Monday 25 February 2013

Entertainment stuff from the week 18-24/2/13

Hi, hairy-ape-people


Have you heard the story about the Bigfoot DNA paper that went missing?

The only evidence was footprints; frayed paper; and dodgy-looking videos of the paper trundling through brackeny woods, in the mid-ground, yet out of focus despite technology nowadays rarely failing to focus properly.

Now, however, the paper has been found!

Melba Ketchum - a leading Bigfoot Believer - has made her own journal, so that she could publish her own paper in it, and peer-review herself, for her own paper, thereby 'proving', once and for all, that Bigfoot exists.

The paper has been rubbished by scientists who have read it.
http://doubtfulnews.com/2013/02/ketchum-bigfoot-dna-paper-released-problems-with-questionable-publication/


Another thing that's gone on recently, is the UK's jump toward equal marriage access, joining some States in the USA, and other countries around the world. But no thanks to the cuntservative bigots who line the Conservative Party... well, duh.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-21346220

Because of this, Queers of the UK are now empowered to be just as nauseating as the Straights, in their persistent equivocation between love and marriage... yeurch.

The importance of equal access to marriage is that marriage grants the people involved privileged legal (mostly financial) status.

That's how traditional cis-hetero-only marriage subjugates non-bromidic couplings.

Marriage is not about 'acknowledging people's love' - in fact it's not really about love at all.

...equal marriage for Tapejaras though!


------------------------------------------------------ contemporary stuff

More 'Funny Place Names' albums, with verifying links:

http://tapejarascience.tumblr.com/post/43882108164/bad-bargain-lane-in-york-yorkshire-england
http://tapejarascience.tumblr.com/post/43882111026/barking-in-london-mudchute-in-london-popes
http://tapejarascience.tumblr.com/post/43882113148/frisby-on-the-wreake-in-leicestershire-england

'Flexible Sculptures - Pure White Paper' - from Ripley's Believe It Or Not!
I almost didn't realise what's so crazy about this art, but then... watch the video to find out.
http://www.ripleys.com/weird/daily-dose-of-weird-wtf-blog/unbelievable-but-true/flexible-sculptures/
See another video demo here:
http://youtu.be/KQvqlUHTOxg

A 'best of' compilation of basejumping videos on YouTube. If i ever do this, myself, it will be happening against my will :-o
http://youtu.be/6il9-zdQL4Q

'No Hands Push Ups' Funny trick :-)
http://uniquedaily.com/2013/02/no-hands-push-ups/

‘Spider skin at 12,000 magnification’
http://tapejarascience.tumblr.com/post/43885385114/via-uniquedaily-spider-skin-at-12-000

'Can you work this picture out?' - via Richard Wiseman
http://tapejarascience.tumblr.com/post/43886500437/can-you-work-this-picture-out

'Trinity: Interview with Dr. Oz, Alex Jones, and Deepak Chopra' - a musical episode of Skeptoid, by Brian 'Brian Dunning of skeptoid.com' Dunning
http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4350
"For we are the holy trinity,
Of pseudoscientific idiocy,
And we have the network's mandate,
To blow your brain cells away."

------------------------------------------------------ of the weeks

Un-quotes:

The Daily Mail: "Corrections and Clarifications: The Mail has decided to earnestly correct all its bigoted, hate-inducing, exploitative, racist, sexist, nationalistic, and pseudo-scientific propaganda, going back over the last century. This may take some time... sorry"

William Shakespeare: "...Yours Sincerely, The Earl of Essex"

Jane Austen: "..."Oh my goodness", cried Miss Bennet, as Mr Darcy plunged his throbbing member deeper inside, and grasped at her quivering bosom"

Nelson: "Oh yes, i see those ships. Second thoughts, they look big - let's turn around and go home..."

Nelson: "Have you seen the size of my column? It's the reason Lady Hamilton loves me so much. UNF"

Word Of The Week: shibboleth -- a word for a word that, for some reason, can be used to distinguish between populations

Expression Of The Week: "one over the eight" -- just enough to tip the balance

Quote Of The Week: "I have kleptomania, but when it gets bad, I take something for it" - Robert Benchley

Scientific Paper Title Of The Week: Would Bohr be born if Bohm were born before Born? {See Feedback excerpts, 22/29 Dec, at the bottom of the page}

------------------------------------------------------ non-contemporary stuff

'The House in the Middle of the Street'
http://www.theatlantic.com/infocus/2012/11/the-house-in-the-middle-of-the-street/100411

'Bacon Flavored Shaving Cream'
"The self-titled "bacontrepreneur" has also come up with other pork inspired products such as bacon roses, bacon lip balm and bacon baby formula.
And, for those "who love bacon to death", he has created a £2,000 bacon-wrapped coffin."
http://uniquedaily.com/2012/12/bacon-flavored-shaving-cream/

'Huge Psy Snowman!'
http://uniquedaily.com/2012/12/huge-psy-snowman/

'Lawyer Bills Client For Time They Spent Having Sex'
What a scumbag!
http://uniquedaily.com/2013/01/lawyer-bills-client-for-time-they-spent-having-sex/

'Russell Howard's Good News Big Cook Little Cook Scene'
http://youtu.be/TLmOC7FvIlM



Feedback excerpts:

ABOUT to go on a business trip to Brisbane, Australia, and hoping to do a bit of exploring as well, Adrian Page decided to download a map onto his satnav and start planning in advance. In doing so, he discovered that Australia, big as it is, is even more interesting than he had thought.
According to Adrian's satnav, the 1.2 million kilometres of roads that cover the continent contain "879,100 million 'Points of Interest'." This means that on average there is a point of interest every 1.5 millimetres of road. To put it another way, given Australia's surface area of 7,692,024 square kilometres, the continent must contain something interesting every 10 square metres.
Clearly, truly fascinating trips lie ahead for Adrian and others.
8 Dec

Michael Holroyd sends us a scan of an advertisement he saw in The Equity newspaper in Shawville, Quebec, Canada. It's for a portable toilet rental service, and although it's not a new Apple product, it's called - get ready to groan here - "I-Pood".
8 Dec

BALLYGOWAN mineral water, Barry Cash was startled to read, is "filtered through calcium-enriched limestone". Barry asks, "How can you enrich it with more calcium?"
15 Dec
{The chemical structure of limestone is CaCO3 - it's calcium carbonate - how could you put more calcium in it?}

"KEEP back from the platform edge," begins a sign from Penrith railway station sent by Alan Storer from Victoria, Australia, who assigns it to Penrith, New South Wales, Australia. Feedback's fine eye for typography and railway architecture places it firmly in Penrith, Cumbria, UK, in the time of standardised British Rail signs using the Helvetica font. Searching, we find readers of The Guardian newspaper in 2006 offering confirmation of its location.
And why might it have gone viral all over the interweb and undergone such memetic mutation? Because we more frequently see a sign that assumes some knowledge of physics in expressing the reason for keeping back, such as: "Passing trains cause air turbulence."
The sign in Alan's photo is in plain English and finishes, simply, with: "...or you may get sucked off".
Feedback wants an explanation for the giggling we hear. This is serious.
15 Dec

OUR piling system throws up a report in Canada's Globe and Mail online telling us that in October President Bashar al-Assad of Syria "approved a law on the health security of genetically modified organisms... to regulate their use and production".
SANA, the state-run news agency, explained that the law's purpose was to "preserve the health of human beings, animals, vegetables and the environment".
The same report mentions that "more than 33,000 people have been killed in 19 months of conflict" in Syria, "most of them civilians". Clearly, al-Assad is, despite that, the kind of guy who cares.
15 Dec

The makers of the Vactor sewer cleaner, Ronald Davis notes, claim it has a new fan and air-routing system that "delivers significantly increased vacuum pressure"
22/29 Dec
{If we temporarily pretend that 'vacuum' can mean vacuuminess, surely an increased vacuum pressure would mean a weakened vacuum, and thereby less suction power?!?}

THIS year's competition run by UK newspaper The Guardian to win "six mind-boggling science books" included the following question: "Food that doesn't contain any chemicals: a) is known as organic; b) was grown without pesticides; c) will help you lose weight; d) is much healthier".
Our mind, like Paul Manson's, was boggled by the question. Paul suggests an additional answer: "e) doesn't exist".
22/29 Dec
{'Chemical' is another one of those terms that the wider public seems to have a very odd impression of. Other examples are 'theory' and 'natural'}

A SELF-STYLED "important memo" forwarded by Robin McKellar warns that the Ottawa Citizen newspaper is being delivered later than normal "due to a shortage of carriers" - and "apologises for the incontinence".
As it happens, the note was delivered to Robin's mother in her nursing home.
22/29 Dec

FINALLY, READER William Urton supplies our favourite title of the week - albeit one belonging to a paper published in 2008 in the American Journal of Physics (vol 76, p 143).
Its author, Hrvoje Nikolic, begins his attempt to compare the work of the quantum physicists David Bohm and Max Born thus: "I discuss a hypothetical historical context in which a Bohm-like deterministic interpretation of the Schrödinger equation is proposed before the Born probabilistic interpretation and argue that in such a context the Copenhagen (Bohr) interpretation would probably have not achieved great popularity among physicists."
In case that isn't entirely clear, the paper's title sums it up simply: "Would Bohr be born if Bohm were born before Born?"

22/29 Dec

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