is not a small one by any means. And any such listing must ultimately be incomplete. Equally though, we should also acknowledge those whose stories ...

The Cheese Wheel returns! In its time away, it has matured. Hardened. And now has even more bite. Or it has gone crumbly, is a bit on the nose, and probably should simply be thrown away… Yet as any good barrel searching resident of Tamriel will tell you, in the early stages of the game, survival is the key. Launching back on the ominous date of 11.11.11, The Elder Scrolls V Skyrim still to this day has an active community of modders. Plus Bethesda recently lifted the cap on the size limits of mods. Time to break out the skooma in celebration, or maybe something a little less addictive. Now, once you’ve survived the initial game stuff, absorbed the souls of a few dragons, and not taken an arrow to the knee, you can remain an adventurer and start to do more interesting things. Things like acting out a Gloucestershire ...

A Table for Many A recent report by Australia’s A Current Affair claimed that some so-called restaurants operating within the Menulog website, were providing takeaway meals which were not produced by restaurants under restaurant conditions. Rather, they were produced in homes, by unregistered and unlicensed businesses. Furthermore, where produced by restaurants, some were listing themselves as being multiple different restaurants. Before examining this more, Menulog is part of the newer range of websites and apps seeking to connect the consumer digitally to the restaurants. A change of offering convenience and potential home deliveries of takeaway meals over the more traditional location-bound restaurant experience. Effectively creating a digital marketplace and promotional space for restaurants, restaurateurs, and potential customers. Concerns raised with the A Current Affair report seem more sensational than substantial. Since when did a home-cooked meal necessarily become a bad thing? Furthermore, consider that few if any of the various meals and products ...

Tongue Not in Cheek Miley’s Video Music Awards (VMA) performance seems to have poked and pointed more tongues into talking about a Cyrus than the days when there was an achy breaky heart on the scene. Not that Miley’s performance was completely inconsistent, after all she did have blonde hair.  So maybe she was just playing the character of Hannah Montana, you know, all grown up. It was just that she may have blurred the lines between family friendly entertainment and perhaps showing what a wholesome upbringing on Disney can do for you. A link to the ‘show’ is provided, but the video isn’t directly embedded here.  Because things are kept tasteful on uthinki;  however questionably so.  (Or videos of that much twerking simply take up a lot of bandwidth!) Cyrus’ moves have sparked all sorts of comments, not in the least because she did more twerking than an anthology of ...

Daily Planet and Wayne Enterprises, of a Sort When the news broke that Ben Affleck would be the next Batman, the next one to don the cowl of the Dark Knight, it was met with mixed and divisive reactions. It seems that everything burns. Rebooting so soon after the Nolan trilogy, maybe it is not about the message and all about the money? Baffle Me This Gothamites have weighed in, knowing that if the new Batman vs. Superman vs. Batman (it should be two out of those three, in some order) movie set to be released in 2015, is no good, the punishment must be more severe than mere flame wars on Twitter. “Holy three letter acronyms Batman!” They may be some of the nicer things said. Of course the conspiracy theorists out there – of which there may be a few on the internet – will have noticed the ...

At this point, it’s now a little over the halfway mark in the campaign trail of the Australian federal election 2013.  The general gist of things to this point, is that numerous polls are favouring the Coalition (Liberal) over Labor.  From the table below, on the basis of the individual electorate seats for the House of Representatives, projections are suggesting that Labor is likely to win 60 seats, the Coalition win 85 seats, and the minor parties and independents collectively win five seats. The results in the table below were calculated on a two party preferred (2PP) basis of the incumbent party from the 2010 Australian federal election, taking into account preferences and their nearest challenger, and statistically updated to reflect the sentiment of current polling results as at 22nd August 2013. Whilst subject to error, like any forecast, especially where there are marginal seats, and with respect to any incumbent that is not ...

The Eleventh Doctor to Leave Matt Smith, the actor behind the current Doctor Who (and the Eleventh Doctor) recently announced that he will be quitting the show. Series 7 ended with a cliff-hanger and the caption: INTRODUCING JOHN HURT AS THE DOCTOR Will John Hurt be the Twelfth Doctor? Probably not, but that’s travelling ahead in time anyway. Given that the show began running back in 1963 on the BBC, it has needed a means to shift between the actors playing Doctor Who. However, this is accepted because as a Time Lord, Doctor Who has the ability to regenerate when near death.  Each time he is effectively reborn, there is the retention of the past personalities, the memories and the shared consciousness, yet the new incarnation will have its own characteristics as well. Whether it is that Time Lords can only regenerate the suggested 12 times remains to be seen. ...

Mankind has long held a fascination with the tangible.  Yet it was also the intangible, the ideas, that have given rise to so much. If one considers the nature of writing, it has moved  from things such as cave paintings, to clay tablets such as those used in ancient Babylon.  Literally going from being on an immovable rock, to being transported essentially in a rock.  Stone tablets gave way to things such as parchment, papyrus, and paper.  Handwritten by way of scribes, to be superseded by the Guttenberg press.  The printing press ushered in a phase of modernity, the book could be readily made and information disseminated as easily as it could be carried.  Digital innovations and the internet have now expanded this.  Taking writing and books into essentially intangible areas with such things as e-books. Information now seems little bound to the tangible, save for a means to decode and ...

Cryptozoology, is the study of, and the search for, secret, hidden animals with a yet unproven existence.  Rumours, hearsay and conjecture are often where it begins.  Sometimes legends.  A few hoaxes may be in there as well.  Blurred photos are optional, but are generally recommended. Two of the more famous examples are the Loch Ness Monster and Bigfoot. The Loch Ness Monster, or Nessie as it is (or they are) otherwise referred to, was purportedly first seen in the year 565 (which requires more than a small bit of interpretation of Chapter 28 in the Life of St. Columba).  Making its home in Loch Ness, Scotland; it has been searched for, but never found.  The most recently claimed and majorly reported sighting was in 2012.  Perhaps meaning that Nessie either swims in the Fountain of Youth, or there are many of the creatures.  Neither claim has been proven though. Bigfoot, or Sasquatch (as its ...

Enter Angelina Since first stepping into the spotlight, Angelina Jolie was been many things to many people. From Hollywood wild child, with her various oddities such as an interest in knives to wearing a vial of blood of her then husband Billy Bob Thornton (a much older man) in a necklace.  Perhaps channelling some of these quirks or even art imitating life, she became a celebrated actress.  Including winning three Golden Globes; and winning an Oscar in 1999 for her portrayal of the sociopathic Lisa Rowe in Girl, Interrupted.  Plus the Tomb Raider movies, although perhaps far from the most respected acting she has done, playing as Lara Croft served to place her truly in the public eye. Seen as incredibly beautiful, she has consistently ranked in FHM’s list of the 100 Sexiest Women each year since 2000 to now; peaking at third place in the year 2005.  Similarly Esquire magazine ...