Well, well, well... the world has a new Pope to suffer. And doesn't he look
How many people have noticed that he got a Chemistry degree before going into Superstitious fraud as a career? Margaret Thatcher did the same, as she joined the Conservative Party of the UK.
Which leads me to wonder... what were they putting in Chemistry courses, in those days? :-P
This Pope might be the first from South America, but wasn't there a female one, once? There was a story, at least:
'Pope Joan' - Brian 'Brian Dunning from skeptoid.com' Dunning
http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4353
I suppose now is the time to remind you / nudge you at the fourth annual 'A' Week, starting 18/3/13, which raises awareness of how many people are good for goodness' sake, as Atheists - people who don't subscribe to Religious dogma :o)
http://www.aweek.biz/
Also - i've noticed that since i wrote the Lumosity mini-essay, i haven't seen a single ad for it, on YouTube.
Could it be that i have single-handedly eradicated this bane from existence?
Or maybe it's just coincidence...
...or luck.
It's Paddy's Day, today.
'Lucky Charms remix - 'Magically Delicious'' - melodysheep
http://youtu.be/iQ7hdZZw7aE
Did you know that the Irish tradition of line dancing derived from an era of oppression by British Protestants?
They were forbidden from dancing their traditional dance, and so they mischievously altered it so that they could perform from behind bushes, without the oppressors seeing :-P
{Line dancing only involves motion from the waist down ;-) }
'The Checkout - Apple iPhone: Advertising vs Reality Trailer'
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_9ZnI-gF28
This is exactly what i want from The Chaser - public service satire, with a grin, and a raised middle finger :-D
Checkout in Spring, Hamster Wheel in Autumn. But what am i supposed to do in the summer?!?
The last thing i'd like to draw special attention to:
'Harlem Shake - Slums of India'
http://youtu.be/xuYO-q6L9tc
Hemley Gonzalez and others of Responsible Charity went to a lot of effort to organise a Harlem Shake in the slums of Calcutta (and braved the scorching sun) so you'd better watch it! ;-)
"Responsible Charity, Corp is a humanist charity providing education to children in the slums of India and empowering women and men to overcome poverty."
http://www.responsiblecharity.org/donate
http://www.facebook.com/responsiblecharity
------------------------------------------------------ contemporary stuff
"PETER & GWEN" — A Bad Lip Reading of The Amazing Spider-Man
http://youtu.be/D7jtpy0lfBU
There are more bad lip-readings, from last year, in the non-contemporary section...
'Bri and Kerry 13/03/2013' - Brian May and Kerry Ellis performing their acoustic version of Born Free. Please try to ignore the terrible joke from Holly Willoughby! You'll regret it, if you don't :-o
http://youtu.be/c8PRMlN3OM0
'Honey And Feathers' - charlieissocoollike
http://youtu.be/yuRvqDLbhXw
Watch out for the special guest!
'Gorgeous, informative song about techy details of evidence based practice' - 'Some Studies That I Like To Quote'
http://bengoldacre.posterous.com/gorgeous-informative-song-about-techy-detailsThey're wrong about salt and fat, btw - but then, that's the point - the evidence is what matters to whether the claims are true. Guidelines should regulate behavioural processes (e.g. whether to read studies/believe the Roche salesman) - not end-point decisions (e.g. 100/60 bp = bad).
'Maximum Security Condoms'
I searched this picture for hours, until i realised it wasn't a 'Where's Willy' :-P
http://www.illegaladvertising.com/post/45181382904/maximum-security-condoms-click-for-naughty
If you like Ben Goldacre. And why wouldn't you? Here's 80 glorious minutes of him :o)
http://therapeuticseducation.org/podcast/special-episode-%E2%80%93-bad-science-bad-pharma-good-podcast-ben-goldacre
'Animal Runs Onto Soccer Field And Bites Two Players'
It's a cow!!!!!! No it's not.
That Pine Marten has reflexes like a tennis player on amphetamines! {reference}
http://youtu.be/xXmQnQxmfTM
------------------------------------------------------ of the weeks
Word Of The Week: jentacular -- pertaining to breakfast
Expression Of The Week: "put a flea in their ear" -- give someone something to fret about; usually as the consequence of a harsh rebuke
Etymology Of The Week: butler -- cup-bearer, later wine-bearer
Quote Of The Week: "I can't remember what my line on drugs is. What's my line on drugs?" - Boris Johnson, during an election campaign {What a prat!}
Comically-disgusting Synonym Of The Week: Zinc Finger. Zinc fingers in Science
As a premonishment to the limericks, further down the page...
Acronym Of The Week: CUNTS -- Cambridge University National Trust Society (name retracted - obviously! But some still use it, informally)
------------------------------------------------------ non-contemporary stuff
'Nina Conti Live At The Apollo'
http://youtu.be/7ixiP_nmCfU
I blogged the episode this was in, back in November, when it was on iPlayer. It's still hilarious :-D
"Edward and Bella" — A Bad Lip Reading of Twilight
http://youtu.be/FmxSk0wZxss
"MORE TWILIGHT" — A Bad Lip Reading of The Twilight Saga: New Moon
http://youtu.be/MYC-waukYWo
"The Hunger Games" — A Bad Lip Reading
http://youtu.be/QjGk_jU6t5A
'Start Me Up Prank'
http://youtu.be/6dNYPHh8nnw
{That's the only dance move i can do... :-P }
Ring-binder swimming pool art:
http://tapejarascience.tumblr.com/post/45574395878/via-cibertimanios
"Os ovos se sentem assim antes de nós os fritar"
{Rough translation: Eggs feel well until we fry them}
http://cemporcentodecriatividade.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/os-ovos.html
This is awesome. No LASER sights. No altimeters. No third-party guide. Perfect landing. Birds are awesome. But not as awesome as Tapejaras :-P
http://micro.cibermitanios.com.ar/post/45435291342
More awesome. Stormy clouds through a wide-angle lens (2994 x 993 pixels)
http://sofrickinawesome.tumblr.com/post/13708514184
Divided attention - how many objects can you follow at once?
I was shockingly poor :-D
(I'm counting any number of X-es as failures, though)
http://micro.cibermitanios.com.ar/post/45206775455/cuantos-objetos-puede-seguir-tu-atencion-al-mismo
In light of Paddy's Day (17/3/13) i thought i'd give you a few of my favourite Limericks, in ascending order.
You are aware that they're, traditionally, disgustingly lewd, right? ;-)
There was a young lady of Norway,
Who hung by her toes in a doorway;
She said to her beau,
"Just look at me Joe,
I think I've discovered one more way."
There was a young laundress named Wrangle,
Whose tits tilted up at an angle;
"They may tickle my chin,"
She said with a grin,
"But at least they keep out of the mangle."
There was a young man from Devizes,
Whose balls were of two different sizes,
One was so small,
It was no ball at all,
The other was large and won prizes.
There was a young lady of Kent,
Who admitted she knew what it meant,
When men asked her to dine,
And plied her with wine,
She knew, oh she knew -- but she went!
There was a young man from Kent,
Whose tool was so long that it bent;
To save himself trouble,
He put it in double,
And instead of coming, he went.
There was a young man from Bel-Aire,
Who was screwing his girl on the stair;
But the banister broke,
So he doubled his stroke,
And finished her off in mid-air.
There was a young man named McNamiter,
With a tool of prodigious diameter;
But it wasn't the size,
Gave the girls a surprise,
But his rhythm -- iambic pentameter.
There was a young lady of Ealing,
Who professed to lack sexual feeling,
But a cynic named Boris,
Just touched her clitoris,
And she had to be scraped off the ceiling.
There was a young man from Calcutta,
Who was heard in his beard to mutter,
"If her Bartholin glands,
Don't respond to my hands,
I'm afraid I shall have to use butter."
And a couple of classics:
There was a young chaplain from Kings,
Who talked about God and such things;
But his real desire,
Was a boy in the choir,
With a bottom like jelly on springs.
{Told by Stephen Fry, on QI-XL}
There was a young man from Nantucket,
Whose cock was so long he could suck it;
When he looked in his glass,
He saw his own arse,
And broke his own neck trying to fuck it.
{Everyone knows that one, don't they? :-D}
Feedback excerpts:
"CAUTION: Avoid contact with any plastics." This was the instruction on the plastic bottle of Dentyl Active Plaque Fighter mouthwash that Nick Rutter bought
16 Feb
READER Elizabeth Romanaux draws our attention to what she aptly calls an "enigmatic product". It's a fluorite crystal that has been "activated" by a company called Celestial Lights of Colorado, for $49.95 a throw.
The website celestialights.com explains, in the lurid colours we have come to expect from such adverts, that: "Our crystals are unique because we activate or 'charge' them energetically in our Pranava Energy Activator." What might that be? It says Prana is Sanskrit for "the Breathe of the Creator", and that the Activator "basically charges each crystal with a special Lifetronic Light Frequency or Prana. The crystal is now charged and activated permanently to attract and transmit charged Lifetrons or Prana healing energy."
There's more. Before we hurt our brain by trying to read on, can anyone tell us what "Lifetrons" are? "I wonder," Elizabeth says, "if they are like positrons?"
16 Feb
AN ARTICLE by Don Aitkin, former chairman of the Australian Research Council, was published in The Australian newspaper on 19 January. Headlined "Someone please tell the ABC it's not all doom and gloom out here", it attacks the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, the country's public broadcaster, for its negative reporting of the effects of climate change.
One sentence stood out for Feedback reader Luke Wilson. Aitkin wrote: "My memory may be faulty, but I cannot recall the ABC telling any good news stories about rising sea levels."
Luke's comment on this has, we think, a distinctively Australian flavour: "What, pray, would constitute such a story? That the beach will soon be closer?"
16 Feb
{The Australian is a Murdoch-owned 'paper, in case you wanted to know. It certainly makes the "not all doom and gloom" part funnier.}
The email Paul Maclean received from Material Recycling World magazine was headed "Rubbish news you can trust". Paul's email security system classified it as "junk mail"
23 Feb
"NOW 78p" reads the label on the lump of cheese with apricot pieces that Tim Adlam is holding in the photo he sends from his local Tesco supermarket. At that price, we immediately suspect the "best before" date is imminent. But it's stranger than that. The sticker continues: "Do not use." Why? "Product does not exist."
We started imagining how this might have come about, but our brain informed us firmly that anything we might know about shelf-stacking and stock control was going to remain a repressed memory.
So we're left wondering about the label from a consumer's point of view. Is non-existent food the next big thing in weight loss? If Tim had scanned the barcode, would the entire supermarket chain have undergone a "blue screen" crash?
Or could this paradoxical product be the secret key to tunnelling into the real reality, the one outside supermarket-world? We can but hope.
23 Feb
MEANWHILE, Mike Martin sends a photo of a sign on the Camperdown campus of the University of Sydney, Australia, which very neatly and elegantly announces: "Sign under repair."
There was no clue what repairs were required, and a few days later it vanished, possibly into a logical maelstrom.
23 Feb
AND while we're obsessing about signs again, David Ivory notes that he has seen several signs near where he lives in Warwickshire, UK, saying "Strictly Private". He wonders if any readers have been lucky enough to find a "Fairly Private" or "Moderately Private" sign in their travels.
23 Feb
"Chew your way to immortality," Terence Kuch suggests, on seeing The Silver Diner loyalty card: "Your Eat Well Do Well Card is a lifetime card and it will never expire!"
2 Mar
THE headline that David Blacher sends from the Albuquerque Journal reads: "Horse rejects study of horse slaughter".
Well, it would do, wouldn't it? Clever of it, though, to convince the New Mexico House (of Representatives) to reject the scheme, too.
2 Mar
DESPITE their sensitivity towards Feedback's feelings, several readers have felt compelled to tell us about an event that, in reader Tom Boardman's words, "must surely justify opening the nominative determinism file yet again".
The event was a UK League One football match between Hartlepool and Notts County on 2 February. Hartlepool won the game 2-1, the winning team's goals being scored by players bearing the names Hartley and Poole.
"What complex chain of events led to that?" Tom wonders.
2 Mar
{I've put a screenshot of this on Tumblr}
FINALLY, let us record the ways in which certain newspapers misunderstood the announcement on 6 February of a newly found largest prime number.
"Although of little significance," UK paper the Daily Mail reported, prime numbers "have long fascinated amateur and professionals and the discovery of a new one is a badge of honour in mathematical circles".
Er, no. Richard Mallett was just one of those who pointed out that prime numbers are central to the entire and much-vaunted internet economy, through their role in encryption and hence online payments.
And Pui Wah Carter writes of his son Peter's response to the UK Independent newspaper's claim that "Even the most powerful computers struggle to work out the factors of a large prime number".
Peter thinks he could work out the factors of any given prime number, even without the help of a computer. (For any readers who bunked off school that day: the definition of a prime number is that its only factors are itself and 1.)
23 Feb
{The scientific illiteracy of journalists has long been a gripe of mine. It's one of the reasons i started this blog - we need more voices with intellect behind them!}
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