October 2007
Happy Halloween
Some reassuring news - Vampires don’t exist. The Maths prove it. from here: “Let us assume that a vampire needs feed only once a month. This is certainly a highly conservative assumption, given any Hollywood vampire film. Now, two things happen when a vampire feeds. The human population decreases by one and the vampire population increases by one. Let us suppose that the first vampire...
“Which brings me to the subject of French toast. Presumably this is an...”
– For when you start pining for English food (usually 3 days out of the country in my case) there’s always the London Review of Breakfasts. Playing homage to greasy sausages, fried bread and baked beans across our sceptered isle
“On 15th October 1940 the French Rugby League Federation instructed its clubs to...”
– Another reason to support rugby league. Fascists hate it. from here
“Rugby League was a game whose laws had been codified by workers in the forlorn...”
– Thomas Keneally tells it like it is for the greatest game.
50 Great British Sporting Losers
from here. Only 50?
Suppose I should be glad it doesn’t include my beloved, and perennially underachieving, Wakefield Trinity Wildcats.
“33) David Beckham post-Manchester United 2-3-4-3-1 = 52%
A fairly miserable four-year stay in Madrid after Beckham left his boyhood club in 2003 was followed by a more disastrous move to LA Galaxy, dismissed by one of his team-mates this week...
Rejoice!
Best news of the week. from here
“Simply Red are splitting up a quarter of a century after the band was formed, Mick Hucknall has revealed.
Announcing the end of the pop and soul group, Hucknall, 47, who recently became a father for the first time, said that 25 years was “long enough for anybody”.
Probably unfair, irrational and petty. But - christ, I hated them…
Barcelona - Cardiff with sunshine?
Well, in one way, maybe… From here:
“There’s a real mood of national pride among the Welsh, crystallised in the renewed vigour behind efforts to revive their ancient language. The devolved Welsh Assembly Government now wants to extend its control over language policies - a move that could see parts of the private sector being regulated.
Some have compared what’s...
“if you are not like everybody else, then you are abnormal, if you are abnormal ,...”
– The always readable, if slightly outre, Michel Foucault.
If you don't have Jesus
Or: Tackling Plantar Warts without divine intervention. From here ” Most warts tend to disappear on their own after a number of months or years, as the immune system eventually deals with them, and treatment (which can be painful) isn’t always necessary. But warts that are painful, getting in the way, or rapidly increasing in number may need treatment. Plantar warts tend to be more...
“The Lord healed me of allergies when I was 9 years old and He also healed me of...”
– Ronda talks about medicine. Maybe not ‘aw bless’ after all. On reading the blog, ‘slightly creepy’ could be more accurate…
“E-tard: Someone, who despite repeat education on technology, are incapable of...”
– Another entry from the Wired Geekipedia here. How many of these do you know?
Does This Make Me A Totalitarian?
According to Wired Magazine yes. Bad news for those of us who believe the Situationists got it spot on. “Futurists enjoy the ultimate job security: The raw material never runs out. The future forever looms ahead, creating a ready market of people who will pay good money for a peek at what’s next. The field consists of roughly four schools. Capitalists US futurists tend to call...
Name That Ego
From here. Bono’s U2 tower to be tallest in Ireland “An egg-shaped recording studio suspended from the top of a 600ft luxury apartment block was unveiled as part of the rock band U2’s plans for a skyscraper that will dominate Dublin. The “pod” studio will dangle beneath a battery of vertical wind turbines and a huge solar panel, hanging free from the innovative...
RIAA/MPAA: Game Over
Or it will be in 2011. from here ”A single hard drive with four terabytes of storage (4TB) could be a reality by 2011, thanks to a nanotechnology breakthrough by Japanese firm Hitachi. The company has successfully managed to shrink the read-write head of a hard drive to two thousand times smaller than the width of a human hair. The smaller head can read greater densities of data stored on...
What Passes For News In A Small Northern English...
In the paper, on the website, everything. Must be soul destroying to be a local newspaper journalist at times. “He’s not bought veg since 1975IT’S been the good life for 30 years for one allotment fanatic in Wakefield – who hasn’t bought vegetables from a supermarket since 1975. David Parkin, allotment holder and site agent for the Woodcock Street allotments, Sandal, has...
“Tell us that something is just too difficult. That gets our attention. Or tell...”
– Everything for the Doctor Strangelove in your life - DARPATech2007 presentations - here
“Saatchi & Saatchi’s focus is to fill the world with Lovemarks - an...”
– Advertising drivel of the decade. Nay, the century. from here
Partaay!
from here “Australian doctors have kept an Italian tourist alive by feeding him vodka through a drip for three days, medical staff in Queensland say. The 24-year-old man, who had swallowed a poison in an apparent suicide attempt, was treated while in a coma. Doctors set up the drip after running out of medicinal alcohol, used as an antidote to the poison.”
Top ten rap songs white people love →
“Baudrillard talks about the regression of simulacra, the media hall-of- mirrors...”
– More RU Sirius from below. This time on Jean Baudrillard. Gotta admit, the guy is good - why didn’t RU lecture on my old University courses?
“The Situationist concept of the “society of the spectacle” —...”
– From RU Sirius: “a users guide to trendy French intellectuals” here. Ger your weekly podcast fix of RU here. I do.
“Why is it good to die for one’s country? Isn’t it better to live in...”
– Bar Refaeli, Israeli girlfriend of Leonardo DiCaprio, on her decision to avoid national service 