Category Archives: amusements

amusements, science

A Cable Too Far

Clearly I’m not the only one capable of extracting the wee from things. This from the “Feedback” column of the current issue of New Scientist:

Almost three years ago Japanese electronics giant Denon offered hi-fi enthusiasts the chance to pay $499 for a short length of computer network cable, usually costing only a few dollars (23 July 2008). The claim was that the cable “thoroughly eliminates adverse effects from vibration”.

We never did get a clear explanation of how vibration can affect digits running through a cable. But it seems the price was a bargain, because the AKDLi cable is now on sale at Amazon.com at $9999 new or $999 used (plus $4.99 for shipping). Hi-fi fans have not been indifferent to the cable’s qualities. They have turned Amazon’s customer comments pages, at amzn.to/cablereviews, into a paean of ironic praise for these bits of wire, with well over 1400 reviews.

Recent postings include this from DMan: “I filled a large glass with ordinary tap water and carefully dipped the doubled-over cable in. The whole glass turned instantly dark, red and more viscous. A quick taste and both my friend and I agreed that it was the finest tasting red wine we’d ever encountered.”

This comes from jmf: “Ever since I started using the cable … my light sabre skills have improved dramatically, much to the awe of my Master. I am able to jump from an anti-gravitational car running at full speed onto another, all the time dodging a laser gun.”

Perhaps most startling is what happened when Philip Spertus connected his cable to an iPod: “After listening to the entirety of Beethoven’s 9th Symphony I went on to listen to his 10th, something that I have never been able to accomplish with the lower quality ethernet cord that I had previously been using.”

amusements, current affairs, quotes, sexuality

Quotes of the Week

Here’s this week’s selection …

Balian of Ibelin: [to the people of Jerusalem] It has fallen to us, to defend Jerusalem, and we have made our preparations as well as they can be made. None of us took this city from Muslims. No Muslim of the great army now coming against us was born when this city was lost. We fight over an offence we did not give, against those who were not alive to be offended. What is Jerusalem? Your holy places lie over the Jewish temple that the Romans pulled down. The Muslim places of worship lie over yours. Which is more holy?
[pause]
Balian of Ibelin: The wall? The Mosque? The Sepulchre? Who has claim? No one has claim.
[raises his voice]
Balian of Ibelin: All have claim!
Bishop, Patriarch of Jerusalem: That is blasphemy!
Almaric: [to the Patriarch] Be quiet.
Balian of Ibelin: We defend this city, not to protect these stones, but the people living within these walls.
[From the film Kingdom of Heaven; 2005]

When statesmen forsake their own private conscience for the sake of their public duties they lead their country by a short route to chaos.
[Robert Bolt]

It’s not about orgasm. Pay attention to your partner. Enjoy the sex you’re having.
[Emily Nagoski; ]

What is it with pathology journals and autoerotic deaths? Every other issue seems to have a case report of some heedless, autoasphyxiated corpse with ill-fitting briefs and a black bar across his eyes. Occasionally, they seem to be in there for sheer color, as in the case of the young Australian who perished from “inhalation of a zucchini.” This one raises more questions than it answers. Was he trying to intensify his climax by vegetally choking himself, or was it a case of overexuberant mock fellatio? (We do learn that the zucchini was from his wife’s garden, admittedly a nice touch.)
[Mary Roach, Bonk: the Curious Coupling of Sex and Science]

Michael called the purported rhesus pheromones “copulins,” a word I cannot write without picturing a race of small, randy beings taken aboard the starship Enterprise.
[Mary Roach, Bonk: the Curious Coupling of Sex and Science]

The bottom line is that men’s armpit secretions are unlikely to serve as an attractant to any species other than the research psychologist.
[Mary Roach, Bonk: the Curious Coupling of Sex and Science]

amusements, beliefs, books, history, sexuality

Quotes of the Week

Lots and lots to choose from this week, mainly because I’ve been reading Brad Warner’s books on Zen as well as his website and lots else besides …

Imagine, for a moment, what the world would be like if we took the same approach to money as we do to sex. Imagine trying to hide all evidence of money from children, telling them that it’s not something they should know about. Imagine shaming them for asking questions about it, for expressing an interest in it, and for wanting to experiment with it. Imagine that you never explained how budgets work, or how to balance a checkbook, or how to pay for anything. Then, imagine that when they turn 18, handing them a credit card and saying “good luck with that.”

In essence, that’s what we do with sex.

Would you be surprised if those young adults didn’t know how to responsibly handle money? Would you be shocked if they ended up in crisis because they didn’t have the skills to take care of themselves? Would you think that their parents and schools had done their job?

If you answered “no” to these questions, then maybe you can also ask yourself why it should be any different when it comes to sex.
[http://www.scarleteen.com/blog/scarleteen_guest_author/2010/10/22/why_we_need_scarleteen]

Albert R Shadle was the world’s foremost expert on the sexuality of small woodland creatures.
[This could easily be the opening of a Douglas Adams or a Terry Pratchett novel, but it’s actually from Mary Roach, Bonk: the Curious Coupling of Sex and Science]

Our life is just action at the present moment. The past is nothing more than memory, and the future is nothing but dreams. At best, past and future are no more than reference material for the eternal now. The only real facts are those at the present moment. You cannot go back and correct the mistakes you made in your past, so you better be very careful right now. You can dream about your future, but no matter how well you construct that dream, your future will not be precisely as you envisioned it. The world where we live is existence in the present moment.
[Brad Warner, Sit Down and Shut Up: Punk Rock Commentaries on Buddha, God, Truth, Sex, Death, and Dogen’s Treasury of Right Dharma Eye]

The Paris Peace Conference [of 1919] dispensed recipes for war. The powerful nations dished out independence: which meant it was not independence. Something which has been given you through the benevolence of a higher power is not true independence: it is a sign that you are not strong enough to stand on your own.
[AN Wilson, After the Victorians]

Virginia Woolf’s prose was as beautiful as her face, but like many twentieth-century English writers, she had nothing to write about.
[AN Wilson, After the Victorians]

Believe those who are seeking the truth. Doubt those who find it.
[Andre Gide]

These ambiguities, redundancies, and deficiencies recall those attributed by Dr Franz Kuhn to a certain Chinese encyclopaedia entitled Celestial Emporium of Benevolent Knowledge. On those remote pages it is written that animals are divided into (a) those that belong to the Emperor, (b) embalmed ones, (c) those that are trained, (d) suckling pigs, (e) mermaids, (f) fabulous ones, (g) stray dogs, (h) those that are included in this classification, (i) those that tremble as if they were mad, (j) innumerable ones, (k) those drawn with a very fine camel’s hair brush, (l) et cetera, (m) those that have just broken a flower vase, (n) those that resemble flies from a distance.
[Borges; Essay: “The Analytical Language of John Wilkins”]

Action and its results are one and the same. Time, the thing which makes us see them as separate matters, is the illusion. Time is no more than a clever fiction we humans have invented to help organize stuff in our brains.
[Brad Warner; ]

Boredom is important. Most of your life is dull, tasteless and boring.
[Brad Warner; ]

I am where I am because I believe in all possibilities.
[Whoopi Goldberg]

amusements, arts, pleasures

DE Graffiti

Nice one Klaus!

Confusing graffiti on Deutsche Bahn
Graffiti artists in Germany have painted part of a carriage side so that one entrance doorway looks like a wide window and the adjacent wide window looks just like a pair of plug doors! The painting is realistic enough to confuse passengers.

[Railway Magazine; February 2011]

amusements

Auction Oddities

1 Comment

There don’t seem to have been many really strange sounding lots appearing at auction locally in the last few months. But I noticed yesterday that Chiswick Auctions have a sale on 11 January. Looking at the catalogue I see that the sale includes 17 lots of memorabilia which belonged to Ronnie and/or Reggie Kray including things like signed photographs and boxing gloves. So far so normal. But the pièce de résistance has to be Lot 256:

“256. Calling Damien Hirst, Ronnie Kray’s false teeth, contained in a Broadmoor brown envelope. Provenance: A close family friend.”

Maybe I should go and buy them as a birthday present to myself?!

amusements, current affairs

Headlines of the Year

One of the things I keep half an eye out for is humorous news headlines, especially on the BBC News website. Here are a few of this years favourites (all except the last from the BBC).

Camper, 55, is airlifted off peak
What would the peak period fare have cost him?
 
Paper boy praised for saving pensioner
How do you get the pensioner in your piggy bank?
 
Hogmanay bells ring in new babies
I do hope the bells are surgically removed, or is this the cause of Scots’ short life expectancy?
  
The Flashier the Tit, the Stronger the Sperm
Say no more!

amusements, beliefs

Green Christmas

Thanks to Diamond Geezer for the following, which I just have to share in its entirety!

1 And in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God unto Nazareth to have a chat to a virgin, and the virgin’s name was Mary.
2 And the angel came unto her and said, “Fear not, for thou shalt conceive in thy womb and bring forth a Son, and shalt call His name JESUS.”
3 Then said Mary unto the angel, “Oh, for heavens sake. I’m a responsible eco-protester and I’ve made a conscious decision not to bring a child into the world. An extra mouth will burn up valuable resources that the Earth can ill afford. Think of all the carbon dioxide He’ll breathe out, and all the fossil fuels He’ll burn, and all the nappies He’ll soil, and all the mobile phone chargers He’ll leave on stand-by. Not to mention all the offspring He’ll probably beget. I’m being impregnated against my will, and it’s our planet that will suffer. Tell God I’d rather not, there’s a good angel.”
4 And the angel answered and said unto her, “Tough.”

5 And it came to pass in those days that there went out a decree that all local hospitals should be shut down. And the accountants saw that it was good.
6 “Bugger,” said Joseph. “My espoused wife is great with child, but the nearest birthing facility is 70 miles away. And public transport is so very unreliable these days, and all the cheap fares were snapped up month ago. Verily my eco-conscience doesn’t permit me to take the car. Where’s that ass?”
7 So they went up from Galilee on the back of a donkey – which is not ideal for a girl in Mary’s condition – unto the City of David which is called Bethlehem.

8 And so it was that while they were there, the days were accomplished that Mary should be delivered. But it turned out that the hospital was full, having exceeded its annual budgetary target, so she might as well have stayed at home and given birth in the garage.
9 And she brought forth her firstborn Son, and wrapped Him in ethnic import swaddling clothes from the Oxfam shop, and laid Him in a manger.
10 And Mary said “Here I am surrounded by animals and straw, and not an epidural in sight. This must be as environmentally-friendly a birth as anyone could ever have, not that the wider world has noticed. It’s a damned shame that the media aren’t here to promote this ultra-green lifestyle to other pregnant women. But I guess my story will just have to remain untold.”

11 And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And they were doing a bit of knitting, like shepherds do, yea even their teatowel headgear was sustainably generated.
12 And lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them, and they were sore afraid.
13 “We are sore afraid,” they said. “Have you any idea how much energy you’re wasting with all this ostentatious glory-shining? You could at least tone it down a bit using a low-energy halo.”
14 And the angel said unto them, “Fear not, for behold this halo is a low output, flicker free, non-stroboscopic Compact Fluorescent Integrated Glow-Ring. For God phased out all the filament haloes in the heavenly firmament long ago.”
15 And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, and LED-based illumination toward men!”
16 “For unto you is born this day a Saviour, who is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you: Ye shall find the Babe round the back of a pub wearing His Mum’s cast-offs. Take Him some cute knitted bootees as a gift, won’t you?”
17 And it came to pass, when the angels were gone away, the shepherds said one to another, “Bunch of megalomaniac weirdoes. We’re going nowhere.”

18 Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem, there came three air passengers from the East to Jerusalem saying, “Where is He that is born King of the Jews? For we have flown Star Alliance (first class) and have come to worship Him. Sorry we’re a bit late, there was this ash cloud.”
19 When Herod the king had heard these things he was troubled. “If our little town gets too popular with tourists we may need to build a third runway, possibly in the middle of the Sea of Galilee, and imagine all the noise and air pollution that would cause.”
20 And he sent them to Bethlehem and said, “Go and search diligently for the young child, and when ye have found Him, bring me word again, that I may come and murder Him, oops, I wasn’t supposed to say that bit out loud.”
21 When they had heard the king, they departed via a connecting flight; and lo, a vapour trail went behind them until it spread over where the young Child lay.
22 And when they had exited the terminal, they got a taxi to see the young Child with Mary His mother. And she was appalled at the unnecessary length of their travels, and demanded that they offset their carbon forthwith.
23 So they presented duty free treasures of sustainable gold and locally-sourced frankincense and 100% organic myrrh, which pleased Mary no end.
24 And then they departed into their own country, by public transport, naturally.

Merry Christmas, everyone!

amusements, quotes, thoughts

Quotes of the Week

Here’s this week’s selection.

It is quite likely that one day all the food in the world will be Chinese. And so will all the people.
[Giles Coren]

Lesson one: you just have to try something on. You really do – to experience the intense charge between a woman and her clothes.
[Lisa Armstrong]

What really tells you what you should be when you grow up is what you can’t NOT do.
[Emily Nagoski]

I believe in an open mind, but not so open that your brains fall out.
[Arthur Hays Sulzberger]

I’m not promiscuous. I just really like women.
[Julian Assange]

And I leave you with euphemism of the week:

“worrying fiscal dynamics” = we’re spending too much

Happy Christmas everyone!

amusements, personal, thoughts

Hope on, Hope Ever

2 Comments

Reading Redlegs in Soho yesterday has reminded me that, although I’m not a fan of making resolutions, a few seasonal wishes for the coming year might be in order (just don’t invoice me until January, OK?). We can all wish for the big things, like world peace, and for our own selfish wants (a big lottery win), so we’ll skip those and concentrate on things to improve society or make life more interesting. So here’s my selection:

  1. Men stop wearing ties. I never did see the sense of voluntarily putting a noose round one’s neck.
  2. Someone blitzes all the slummy London suburbs (so that’s all of them then!) giving us each our own underground cabin and using the land to grow organic fruit, vegetables and woodland.
  3. The 2012 Olympics are cancelled (or at least moved out of London).
  4. People realise that infertility treatment is aberrant and potentially dangerous.
  5. There’s a revival of ’70s pop music.
  6. There’s also a revival of Latin Tridentine mass. (No, I know I’m not a believer, but Latin Tridentine is a magical spell.)
  7. The works of Anthony Powell become appreciated and fashionable – and they’re added to the Eng. Lit syllabus.
  8. People finally learn to think, and they start doing it for themselves – thus making their own properly constructed moral codes without the need for religion.
  9. Political parties are banned and all MPs, councillors, etc. have to be independents.
  10. There is a general improvement in body awareness along with an acceptance of nudity and sexuality as being a normal part of life. Public nudity becomes acceptable. Sex and nudity need to be normalised and not seen as aberrant.
  11. We have a return to the era of the heterogeneous High Street shopping experience, with a concomitant decline in the dominance of supermarkets, megastores and on-line mega-malls.
  12. All empty office buildings (and any abandoned supermarkets, see above) are compulsorily converted into low cost housing, or demolished and converted to parkland or woodland.
  13. Reality TV, sitcoms and soaps hit the buffers. TV goes up-market.
  14. Prostitution and cannabis are legalised and regulated; they can then be taxed so we all benefit.
  15. Everybody’s pensions are doubled overnight.
  16. The railways and the utility companies are taken back into public ownership where they belong.
  17. There is a realisation that employers have to appoint the best person for the job and that positive discrimination is … just discrimination against a different set of people.
  18. The banks remember that what they are playing with is our money (not theirs) and they compensate us accordingly.
  19. And finally: health, wealth and happiness to all. For ever and ever. Amen.

So what would your list be?

amusements, history, medical, music, science

A Two "Duh"s Day

Two, totally unrelated, oddities that have impinged on my eyes today.  The first is from BBC News:

Abbey Road zebra crossing from Beatles cover listed

This seems to be a nonsense. How do you list a zebra crossing? What is being listed? What is there now is not the same crossing as when the Beatles created Abbey Road: the road has been resurfaced, the zebra stripes repainted and zig-zigs added. Or is there to be an archaeological excavation to see if the Beatles’ era road surface remains? Or is the current road never to be resurfaced or repainted?

Secondly …

Mutant Mouse Chirps Like a Bird

“It’s furry like a mouse but sings like a bird […] It’s a mutant mouse developed by the genetic engineers at the University of Osaka that is able to tweet and chip like a bird, instead of a mouse’s normal squeak […] The research group currently has over a hundred singing mice […] it seems that they use their chirp in different ways than normal mice use their squeaks. The more conventional squeaks are used when a mouse is stressed, while the singing mouse seems to use its chirp in different environments, including in the presence of mates.”

Douglas Adams thou shouldst be living at this time!