Before (and after) the pompous meanderings of seventies ‘rock’ disappeared up its own annus horribilis there was a time when we had eternally joyful funky groovy music -
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Filed under: JD, Music
1 This was the first American car to employ what technology in its design?
2 Make and model?
3 Year of production?
Answers later as usual.
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Filed under: Art, Diversions, Technology & ideas, Wiggia
They called it an honour killing. The judge begged to differ:
Mr. Justice Robert Maranger of Superior Court was unmoved. Their crimes stemmed from “a sick notion of honour that has absolutely no place in any civilized society,” he told the packed courtroom.
“You have each been convicted of the planned and deliberate murder of four members of your family,” the trial judge said, citing a verdict that was “clearly supported by the evidence presented at this trial.
“It is difficult to conceive of a more despicable, more heinous crime. The apparent reason behind these cold-blooded, shameful murders was that the four completely innocent victims offended your completely twisted concept of honour, a notion of honour that is founded upon the domination and control of women.”
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Filed under: History & Culture
Going back to this elderly driver who didn’t stop and the Gwent police smashed his windows, with one jumping on the bonnet and smashing the windshield. We can’t know the details of the man himself but we can see the over-reaction. One commenter wrote:
They were caught in the act of committing criminal damage and also assault, and they cost the force £100,000, but according to top brass these thugs met the highest standards of professional behaviour.
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Filed under: Politics & economics
Courtesy of Rossa, Chuckles titled this “Jonty” but of course he means “Ponty”. Simple error for a South African to make. 
And who can forget the delightful banter between G “underarm” Chappell and T “players’ comfort zone” Greig?
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Filed under: Diversions, Leisure, travel & sport, Rossa
1
Leverett used the SHODAN search engine developed by John Matherly, which allows users to find internet-connected devices using simple search terms. He then matched that data to information from vulnerability databases to find known security holes and exploits that could be used to hijack the systems or crash them. He used Timemap to chart the information on Google maps, along with red markers noting brand devices that are known to have security holes in them. He described his methodology in a paper (.pdf) about the project.
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Filed under: Chuckles, Technology & ideas
We were tweeting away about bike safety and how in our country, we begin with helmets, whereas on the continent, they begin with infrastructure [Very British Dude]. Yes, that’s so. @VeryBritishDude @Outlier @citycyclists
City cyclists was of the opinion that this sort of thing: Continue…
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Filed under: Leisure, travel & sport, Society & human issues
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Filed under: JD, Music
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Filed under: Leisure, travel & sport, Technology & ideas
Peter Horne’s at it again on the worst lecture ever given. “Yet more vulgarity I’m afraid”:
The lecture, which had an innocuous title along the lines of ‘Vaso-active therapy for erectile dysfunction’ was scheduled as an evening lecture of the Urodynamics Society in the hotel in which I was staying. I was a senior resident, hungry for knowledge, and at the AUA I went to every lecture that I could. I was sitting in the third row, and in front of me were about seven middle-aged male urologists, and their partners in ‘full evening regalia’.
Professor Brindley, still in his blue track suit, was introduced as a psychiatrist with broad research interests. He began his lecture without aplomb. He had, he indicated, hypothesized that injection with vasoactive agents into the corporal bodies of the penis might induce an erection. Lacking ready access to an appropriate animal model, and cognisant of the long medical tradition of using oneself as a research subject, he began a series of experiments on self-injection of his penis with various vasoactive agents. Continue…
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Filed under: Humour, Peter Horne, Society & human issues
Theo:
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Filed under: Art, Chuckles, History & Culture, Leisure, travel & sport, Technology & ideas
You saw that survey about most people feeling more secure with a southern English accent in the pilot’s seat and a Scottish accent came second?
Scots came second? Never mind, let’s move on. How would you feel if you had just taken off and the pilot was greeting you through the tannoy with:
# Losh mun, the engines wullnae take it. We’re doomed, I tell ye, d-o-o-o-o-o-m-e-d!
# Allahu Akbar, G-d is great and Mohammed, peace be upon him is his only prophet, you infidels.
# Wotcha, me old china. Where to guv?
# Wifies ‘n gen’lemen, gan canny noo or we’ll dunsh summick.
# Oo ah, will ye be wantin some clotted cream with that? Be wiv ‘ee dreckley.
# Worritiz, roight, is itz a bit of black round the back of bills mothers like.
Confidence – it’s only an accent away.
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Filed under: History & Culture, Leisure, travel & sport
Dear American friends
Oh say can you see, by the dawn’s early light, the trap you’re being drawn into? What so proudly you hailed is about to be lost at the twilight’s last gleaming.
Surely with Mitt Romney being a slick machine politician, changing his mind on the run and fighting a dirty campaign in Florida, it’s clear to you that he’s unelectable.
Isn’t it? Continue…
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Filed under: History & Culture, Politics & economics
Cheer up – it wasn’t all bad:
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Filed under: Dearieme, History & Culture, Music
It’s often been said that the church and the local pub are as one, seeing how the Sunday congregation would seamlessly move from the church to the bar after Sunday prayers.
This might not happen so often these days but here’s an example of each seemingly made for each other, certainly in terms of size, if not the occupants. Continue…
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Filed under: History & Culture, Leisure, travel & sport, Wiggia
Decades of genetics research have shown…that people are born with different hereditary potentials for intelligence and that these genetic endowments are responsible for much of the variation in mental ability among individuals.
Last spring an international team of scientists headed by Robert Plomin of the Institute of Psychiatry in London announced the discovery of the first gene linked to intelligence. Of course, genes have their effects only in interaction with environments, partly by enhancing an individual’s exposure or sensitivity to formative experiences.
Differences in general intelligence, whether measured as IQ or, more accurately, as g are both genetic and environmental in origin–just as are all other psychological traits and attitudes studied so far, including personality, vocational interests and societal attitudes. This is old news among the experts. The experts have, however, been startled by more recent discoveries.
Click link at top to find out these startling discoveries.
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Filed under: Chuckles
There are two issues in this post and the first is the alarming rate at which political bloggers of our kind are either hanging up their boots or going into skeleton mode, just when there is more naughtiness than ever to expose and highlight.
Knowledge spreads only through dissemination and so all you ladies and gentlemen are needed, not just to read what we say here but to write about issues at your own place, to get about and keep the blogosphere alive, to keep linking to one another, instead of going into our cocoons.
Issues such as payday loans need writing on. Continue…
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Filed under: Politics & economics, Society & human issues
Let’s go all lycanthropic and unreconstructed this evening:
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Filed under: History & Culture, Music
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Filed under: Chuckles, Leisure, travel & sport, Technology & ideas
Sorry Bruce, I don’t share your enthusiasm for the idea that the plague might be a good solution to our current woes: Continue…
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Filed under: History & Culture, Society & human issues
If you look at the picture you’ll see these are Seley Reds from the Seley Orchards in the Borrego Valley of Southern California. Seley Orchards are irrigated by water from 300 feet below the surface pumped up with power taken from vast solar panels.
And as the desert usually looks: Continue…
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Filed under: Chuckles, Earth and cosmos, Society & human issues
In 30 years there has been a twentyfold increase in the consumption of drugs for attention-deficit disorder. As a psychologist who has been studying the development of troubled children for more than 40 years, I believe we should be asking why we rely so heavily on these drugs.
What the hell is wrong with American society that it would even contemplate such a syndrome in the first place and secondly – treat it with drugs?
On children.
Not unlike the obesity thing and a hundred other conditions. How about eating properly, in smaller portions and getting out and exercising?
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Filed under: Society & human issues
Time for a brief return of the series. Click for the big pic:
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Filed under: Art, Leisure, travel & sport, Technology & ideas
Despite the enormous changes which have taken place since electronic computing was invented in the 1950s, some things remain stubbornly the same. In particular, most people can’t learn to program: between 30% and 60% of every university computer science department’s intake fail the first programming course.
Experienced teachers are weary but never oblivious of this fact; brighteyed beginners who believe that the old ones must have been doing it wrong learn the truth from bitter experience; and so it has been for almost two generations, ever since the subject began in the 1960s.
You may think the test they’re proposing to determine programming aptitude is complex, but it’s not. Here’s question one, verbatim:
Read the following statements and tick the box next to the correct answer. Continue...
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Filed under: Technology & ideas
Do you happen to have an underground missile launcher under your house, accessible through the closet door? Narnia here we come …
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Filed under: History & Culture, Technology & ideas
Though the age of steam has passed, the great railway stations in their arching, metallic barndom still evoke an atmosphere of happier, more romantic and more exciting times and old-style stone stations with actual stationmasters who greet you cheerily still exist in this country. On a Saturday, with the numbers of commuters far lower, you can almost imagine yourself back in those days, especially when the conductor is friendly enough to stop and have a few words as he moves down the carriage. Continue…
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Filed under: Leisure, travel & sport, Society & human issues
Click pic
Click pic
Don't forget these either:
Helpforheroes
Afghan Heroes
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