Not Mentioned In Dispatches

"Don't you wish there were a knob on the TV to turn up the intelligence? There's one marked 'Brightness,' but it doesn't work." Gallagher

Problems with misplaced modifiers beset all of us, not least the BBC. Spotted on the their news Web site (October 2003): "A British woman is found guilty of running one of Europe's biggest prostitution rings at a court in Paris".
(from World Wide Words)

Faces - Photography Bela Borsodi
(via Linkdump)

An interpassive flash clip of a dancer without a body. (Flash)

"Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read." Groucho Marx

Some planes are meant to accomplish something new and great; some are meant to perform a modest task over and over again, without fail, thousands of times. And some airplanes, regardless of original purpose, change the way we think about flying. Aviation halls of fame mostly honor aviators - not aircraft.
10 aircraft that changed aviation
but what about ...

Truck Driver's Gear Change Hall Of Shame - a site devoted to gratuitous key changes in pop songs

"Correct me if I'm wrong, but hasn't the fine line between sanity and madness gotten finer?" George Price

"There are a lot of words you can use to describe men -- strong, caring, loving - they'd be wrong but you could still use them!"

An angst-ridden state characterised by the feeling that one is a cat stuck in a box about to die as a result of the random act of science one doesn't understand and, worse still, that nobody will notice, leaving one stuck in an unresolved superposition for eternity. "I awoke in the same strange room, unable to shake off a persistent incamerafelinity."
http://www.newscientist.com/opinion/opfeedback.jsp?id=ns242699#21

A guy walks into a bar with his dog on a leash.

The barman says, "Geez that's a weird dog: he's stumpy-legged, pink, and doesn't have a tail, but I bet my rottweiler would beat the heck out of it."

Fifty bucks is laid down. Out in the yard the rottweiler gets mauled to pieces.

Another drinker says his pit bull will win but the bet is 100 bucks. Another trip to the yard and when it's all over there are bits of pit-bull terrier all over the place.

The drinker pays up and says, "Say what breed is that anyway?"

The owner says, "Until I cut his tail off and painted it pink, it was the same breed as every other alligator."

Krups and Heineken collaborated and created the Beertender. A personal beer tap system with a small 4 liter beer barrel. It's not targeted as a party appliance. Rather as a device for the kitchen, like your coffeemaker.
(via Gadget Madness)

"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." Albert Einstein

If you're grinding your teeth about the heading, join Lynne Truss's club.

In Eats Shoots & Leaves, Lynne Truss dares to say that, with our system of punctuation patently endangered, it is time to look at our commas and semicolons and see them for the wonderful and necessary things they are. If there are only pedants left who care, then so be it. "Sticklers unite" is her rallying cry. "You have nothing to lose but your sense of proportion--and arguably you didn't have much of that to begin with."
(via New Zealand Herald)

BTW: There is a joke in New Zealand about the Kiwi (bird), which it is said, is the most anti-social bird in the bush, and no-one likes to invite it to parties, because, if it turns up at all, it just eats roots and leaves.

sign on a path at Telegraph Hill in San Francisco
(via World Wide Words)

There was once, and repeatedly, a comedy on the BBC called "Only Fools and Horses". It was/is/shall ever be much loved by the British viewing public, in a way that probably doesn’t translate across either the Ocean or the Channel.

Anyway, one of the features of the script was that Del, the main character, used a lot of Cockney slang, some genuine, some new, all now introduced into the common argot. Fools and Horses lingo page (BBC)

One of these words was 'cosmic', to mean really good. i.e. The blog is cosmic. Did you see that, Rodney, totally cosmic! and so on.

But, here’s the thing: cosmic, when entered into a t9 (predictive text) capable mobile phone, for the SMSing thereof, is not the first word to come out of the t9 dictionary. No: the first word you get when pressing 267642 isn’t cosmic at all, but bosnia. If you're not looking, you won't select cosmic: you'll get bosnia and skip onto the next word.

So, half-remembered dialogue from classic TV comedy, mixed with new technology, crossed with ironic appreciation of the effects of civil war brings us a new word usage.

(via Ben Hammersley - That's nothing, here they call fruit salad 'Macedonia')

"Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes." E. W. Dijkstra

Computer animators have been using cellular automata in their crowd scenes for ages, granting the dancers in the Hunchback of Notre Dame and the Orcs in LotR the liberty to autonomously determine the fine details of their movement, creating realistic mob scenes that appear to contain a cast of thousands. The problem is, as the programming for the automata gets more sophisticated, they start to express non-linear behavior.

In the climax for The Return of the King, the animated forces of evil kept running away from their enemies.

"So each of these computerized soldiers is assessing the environment around them, drawing on a repertoire of military moves that have been taught them through motion capture - determining how they will combat the enemy, step over the terrain, deal with obstacles in front of them through their own intelligence - and there's 200,000 of them doing that..."

"For the first two years, the biggest problem we had was soldiers fleeing the field of battle," Taylor said. "We could not make their computers stupid enough to not run away."

(via Boingboing)

The discovery that homing pigeons find their way around by following roads and railways has caused a stir in both Switzerland and Britain. Full article

Once upon a time there was a file named "Code 200". He dwelled in the land of bits on the server and was happy and complete living among all the other files. Bandwidth was good, and everyone found the files they requested.

Then one day, in a fit of rage, a giant logged on to the server and scattered all the files far and wide! Some were permanently moved, some were deleted, and others were given new names! This caused terrible confusion!

Amid the chaos, "Code 200" was lost, never to be seen again! The other files mourned his loss and set up this page as a memorial to him. To this day (if you listen carefully) you can hear the crying of files and the soft refrain:

"In a flash! With hardly a sound, poor Code 200 turned to Code 404 - File Not Found!"

The moral of the story: the file that you are looking for cannot be found on this server. Please check your spelling, punctuation, and case then - try again. If you have any questions please contact the webmaster. Whenever you pass this way - please show your respect for "Code 200" the folk-hero of the files on servers everywhere.

the 404 page at http://www.paradigm.nu

The beginning of a relationship for women is like wading in cold water. We inch our way in, and when we've reached crotch level we're committed to getting wet. Men plunge in, flop around on their bellies like spastic fish, run back to shore for awhile, decide to go for it and dive back in headfirst.
From Over It by Laurie Holman.

"Anyone can do any amount of work provided it isn't the work he is supposed to be doing at the moment." Robert Benchley

This Hello Kitty USB hub "will talk with you along with the input motion of the keyboard (moves both arms and head)" -- English and Japanese versions available. (via Boingboing)

I take Viagra and Prozac together. If I can't get it up, I don't care.

Viagra-brand Chapstik? Best way to keep a "stiff upper lip!"

Scientists have developed a new pill that will now help impotent men who are also hay fever sufferers. By combining Allegra to take care of the allergies, and Viagra for the impotency, it gives you an erection not to be sneezed at!

Men taking iron supplements are warned that taking Viagra may cause them to spin around and point north.

The electric toaster was a British invention by Crompton and Co. in 1893. The first toaster in the USA, a Westinghouse of 1910, was advertised under the slogan 'Breakfast without going into the kitchen'. Its instantaneous use was seen as a great advantage: in 1917, Mrs Peel, in The Labour-Saving House, stated that 'you do not need to ring for more toast but make it yourself and eat it while it is crisp and hot'.

These earliest models consisted of a nichrome element wound on to a vertical mica plate (similar to the heating pad in the electric iron), protected by a wire cage (against which bread could be propped) and mounted on to a cast-iron or folded steel plinth. The bread had to be turned by hand halfway through the cooking process.
Paul Linnell - Electric Toasters

- waterproof sponge
- solar powered torch
- air conditioned coffin
- bulletproof string vests

"Nothing is really work unless you would rather be doing something else." James M. Barrie

Zwill (flash)
A side scrolling adventure game where you must collect all the cheddar to win; No not money, cheese…you’re a mouse!

Time Capsule - on this day in history

Men Vs. Women: ATMs
The differences between how a woman and a man uses a drive-through banking machine. Here is his and hers Automatic Teller Machine (ATM) usage explained...

Welcome to the Miss Apple Bottom Internet Contest. (NSFW)

Sometimes, especially when conversing on the phone, people misunderstand each other. Sometimes it's funny. Sometimes it's frustrating.

Tech Support: "Customer Support, this is David, may I help you?"
Customer: "Hello, yes, it's me."
Tech Support: "Oh, it's me too." [chuckle]
Customer: "No, Esmie. E, s, m, i, e."
Tech Support: "Oh, sorry."

Tech Support: "Type 'fix' with an 'f'."
Customer: "Is that 'f' as in 'fix'?"

Customer: "How do you spell 'Internet America'? Is there a space between 'inter' and 'net'?"
Tech Support: "No space between 'inter' and 'net'. It's spelled normally."
Customer: "Ok. A-M-E-R-I-C-K?"
Tech Support: "That's A-M-E-R-I-C-A."
Customer: "I-C-K???"
Tech Support: "'A' as in apple"
Customer: "There's no 'K' in apple!"

Tech Support: "Are you reading an error message to me?"
Customer: "No, I'm reading an error message to you."

Tech Support: "May I ask who's calling, please?"
Customer: "You're joking."
Tech Support: "No, I need to know so I can log the call. What's your name, please?"
Customer: "You're joking!"
Tech Support: "No, really! I need to know."
Customer: "No...." (chuckles) "My name is Yuriy Jokin. I'm Russian. I know what my name means in English. It's very confusing!"

What if there were life on Mars? Only underground ... watching us ... taking notes ... saying look what they're up to now ... but there is only the wind.

Acronym Finder
Asian (Japanese) Emoticons
Blog from web log; Weblog Glossary (Guardian UK)
BTW - By The Way
NAN - Not A Number
NSFW - Not Suitable For Work
SFW - Suitable For Work

"Either I've been missing something or nothing has been going on." Karen Elizabeth Gordon