fulsome \FUL-sum\, adjective:
1. Offensive to the taste or sensibilities.
2. Insincere or excessively lavish; especially, offensive from excess of praise.
He recorded the event in his journal: "Long evening visit from Mr. Langtree--a fulsome flatterer."
-- Edward L. Widmer, Young America: The Flowering of Democracy in New York City
Concealed disgust under the appearance of fulsome endearment.
-- Oliver Goldsmith, The Citizen of the World
Fulsome is from Middle English fulsom, from full + -som, "-some."
Wednesday, September 27, 2006
Friday, September 22, 2006
Get well Soon Hamster
Yesterday morning, after the news about the Top Gear presenter Richard Hammond's injuries in a crash at 280 miles per hour, a guy called Alex Goss put up a fundraising page on the charity fundraising website JustGiving. Alex's goal was to raise £340 on behalf of the Yorkshire Air Ambulance Service - the helicopter that picked up Richard and took him to hospital after the crash. £340 pays for - on average - one flight of the air ambulance, a worthy and noble cause.
Very quickly the total raised went well over the £340, and continued to gain momentum during the day. Alex updated the site with the new goal of £7500. About 4:30pm yesterday afternoon the BBC news website updated one of it's pages with the link to the fundraising website - JustGiving and it quickly shot up to just under £10,000 when I left work at 6pm.
I got into work this morning and Alex's site had again been updated with a new goal of £25,500 and has now raised £29,000. In fact in the time it has taken me to write this small blog entry the total has gone up to £29,937. With the Gift Aid reclaimed by just giving on the behalf of the donors, this total is now £37,616.38
Incredible from just a small goal of £340
http://www.justgiving.com/phrichardhammond
Well done Alex, top job mate!
Very quickly the total raised went well over the £340, and continued to gain momentum during the day. Alex updated the site with the new goal of £7500. About 4:30pm yesterday afternoon the BBC news website updated one of it's pages with the link to the fundraising website - JustGiving and it quickly shot up to just under £10,000 when I left work at 6pm.
I got into work this morning and Alex's site had again been updated with a new goal of £25,500 and has now raised £29,000. In fact in the time it has taken me to write this small blog entry the total has gone up to £29,937. With the Gift Aid reclaimed by just giving on the behalf of the donors, this total is now £37,616.38
Incredible from just a small goal of £340
http://www.justgiving.com/phrichardhammond
Well done Alex, top job mate!
Word of the Day
opprobrium \uh-PRO-bree-uhm\, noun:
1. Disgrace; infamy; reproach mingled with contempt.
2. A cause or object of reproach or disgrace.
Typically academic, they disdainfully observed about many university press books--"too dry, too specialized, too self-absorbed for us." In their world, the word "academic" was as much a term of opprobrium as the word "middlebrow" was in mine.
-- Janice A. Radway, A Feeling for Books
Five months after Malaysia incurred global opprobrium by closing off its currency and capital markets, its officials are in no mood to apologize.
-- Mark Landler, "Malaysia Says Its Much-Criticized Financial Strategy Has Worked", New York Times, February 14, 1999
Opprobrium derives from Latin opprobrare, "to reproach," from ob, "in the way of" + probrum, "reproach." The adjective form is opprobrious.
1. Disgrace; infamy; reproach mingled with contempt.
2. A cause or object of reproach or disgrace.
Typically academic, they disdainfully observed about many university press books--"too dry, too specialized, too self-absorbed for us." In their world, the word "academic" was as much a term of opprobrium as the word "middlebrow" was in mine.
-- Janice A. Radway, A Feeling for Books
Five months after Malaysia incurred global opprobrium by closing off its currency and capital markets, its officials are in no mood to apologize.
-- Mark Landler, "Malaysia Says Its Much-Criticized Financial Strategy Has Worked", New York Times, February 14, 1999
Opprobrium derives from Latin opprobrare, "to reproach," from ob, "in the way of" + probrum, "reproach." The adjective form is opprobrious.
Wednesday, September 20, 2006
Leg hell woman 'taunted'
The Sun Online - News: Leg hell woman 'taunted'
A WOMAN suffering from an ‘Elephant Man’ condition yesterday told how she is taunted in the street by strangers.
Mandy Sellars, 31, has Proteus Syndrome which has caused her legs to grow to three times the size of her body.
Only around 120 people in the world suffer from the incurable disorder.
Her top half is a petite size 12 but 16-stone Mandy struggles to lift her legs which are 35 inches in circumference.
Brave Mandy, who suffers from arthritis, told ITV’s This Morning show: “Adults can be very hurtful. In a restaurant one blurted out ‘look at the size of those feet’.
“I don’t mind children staring, but adults should know better.”
A WOMAN suffering from an ‘Elephant Man’ condition yesterday told how she is taunted in the street by strangers.
Mandy Sellars, 31, has Proteus Syndrome which has caused her legs to grow to three times the size of her body.
Only around 120 people in the world suffer from the incurable disorder.
Her top half is a petite size 12 but 16-stone Mandy struggles to lift her legs which are 35 inches in circumference.
Brave Mandy, who suffers from arthritis, told ITV’s This Morning show: “Adults can be very hurtful. In a restaurant one blurted out ‘look at the size of those feet’.
“I don’t mind children staring, but adults should know better.”
Word of the Day
cataract \KAT-uh-rakt\, noun:
1. A great fall of water over a precipice; a large waterfall.
2. A downpour; a flood.
3. A clouding or opacity of the lens or capsule of the eye, which obstructs the passage of light.
Niagara is no virgin. Today, its cataract can be stopped with the pull of a lever, and less than half its natural flow pours over the precipice.
-- Thurston Clarke, "Roll Out the Barrel", New York Times, February 16, 1997
Bartram was an ace self-dramatizer and avid explorer of nature, whose journals are full of blood and thunder and such dramatic observations of animals as this one of the American crocodile: "His enormous body swells. His plaited tail brandished high, floats upon the lake. The waters like a cataract descend from his opening jaws. Clouds of smoke issue from his dilated nostrils."
-- Diane Ackerman, "Nature Writers: A Species Unto Themselves", New York Times, May 13, 1990
So ambitious is he to detail the full background of every individual, group, institution or phenomenon that figures in his chronicle . . . that a reader sometimes founders in the cataract of details.
-- Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, review of Common Ground, by J. Anthony Lukasm, New York Times, September 12, 1985
A cataract of names spills over the pages: Henry Kissinger, G. Gordon Liddy, Betty Ford, Frank Sinatra, Alice Roosevelt Longworth.
-- Richard F. Shepard, "How '60 Minutes' Ticks", New York Times, December 25, 1985
Cataract is from Latin cataracta, "a waterfall, a portcullis," from Greek kataraktes, katarrhaktes, from katarassein, "to dash down," from kata-, "down" + arassein, "to strike, dash."
1. A great fall of water over a precipice; a large waterfall.
2. A downpour; a flood.
3. A clouding or opacity of the lens or capsule of the eye, which obstructs the passage of light.
Niagara is no virgin. Today, its cataract can be stopped with the pull of a lever, and less than half its natural flow pours over the precipice.
-- Thurston Clarke, "Roll Out the Barrel", New York Times, February 16, 1997
Bartram was an ace self-dramatizer and avid explorer of nature, whose journals are full of blood and thunder and such dramatic observations of animals as this one of the American crocodile: "His enormous body swells. His plaited tail brandished high, floats upon the lake. The waters like a cataract descend from his opening jaws. Clouds of smoke issue from his dilated nostrils."
-- Diane Ackerman, "Nature Writers: A Species Unto Themselves", New York Times, May 13, 1990
So ambitious is he to detail the full background of every individual, group, institution or phenomenon that figures in his chronicle . . . that a reader sometimes founders in the cataract of details.
-- Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, review of Common Ground, by J. Anthony Lukasm, New York Times, September 12, 1985
A cataract of names spills over the pages: Henry Kissinger, G. Gordon Liddy, Betty Ford, Frank Sinatra, Alice Roosevelt Longworth.
-- Richard F. Shepard, "How '60 Minutes' Ticks", New York Times, December 25, 1985
Cataract is from Latin cataracta, "a waterfall, a portcullis," from Greek kataraktes, katarrhaktes, from katarassein, "to dash down," from kata-, "down" + arassein, "to strike, dash."
Tuesday, September 19, 2006
Trivia hunters ask the textperts
Having just completed his PhD at Cambridge, Tom Ellis knows plenty about DNA.
But thanks to his current line of work, he is also in the enviable - and perhaps slightly disturbing - position of knowing exactly what questions are on the mind of the nation.
Tom is one of a growing band of textperts - people working for companies whose business is answering questions sent to them by text message.
And after BBC News spent a day with Tom and his employers, 82ask, it would be fair to say most of the queries are not of the deep and involved nature that his alma mater would approve of.
Certainly it is difficult to see how his thesis will help him in tackling such taxing teasers as "How long is the longest goldfish?" or "How tall is a smurf?".
While the number of questions received by the company is a commercial secret, they easily run into the hundreds each hour during the day and early evening.
Month-on-month growth has been close to 30%.
General trivia dominates from Monday to Thursday between 7pm and 10pm, a sign that perhaps not everyone is playing pub quizzes in the spirit they are intended.
By 11pm the queries become noticeably more abstract. "How do you go about becoming a nun?" asks one texter. "Why are platypuses poisonous if they look so cute?" says another. And then there is the age old question: "Which is better? Dogs or cats?"
"The animal comparison ones are more common than you'd think," says Tom, as he informs a customer exactly who would win a fight between a pigeon and terrapin.
"There are lots of slightly silly questions which crop up again and again. People must think they're being original, but they're not."
Amid the merriment, mirth and occasional bawdiness is a genuine hunt for more practical information, with users texting 82ask (82275) seeking anything from train times and weather forecasts to phone numbers and the location of florists.
Each answer they receive costs £1, expensive for a bit of indulgent trivia-hunting but perhaps better value if it is information needed quickly and reliably.
It was this concept, the desire for information on the go, that prompted Sarah McVittie and Thomas Roberts to quit their jobs with investment bank UBS and found 82ask.
It was a concept based largely on the premise that, while many mobile phones are enabled to cope with internet browsing, the trend has never really taken off.
"We've seen that people do not want to search through reams of information on their mobile phone," says Ms McVittie, the enthusiastic, Mandarin-speaking, motorbike loving co-director in the firm's bright and airy offices on a Cambridge terraced street.
"What people want is snippets, nuggets, short sharp facts."
Mr Roberts, who oversees technical developments at the firm, agrees.
"If you're in a social environment you just want to send a quick text and not spend time looking for something," he says.
"Rather than it taking five minutes of your time, it can take 30 seconds of your time and then five minutes of ours. We eliminate the need to search and give the content most relevant to customers, freeing you up to do other things."
Sport, science and entertainment are the most popular question categories, though queries are extremely event sensitive. The World Cup brought a surge in football teasers, while until recently each Friday produced a flurry of "Who has been evicted from Big Brother tonight?" type posers.
In a world of easily accessible information, answering them quickly sounds a fairly simple job.
But a few hours with Tom in his Cambridge flat shows that being a textpert is not about being able to use Google.
Answering trivia seems like an ideal job for someone who wishes they had applied for University Challenge or Fifteen To One.
On Tom's desk is a road atlas, a copy of 'The Economist Book of Figures' and at the foot of the wall-to-wall shelves, back issues of the Guinness Book of Records.
But these are clearly more for personal enjoyment than work, given most of the sources he uses are online, including the databases of football statistics provider Opta - not available to the general public.
When an answer cannot be found (and a Wikipedia entry is never enough for the firm to base an answer on), the question is passed to a shift supervisor who will often make phone calls (via Skype) to track down a solution.
Those posing particular questions, especially about health matters, are given contact details for expert advice.
But almost all other questions receive a direct answer - including ones such as "If you know everything, what is my name?" (the answer, by the way, will be along the lines of there being 11,782 John Smiths registered on the UK electoral roll so statistically you are most likely to be called John Smith).
"I do like a challenge," says Tom as he trawls a document on UK fishing exports, buried deep inside the Defra website.
"Most of it is stuff that everyone has access to, but they aren't in a position to look or don't know where to look. It's generally quite easy to get the answer they're after."
Given his work rate, he may be wishing he was paid per question, rather than on an hourly rate.
There are about 120 textperts employed by 82ask, including some in the US, and it is a competitive industry.
Only 1% to 2% of applicants get jobs (many are Oxford and Cambridge postgraduates) and are trained to put themselves in the mindset of the customer.
"If a question comes in at 11pm saying "Late bar. Clapham. Now" you tend to think they're in a bit of a rush so you might try to answer that one ahead of another that appears less urgent," Tom says.
It is an attitude that has helped the growth of the firm, largely through word of mouth.
Building the customer base is crucial, and not just because each answer generates an extra quid on the balance sheet.
The more people who use the service, the more efficient it also becomes.
With software recognising key words from questions, textperts are shown similar queries previously posed. It means that those asked regularly can be answered speedily.
"One of the most common questions to come in is about weather, but people ask for it in hundreds of different ways. The system can understand the ways that people ask for it, even if it is in 'text speak'," Mr Roberts says.
"Then it draws the data from a central source and can compose a reply. Textperts cast a glance over answers to ensure it seems correct but it is sent out without human intervention in 19 out of 20 cases."
For companies like 82ask, and its rival Any Question Answered (AQA) there is the potential for a revenue beyond its core business.
With many of the questions being consumer driven (Where can I get a DAB radio for under £50?; What is the cheapest flight from London to Paris this Saturday?) it is easy to see that advertising is another way for the company to make money.
"We are gathering a lot of data about who is asking what sort of questions and when, which is useful information to a lot of people," Ms McVittie says.
"So advertisers being involved is a definite possibility, but it could never affect the independence of the answer.
"We're talking to customers to see whether they would be happy to have an answer on a certain topic, brought in association with a particular product, if this made for a cheaper service."
Just as Tom bemoans another easy question, a more involved, and slightly perverse one arrives: "Who scored the 428th goal in the history of the Premiership?".
It takes him 20 minutes to work out which season it must have been scored, then which week before listing every goal scored, in order, to deduce it was Ray McKinnon for Nottingham Forest against Manchester City on 3 October 1992.
"That might not have been very cost effective," Tom says afterwards. "But one thing we're taught in training is that it's better to give a considered answer so that they come back and use us again.
"Mind you it's one of those that leaves you wondering why anyone would want to know that."
A smurf, by the way, is three apples tall.
But thanks to his current line of work, he is also in the enviable - and perhaps slightly disturbing - position of knowing exactly what questions are on the mind of the nation.
Tom is one of a growing band of textperts - people working for companies whose business is answering questions sent to them by text message.
And after BBC News spent a day with Tom and his employers, 82ask, it would be fair to say most of the queries are not of the deep and involved nature that his alma mater would approve of.
Certainly it is difficult to see how his thesis will help him in tackling such taxing teasers as "How long is the longest goldfish?" or "How tall is a smurf?".
While the number of questions received by the company is a commercial secret, they easily run into the hundreds each hour during the day and early evening.
Month-on-month growth has been close to 30%.
General trivia dominates from Monday to Thursday between 7pm and 10pm, a sign that perhaps not everyone is playing pub quizzes in the spirit they are intended.
By 11pm the queries become noticeably more abstract. "How do you go about becoming a nun?" asks one texter. "Why are platypuses poisonous if they look so cute?" says another. And then there is the age old question: "Which is better? Dogs or cats?"
"The animal comparison ones are more common than you'd think," says Tom, as he informs a customer exactly who would win a fight between a pigeon and terrapin.
"There are lots of slightly silly questions which crop up again and again. People must think they're being original, but they're not."
Amid the merriment, mirth and occasional bawdiness is a genuine hunt for more practical information, with users texting 82ask (82275) seeking anything from train times and weather forecasts to phone numbers and the location of florists.
Each answer they receive costs £1, expensive for a bit of indulgent trivia-hunting but perhaps better value if it is information needed quickly and reliably.
It was this concept, the desire for information on the go, that prompted Sarah McVittie and Thomas Roberts to quit their jobs with investment bank UBS and found 82ask.
It was a concept based largely on the premise that, while many mobile phones are enabled to cope with internet browsing, the trend has never really taken off.
"We've seen that people do not want to search through reams of information on their mobile phone," says Ms McVittie, the enthusiastic, Mandarin-speaking, motorbike loving co-director in the firm's bright and airy offices on a Cambridge terraced street.
"What people want is snippets, nuggets, short sharp facts."
Mr Roberts, who oversees technical developments at the firm, agrees.
"If you're in a social environment you just want to send a quick text and not spend time looking for something," he says.
"Rather than it taking five minutes of your time, it can take 30 seconds of your time and then five minutes of ours. We eliminate the need to search and give the content most relevant to customers, freeing you up to do other things."
Sport, science and entertainment are the most popular question categories, though queries are extremely event sensitive. The World Cup brought a surge in football teasers, while until recently each Friday produced a flurry of "Who has been evicted from Big Brother tonight?" type posers.
In a world of easily accessible information, answering them quickly sounds a fairly simple job.
But a few hours with Tom in his Cambridge flat shows that being a textpert is not about being able to use Google.
Answering trivia seems like an ideal job for someone who wishes they had applied for University Challenge or Fifteen To One.
On Tom's desk is a road atlas, a copy of 'The Economist Book of Figures' and at the foot of the wall-to-wall shelves, back issues of the Guinness Book of Records.
But these are clearly more for personal enjoyment than work, given most of the sources he uses are online, including the databases of football statistics provider Opta - not available to the general public.
When an answer cannot be found (and a Wikipedia entry is never enough for the firm to base an answer on), the question is passed to a shift supervisor who will often make phone calls (via Skype) to track down a solution.
Those posing particular questions, especially about health matters, are given contact details for expert advice.
But almost all other questions receive a direct answer - including ones such as "If you know everything, what is my name?" (the answer, by the way, will be along the lines of there being 11,782 John Smiths registered on the UK electoral roll so statistically you are most likely to be called John Smith).
"I do like a challenge," says Tom as he trawls a document on UK fishing exports, buried deep inside the Defra website.
"Most of it is stuff that everyone has access to, but they aren't in a position to look or don't know where to look. It's generally quite easy to get the answer they're after."
Given his work rate, he may be wishing he was paid per question, rather than on an hourly rate.
There are about 120 textperts employed by 82ask, including some in the US, and it is a competitive industry.
Only 1% to 2% of applicants get jobs (many are Oxford and Cambridge postgraduates) and are trained to put themselves in the mindset of the customer.
"If a question comes in at 11pm saying "Late bar. Clapham. Now" you tend to think they're in a bit of a rush so you might try to answer that one ahead of another that appears less urgent," Tom says.
It is an attitude that has helped the growth of the firm, largely through word of mouth.
Building the customer base is crucial, and not just because each answer generates an extra quid on the balance sheet.
The more people who use the service, the more efficient it also becomes.
With software recognising key words from questions, textperts are shown similar queries previously posed. It means that those asked regularly can be answered speedily.
"One of the most common questions to come in is about weather, but people ask for it in hundreds of different ways. The system can understand the ways that people ask for it, even if it is in 'text speak'," Mr Roberts says.
"Then it draws the data from a central source and can compose a reply. Textperts cast a glance over answers to ensure it seems correct but it is sent out without human intervention in 19 out of 20 cases."
For companies like 82ask, and its rival Any Question Answered (AQA) there is the potential for a revenue beyond its core business.
With many of the questions being consumer driven (Where can I get a DAB radio for under £50?; What is the cheapest flight from London to Paris this Saturday?) it is easy to see that advertising is another way for the company to make money.
"We are gathering a lot of data about who is asking what sort of questions and when, which is useful information to a lot of people," Ms McVittie says.
"So advertisers being involved is a definite possibility, but it could never affect the independence of the answer.
"We're talking to customers to see whether they would be happy to have an answer on a certain topic, brought in association with a particular product, if this made for a cheaper service."
Just as Tom bemoans another easy question, a more involved, and slightly perverse one arrives: "Who scored the 428th goal in the history of the Premiership?".
It takes him 20 minutes to work out which season it must have been scored, then which week before listing every goal scored, in order, to deduce it was Ray McKinnon for Nottingham Forest against Manchester City on 3 October 1992.
"That might not have been very cost effective," Tom says afterwards. "But one thing we're taught in training is that it's better to give a considered answer so that they come back and use us again.
"Mind you it's one of those that leaves you wondering why anyone would want to know that."
A smurf, by the way, is three apples tall.
Word of the Day
improvident \im-PROV-uh-duhnt; -dent\, adjective:
Lacking foresight or forethought; not foreseeing or providing for the future; negligent or thoughtless.
Elizabeth's husband . . . had been a reckless, improvident man, who left many debts behind him when he died suddenly of a consumption in September 1704.
-- David Nokes, Jane Austen: A Life
Lily is spoiled, pleasure-loving, and has one of those society mothers who are as improvident as a tornado.
-- Elizabeth Hardwick, Sight-Readings: American Fictions
He called the decision "an exercise in raw judicial power" that was "improvident and extravagant."
-- Linda Greenhouse, "White Announces He'll Step Down From High Court", New York Times, March 20, 1993
Improvident derives from Latin improvidens, improvident-, from im- (for in-), "not" + providens, provident-, present participle of providere, "to see beforehand, to provide for," from pro-, "before, forward" + videre, "to see."
Lacking foresight or forethought; not foreseeing or providing for the future; negligent or thoughtless.
Elizabeth's husband . . . had been a reckless, improvident man, who left many debts behind him when he died suddenly of a consumption in September 1704.
-- David Nokes, Jane Austen: A Life
Lily is spoiled, pleasure-loving, and has one of those society mothers who are as improvident as a tornado.
-- Elizabeth Hardwick, Sight-Readings: American Fictions
He called the decision "an exercise in raw judicial power" that was "improvident and extravagant."
-- Linda Greenhouse, "White Announces He'll Step Down From High Court", New York Times, March 20, 1993
Improvident derives from Latin improvidens, improvident-, from im- (for in-), "not" + providens, provident-, present participle of providere, "to see beforehand, to provide for," from pro-, "before, forward" + videre, "to see."
Monday, September 18, 2006
Badmobile
Quick, to the badmobile!
Whilst using MSN Messenger today I noticed this advertisment down in the bottom corner:
Clicking on it takes you to the Sony Ericsson site. I wonder what they are trying to say?
Whilst using MSN Messenger today I noticed this advertisment down in the bottom corner:
Clicking on it takes you to the Sony Ericsson site. I wonder what they are trying to say?
Talk Like a Pirate Day
September 19th is International Talk Like A Pirate Day.
Visit the site and learn how to do everything like a pirate. Oo-aaaaar. Shiver me timbers.
http://www.talklikeapirate.com/piratehome.html
Visit the site and learn how to do everything like a pirate. Oo-aaaaar. Shiver me timbers.
http://www.talklikeapirate.com/piratehome.html
Dutch are the world's tallest people
AMSTERDAM, Netherlands (AP) - Most of us are taller than our parents, who probably are taller than their parents. But in the Netherlands, the generational progression has reached new heights.
In the last 150 years, the Dutch have become the tallest people on Earth, and experts say they're still getting bigger. It is a tale of a country's health and wealth.
Prosperity propelled the collective growth spurt that began in the mid-1800s and was only interrupted during the harsh years of the Nazi occupation in the 1940s, when average heights actually declined.
With their protein-rich diet and a national health service that pampers infants, the Dutch are standing taller than ever. The average Dutchman stands just over six feet, while women average nearly 5-foot-7.
Many Dutch are much taller than average. So many, in fact, that four years ago the government adjusted building codes to raise the standards for door frames and ceilings. Doors must now be 7-feet, 6 1/2-inches high.
The Dutch Tall People's Club has a membership of 2,000 individuals and families, or about 4,500 people including children. But Van Sprundel said the requirements are minimal, to conform with similar clubs in other countries, about 6-foot-3 for men and 5-foot-11 for women.
http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/WeirdNews/2006/09/15/1847810-ap.html
In the last 150 years, the Dutch have become the tallest people on Earth, and experts say they're still getting bigger. It is a tale of a country's health and wealth.
Prosperity propelled the collective growth spurt that began in the mid-1800s and was only interrupted during the harsh years of the Nazi occupation in the 1940s, when average heights actually declined.
With their protein-rich diet and a national health service that pampers infants, the Dutch are standing taller than ever. The average Dutchman stands just over six feet, while women average nearly 5-foot-7.
Many Dutch are much taller than average. So many, in fact, that four years ago the government adjusted building codes to raise the standards for door frames and ceilings. Doors must now be 7-feet, 6 1/2-inches high.
The Dutch Tall People's Club has a membership of 2,000 individuals and families, or about 4,500 people including children. But Van Sprundel said the requirements are minimal, to conform with similar clubs in other countries, about 6-foot-3 for men and 5-foot-11 for women.
http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/WeirdNews/2006/09/15/1847810-ap.html
Many ADHD pupils excluded - poll
More than one third of children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) have been excluded from school, a survey of parents suggests.
The poll of 526 families found 39% had had a child excluded from class, and in 11% of cases this was permanent.
Almost two thirds said their child's ability to achieve at school was "very affected" by their condition, which makes concentration difficult.
And, furthermore, oooooh, nice curtains, did I remember to close the windows at home? Hmmm
Rest of story here...
The poll of 526 families found 39% had had a child excluded from class, and in 11% of cases this was permanent.
Almost two thirds said their child's ability to achieve at school was "very affected" by their condition, which makes concentration difficult.
And, furthermore, oooooh, nice curtains, did I remember to close the windows at home? Hmmm
Rest of story here...
Lift-off for woman space tourist
The first woman space tourist has blasted off on a Russian Soyuz rocket from Baikonur in Kazakhstan.
The mission is carrying Iranian-born businesswoman, Anousheh Ansari, along with a fresh crew for the International Space Station (ISS).
Ms Ansari, a 40-year-old US citizen, is thought to have paid at least $20m (£10.6m) for the mission.
Lift-off took place at 1010 local time (0410 GMT) and the Soyuz has entered orbit successfully, officials said.
The mission is expected to reach the ISS on Wednesday.
The Atlantis shuttle, which undocked from the ISS on Sunday, is expected to land back on Earth on Wednesday.
'Fragile Earth'
Ms Ansari is accompanying Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Tyurin and US astronaut Michael Lopez-Alegria, who will join German astronaut Thomas Reiter on the station.
She is the fourth space tourist.
Ahead of lift-off Ms Ansari said she was an ambassador for attracting private investment into space programmes.
Ms Ansari, who made her fortune in telecoms, also said the trip would put the planet into perspective.
"You'll see how small and how fragile the Earth is compared to the rest of the universe. It will give us a better sense of responsibility."
On the ISS, Ms Ansari will carry out experiments on back pain for the European Space Agency.
Ms Ansari replaced Japanese businessman Daisuke Enomoto, who dropped out due to unspecified medical reasons.
Cosmonaut Tyurin said Ms Ansari had been "very professional" in her training.
Ms Ansari will return on 28 September with two other space station occupants.
The returning Atlantis crew has seen the addition of two massive solar panel wings for the station's power generation.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/5355022.stm
The mission is carrying Iranian-born businesswoman, Anousheh Ansari, along with a fresh crew for the International Space Station (ISS).
Ms Ansari, a 40-year-old US citizen, is thought to have paid at least $20m (£10.6m) for the mission.
Lift-off took place at 1010 local time (0410 GMT) and the Soyuz has entered orbit successfully, officials said.
The mission is expected to reach the ISS on Wednesday.
The Atlantis shuttle, which undocked from the ISS on Sunday, is expected to land back on Earth on Wednesday.
'Fragile Earth'
Ms Ansari is accompanying Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Tyurin and US astronaut Michael Lopez-Alegria, who will join German astronaut Thomas Reiter on the station.
She is the fourth space tourist.
Ahead of lift-off Ms Ansari said she was an ambassador for attracting private investment into space programmes.
Ms Ansari, who made her fortune in telecoms, also said the trip would put the planet into perspective.
"You'll see how small and how fragile the Earth is compared to the rest of the universe. It will give us a better sense of responsibility."
On the ISS, Ms Ansari will carry out experiments on back pain for the European Space Agency.
Ms Ansari replaced Japanese businessman Daisuke Enomoto, who dropped out due to unspecified medical reasons.
Cosmonaut Tyurin said Ms Ansari had been "very professional" in her training.
Ms Ansari will return on 28 September with two other space station occupants.
The returning Atlantis crew has seen the addition of two massive solar panel wings for the station's power generation.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/5355022.stm
Word of the Day
commodious \kuh-MOH-dee-us\, adjective:
Comfortably or conveniently spacious; roomy; as, a commodious house.
Then there are the trousers, black check or blue check, with commodious pockets.
-- Richard F. Shepard, "For Caring Chefs, Crowning Glory Is the Headgear", New York Times, August 15, 1990
This brought John to accept Benjamin Franklin's invitation to reside in his commodious quarters in Passy, a suburb at the city's edge.
-- Paul C. Nagel, John Quincy Adams: A Public Life, a Private Life
Fed by the melting ice packs, the ocean rose again, inundating coastal lowlands and pouring back through the Narrows, creating the commodious Upper Bay that would serve as the harbor of New York.
-- Edwin G. Burrows and Mike Wallace, Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898
Commodious derives from the Latin commodus, "conforming to measure, hence convenient or fit for a particular purpose," from com-, "with" + modus, "measure."
Comfortably or conveniently spacious; roomy; as, a commodious house.
Then there are the trousers, black check or blue check, with commodious pockets.
-- Richard F. Shepard, "For Caring Chefs, Crowning Glory Is the Headgear", New York Times, August 15, 1990
This brought John to accept Benjamin Franklin's invitation to reside in his commodious quarters in Passy, a suburb at the city's edge.
-- Paul C. Nagel, John Quincy Adams: A Public Life, a Private Life
Fed by the melting ice packs, the ocean rose again, inundating coastal lowlands and pouring back through the Narrows, creating the commodious Upper Bay that would serve as the harbor of New York.
-- Edwin G. Burrows and Mike Wallace, Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898
Commodious derives from the Latin commodus, "conforming to measure, hence convenient or fit for a particular purpose," from com-, "with" + modus, "measure."
Friday, September 15, 2006
IKEA Catalog - Dog's Cock
Got to the IKEA online catalog
Zoom in on page 2
Look, then look again.
For those of you who can't wait, here is what you will see...
Now, becuase you don't believe me, go and check for yourself.
Tommy
Zoom in on page 2
Look, then look again.
For those of you who can't wait, here is what you will see...
Now, becuase you don't believe me, go and check for yourself.
Tommy
Word of the Day
riparian \rih-PAIR-ee-uhn; ry-PAIR-ee-uhn\, adjective:
Of or pertaining to the bank of a river or stream.
Riparian areas are the green, vegetated areas on each side of streams and rivers. They serve many important functions, including purifying water by removing sediments and other contaminants; reducing the risk of flooding and associated damage; reducing stream channel and streambank erosion; increasing available water and stream flow duration by holding water in stream banks and aquifers; supporting a diversity of plant and wildlife species; maintaining a habitat for healthy fish populations; providing water, forage, and shade for wildlife and livestock; and creating opportunities for recreationists to fish, camp, picnic, and enjoy other activities.
-- Jeremy M. Brodie, "Ribbons of Green", Bureau of Land Management Environmental Education Home Page
Along its serpentine course, the Charles River widens and narrows, and its riparian sounds swell to crescendos in places or relax to the low purr of a river at peace.
-- Craig Lambert, Mind Over Water: Lessons on Life from the Art of Rowing
[The vireo's] comeback may prove that habitat along streams in Southern California is recovering from the effects of pollution caused by decades of urban development. That is a critical indicator of environmental health in a state that has lost 97% of its riparian woodlands, more than any other state.
-- Gary Polakovic, "Songbird's Numbers Crescendo", Los Angeles Times, August 22, 1999
[What about your social circle?] "A steady stream of brilliant American intellectuals visiting me in the riparian solitude of a beautifully reflected sunset."
-- Vladimir Nabokov, "Nabokov on Nabokov and Things", New York Times, May 12, 1968
Riparian is from the Latin, ripari-us + -an, from Latin ripa, the bank of a river.
Of or pertaining to the bank of a river or stream.
Riparian areas are the green, vegetated areas on each side of streams and rivers. They serve many important functions, including purifying water by removing sediments and other contaminants; reducing the risk of flooding and associated damage; reducing stream channel and streambank erosion; increasing available water and stream flow duration by holding water in stream banks and aquifers; supporting a diversity of plant and wildlife species; maintaining a habitat for healthy fish populations; providing water, forage, and shade for wildlife and livestock; and creating opportunities for recreationists to fish, camp, picnic, and enjoy other activities.
-- Jeremy M. Brodie, "Ribbons of Green", Bureau of Land Management Environmental Education Home Page
Along its serpentine course, the Charles River widens and narrows, and its riparian sounds swell to crescendos in places or relax to the low purr of a river at peace.
-- Craig Lambert, Mind Over Water: Lessons on Life from the Art of Rowing
[The vireo's] comeback may prove that habitat along streams in Southern California is recovering from the effects of pollution caused by decades of urban development. That is a critical indicator of environmental health in a state that has lost 97% of its riparian woodlands, more than any other state.
-- Gary Polakovic, "Songbird's Numbers Crescendo", Los Angeles Times, August 22, 1999
[What about your social circle?] "A steady stream of brilliant American intellectuals visiting me in the riparian solitude of a beautifully reflected sunset."
-- Vladimir Nabokov, "Nabokov on Nabokov and Things", New York Times, May 12, 1968
Riparian is from the Latin, ripari-us + -an, from Latin ripa, the bank of a river.
assuage - Definitions from Dictionary.com
assuage [uh-sweyj, uh-sweyzh]
1. to make milder or less severe; relieve; ease; mitigate: to assuage one's grief; to assuage one's pain.
2. to appease; satisfy; allay; relieve: to assuage one's hunger.
3. to soothe, calm, or mollify: to assuage his fears; to assuage her anger.
[Origin: 1250-1300; ME aswagen < OF asouagier < VL *assuaviare, equiv. to L as- as- + -suaviare, v. deriv. of L suavis agreeable to the taste, pleasant (cf. suave; akin to sweet)]
Synonyms 1. alleviate, lessen.
Antonyms intensify.
1. to make milder or less severe; relieve; ease; mitigate: to assuage one's grief; to assuage one's pain.
2. to appease; satisfy; allay; relieve: to assuage one's hunger.
3. to soothe, calm, or mollify: to assuage his fears; to assuage her anger.
[Origin: 1250-1300; ME aswagen < OF asouagier < VL *assuaviare, equiv. to L as- as- + -suaviare, v. deriv. of L suavis agreeable to the taste, pleasant (cf. suave; akin to sweet)]
Synonyms 1. alleviate, lessen.
Antonyms intensify.
Thursday, September 14, 2006
Drunk Smoking Invention
I think this is brilliant, inexpensive and useful.
How many times have YOU been DRUNK and dropped your cigarette? I have, lots. See the problem is that the energy needed to keep hold of that fag is just too great to be diverted from the task of beer drinking.
The solution?
The BEERCIGALATOR!
Keeps your cigarette securely in place.
The BEERCIGALATOR in action
Yours for only £19.95, buy one, get one free! Available at all good WHSmiths, Rymans, and my hallway, after the postman has been.
Remeber to remove cigarette before it burns you, you twat.
How many times have YOU been DRUNK and dropped your cigarette? I have, lots. See the problem is that the energy needed to keep hold of that fag is just too great to be diverted from the task of beer drinking.
The solution?
The BEERCIGALATOR!
Keeps your cigarette securely in place.
The BEERCIGALATOR in actionYours for only £19.95, buy one, get one free! Available at all good WHSmiths, Rymans, and my hallway, after the postman has been.
Remeber to remove cigarette before it burns you, you twat.
Thoughts
I seem to have a bit of a beer head on.
It's like an antidote. I see it as the cure for the ailment of knowledge.
Alakazam! Knowledge begone!
Whilst I am chatting, I have decided that getting older is like playing a game like whack-a-mole. Cos I swear the hairs in my nose grow faster than I can rip them out. In the nose-hair plucking category I am on level 8 of curveball, and NOBODY ever got past level 8.
It's like an antidote. I see it as the cure for the ailment of knowledge.
Alakazam! Knowledge begone!
Whilst I am chatting, I have decided that getting older is like playing a game like whack-a-mole. Cos I swear the hairs in my nose grow faster than I can rip them out. In the nose-hair plucking category I am on level 8 of curveball, and NOBODY ever got past level 8.
Just how good could I be?
I got sent this by a recruiter yesterday,
Good afternoon Adam,
Your CV was sent to me today via Monster (one of our online recruitment partners). I have read through your profile notes and now wondered if the job description as attached would be of any interest? The position is a permanent vacancy working for a media and entertainment company based in Battersea, SW London.
They now seek a Java Developer with a salary bracket on offer in the region of £25k - £40k (negotiable on experience) but they will be expecting high quality for the upper end price!
If you are interested, please could you reply back to me with your full CV in Word format, confirming in the subject the job title that you would like to be considered for?
If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact me at your earliest convenience.
I look forward to hearing from you. Best regards, Keith.
So I replied:
Keith,
Thanks for getting in contact.
Yes I do have one question. You said "but they will be expecting high quality for the upper end price". Could I go for the lower end price? I am sure I could manage poor to low quality. Just exactly low low quality could I get away with for £25k? Is it as simple as half as good as the £40k, or does the scale start at £25k? Could I just grunt and dribble on myself for that price?
If I was willing to drop another, say £5K, could I just sit there and wet myself?
Thanks, I look forward to a potential interview.
Adam
Good afternoon Adam,
Your CV was sent to me today via Monster (one of our online recruitment partners). I have read through your profile notes and now wondered if the job description as attached would be of any interest? The position is a permanent vacancy working for a media and entertainment company based in Battersea, SW London.
They now seek a Java Developer with a salary bracket on offer in the region of £25k - £40k (negotiable on experience) but they will be expecting high quality for the upper end price!
If you are interested, please could you reply back to me with your full CV in Word format, confirming in the subject the job title that you would like to be considered for?
If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact me at your earliest convenience.
I look forward to hearing from you. Best regards, Keith.
So I replied:
Keith,
Thanks for getting in contact.
Yes I do have one question. You said "but they will be expecting high quality for the upper end price". Could I go for the lower end price? I am sure I could manage poor to low quality. Just exactly low low quality could I get away with for £25k? Is it as simple as half as good as the £40k, or does the scale start at £25k? Could I just grunt and dribble on myself for that price?
If I was willing to drop another, say £5K, could I just sit there and wet myself?
Thanks, I look forward to a potential interview.
Adam
Sunday, September 10, 2006
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