Honest scrap award

I've been ages (and then some) responding to this, but thought I'd give it a go ...Re-vis.e Re-form: Unknowingly memed and awarded: "10 HONEST things about myself and then nominate 7 other blogs that I think deserve to receive the Honest Scrap Award."
So ...
1 I don't drive. I've had about four lessons and have tended to either have too little money to learn when I've had the time or not enough time when I've had the money. Then the cost of car ownership and the fact that the thing loses money as soon as you take it off the forecourt, that cares are a major cause of death and injury (if they were cigarettes, they'd carry health warnings) and contribute majorly to climate change, have not encouraged me more recently to learn, either.
2 I watch TV at weekends and those days when I'm working from home -it's often a background noise for me (childhood thing). I'm amused and sometimes annoyed that heavy reain disables the satellite signal -so I rue that our area is not cabled.
3 I like reading alternative timeline stories: I really like that 'what if' thing and how plausible the author makes it. That goes for sci-fi in general.
4 I'm a top-down thinker rather than bottom up: I really function best when I'm able to situate new ideas in a big picture, otherwise I'm missing things while I'm asking myself how 'this' fits in with 'which' bigger framework.
5 I'm an ordained Anglican: been deacon for 23 years and in presbyteral orders for 22; I was ordained in Sheffield Cathedral by David Lunn and have spent most of my ministry in Yorkshire.
6 I really enjoy helping people connect with important insights (either personal or educational or faith-wise)
7 I've been discovering more and more that I fundamentally think theologically in ways that resonate with Barth and Moltmann. I seem to come to conclusions that they write about; so I read stuff by them with a sense that I recognise what they are saying and that they have articulated it better than I could have done (perhaps unsurprisingly).
8 politically I'm on the 'progressive' end of things but suspicious of a lot of leftist agendas even though I'm not at all convinced by much of the self-serving of much rightist thinking.
9 I have lived all my life in England, except for about nine months when I lived in Spain (San Sebastian /Donostia) In Spain I learnt Basque, to probably, intermediate level.
10 I was brought up in a commuter village so I'm never quite sure whether that makes me rural or urban by background. However, I prefer living in or close in to cities.

And in turn, and this this the hard bit (finding others who I think will be okay with it), I nominate 7 others ...
1 http://pursiful.com
2 The Elves are heading West
3 Staring into the distance ....
4 Paradoxology
5 Pashfish
6 Nonsuch
7 Greenflame

Freaky job interview questions

It's hard to see it getting asked in many places but how's this for an interview question.
Crazy job interview questions: "UBS: If we were playing Russian roulette and had one bullet, I randomly spun the chamber and fired but nothing was fired. Would you rather fire the gun again or respin the chamber and then fire on your turn?"
It's hard to second guess what they'd look for: at face value exhibit your knowledge of statistics. But I think my answer might be, in the spirit of the response on the referenced site:
I think that I'd file the request as harassment and report it to HR. There's no way that such actions could pass health and safety and the macho culture that would generate such a scenario in the workplace is likely to be one which generates bullying. So I'd rather not do either of the alternatives: I'd rather reframe the situation altogether. And then, would I want to work for UBS if I'm likely to be shot?

What have the Romans ever done for us? Given us the Swiss Army knife !!!!

You may respond, "So why isn't it called the Roman Army knife?" And I say: 'no idea', probably the same reason as we don't use the Latin word for concrete; it had to be reinvented. But there's no arguing with the archaeology:
1,800-Year-Old Roman Multitool | Gadget Lab | Wired.com:
"the Roman version has a lot of foldaway implements stowed inside: a knife, spike, pick, fork and a spatula. Unlike the modern-day equivalent, the Roman Army Knife has a useful spoon on the end, making it likely that this iron and silver artifact, found in somewhere in the Mediterranean countries, was meant for eating with"
Well, a good idea is a good idea ... and there's nothing new under the sun.



Except new stuff.

How sewing machines work

I've idly wondered several times. This shows how ...

How machines work

aM laboratory

You have got to try this. It is utterly delightful. You click on the play surface and that creates a 'ripple'. Do it again somewhere else and where the ripples touch they produce a tone. Just add more in different places and you get an ambient and random 'music'. Love it, love it, love it....
aM laboratory

You Don’t Explode in Space so relax and enjoy your life

A perennial topic of conversation when watching certain sci-fi films or series with my lads (recent example was in Dr Who when River Song): would our blood pressure cause us to explode? Would we instantly freeze? Or what? Well, apparently, NASA have answered the question:
You Don’t Explode in Space - Acts of Volition: "According to NASA, a human (or animal) exposed to the vacuum of space without any protection would not explode, or implode, or boil, or turn into a super-hero. Rather, you'd eventually die from the lack of oxygen. If you get back inside quick enough, you could survive unharmed."

The presenting question and answer is at ask a physicist. A site, perhaps, to bookmark for future use for sci-fi watching.

Search Amazon.com for Dr Who

Puns in Forin

"RESPONDEZ S'IL VOUS PLAID
Honk if you're Scottish

...

HASTE CUISINE
Fast French food

E PLURIBUS ANUM
Out of any group, there's always one asshole"

DCblog: On foreign ludicity:

As scripture saith ....

'What book in the New Testament?' 'The book of Parables.'
Huh?
And so begins a riff on biblical quotations which succeeds in making one smile by the way that out-of-context phrases can end up saying something different, in effect, to what they seemed to mean in their original context. I'd come across this a number of years ago under the title 'A Southern Baptist Sermon' and I particularly remember this bunch of quotes offering a real feast of humourous intertextuality:
"and he saw Queen Jezebel sitting high up in a window. When she saw him she laughed. And he said, "Throw her down out of there," and they threw her down. And he said, "Throw her down again," and they threw her down seventy times seven times, and of the fragments they then picked up twelve baskets full."
Try to hear it, as I tend to in my mind's ear, with a southern USAmerican accent ...
Interview of Candidate for Church Membership

Of course, anything like this tends to get partially memorised and then embroidered and reconstructed and sometimes even improved. So here, we find another variant, not very different but a few refinements.

A bit Wallace and Grommit, but it works....

I loved this; check it out. Basically a Yorkshireman for £500 managed to take photos 20-odd miles up which got NASA impressed. Trust a Yorkshireman to do it cheaper! The Northerner: Views as sky-high as allotment prices | UK news | guardian.co.uk: "'Nasa had heard what was happening and wanted to know how I'd done it so cheaply,' he said. 'People think this is something that costs millions but it doesn't. You just need a bit of technical know-how. I know nothing about electronics and what I do know, I learned from the internet. My family and friends thought I was a bit mad a first but they were suitably impressed with the results."
Now, that's the kind of thing that makes me proud to be British!

Illuminating Hadrian's Wall

I'm a bit dischuffed that I didn't get to hear about this until this morning. Heck, we could probably have seen some of the beacons from our back window ... I'd have loved to go 3 miles north and stood on the wall ... sigh ...
Illuminating Hadrian's Wall | Culture | guardian.co.uk

Are carrots orange?

Actually, not always. Any more than hen's eggs are brown (if you're British) or white (if you're USAmerican). I've been telling people for a couple of years in those odd 'did you know...' moments that carrots used to be purple. Well, and more. And it could be that there is a political angel to this. Are carrots protestant? | Culture Making:

"the long orange carrot of supermarket and snowman-nose and Bugs Bunney fame was popularized by Dutch breeders in the 17th century, perhaps as a tribute to William of Orange, the the Dutch independance leader who became a Calvinist and helped get the 80 years war started. His grandson William III ruled the Netherlands and, later on, the British Isles, where he was responsible for the introduction of orange as the favored color of Irish protestants."

Picture: Wikipedia

God wants you to use more initial conjunctions !

A bit of fun here: Language Log � Does God want you to use more initial conjunctions?:

evidence came from a sample consisting of the first 80 verses of Genesis in the original Hebrew and in the King James translation.

The serious point here is the precariousness of prescriptive linguistics. Remember folks, the most you can say is that particular locutions do or don't find acceptability within particular linguistic communities and may have certain connotations un/favourable to the user. They aren't incorrect if they are spoken by a native speaker who regards them as well-formed. -Oh and I don't mean a native speaker whose ability to assess hasn't been compromised by the acceptance of the oppressive prognostications of the grammar police.

Email disclaimers deserve this

With thanks to Ben Myers, Faith and Theology: Pet hate #162: quasi-legal email disclaimers. I've been told we legally have to put a disclaimer at the bottom of college emails. I hate doing so: mostly they are longer than the message and I consider that they state the bleedingly obvious -surely it's obvious that a message has intended recipients and that passing it on without permission is a potentially a breach of 'contract' and that it would be polite to point out if something has gone wrong with that and that we aren't going to maliciously pass on malware which is likely to corrupt our own systems. No doubt someone is going to tell me that it pays to be explicit. Anyhow, Ben Myer's version of these is a very tempting substitute:
"The message that you have just read might possibly be legally privileged and/or confidential and is intended only for the use of those to whom it is intended. We hope and insist that no recipient will ever forward, print, copy, scan, read aloud, film, choreograph, broadcast via radio or other media, podcast, vodcast, tweet, blog, translate into foreign languages, transcribe in crayon, versify in iambic pentameter, or otherwise reproduce this message in any manner that would allow any of the message to be viewed by any individual not originally intended as an intended recipient. If you are not the intended recipient, STOP IN THE NAME OF THE LAW. We beseech you in the name of the law: please don't ever copy, forward, disclose, speak of, print, report, joke about, or otherwise use this message or any part of it in any way whatsoever, never ever. If you received this e-mail by mistake, please read this disclaimer IMMEDIATELY, then advise the sender immediately, then delete this message, then empty the trash on your computer, then YOU MUST also use an appropriate software program to permanently erase all traces of the file from your computer's hard drive (and from any other hard drive or portable storage device where the information may be stored). Afterwards, it is strictly prohibited ever to mention, discuss, think of, or remember any of the contents of this message. If you do so, YOU MAY BE LIABLE for litigation or prosecution or indefinite detainment. If you were the intended recipient of this e-mail, you have entered into a BINDING CONTRACT with the sender, allowing you to be imprisoned, interrogated, tortured, exiled, lobotomised, forced to read Dan Brown, deprived of all human rights, and other possible measures that may be introduced from time to time. Thank you."

One of my colleagues has come up with a short version (which may not pass muster as a legal disclaimer) and which manages also to be an advert for Macs (clue: it's to do with which kind of system most virii are written for and I should point out that it is an observation that works for linux too).

word fun

If you know me well-ish, you'd probably predict I'd like this: WORDOID - Creative Naming Service: "Wordoid.com is a webapp that strives to help you invent a good name. It makes up new words. Automagically. It knows how to create words in English or Spanish. It even knows how to create words in an imaginary language, constructed by blending two or more real languages together."
I'm off to play ...

For example, I typed in 'Church' and some really interesting possibilities came up. I like "Churchasing" which I thought could refer to buying stuff in a church building: like getting your fair traded coffee there.
Or "churchasm" ... !?

Ten mysteries of you

Read 'em and weep ... or something ... Ten mysteries of you - New Scientist

Naturally decaffeinated coffee beans

I'm not sure people have believed me when I've said that there have been discovered uncaffeinated coffee beans. Well, here's one and the article links to others. Gallery - Eight more bizarre species that are new to science - Image 7 - New Scientist: "It is the first known caffeine-free species from Central Africa, though others have been found elsewhere."

Bus slogan generator

Here's one I made earlier.


Bus slogan generator

Smile from Heaven

I recently received this in one of those round-robin emails. It seems quite remarkable. What the email doesn't tell me is where it's from and the circumstances of its capture (or has it been 'composed'?).
Anyone know anything more?
It's certainly a very arresting image.

Superior scribbler!

Last week I was nominated as a superior scribbler. It's a pass-along meme thing, but most encouraging. The rules are at the end of this post and here are the steps to accept and pass on the award.
I was awarded by Steve at Methodius. The award originates here.
It remains for me to pass it on to 5 others...
1. Steve Garner at Greenflame.
2. Mike Higton at Kai Euthus.
3. Ben Myers at Faith and Theology.
4.The team at Empire Remixed
5.Matt Stone on Glocal Christianity
Notes from underground: Superior scribbler? Who? Me?: "# Each Superior Scribbler must in turn pass The Award on to 5 most-deserving Bloggy Friends.
# Each Superior Scribbler must link to the author and the name of the blog from whom he/she has received The Award.
# Each Superior Scribbler must display The Award on his/her blog, and link to This Post, which explains The Award.
# Each Blogger who wins The Superior Scribbler Award must visit this post and add his/her name to the Mr. Linky List. That way, we'll be able to keep up-to-date on everyone who receives This Prestigious Honor!
# Each Superior Scribbler must post these rules on his/her blog."

Typealyzer

Given that I tend to show up in MBTI as ENTP, then this typing according to ones blog seems to be good, especially as it took only a few moments.Typealyzer: "The analysis indicates that the author of http://nouslife.blogspot.com is of the type:
INTP - The Thinkers"
I'd be interested to hear other peoples' experiences.
Htt Stephen.