random stuff

[Salsaboy]

A Keel is on the bottom of a boat.

[red devil]

Still too wet to mow the lawn...

[Tarot]

Match of the summer. twelve french beans seventy odd snails. beans lost.

[Salsaboy]

That bloody squirrel is back.

[woodrot]

cat owners are more likely to be idiots than the general population. Now theres a thought.

[El Pibe]

I stumbled upon this rather bonkers little told story of a division of the old Chinese Nationalist army who were on the wrong side of China when Jiǎng Ji?sh? et al fled to Taiwan.

They carried on fighting, ended up deeply embroiled in the Heroin trade, were bombed by the Royal Laotian Airforce, who made of with all the spoils, for their troubles and finally lay down their arms and retired to a hidden corner of Thailand after fighting for 40 years!!

http://www.oldworldwandering.com/2012/05/03/china-forgotten-army-mae-salong-thailand/

http://www.travelwriters.co.uk/marinicholson/thailand-kuomintang.htm

[El Pibe]

loved this

here[/url]]Now that we're up to around a quarter of the entire British army guarding the Olympics, a thought occurs: given that rights to the whole thing have been parcelled up and flogged off, does the event have an official terrorist group? I mean, we wouldn't want no-marks like ETA turning up and spoiling the whole thing with a crap atrocity. A world class event demands high quality terrorism, either from established global players in 'far enemy' markets or from dynamic, savvy regional armed gangs seeking entry on to the world stage: I'm looking at you, al Shabaab.

Obviously, we could make subsidiary rights available to your bog standard national liberation movements. They could have a crack at, say, the rowing.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ah, memories. Here's Tessa Jowell in 2008:

The London Games in 2012 will beat Beijing by being more "democratic", Olympics minister Tessa Jowell says.

By 'democratic' Tessa meant 'involving more mass participation', by which metric the Arirang games in Pyongyang are festivals of popular anarchy. But it was an aspiration of sorts. And them times ain't no more.

I mean, if you were going to write that trite leftie dystopia novel, the one in which the army man checkpoints in central London and crowds of children are taught to be publicly grateful to the corporate sponsors, and there are missiles on the roofs, but you hadn't because you were aware on some level that it was a bit shopworn and cliched and besides you're not so sure about Chomsky as you used to be, well, then it's too late, because reality has just beat you to it.

[Jeremy]

1993. Brian Sutherland from South Carolina described himself as an "undefeated street-fighter". He figured since he was such a tough guy, he may as well get paid for something he was apprently so good at. So, proudly sporting a mullet haircut, a thick moustache, and a pot-belly, he stepped into the boxing ring against Liverpool's Kenny Rainford.

At the start of the first round, Sutherland rushed towards his opponent, throwing a wild flurry of slaps and overhead punches, leaving the commentators in fits of laughter. His opponent, clearly puzzled by such tactics, resorted to simply pushing Sutherland away. After one minute Rainford had seen enough, and hit Sutherland clean on the chin. Sutherland spun round and crumpled onto the canvas. Putting an end to surely the worst pro-boxing career ever.

[El Pibe]

Brilliant. It's the moustache and mullet that really make it.

[El Pibe]

adam curtis, in the spirit of mars curiosity, links to a programme from the 50s where George King channels a VEnusian with a remarkable RP accent.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/2012/08/mental_channel_number_one_-_th.html

weirdly charming and as far removed from the Paxman school of interview as possible.

[Huguenot]

Didn't this end up in a Carpenters' song?

[El Pibe]

Scince catches up with SF.

Interesting interview with reknowned neuroscientist on the possibility that the internet could (in principal) be concious, an idea floated by the likes of william gibson, dan simmons among others.

http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2012/08/the-nature-of-consciousness-how-the-internet-could-learn-to-feel/261397/?single_page=true

[uncleglen]

Maybe then it could control itself!

[El Pibe]

I love this, A sort of Watchtower meets Dear Diedre via the uncanny valley explaining Steve Jobs' ascendancy to celestial being/stalker

http://www.dmc.tv/pages/en/Where-is-Steve-Jobs/20120822-The-Hereafter-News:Steve-Jobs-where-is-he-now-Part-1.html

[Moos]

Spongy face, huh. At least his castle has extensive grounds.

[Alan Medic]

The Irish President. Good man. For an auld fella he doesn't hold back.

[El Pibe]

quite enjoyed this Fisk parody, uncannily close to his output over the last few years

http://karlremarks.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/robert-fisk-reporting-from-syria-with.html

[El Pibe]

my new favourite site

http://www.photoshoptroll.com/

reminiscent of http://www.27bslash6.com/matthewsparty.html

[Loz]

This had me in hysterics, mainly because it was a serious 'healing' video. Gets funny at about 1.50 in.

Wooooooooooooooooooooooooo...

[El Pibe]

These photos are from a lovely little blog by spanish/canadian photographer Mike Randolph.

Nothing ground breaking but full of stuff about food and places and the local flavours and characters of Espa?a.

http://spainbymikerandolph.com/

 

[El Pibe]

Ok, can anyone explain to me how I can take one of those ready meal things out of a 180 C oven and within five seconds hold it by the fingertips without pain.

It's a bit weird, how does that stuff cool so quickly, is it made of kryptonite or something? I mean the tomatoes are still too hot to eat the following morning!!

[Huguenot]

The foil packs?

There's good reason for that to do with thermal conductivity and mass....

Here's a good example that someone had already worked out:

The specific heat of water is 4.184 Joules per gram-degree C (or K) and aluminum is .91 Joules per gram-degree C. That means that a gram of foil takes one fourth as much energy as a gram of water to heat up (or one fourth as much must be removed for it to cool off one degree).

So, if we assume that the foil WASN'T giving off heat through radiation or conductivity with the air, you take a ball of foil out of the oven with your bare hand. If the ball is made of 2 square feet of foil, it will have a mass of about 8 grams. 330 deg F diff (180 deg K) by 8 is 1466. 1466 divided by (4.184/.91) gives you 385 gram/degrees.

That 385 is the number of gram-degrees that would be absorbed by your hand. Assuming the surface of your hand is mostly water, and you put 50 grams of hand water in contact with the ball, it would raise that 50 grams of water ~8 degrees C, which is 14 degrees F.

So, even if you come into contact with all 2 square feet of foil at once, and it hadn't radiated or conducted any heat away to the air so it's still at 400 degrees F, the surface of your hand would only be raised 14 degrees F, a long way from a burn.

Once you take into account radiation, conduction by the air, and the miniscule area of the foil that you actually touch, it's not odd that it doesn't feel warm.

In other words the foil is just too light, and has too high a thermal conductivity, to offer anything to your rather massive thermally inert hand.

The tomato, with all that water in, is another issue entirely.

[maxxi]

Huguenot Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

>

> The tomato, with all that water in, is another

> issue entirely.

Sinister cliff-hangers aren't what they used to be...

[Huguenot]

Well the tomato has very comparable specific heat as your hand or mouth.

So if you transferred the heat of a 100g tomato at 400 degrees F to 50g worth of hand (or 50g of your tongue and inside cheek) at a body temperature of 100 degrees F, then you're likely to find an equilibrium at around 300 degrees F for both.

The consequences of superheating your hand or mouth to 300 degrees F doesn't bear contemplation, so please do not try at home.

http://rlv.zcache.co.uk/angry_rotten_tomato_cartoon_character_photosculpture-p153163510684721079env3d_216.jpg

[El Pibe]

I actually meant the plastic tray that the food sits in, but I think the explanation works for that too with some parameter tweaking.

veery interesting thanks

On another random aside this article made me chuckle quite a bit, don't worry it isfw

http://www.nsfwcorp.com/dispatch/war-nerd-obamas-wars