Breaching Reality

I have just finished hunting for a new job - I’ve accepted a position and am starting in a few weeks.

During this time I’ve experienced a world of job-hunting experiences that I previously didn’t know existed. I was offered 4 positions, and the experience of interviewing for them all was totally different.

Read more! »

I’ll be honest, as a programmer there are many, many times when I use Google to help me with my job. Sometimes I need to use a new library and I’m not sure what functionality it offers, or what syntax to use. Sometimes it’s an old library that I’ve used a million times but still can’t remember the right function to call. Then there’s the random “what the hell does that error mean” problem.

It started to seem like every time I went online looking for solutions, somewhere in the top few results I would get Experts Exchange - often more than once. Sometimes I would click on these links and see someone had posted about the exact problem I was having… only of course, I couldn’t see the answers! It was very frustrating, knowing the answer was right there if only I would give in. And every time I was faced with these results I would say to myself – “should I join Experts Exchange?”

Read more! »

Recently while out to lunch with DH, I overheard a woman talking about her experience of being pregnant, and how traumatic it was after an amniocentesis (a procedure used to diagnose genetic risk factors of conditions such as Down’s Syndrome in unborn babies) returned positive. She was telling her friend how she had the test a week or two after its recommended date, and that when it returned positive she was told by her doctor that it could be a false positive and they would have to wait until the child was born to know for sure.

So the poor lady had to wait about 22 weeks, worrying the whole time about whether or not her child would be born with Down’s Syndrome. Not only this, but her doctor told her that even if she had made the decision to abort the child based on these results, she would not have been allowed to. Happily her baby was fine, but I can only imagine how traumatic the wait must have been for her.

Read more! »

Anyone who knows me knows that I’m a bit of a grammar freak. I admit that I may not always use correct grammar, but I like to think that I’m not too bad. I know the difference between their, there and they’re, and two, to and too.

I find that more and more people have very little grasp of the English language, and I shudder to think what a mess future generations are going to make of it.

While I have a number of gripes in this regard, including spelling and the correct use of homophones (words that sound the same but mean different things), my all time pet hate is misplaced apostrophes.

Read more! »

Genethics - How Far Is Too Far?

At six years old, Molly Nash has a life expectancy of only two years. She is not allowed to go to school, and must wear a mask when she goes outside to protect herself from infections. She suffers from a rare disease known as Fanconi anaemia, which causes severe bleeding and immune system disorders. The only effective treatment currently available for this disease is a bone marrow transplant from a perfectly matched and disease-free sibling.

In August 2000, Molly’s mother gave birth to a baby boy, Adam – an IVF baby selected for his capacity to save his older sister’s life. This was made possible through a procedure known as pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD), which has pro-life organisations around the world in a frenzy. Molly’s mother defends their decision, stating that “God gave us this technology, God gave us Adam and God gave Molly her second chance at life, and to us that was what was morally and ethically right”.

Read more! »