Firstly, i must apologise for last week's equine puns -- they weren't a-mews-ing at all :-P
Less facetiously, this week, i found out who Michelle Jenneke is. I could barely be more glad :o)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelle_Jenneke
http://youtu.be/U_9J2oJjjd4
This is belated, but "happy Singles Awareness Day", alotofone. Say wut, Tap? Read here - it has been renamed!
http://lucien0maverick.wordpress.com/2013/02/13/happy-single-awareness-day/
Anyone notice Brian Cox's clanger-of-the-week, on Wonders Of Life? http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p014r1s8
He pushed down on some solid CO2, which he was using for cooling purposes, heard a weird squeaking sound, and explained it as the plate underneath cooling rapidly. Wrong, Brian! Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong!
That noise is what you get from compressing solid CO2 - dry ice - and squeezing the gas out of it. And you can certainly get some weird noises from solid CO2!
Hear some of that funky stuff, heres:
http://youtu.be/90cRyd4LpJo
http://youtu.be/USbQMQ4FI48
http://youtu.be/NuVxT6UPLBQ
Two types of marriage i learned about, this week:
Lavender marriage - which is engaged in to conceal that one or both members are non-hetero; the one whose presence is used to conceal the sexuality of the other is called a 'beard'
Boston marriage - where two women live together, independently of male support (not necessarily a sexual/romantic relationship)
Well, whad'ya know? Thank you, Wikipedia!
Oh - and the other news - the Pope has given something up for Lent - infallibility:
http://godless-apostate.tumblr.com/post/43034529554
{That's a Family Guy reference, if you didn't know}
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_%28Family_Guy%29
'Resigning Pope No Longer Has Strength To Lead Church Backward'
http://www.theonion.com/articles/resigning-pope-no-longer-has-strength-to-lead-chur,31248/
His departure was heralded by this:
http://youtu.be/DF6Dd8MXnjI
http://youtu.be/frZUfXsRPuA
Of course, superstitionists have been claiming that the meteor, along with lightning, and a seagull, have been some kind of omen, which is, frankly, embarrassing for the human species:
http://www.godlikeproductions.com/forum1/message2140316/pg1
http://www.bbsradio.com/cgi-bin/webbbs/webbbs_config.pl?md=read;id=30614
http://theextinctionprotocol.wordpress.com/2013/02/15/meteorite-fragments-are-said-to-rain-down-on-siberia-russia-500-injuries-reported/#comment-136666
------------------------------------------------------ contemporary stuff
'10 more amazing bets you will always win' - Richard Wiseman
http://youtu.be/4VG2bOaHMog
LMAO - conservatism and obsession with guns:
'Gayle Trotter: The Woman Who Called Gun Control Sexist'
Before long, she was being hailed as a hero by some — conservative blogger Michelle Malkin tweeted, “Stand tall, Gayle Trotter. We appreciate your strong 2nd. amendment voice” — and as a nut job by others. Trotter “is now officially the most insane gun advocate in America,” wrote blogger Michael Edward Kelly. The New York Times called her testimony “dangerous.”
“An assault weapon in the hands of a young woman defending her babies in her home becomes a defense weapon,” Trotter said. “And the peace of mind she has…knowing she has a scary-looking gun gives her more courage when she’s fighting hardened violent criminals.”... "she said she’s never personally experienced gun violence or knows anyone who has."
"The 41-year-old is a mother of six and a partner in the law firm she and her father built. She has written for a few blogs, including the now defunct Christian-themed Evangel. She’s a senior fellow at the Independent Women’s Forum, a nonprofit research group whose mission is to “expand the conservative coalition".”
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/02/07/gayle-trotter-the-woman-who-called-gun-control-sexist.html
Hehe - those horrific bigots at Fux News accidentally used a picture of a lesbian couple, to head an article exhorting 'traditional marriage' :-D
'Fox Uses Lesbian Photo for 'Traditional' Marriage Argument' - TYT
http://youtu.be/g7l7mI9eJb8
http://tapejarascience.tumblr.com/post/42998263613/hehe-those-morons-at-fux-news-accidentally-used
Ever seen a bottom percussionist before? Nope - neither had i - but i want a go :o)
'Percussionist Jorge Perez plays some percussion on peculiar instruments'
http://youtu.be/R5mMRiiCwak
The marvelous Maynard of maynard.com.au... AU!... interviews Craig Charles, Bobby Llew, and Danny John-Jules in Sydney
http://www.maynard.com.au/maynards_malaise/red-dwarf---a-smegging-good.html
'Top 5 Most Unbelievable Valentines' - Ripley's Believe It Or Not
http://www.ripleys.com/weird/daily-dose-of-weird-wtf-blog/strange-places-and-customs/top-5-most-unbelievable-valentines/
------------------------------------------------------ of the weeks
Un-quotes Of The Week:
Meryl Dorey: "I hope you've vaccinated your kids against all those horrible diseases"
All the world's banks: "..so in conclusion, we've decided to give back all the money we've hoarded for absolutely no good reason"
Any stand-up comedian: "Look, none of this story's actually true, but let's run with it anyway..."
Mel Gibson: "Since i converted to Judaism..."
Peter Tatchell: "You can take your Human Rights and shove 'em up your..."
Word Of The Week: inexorable -- not capable of being stopped; unceasing
Fact Of The Week: The air in several Italian cities has been found to be laced with various drugs. The best for cocaine is Turin. Concentrations, however, are far too low to 'benefit' from
Etymology Of The Week: transpire -- through-breathe, leading to the modern definition of 'coming to fruition'/'leading to something taking place' which many sources, curiously, consider erroneous
Quote Of The Week: "Propose to an Englishman any principle, or any instrument, however admirable, and you will observe that the whole effort of the English mind is directed to find a difficulty, a defect, or an impossibility in it. If you speak to him of a machine for peeling a potato, he will pronounce it impossible: if you peel a potato with it before his eyes, he will declare it useless, because it will not slice a pineapple." - Charles Babbage
------------------------------------------------------ non-contemporary stuff
I saw this guy on Russell Howard's Good News. It must have been a repeat, but LOL
'Offensive hedge gets the snip'
The same guy who was World pea-shooting champion got in the papers for shaping a hedge outside his house into the shape of a cock and balls :o)
http://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/Ely/Offensive%20hedge%20gets%20the%20snip.htm
Two Guys And A Guy - 'Pencil Sketch' (cartoon strip)
http://www.twogag.com/archives/2323?
'Friendzoned!!!' From a comic strip by Migle Anušauskaite
http://ihavenoteeth.com/2012/09/10/friendzone-fellas/
'Wtf, nature? — Jellyfishes and worms' - also by Migle Anušauskaite
http://ihavenoteeth.com/2013/02/02/wtf-nature-jellyfishes-and-worms/
'15 Things Not To Say To Your Boyfriend'
http://youtu.be/_yQDl9veUeY
'The Drugs Song' - by Amateur Transplants
Btw, they say the line "and if you want to overdose there's always paracetamol". I once worked out how much acetaminophen (the active ingredient in paracetamol) it would take to kill an average man.
I calculated that it would require about 0.6 Kg of pills - enough for a small meal! Somehow, i don't think overdosing on paracetamol's a very practical method, especially as you'd likely use them a lot already if you were considering them, which means your liver would grow familiar and you'd need an even bigger dose!
http://youtu.be/KXROnzpsrlg
'"Weird Al" Yankovic - Do I Creep You Out?' with video by The Button Mushroom, who did ^ that video too.
http://youtu.be/ZL1EwFzBn5Y
'Finals Fantasy' - by Amateur Transplants
http://youtu.be/EdmiOhpqlLI
'Dorsal Horn Concerto' - by Amateur Transplants
http://youtu.be/2uUH34mNUNs
The tune to this one is, of course, Mozart's horn concerto in E-flat minor, Koechel rating 495, which he wrote at about the age of 18 months. And whenever i hear it, i can't not think of Flanders & Swann, whom i've heard quite a lot, recently.
I couldn't find a satisfactory version on YouTube so i uploaded this:
http://youtu.be/VjA6bA1qtfQ
I took the opportunity to upload this one too:
http://youtu.be/VnbiVw_1FNs
I'd heard these songs well before i studied Physics at Uni... do you think this one might have influenced me, subconsciously? ;-)
Thank you, YouTube, for nudging me at this video, with one of Michael Flanders' glorious monologues. No thanks for the false Content ID match on one of uploads, though.
http://youtu.be/usdf8UHL0vU
A great video illusion. Watch on YT, full screen, for best effect
http://richardwiseman.wordpress.com/2013/02/14/never-trust-your-eyes/
Mike Wood is puzzled by an advert for David Ormerod Hearing Centres in his local paper, the Chester Chronicle: "New invisible hearing aid has to be seen to be believed"
3 Nov
Peter Buck's Indesit PWE 91272 W washing machine has a button to control its temperature. The instruction manual explains: "Temperature button: press to reduce or completely exclude the temperature". Peter says he has not yet tried a wash cycle with the temperature completely excluded, as he fears it may damage his clothes.
10 Nov
IN RESPONSE to our report on a sign about hearing tests in a Canadian clinic that said "please wait until you are called in" (27 October), John Gledhill tells us that a few years ago his uncle Dennis went to the Northern General Hospital in Sheffield, UK, to have his first hearing aid fitted. He was told to be there by 9 o'clock, which he was.
After sitting in the waiting room for more than 3 hours he went over to the receptionist and asked what was going on. She replied, apparently without any sense of irony, "Oh, we've been calling you on the PA for ages".
"Sigh," John writes.
17 Nov
HOW do they work that out, then? John Vanhegan's comment on the list of ingredients of his Hotel Chocolat dark organic chocolate is that the numbers involved are "odd". The list reads: "Cocoa solids (minimum 100 per cent), emulsifier, soya, lecithin."
17 Nov
Are they hoping to emulate the publicity gained by the Higgs Boson? A press release arrives at New Scientist headlined "Hitachi Consulting UK seeks to unlock the 'Shopping Particle'"
17 Nov
THE copyright statement that Isobel Clarke found at the bottom of a music review on www.wrightmusic.net (bit.ly/CopyWright) seemed so excessively inclusive that she sent it to Feedback with her comments.
The statement reads: "This article or any part of it, however small, must not be copied, quoted, reproduced, downloaded or altered in any way whatsoever nor stored in any retrieval system. Failure to comply is in breach of International Copyright Law and will render any offender liable to action at law."
Isobel notes: "The 'however small' phrase must include every letter and punctuation mark in the article. Therefore I must conclude that virtually everything written in the Latin alphabet since the publication of this document (2010) is in breach of copyright - including this letter.
"Taking this further, the phrase 'any retrieval system' must include the human brain, and so it was obviously illegal for me to read the article (and store the contents in my brain) but there was no way of knowing this until I had read it. Should I feel guilty?"
What's more, it seems to Isobel that "Feedback cannot legally report anything of this for that would mean reproducing the copyright statement, but maybe in the eternal quest for free speech you should risk it."
We checked with an expert and we are allowed to reproduce these terms and conditions, with attribution, for the purposes of reporting news and current affairs, whatever they say.
Whether we're allowed to think about them, we're less sure.
24 Nov
WHEN she decided to clear her browsing history for the first time in Google Chrome, Shelley Williamson was invited to "obliterate the following items" from a choice of "1 hour, 1 day, 1 week, 4 weeks or the beginning of time".
Without thinking about the possible consequences, she chose "the beginning of time" - but then, as she clicked on it, she was seized with the thought that she may have set in motion the wheels of the demise of the universe.
Shortly afterwards, when it became clear that nothing untoward had happened, she relaxed - and decided to inform Feedback.
24 Nov
SEVERAL readers wrote to us about a BBC news article back in August about artificial vocal cords. They were struck by a sentence describing the work of scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology which states: "They have tested a gel, called polyethylene glycol 30, which can flutter around 200 times per second - about the same speed as a woman during a conversation."
Carol Ince's comment was typical: "I hadn't noticed myself fluttering while talking to people," she says, perturbed. "No one's mentioned it to me."
24 Nov
THE banquet contained in the sachet of vinegar that Roy Kettle bought made the meal he was about to pour it on seem superfluous.
The label informed him that the contents "May contain: Nuts, Peanuts, Sesame Seeds, Mustrad (sic), Celery, Wheat, Eggs, Fish, Soyabeans, Milk, Sulphites and Cereals containing Gluten". Who would want fish and chips on top of all that?
24 Nov
Domino sugar, according to the bag Alison Gibson picked up in Newtown, Pennsylvania, is "carbon-free". So what's left - water?
1 Dec
FINALLY, Tim Hall's Facebook timeline told him, "Tim Hall is at Aviemore and one other place."
Tim says he has no idea where the other place is and he doesn't want to check in case the uncertainty collapses and he suddenly finds himself there.
1 Dec
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