Tuesday, May 30, 2006

The Man Who Saved the World Finally Recognized

Sirens blaring, warning lights flashing, computer screens showing nuclear missiles on their way, one man in charge of a red button labeled “START” - that’s start a retaliatory strike — and a roomful of people at their terminals and switchboards waiting for him to push it. Sound like a typical Hollywood Cold War cliffhanger?

It was indeed just like in the movies, says the man who was poised over the red button over twenty years ago, except “in the movies, Hollywood specialists and directors can stretch a little situation into half an hour. In our case, from the time I made the decision to when it was all over, it was five minutes max.”

Stanislav Petrov was a Soviet army officer monitoring the satellite system for signs of a U.S. attack, the year was 1983, and his instructions, if he detected missiles targeting the Soviet Union, were to push the button and launch a counter-offensive.

He didn’t. Minutes later, no missiles came; months later, the frightening data across his monitor was determined to have been a system glitch. Today, the Association of World Citizens is calling him “the forgotten hero of our time,” a title befitting the man whose responsibility had been to start World War III.


http://www.mosnews.com/feature/2004/05/21/petrov.shtml

DJ Postit

I want one, cool.

http://www.flabber.nl/archief/016448.php

Google Oscars

http://blog.outer-court.com/archive/2006-05-22-n34.html

He says, as he types this into Bogger, doh.

Wednesday, May 24, 2006

5-1

New Adidas Football



OMB match ball - £75.00

Match Ball of the 2006 FIFA World Cup in Germany. Adidas have been the Official Supplier of the World Cup Match Ball since the 1970 tournament held in Mexico. Thermal-bonded seamless surface gives more predictable flight and better touch. Unique pre-curved panel shape creates a perfectly round ball for greater accuracy. Graphics printed beneath a durable transparent film so they won't wear off over time. 100% polyurethane thermal-bonded outer with latex bladder. White/black/gold

WE SAY:

The world cup final itself will see the first appearance of the special gold version, which has been designed to colour co-ordinate perfectly with the German goalie's strip as it flashes past him from an England boot.

Thursday, May 18, 2006

Light's Most Exotic Trick Yet: So Fast it Goes ... Backwards?

In the past few years, scientists have found ways to make light go both faster and slower than its usual speed limit, but now researchers at the University of Rochester have published a paper today in Science on how they've gone one step further: pushing light into reverse. As if to defy common sense, the backward-moving pulse of light travels faster than light. Confused? You're not alone.

"I've had some of the world's experts scratching their heads over this one," says Robert Boyd, the M. Parker Givens Professor of Optics at the University of Rochester. "Theory predicted that we could send light backwards, but nobody knew if the theory would hold up or even if it could be observed in laboratory conditions."

Boyd recently showed how he can slow down a pulse of light to slower than an airplane, or speed it up faster than its breakneck pace, using exotic techniques and materials. But he's now taken what was once just a mathematical oddity—negative speed—and shown it working in the real world.

"It's weird stuff," says Boyd. "We sent a pulse through an optical fiber, and before its peak even entered the fiber, it was exiting the other end. Through experiments we were able to see that the pulse inside the fiber was actually moving backward, linking the input and output pulses."

So, wouldn't Einstein shake a finger at all these strange goings-on? After all, this seems to violate Einstein's sacred tenet that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light.

"Einstein said information can't travel faster than light, and in this case, as with all fast-light experiments, no information is truly moving faster than light," says Boyd. "The pulse of light is shaped like a hump with a peak and long leading and trailing edges. The leading edge carries with it all the information about the pulse and enters the fiber first. By the time the peak enters the fiber, the leading edge is already well ahead, exiting. From the information in that leading edge, the fiber essentially 'reconstructs' the pulse at the far end, sending one version out the fiber, and another backward toward the beginning of the fiber."

Boyd is already working on ways to see what will happen if he can design a pulse without a leading edge. Einstein says the entire faster-than-light and reverse-light phenomena will disappear. Boyd is eager to put Einstein to the test.

So How Does Light Go Backwards?

Boyd, along with Rochester graduate students George M. Gehring and Aaron Schweinsberg, and undergraduates Christopher Barsi of Manhattan College and Natalie Kostinski of the University of Michigan, sent a burst of laser light through an optical fiber that had been laced with the element erbium. As the pulse exited the laser, it was split into two. One pulse went into the erbium fiber and the second traveled along undisturbed as a reference. The peak of the pulse emerged from the other end of the fiber before the peak entered the front of the fiber, and well ahead of the peak of the reference pulse.

But to find out if the pulse was truly traveling backward within the fiber, Boyd and his students had to cut back the fiber every few inches and re-measure the pulse peaks when they exited each pared-back section of the fiber. By arranging that data and playing it back in a time sequence, Boyd was able to depict, for the first time, that the pulse of light was moving backward within the fiber.

To understand how light's speed can be manipulated, think of a funhouse mirror that makes you look fatter. As you first walk by the mirror, you look normal, but as you pass the curved portion in the center, your reflection stretches, with the far edge seeming to leap ahead of you (the reference walker) for a moment. In the same way, a pulse of light fired through special materials moves at normal speed until it hits the substance, where it is stretched out to reach and exit the material's other side [See "fast light" animation].

Conversely, if the funhouse mirror were the kind that made you look skinny, your reflection would appear to suddenly squish together, with the leading edge of your reflection slowing as you passed the curved section. Similarly, a light pulse can be made to contract and slow inside a material, exiting the other side much later than it naturally would [See "slow light" animation].

To visualize Boyd's reverse-traveling light pulse, replace the mirror with a big-screen TV and video camera. As you may have noticed when passing such a display in an electronics store window, as you walk past the camera, your on-screen image appears on the far side of the TV. It walks toward you, passes you in the middle, and continues moving in the opposite direction until it exits the other side of the screen.

A negative-speed pulse of light acts much the same way. As the pulse enters the material, a second pulse appears on the far end of the fiber and flows backward. The reversed pulse not only propagates backward, but it releases a forward pulse out the far end of the fiber. In this way, the pulse that enters the front of the fiber appears out the end almost instantly, apparently traveling faster than the regular speed of light. To use the TV analogy again—it's as if you walked by the shop window, saw your image stepping toward you from the opposite edge of the TV screen, and that TV image of you created a clone at that far edge, walking in the same direction as you, several paces ahead [See "backward light" animation].

"I know this all sounds weird, but this is the way the world works," says Boyd.

Source: University of Rochester, by Jonathan Sherwood

Wednesday, May 17, 2006

Guy Goma - Congolese Data Cleansing Hero

Meet the BBC's guest editor (and other accidental heroes)

It was a moment of pure TV gold. When Guy Goma sat in the BBC's reception, he was waiting for a job interview. Minutes later he was broadcasting live to the nation, a hapless victim of mistaken identity. Here we salute those who, without ever meaning to, stumbled into the limelight - and brightened our lives.

One minute you're sitting in a reception area, then some bossy woman stands in front of you saying: "Come with me." The next thing you know, you're being led through a Kafkaesque nightmare of corridors. Perhaps he should have smelt a rat when they sat him in a chair and began applying make-up but, as he said: "I thought it was part of the job interview."

The story of Mr Goma is not one of stupidity. A cab driver who moved to England from the Congo in 2002, Mr Goma was at BBC TV Centre for an interview; he had hopes of becoming an IT assistant. He couldn't have known that the chap on the sofa nearby - also called Guy, in this case, Kewney - was an IT consultant waiting to go on live TV and be interviewed about the Apple vs Apple dispute. So when somebody said to Mr Goma, "Guy is it? About the IT thing?" he went along with it.

Viewers of the most-watched TV interchange in months - hundreds of thousands of people have now viewed the clip online - have reacted with a mixture of delight and sympathy at the key moment when the BBC's Karen Bowerman introduces Goma as "Guy Kewney, head of newswireless.net". Across his expressive face flit a dozen expressions in a second - mainly shock, fear, guilt, remorse, embarrassment - and guile as he wonders what to do next. But in the television age, you just keep going.

Ms Bowerman asked: "Do you think now more people will be downloading online?" to which she received the pithy reply: "Actually if you can walk everywhere you are going to see a lot of people downloading the internet and the website and everything they want. But I think it is much better for development to inform people what they want and to get the easy way and so faster if they are looking for it." After this the item was brought to a close.

The clip was posted on the internet and Mr Goma is now expected to make a fortune as an instant celebrity. "If he got himself a good agent, he could certainly have a good couple of months," said Max Clifford, hopefully. "If someone was creative, it could turn into a quarter of a million pounds this year."

John Walsh

Ed Devlin

Although reality television, as a genre, is still in its adolescence, the medium is already littered with the forgettable stories of those who try, and fail, to change their lives. But in 2001, a burger-flipper from Gateshead called Ed Devlin captured the imagination of the nation - or, at least, those who were watching Channel 4 one night at 9pm - with his humanity, humour and talent.

Faking It viewers witnessed Devlin's transformation, under the tutelage of Gordon Ramsay, from a grease-sodden snack-man to a producer of exquisite seared red mullet good enough to fool a trio of industry experts. It was a conversion Devlin was, at first, unwilling to undertake.

"It's like hell," he said. "I'm glad I don't have to live in his head. What's worse than death? Being Gordon Ramsay for the rest of your life."

But once Devlin had overcome his difficulties with the ranting, raving nature of the professional kitchen and his mentor, he soon warmed to his task. And, such was his skill in the final test - where he served his now famous red mullet followed by duck and then chocolate fondant - that the trio of judges declared his meal a "triumph".

Devlin had the chance, after his appearance on Faking It, to become a chef in his own right. David Laris, another of his trainers, offered him a job as a trainee chef at Mezzo, the restaurant where he works, but Devlin declined. He has returned to his original job, flipping burgers in the North-east, and only his friends are now in the enviable position of tasting his haute cuisine.

"I don't think I could cope with that environment day in and day out," Devlin admitted. "You're either cut out for it or your not."

Devlin may not have been cut out for life as a big time chef, but, for a few fleeting weeks, he made a convincing impression of someone who most certainly was.

Ed Caesar

Sarah Nelmes

According to Voltaire, at the end of the 18th century, 60 per cent of people caught smallpox and 20 per cent died from it. Whatever the exact figures, one thing is sure - smallpox was one of the biggest killers in Europe, and even those who survived the disease were left horribly disfigured.

So imagine the triumph when Edward Jenner, a rural British physician, made a discovery that would go a long way to eradicating smallpox for ever. And imagine his gratitude to the unintentional heroine of the piece - a milkmaid called Sarah Nelmes.

Jenner had heard tales that sounded promising - milkmaids never seemed to contract smallpox. The thinking was, that due to their continual proximity to cattle, and hence cowpox, milkmaids became immune to the deadlier virus.

In fact, some years before, a Dorset farmer had tried something similar. During the smallpox epidemic of 1774, Benjamin Jesty had, using a rudimentary version of the technique Jenner would employ, induced immunity in his wife and two children by exposing them to cowpox.

Jenner knew none of this when he decided to test his theories by scraping the cowpox lesions on a young milkmaid and injecting the material into an eight-year-old boy, James Phipps. Phipps, as expected, went on to develop cowpox but, when Jenner injected him with smallpox some weeks later, he was unaffected.

In 1798, Jenner published his results to the Royal Society and medical history was made. But none of it would have been possible without the pox-ridden sores of a girl called Sarah Nelmes. Phipps, too, played his part - but the award for best accidental hero in a supporting role goes to the source of all this lesion-producing nastiness: a cow called Blossom.

EC

Swampy

The A30 is not a place where many have made their name. But then Swampy never was one to follow the crowd. In 1997, the environmental protester (real name Daniel Hooper) became a celebrity when he retreated to a warren-like complex of tunnels underneath a proposed extension to the A-road between Exeter and Honiton. The police eventually unearthed Swampy's fellow protesters, but he continued to evade them for seven days.

After emerging to the glare of the sun and the TV cameras, he went on to become something of a figurehead for environmental extremism in the UK, appearing on the satirical news quiz Have I Got News For You, and, later, taking a leading role in the Manchester Airport protests.

But the dreadlocked earth monkey's love affair with the media was short-lived. The tabloids soon discovered that Swampy had decidedly middle-class parents from Buckinghamshire. His mother, Jill Hooper, said that she had opened a bottle of champagne when she heard the news that he had emerged safely from his hole in the ground - hardly the image of a stalwart eco-warrior.

As the newspapers began to investigate Swampy's past, the protester, as it were, went underground once more. He now refuses to talk to the media, although there are reports that he has become a father, and is still occasionally seen at the odd environmental rally. Even in his absence, Swampy remains something of a hate figure for the establishment. After a Greenpeace demonstration at the International Petroleum Exchange on 16 February 2005, one trader was heard to remark: "Sod off Swampy!" The trader's outburst is now a popular T-Shirt slogan.

EC

Derek Bond

When Guy Goma was assumed to be Guy Kewney, it led to nothing more than an embarrassing few minutes in front of the TV cameras. But for a 72-year-old grandfather from Bristol, the consequences of being a victim of mistaken identity were a lot more serious.

Derek Bond and his wife were on holiday in South Africa in early 2003 when he was arrested on the orders of the FBI on suspicion that he was Derek Lloyd Sykes, who was on its most-wanted list, accused of a telemarketing fraud. He was questioned for several hours but released, only to be held a few days later in a holiday village.

Bond, a charity worker and Rotarian, bore a resemblance to the police photograph of Sykes posted on the Interpol website. Both men wore glasses, and they shared the same birth date, but there were discrepancies in hair colour and height. While Sykes was said to have worn a toupee, Bond had receding hair.

After spending two weeks in a cell in a Durban police station - where he slept on the floor, had no electricity and had only a crossword for company - Bond was freed because of the publicity surrounding the case. The circulation of a picture of Sykes led to the arrest of a man of that name in Las Vegas. Bond later returned to his holiday destination, having accepted a free holiday from the KwaZulu-Natal tourist board.

He sought compensation from the United States - which, his solicitor said, had pledged it - but in 2005, Derek Bond learnt that none would be forthcoming.

Simon O'Hagan

Jason McElwain

It was a scene straight out of a Kevin Costner movie. At Greece Athena High School in Rochester, New York, an autistic teenager called Jason McElwain was allowed to hang out with the basketball team. He was passionate about the game, his dreams were full of hoops and slam-dunks, but his disability debarred him from being taken seriously as a player. The coach, Jim Johnson, allowed him to be "manager" so he could sit on the bench and wear the team jersey. Like a mascot.

During the last game of the season, Greece Athena were ahead and Johnson thought it would do no harm to let the disabled kid go on: he could hardly screw it up with just minutes to go. In fact, McElwain went bananas. He sank a three-point ball. Then another one. And another. The opposition looked on in amazement. His own team regarded him in wonder as he slammed in six winners in a row, then a two-point shot. When the fusillade was over, he'd scored 20 points in three minutes. The audience was in uproar. His team-mates carried him off the court.

A video of the event was put on the internet, picked up by CBS and beamed coast to coast, until the entire continent was watching the kid from Rochester who'd become the new all-American sports sensation. Inevitably, President Bush came a-calling for a photo-shoot with the boy. His mother, though, produced the most moving tribute: "This is the first moment Jason has ever succeeded [and could be] proud of himself. I look at autism as the Berlin Wall - and now he's cracked it."

A film of his exploits is now in production...

JW

Walter Wolfgang

Walter Wolfgang is an unlikely terrorist. An 83-year-old lifelong Labour activist whose German-Jewish family sent him to Britain to escape the Nazis in 1937, Wolfgang was the author of unremarkable political tracts such as 1956's "Tho' Cowards Flinch". Indeed, until the Labour Party Conference of 2005, Wolfgang was little more than a footnote in his party's history.

But all that changed when, during Jack Straw's speech in defence of the Iraq occupation, Wolfgang had the temerity to shout "Nonsense!" Despite his outburst's accuracy and concision, several security guardsbundled the frail old man out of the auditorium, confiscated his conference pass, and held him, briefly, under Section 44 of the Terrorism Act. And all in front of a national television crew.

The incident provoked a furore. The Labour Party, aware of itscostly PR own-goal, apologised for its "heavy-handedness". Tony Blair went even further, providing a "personal" apology on Radio 4's Today programme. Wolfgang's pass was returned to him the next day.

When Wolfgang reappeared for the rest of the conference, he did so to a hero's welcome. Parts of the Labour Party and anti-war sections of the media embraced him, and his plight was even championed on the front page of a national newspaper.

"When you have an international debate that does not deal adequately with the international issues of the day," explained Wolfgang, "the least you can do, if someone is talking nonsense, is say so."

EC

Ali Dia

In the Guy Goma story, the person who was really left with egg on their face was the BBC News 24 presenter Karen Bowerman. Football manager Graeme Souness knows exactly how she must feel.

Ten years ago, when Souness was the manager of Southampton, he had a player recommended to him called Ali Dia. As the recommendation was supposed to have come from Liberian great George Weah, who was then World and European footballer of the year and the star striker for AC Milan, Souness decided to give the player a try-out.

Ali Dia's new team-mates noticed that he was strangely reluctant to exert himself in training, but no one made a big issue of the fact. Weah wouldn't have recommended a dud, would he? And anyway, it was reasoned, Dia hadn't been at the club very long and was probably still acclimatising to the way the game was played in Europe.

Souness put Dia on the bench for a Premiership match against Leeds United. His chance came after half an hour when star player Matt Le Tissier was injured. Within seconds, Dia had a first opportunity for glory, with time and space to score from all of 12 yards. He kicked the ball straight at the goalkeeper. Come the second half it was obvious that Dia was completely out of his depth, and the substitute was substituted.

Further research revealed that Dia was a 30-year-old amateur from Senegal. He didn't set out to dupe Southampton, he was simply hoping to get a few games somewhere. He also claimed not to have realised his contact was passing himself off as Weah. Dia ended up taking a business degree iat the University of Northumbria, graduating in 2001.

Nick Harris

Jessica Lynch

Jessica Lynch never wanted to be an all-American hero, but America didn't listen. In 2003, when Lynch was a 19-year-old supply clerk with the 507th Maintenance Company, she was captured by Ba'athists near Nasiriyah in Iraq. Nine US soldiers were killed in the ambush.

A little over a week later, Lynch was rescued. It was the first reported successful rescue of a US prisoner of war since the Second World War, and the first ever of a female American soldier.

On her return, Lynch claimed she was being manipulated by the media, operating under the orders of the US government."They used me to symbolise all this stuff," she said. "I don't know why they filmed [my rescue] or why they say these things... I did not shoot, not a round. I went down praying to my knees. And that's the last I remember." Lynch also stated that, contrary to reports, she had been well treated by her Iraqi captors, a position since corroborated by foreign journalists.

To make matters worse, in November 2003 the pornographer Larry Flynt said that he had bought "fully nude" pictures of Lynch from fellow soldiers. Ultimately, Flynt decided not to publish them, deciding that Lynch was a "good kid". For Lynch, who had never sought the limelight, it was conclusive proof that being a hero was much more trouble than it was worth.

EC

The Tamworth Two

They were actually a brother and sister and only five months old, but that didn't stop the media calling them "Butch" and "Sundance" as the brace of Tamworth Ginger pigs evaded capture, outran the law and stole the hearts of the nation for a whole month in early 1998.

Butch was a sow and Sundance a boar and they weren't supposed to live very long in the leafy environs of Malmesbury, Wiltshire. On 8 January, their owner, Arnoldo Dijulio, took them in a lorry to the local Malmesbury abattoir, V&G Newman's. When they were unloaded from the truck, some sixth sense registered in their porcine cerebella that they were too young (and too pretty) to die, and they suddenly legged it.

They squeezed through a fence, bravely swam across the river Avon (their first experience of swimming) and took off into the fields and the dense woodland around Tetbury Hill. As police and farm hands searched for them, the story in all its full anthropomorphic glory broke in the papers and on TV.

"Butch" and "Sundance" became hot news in America and even Japan. Viewers were appalled to learn that the pigs' heartless owner, Mr Dijulio, planned to reduce them to pork chops the minute they were caught, no matter how adorable their adventures. A full-scale rescue mission began.

Reporters from Tokyo to Texas arrived to cover the story, while the UK newspaper offered Dijulio money to save the pigs. Questions were even asked in the House of Commons, when the Home Office minister George Howarth said there were striking similarities between the pigs' predicament and that of the Conservative Party.

After a week of careless freedom, the pigs were seen rootling for scraps in the garden of a Mr and Mrs Clark. Butch was captured. Sundance escaped. The next day he was cornered in a thicket and shot with a tranquiliser gun. Bizarrely, a tabloid newspaper bought the pigs from their owner in return for exclusive rights to their (five-month) life story. Eight years later, they're still going strong, living happily together in a Rare Breeds Farm in Ashford, Kent, probably still bragging to their bored neighbours about their great escape.

Their adventures have been dramatised as The Legend of the Tamworth Two, broadcast on Easter Monday 2004 with Kevin Whatley as the pigs' evil owner, renamed Wolf. The film used real pigs, their actions enhanced by computer technology.

The executive producer Sally Woodward rhapsodised about "how the story of Butch and Sundance became a legend, of how Britain once again took the underdog to their hearts - or in this instance, the under-pig - and in the process briefly made them the most famous fugitives in the world."

JW

Diana Gould

It was 1983 and the run-up to the general election. In the Nationwide studio at BBC TV Centre, Sue Lawley was hosting a live phone-in with Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, who was confidently looking forward to a second term of office for the Conservatives.

Then Diana Gould, a 58-year-old geography teacher from Cirencester, Gloucestershire, came on the air. Her disembodied voice asked: "Mrs Thatcher, why, when the Belgrano, the Argentinian battleship, was outside the exclusion zone and actually sailing away from the Falklands, why did you give the orders to sink it?"

Thatcher replied: "But it was not sailing away from the Falklands. It was in an area which was a danger to our ships."

Revealing a geography teacher's precision, Gould persisted. "It was on a bearing of 280 and it was already west of the Falklands, so I cannot see how you can say it was not sailing away from the Falklands.

"When it was sunk," said Thatcher, "It was a danger to our ships."

"No," said Gould firmly, "You just said at the beginning of your answer that it was not sailing away from the Falklands, and I am asking you to correct that statement."

Rattled, Thatcher blustered about the exclusion zone, but Gould came back with the "north of West" bearing and would not let it drop until Gould was faded out. She became an overnight heroine: the woman who stood up to Thatcher, virtually accusing her of a war crime. Thatcher was furious and relations between government and the BBC were soured through the 1980s.

JW

That is no Fucking Good!

C-, could do better, says friend.

http://www.dumpalink.com/media/1147769191/Bad_Motorcycle_Crash__

Tard Metal Hedz

"Airheads" meets "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" meets "I am Sam"

http://www.dumpalink.com/media/1147804177/Party_Animals

I am going straight to hell.

Guy Goma

Guy Goma for Prime Minister!

US releases 9/11 Pentagon video

The US justice department has released the first video of the plane crashing into the Pentagon on 11 September 2001.
American Airlines Flight 77 slammed into the US military headquarters, killing 184 people, after it was hijacked as part of an al-Qaeda plot.

The release of the video, taken from a Pentagon security camera, comes after a Freedom of Information Act request by legal watchdog Judicial Watch.

The group said it hoped to dispel conspiracy theories about the crash.

"Finally, we hope that this video will put to rest the conspiracy theories involving American Airlines Flight 77," president Tom Fitton said.

Some theorists have suggested the aircraft was shot down in flight, and that the Pentagon was struck by a missile.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4987716.stm

>>Tommy Says: Still looks like a missile to me.

NY releases 9/11 emergency phone calls

New York has released partial tapes of emergency calls from the World Trade Center on 9/11 for the first time.

Nearly nine hours of calls show the responses of emergency operators to callers amid the chaos of the attacks.

The words were released following a lawsuit filed by the New York Times and a group of victims' relatives.

In the video that accompanied this story on the BBC News website (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4866208.stm) we hear the voice of Christopher Handley who made an emergency call that morning, and said at the end of his conversation, "...alright, please hurry"

It seemed to give his father immense comfort to hear his son's last words, and even more apparent joy to hear that his son used the word "please". As his father says, "And it's nice that he said please"

I think that's a beautiful thing.

Tuesday, May 16, 2006

Knock, knock, hello? ARE YOU THERE? ANSWER ME DAMMIT!

Most times I would write back, sometimes I do not if I have nothing to say or if I am in the middle of something. I don't think I am unusual in this, it seems to be how most people behave. Text messages and IM conversations are not synchronous communications. For example I would not simply ignore somebody if they were standing in front of me or talking to me on the phone. But that's the beauty of the asynchronous text and IM messages, it allows that.

Things to say when you're bored at work

1. I can see your point, but I still think you're full of s .

2. I don't know what your problem is, but I'll bet it's hard to
pronounce.

3. How about never? Is never good for you?

4. I see you've set aside this special time to humiliate yourself in
public.

5. I'm really easy to get along with once you people learn to see it my
way.

6. I'll try being nicer if you'll try being smarter.

7. I'm out of my mind, but feel free to leave a message.

8. I don't work here. I'm a consultant.

9. It sounds like English, but I can't understand a damn word you're
saying.

10. Ahhh... I see the screw-up fairy has visited us again...

11. I like you. You remind me of myself when I was young and stupid.

12. You are validating my inherent mistrust of strangers.

13. I have plenty of talent and vision; I just don't give a damn.

14. I'm already visualizing the duct tape over your mouth.

15. I will always cherish the initial misconceptions I had about you.

16. Thank you. We're all refreshed and challenged by your unique point
of view.

17. The fact that no one understands you doesn't mean you're an artist.

18. Any connection between your reality and mine is purely coincidental.

19. What am I? Flypaper for freaks!

20. I'm not being rude. You're just insignificant.

21. It's a thankless job, but I've got a lot of Karma to burn off.

22. Yes, I am an agent of Satan, but my duties are largely ceremonial.

23. And your crybaby whiny-assed opinion would be...?

24. Do I look like a people person?

25. This isn't an office. It's Hell with fluorescent lighting.

26. I started out with nothing & still have most of it left.

27. Sarcasm is just one more service we offer.

28. If I throw a stick, will you leave?

29. Errors have been made. Others will be blamed.

30. Whatever kind of look you were going for, you missed.

31. I'm trying to imagine you with a personality.

32. A cubicle is just a padded cell without a door.

33. Can I trade this job for what's behind door #1?

34. Too many freaks, not enough circuses.

35. Nice perfume. Must you marinate in it?

36. Chaos, panic, & disorder - my work here is done.

37. How do I set a laser printer to stun?

38. I thought I wanted a career; turns out I just wanted a salary.

39. Who lit the fuse on your tampon?

40. Oh I get it... like humour... but different

Wednesday, May 10, 2006

Word of the Day

turgid \TUR-jid\, adjective:

1. Swollen, bloated, puffed up; as, "a turgid limb."
2. Swelling in style or language; bombastic, pompous; as, "a turgid style of speaking."

The famous Faulkner style was more than many could put up with. Its marathon sentences, its peculiar words used peculiarly, its turgid incoherence and its thick viscosity repelled.
-- Orville Prescott, "A Literary Personality", New York Times, July 7, 1962

Brown's novels are filled with the rigged episodes of melodrama and the turgid prose that passed for elegance among the literary circles in America before Irving and Hawthorne arrived on the scene.
-- "The Battle of the Books", New York Times, July 10, 1988

Many young Libyans prefer to get their news from the Internet rather than the turgid evening news programs filled with slogans and cliches.
-- Amany Radwan, "The Weird, Wired World of Colonel Ghaddafi", Time, February 6, 2001

The arm being bound, and the veins made turgid, and the valves prominent, as before, apply the thumb or finger over a vein in the situation of one of the valves in such a way as to compress it, and prevent any blood from passing upwards from the hand.
-- William Harvey, On the Motion of the Heart and Blood in Animals


Turgid derives from Latin turgidus, from turgere, to swell.

Tuesday, May 09, 2006

Word of the Day

otiose \OH-shee-ohs; OH-tee-\, adjective:

1. Ineffective; futile.
2. Being at leisure; lazy; indolent; idle.
3. Of no use.

Mr. Federspiel's surreal flourishes and commentaries straddle the line between interesting and otiose. Most of the surrealism is pretty but pointless.
-- D. F. Wallace, "The Million-Dollar Tattoo", New York Times, May 5, 1991

Although the wild outer movements and the angular Minuet can take such clockwork precision, the Andante, with its obsessive, claustrophobic dialogues between strings and bassoons, seemed sluggish and otiose.
-- Tim Ashley, "VPO/Maazel", The Guardian, April 16, 2002

The umlaut he affected, which made no difference to the pronunciation of his name, was as otiose as a pair of strategically positioned beauty spots.
-- Peter Conrad, "Hidden shallows", New Statesman, October 14, 2002

One hazard for religions in which all professional intermediaries are dispensed with, and in which the individual is enjoined to 'work out your own salvation' and is regarded as fully capable of doing so, is that belief and practice become independent of formal organized structures which may in such a context come to be perceived as otiose.
-- Lorne L. Dawson, "The Cultural Significance of New Religious Movements: The Case of Soka Gakkai", Sociology of Religion, Fall 2001


Otiose is from Latin otiosus, "idle, at leisure," from otium, "leisure."