August 2011
75 posts
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The British Rail Flying Saucer
“The flying saucer originally started as a proposal for a lifting platform. However, the project was revised and edited, and by the time the patent was filed had become a large passenger craft for interplanetary travel.” (Wikipedia)
This is what you miss out on when transport services are privatised. Although admittedly the patent lapses in 1976 before the coming of the Thatcherite...
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Boris Johnson and Uncombable Hair Syndrome
“The hair is normal in quantity and is usually silvery-blond or straw-colored. It is disorderly, it stands out from the scalp, and cannot be combed flat.” - Wikipedia
Just wondering…
I also wonder whether I could get away with claiming this?
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A Town called Panic vs Cravendale Milk
Film 4 is currently proving that nothing is new…
First there is a Town called Panic (the website is ‘interesting’) from 2009.
You can’t go wrong with a piano playing horse, a pop-up bar and 50 million bricks, oh and the co-habiting cowboy and Indian. With the added gem of a translated line, “That’s enough cock” when they are yelling at the rooster to...
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The Collier Classification System for Very Small...
This is a classification system along the lines of the better known Linnean system for biology. The Collier system starts from the more general consideration of living or not living, whether it is whole or part of a whole, where the thing was found, purpose, colour and shape (and more).
The collection link offers up the more unusual juxtaposition of things with almost pronounceable names such as...
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Surprising profiles
Hot on the heels of the Facebook profile of the 6th Duke of Devonshire (one of Frances’s favourites and a profile heavily borrowed for a conference paper about Facebook and the uncertainty of culture) comes the myspace profile for Henry V. Most curiously Henry V has a number of royal friends including Vlad the Impaler, John Lackland, Edward Longshanks and the Holy Roman Empire, as well as...
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The Acronym Liar →
Do you ever wonder what an acronym actually stands for? Well then you won’t want to look at the Acronym Liar from The Surrealist.
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Forgetomori →
If the X-Files was still being filmed, forgetomori would be the website that Mulder would use to annoy Scully (or possibly vice versa). A range of familiar myths are well ‘busted’ but there are also a range of more unusual and intriguing commentaries. There are a few post analysing more dubious images too.
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Newspaperwood →
And while we are on the newspaper thread - newspaperwood is a type of reverse engineering or reverse reuse for newspaper. The premise is that instead of knocking down trees to make newspaper (and traditionally fish and chips wrapper) the concept of newspaperwood is to make something useful out of old newspapers.
The thing that really made this stand out is both the wood-like grain that the...
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Framley Examiner →
If you have ever felt that UK newspaper are somehow off the mark then the Framley Examiner will probably just confirm that misgiving. Very cleverly done, down to the fact that the ‘Archives’ section shows page previews via a miniature micro-fiche reader.
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ATM machine that dispenses gold →
If you have lost all faith in conventional currencies you can now go to your local UK shopping mall insert your debit or credit card and out comes some gold.
There are so many variations on vending machines - the Japanese have this one perfected - but it does open up the idea of perhaps going to a vending machine and paying for some bitcoin processing time (although that is possibly more...
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e-petitioning
The UK government’s e-petition website is a fascinating insight in the prejudices, xenophobia and poorly thought through logic of certain aspects of the UK’s population. Fortunately the among the 3,000 petitions there are also brilliant examples of the eccentric madness of presumably ‘other’ bits of the UK. Arguably, they are also fairly poorly thought through and slightly...
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Lucy Worsley
Lucy Worsley is the Chief Curator at Historic Royal Palaces and must be a definite contender for TV personality of the year.
I first saw her on the production developed from her book about the history of the house. It took me a while before I realised that she was mangling her ‘r’s because she is dead posh. So posh that in the current trailer for her new show on BBC4 about the Regency...
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United Nuclear →
United Nuclear is where I always shop when I need uranium or meteorites.
Unfortunately they are out of radioactive ores at the moment but they do offer a considerable range.
Our Ultra High Level samples are the highest grade of Uranium ore found on Earth. Measuring over 60,000 CPM, these samples emit the highest level of radiation that can be obtained without special licensing from the...
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Really silly spam
I got this spam yesterday. I read it; at least partly because it didn’t seem to mention money. Introducing yourself as an Indian in Ghana seemed a bit odd but then to tell me it was all about thoroughbred horses took the whole thing to a whole new level of silliness.
Greetings, I am Indian based in Ghana. Our company, which is involved in the rearing of thoroughbred horses is seeking a...
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I write like... some dead guy
I write like is a website that compares your writing to various famous authors. I’m getting a funny vibe from this website.
First I tried my last post about the Seven Dwarves programme that was on tonight on Channel 4. The post itself was full of direct quotes from Twitter which arguably dumbed things down a touch. IWL considers this type of writing to be like … Dan Brown. OK so Dan...
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#sevendwarves - a mockumentary?
So after an hour of Seven Dwarves it is still difficult to tell if this is a mockumentary, a documentary posing as a documentary, just a chance to laugh at short people or an attempt to offer some sort of insight. I think it is probably equal doses of all of the above. The Twitter stream didn’t well help. Once everyone had got over the usual short jokes there were some insightful...
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Things to do with technology
The short answer is to lose it. The well-reported story about the US military losing the fastest airplane ever is one worth pausing to think about.
Obviously being a story about the military and military technology there is a bit of secrecy involved and perhaps this explains why it feels like there is only half a story.
The scenario goes something like this…
Create the world’s...
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The surrealist compliment generator →
An old one but how can you resist…
You so truly know your inner plankton, it is a revelation not unlike discovering an impacted toll booth upon the plains of Patagonia.
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Cooper's Hill Cheese Rolling →
I never seem to remember the dates for the key sports events in England; Gloucestershire cheese rolling (that is both in Gloucestershire and the rolling of a Gloucestershire cheese) in March and Shrovetide football in Ashbourne (or ‘mugby’ as we used to describe similar activities at high school) - that sort of thing. I haven’t even managed Oak Apple Day in Castleton over the...
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Shameless
I caught the last few minutes of an episode of Shameless USA a couple of days ago. Even after a couple of minutes in had me squirming in my seat - the story was there true enough. In fact, the story seemed to be almost word for word a replica of the original UK series. So why remake Shameless into Shameless USA. Clearly US viewers don’t like mess - or seediness. The lines were being...
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Alternate History →
Alternate history has been a personal fascination for a long time. I still remember pulling “If it had happened otherwise” out of the ‘old’ University of Queensland library (somewhere between running over the hills near the fountain and actually having to go into the library to do some study). The essays were to the point and thought provoking.
I was reminded of this...
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Favimon →
If you like Pokemon then you will be familiar with this. Use website’s and their special abilities to capture wild websites. A rather simple idea but quite compelling.
