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As well as doing a spot of sightseeing at abbeys and museums when my friend Richard was down we also took in a few of the sights of the other sights on offer - It’s been a while since he was down this way so a lot of Bristol city centre was new to him. Mind you it was new to me as well, because until this week I had not set foot inside Cabot Circus and now that I have, I rather unsurprisingly don’t feel like I have missed out on all that much.

One of the things Richard saw that I took for granted though was the above Banksy, which he had seen photographed, but with the photographs not giving anyidea of where the photograph is situated (a trend my photo doesn’t break).

Anyway Rich, you know where to find it now and even better here’s a larger copy of the photo for you and anyone else that wants it.

Banksy on Park Street, Bristol - Big Version

It’s just gone half eleven at night and I’ve just realised that it’s not Monday. I’m not completely stupid though, I do have a kind of reason for not realising that it has indeed been Thursday all day today.

I’ve only just come back from a holiday, as I have been enjoying using up my annual holiday left over from last year and so my working week, which usually starts on a Monday has only just commenced today and caused the confusion.

As to how I’ve spent my time off most of it has been spent doing not very much and enduring a 4 day headache over the New Year period. The last few days however have been a little bit more enjoyable and productive as I have been playing tourist with a friend of mine (pictured above). Richard and I were friends at uni and whilst he left Bristol for London, he returned  for a few days to visit me this week.

Having him around was like having a pet historian and I cannot recommend having one enough - It makes going to museums and churches a whole lot more interesting, as the significance of lots of minor things gets pointed out and explained. Plus having a pet historian means you have someone on hand to translate Latin inscriptions.

Unfortunately he’s had to go back to London, but on the plus side I finally got around to seeing the inside of a few places that I have been meaning to see for a few years - Bath Abbey and Bristol’s City Museum and Art Gallery. A particular bonus was getting to see the Wildlife Photographer of the Year Exhibition 2008 which it turns out is due to close this weekend.

My opinions about the best photos may have differed from the judges, but it has to be said that either way there is some pretty amazing photography on show. They are even kind enough to have it online for people who can’t get to the exhibition.

Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2008

I don’t believe in a God, or even Gods something which a few of my friends believe dooms me to eternal torment in the pit of hell - Of course not believing in God mean I also don’t believe that I am doomed just yet and hell is just where I currently work.

That aside I cannot and would not say definitively that there is no God. The existence of a God or Gods has yet to be proven scientifically, but one cannot prove the inverse that such a being does not exist as it is impossible to prove a negative.

Of course there are plenty of people who believe that there is a God and the key term is believe, they don’t actually know - After all as they are always so keen to point out it is a matter of faith, only though believing can one be saved - Although this requires one to believe that one needs saving in the first place.

What I do believe though is that blind faith can be a bad thing and as is argued in so many theological debates (and in the recent BBC TV series Apparitions), “What value does untested faith have?”. This is why I find the story of the “There’s probably no God” campaign being reported to the Advertising Standards Agency rather amusing. If they they were claiming there was no God maybe they could be found guilty of not having documentary evidence, but any advert proclaiming there is a God would be just as guilty after all the Bible isn’t really firm documentary evidence.*

Admittedly the Atheist Bus Campaign probably only includes the probably so that they could get the adverts done (and legal reasons), but they do include the term probably showing that they aren’t completely intractable on the issue. Better yet not all religious groups think it is a bad idea, the Methodists for example appear to be in favour of active debate - It’s just the fundamentalists on each side that are the real problem, who wish to stifle debate and force their opinions down the throats of others.

The advertising campaign has taken various forms across the world (where it’s been permitted at least - Australia are missing out apparently) and in the UK at least they are trying to avoid being directly confrontational, after all when people argue they tend to make sure they are heard rather than listening to the other side.

Here is (in my opinion at least) a more confrontational advert with a similar message from across the pond in Washington D.C.

Whilst I like the humour and agree with the message, I can’t help but feel that it is a lot more ‘in your face’, but that’s American advertising for you I suppose.

Here are a couple of parodies of the UK bus adverts that were put up on a forum I frequent (although originally from somewhere on B3ta) and even though they are sending up the campaign they could easily be a part of it - Well the first one could at least.:

Of course now that the complaint has been made it’ll be interesting to see what judgement is passed by the ASA on the existence probable or otherwise of God and if you want to join the counter campaign have a read here about why some feel that the probably should never have been needed in the first place.

*Unless of course you believe that the Earth is 6000 or so year olds and fossils are just evidence of God’s wicked sense of humour.

Although so far I haven’t got around to stage 3 of my non-player character (NPC) roleplay generator so it’s not yet implemented online for quick and easy use, although I am working on that.

I actually finished this on Christmas Day (because I am just that festive) and so here’s my present to those that roleplay and know how to put a perl script to use - Everyone else gets nothing!

Perl script - roleplay
Library file - lib-roleplay.pl

It’s two files this time for ease of further potential development and to save me typing things repeatedly so both of them will be needed and I am sure I will have a few other generators based of them shortly (as well as adding a few things to this one).

Currently the script will generate a random NPC using the rules from the Pathfinder Beta and uses a 20 points buy system and biases stats according to classes before adjusting character stats for race. In the case of Humans and Half-Elves the +2 bonus is assigned randomly independant of any variable.

Possible names and descriptions are race specific, so that rotund Elves and spindly, wan Dwarves  shouldn’t be too much of an issue. Each race has a pretty much unique set of first names although as surnames are of the form “adjective+noun” for the most part there is some overlap avaliable according to which root words seemed appropriate for the race, e.g forge and stone for Dwarves and oak and forest for elves etc.

For the half breed races there is a little extra step before creating the name, as the script decides whether they were raised by Elves, Humans or Orcs and names them as appropriate.

As well as optimising a couple of parts of the script I realised could be improved when finishing off the script I also plan to add other features. Features that I plan to include in rough order of priority include:

• Web implementation
• Additional 20pt stat arrays for selection
• Additional shuffling options for stats by class
• Additional stat arrays for other point buys, 15 and 25 first.
• Other stat generation methods
• Adding other character statistics, e.g. saves and hit points.
• Basic equipment, after all it’s too easy to just give everyone swords as a default
• Improved descriptions, inc a random characteristic such as big hands, body odour, etc
• Implementation of other races, Orcs, Goblins, etc
• Implementation of other classes, Adept, Expert, etc
• Addition of skills
• Inclusion of other systems, D&D 3rd edition in particular.

I am sure I will think of other things to add, but that will do as a starting point. Feel free to add suggestions if you can think of anything I should make a point of adding.

I know I have kept you waiting, but here is a picture of what I broke:

Luckily for me I was changing it for a higher powered energy saving bulb, so I wasn’t in the dark for too long. There isn’t too much need to fear for the earth as I am still using less energy than the original bulb that was there by a considerable margin.

The only thing that concerned me when picking up the pieces was that even after gathering the pieces together it still looked like I was missing a few pieces. So far though the walk around barefoot method of glass detection has failed to produce any results, so it would seem I was worrying needlessly.

So there you go Rich, you need wonder no more.