Strange things from the internet

[crissdee]

Bondee's point was the one I was most concerned with. Mr Lydon is rather "fuller figured" than he was in his youth....

[tetsabb]

Didn't Mr Lydin advertise butter a few years ago?

[crissdee]

Yes, very "punk" and anti-establishment, I don't think...

[crissdee]

Something strange I have seen on YouTube over the last week or so. Someone somewhere got hold of the idea that publicising the launch of an updated version of the Morris Minor, with AI images of such a car, would be a good idea. The fact that no reputable motoring organisation has suggested anything of the sort is about to happen, and that the images often bear only the broadest similarity to the "Moggie", and their claims of "worldwide popularity" of the original seem unlikely to me, has not stopped them. I have seen about 10 different videos pushing the idea in as many days, with a lot of the images showing LHD versions, which I cannot imagine the world is actually crying out for to any extent. Some of them look quite good, and the idea of such a vehicle with modern running gear has some appeal, but I will not be holding my breath for any of the versions to hit the streets in the foreseeable future.

[crissdee]

Another strange thing.

A comment about a YT short that I watched mentioned that around 125,000 Americans are shot every year (it was relevant to the clip) so I wondered what the equivalent figure was for the UK (fyi 28) so I asked Mr Google. As you are probably aware, when you pose such a question, Mr Google will offer suggestions to speed up the progress. As I understand things, these are culled from the most popular questions previously asked on the topic. When I began typing "Number of shooting deaths in.....", one of the suggestions was ".....Chicago this week"

Now I am no advocate for limiting the number of firearms in private hands as a rule, but when a number of people have asked this question about one city, and are limiting it to one specific week to keep the number down to a manageable figure, one cannot help but wonder if there might be a better way of running a country...

[efros]

The Shetlanders have a well developed sense of humour, they have a couple of local sweetmeats that are called Puffin Poo and Sheep's Pirls.

www.islandlarder.co.uk/collections/puffin-poo-1

*Scots generally refer to sheep droppings as pearls, or in the more usual form "purrls".

[crissdee]

Incredible remastered film of 1930's London...

www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-jb8ydfsqw

[suze]

TGH is unreasonably interested in that film! While the colour and the sound are modern additions, the film itself isn't - and the good man is trying to date it.

While most of the buses which we see are those of the London General Omnibus Company - that which was to become London Transport, more or less - there are also a few private buses to be seen.  That means we are earlier than 13 April 1933 when everyone else's buses were banished from the Metropolitan Police District.  But there is not a single horse-drawn vehicle to be seen, and while these did fade out fast after WWI, one might have expected there still to be a few in the early 30s.

There are a small number of men to be seen not wearing ties.  Was that socially acceptable in public in the 1930s?  We do not see any ladies wearing trousers.  That was socially acceptable in most of North America by then (not in Miami, where it was an arrestable offence into the 1950s), but maybe not in London.

[jenny]

Ooh I'll save that one for Woodsman to see - he'd enjoy that. He is currently out replastering a damaged wall in the rental property. He doesn't do bad for an 82 year old with a bad back.

[efros]

That is quite mesmerising to watch.

[crissdee]

And from 1918...

www.youtube.com/watch?v=NA4u17XAF_A

[suze]

That one is interesting too.

At first I thought that it must actually be 1919.  We can tell from people's attire that it's summer, and the war didn't come to an end until November.  But there is much frivolity - and as I'd always understood it, frivolity was not encouraged during WWI.  When war broke out, none less than W G Grace declared in a letter to a newspaper that "it is not fitting at a time like this that able-bodied men should be playing cricket by day while pleasure-seekers look on".

But the baseball match which we see in the film turns out to be well known, and it took place on 4 July 1918.  As you can perhaps guess from the date, it was an Independence Day celebration and the match was between members of the US Army and the US Navy who were in London.  Quite why it was proper "that able-bodied men should be playing baseball by day while pleasure-seekers look on" I don't know - but the King was there, so it must have been OK.  (And also, W G Grace died in 1915, so maybe no one felt bound by him any more.)  Much as the Armistice was still a few months away, did "we know that we'd won" by July? 

The stadium where we see that baseball match is Stamford Bridge, which was in those days the regular home of the FA Cup final.

[crissdee]

I think by July, the tide was turning in our favour, but only a few months before, the German Spring offensive had come perilously close to settling the matter in their favour. The reasons why the offensive ultimately failed are many and varied, and few of us would be overly interested in a discussion of the matter, but I could believe that, by July, we had reason to believe that, this year, it would really be "over by Christmas".

[RLDavies]

And here I am with the ordinary analogue ones like some kind of peasant.

[jenny]

I'm not sure what those actually do once charged.

[crissdee]

The mind fair boggles.......

[suze]

The device featured is in fact a vibrating breast massager.  

These are supposed to improve milk flow, or to stimulate the lymph modes, or to magically make your boobs bigger, or assorted other things.  The medical profession is at best skeptical as whether such devices achieve anything, and in the UK (although not in some other markets) it is illegal to advertise a device as magically making your boobs bigger.

On the other hand, some report that using such a device feels nice, just as with sundry other vibrating devices which are apparently available.  But there are circumstances in which the use of such a device is contra-indicated, so let's cover everything that might need covered by saying "Seek medical advice before using".

[amanda]

A digger (machine, not a war veteran as we call them in Aus) stolen from Dorset, was found in rural Poland.

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/oct/10/digger-stolen-from-dorset-found-in-rural-poland

[jenny]

I wonder how they got it over there without the theft being detected. It's hardly an unobtrusive object.

[tetsabb]

At Highways we used to get a monthly 'metal theft' report. Usually routine stuff like cabling nicked from work sites.
The Team at Dartford Crossing had a large recovery truck at each end that could be called on to dive into the tunnel or bridge and get broken down vehicles out of the way to start traffic moving again ASAP.
One week, my supervisor was looking at the metal theft report, and ejaculated 'fuckin' hell'. One if these behemoths had been nicked in the middle of the night!
Worth about £250,000, probably stolen to order. I don't think it was ever established who was on the inside of this job.

[eeyoresmum]

Oct 11, 2024 8:37:08 GMT amanda said:

A digger (machine, not a war veteran as we call them in Aus) stolen from Dorset, was found in rural Poland.

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/oct/10/digger-stolen-from-dorset-found-in-rural-poland

Reminds me of my old neighbour in Rowfoot (West-Northumberland). When he and the missus emigrated to Almeria (Spain), he insisted on bringing a mini-digger so he could do little jobs there.
My suggestion to contact the local undertaker's there found a sympathetic ear. ;-)
Anyhoo - Jim drove the bloody thing all the way down to Almeria, leaving a massive tailback behind him. Took him more than a week, IIRC.
I wonder if he indeed dug any graves...

[crissdee]

'Murricans being 'Murricans.....

i.gyazo.com/bfc8f4a33f832a198c3b555b0358ab88.png

[efros]

Nah that's a particular type of 'Murrican, one that can spell is almost unique!

[crissdee]

Sort of from the internet, a strange email I just recieved;

"That is the inconvenience of our condition, Monsieur le Curé.
We are facing the necessity of fitting a new social organization, as we did once fit the old organization, to the happiness and prosperity of the great body of citizens; for we are conscious that the new order of society has not been made to fit and provide the convenience or prosperity of the average man."

It may be just the email equivalent of a wrong number, but it puzzled me at first...

[crissdee]

Scanning through an email from an auction company for their latest sale of military memorabilia. Not that I'm in a position to buy anything, but I'm still interested in what's out there. Apparently, "what's out there" includes medals to mark 25 and 50 years service to the Third Reich. Even those who supported the little corporal in the immediate aftermath of the first European unpleasantness could barely have made 25 years. Who the h*ll was a member in 1895?

And another thing.  Chasing down an online rabbit hole from an advert on this site, I found myself browsing a catalogue of "celebrity cutouts"  These are available in "life size" for about £45, or mini for about £15.  Not wishing to be unkind or offensive, but it seems a little unfair that the life size versions of Greg Davies and Warwick Davis are the same price.  You're getting significantly different amounts of cardboard there.....

[amanda]

Oct 11, 2024 15:46:20 GMT tetsabb said:

At Highways we used to get a monthly 'metal theft' report. Usually routine stuff like cabling nicked from work sites.
The Team at Dartford Crossing had a large recovery truck at each end that could be called on to dive into the tunnel or bridge and get broken down vehicles out of the way to start traffic moving again ASAP.
One week, my supervisor was looking at the metal theft report, and ejaculated 'fuckin' hell'. One if these behemoths had been nicked in the middle of the night!
Worth about £250,000, probably stolen to order. I don't think it was ever established who was on the inside of this job.

Two, three years ago when the old tech school building over the road had been knocked down and it was an empty block for awhile, some louts apparently did this one night, riding the machine up the nearby street. 
The somewhat strange thing is that living virtually opposite, I didn't hear a thing. 

[suze]

Oct 19, 2024 13:38:55 GMT crissdee said:

"what's out there" includes medals to mark 25 and 50 years service to the Third Reich. Even those who supported the little corporal in the immediate aftermath of the first European unpleasantness could barely have made 25 years. Who the h*ll was a member in 1895?

The term Third Reich is first seen in a book of 1923 by a philosopher named Arthur Moeller van den Bruck.  In Das Dritte Reich, Herr M v d B argued that the Treaty of Versailles and the Weimar Republic were all a bit rubbish, and that the Holy Roman Empire and the Bismarck-run Empire had been so much better.  He was never a member of the NSDAP, and the one time he met Hitler he considered the Austrian fellow both dim and common.  Herr Moeller van den Bruck was dead by the time Hitler came to power in 1933, and Hitler himself preferred the term Tausendjähriges Reich in any case.

The medals you have seen will be one of two things.  They may be nonce medals made more recently, probably in the US, with no better or worse idea than to make money by selling them to idiots.  Such are known to exist.  If not that, they will be the Treudienst-Ehrenzeichen - usually translated as "Faithful Service Medal".  That was an award created by Hitler in 1938 which was in theory available to anyone who had put in the specified number of years of work in what we would now call the public sector.  Anyone could apply, whether they'd been a judge, a bin man, a bus driver, or a dinner lady - but mysteriously, it tended to be applicants who were also Hitler fanboys whose applications were successful.  Under German rules about medals and decorations, anyone who was awarded this medal may still wear it - not that there will be any holders still alive - but must wear it back to front with the swastika not visible.  The medal looked like this.

[efros]

The 50 year variant can be seen here.

[efros]

Game of throne Trailer Park Edition

[celebaelin]

I guess this is the place for the following since there isn't an 'Utterly Pointless Work' thread.

There are people who are determined to take stuff literally even when the whole use and intention is to make a figurative point - this is one such example.

Known as the "infinite monkey theorem", the thought-experiment has long been used to explain the principles of probability and randomness.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c748kmvwyv9o?utm_source=pocket-newtab-en-gb

In the usual recounting it is the monkeys that are infinite not the time allowed.

That I think is the key point - an infinite number of monkeys WOULD produce Shakespeare's complete works (in as short a space of time as it could take to type it) as well as the text of every other document, anthology, book, play, leaflet, shopping list or post it note ever written.  You can't have an infinite number of monkeys in a non infinite universe but that's beside the point.  Outlining the practical problems doesn't undermine the value of the concept which is to point out that answers can be randomly hit upon given enough 'monkey hours' although they will not necessarily be understood or even recognised; this is part of the problem with current AI of course - it doesn't actually know what it's doing or even act as if it does because of the lack of levels of sophistication in the programming.  On the other hand skilled humans will, to a large extent, understand what they are doing individually because they need to in order to do it effectively; unskilled or unthinking humans are essentially no better than monkeys in this interpretation.